Last five movies watched

Pick of the bunch: N/A. They're not a bad group of flicks. I just don't have a clear preference.

Getting my backside trackside

Will be in Melbourne over the weekend for this:

Mainly because I really enjoy watching motorcycle speedway racing (international and British) on telly and am worried I won't have another chance to see the world's best riders live. But also 'cos it's in my blood. My maternal grandfather was a huge fan who regularly took Mum and her siblings to the local races when they were kids.

I'd been under the impression granddad LD was involved in the sport at some point, either riding bikes or fixing them (he was a gun mechanic) or maybe even both. Phoned Ma to check and learnt that, much as he liked speedway, his passion was restoring _vintage_ motorcycles and taking part in rallies with other enthusiasts.

Nevertheless, I'm sure he woulda approved of my pilgrimage.

Last five movies watched

Pick of the bunch: "Genisys" is a satisfactory spectacle, though the leads lack charisma and chemistry (sorry, Emilia Clarke). Not happy about the end-credits scene. In my opinion, this series has exhausted its potential.

To the victor goes the spoilt

Playing poker with five or six of the lads tonight as we've been doing semi-regularly since the early 2000s. It'll be the usual deal: two knockout tournaments, separated by pizza, with the winner of the second taking home our perpetual trophy until next time.

A trophy starting to show its age. A trophy that depicts a bridge hand rather than a poker one. A trophy on which the engraver mistakenly wrote "Texas Holden" instead of "Texas Holdem". And a trophy that will be no less hotly contested for all of that :-)

Dicing with history

Heading to The Shire later to get my "D&D" on with TC, LPO and whoever else.

Fwee fyngs of note:

* We're going back to 4th Ed.
* I'm not playing my standard choice of human cleric (an eladrin bard has been provided).
* The characters are 12th level - yikes!

Last five movies watched

Pick of the bunch: "The Martian" by 140 million miles.

It's evolution, baby!

Even if you saw/read about Homo naledi in the mainstream news a month ago, as I did, this article is so worth it. Science as adventure, typically beautiful "Nat Geo" presentation and big, bold questions! Thanks for the link, EM.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/

Role-in' with my homies

Have I used that crap pun previously? Hope not.

TC, LPO and I will be doing the Sydcon thang on Monday.

We're playing a "Call Of Cthulhu" module set in the trenches of WW1; and another about sailors stuck in a dodgy port due to a storm, using this system - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_World

I won't try to predict which'll be funner. Last convention, a game that sounded passable turned out to be something we agreed we coulda kept at all day long, while one with a superb blurb was abysmal.

Last five movies watched

Pick of the bunch: As sweet as "Frances Ha" is, and as stylish as Kurzel's "Macbeth" is, 1968's "The Shoes Of The Fisherman" is an epic of ideas rather than action sequences, with a remarkable cast (Quinn, Olivier, Gielgud, McKern...) and which proposes a still-radical solution to poverty.

"Magic" 's new mulligan rule

Boils down to this: when the redealing is done, anyone who mulliganed gets to Scry 1. That is, to look at the top card of their library then opt to leave it there for their next draw or relegate it to the bottom.

I like it. Not worth mulliganing for, but it could keep you in the fight.

Anecdote time... I remember running a tournament at Nuke Uni in the mid-'90s where a mono-B player who was mana flooded began angrily ripping up unwanted swamps. He soon had the opposite problem :-)