Home

Advertisement

Customize
About this Journal

An arrogant, ill old gamer and washed-up academic posting at infrequent intervals about role playing, sport, politics, international conflict, terrorism and sarcasm.
Current Month
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930
Sep. 28th, 2009 @ 06:38 pm Back!
Current Mood: weird
I have now, somehow, acquired myself a wife.

Wow.

I am exhausted, but managed to remain at least nominally coherent and active throughout the reception. It took maximum doses of drugs just to manage to venture out of the apartment twice yesterday, and I am rapidly winding down now... but we've made it back home and have made a small dent in the task of attempting to bring order to the wild chaos left by Janet's high-speed dress-making and the other wedding preparations.

I am shattered, woozy, quite impressively disoriented - and also guilty about having failed to invite various people. Sincere apologies to anyone who would have liked to come, but didn't get asked to.

Fortunately, things seemed to go rather well - and everything, even the weather, went far better than I'd feared it might. My health held together (just about) long enough for me to get through it all.

I've got a stack of letters of thanks to write, and a host of chores to tackle, so I'd best head off and fall asleep doing those rather than passing out on the keyboard....
About this Entry
Default
6 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Sep. 25th, 2009 @ 10:41 pm I'm getting hitched
Current Mood: sleepy
As most of those reading this should know by now, I'm getting married.

To be precise, as I type this, the ceremony is due to start in 16 hours and 11 minutes.

For those who want to poke around a little wiki related to it, just click here. There might, at some point, be photos of the event posted up there too. :)

To those I'm due to see tomorrow: I hope that you have a good time, and that the labyrinthitis lets me stay at least generally upright through most of it.

To those who have sent good wishes from afar: thank you, very much. I've been touched and flattered by the warm words of support, congratulation and encouragement.

I've still got a few minor chores to sort out, but it looks like everything is as in-order as it can be. :)
About this Entry
Default
7 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Sep. 1st, 2009 @ 11:25 am Amusing in different ways
Stephen Hawking would be dead if he'd been British.

A few examples of Chinese tourist information. I love the warning to sword-wielding ragamuffins....
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jul. 24th, 2009 @ 03:05 pm Awwwwwwwww....
Current Mood: amused
Now this is really sickeningly cute....
About this Entry
Default
1 comment
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jul. 21st, 2009 @ 02:07 pm The interwebz and history
Current Mood: impressed
Rather a good combination, at times.

This is an online database of soliders who feature in late medieval English muster rolls. Some "soldier profiles" have been lifted out, to track the careers of particular people - interesting oddities (e.g. a Welshman involved in spying and treason) and unusual exemplars alike.
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jul. 20th, 2009 @ 12:43 pm Wheeeeeeeee!
Current Mood: ecstatic
Tags:
Not that most of you will care in the slightest, but England have just beaten Australia, to get their first victory over the old enemy at Lord's since 1934 (how typically English to be unable to win at your own headquarters!).

And Andrew Flintoff got five wickets and his name on the honours board in his last Test series (and possibly his last Test match, if the injury he's suffering from is bad enough).


Ahem... now... what was I meant to be doing today?
About this Entry
Default
1 comment
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 18th, 2009 @ 11:54 pm Sophos's latest anti-virus product
Current Mood: amused
It will "quickly perform an on-demand scan and find viruses, spyware, adware, zero-day threats, Betazoid sub-ether porn diallers and Tribbles that your existing protection might have missed."

Welcome to the Klingon anti-virus protection system.

"Can't read Klingon? What are you!!? Ferengi?"
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
May. 18th, 2009 @ 01:48 pm Idle but lengthy cynicism...
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: 2nd Test, from Chester-le-Street
( ...can be found under the cut )
About this Entry
Default
6 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 12th, 2009 @ 05:05 pm Mis-heard on the news...
Current Mood: amused

"...and today, scientists announced the discovery of two thousand were-orangutans in India..."

Fortunately for the safety of the world, they're actually rare orangutans....
About this Entry
Default
3 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Apr. 9th, 2009 @ 11:58 am R.I.P. Dave Arneson
Current Mood: thoughtful
According to reports online (and following some conflicting reports over the last couple of days), the non-media-loving "co-creator of D&D" has died at the age of 61.

Dave Arneson is credited as being the first person to have taken wargames and turned them into stories about individual characters controlled on a one-for-one basis by players. He's credited with inventing the first-ever "role-playing campaign" and the first-ever "role-playing campaign setting" (Blackmoor).

Though it's Gary Gygax who became the "face" of (A)D&D (and who is often though responsible for having forced Arneson out of TSR just as it was becoming truly successful), Arneson himself has always seemed to me to be under-appreciated as the original instigator of the role-playing game hobby - with all its increasingly-popular online spin-offs nowadays. Indeed, as is semi-traditional for former RPG-designers, he went on to found a company creating computer games, and lectured on game design.
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Mar. 21st, 2009 @ 02:12 pm Startlingly brilliant
Sheep. As mobile art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Mar. 11th, 2009 @ 02:38 pm Brief Medical Update
Current Mood: exhausted
Survived my "day of appointments" yesterday. Loooong day, but I did manage to catch the last train out of Edinburgh before the switch to "peak rate" would have delayed my return home for another two hours....

The summaries of results would be:

a) I'm not blitheringly insane, and NHS aid for mental health (unless you're certifiable) is very limited indeed. I knew both of these already.

I do have the names of a couple of local charities that might be able to offer counselling, and see if improving my mental state can boost my physical, and have been recommended to try St John's Wort (which I'd come across in historical herbiaries).

b) I'm not cured, but the drugs help a bit. Well, I knew both of those, too.

The new step is to double the dose of drugs, and see if that has more of an impact....
About this Entry
Default
4 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jan. 28th, 2009 @ 02:51 pm For the historians, mathematicians and general nerds out there...
Click here for a little story about the recovery of a 700 year-old text written on the 2,200 year-old pages first used by Archimedes - which provide us with the only known copies of several of his works.
About this Entry
Default
2 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Jan. 9th, 2009 @ 01:54 am Back home....
...but exhausted.

The festive season was interesting and often fun, but involved far too much travelling. And too few quiet times spent with good books. ;)

Still sleeping 10-12 hours a day, but I think I'm gradually improving. Might even manage some housework, and the various RP projects I've promised to do really should get tackled at some point....
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Dec. 24th, 2008 @ 06:23 pm Blargh
Current Mood: busy
Apologies in advance, should I infect anyone tomorrow.

I'm currently lurgified. Fortunately, it seems to be progressing rapidly - yesterday, I was thoroughly disgustingly snotulent; today, I'm having fever flashes and coughing a lot - so by tomorrow I might be more than half-way coherent.

Thanks to a somewhat ravaged throat, my voice is also several octaves down from its normal spot. Caught myself singing along to "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" in a rather deep bass, which sounded halfway tolerable. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was hastily aborted, however. ;)

Now... back to wrapping presents. Scissors, tangled paper, and trying to cope with figuring things out in three dimensions. Rather an interesting challenge when the labyrnthitis is playing up!

Merry Christmas, everyone. :)
About this Entry
Default
2 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Nov. 30th, 2008 @ 02:25 pm Clives James on form
Current Mood: thoughtful
A "point of view" article on the BBC News site, about the media cult of "terror chic" and the entertainment industry's love of glamourising evil.
About this Entry
Default
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Nov. 8th, 2008 @ 05:55 pm An Update on the Gen Con Charity Donation...
It now seems that the charity did not have an official policy to reject roleplaying-connected gifts. The response given to Gen Con appears to have simply been a maverick employee providing a personal opinion - which removes the apparent hypocrisy of having previously accepted money from Gygax himself.

There's still some buck-passing going on as to who might be to blame for the "misunderstanding", but we don't seem to be back in the foolish days of the 80s paranoia about gaming (thankfully).
About this Entry
Default
1 comment
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Oct. 31st, 2008 @ 04:11 pm Back to the 80s...
Current Mood: irritated
I found this story on Giant in the Playground, the home of the wonderful "Order of the Stick" webcomic.

Apparently, GenCon Indianapolis raised $17,000 for Gary Gygax's favourite charity, in honour of the 'founder of the hobby'. Yet this money has been turned down by the charity in question... explicitly because some of it came from the sale of - *gasp* - D&D products.

Yet it took money from Gygax himself on many occasions, and doesn't appear to be making any similar "moral" stands about _those_ funds. Apparently, cash taken from a dead man's fine, but cash offered by people seeking to honour him isn't.

Funnily enough, other charities haven't been quite so contrary and the money should now be put to use... but I'd thought that this sort of stupidity petered out years ago.
About this Entry
Default
42 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Oct. 7th, 2008 @ 12:16 am Goshdarnit!
Due to a problem with striking rail workers, I think it'd be a good idea to shelve my plans to head through to attend my first LARP since March.

Apparently, the last train heading for Glasgow Central (the service upon which I usually depend) leaves Edinburgh at 6pm. That would make attending a game that starts an hour and a half after that point rather decidedly awkward....

Phooey.
About this Entry
Default
2 comments
Leave a comment
Permanent Link
Sep. 19th, 2008 @ 07:32 pm Wow....
Current Mood: tired
Beautiful, weird, and fascinating....
About this Entry
Default
1 comment
Leave a comment
Permanent Link