Werdz

In Canada, a beanie is called a toque. In New Zealand, an esky/cooler is a chilly bin. In South Africa, a set of traffic lights is known as a robot. And in Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land", to grok something is to understand it.

Among a few friends of mine, an overpowered hero/weapon/spell, etc. is described as being imba. I've never heard anyone else use that term, but a Google search reveals its presence in the Urban Dictionary with an equivalent definition.

Speaking of meaning, don't look for any in this blog entry :-)

TBT

Was about to share an anecdote when I realised I already had.

http://dorkgeeknerd.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/teenage-dream.html

By the way, the young lady at the centre of that yarn arguably got her revenge when she bet BP he wouldn't swim out into the surf at night, then neglected to pay up when he fearlessly did so.

Paper dreams

The other evening found me reading online the module blurbs for a role-playing convention taking place this weekend that I can't attend. No huge deal. I've been to many of the things and will undoubtedly catch more in the future.

That wasn't always the case, though. I didn't have the resources to make it to a big-city con until the 1990s. Before then, the closest I got was avidly collecting the flyers from my local hobby store.

I used to keep them in a display book, poring over the descriptions and trying to imagine the secrets that lay behind the words. Occasionally, I'd even write blurbs for modules that didn't exist (but which might if I was a game designer for a big-city con).

One such was based on a curious quote from Chapter 3 of Charlotte Bronte's novel "Jane Eyre":

"For as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker."

I believe my idea was that not all of the elves had left England, with some hanging around to cause strife - as the player characters, five Georgian Era orphans, would discover.

Perhaps I envisaged a trump-or-be-trapped-forever showdown in the perilous forests of the faerie realm. I was a fan of that sorta world-hopping scenario. Still am, really.

Country kitchen

Before I fell ill, I posed the following question to a trio of colleagues:

If you could only eat one nationality of cuisine for the rest of your life, which would it be?

Without hesitation, they all answered - Italian.

(OK, their exact responses were "Italian", "Italian or Greek" and "If I can't cheat and say 'Australian', then Italian", but I think we can call that unanimous.)

Part of me could appreciate where they were coming from, since my fave dinner is red wine, garlic bread, green salad, spaghetti bolognese, tiramisu and coffee.

However, I'd choose differently.

Assuming excellent ingredients and expert preparation, I would pick Japanese cuisine.

For the taste, for the health benefits, for the seasonality and for the martial art-like dedication to achieving perfectly balanced combinations.

But that's just me. How about you?

Italian? Japanese? Something else?

vG

Consulting the archives, I observe that Scottish gaming series "videoGaiden" was enthusiastically mentioned hereabouts in 2008 and again in 2012. It's back. That is to say, co-hosts Rab and Ryan are back, delivering their darkly humorous, always passionate take on recent digital diversions, while pushing the boundaries of what constitutes a game review. The first three episodes can be found on the BBC Scotland YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCECtTRy8ZqdD9XSt79Q7i3Q

Wiki gem

Dad ain't bad

Henceforth, I will be scrapping the Last Fives and just recommending more obscure movie titles that may be of interest to DGN readers. "I Am Your Father" is a 2015 Spanish documentary about the life of David Prowse, his defining role as Darth Vader and his blacklisting by Lucasfilm which, sadly, persists to this day. DP is a likeable soul and, when the opportunity for him to receive some measure of justice arises, you may find yourself a little (Force) choked up.

Ta to DL for my copy of the DVD.