A Magic Birthday

 Firstly, let me acknowledge the tsunamilanche of birthday well wishes one received whilst one was engaged in birthday activities elsewhere.  They are by no means required but they do warm the cockles of one's heart - creating a sort of tight hot feeling in the chest.

Anyway, on to the events of the birthday weekend.

Things commenced with Salsa Girl informing one to be decently dressed for Friday dinner - as if the mucking about pants one drapes oneself in for workdays would not pass some sort of muster.

The mystery deepened as, throughout said dinner, Hulk repeatedly just had to check nothing at the front door and assured one that definitely no one from the family was expected.

You can imagine one's surprise when Sneaky Pete appeared at the door to assume Hulk control responsibilities.

Salsa Girl then promptly extracted us from the chatterboxing Hulk and whisked one away to attend none other than a Magic event.

One was sorely disappointed when, rather than playing the card game that is a mainstay of one's gaming life with the likes of Gavman and Elfboy, one was forced to endure a highly entertaining, interesting, and amazing show of prestidigitation. The covid-related bonus was that being singled out to assist because of birthday-ness did not require one to leave ones comfortable seat as everything was done via shouting and extenda-claws.

The next day - the actual date - dawned with  a relaxed morning of mandatory traditional birthday cheescake eating, and one buying one's presents from Hulk the proprietor of the lounge room Present Shop. The remainder of the day passed with one indulging oneself in whatever manner one chose, which this year including doing the weekly grocery shop.

Sunday saw the gathering of the Legion clan and the traditional handing of the insulting birthday card from Freeloading Mum to oneself - although one does wonder why Sneaky Pete who also has a birthday around this time received a card full of glowing and loving sentiment?

In any case a fun-filled legion-time was had before all headed home to sleep the sleep of the afternoon-nap deprived.

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Traditional Easter

So, this Easter break was another traditional Easter with all the traditional Easter holiday activities and holiday day names.

Starting with the traditional Evening-Before-Good-Friday footy watching, wherein it was good to see the pies back on track.

Continuing with the traditional Saturday-After-Good-Friday-and-Before-Easter-Sunday gaming day of Magic playing with Sneaky Pete, Gavman, ElfBoy, and Commander Fry, all partaking in some traditional Magic card playing (absent were BestFriendSincePrep and MatrixMan, both partaking in non-traditional going away for Easter).

Next was the traditional Easter-Sunday-Two-Days-After-Good-Friday-and-One-Day-Before-The-Monday-After-Easter-Sunday early wakeup and hunt for fluffy little chickens and eggs with Salsa Girl and Hulk. One will be discovering the things in odd places for weeks to come.

And finally today on the Monday-After-Easter-Sunday holiday it is time for the traditional what do we do with an extra day of holidays day. Incorporating all of the traditional too much chocolate events.
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The Exercise of ANZAC Traditions

A week ago now one took the opportunity to exercise one's ANZAC traditions.

These commenced with a long sleep in.

Things then proceeded on to Salsa Girl, Hulk and I hosting the traditional footy watching with The Great Sandro, Sneaky Pete, ElfBoy and family all in attendance. Much fun was had by all since the correct team won this year, or, in Lil' Trucker's case, trains went past out the back every 10 minutes causing much excitement.

Traditions continued into the evening with the weekly gaming night ending with the traditional post-midnight finish.
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What One did on One's Holidays

So One has spent most of the previous fortnight on holidays, during which time period many and sundry activities have been partaken.

Farming Out the Kids

At Sneaky Pete's suggestion Hulk and I joined him, Uncle Niece, and BuildItBoy on an expeditious rainy-day expedition to Collingwood Children's Farm.
One found it quite educational and was particularly surprised to learn that Feeding the Goats was not merely a euphemism - which is probably all well and good as it went on for nigh an hour.

Ex-Presidential Duties

A morning of phone calls and remote work on one's user group commitments.

Library Day Trips

One spent most of a day traipsing across the public transport system with Hulk to show of the genius level of one's progeny to one's work colleagues, who must all now be convinced that she is very advanced for her age.

A Magical Gaming Experience

To mark the occasion of having a day off due to footy one's demesne was host to the likes of Sneaky Pete, Pirate Dave, Gavman, and ElfBoy for many hours of card gaming fun.

Footy in Black and Yellow

Swinging the blokeyness pendulum the other way one had Sneaky Pete back the next day for some Grand Final viewing.

Baby's First Bee Sting

After a morning of intensive gardening - of the kind required to make a clear path from the front door to the street using only a small pair of scissors after Hulk has traded you for the big snippers - one's afternoon relaxation time was cut short by Hulk inadvertently squashing a bee against a watering can and suffering the resulting suicidal self defence that bees are known for.
Of course after the bee's fate was explained to her Hulk decided to go out to the scene and tell the bee "sorry I made you dead bee, goodbye"

Inescapable Work and further gaming delights

Nothing can describe the joy of having one's day for oneself interrupted by a minor work crisis.
Following up the relatively easily solved issue with an afternoon of gaming with Badger was definitely enough to balance the scales.

Unmissable Training Day at Work

Under orders from Supervisor Grand Chief K one had to curtail one's holiday plans to attend this day.
I begrudgingly took part in having my unfair share of the pizza and cake lunch - which was barely enough to fuel me through the afternoon "clean up your work area" activity.

Male Privilege Training

Which brings us to today and the final half day off work before attending an afternoon session of training on Male Privilege in which I was horrified to find that no-one had catered for my afternoon tea! Such hardship thus proving that one has no privilege in life.
I believe I will receive an A+ grade.

A Holiday from Holidays

And now one is back to the regular schedule and able to relax and recover from such an intensive holiday break.

One is almost looking forwards to the morrow's Performance Planning meeting.

Almost.
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The Month of Things

So suddenly, it is a month since The Tales have graced screens nation wide and it is time once more to fill that void in all your souls.

So what has been happening, you may ponder?


Well a long outstanding computational device problem at work was finally solved and the backlog of work that rushed forth to fill the now available time was of a high dauntingness level.
But that is not the excuse for the delay of this posting.


One commenced catch up watching of a half dozen episodes of the new Twin Peaks and experienced the resulting brain melt caused by the 80% or so of it that was Lynchian weirdness for, apparently, it's own sake.
But that is not the excuse for the delay of this posting.

Salsa Girl and Hulk headed north for a weekend which became extended and thus resulted in a blur of gaming activity in The Gaming Garage. The Magical Gathering of the regular crew of ElfBoy, Gavman, Legion2, Pirate Dave, and even BestFriendSincePrep making a return after a decade, overtook the Friday evening. The Saturday saw the boardgames commence with Badger and FridgePower subbing in for ElfBoy and Gavman, for a gentle run through 5 hours - and half of - the Game of Thrones boardgame. During these proceedings FridgePower played true to Queen of Thorns character by talking one's favourite tea mug into self destructive cracking.

The third day of extended absence almost saw gaming again as BestFriendSincePrep was pressing for it but wisdom and the weight of chores held out and a day of pottering about the house was enjoyed by one.

But that is not the excuse for the delay of this posting.

One's return to mountains of work was brief as a rescue mission to retrieve Salsa Girl and Hulk  had to be undertook resulting in an hours long drive through tumultuous rain and trucks along the Calder, and a clandestine handover with Grandma J in the vicinity of the halfway point.

But that is not the excuse for the delay of this posting.

In amongst all of this Pirate Dave has taken the reigns of the Tuesday Knights roleplaying sessions (now regularly scheduled on Wednesdays but what can you do about a name?). Thus requiring one to actually read the background for a game for once rather than wing it and hope the players don't notice.

But that is not the excuse for the delay of this posting.

Which more or less brings us up to today and finally a posting.

With no real reason for the delay - unless you wish to count one's legendary laconical approach to getting things done?

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The Gang of Lions

So here's a Caution for you all.

In the midst of one's Indefinite Leave one has visited one's doctor to see about a small lump that appeared on one's foot over the past half year.

Apparently it was caused by a gang of lions attack whilst walking. One can only surmise that, when working as a gang, said lions are incredibly sneaky as one has no recall of any attack incident.

Further questioning of the technician and some observant reading between the lines of her answer of "I can in no way give a professional opinion on that" confirmed that this affliction is the sole cause of my being behind on the daily step count front when compared to Sidekick.

And Longstride L.

And ElfBoy.

And Bomber Babe.

And Salsa Girl, when she remembers to wear her tracker.

Once one has recovered from one's hampering condition then there will be some real competition on the step front.
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The End of Footy Parties

So the end of the footy season saw all the usual partying happening.

The first party was the traditional celebration of Salsa Girl's birthday. This year in the form of a Dinner and a Murder mystery. Our participants had a lot of fun - even with BestFriendSincePrep going on a murder spree - although one suspects that Baroness Badger was behind it all.
Salsa Girl herself won best costume, while Pirate Dave's inspector was a crowd favourite as he helped himself to the riches of body looting. FridgePower and Judge Mingus made a great effort to attend despite suffering from some sort of plague and FridgePower made a brave face of being murdered twice. In fact only Legion2 escaped being murderised - probably thanks to the protection of BestFriendSincePrep's real world wife the Lovely Lea.
All in all a great night and even Hulk's murderous upstairs screams about not going to bed enhanced the theme.


The second tradition of Footy's End was the Magic the Gathering night at Gavman's. Legion2, ElfBoy, Pirate Dave and oneself all made the pilgrimage to participate.


The main event itself was the traditional Grand Final Party hosted in inimitable style once more by The Wiggs. We were all excited for the match - Hulk made a flag to wave and even waived it twice before becoming bored and going off to explore the house. BestFriendSincePrep, MrRogers, and StumpyRudolph were all in attendance and concerned with the sweep results until we all became swept up in the Bulldogs victory and bet-winning margins lost all significance.
It was a wonderful emotional ride only tinged slightly for one by knowing that The Hellenic Hoofer would have been rejoicing ten times as much as any of us.
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A Great Footy Night In

With The Great Sandro on an overseas jaunt, it fell on Pirate Dave and Legion2 to fulfil the role of ones company for the comfortable at home watching of the Collingwood v Carlton game last night.

It was a great night of sporting with our team - the magpies - far out-sporting the other teams players with some magnificent sports activities.

Ones only regret is that ElfBoy was not present for the required stirring of the losers.
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ps And here are all the apostrophes removed from the above for fear of placing them errantly - Devils Advocate and other apostrophe people please add them back in as appropriate.
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Spin me Right Round...

... Like a Record baby

So last weekend was one's 45 birthday.

I had a smallish gathering with the minor theme of "Bring a 45".

There was some excellent catering by Salsa Girl assisted by Freeloading Mum - although I do have to take issue with the idea that I had to give everyone a piece of MY cheesecake birthday cake!

Being the theme instigator I dutifully hauled my pristine collection of 45s from the late 80s downstairs - about 50 of them in all. Amongst their number where such gems as Samantha Fox - Touch Me, of which, with my newly acquired mature status, one is not ashamed (although probably 15 year old Phill should be).

Several others provided their own input including ElfBoy with an extensive compilation collection; Legion2 with his hauntingly familiar collection (in that shared bedroom growing up kind of way); and Badger with some prime Brit Punk. I was, however, disappointed to see no Smith & Wessons brought along.

Badger's standout contribution was providing the whole audio and phonographic equipment, without which we would have been unable to hear these gems of the songwriters craft. Impressively the turntable was a vintage 80s Marantz still in perfect working order.

Dropping the ball on the theme front were BestFriendSincePrep and StumpyRudolph, representing one's school friends neither of them had any knowledge of their 45s, or indeed of which number drink they were up to.

Representing the creative side of music were past (and future??) band mates FridgePower and Judge Mingus, along with their own personal creations.

Most parts of the party went well, although Hulk did insist on being sensitive to strangers and require alternating bouts of individual care from Salsa Girl and oneself which was the sole reason there are parts of the party that one cannot recall.

After most had taken leave Legion2 and Pirate Dave (returning from DragonMim's overshadowing 50th event which kept many others away) stayed long into the evening playing the Magic card game and helping one with ones overabundance of whisky. In fact I believe I may have been playing the game on muscle memory at one point and events and my thinking became decidedly fuzzy around the 1:00 am mark.

All in all a most excellent occasion.
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Games Galore

The year's gaming is off to a smashing start with a brace of gaming events having already been completed.

New Year's Day was an all day Magical event with Gavman and ElfBoy both using aquiring pass-outs for the days event.

Last week one once more got away with running a games event in the library, for work, and payed as well.
It went off smashingly with both Pirate Dave and Scary Spice helping out - although Nemesis did turn up to play as well, throwing a dark shadow of sabotage across the events.
Many games were indulged in including one's gallant 1 game all chess draw with a 9 year old girl, Castle Panic, Get Bit, Saboteur, and Fox and Hens.

And one also took advantage of the long weekend to indulge in the typical Aussie pastime of staying inside for gaming.
Joined by Pirate Dave, Badger and Legion2, with Gavman joining later in the evening we powered our way through Samurai Battles (the game where the result doesn't matter especially as Pirate Dave continues his dominance); Eldritch Horror; Say Anything; and too many hours of Magic.

All in all one is just about gamed out - except for tonight's role playing gaming night which I can't wait for.
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Man-Shed Madness

Oh dear, one seems to be stuck on a permanent one week delay.

In any case, on the weekend last ElfBoy cashed in a group promise signed certificate and had a bunch of us make the trek North to have the debut gaming session in his man-shed.

Dutifully I loaded Pirate Dave, Legion2, and Young Jim into my vehicle while Badger and Gavman made their own journeys.

So, in the comfort of of a beautifully done up shed and humid temperatures we played and sweated our way through several hours of one of ElfBoy's games that he had bee unable to get to the table in a decade of gaming get-togethers - it was something to do with fantasy Japanese empire building and side games of cards involving Samurai.
One was particularly pleased to see five hours of play rewarded with one's empire ending in exactly the same state it started the game, as it is usually a hallmark of these sort of games that one's empire is obliterated post-haste.

We next powered through a lap of the car racing Formula D game of Pirate Dave's in which one lead masterfully for most of the game only to take the final turn too wide and wind up crossing in third - both the gear and the position.

Of course this being ElfBoy the event finished with some Magic the Gathering before we all tootled off home again, promising to return in the cooler months - but making sure not to sign anything this time.
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No Job Too Small

So, Salsa Girl and I are having Handy Dad construct a palatial deck in our rear courtyard.

Some of you may realise this after coming to haul wooden planks from the front of house to the back this morning. It's amazing what the mirage of a gaming session can inspire isn't it ElfBoy and Pirate Dave?

Anyway, as part of the process we have excavated a pile of dirt and need it removed.

To this end Salsa Girl was collecting quotes last week which allowed one to hear this heartwarming telephonic exchange.

Salsa Girl (on Phone): Hello, I'm calling to get a quote for the removal of one to two cubic metres of soil and gravel.

[listens]

Salsa Girl: Oh, too small a job. I'm sorry I must have misread your add that said no job too small.

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A Moving Time, Parte the Seconde

Further grand adventures that occurred include.

• 3 innumerable quests to IKEA in search of critical components for a new household
• finally finding time to watch my Xmas dvd of Dredd and pronouncing it a 4 star experience
• the successful procurement of Young Jim into the Tuesday Knights
• finishing the grand epic Wheel of Tedium with A Memory of Light which turned out to be quite a good read and wrap up of the story line with minimal braid tugging, earning itself a 4 star rating
• a mammoth Sunday's gaming recommencement with Badger, Pirate Dave, Young Jim, Legion, FridgePower, Judge Mingus, Ball Boy, Amoeba, ElfBoy, Gavman, lot's of boardgames and fun for all in The Gaming Garage
• what can only be described as a devouring of the first season of Game of Thrones
• much attendance at various supervisor training from which Sidekick will benefit - particularly the revelations about bullying
• extreme computer rollout busyness - you all know how much one loves that
• Pirate Dave's emergence as Mister Boardgames
• the return of footy watching
• a quite enjoyable read of Accellerando by Charles Stross
• finally finding time to watch my Xmas dvd of Prometheus and pronouncing it a 3 star experience
• a return to footy excursions with The Great Sandro and one's first ever Queen's Birthday match attendance
• a good catchup with The Viking Hat GM, Exploding Ninja Pony, The Mad Magyar, and Frenchy, as TVHGM and progeny celebrated their co-located birthdays with abundant cake
• a second Gaming Sunday, thus proving that there will be an ongoing pattern

And that catches us all up to an incredibly detailed level sothat you all know what has been going on in the wonderful world of The Tales.

See you all next week.

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A Legion of Parties

And a legion of excuses for lack of posting...

Shall one just briefly enumerate them: the endless work at work, the heat, a cranky and slightly under the weather Hulk, house hunting escapades, and a return to gaming.


So several weekends past saw myself, along with Salsa Girl and Hulk, attend a trio of swell soirees.

The first was Legion2's birthday bash for the gamer crowd, although disappointingly with no gaming occurring.
Despite that on us flaw a great time was had by all.
ElfBoy was there with Lil' Trucker running amok, as was Mr Magpie (no relation) with his little barrackers. Badger and Gavman were absent any spawn and Pirate Dave was at an inconvenient family do across town.

Salsa Girl and I ended the event by rushing off to inspect some potential property - our leaving causing the whole shindig to wrap up as it obviously couldn't sustain itself without our overwhelming presence.


From our inspection we made our way to FridgePower's self-organised surprise party. I think she fooled herself right up until the party began.
Hulk did not allow us to linger to long but one did manage to catch up with fridge herself as well as Judge Mingus and an unanticipated Zombie Monkey.


The next day was the traditional family party in honour of oneself and Legion2. The event was rather more niece and grand child focused than one really deserves for ones day of honour, but they are all so cute one can't really compete.


Well once again you are all updated on the happenings of the tales and once again I promise to keep to my weekly-ish publishing schedule so keep watching the skies for my next posting...
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The Last Hurrah

This Sunday last one held the last of one's monthly Sunday gaming days for some time - with Hulk's arrival scheduled for the end of the month it was thought best to not try for one more at the end of the month as well.

We had a cast of thousands. If you round up. A lot.

• Legion2, Badger (regulars)
• Gavman, Elfboy (semi regulars)
• Young Jim (transitioning to regular)
• The Bastard (pretending to be both semi-regular and transitioning to regular)
• Judge Mingus, Ball Boy (first timers)

Many games were played including a surprising slant towards one's favourites.

It was the sort of amazing never-to-be-repeated gaming event that the likes of, say, The Real Greg Dean, would be kicking themselves for missing merely for being interstate.

The mound of snacks was nearly legendary enough to satisfy the The Viking Hat GM (who is some sort of minor deity of snacktitude).

All in all it was a great send-off for the monthly gaming and if you didn't make it then you should begin preparing yourself for The New Beginning starting sometime in the future, taking some form, and being held in some place.
With advance warning like that there will be no excuse for non-attendance!
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2011 A Year of (Gaming) Wonders

As one hasn't produced one of these for a good couple of years - 2008 was the last in fact - I thought it was about time I subjected you all to another run down of a year's gaming.

So here is the summary of my years gaming for 2011.

All up I had 111 gaming events for the year!

98 may be a more accurate number taking out the ones that were traditional cards played along with a dinner catch up.

That is down by 10 to 20 on 2008 but I have gladly traded some gaming time to spend more in the esteemed company of Salsa Girl.

The occasions break down like thus:

46 sessions with my Tuesday Knights group

• 2 playing Magic as the main event (there are usually some games each week)
• 31 playing or running roleplaying. 
• 22 running the Traveller Diplomatic Action game.
• 4 playing Fighting Fantasy Role-play under Legion2's control, 
• 5 playing ElfBoy's Terra Australis game.
• 13 playing board and card games

21 sessions with the Black Guild on Thursdays

• 7 running my Phudge fantasy game Mundus Scenecit
• 3 just chatting - as happens sometimes (as opposed to the 50% chatting that gaming usually is)
• 7 playing The Bastard's D&D 4th edition Dark Sun game.
• 4 playing the ever awesome Tribe8 under the guiding hands of Fantomas.

1 of The Viking Hat GM's old school AD&D days

3 afternoons playing The Bastard's bimonthly Pathfinder fantasy game.

10 Sundays gaming group days playing board, war and card games

6 Spontaneous boardgaming get togethers

3 Spontaneous Magic playing sessions

3 Magic Tournaments amongst our group of players - missing only one new set for the year

1 poker night

13 sessions of Rummy 500 with the Double Jays and Salsa Girl

1 visits to LURG my old uni games club - although no games were played!! (I'm looking at you Camo Spice)

2 evenings playing Werewolf with librarians - run by Gamer Phil while at conference

1 attendance at International Day of Gaming @ the Library - as organised by Gamer Phil at the State Library

All up I played with about 40 different gamers (and about 28 non-gamers).

• 8 players on Tuesdays
• 8 on Thursdays (4 shared with Tuesday)
• 10 at Sundays gaming, 5 from Tuesdays, 1 from Thursdays, 4 not. Multiple attendees: 5 from Tuesdays, 1 from Thursdays, 2 others.
• Spontaneous Magic was only with Tuesday night gamers.
• Poker was with 4 non-gamers.
• Rummy was with 4 non-gamers
• Magic tournaments brought 5 from the Tuesday group, 1 from Thursdays and 2 others
• The old school AD&D was with about 8 gamers and no crossover with other groups.
• The Pathfinder game was with 5 Tuesday/Thursday gamers and 1 other.
• The Werewolf with librarians was with about 20 non-gamers.
• Gaming in the library added another 13 gamers

One thinks that's a reasonable return for a hobby for which one has an obviously mild passion.

I expect to up the ante in the coming year and push on for the magic 150 and I'm sure nothing will hold me back from fulfilling such a humble ambition.

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The Many Expectations of Xmas

This week past has - not unexpectedly - seen many an Xmas related activity.

As expected the final meeting of the inner cabal at the library had a tinge of the Xmas about it, with several goodbyes for the year and a meal shared by all.

As expected the councils Xmas lunch for the hard-working staff, as exemplified by yours-truly, signalled the end to the working year as it demolished any chance of productivity in the remaining hours of the afternoon before the Xmas break. Even partaking at the level of moderation one is famous for could not produce an iota of work after that sumptuous feast.

As expected Salsa Girl and I made our now customary annual trip slightly North to Xmas with the maternal side of her heritage. Some terrific Turkey was had in both firsts and seconds for the day as well as a traditional Aussie pav as a dessert.

As could reasonably be expected - given Xmas's past - our zoom back to the city to catch one's relatives in the early evening was delayed by the ferocity of a typical Melbourne Xmas storm.
Our final arrival at the famous Aunties had us almost missing the desserts and, in fact, further worry occurred as Salsa Girl insisted on us having mains before we could touch the dessert pavlova - I was concerned as it had been so long since I had had pav for dessert.
In any case the evening progressed with the tail end of the storm providing a lovely lightning show and Legion4 putting on an encore performance of his famous Very Messy Xmas of '08. During the evening one was also surprised to see that Cousin Dave, down from Sydney, had his eldest offspring toddling around everywhere -  I mean she didn't even exist when last we caught up and one could hardly expect that much change in a scant few years.

As expected all those Xmas Day shenanigans were followed by the Boxing Day of Extreme Lassitude. I believe one may have ventured outside once just for the thrill of it but cannot recall.


Quite unexpectedly the next day became a day of gaming after Gavman unexpectedly demanded his birthday dues.
You see we have a tradition in one's corner of the gaming world that any gaming on a birthday involves the birthdayee choosing the game to be played.
We all believed ourselves to be safe from the proclivities of Gavman's gaming appetites as he shared his birthday with a rather well known messiah.
However Legion2, Elfboy and myself where all caught in his insidious web as he invoked yesterday's shifted Xmas holiday to put us at the mercy of his gaming desires.

As expected he chose Magic the Gathering (with variants) and it was a tortuous half-day playing one of my top ten games.
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Swine Fever by Andrew Cartmel

This book is the last of the books that Fantomas gave me for my birthday last year.

I have finally gotten around to reading it and one can only conclude that Fantomas bears some huge grudge against me - despite his claims that he is not responsible for what is purchased with his voucher, as what else could he have expected me to get?

Now, allow me to don my Nerd-Rage hat as I review this one star title for you all.

The plot summary is that Judge Dredd solves a case involving the illegal selling of pork made form intelligent mutant pigs in Mega-City. Except he doesn't really, as he is hardly in the story at all, the main character of the novel being a young Psi-Judge. That part is not so bad as Dredd is really just a framing device for the crazy happenings of Mega-City One and I can understand it being hard to centre the story around him.

However it didn't take long for the warning bells to go off in one's head as most of the incidental details of the story completely avoid any attempt at following the 30 odd years of Dredd continuity.

Here's a rundown of some of them:

• cadet Judges having their own apartment instead of senior judges only
• said apartment being stocked with illegal alcohol taken from a crime scene - and no fear shown by the cadet judge when Dredd comes to visit
• all but two of the Judges we meet are incompetent buffoons despite their 15 years of training, most are physically unfit being overweight or sickly
• an unending stream of flatulence jokes about one of the Judges - said flatulence being caused by all the fast food he eats
• said fast food being purchased from vending machines in Justice Department, using money that the Judges have - in the comic the Judges are not paid and eat for free at justice Department.
• "net rounds" for the lawgiver when standard cling nets would have sufficed for the story (double whammy is now my second most hated ammo type), other new rounds other than the standard 6 also appeared at various points
• pork being legalised when many other harmful substances are banned for the peoples own good - even synthi versions are sometimes banned for still being harmful
• a complete absence of the Justice Department surveillance system
• ending with a Justice department picnic

When one discussed several of these points with Badger a week or so ago he informed me that the author, Mr Cartmel, had overseen the last three seasons of the original run of Dr Who before it was cancelled. Not having watched those series I can only guess that the good doctors continuity was also completely ignored in favour of whatever Mr Cartmel wanted to do.



Thankfully my next read shall be a recommendation from ElfBoy.
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Local Warming

This weekend past was a busy one indeed.

Friday night was consumed by one of those pre-event shopping trips where you just keep adding things to the trolley because they will make the event better. Finally you arrive at the checkout with a huge mound of foodstuffs most of which will still be lurking in your fridge the day after the event.

Saturday afternoon was the occasion of the main event itself - a drop by housewarming to welcome Salsa Girl into the place and celebrate this latest stage in our grand experiment.

Having not much space in our residence we invited only those that were known well to both of us (lest the legendary horde of Phill-friends cause a major sardine effect).

I think it all went off quite well with a rotating cast of about a dozen including:

• Legion2 sadly flying solo due to family illness, well other family than yours truly
• The Great Sandro who planted himself on the couch ne'er to move
• MatrixMan and Vengeful Vic with young Couch Killer in tow and solidifying his blog name with a delightful splash of red on our new couch
• The Double Jays turning up WITHOUT their trademark chocolate cake!!!!!!
• ElfBoy and Elfboylet making a big mess and being scared off by The Tiger.

After such a hectic and fun-filled afternoon Salsa Girl and I headed off to spend the evening at the birthday celebrations for BestFriendSincePrep's bester half. With a tended cocktail bar and eighties music galore it really was quite a delightful way to end the day. And there was chocolate cake!

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Salsa Girl's First Footy

This Friday last, whilst in the esteemed company of The Great Sandro, ElfBoy, and oneself, Salsa Girl made the trip to the MCG for her first ever football game.

Once we were all firmly ensconced in our lofty seats perched at the top of the stadium she was able to experience the drama, aggression, humour, clash of male bodies, thrill, excitement, and pathos that is the drunk football spectator.

She also, I believe, enjoyed the game.
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