Wealth hazard

New mates

Spent Sunday "D&D"-ing at TC's joint (also present: LPO, JM, LM). Was mightily impressed by his latest import - a dedicated gaming table with slide-out trays for each of the six places (complete with dice holders), plus two covered compartments inside the tabletop where he had encounter maps/miniatures set up ready, out of sight. My Half-orc cleric was joining the party for the fourth session of what was already a convoluted campaign, so I concentrated on the tasks at hand. These boiled down to us slogging through a disease-ridden jungle, vanquishing a gang of assorted lizardfolk in the ruins of an Elvish temple, then holding off another, trickier force as we defended a village until its inhabitants could flee by boat. But for my comrades' heroics, I would have died in the first battle AND the second. Got a lift to Kogarah afterwards, caught a train to Central, then decided to hop a cab from there because it was growing chilly. Ended up in one of only a dozen or so (I'm told) Toyota Prius taxis in Sydney. When I expressed an interest, the driver turned on the "energy monitor" display and explained how the car's hybrid petrol-electric system works in practice. Fascinating stuff! An unexpected bonus.

Waiting for the man

Why is it that courier companies, even when rung as soon as they open, can't provide a more precise delivery time than a four-hour window? Do their drivers choose a route at random?

Funnier than "Tron: Legacy" (ta, DL)

http://bit.ly/pMKgrC

On the turning away

Let's pretend the boring, overly self-indulgent "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century: 1969" never happened. In fact, I'm tempted to mindwipe myself of everything post-"Volume II". Can't wait until Alan Moore gets off this copious-references-to-the-detriment-of-the-rest-of-it track.

Useless movie reviews (August, part deux)

"Hancock": Has forced me to totally reappraise Will Smith's acting abilities.
"Faintheart": It's a play on "Braveheart", don'tcha know.
"The Sacred Blacksmith - The Complete Collection": "Awaken, and slay God!"
"Eko Eko Azarak III - Misa The Dark Angel": Dunno if I can sit through another of these.
"JourneyQuest - Season 1": Must remember to "like" Dead Gentlemen on Facey.
"The Dungeon Masters": There but for the grace of Pelor go I.
"Harvey Putter And The Ridiculous Premise": Remind me again why I bought this.
"Zack And Miri Make A Porno": A Christmas gift...in 2008.

Stewart Lee rocks

Read this tabloid crap - http://bit.ly/pg3oZM
Then read SL's rebuttal - http://bit.ly/pfWhWZ
And then, if you've got time, check out some of his comedy routines on YouTube.

Cute disclaimer

"In the interest of privacy, names and identifying characteristics have been changed, timelines have been compressed, and some of the dialogue is more exact than some of the other dialogue. Although subject to impression and memory, this is a work of non-fiction. The events described have happened. Except, of course, for a couple of passages, which I'm pretty sure have been so distorted by interpretation that no place and no-one involved with them actually exist, including myself, including you"
- "How Did You Get This Number" (2010) by Sloane Crosley.

"You know me well / But I don't know you at all"

[EARLY EDITION]

The perfect videogame

* Is played entirely offline, favouring AI and imagination over unnecessary complexity and oh-so-many assclowns
* Will NEVER have DLC - it is a complete product
* Nor does it try to blackmail customers into chain-store pre-orders by offering exclusive content. Whenever or wherever you purchase it, you will have unfettered access to 100% of the features
* There is no special edition of the perfect videogame available. It can stand on its own merits without an oversized package of "collectible" tat
* It is neither sequel nor tie-in nor first-person shooter but rather a wholly original concept
* The "team" behind it was as small as possible, preferably a lone individual with a vision unsullied by committee or focus group
* Is immersive, intuitive, balanced, replayable and FUN
* Borders on art

Seven gets brushed (and comes across as a tad creepy)

Jevvan: "How did you get here?"
The Doctor: "It flies, too, you see. Short jumps. Long jumps. You'll see on the way home. Any other luggage?"
"Home?"
"Isn't that where you're going?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Well, I'll have you back in time for your birthday!"
"It doesn't take a year to get to Earth."
"The birthday you just missed. Home in a twinkling - before a twinkling can even start."
"No!"
"What?"
"Not like that. Don't just assume."
"Scenic destinations? Wine-dark skies, forests of smoke..."
"Bet you say that to everyone."
"I try to vary it."
"No, sorry. I want to see the bits in between, out the window. No point in travelling if I don't see where I'm going."
"Ahhh."
"So thanks, Doctor, but no thanks."
- from the Big Finish Productions audiobook "Doctor Who: Valhalla" (2007) by Marc Platt.

Women's World Cup wackiness

"While the Matildas can feel satisfied with a quarter-final exit, they did not peddle an excuse quite as spectacular as that of the North Korea coach Kim Kwang Min in the wake of their opening-game defeat to the USA. He claimed his players were still feeling the effects of being struck by lightning at a pre-tournament training camp! 'Five of the players were hit by lightning and were in hospital,' said Kim. 'The fact that they played in this match is abnormal. It is a result of their very powerful and strong will.' However, FIFA media officer Julie Brown said, 'It was news to us all'"
- "Australian FourFourTwo" magazine, September 2011.

Yeah-nah

Doritos Burn? Yes, they do. Here's why - paprika, chilli cayenne pepper, green bell pepper, vinegar powder, onion powder, garlic powder. Unfortunately, it's not a "flavour" (tingling tongue, back-of-throat heat, minimum taste) I can recommend.

Useless movie reviews (August, part une)

"The Expendables - Inferno Edition": Terrific, but where were Bolo Yeung, Jeff Speakman, Olivier Gruner, Michael Dudikoff, Sho Kosugi...?
"Tron: Legacy": Stand back while I kill it with a rock.
Liverpool Vs. Leeds United 1965 FA Cup Final: 2-1.
"The Firm": 2009 reworking of the 1989 film about football hooliganism.

Who's your fave porn actress named after a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" character? Mine's April O'Neil :-) (Apologies to Nancy Shredder and Veronica Krang.)

Old mate

PG crashed at mine on Friday before flying to England early the following morning. We talked nonstop, ate pizza from The Jilted Anchovy and thrilled to *extremely* close wins by the Storm and Rabbitohs, both of which won me money (from Sportingbet, not PG). He's gonna try to get to a Super League fixture while in the Motherland - lucky beggar!

Psychic archaeology

Ticks

While stuck at home for three weeks with a severe case of pneumonia, I have watched plenty of Foxtel, mostly documentaries and motoring reality shows, e.g. "Wheeler Dealers" and "Chop Shop: London Garage" on Discovery Turbo MAX. My biggest complaint about the state of cable telly - besides bullshit about the moon landings being faked appearing on The History Channel and not SCI FI - is the overwhelming number of insurance adverts, all based around scare tactics. Life insurance, income insurance, funeral cover... It's no exaggeration to say that every second commercial break, the viewer is confronted with scenes of fictitious families worrying about how they're going to cope without some financial plan or other. These ads tend to be longer than the regular variety, too, as the parasites responsible attempt to drive their suckers deep for a good drink of blood.

Late-breaking news

A Facebook freund posted this link. It's not exactly current, but I reckon it's still very cool. Back in '03, the duo from the "Mastermind" game box were reunited after 30 years to recreate and tell the story of that famous image - http://bit.ly/IlLvn. I've always found the shot slightly sinister, probably because they remind me of a Bond villain and his hench-babe! (Or, if you prefer, a Bond femme fatale and her thrall.)

No Mercy, sir

"We are now looking at coming to Australia and New Zealand another time. We'll let you know when." So reads the homepage of The Sisters Of Mercy in the wake of the Soundwave Revolution festival's sudden, LAME-O cancellation (how can they blame one headline act pulling out when there were 30-odd bands on the bill?). [Sigh] I just knew it would fall through :-(

Goblin Fartknocker (2012 Core Set pre-cons)

1st - "Blood And Fire" (R/b) - 4 matches, 9 games
2nd - "Sacred Assault" (W/g) - 2 matches, 7 games
3rd - "Entangling Webs" (G/r) - 2 matches, 6 games
4th - "Grab For Power" (B/u) - 2 matches, 5 games
5th - "Mystical Might" (U/w) - 0 matches, 3 games

* "G/F/P" might have fared better if I'd got the Crown/Scepter/Throne Of Empires combo out more than once in 12 games that were generally quite lengthy.

2038

"Is programming a kind of creative writing? The notion seems outlandish at first blush. Any discipline that involves complex mathematics and symbolic logic does not seem to share the same cubbyhole with poetry and self-expression. Yet the programming field could learn much from the writing world, argues Richard Gabriel, a veteran of the Lisp and object-oriented programming worlds who is now a Distinguished Engineer at Sun. 'My view is that we should train developers the way we train creative people like poets and artists. People may say, "Well, that sounds really nuts." But what do people do when they're being trained, for example, to get a master of fine arts in poetry? They study great works of poetry. Do we do that in our software engineering disciplines? No. You don't look at the source code for great pieces of software. Or look at the architecture of great pieces of software. You don't look at their design. You don't study the lives of great software designers. So you don't study the literature of the thing that you're trying to build'"
- "Dreaming In Code" (2007) by Scott Rosenberg, p.299.

Red underarmy blues

"If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist"
- slogan on back of Old Spice stick deodorant.

Sarah frank

"I've heard that when one writes in a diary, they are secretly hoping that it will someday be read and appreciated by others. But have you actually ever read anyone's diary? I doubt it, because they are unreadable. If life is a meal, then diaries are the toilets in which we shit out its vile remnants. They are litanies of complaints, grandiosity and self-pity. There's always the occasional happy entry, but they tend to be more brief. If my experience with this book is any guide, the very act of sitting alone in a room writing fuels misery. If you're happy, you probably don't have time to write for long periods in a diary because you're out barbecuing or doing some sort of fusion-y sport like surf-ball-skiing or heli-yoga-jumping"
- "The Bedwetter" (2010) by Sarah Silverman, p.135.

What are ya?

New Phyrexia pre-cons

1st - "Artful Destruction" (G/W) - 3 matches, 8 games
2nd - "Feast Of Flesh" (B/R) - 2 matches, 7 games
3rd - "Ravaging Swarm" (U/G) - 2 matches, 6 games
4th - "Life For Death" (R/W) - 2 matches, 6 games (lost on countback)
5th - "Devouring Skies" (B/U) - 1 match, 3 games

Nailed it like a plank

"March 1994 was also the month that Mike Newell unleashed 'Four Weddings And A Funeral' on an unsuspecting cinema audience. Starring Hugh Grant as Hugh Grant and an unlikeable Andie McDowell as the unlikeable American he falls in love with, it's most memorable for Wet Wet Wet's truly awful rendition of The Troggs' 'Love Is All Around'"
- "Retro Gamer #92"

Useless movie reviews (July)

"Tomb Raider – The Cradle Of Life": A shark growled at Lara underwater.
"The Fist Foot Way": Fred Simmons is the proto-Kenny Powers.
"How To Train Your Dragon": What a stupid n...THOSE GRAPHICS ARE AWESOME!
"The Terrorist": Turkish-American co-production is doubly convoluted.
"Captain America": Don't you find it strange how quietly the Hydra agents die?

Latest fake book dedication

"To Cap. Keep it sensible! - The crew"

Latest mystery of history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc