The Fall of Troy

 So One has just completed the reading of Troy by Stephen Fry.  The tome was a birthday gifting from Grandma J that one had finally commenced a few weeks back and then completed a few weeks back. Of course in these times we are in, One glances at the calendar and espies that a few weeks is in fact nigh two whole months!

In any case the read was quite interesting... and informative, and flowed fairly well after the initial 50 odd pages of getting up to speed on past history bombardment of peoples and events.

My reading of it also fell at the right time for the regular Tuesday Knights gaming group had only recently commenced playing AGON the game where you play heroes of legend in an ancient Greece inspired setting.

I give it a solid 3 star rating as the end with the wooden horse seemed a little unbelievable.

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Remembrance and Reacquaintance

 As things have headed towards the direction of normal this past month or so, One has become reacquainted with one's old nemesis - The Deadline. The strangeness of one's past year means that The Deadline is not being wielded by Supervisor Grand Chief K but by one's latest supervisor - Sis (is a Tales Name change to Supervisor Sis perchance required?)

In any case The Deadline has kept one busy with work in the form of rapid iterations of system changes to keep up with the current environment, and a multitude of projects lurching back to life as society does much the same.

So, while all this has been taking one's attention there have been a couple of other things for one's attention.

Remembrance came up on the first anniversary of The Tiger's passing. Salsa Girl, Hulk and I took the time to say a few words of what we missed of her and how a year without her in the household had been. We then commenced scattering a pinch of her ashes in all of her favourite places - various nooks about the garden, the couch, the arms of the couch, the kitchen bench, atop One's head, and so on. Those who know her should know that we shall be round to your place to scatter ashes on, and in, your gaming bag, and upon your coat that rested upon that chair and couldn't be retrieved from under her for hours that one time.

Reacquaintance came in the form of a multi-day visit from Grandma J - the first since one's birthday soiree. We reacquainted ourselves with feasting, chatting, and the delightful sound of a joyful child being run through her night-time routine by someone other than ourselves.

Coming soon is a reacquaintance with going in to an actual workplace rather than simply staggering up to one's computer desk in naught but a shirt.
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Proust In his first book wrote about...

Having been gifted a classic fiction calendar by Grandma J for Xmas One was inspired to attempt to read the monthly classic fiction.

January kicked things off with a doozy - In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.

So dutifully I trotted off to Project Gutenberg to collect the ebook version of this. Upon arrival I found 7 volumes!! A quick redefining of One's self-imposed terms was undertook and the terms settled on as Volume one only (I also had February's 1984 already-read in one's past and able to be skipped so confidence was high.)

The astute amongst you gentle readers will note that it is now very late March. It was a long volume one and one suspects that the remaining volumes shall remain unread by oneself.

So what was it about?

That really is the question.
My entry in Monty Python's Summarise Proust competition:

There's a family who live in the French countryside and the young boy is concerned with how little his parents express their love for him, and the family is also rather obsessed with visits from the upper class neighbour, the titular Swann, until rumours of his wife concern them slightly, we then jump to Swann himself in Paris visiting through upper class society and falling for Odette whom becomes his lover but also has her own life which drives Swann to fits of jealousy and many stalking thoughts and events, and hijinks ensue to ensure coincidental appearances at her holiday destinations until we switch back to the young boy now older and moved to Paris and obsessing about a young girl who is revealed to be Swann's daughter and eventually we hear her mother is Odette and wonder if the middle section was a flashback as section one included the young wife, and if it really matters in the flow of the story which is not so much a story as a recounting of the week to week flow of times in the narrator and M. Swanns past, all translated in nice flowing prose but using altogether far too few full stops.

The Holiday Break

And so it seems that one of the first things to break on the holiday is one's determination to keep posting to The Tales.


One of the next is the peace and quiet at home as Hulk's first year of school ends and she is home with Salsa Girl and I, as a raucous bundle of energy with nigh insatiable play demands.

The Xmas days in sweltering Bendigo conditions along with Grandma J caused a break in one's mental faculties.

The trip away was a break the family was looking forward too and one managed to survive despite no break in the frequency and variety of insectile creatures determined to feast upon one's delicate flesh.
Time with Doctor David, and Grannie A, and also as a family in a tent in a storm helped provide a break from the ongoing itching and scratching.

Next to break was one's belief that BestFriendSincePrep had not played in the previous Tuesday Knights game of Judge Dredd. The sight of a well used character sheet began the breaking of one's mind.

And now, with the return to work just a scant few days away, one is looking forward to the break from holidays.

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Mother's Days

So the past month has been keeping one busy with events various and also lovely IT events various.

The main event was, of course, the elegant significant birthday of Grandma J. Held at a lovely country estate in the outskirts of Kyneton. Salsa Girl, Hulk and oneself made the journey out and arrived for much exploring, conversation, and digesting, amongst a slew of relatives.

Event the second was the, now traditional, mums head off to enjoy a kid and dad free lunch together. A (brilliant?) idea of Salsa Girl's which was apparently enjoyed by all - even though they did miss out on the 30 minute drum-based concert performance of the kid's well known hit "Get out of the Garage!!"


Of course One did manage to squeeze in the second gaming Sunday for the year in the midst of this hive of activity, along with some fervent footy watching, heapings of frustrating IT troubleshooting, and a smidgen of progressing projects.

One hopes now that a rest period can commence and One can catch up on one's much neglected lazing around.
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The Book of Dust

One completed the reading of this book by Philip Pullman a good week or so ago but I have been sitting on this review as I seethe over the result of the reading.

It was gifted on the occasion of one's birthday by Grandma J and turned out to be a vexing 4 star read.

It is more properly titled La Belle Sauvage and is Part 1 of the Book of Dust trilogy - a prequel/during/sequel trilogy to the author's Northern Lights trilogy of which one has read not a skerrick.
After doing the research I determined that it was fine to commence reading and that one would not be lost in the middle of a story.

In the end it turned out to be an interesting story and world to explore and it appears that Grandma J has cursed me with a new series to read my way through and the first book of The Northern Lights is now on reserve at my library.
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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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Holidays and Birthdays

Well it's been over a week back at the workplace and one had best document one's leave before the memories flitter away and one has to just make something up.

It seems a fortnight's leave was just enough to cover two birthdays.


Birthday the first was great grandma's 90th up in Bendigo. This involved a getaway of a few days in weather drenched Bendigo in a spacious motel - Hulk had her own room with 3 beds!

Of course there were many visits to Grandma J's and Hulk seemed to enjoy her time with her cousins. One would be lying to say there wasn't a little part of me that was glad it ended though. That little part is the eardrums - oh the screaming.


Birthday the second was, of course, Hulk's fourth.

It was, of course, Star Wars themed.

There was a fair amount of dressing up and at one point, when flanked by both Hulk and Salsa Girl, I did feel like I was in a new sitcom called My Two Reys. Of course Legion2 donned his Han Solo outfit and Doctor David and Grannie A came as suspicious "Jedi" clothed all in black!
There was much fun had with knock over the Tie Fighters, Pin the camera on the BB-8, pass the parcel, and an impressive BB-8 cake. There was also much pummelling with balloon lightsabers.

Still it is good to have the event over so I no longer have the pressure to maintain my diet in order to fit into my Jabba the Hutt costume.
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When the Girl's're Away ...

... one obviously starts to have a problem with the proper commission of the apostrophe.
     (apologies to Devil's Advocate & LittleBigGirl for the pain the title caused)


In any case, with Salsa Girl and Hulk off north visiting Grandma J it is time for one to cut loose.

Yes that's right, it's time for a three day frenzy of sans-pants partying, mad gaming madness, and other general hullabaloo!

The Tiger shall be hiding in the furthest reaches of the household to escape the non-stop party action engulfing the household.

Wooo! Yeah! PAARRTTTEEEEEEEE!


Although... perhaps one might instead just indulge in one's first sleep-in for nigh on two years.
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Settling In

So it's been a bit over a year in the new demesne and we have mostly settled in.
And by we I mean Salsa Girl and oneself as young Hulk has taken it upon herself to be quite unsettled these past couple of months.
However, thanks to the miracle of 'Daddy’s Arms’ we seem to be settling into a much more acceptable routine.

While this has been going on we've also had a parade of relatives short-staying with Doctor David, Grannie A, and Grandma J all passing through, much to everyone’s delight.

One has also polished off several books of whose true quality I shall enlighten you in a future reading roundup post.
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Hulk: Year One

Several weekends ago saw the big celebration of Hulk reaching the one year milestone.

Everything went more or less according to the plan Salsa Girl and I had hatched up - well as according to plan as things can go when one has a dozen guest children involved, one doesn't really schedule in "and then the children shall run riot for an hour".

We had great help from our visiting guests Doctor David and Grannie A, Freeloading Mum put in a fair bit of time as well and Grandma J made the great sacrifice of spending most of her time cuddling Hulk.

All seemed to have a good time and Hulk herself breezed through a napless afternoon with nary a grizzle.

The only downside seems to be a disturbing amount of post-party illness amongst the part guests - oneself included. Hence the great delay in posting this missive about the soiree. One suspects that Hulk may have used her Special Attack again, but really it could have been any of the many disease vectors that were running riot about the place.


Now in the time that has passed since the big do Salsa Girl and I have been treated to the horror of Hulk beginning to experiment with full mobility, including much totterings and standings and reachings.
I shudder in fear for all our delicate things about the house.
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