Catching up with Catch-ups

So, much has happened in the realm of The Tales since last post. Many catch-ups have occurred and One shall attempt to document them to One's usual fastidious level of accuracy.


On the Monday before Cup Day, One continued to catch-up with ones Hawaiian shirts, having too long neglected them until their recent resurrection for conference. The jealousy from co-workers manifest itself as an air of disdain and a pretended scoffing at one's sense of fashion.


There was a catch-up with Big J in the form of her return from extended leave to attend a three hour strategic reporting and specific duties realignment meeting. I guess she has to have hobbies in her leisure time.


In an effort to catch-up on our role-playing game progress deficit Pirate Dave ran Badger, Sneaky Pete and One through our weekly game until the early am. The deficit is now reduced to only several years.


Attending the annual SLUG conference with Sidekick afforded one the opportunity to catch up with Sis, MoneyM, and others in several entirely networky and educational bar and restaurant settings.


In preparation for Bomber Babe's big move to One's old desk at One's old branch, One had to undertake a cleanup of boxes underneath and draws full of spare parts. A nostalgic catchup with vitally kept spare 2005 technology ensued.


Hulk and One had a catch-up and board games with Miasmakat after it was revealed to Hulk that there was a trampoline there and it became mandatory to attend.


The evening then held a grand catch up at the 10th wedding anniversary soiree for Zombie Monkey. Having arrived post speeches it was hard for one to tell it apart from just a big piss up.
In any case, while one missed The Real Greg Dean, one was able to have a grand catch-up with the ZM himself as well as the first for 7 years catch-up with Illuminated G, Amoeba for our first catch-up in... months, and a 12 years in the making catch-up with Shreen.

Of course Illuminated G was up to his old conspiratorial tricks trying to claim that he and Shreen had never attended One's university at the same time - while my memory clearing has them both in the same group of uni friends, I shall not be a fool for your conspiracy!!


The final catch-up of not was for the farewelling of LibraryBFF heading back to whence she came as her stint as resources ends,  and BomberBabe heading to new horizons. It was also for welcoming Mr Prada into the resources - and possibly BFF - role, and Big J attended for the culinary catch-up opportunity.


Phew, now One is caught-up on the catching-up.
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Guardians of the Galaxy & Gridlinked by Neal Asher

Today's post is about the consumption of media various.


Guardians of the Galaxy

This one was a birthday present from Freeloading Mum. And by that I mean that one traditionally spends one's birthday money on b-grade sci-fi and fantasy that one has missed in the previous year.

Well this turned out to be a fun little romp very much in the vein of The Fifth Element level of sci-fi. Thankfully for one's tastes there was very little superhero-ish in there although sequel talk involves many spandexians apparently.

All in all a solid 4 star fun pic with the only real cringe moment being the hero's put down of the villain at the end.

I look forward to watching mother's other present in the near future, in glorious 3D - the much vaunted by The Real Greg Dean, Pacific Rim. And I tell you if it isn't every bit the cosmically mind blowing experience that The Greg has promised there'll be some mighty vengeance coming his way!


Gridlinked by Neal Asher

This one was my latest read and jumped to the head of the pack on the recommendation of Scary Spice.

It was quite an enjoyable future space opera with loads of wow tech and obscure aliens.
Unfortunately having recently read Ian M Banks Consider Phelbas one was struck by apparent parallels and coincidii, in military tech and delves underground after artifacts -  to the point that one could joke about it being extremely well written fan-fiction.

That aside though it was a solid 3 and a half stars and I will undoubtably dip into the Polity universe again in The Future.
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Geektogether XIII

Last night saw one use one's weekly gaming pass to attend the auspicious 13th Geektogether. This is probably my 10th or 11th I guess.

Organised again by the despotic The Viking Hat GM , as no one else can make the Geeks run on time.

The evening was actually rather a good chance for one to catch up with Pirate Dave whom one had not seen for many a month.

Amoeba was also in attendance as were many geeks - more than a baker's dozen - and we were all treated to the sage wisdom of  The Viking Hat GM which turned out to be quite sage when it drummed up a round of drinks for us old timers who have been gaming longer than the round-buying young geeks have even been.

All in all it was a good occasion for people geeks looking for a game to play in. You know the type, like The Real Greg Dean whose brain aches for game ... umm... and who one should totally have informed of the event.

Oh well there's bound to be another one if only so karma (aka TVHGM) can make me buy the next round of drinks.
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Hulk - The Early Weeks

When one began composing this post it was rather naively entitles - Hulk, the Early Days.

Well since then the piecemeal nature at which one was able to add ones brilliant thoughts to the draft had made me believe that I was looking at having to re title it as - Hulk. Year One. While one would surely have enjoyed basking in the kudos this would have brought from such graphical story telling literati as Zombie Monkey and The Real Greg Dean, it has eventuated that my deadline has stretched out to mere weeks.

In any case many are the things that have occurred during the early days weeks of the time of Hulk.

One has been head down in reading materials wide and sundry - finishing long bookmark-laden tomes and making visible progress on one's to-be-read stacks, various. In fact all but the nigh insurmountable penultimate Wheel of Tedium volume have fallen beneath the scythe of my reading gaze.

One has had occasion to watch many a late night movie and has begun filling in may of the glaring holes in ones experience of the past few decades cinema. For example one now knows that Tom Hanks gets off the island.

One has even managed to make some small steps of progress in ones gaming projects in a way that may even make Fantomas believe that they could become real when one next attends the Tuesday Knights.

One has had several meetings in passing with Salsa Girl and even shared several meals.

Of course there has been some time spent with young Hulk. Why we've had special daddy-daughter time watching the mighty pies (and another team that looks similar but seems to have lost the mighty bit).

Hulk unable to bear the skill errors.

We also tried our hand at bonding over some solo gaming - managing to see off those pesky Persians at Thermopylae and winning the Battle of the Five Armies for the Orcs.

There have been visit from relatives various, a handful of friends, and late night hallucinations of the interesting kind.

As predicted by FridgePower one has been able to indulge in the ancient art of poo smearing - although much of the training I undertook cleaning up after The Tiger has gone to waste as there has been a suspicious lack of any positing (the nice word for baby vomiting) particularly of the furball kind.

In amongst all this Legion2 and the BrotherStealer have seen fit to try and steal my hard-earned spotlight by delivering their second a full six weeks early. One can only be glad that Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad have been away all this time so there would be no unseemly squabbling for the favour that is rightfully mine.

In any case this disjointed report has brought you up to date with the trials and tribulations we have been undergoing for the past few days weeks.

It only gets easier from here they tell me.

And then they snigger.
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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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... The Manga Marathon

This Easter has seen another of Alecto's traditional anime watching festivals. This years took place over 11 hours of Good Friday with Swing, Hemy and another also in attendance.

This time we were watching Azumanga Daioh a cute one about the lives of a group of girls during their three years as high-school classmates. Alecto had a bountiful table of nibbles on hand so the only disappointment was the lack of giant fighting robots in the anime itself.


Sticking to the comics theme yesterday I attended a comics discussion get together organised by The Real Greg Dean and attended by myself and Zombie Monkey. We had a good chat and some great food and booze from the venue. We wrapped up just after Doom showed up claiming it was his local cafe. Personally I am concerned that there is some sort of blog appearance stalking going on.


The final piece in the comics puzzle is my finishing reading the novelisation of the computer game of Dredd vs Death of Judge Dredd of the 2000AD comic. I quite enjoyed it as the writing was easy to read and it captured the feel of the comic.
Reading this book did give me the dilemma earlier in the week of deciding which was the geekier reading material for the work lunch room - a comics novelisation or a RPG supplement? I went with the RPG supplement figuring it would look more like a non-fiction text book and protect me from awkward questions.
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