... the IT man in LibraryLand
Saturday last Hulk, Salsa Girl, and I attended the city venue birthday celebrations of one's gaming associate Miasmakat and her non-associated (well except via The Viking Hat GM's Geektogethers) gaming husband.
This party was sensibly held in the afternoon.
One had a proud father moment on the train journey in when metro announced "The next station will be Collingwood" and Hulk responded with "Collingwood? Good old Collingwood forever, ..." and sang the whole song replete with mid verse corr-blimey. I've definitely brunged her up right.
One will only be prouder when she destroys one in a board game some time in our future.
The party was a fun affair in an indoor tent room that involved a couple of hours of catch up chit chat, playing who is that person from 20 years ago, and also playing keep Hulk away from the cup cakes.
The party continued the next day with Sunday gaming wherein Miasmakat, BestFriendSincePrep and I proceeded to doom the world by failing to save it from a deadly bout of swine flu in Pandemic.
We were joined by Legion2 for the chaos of Stellar Conflict - aka the rubber band game - wherein BestFriendSincePrep snapped one of the said rubber bands thereby ruining an irreplaceable game component.
When Pirate Dave arrived we decided to save the world for a change by stopping the infected leaving the Dark Moon in my cooperative variant of the The Thing in Space game.
We rounded out the night by being caught attempting a pet store heist in Burgle Bros.
After so much fun failure Miasmakat's party weekend was called to close and we all* went to bed early for a good nights sleep.
*Nobody can prove that one played Magic with Legion2 until late!!
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Showing posts with label The Viking Hat GM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Viking Hat GM. Show all posts
More Traveller than Most
Well the other week my Traveller Fifth Edition Kickstarter loot finally arrived.
After having to put up with months of taunting from the likes of The Bastard and Fantomas - both much more minor Traveller aficionados than yours truly and not deserving of receiving their packages so much earlier than I - one had to endure further taunting as the long awaited parcel just happened to be delivered to one's workplace on a day when one was working from home.
To make matters worse Sidekick commenced to text photos of said package along with implied threats to mark it return to sender.
Still all's well that ends well and it has been safely in my beloved grasp for more than a week now. I now have proof that I am more Traveller than most in the form of my land grants for imaginary worlds, sovereignty over nary a hundred of them, credits from the Far Future, and a tome of rules that could stop many a bullet.
While I had heard some scary tales of the books near decade of creation I still decided to participate in the Kickstarter to say thank you to the man who created a game I've played, read, and enjoyed for over 30 years.
The rules themselves do show every signs of being a vanity project with the topic jumping, rambling, and repetitiveness of a gamer gone too far down the path of not actually playing with real people and many additions of so-called "realism" with things such as spectrum ratings for characters vision.
The thought of running any game with it does make my brain hurt, but I may mine sections of it and I expect there will be some fascinated horror reading as I progress through it's 600 odd non-indexed pages with no table of contents.
Now while The Viking Hat GM may be right when he said "buying a 600 page pile of crap to say thank you is bollocks, just send the man some money directly", it just didn't seem as good a way to maintain my More Traveller than Most status.
The most worrying part of all this is that the book has a rather prominent 1 on the spine marking it as merely Volume number one in a series of books that will be created. One can only hope the next one takes a further decade to produce.
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After having to put up with months of taunting from the likes of The Bastard and Fantomas - both much more minor Traveller aficionados than yours truly and not deserving of receiving their packages so much earlier than I - one had to endure further taunting as the long awaited parcel just happened to be delivered to one's workplace on a day when one was working from home.
To make matters worse Sidekick commenced to text photos of said package along with implied threats to mark it return to sender.
Still all's well that ends well and it has been safely in my beloved grasp for more than a week now. I now have proof that I am more Traveller than most in the form of my land grants for imaginary worlds, sovereignty over nary a hundred of them, credits from the Far Future, and a tome of rules that could stop many a bullet.
While I had heard some scary tales of the books near decade of creation I still decided to participate in the Kickstarter to say thank you to the man who created a game I've played, read, and enjoyed for over 30 years.
The rules themselves do show every signs of being a vanity project with the topic jumping, rambling, and repetitiveness of a gamer gone too far down the path of not actually playing with real people and many additions of so-called "realism" with things such as spectrum ratings for characters vision.
The thought of running any game with it does make my brain hurt, but I may mine sections of it and I expect there will be some fascinated horror reading as I progress through it's 600 odd non-indexed pages with no table of contents.
Now while The Viking Hat GM may be right when he said "buying a 600 page pile of crap to say thank you is bollocks, just send the man some money directly", it just didn't seem as good a way to maintain my More Traveller than Most status.
The most worrying part of all this is that the book has a rather prominent 1 on the spine marking it as merely Volume number one in a series of books that will be created. One can only hope the next one takes a further decade to produce.
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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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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 forpeople 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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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
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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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.
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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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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Birth days, Various
The past couple of weekends have been the domain of birthday celebration attendance for Salsa Girl and I.
Whereas the past couple of weeks have been the domain of rolling out new printers at work - the contrast is quite noticeable when Salsa Girl is not there escorting one through the event.
Anyway, the ageing celebrations kicked off with the early afternoon shindig for The Viking Hat GM and sprog. The usual suspects were there causing the usual mayhem - Exploding Ninja Pony, The Mad Magyar, and even Frenchy with his double daughter dance of destruction.
Fatherhood seems to have calmed down my Viking hatted friend as he was as subdued as a man suffering a heavy man-cold during the celebration. There was good food on offer - although bringing a plate oneself does seem to defeat the purpose of a free feed - still, I swapped a quiche for some chocolate cake so I know I came out ahead.
After that lovely reunion it was on to the big celebration for Mr Magpie (no relation). Fondly remembering the triumph that was his rain and alcohol soaked thirtieth I was all prepared for a big one. However it turned out to be more of a good conversation and child soaked affair. Of course Legion2 was in attendance as was Gavman and all found it quite enjoyable especially the fully over-catered buffet that was the evening repast.
Skipping forward a week we arrive at the afternoon celebration convened to celebrate Uncle Niece's second annum. The afternoon started sedately but by the end there were repeated games of Squash Uncle Phool occurring - an activity best not done at an occasion in which two different cakes and scones have been featured.
All in all a quite pleasant and Phill-fulling way to spend one's weekends.
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Whereas the past couple of weeks have been the domain of rolling out new printers at work - the contrast is quite noticeable when Salsa Girl is not there escorting one through the event.
Anyway, the ageing celebrations kicked off with the early afternoon shindig for The Viking Hat GM and sprog. The usual suspects were there causing the usual mayhem - Exploding Ninja Pony, The Mad Magyar, and even Frenchy with his double daughter dance of destruction.
Fatherhood seems to have calmed down my Viking hatted friend as he was as subdued as a man suffering a heavy man-cold during the celebration. There was good food on offer - although bringing a plate oneself does seem to defeat the purpose of a free feed - still, I swapped a quiche for some chocolate cake so I know I came out ahead.
After that lovely reunion it was on to the big celebration for Mr Magpie (no relation). Fondly remembering the triumph that was his rain and alcohol soaked thirtieth I was all prepared for a big one. However it turned out to be more of a good conversation and child soaked affair. Of course Legion2 was in attendance as was Gavman and all found it quite enjoyable especially the fully over-catered buffet that was the evening repast.
Skipping forward a week we arrive at the afternoon celebration convened to celebrate Uncle Niece's second annum. The afternoon started sedately but by the end there were repeated games of Squash Uncle Phool occurring - an activity best not done at an occasion in which two different cakes and scones have been featured.
All in all a quite pleasant and Phill-fulling way to spend one's weekends.
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Conan and Sharpe's Waterloo
Well it seems to be the season for reviews as one finished both of the above named properties just before the very busy weekend.
The Conan in the title - who despite one's misleading title is not present at Waterloo fighting alongside Richard Sharpe - is last years remake moving picture which I was unable to see in it's proper environment i.e in the resplendent company of The Viking Hat GM, Exploding Ninja Pony, The Mad Magyar, and sundry others of a geekish persuasion.
Instead it was one's exercise machine distraction watched in 20 minute chunks over several days.
When watched in this fashion it comes up quite well and, despite Pirate Dave's lack of faith, I was able to last through until the end and in fact enjoyed it to boot.
Sharpe's Waterloo is the umpteenth (perhaps Pratcheteenth is more correct?) in the Sharpe series and sees him in attendance at the eponymous battle - in fact it sees him traverse much of the battlefield several times over the course of the day turning the tide at almost every appearance.
It was enjoyable military history fiction although unlike a previous Sharpe story one had read, involved very little plot other than the battle itself. Enjoyable and worth a read if you are inane way interested in things Napoleonic.
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The Conan in the title - who despite one's misleading title is not present at Waterloo fighting alongside Richard Sharpe - is last years remake moving picture which I was unable to see in it's proper environment i.e in the resplendent company of The Viking Hat GM, Exploding Ninja Pony, The Mad Magyar, and sundry others of a geekish persuasion.
Instead it was one's exercise machine distraction watched in 20 minute chunks over several days.
When watched in this fashion it comes up quite well and, despite Pirate Dave's lack of faith, I was able to last through until the end and in fact enjoyed it to boot.
Sharpe's Waterloo is the umpteenth (perhaps Pratcheteenth is more correct?) in the Sharpe series and sees him in attendance at the eponymous battle - in fact it sees him traverse much of the battlefield several times over the course of the day turning the tide at almost every appearance.
It was enjoyable military history fiction although unlike a previous Sharpe story one had read, involved very little plot other than the battle itself. Enjoyable and worth a read if you are inane way interested in things Napoleonic.
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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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Holiday Haze
So it transpires that when one is on holidays for weeks at a time things such as, say updating one's blog, actually become harder to make happen.
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The very astute of you may have noticed that The Tales has been rather quiet for the month of October and much of this month as well. So quiet in fact as to have been non-existent. Well, as of this post, one is rectifying that oversight.
Such a lot has happened that one's usual highly-enjoyable ramblings could well go on for many a page and exhaust even the staunchest fan's endurance. Therefore I shall recount the happenings in bullet point style in order to regain somewhat of a regular posting style.
One has been through:
- the horror of a Grand Final loss endured with The Great Sandro fretting that a lead of 40 points could be lost in the final 2 minutes of the game while Legion2 and I tried to accept our tragic loss. This understandably took away one's will to blog for many days afterwards.
- the horror of putting myself through yet another of the The Viking Hat GM's fiendish D&D days. Albeit made easier by being held at Exploding Ninja Pony's new awesome Man-Cave (or Geek-Grotto if you are one of those pedants who prefers accuracy).This understandably took away one's will to blog for many days afterwards.
- the horror of realising that accepting Salsa Girl's Facebook declaration of our engaging situation announced it both far and wide and that "Facebook Friends" do indeed see what you display there. This one nearly confirmed one's Facebook shyness.
- the horror of another training day with free morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea . . . wait that one wasn't so bad. Understandably one was too bloated on returning home to conduct any blogging.
- the horror of having to set up one's new computer after the old faithful failed to respond at all. Of course this one made it rather difficult to get blogging done.
- the horror of realising that holding our sixth annual Absent Friends card day meant that we've been without an old friend for more than half a decade...
- the horror of yet another interstate conference junket with the threat of too many LibraryLand cocktails looming over one's head. Even Gamer Phil from an adjacent library service running gamer games in the evening couldn't help one from having many a drink thrust into one's hands (and yes, I do have to drink them). Still I managed to come through okay - at least from what I remember...
- the horror of another of our card tournaments where my cards refused to shuffle up in any sort of normal distribution pattern.
- the horror of a planning training morning timed to end before lunch so we can all head back to work! This one had me distraught for days and unable to commit any blogging activity.
- the horror of going to Geelong for another conference and, well, being in Geelong. The hotel gave me a room overlooking the stadium of the team that had so recently defeated one's Magpies and the trauma returned blotting out any thoughts of blogging.
- the horror of an afternoon under The Bastard's control in yet another irregular game. Maybe I shouldn't accept all these offers...
- the horror of ... ahem, the bliss of a week away down the coast with Salsa Girl. Time spent reading. playing Rummy, walking along beaches and cliffs. One did make an attempt to blog in the peace and quiet but that bX-1fv8xl error did in my mobile posting ambitions.
- the horror of a feline neglected for a week that decides the attention it is due shall be collected at 4am. Sleep deprivation makes one decidedly low in motivation to think up another of one's brilliant blog postings and high in motivation for disciplining The Tiger.
- the horror of BestFriendSincePrep abandoning one to make an international move of a few years and support his wife's career. Really, where was my opportunity to have a say in this decision?
- the twin horrors of a day of Gaming at the State Library (organised by Gamer Phil) followed by a regular Sunday's gaming. So many games to choose from, such little time...
- the horror of realising one has only a week remaining of one's holiday before having to dive into that mound of email and meeting invites.
- the horror of facing up to the construction of a huge update to the sadly neglected Tales. This one, especially, made it hard to get any blogging done.
Phew.
Regular service shall resume shortly.
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Yet another what's been going on post
So, sigh, it has gotten away from me again. It being: keeping a regular schedule of post with significant content - sure I could post a whole lot of twitteresque posts ala my 25 blogs of Xmas.
However, since I can link to it, you can see I've already done it before.
As to the happenings that have kept one away from The Tales, well I can count amongst them...
A relaxing old-school gaming Sunday which led into the week of the print system upgrade.
Not only did this so quoted "half-day job" turn out to be a full five day extravaganza, but I was also forced to skip gaming and assist AntagonisticAl at one of her festival events when there was trouble getting a laptop to present correctly. The difficulty of my investigation was enhanced considerably by the official photographer's extensive knowledge of everything. So amidst this flurry of superior advice I had to listen to many a repetition of basic IT procedure (i.e. turn it off and on) long after I was already onto the more advanced stuff like searching the help file. Suffice to say the hour was late and the thank-you-for-fixing-it champagne, pizza and cake so plentiful that I was forced to stay on for the duration of the event.
To make matters worse, just when the upgrade was coming to a near close - I say near as there are still some persistent niggly issues to be addressed - the Internet decided to disappear for most of Friday leaving me pretending to have work to do.
Having made it to this weekend last it was a pleasure to load Legion2 into the car and head out bush to attend a visit back to town by The Fungi Lady. Doom, The Doctor, MatrixMan, Vengeful Vic, and Couch Killer were also present.
Sunday, however, was back into the trend of horribly drawn out happenings as I attended the Carlton Weagles game with The Great Sandro after ElfBoy conveniently caught himself a Man-Cold and was unable to join us.
In true primary-school tradition though, he made a magnificent recovery in time for some post-footy card playing with Pirate Dave enticed into attendance. Said card games all being long drawn out affairs.
In a way it was a relief to return to work this week even though I was faced with the looming spectre of lingering printer problems and a return visit to our shores of the infamous Torchwood (there will undoubtedly be more on this iniquitous occurrence after a drinking session scheduled for tomorrow night).
Gaming was once again sacrificed for other pursuits - although this time not too far removed as it was another Geektogether drinks night.
Successful events from the evening include: Legion2 making it along for the first time; Pirate Dave reaching expected levels of inebriation in record time; and myself avoiding being dragooned into another game of The Viking Hat GM.
Today made the perfect antidote for lots of work with training in the city followed by an inexpensive steak lunch with CC and The Polster before returning to work for a meeting, some frivol and then home time.
Phew that was a lot to get through. Perhaps there would be some benefit to twitterising my postings after all...
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However, since I can link to it, you can see I've already done it before.
As to the happenings that have kept one away from The Tales, well I can count amongst them...
A relaxing old-school gaming Sunday which led into the week of the print system upgrade.
Not only did this so quoted "half-day job" turn out to be a full five day extravaganza, but I was also forced to skip gaming and assist AntagonisticAl at one of her festival events when there was trouble getting a laptop to present correctly. The difficulty of my investigation was enhanced considerably by the official photographer's extensive knowledge of everything. So amidst this flurry of superior advice I had to listen to many a repetition of basic IT procedure (i.e. turn it off and on) long after I was already onto the more advanced stuff like searching the help file. Suffice to say the hour was late and the thank-you-for-fixing-it champagne, pizza and cake so plentiful that I was forced to stay on for the duration of the event.
To make matters worse, just when the upgrade was coming to a near close - I say near as there are still some persistent niggly issues to be addressed - the Internet decided to disappear for most of Friday leaving me pretending to have work to do.
Having made it to this weekend last it was a pleasure to load Legion2 into the car and head out bush to attend a visit back to town by The Fungi Lady. Doom, The Doctor, MatrixMan, Vengeful Vic, and Couch Killer were also present.
Sunday, however, was back into the trend of horribly drawn out happenings as I attended the Carlton Weagles game with The Great Sandro after ElfBoy conveniently caught himself a Man-Cold and was unable to join us.
In true primary-school tradition though, he made a magnificent recovery in time for some post-footy card playing with Pirate Dave enticed into attendance. Said card games all being long drawn out affairs.
In a way it was a relief to return to work this week even though I was faced with the looming spectre of lingering printer problems and a return visit to our shores of the infamous Torchwood (there will undoubtedly be more on this iniquitous occurrence after a drinking session scheduled for tomorrow night).
Gaming was once again sacrificed for other pursuits - although this time not too far removed as it was another Geektogether drinks night.
Successful events from the evening include: Legion2 making it along for the first time; Pirate Dave reaching expected levels of inebriation in record time; and myself avoiding being dragooned into another game of The Viking Hat GM.
Today made the perfect antidote for lots of work with training in the city followed by an inexpensive steak lunch with CC and The Polster before returning to work for a meeting, some frivol and then home time.
Phew that was a lot to get through. Perhaps there would be some benefit to twitterising my postings after all...
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The Breakfast of Champions
With no Tales-worthy happenings at last evening's Lit-fest opening night I shall instead regale you with the happenings of today.
I was awake at the early hour of 8am to partake in a breakfast with Redneck Ben. Our venue of choice was in the local cafe precinct and we were served up a quite filling and delicious repast.
Our main topic of conversation - as we did wander somewhat, as one is want to do - was gaming and specifically our usage of the Fudge system to building systems that suit our own game running style and the particular groups of players we run games for. He did impart some advice for me that was eerily similar to both, advice that The Viking Hat GM has frequently espoused, and action that The Bastard frequently takes in the games he runs.
I expect much crying from my players when I deploy such strategies.
Breakfast was followed by The Afternoon of IT Support as I had to visit the family home to fix the internet connection yet again. Although this time Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad are away overseas. You would think that there would be no IT support required but, alas, the house-sitting friend has been having regular problems and leaving frantic telephone messages for me - my personal favourite being "the phone isn't working properly".
Sigh. An IT man's work is seldom done.
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I was awake at the early hour of 8am to partake in a breakfast with Redneck Ben. Our venue of choice was in the local cafe precinct and we were served up a quite filling and delicious repast.
Our main topic of conversation - as we did wander somewhat, as one is want to do - was gaming and specifically our usage of the Fudge system to building systems that suit our own game running style and the particular groups of players we run games for. He did impart some advice for me that was eerily similar to both, advice that The Viking Hat GM has frequently espoused, and action that The Bastard frequently takes in the games he runs.
I expect much crying from my players when I deploy such strategies.
Breakfast was followed by The Afternoon of IT Support as I had to visit the family home to fix the internet connection yet again. Although this time Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad are away overseas. You would think that there would be no IT support required but, alas, the house-sitting friend has been having regular problems and leaving frantic telephone messages for me - my personal favourite being "the phone isn't working properly".
Sigh. An IT man's work is seldom done.
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Shed Week
Shed Week was heralded in with a weekend party in honour of Agent Smith's newly constructed residence.
While transporting Legion2 and BrotherStealer to the shindig along with myself I may have become lost amongst the unfamiliar - and inadequately signposted - surrounds of the other side of the city. (Perhaps it should be other-other side, since work is already on the other side?) However it merely added to the sense of accomplishment once we did arrive.
At first the affair appeared to be merely a family one, and one did feel out of place amongst the relatives but soon the familiar faces began flowing in. There was The Valkyrie, and Amoeba, Mechwarrior Wayne, Camo Spice, Redneck Ben, Doom, The Doctor, and a most unexpected appearance from The Fungi Lady.
All in all a great night highlighted by Agent Smith and his band belting out some rock favourites in the pool room. The only downside was the good Agent outdoing my drumming prowess by also singing for several of the numbers - such five-way coordination having always been beyond my capabilities.
Early in shed week I snuck back into my home branch to try and recall what it was I had been missing these past few weeks. Alas no luck as the harassment soon drove me to spend the next few days in the IT shed at the corporate castle, ostensibly working on new PCs but actually just secluding myself from society.
Those days did allow me to finish reading The Men Who Stare at Goats which I found to be fun and interesting. It did confirm a lot of my conspiracy theories about the US military. Thanks to Badger for the birthday gift of the book.
A definite highlight of Shed Week was an Old School D&D bash, with The Viking Hat GM and others, in which stupid rules were enforced with TVHGM's usual forceful vigour. Despite all that my poor little Gnome character managed to survive and looks forward to serving his god Sumdertgud in future dungeon delving escapades.
Shed Week was wrapped up with a full day installing new PCs with my trusty sidekick Ms Magpie. Unlike my solo working style we got a lot done with minimal fuss - something it may take me some time to get used to experiencing.
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While transporting Legion2 and BrotherStealer to the shindig along with myself I may have become lost amongst the unfamiliar - and inadequately signposted - surrounds of the other side of the city. (Perhaps it should be other-other side, since work is already on the other side?) However it merely added to the sense of accomplishment once we did arrive.
At first the affair appeared to be merely a family one, and one did feel out of place amongst the relatives but soon the familiar faces began flowing in. There was The Valkyrie, and Amoeba, Mechwarrior Wayne, Camo Spice, Redneck Ben, Doom, The Doctor, and a most unexpected appearance from The Fungi Lady.
All in all a great night highlighted by Agent Smith and his band belting out some rock favourites in the pool room. The only downside was the good Agent outdoing my drumming prowess by also singing for several of the numbers - such five-way coordination having always been beyond my capabilities.
Early in shed week I snuck back into my home branch to try and recall what it was I had been missing these past few weeks. Alas no luck as the harassment soon drove me to spend the next few days in the IT shed at the corporate castle, ostensibly working on new PCs but actually just secluding myself from society.
Those days did allow me to finish reading The Men Who Stare at Goats which I found to be fun and interesting. It did confirm a lot of my conspiracy theories about the US military. Thanks to Badger for the birthday gift of the book.
A definite highlight of Shed Week was an Old School D&D bash, with The Viking Hat GM and others, in which stupid rules were enforced with TVHGM's usual forceful vigour. Despite all that my poor little Gnome character managed to survive and looks forward to serving his god Sumdertgud in future dungeon delving escapades.
Shed Week was wrapped up with a full day installing new PCs with my trusty sidekick Ms Magpie. Unlike my solo working style we got a lot done with minimal fuss - something it may take me some time to get used to experiencing.
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Bachelor night with Illuminated G
Yesterday, after an all morning meeting and the necessary extended lunch, it was not long before it was evening and I was heading off to the last minute Bachelor drinks for Illuminated G.
Of course since he has three children and twenty years in the relationship it could be argued that he said goodbye to his bachelorship a long time ago. However we still deigned to celebrate the occasion.
Also in attendance were Legion2, and Zombie Monkey whom it was good to catch up with again for the first time in ages.
The most disturbing part of the evening , however, was my uncovering of the conspiracy of deception that surrounded me. After a few drinks into the evening a further guest arrived who had also been at The Viking Hatted Wedding. Some short discussion later and the floodgates of memory opened and I realised many of Illuminated G and his friends knew The Viking Hat GM's best man from their uni days.
The obvious conclusion is that I was at the centre of a conspiracy to psychologically adjust me ala The Game (the movie not the thing you just lost) or as in a Philip K Dick (teehee) novel where they had run out of actors and had begun re-using them not realising that my keen perceptive senses would allow me to tie all the threads together and expose their plan before it could be completed.
Or maybe it's just a small world after all...
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Of course since he has three children and twenty years in the relationship it could be argued that he said goodbye to his bachelorship a long time ago. However we still deigned to celebrate the occasion.
Also in attendance were Legion2, and Zombie Monkey whom it was good to catch up with again for the first time in ages.
The most disturbing part of the evening , however, was my uncovering of the conspiracy of deception that surrounded me. After a few drinks into the evening a further guest arrived who had also been at The Viking Hatted Wedding. Some short discussion later and the floodgates of memory opened and I realised many of Illuminated G and his friends knew The Viking Hat GM's best man from their uni days.
The obvious conclusion is that I was at the centre of a conspiracy to psychologically adjust me ala The Game (the movie not the thing you just lost) or as in a Philip K Dick (teehee) novel where they had run out of actors and had begun re-using them not realising that my keen perceptive senses would allow me to tie all the threads together and expose their plan before it could be completed.
Or maybe it's just a small world after all...
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Phorgetful Phorties
While it may seem that a significant change in age has also caused a significant change in the ability of yours truly to remember to keep these humble Tales updated on something of a regular schedule I'm here to present evidence to the contrary.
Nothing has been forgotten from these weeks of silence - except possibly where I left the thingo, you know the whatsit.
Anyway here is a sampling of some of the many things that have kept me too busy to blog.
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Nothing has been forgotten from these weeks of silence - except possibly where I left the thingo, you know the whatsit.
Anyway here is a sampling of some of the many things that have kept me too busy to blog.
- Work of course, and far too much of it. Although I did finally receive my birthday present of my very own minion. Ms Magpie herself was lucky enough to be the recipient of the great honour.
- a lovely conference dinner with a guest appearance from Madame President over from the land of the long white sheep.
- going live with a Library Management System upgrade
- putting in a live appearance at The Viking Hat GM's latest game. Lured in by the promise of the strong leadership of Exploding Ninja Pony.
- making a brief attendance at the conference's trade show aka pen and novelty scavenger hunt. Afterwards I decided to avail myself of the shopping in the city and was then caught in the torrential downpour. There's nothing like catching the train home literally dripping water everywhere. Luckily the book I was reading was a library book so I can just say it was all wrinklified when I borrowed it.
- an expedition to the games shop to spend my librarian gifted birthday present. I now have even more of "far too many games and books", yay.
- a poker night with Dubrovnik Hater and friends in which I unfortunately cleaned up on the last hand most likely causing myself to never be invited back (since eating all the nibbles would never cause that)
- shopping in the city with The Great Sandro. Looking for my birthday present from him - Rome (the TV series, not the city) - and reminiscing about the great time he had with the librarians at my party - I did tell you he's crazy didn't I?
- last minute gaming events organised at my place by Elfboy
- a day home sick almost dying from the latest strain of man-cold - the vestiges of which are still with me to this day
- going to "our first NAB cup footy game together" with The Great Sandro and spending the whole first quarter queuing outside the, currently named, Etihad stadium to find an almost empty arena once inside - no wonder I hate that place.
- beer and board games with Badger
- Tuck's first attendance at the regular Sunday games only to have me spend several hours assuring him that, yes there are usually other people here, when everyone else decided to only make the evening.
- playing pirates with the Tuesday night gamers
- going back into the shed at work to prepare another round of new computers
- being cornered and missing out on drinks and nibbles at our new catalogue product launch
- filling my house with people for the latest of our regular card tournaments - Couch Killer was well behaved this time and no furniture was harmed
- a much delayed family birthday lunch at which Legion3 produced dirty rotten lying scales for our regular brothers weigh off - pffft 3 extra kilos!!!
- a training day with lots of food and me being under the weather with resurfacing man-cold and nasty headache. Honestly I was only able to eat two peoples worth of free lunch I was that bad off.
- a last minute gathering of geeks with great attendance, conversation and results. All thanks to The Viking Hat GM for going to the effort to organise lazy gamers into action.
- a day of setting up new computers with my trusty minion at my side
- a fortuitous game cancellation allowing me time to actually prepare for said games next occurrence
- a trip for groceries ending with my being pelted by golfball sized hailstones in the car park and once again being drenched to dripping-point - a trend I am not liking.
- and finally having to write a long and involved blog catch-up post to get you all back up to speed.
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The Missing Weeks. Part the Fifth
Contrary to unpopular belief I am not instituting a new regimen of daily posting.
The recent frequency is merely a part of the effort to catch up to the present day - a form of time travel, if you will, where the events fly past much faster than normal as we spirit forwards into the future (well, the now actually).
So let's set the controls for the new year and see how far we get...
A Lazy Xmas Day
After a nice little sleep in I collected Legion's 2 & 3 and we made our way to Legion headquarters.
With Freeloading Mum working until the late afternoon lunch was only attended by Handy Dad and the Legion. We partook in a relaxed BBQ lunch with the sun shining down upon us.
Later, when Freeloading Mum arrived, we commenced our giving of token presents and some catch up chat.
Legion followed this with a game of Shadows over Camelot which took us right up until BrotherStealer and the cousins arrived (separately).
Only one branch of cousinage was attending the evening this year on account of holidays I believe. We did see the ever reliable to be in attendance at family gatherings first-name-stealing-cos-he's-a-few-months-older-than-me Cousin Andrew, as well as Cousin Dave and wife and nearly newborn.
An evening feast was had and then the baby-burdened had to leave because of upsetness.
The rest of the 'kids' retired to the garage and thus ensued many hours of Kelly pool playing on the wonky family table.
Thankfully the behaviour of Legion4 was in stark contrast to the previous Xmas day as he had only a moderate number of drinks and was quite the enjoyable company for the whole day.
An Average Boxing Day Board Games
Upon consultation with Pirate Dave it was decided to hold the nigh-traditional board game playing day on the Sunday between the actual day and the public holiday - sort of an average of the two.
ElfBoy, however, had other ideas. Having only cleared his schedule for the actual day - and inexplicably not checking his email on Xmas - he twisted my arm and enforced card playing for the evening of the actual Boxing Day. Of course Pirate Dave and Legion2 were also dragooned into the event.
The next day we gathered for the actual boardgames, swapping Badger in for the unavailable ElfBoy. We managed to knock out a whole mini campaign of my go-to wargame - Memoir'44. However without the assistance of The Viking Hat GM we Belgians could not even muster up a single win and had to give over France to the Germans.
There was not much else happening in the week leading up to years end, a few days off, a few work days that felt like days off and otherwise life as usual.
The New Years Eve Movie Night
Our plan for this New Years was to gather at MatrixMan's to participate in what I like to call "Educating Vengeful Vic". You see MM and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to rectify that terrible Escape from New York shaped gap in Vengeful Vic's cult filmic experience.
We gathered that evening with Legion2, BrotherStealer and Pirate Dave. Of course Couch Killer was also there, hogging all the attention as usual.
We opened the evening with pizza and wine - always the best way to start a movie night - and then commenced our support feature The Ninth Gate up until that point unseen by yours truly.
It was a good supernatural thriller reminiscent of your Damiens and Rosemary's Babies, requiring some thinking to figure it out but between the roomful of us we managed to reach the level of intellect needed.
After that it was onto our main feature which still stood the test of time despite being set in the Now of 1997, and having ginormous mobile phones as state of the art tech.
And so, this brings us to the end of our little series of catch up postings. You should all be well versed in what exactly occurred to this auteur in those many weeks of blogging silence.
A new year would be the time to make all sorts of resolutions about more regular updates but, sadly, the time has passed as I write this and I shall have to wait for New Years next before the opportunity for the declaring of such a resolution arises once more.
up next: a return to the irregular scheduling you must surely have become used to over the last year.
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The recent frequency is merely a part of the effort to catch up to the present day - a form of time travel, if you will, where the events fly past much faster than normal as we spirit forwards into the future (well, the now actually).
So let's set the controls for the new year and see how far we get...
A Lazy Xmas Day
After a nice little sleep in I collected Legion's 2 & 3 and we made our way to Legion headquarters.
With Freeloading Mum working until the late afternoon lunch was only attended by Handy Dad and the Legion. We partook in a relaxed BBQ lunch with the sun shining down upon us.
Later, when Freeloading Mum arrived, we commenced our giving of token presents and some catch up chat.
Legion followed this with a game of Shadows over Camelot which took us right up until BrotherStealer and the cousins arrived (separately).
Only one branch of cousinage was attending the evening this year on account of holidays I believe. We did see the ever reliable to be in attendance at family gatherings first-name-stealing-cos-he's-a-few-months-older-than-me Cousin Andrew, as well as Cousin Dave and wife and nearly newborn.
An evening feast was had and then the baby-burdened had to leave because of upsetness.
The rest of the 'kids' retired to the garage and thus ensued many hours of Kelly pool playing on the wonky family table.
Thankfully the behaviour of Legion4 was in stark contrast to the previous Xmas day as he had only a moderate number of drinks and was quite the enjoyable company for the whole day.
An Average Boxing Day Board Games
Upon consultation with Pirate Dave it was decided to hold the nigh-traditional board game playing day on the Sunday between the actual day and the public holiday - sort of an average of the two.
ElfBoy, however, had other ideas. Having only cleared his schedule for the actual day - and inexplicably not checking his email on Xmas - he twisted my arm and enforced card playing for the evening of the actual Boxing Day. Of course Pirate Dave and Legion2 were also dragooned into the event.
The next day we gathered for the actual boardgames, swapping Badger in for the unavailable ElfBoy. We managed to knock out a whole mini campaign of my go-to wargame - Memoir'44. However without the assistance of The Viking Hat GM we Belgians could not even muster up a single win and had to give over France to the Germans.
There was not much else happening in the week leading up to years end, a few days off, a few work days that felt like days off and otherwise life as usual.
The New Years Eve Movie Night
Our plan for this New Years was to gather at MatrixMan's to participate in what I like to call "Educating Vengeful Vic". You see MM and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to rectify that terrible Escape from New York shaped gap in Vengeful Vic's cult filmic experience.
We gathered that evening with Legion2, BrotherStealer and Pirate Dave. Of course Couch Killer was also there, hogging all the attention as usual.
We opened the evening with pizza and wine - always the best way to start a movie night - and then commenced our support feature The Ninth Gate up until that point unseen by yours truly.
It was a good supernatural thriller reminiscent of your Damiens and Rosemary's Babies, requiring some thinking to figure it out but between the roomful of us we managed to reach the level of intellect needed.
After that it was onto our main feature which still stood the test of time despite being set in the Now of 1997, and having ginormous mobile phones as state of the art tech.
And so, this brings us to the end of our little series of catch up postings. You should all be well versed in what exactly occurred to this auteur in those many weeks of blogging silence.
A new year would be the time to make all sorts of resolutions about more regular updates but, sadly, the time has passed as I write this and I shall have to wait for New Years next before the opportunity for the declaring of such a resolution arises once more.
up next: a return to the irregular scheduling you must surely have become used to over the last year.
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The Missing Weeks. Part the Fourth
Blithely ignoring the new year I shall continue on with retelling the myriad of events from those missing weeks.
The Viking Hatted Wedding
My next morning began with my awakening thankfully without any after-effects from the night before.
I spruced myself up and headed out for the ceremony section of The Viking Hat GM's day of nuptials. Exploding Ninja Pony was also there and The Mad Magyar was also present in his capacity as one of the best men - although sadly, for his manliness, he was beaten out of the prime spot by a girl.
After the ceremony I was lucky enough to once more be a passenger in Exploding Ninja Pony's car as we headed out to the most important part of the day - the lunch. I must say that Pony seemed a much more relaxed driver without the constant threat of Viking stomach emptying that accompanied our last sojourn together.
Lunch was a lovely Afghan affair with many courses and good company.
Afterwards I was unable to resist the allure of cake back at Viking HQ so once more was spirited to a new location on the Pony express.
Once there we partook in teo of my favourite things - cake and conversation until the early evening when I decided to make swift my exit as I detected the cleaning up had began to get underway.
In the spirit of being true to TVHGM's greenwards leanings I made the long trip back home on the various train lines - horrifyingly without a skerrick of reading matter - finally making it back to my bed a shade before midnight and collapsing exhausted into bed.
The Xmas Work Week
The workdays leading up to Xmas are a blur of activity including: several last minute IT issues; ElfBoy plying the weekly gaming table with wine; staffroom tables brimming over with enough borrower-gifted chocolate to give an elephant type 7 diabetes; a sedate lunch with the IT crowd; a rather more boisterous council Xmas lunch greatly attended by library staff; and finally an Xmas Eve gaming night transformed into Chinese restaurant feast with Pirate Dave and Fantomas. - but we did fit in a game of Piratalismanopoly so all was not un-gamey.
up next: Xmas and the New Year
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The Viking Hatted Wedding
My next morning began with my awakening thankfully without any after-effects from the night before.
I spruced myself up and headed out for the ceremony section of The Viking Hat GM's day of nuptials. Exploding Ninja Pony was also there and The Mad Magyar was also present in his capacity as one of the best men - although sadly, for his manliness, he was beaten out of the prime spot by a girl.
After the ceremony I was lucky enough to once more be a passenger in Exploding Ninja Pony's car as we headed out to the most important part of the day - the lunch. I must say that Pony seemed a much more relaxed driver without the constant threat of Viking stomach emptying that accompanied our last sojourn together.
Lunch was a lovely Afghan affair with many courses and good company.
Afterwards I was unable to resist the allure of cake back at Viking HQ so once more was spirited to a new location on the Pony express.
Once there we partook in teo of my favourite things - cake and conversation until the early evening when I decided to make swift my exit as I detected the cleaning up had began to get underway.
In the spirit of being true to TVHGM's greenwards leanings I made the long trip back home on the various train lines - horrifyingly without a skerrick of reading matter - finally making it back to my bed a shade before midnight and collapsing exhausted into bed.
The Xmas Work Week
The workdays leading up to Xmas are a blur of activity including: several last minute IT issues; ElfBoy plying the weekly gaming table with wine; staffroom tables brimming over with enough borrower-gifted chocolate to give an elephant type 7 diabetes; a sedate lunch with the IT crowd; a rather more boisterous council Xmas lunch greatly attended by library staff; and finally an Xmas Eve gaming night transformed into Chinese restaurant feast with Pirate Dave and Fantomas. - but we did fit in a game of Piratalismanopoly so all was not un-gamey.
up next: Xmas and the New Year
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The Missing Weeks. Part the First
Well I've been out of communication for weeks now.
I could claim that it's some sort of arty project to have this December be a reverse of the previous one and it's 25 blogs of Xmas.
But methinks that's all a tad too much to believe - even of The Tales.
Instead you shall just have to believe that I have been exceedingly busy with stuff. The following list should convince you of my extreme busyness quotient until such time as I have you all caught up on the myriads of interesting events that befell your correspondent in that intriguingly un-blogged time.
SPUN XMAS Meeting
We begin with the annual SPUN Xmas meeting which, true to tradition, I attended without the assistance of the esteemed Mr Prada who once again perplexingly had better things to do than attend a free feed.
I was suffering some trepidation going into this meeting as I feared I may be elected into some official capacity for the coming year. There was also the fear about returning to the ground upon which I had received my recent dose of Wine Poisoning.
I was lucky enough to escape this time with only a mild case - despite the best efforts of Dubrovnik Hater and The Puppies.
The Viking-Hatted Bucks Night
After a brief return home for rest I was off again that night for the next stop in my social itinerary. This was the much anticipated bucks night for The Viking Hat GM. The anticipation came from the fact that The Mad Magyar was responsible for the organisation and I was expecting to get a giant insight into the Eastern European buck's night traditions - I imagined something along the lines of the groom having to win several knife-fights or possibly wrestle a wild animal into submission whilst under the influence of several litres of petrol-grade alcohol.
Apparently though, the way they do it in the old country involves go-carting, rounds of drinks, walking aimlessly through the city not wanting to pay $10 cover charges, and eventually going home when the buck refuses to enter any further establishments.
Hmm, it's a small world after all.
In the end I made it home thanks to the grace of Exploding Ninja Pony who detoured to drop me on my doorstep despite his obvious gut-clenching fear that The Viking Hat GM was only a hair's breadth away from engaging in that wonderful Australian custom of the auto-interior technicolour yawn.
Up next: what happens when you gather 40 librarians in a room with food and drink?
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I could claim that it's some sort of arty project to have this December be a reverse of the previous one and it's 25 blogs of Xmas.
But methinks that's all a tad too much to believe - even of The Tales.
Instead you shall just have to believe that I have been exceedingly busy with stuff. The following list should convince you of my extreme busyness quotient until such time as I have you all caught up on the myriads of interesting events that befell your correspondent in that intriguingly un-blogged time.
SPUN XMAS Meeting
We begin with the annual SPUN Xmas meeting which, true to tradition, I attended without the assistance of the esteemed Mr Prada who once again perplexingly had better things to do than attend a free feed.
I was suffering some trepidation going into this meeting as I feared I may be elected into some official capacity for the coming year. There was also the fear about returning to the ground upon which I had received my recent dose of Wine Poisoning.
I was lucky enough to escape this time with only a mild case - despite the best efforts of Dubrovnik Hater and The Puppies.
The Viking-Hatted Bucks Night
After a brief return home for rest I was off again that night for the next stop in my social itinerary. This was the much anticipated bucks night for The Viking Hat GM. The anticipation came from the fact that The Mad Magyar was responsible for the organisation and I was expecting to get a giant insight into the Eastern European buck's night traditions - I imagined something along the lines of the groom having to win several knife-fights or possibly wrestle a wild animal into submission whilst under the influence of several litres of petrol-grade alcohol.
Apparently though, the way they do it in the old country involves go-carting, rounds of drinks, walking aimlessly through the city not wanting to pay $10 cover charges, and eventually going home when the buck refuses to enter any further establishments.
Hmm, it's a small world after all.
In the end I made it home thanks to the grace of Exploding Ninja Pony who detoured to drop me on my doorstep despite his obvious gut-clenching fear that The Viking Hat GM was only a hair's breadth away from engaging in that wonderful Australian custom of the auto-interior technicolour yawn.
Up next: what happens when you gather 40 librarians in a room with food and drink?
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The Return to Normalcy
So Wednesday was the scheduled day for my triumphant return to LibraryLand and the usual hum-drum of the day to day workday. True to my amazing recuperative powers I was all ready to keep my scheduled return date and was even looking forward to having some human company as The Tiger seemed completely oblivious to my need for careful nursing over the previous week.
So Tuesday night was when a major server decided to "fall over", as we say in the high jargon IT world, just so that many things would have trouble first thing in the morning. Did I mention my plan to take it easy on my first day by arriving around eleven?
So anyway, there I was, up early to do my knee-ish physio exercises - least The Viking Hat GM come around and knee-cap me for being one of those people that don't do the recovery exercises and then whine that the operation didn't fix anything - and lo and behold the phone begins to ring.
So of course it was Sister Serials with some query, only she would be callous enough to value her record as my chief tormentor over my health and call so early on my day of return.
Alas she was not the only call that morning. They followed in quick succession and before long I was busily trying to fix things remotely from home.
So eventually I was able to make it in at about 1pm - just in time for my lunch break.
So that evening there was normalcy at the regular game hosted by The Viking Hat GM as he once again made us face a deadly enemy - luckily we were too good for his shenanigans.
So Thursday there was even more normalcy as I had to struggle through roadworks and Punt Rd traffic to get to a regular morning meeting.
Refreshingly I was subject of some very abnormal behaviour as a chorus of workmates greeted me joyfully as I walked late into the meeting. We even had a post meeting lunch in honour of The Administrator having a birthday that day. Honestly, what some people will do to steal my limelight!
So while we're on the subject of limelight stealing let's not forget the dinner I attended that night in honour of Comrade Treasurer's change of job. You can guess which recently operated upon IT man was not the centre of attention there as well.
So, sigh, only a week after being operated upon and the universe had already run out of sympathy for me.
So such is the normalcy under which I live my life.
(So I've found out with this post that you can start any paragraph with so. Amazing isn't it?)
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So Tuesday night was when a major server decided to "fall over", as we say in the high jargon IT world, just so that many things would have trouble first thing in the morning. Did I mention my plan to take it easy on my first day by arriving around eleven?
So anyway, there I was, up early to do my knee-ish physio exercises - least The Viking Hat GM come around and knee-cap me for being one of those people that don't do the recovery exercises and then whine that the operation didn't fix anything - and lo and behold the phone begins to ring.
So of course it was Sister Serials with some query, only she would be callous enough to value her record as my chief tormentor over my health and call so early on my day of return.
Alas she was not the only call that morning. They followed in quick succession and before long I was busily trying to fix things remotely from home.
So eventually I was able to make it in at about 1pm - just in time for my lunch break.
So that evening there was normalcy at the regular game hosted by The Viking Hat GM as he once again made us face a deadly enemy - luckily we were too good for his shenanigans.
So Thursday there was even more normalcy as I had to struggle through roadworks and Punt Rd traffic to get to a regular morning meeting.
Refreshingly I was subject of some very abnormal behaviour as a chorus of workmates greeted me joyfully as I walked late into the meeting. We even had a post meeting lunch in honour of The Administrator having a birthday that day. Honestly, what some people will do to steal my limelight!
So while we're on the subject of limelight stealing let's not forget the dinner I attended that night in honour of Comrade Treasurer's change of job. You can guess which recently operated upon IT man was not the centre of attention there as well.
So, sigh, only a week after being operated upon and the universe had already run out of sympathy for me.
So such is the normalcy under which I live my life.
(So I've found out with this post that you can start any paragraph with so. Amazing isn't it?)
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... The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
Many other things are happening whilst I chip away behind the scenes composing my much anticipated conference report.
My finishing of this novel this morning for instance. It was such a wonderful read that I am ready to pronounce it my book of the year.
The Curse of Chalion has been the most enjoyable of the scant 19 or so books I have managed to read this nigh-overwhelmingly busy year.
It is a wonderfully written tale with great depth to the characters and world. I found that it's tale resonated with me as it used many of the themes that I enjoy immensely. I highly recommend it unless you have some unnatural aversion to books of the Fantasy genre (and even then you should know that the fantastical is minimal and it is much more a novel of medieval-esque society)
A big thank you to Vengeful Vic for persisting to recommend it until I got the hint and finally borrowed the book.
Speaking of curses I attended a bountiful BBQ feast at The Viking Hat GM's yesterday wherat I was plied with food and good company until the early evening, reminiscing over gaming times past with The Mad Magyar and The Blithe Bogan.
Eventually taking my leave - supplied with a goodly portion of leftovers as is the Viking custom - I then traversed this great city we live in to attend the birthday drinks of Legion4. Along with Legion2, Jamo and Tone we talked the night away while Legion4 sadly recreated his state of inebriation of last Xmas. Some sort of intervention will probably be in order in the near future.
Today has been a sublime day of not much to do other than bask in the joy of finishing a great book and catch up on all the domestic things that have to be done in order to keep one's demesne functioning to it's full capacity.
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My finishing of this novel this morning for instance. It was such a wonderful read that I am ready to pronounce it my book of the year.
The Curse of Chalion has been the most enjoyable of the scant 19 or so books I have managed to read this nigh-overwhelmingly busy year.
It is a wonderfully written tale with great depth to the characters and world. I found that it's tale resonated with me as it used many of the themes that I enjoy immensely. I highly recommend it unless you have some unnatural aversion to books of the Fantasy genre (and even then you should know that the fantastical is minimal and it is much more a novel of medieval-esque society)
A big thank you to Vengeful Vic for persisting to recommend it until I got the hint and finally borrowed the book.
Speaking of curses I attended a bountiful BBQ feast at The Viking Hat GM's yesterday wherat I was plied with food and good company until the early evening, reminiscing over gaming times past with The Mad Magyar and The Blithe Bogan.
Eventually taking my leave - supplied with a goodly portion of leftovers as is the Viking custom - I then traversed this great city we live in to attend the birthday drinks of Legion4. Along with Legion2, Jamo and Tone we talked the night away while Legion4 sadly recreated his state of inebriation of last Xmas. Some sort of intervention will probably be in order in the near future.
Today has been a sublime day of not much to do other than bask in the joy of finishing a great book and catch up on all the domestic things that have to be done in order to keep one's demesne functioning to it's full capacity.
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... The Long, Long, Long, Long, Long Week
So one of our branches was undergoing a re-carpeting and installation of a new circulation desk this week.
You would think that there would be no need for an IT Man to be on site at the beginning of such an enterprise - let alone for a 6am start.
But you would be wrong.
You would also be wrong if you thought that the first day would be the only day where such an esteemed personage would be required extra early as the second day also required such supervision.
And if you also thought that early starts would entail early finishes, thereby maintaining some sort of balance then you would be wrong once more.
You would be at your wrongest if you thought the three day quote which became four and then stretched into five once the job began would not impact on the time and opportunity to restore one branch-ful of IT equipment to it's correct places and in perfect working order.
There were, however, some good things about this week that lasted forever.
In other news I have had my flowing locks pared back as part of the tarting up one must do before partaking in a Libraryland conference such as the one I shall be attending next week.
It also allows me to look my best when I am off away down South tomorrow with Redneck Ben on a drive of over an hour to attend the christening of My Guitarist's spawn.
You would be wrong if you thought this event would happen at an acceptable hour rather than 8.30am on a Sunday.
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You would think that there would be no need for an IT Man to be on site at the beginning of such an enterprise - let alone for a 6am start.
But you would be wrong.
You would also be wrong if you thought that the first day would be the only day where such an esteemed personage would be required extra early as the second day also required such supervision.
And if you also thought that early starts would entail early finishes, thereby maintaining some sort of balance then you would be wrong once more.
You would be at your wrongest if you thought the three day quote which became four and then stretched into five once the job began would not impact on the time and opportunity to restore one branch-ful of IT equipment to it's correct places and in perfect working order.
There were, however, some good things about this week that lasted forever.
- I had fellow sufferers in the form of Sonja Roster Queen and Big J.
- I was able to muscle in on many a morning tea and cakes and the final pizza lunch. All under the pretence that I'd been working all that time that I'd been present at the library.
- I received an immense amount of help from Ms Magpie in the last afternoon which helped shave hours off the time I had to stay behind with naught but cleaners for company. Without her contribution I'm sure I would have seen midnight and beyond.
- I was far too tired at Wednesday night roleplaying to notice the maliciousness with which The Viking Hat GM disposed of my character (ironically a Viking) in his latest game. Instead I attributed it to fatigue marring my judgement.
- I had the perfect excuse for a long, long, long, long, long sleep-in this morning
In other news I have had my flowing locks pared back as part of the tarting up one must do before partaking in a Libraryland conference such as the one I shall be attending next week.
It also allows me to look my best when I am off away down South tomorrow with Redneck Ben on a drive of over an hour to attend the christening of My Guitarist's spawn.
You would be wrong if you thought this event would happen at an acceptable hour rather than 8.30am on a Sunday.
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