The Self-Appreciation Society

Twit

Fri, 15 May 2009 10:15:44 GMT

Since I don't seem to have mentioned it here, I would appear to have consolidated my status updating into Twitter alone (ditched my Facebook account, even). evilrobotshane is the handle there, in case anyone cares.

Cutbacks

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:35:29 GMT

I think I may have learned as much as I have to learn about drunken obnoxiousness, and while it's been a fun ride, I'm going to investigate cutting back.

Appreciate

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:03:02 GMT

Tipsily dismissing the abilities of certain members of my Red Cross unit to measure vital signs the other day: "half of those goobers couldn't find a pulse on a cartoon lard-stealing hose".

Shane no LiveJournal

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:03:37 GMT

I have been much too busy lately to find time to write in this thing, and maybe indeed this is its death knell, no doubt much to the consternation of all. Here's some things I did recently.

Went to a wedding: One of the exceedingly rare occasions when all my immediate family are in the same country and even room. I hadn't been to a wedding since I was 4, and this was for an old family friend I hadn't seen in a very long time. The catch-phrase of the weekend was "long time no see", and to my surprise everyone asks you what you do for a living. If I'd known it was going to provide my identity I'd have chosen more carefully; fortunately people seem to think the Central Criminal Court is cool. It was in England in the pork pie capital of the world and someone called me "old boy" several times. Turns out maybe that bridesmaid was hitting on me and I'd have been doing her a favour by tapping that so she wouldn't end up with her ex-boyfriend, but I just thought she was a bad dancer.
Kendo tournament and grading: As previously mentioned. Did crap in both the team and individuals, but passed my 1st-dan grading exam and went up a level.
Cons: Gaming conventions in Trinity College and Galway. Fun. Won a copy of GURPS Fantasy. Less fun.
Got my Irish EMT cert: Now I can something something. Not sure what exactly I'm allowed do and what not though, and I've never learned to administer laughing gas.

Making a Production

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:40:02 GMT

Productivest day ever.

Took my grading exam. Passed. Am now 1st dan in kendo.
Helped tidy up the hall after the weekend's martial artistry.
Ate.
Played a hot-seat game of Combat Mission: Shock Force with humbug.
Recorded three episodes of the podcast.

Well, it seems more productive when I don't write it down.

Priority Reshuffling

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:58:49 GMT

Turns out all that uncertainty I had about joining the national squad for the World Kendo Championship turned out to be right, and I've officially withdrawn. I like the space kendo occupies in my life; bit of exercise, bit of learning and challenge, bit of competition, no real pressure except whatever I choose to put on myself. I like not having to go four nights a week, I like being able to not attend if there's something else I'd rather be doing. The run-up to the WKC would have destroyed all that, probably burned me out on kendo at least for a long time, maybe forever. I thought that was a sacrifice I was willing to make but it isn't. Plus the time investment - there's just so much other cool stuff I want to be doing too that I'm not inclined to give up. And people on the team are expected to be taking it oh so seriously, traveling to competitions and seminars, but my first priority for a holiday is snow and second is maybe GenCon if it's to be related to an activity; kendo is way down there. I couldn't even bring myself to fill out the after-action report forms for self-improvement that the coach guy wanted. Boring! Also, for the past month I've had a nagging cold that makes me cough spasmodically when I breathe deeply so haven't been going to training, and con season is coming up.

Other stuff to do, though, I got it. It seems as though kendo and gaming fought and gaming won.

Now that I don't have to spend thousands of quid on flights and accommodation and entry fees and green tracksuits and gifts for opponents and gifts for coach and green tracksuits for coach and so on and so on, I'm figuring on hitting up the con scene to as close to the max as is practical (which means Itzacon or K2 because they're on the same weekend and it's Itzacon this time). Secondary to the Warpcon charity auction, this'll include Conpulsion in Edinburgh, to which I have a VIP type ticket. It's cheaper to fly there than to choo-choo to Cork. Along with pedestrian things like t-shirt and pints, the ticket gets me some pre-con alone time with the special guests: Dude Who Wrote 3:16 which the Internet loves but I thought was bollocks, Dude Who Wrote The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and I'm not sure what else he's done, and Loren Wiseman, co-creator of Twilight: 2000! !!!!! !!!!!!!! omfg very excite

The inspiration for that in turn (it's for the kids = yay! It's for the kids to go to Disneyland for Christmas = hrm) came from the fact that I recently chased the long-departed bandwagon of gaming podcasts and launched The Adventuring Party, leading to a sudden need to find people to interview. I've learned a lot about mixers and content management systems and audio editing and herding cats in the past number of weeks, and even though it's technically only two days old it's already undergone some overhauls before ever it made it this far. I think it's not great yet and there's lots of things I want to improve for the future, but people have been saying nice things about it, which I appreciate. Talking about gaming is fun, but sure you already knew that.

That first episode speaks of a Dark Heresy LARP afoot, and I'm co-GMing that. It's going pretty well, just over a month deep now. I still haven't had time to read the actual rules properly (it took me a week to find the time to wipe dried sandwich pickle off the counter) but that hasn't been too much of a problem yet. Watching it in action this week I was sort of wishing I could play because it looks like fun, and that's a good sign.

My Friday game group hasn't recovered from the Christmas season, and now con season is upon us it'll be another while yet before Friday evenings are regularly available. I'm thinking a Transformers game of Prime Time Adventures, possibly Decepticons.

I'm on the committee of the Irish Games Association, which is mostly the odd meeting. There's some stuff cooking that we sort of decided not to mouth off about in case it doesn't work and everybody's low opinion sinks lower, but I'm liking being involved with a group that likes gaming and wants to facilitate more gamingfun happening. The Games Night in the pub of a Thursday is going pretty damn well, and one was set up in Cork too. The big thing is Gaelcon of course, which was recently announced will be taking place in a swank hotel in Ballsbridge, with lots of space for millions of special events and things, and hopefully running all night. Going to be deadly.

So deadly, in fact, that I volunteered for the assistant RPG co-ordinator position, on the off-chance I might have a spare second sometime (like I do now; my game fell through because of the snow or something). Got some ideas for things to do, but since this only happened last night I haven't even been in touch with the other guy yet.

And later than that last night, I was approached and propositioned online by DoC, and not in the usual way, but to write battle scenarios for airsoft groups (that's laser tag taken to its logical conclusion). As far as I've ascertained so far, a typical game is lining up on opposite sides of a field and shooting at each other, like your basic scenarios in Warhammer 40,000 or Necromunda or millions of computer games and so on, whereas what he wants is something with a bit of story and objectives. Given free rein here I'll have them all with introspective, flawed but noble characters embarking on year-long plot arcs towards self-realisation and redemption through shooting pellets at people in an old bus, but we'll have to meet up and hash out what's practical. I was initially hesitant because of the vast amount of spare time I don't have with all this going on, but of course turning down gaming because you've got too much of it is folly and ingratitude of the highest order. This isn't something that's typically lumped in with gaming, and that makes it even more appealing in a way - the chance to employ gaming skillz in a different arena is rather cool. And worst case situation I can just rip off Combat Mission: Shock Force scenarios.

Shopping

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:58:53 GMT

Ahh, feel better now.

There's a happy belly medium for grocery shopping where it's not too much of a chore but is still productive. If I'm not hungry when I go shopping I trudge about miserably and begrudgingly leave with toilet paper and a token can of chick peas. Yesterday I was starving and although the end result cost far too much and apart from breakfast and a couple of dinners yielded only biccies and the components of a sandwich which could be seen from space, shopping while hungry is a fabulous Christmas wonderland. Every single item looks delicious and you imagine how great it'd be to be eating those raisins or that chili dipping sauce or that unidentifiable Polish fish something right the hell now.

Keep it in the Family Courts

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:47:55 GMT

Vodka, dinner, job application form, in that order.

I was on the family courts today, where people squabble over children in the same way my brother used to squabble over the telly, except this time it's adults and the commodity is proto-humans and it's very expensive and takes years and I have to sit through it and it takes an authority figure more than five seconds to sort it out. They called it quits for the day at eight o'clock when I should have been gaming. This is of no benefit to me! I already didn't want children so I'm learning nothing!

It probably says more about me than about the opposed parties that I flat-out cannot identify with whatever the fuck is going on in their sick heads, and feel far more at home at a murder trial. I've been annoyed; extract that out some degrees and you've got murderous intent, I can imagine that. But wanting to own something so intensely that you'll fight tooth and nail socially and legally, learn to hate those you used to love, go to enormous expense, turn your entire life upside down - sure I have commitment issues or whatever and few movie quotes speak to me with such melodiousness as Heat's "don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner", but, let me put it this way: everybody has obsessions and compulsions, but it's only obsessive compulsive disorder when it starts preventing you from leading a normal life. The behaviour I've heard testified to in that building is mental. Children make you mental.

Why is that okay? Were Lovecraft and Poe and their ilk wrong in their genre implication that insanity is worse than death, something to punish the most wicked and to threaten the heroes? Certainly most stuff children do to people sounds like the actions of a parasite to me; maybe a medical condition. And even though I can sort of understand - it's hormonal or something, like with liking women, which I'm okay with because women are sort of hot - who examines their own life and goes "I don't really have enough going on and things aren't complicated enough; what I need is a medical condition!"?

My current status of "I suppose you're the closest thing in the room to a barrister" is an addendum to "I suppose you're the closest thing in the room to a doctor", and in a similarly half-assed way I've had a glimpse at the medical end of child acquisition too. The less said about that the better, but suffice it to say it is the worst thing I have ever witnessed, and I've seen The Ninja Squad.

So I suppose if anybody's interested in trying to explain you can consider this a solicitation to state your case if you like. I have interacted with a child socially, by the way, so I'm speaking of a position of only near-total ignorance rather. And yes, although it wasn't much of a conversationalist, there was something heart-warming about having someone be genuinely, uncomplicatedly and expressively pleased to see you, it being obvious that they consider their day to have just improved significantly because you've showed up. Unfortunately the reason it's so uncomplicated is because it's purely selfish - here's the guy who'll play with me and push me on the swing and acquiesce to some of my other demands. I noticed I get the same heart-warming feeling from dogs that like me.

I should be back in the criminal courts next week. At least there you get the feeling that witnesses are telling the truth, or at least that the truth will emerge. Today's crap had the father as an abusive, distant weirdo who cares only about his rights, the mother as a manipulative mind-control cult leader, and the kids saying their holiday in Lanzarote was full of cockroaches on the beach and blisters and starvation.

Revised: vodka, dinner, vodka, job application.

The Mountainwich

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:18:27 GMT

If my sandwich were left outdoors in Iraq in 1991, ariel recon photo interpreters would mistake it for a Scud missile and it'd be bombed by F-15s.

It's All About Söll

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:05:51 GMT

Short version:
I went on my firstest ever package holiday, a ski trip to Austria. I don't really know anyone who skis but suggested it to a few people, but those all fell through as such things do. It'd snowed in the area for three days around Christmas but then had a day of rain, so the snow was mostly artificial, and icy once the grooming had been scraped off by traffic. I didn't bring my computer, my phone stayed off until touching down again in Dublin, and most aspects of my life were replaced: I had a set routine, lots of free time, was all by myself, and so on. Typically I'd get up early for breakfast, be on the slopes around 9, ride until about 3 or 4, go home, have a shower, read a bit, go out for dinner, read some more and go to sleep early. I had plenty of fun, but I think in future I would like to have someone of a similar skill level and direction of interest to my own to ride with; it's just more fun that way.

Long version:
Saturday
Manoeuvering my awkwardly-shaped snowboard bag which also contains my clothes and toothpaste and other holiday things to and from the DART and bus, I arrive in plenty of time at the airport in the afternoon. My bag goes in at the oversized luggage area and after a half-hour delay we make for Salzburg. It's after sundown when the plane arrives and as we approach the city something looks odd about it, like it's primarily water but not rippling. Eventually it clicks with me that I'm looking at snow.

Travel company thingie representatives in uniforms are waiting with directions and coaches and in about an hour and three quarters after crossing into Germany and back out again I'm in Söll on the Ski Welt arena. My pension seems fine, although some reviews I read online after booking warn of the domineering landlady. I go straight to bed.

Sunday
Having been instructed to queue at a particular shop to collect lift tickets (and rental gear for those who need that), I turn up after an uninteresting continental breakfast and eventually get my pass. I get on the gondola and thence on another one, up to the top of the mountain by Söll, Hohe Salve. I get my gear in order and figure I'll warm up with some easy blue or red graded runs. Unfortunately I accidentally head off down a black, which is doable but not particularly pretty, given that this is my first time on snow this season.

I spend the morning poking around the Söll area, but there are seven or so villages all interconnected by ski lifts and pistes, so presently I start making my way to Westendorf, where it transpired my parents honeymooned. I leave the slopes there and find a cafè for lunch; pea soup with frankfurter bits in, and a chocolate cake with fruit curd filling. The size of the Ski Welt arena (Austria's largest interconnected ski area, apparently) means that to be a manageable size the map has to be completely crap, marking lifts but not pistes, so I get lost on my way back and fail to make it further than the very furthest village from Söll by the time the lifts close. I get a taxi back for a cool 34 eurobucks and am annoyed.

There's a meeting tonight for people on the same package thing as me, so I find the appropriate pub and have a beer and listen to stuff that doesn't apply to me because I'm not in lessons or potentially getting jaded or wanting to go shopping in Innsbruck or going tobogganing. I ask the representative dude, Lenny, for a restaurant recommendation and he says that pretty much anywhere is good but names one in particular, so I head home for a shower with the intention of going there. While in the shower with my muscles aching from being used in ways they hadn't in nine months, the idea of bed enters my head and I can't shake it. Eventually I relent and just go there.

Monday
I buy some bottled water and Jaffa Cakes in a Spar and head up top for a bit before meeting Lenny who'd offered to show folks around. I turn out to be the only taker though so he wouldn't be going out, but we chat a bit and he gives me some directions. I go to have a look at the areas in the opposite direction from Westendorf. I eat my Jaffa Cakes at a scenic viewpoint (although can't rate them relative to others as they were strongly chilled and my jaw was too cold to eat properly). I'm starting to get my groove back and hit a little bit of off-piste, which is where it's most at for me. Again the poor map gets me lost and when the lifts close I'm stuck in Scheffau, the village next to Söll. I start walking, not something to which snowboard boots particularly lend themselves. After a while a sympathetic guy from Munich who's been hanging out in his parents' chalet for the weekend gives me a lift.

After a shower and change of clothing I go to Lenny's recommended restaurant, the Dorfstub'n. I have a beer, cream of garlic soup, a venison and mushroom dish which is similar to steak & kidney pie with a side of unidentifiable squidgy things, the wrong wine (ooops, Pinot Grigiot is white) and pancakes stuffed with ice cream and with chocolate sauce and nuts on. I consider the concept of après ski and decide not to bother. The recent movie The Guardian, with Kevin Costner, is about the training camp for U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmers, and a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer I worked with said that it wasn't a bad depiction of the training, but that if you'd gone out drinking and having romantic sub-plots in the evening you'd fail, because you wouldn't have enough energy for the training. Seems to me that people who can dance haven't been skiing hard enough. I wonder about exactly what I should be doing, since I don't really have a goal like "improve tree riding" or "hit every piste", and decide that getting some video footage will provide some focus.

Tuesday
I stop in the Spar to buy some rather spiffy plasters, deciding that now is not the time to stop throwing good money after bad and a raw spot on my shin will only curtail my enjoyment. Determined not to get stuck in the wrong village tonight I stick around the Söll mountains, including tracking down the last peak in the arena I had yet to visit. I'm well warmed-up and back on form by now and am seeking the most interesting off-piste I can find. I follow the top gondola down the steepest section, dotted with trees and avalanche fences. Lunch is the remainder of the Jaffa Cakes, now squished together from being fallen upon. Later into the day the physical and mental effort of riding the rough has tired me a bit so I stick to easier stuff like black pistes and off the reds.

I successfully finish the day in Söll, have a shower and a short wander turns up another decent-looking restaurant, the Feldwebel. I have a beer, big burger-sized patties of deep-fried camembert on toast, a beer, pork liver slices in gravy with fried potatoes and a sweet sultana omelette with cold stewed plum goo. I'm noticing that a simple restaurant meal is making me all stuffed lately, I can't eat like I'm used to and wonder if that's age catching up with me or something to do with lifestyle.

Wednesday
The map lists a few circuits to try, the first one being based around Söll, so I decide to give that a go and see if I can fit in one or two of the others in the afternoon. Naturally the terrible map and difficult-to-follow piste marking makes this take much longer than it should as I repeatedly arrive at the wrong lift, so trying to find my way around is a bit frustrating. I do find some fun off-piste on my way around, and note that the smallest, least-populated lifts seem to have the best un-groomed slopes. By the time I'm back to the start it's too late to risk a shot at a different circuit. I dine on cereal bars on the lifts and wander about looking for stuff that looks like fun. I find my way into an area covered by tiny stream ditches which makes for a lot of falling, though I do manage to jump one and keep going without nose-diving into soft snow.

As the day goes on though I find myself getting tired, taking falls where I shouldn't really be, my turns onto my heel-side are becoming sloppy, the map is crap, the pistes are icy, off-piste is getting crusty (hey, aren't we all?) and I'm getting pissed off. The last straw comes as I find myself starting down the wrong side of Hohe Salve, decide to traverse off-piste around to the correct side on the assumption that it'd only be about 40 metres or so and find myself traversing very steep unfriendly terrain with stream valleys and spurs, snow that I wouldn't be surprised to find avalanching and a long way down to nowhere - I doubt I'd be found until the spring thaw. When your brain starts making decisions that put you in that kind of situation, if you're smart you'll recognise that it's time to call it quits. I pack it in a bit early and wander around Söll a bit after a shower. Later on I go to a hotel restaurant I found on that wander, the Postwirt, for gluhwein, beef broth with cooked cheese medallions in it, beer, traditional Tyrolian pasta baked with cheese (so mac & cheese then) with sauerkraut and chocolate cake with a curd filling again. I negotiate the entire transaction in German and feel clever.

Thursday
I have a cold, probably why I was crap yesterday. I do the Westendorf circuit with that my only agenda for the day, so when I get lost there's no stress. I take my time and when I'm following the circuit, when I see something interesting from the lift, I hit it, and ride the lift again to continue along the circuit. In the afternoon it's getting icy, and I'm not on top form but don't really mind because I'm relaxing a bit, and I quit early not because I can't continue but because I'm on holiday.

I read an article in a ski magazine once contrasting American and European ski holidays. Americans, it said, get up at the crack of dawn, catch the first chair, go hard all day, eat on the slopes, get kicked off the mountain by ski patrol's closing sweeps and go to bed so they can do the same tomorrow, because they have like 10 days' holiday in the year. Europeans, with forty-something, it said, tend to be more of the persuasion of lie-in, leisurely breakfast, make a few turns before a long lunch, take some afternoon runs and then get off the slopes early to primp up for some après ski. I've always been very much in the American camp, but with no real goals I'm shooting for here, I realised that it wouldn't hurt to relax a bit.

I find a restaurant called the Söllerstuben where I consume gluhwein, beef broth with a big dumpling containing smoky bacon in it, fried potatoes with assorted meat bits with a fried egg atop served in a pan and accompanied by poxy mixed canned salads, beer, and warm chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce and ice cream. The waitress compliments me on my German.

Friday
Lenny has offered to show folks around again now that many will be out of ski school, so I take a run or two before meeting him. At last we set out with two guys called Paddy and two others who vanish off to make phone calls shortly after we get started. It's slow-moving, as tends to happen when skiing in a group, but Lenny knows some handy ways of getting from A to B like along paths through the trees and such. It's a sunny day and the snow's a bit softer than it has been. We stop for a drink and I have a hot chocolate with rum, which sounds like a fantastic idea to me but tastes like burning plastic. Lenny gives the Paddies some ski instruction and when he departs we split up and I take my last few runs of the season alone. I'm getting a little of my mojo back and am not disappointed with myself when I'm finished.

The suggestion of meeting the Paddies somewhere had been made but I'm too tired for that, with my cold progressing, so I go to the restaurant of the Gasthof Christophus for gluhwein, CHEESE & RASHERS SOUP (this is just such an amazingly elegant application of the basic laws of food physics), Wienerschnitzel because I feel I must try it but it turns out to be fish & chips except the fish is pork and I'm afraid Austrians don't do fish & chips as good as we do, beer, apfelstrudel which is like a less goopy apple crumble without the crumble, and beer.

Saturday
I am successfully breakfasted and packed and purtied up and checked out just in time. I wander the village a bit while waiting for the coach and have a hot chocolate and raspberry cream cake in a cafè. I forget to put my penknife snowboard repair tool in my checked luggage and have to hand it over to a security dude, never to be seen again.

...and a Merry 2009

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:40:49 GMT

Well, I went to kendo, had fun, had an 'on' night where I kicked everyone's ass repeatedly, got nicely tired and sweaty, chatted to people, and when we went outside the so-lovely-you'd-take-him-home-you-would Martin produced bubbly and chocolates from his visit to his parents in whatever part of eastern Europe they live in (he's never pinned down his wandering origins to one specific country that I know about). Everybody had some and most of it got poured into my cup by drivers and non-drinkers and it was delicious, and I scrummed choccies and we all said happy new year and I went home and there were illegal fireworks over the rooftops. No matter what I do for the night it won't get any better, so I came home, hair asunder with drying sweat and getting the customary seasonal funny looks from people who are wearing big coats and hats presumably over their own loud shirts.

Although I feel cooler elsewhere, I'm never happier than when I'm in Dublin. There was an amusing sarcastic email reply to an amusing sarcastic email holiday greeting I'd sent to my mate Lee in the States, and he was sending it from the ski patrol room at my old job with some of my old colleagues standing around and telling him to say hello for them.

So I'm ringing in the new year on my own with an apple and a Planet of the Apes movie, and I feel great. Happy new year everyone! I've got a good feeling about this one.

Happy Holidays

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:41:02 GMT

The holidays thus far (for mine stretch for the better part of an unpaid month as the courts break between two peculiarly-named terms) has been most enjoyable, and so for that matter has life on either side of it.

My job as a latter-day monkey with a typewriter is interesting in the way that being a tourist in court would be, with decent hours (typically 10 to 4, sometimes out much earlier). I've been in on a few murder cases lately which is where it gets interesting and people look like they're making an effort. To my surprise, seeing the system in action has given me a good deal of faith in it; it's much better than a democratic country deserves. If it were left to the common man, you know, like anyone who's ever used the phrase "should be taken out and shot" in casual conversation, it'd be awful, but instead the jurisdiction of Joe Soap is tightly contained to judging the facts on a jury (which looks like an experience too - on the last murder case there, one of them was crying as they read out their majority verdict of guilty).

There's been some good partying recently; the Night Before Christmastime gaming in my house was well-attended and although I ruined my game by going at the egg-nog with what I've come to refer to as the guile and hard-earned cynicism of a naive sixteen-year-old schoolgirl at her first frat party, apparently cutting my memory capacity down to mere minutes, there were crackers and food and wine and convoluted gift exchange and the other game was probably good.

Tom's birthday was food-filled and low-key and I'm sure there's some poignant catch-phrase or seanfhocal to describe how no amount of carefully-selected high quality whiskey was able to make me like it or turn me into the snob I'd love to have the option of being. Some guy who recognised me from years back explained all about mock weddings to me (it's a game a bit like a murder mystery dinner), insisting that they're huge and all the rage and everyone's doing it and everyone's heard of it, and nobody at all that I've mentioned it to since has ever heard of the concept. I outstayed my strictest welcome by many hours when Tom's brother, late in the night, made the mistake of expressing some opinion about some James Bond movie, which led to several more hours of intense discussion.

There was a Red Cross unit dinner out which was alright; I hope the unit leader doesn't think I'm hitting on his wife just because she seems to (probably correctly) think I'm the most interesting person in the room to talk to.

My brother and sister are in various foreigns so Christmas was a smaller affair than usual; I got gaming books and Sharpe DVDs and snowboarding wrist-guards, Mum got a box of Amazon and Twin Peaks DVDs. We had dinner with Mum's sister's family, including my cousin's new manling which marks the first (and, hope springs eternal, final) installation in the post-my generation.

Dizzy and Britta's housewarming party was plenty of fun with lots of desirable people in attendance. I wasn't the drunkest person there which was nice (although I still got pretty obnoxious, as is, lamentably, my fashion) (oh yeah, in case you're wondering Pixies, the drunkest person there was you). There were hilarious inebriated romantic revelations from the dark past - none of which, fortunately, matter anymore - and people posing sexily with cigarettes. I tried hard to outstay my welcome here, but Dizzy steadfastly refused to imply that he'd like me to stop drinking, which is just as well since he was shoving drinks under noses all night.

Tonight it's New Year's Eve and I didn't really know what to do. I got an SMS message yesterday saying that one of our best kendo guys "wants to put on a intimate kendo class tomorrow night". Although that reads like the most wafer-thinly disguised set-up for a brutal gang-raping, I'm going to head along to that and see what happens - either I'll do kendo and be tired and go to bed, or I'll do kendo and follow somebody to something fun.

Game-wise, after a short uncharacteristic burst of "I don't have time for more gaming", I agreed to help co-run an ongoing LARP (a LARP is a live-action role-playing game, and a role-playing game is a dynamically moderated form of improvisational theatre) in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. The first session will be next week and I can't make it, but I've been working on writing some of the set-up stuff and it's fun. I've no experience with this type of thing and I hope that doesn't cause too much of a problem, but it's looking like it'll be good. I've always loved the Warhammer 40,000 setting and mourned the loss of the fun from the wargame when 3rd edition came out quite some time ago now.

My other project is a podcast, news and discussion about the Irish gaming scene et cetera. Although podcasts have become a major part of gaming culture in certain... I don't know, circles or areas or sub-sub-cultures or something, I may be the only person I know who actually listens to podcasts of any type at all. Never mind, my intention is more to do something fun with a sprinkling of if-you-build-it-they-will-come rather than worrying about listenership statistics and adding to the Irish Games Association's significant arsenal of "yeah, we tried that, it didn't work" (it can't fail if there's no stated goal, I reckon). I merrily stocked up on audio gear and have been learning things about gain and mixing and creative commons and noise reduction and dynamic and XLR. Along with getting antsy when I have free time, college seems to have made me enjoy learning about stuff. I learned how to train dogs the other day.

I'm away on my downhill snow-riding holiday on Saturday and am VERY EXCITED about it. I haven't been proper abroad-traveling in years, and keep subconsciously dropping it into conversations even though I know it makes me a wanker. I'm so excited that I went to the shops to buy screwdrivers to fit a plug to an old iron I found to re-wax my snowboard, when really it doesn't need re-waxing at all (just a scraping with a tool I don't own - time for some amusing household improvisation). I'm not bringing my computer and will be switching my phone into iPod-only mode for the duration, so if you need to contact me, engage in frustrating extension transferring with embassies and consulates and such.

Say Cheese

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:58:15 GMT

Some days, you come in at half six in the morning having alienated many of the people who ever expressed an interest in your continued existence and wonder what it's all about really. Then, some days, like today, you come in at half six in the morning having alienated many of the people who ever expressed an interest in your continued existence and wonder what's in the fridge and have a look in there in order to scoff and be self-destructive, and there's some cheap brie your mother gave you and you're listening to Sublime and it's just deadly. Fuck you, today, I love being alive.

Also today was deadly.

So Long, 2008

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 01:59:57 GMT

It's not much of an annual tradition, but it's mine. (and also numerous others')

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Ran out of petrol. Car crash (very minor). Assorted medic things like driving emergency traffic or picking up a stinky drunk. Was in a documentary. Field-stripped and reassembled a pistol, blindfolded. Was in court. Participated in a missing person search. Wore a suit to work.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any. Next year I resolve to take game-mastering role-playing games more seriously.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousin Sarah did, producing a small pre-human. It's not much of a conversationalist, but seemed to like the book I got it for Christmas after my mother scolded me into agreeing that's a good idea, which was gratifying in the same way my mother is gratified by her dog enjoying the squeaky vinyl bone she chose.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Cancer tried to get my aunt but she showed it.

5. What countries did you visit?
The classic recent-college-graduate issue of being surprised not to suddenly be wealthy upon leaving education struck, and although my home did move, the only time I left its country was to go to Northern Ireland.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
International action heroism. I hear kissing women is fun too.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I'm rubbish at remembering dates but if one were going to it'd be the day I got canned from my great job. But I don't know what date that was without looking it up.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
It was getting my first-choice what-I-want-to-do-when-I-grow-up job.

9. What was your biggest failure?
It was losing my first-choice what-I-want-to-do-when-I-grow-up job. The game I ran for the Night Before Christmastime the other day was pretty awful too though.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
A few sniffles only. I seem to be more susceptible to them here than in the States for some reason.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
There's a few recent purchases that have yet to prove their value or lack thereof, but my plane ticket to Ireland was quite nice.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My good buddy Lee in the States. My mother's always pretty great.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Trigger-happy shift supervisor who fired me for an infraction so seemingly trivial it sounds like a joke.

14. Where did most of your money go?
First it was digging myself out of a nasty financial hole, then it was moving to Ireland, then it was more debt repayments, then it was assorted frivolity some of which was Christmas.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The Buncombe County job! Gaelcon! A forthcoming ski holiday!

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
This has been a year of distinct and different parts, and I don't know a song that can sum all that up.

17. Compared to this time last year, you are:
i. happier or sadder? I don't know why, but I'm pretty happy, and this time last year I was a little bit less so
ii. thinner or fatter? Either thinner because I'm fitter, or fatter because I'm eating better
iii. richer or poorer? Not quite as horrendously indebted

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Travel, of course. That thing that happened to the guy in Brewster's Millions. Women.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Reversing an ambulance into a wall.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent it at my mother's house with just the two of us (siblings are various abroads) and then visited aunts and uncles on the day, like I do when I'm in-country.

21. What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2008?
I got blasted on red wine and egg-nog the other night and managed to completely ruin a game about skiing and zombies. For fuck's sake, like. But for kind words from Dizzy I'd have sworn off GMing altogether.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
I barely even met a human female I'm interested in holding a conversation with.

23. How many one-night stands?
Absolute zero.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?
I don't recall reading much in the line of normal books. There was a biography of the men who made the atomic bomb, but it was a little dry despite its best efforts. There was World War Z which is fun but hardly "best book" material. I think I'll go with Dogs in the Vineyard, a role-playing game.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Defects, a long-vanished band from the heyday of punk, from Northern Ireland because it's such a horrible place it produces good punk.

28. What did you want and get?
That one job! More recently, a job. A place to live in Dublin.

29. What did you want and not get?
Travel. A job in an outdoorsy gear shop or something; don't know why I didn't.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Tropic Thunder. Even my sister, who isn't into war movies, was laughing paroxysmally.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was the big 3-0 (that's 30) and had a weekend-long games convention in my house. It was pretty good fun. Except on my actual birthday it was a normal day and I just went gaming in town like normal.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Keeping that job.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Undercover Hawaiian SWAT officer.

34. What kept you sane?
A modicum of psychological toughness.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I'm sure I had an answer for this that isn't Jennifer Connolly, but damned if I can think of it. My appreciation for the female lead character in Casino Royale deepened, but she's not real.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The wondering which president America deserves. Lucky for it! Lisbon or whatever it was called was pretty annoying too but I wasn't in Ireland at exactly the right time to understand or vote.

37. Who did you miss?
It'd be nice to be able to hang around with Lee from time to time again. A few ski patrollers I liked moved on to other, westerlier things and their absence was noticeable.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Although I've renewed numerous old acquaintanceships, I haven't met any new people enough to be able to form solid opinions. Honourable mentions go to recruiter shift supervisor lady at my EMS job for being nice and helpful and supportive; to several medics who picked up my newbie slack when partnered with me; to Pixies' girlfriend for seeming to be willing to tolerate my nonsense in small doses.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
You never know where you'll find yourself; life is strange like that.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I'm sure there's one I don't know that says the above.

Interesting

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:58:04 GMT

Interesting-to-me things that have happened in the past week:

My first meeting as a member of the Irish Games Association committee. Nice bunch, in a pub, deciding and voting. It's fun to have to think about where's a good place to hold Gaelcon and that type of thing.
I lodged my latest free-money-for-no-reason cheque from my very erstwhile employer Uncle Eircom.
Directly related to that, I booked a package holiday (!) through a travel agent (!) to Söll in Austria for the first week of January when there's no court, for the downhill snow-riding. That's very exciting. Want to come? I'm serious.
I performed CPR on a mannequin for 20 straight minutes. It gets old pretty fast.
In-club kendo competition today; because I haven't graded in years for various reasons, I was in the lower-ranking section, and got a bronze medal for kata and a bronze for fighting, which is pretty lame really. Still, I'm not sure I've ever won a medal for anything ever before.
Bought a Christmas tree, transporting it home the old-fashioned way (including dashing across the Malahide Road). Decorated same, dismayed to find string of lights not working, joyfully finding them working again after replacing the fuse bulb and not the one at the opposite end having gone through the lot. A Mobile Suit Gundam occupies the top slot; unfortunately I haven't been able to find any hanging decorations sold under the name "Soviet Weapons Pack 2".
Sent out the official mail inviting people to a traditional 23rd-of-December last night before Christmastime gaming session. If anybody reading this wasn't on the list but would like in, say so!
Decided to try out being a person with a professionally-done haircut, and obtained same. Now own gel and a comb and have little idea what to do with them.
Found out just now that the London Ambulance Service are recruiting. That's very exciting too.

Shane's Granny's House Con II

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:04:42 GMT

This weekend gone hosted the second in what I've sort of decided to make a quarterly event, the weekend-long gaming day in my house for my birthday. Attendance was down to maybe half what it was last time, implying either that people didn't much enjoy the first one or that the sense of birthday obligation was a prime motivator.

Nevertheless, it was plenty of fun, with lots of games and roast chicken and cheap beer and I fell and broke an electric socket with my ass. There was a trade stand and people bought items of varying replay value. In retrospect it seemed a bit board game-heavy; maybe some kind of schedule for February's one might be in order.

Games played Last Night On Earth, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Apples to Apples, Monty Python Fluxx, Ticket to Ride Europe, InSpectres, Cineplexity, Diplomacy, Dawn of War, Carcassonnes & Catapults, Perudo, 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars and probably more.

Photos are here.

EX-FO-LI-ATE

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:48:46 GMT

Hah, I almost forgot, I was wandering through the Jervis Centre to see what it's like nowadays and if there's an obvious tacky decoration shop and a sales guy from a stand asked me what I use for the dry skin. I was surprised at how shocked and amused I was by this question, but I suppose I shouldn't have been - for the dry skin I use a bar of soap and a disposable razor I purchased five years ago in Western Australia.

I'm one of the more personally hygienic guys I know (although, I do know a lot of gamers) but apart from shampoo (bar of soap to clean hair makes my head itchy) my equipment would easily fit in my pocket, with room for keys and a penknife. I beat a hasty retreat before the alarm wore off and the sarcasm set in.

'Tis the Season

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:40:22 GMT

Troubled by pinkymonster's Christmas boycott, I yesterday began acting on my own feelings in the democratic manner - by canceling out her vote. I specifically went in search of decorations to buy and put up some lights and the most wonderfully tacky fibre-optic fake plastic tree - possibly the first decorations visible on my street. Today I hit up Clery's in search of further goodies but it's all a bit tasteful for my tastes. I'll see what Moore Street has to offer.

This'd be so much simpler in the States, where I could just have loudly suggested her to be a member of the Taliban and be done with it.

I was late out of work today due to a deliberating jury (guilty of murder though when they did sort it out) so detoured via O'Connell Street to have a look at the big tree 'o lights in the dark. It looks kind of silly in daylight but when it's lit up it looks great. I'm not sold on the jarring colour changing action but in general I'm impressed.

Daily Dublin

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:08:13 GMT

I can't remember if I've gone on here before about how I like Dublin, but yesterday on the walk home from kendo was a fine example of it.

Going out the gate I caught up with a new member of the club I'd just been introduced to, a guy from Brazil who's an experienced kendoka, and is from the city where we'll be going next year for the world championships.

Then passing a bus stop I ran into two folks I'd been at school with in North Carolina. I was wearing a t-shirt from my job at the college's outdoor programme, and they remarked that I'm still doing kendo (because I was laden with gear).

Then a couple of old guys in a car stopped and asked me directions, and unusually I knew the answer and was able to point out where we were on their map.

That's the end of that story, but when I got home for my traditional post-kendo mug of vodka and tonic, I was checking an Internet discussion forum I frequent, and someone had asked what people thought of Quantum of Solace. And I was drinking. Good day, that was.

Wake Up to Breakfast!

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:18:20 GMT

Eating healthful yet chocolatey breakfast cereals so you don't have to.

Weetabix Minis Chocolate Crisp
When these were new (and a spin-off of the fruit-and-nut Fruitibix) they were called Chocibix, which is a fine, succinct, descriptive, unique and memorable name. Then I went abroad for a year and when I came back, Chocibix and several other products (all coincidentally featuring chocolate as a major ingredient) of whom I was the sole market had vanished off the shelves. Thereafter the aisles rang to the anguished cries of "WHERE'S MY FUCKING CHOCIBIX?". But no more! They're back, they're renamed, and they're not as good as they used to be.
Lashings of ice-cold milk: The old version was nicely glazed, which made them somewhat impervious to the ravages of sogginess. The glaze has been significantly reduced for the current incarnation, which is mysterious since the similarly retitled fruity equivalents retain the full magnitude of their moisture-resistant coating. Crunching into one of these babies was part of the fun of it, and when they start to turn goopy that's just not there anymore. They're not bad, they're just not great.
Rolling in drunk in the wee hours: Again, the lack of glaze is a sore point when eating them dry - the action of biting was just more satisfying back when. Nevertheless, the little chocolate chips are nice and they do get to the bits of your tummy that are demanding anything to eat out of the press. Dry, but not debilitatingly so; a decent choice.

Weetabix Oatibix Bitesize Chocolate & Raisin
Bitesize they may be, but the name's certainly a mouthful. There seems to have been a trend lately away from snappy cereal names and toward some kind of military hierarchy - Chocolate & Raisin section, Bitesize platoon, Oatibix company, Weetabix battalion reporting for duty, sir! The motivations behind having distinct wheat-based and oat-based bix varieties are lost on me, but oddly these are more like normal Weetabix than are their Chocibix cousins.
Lashings of ice-cold milk: No glaze here, and continuing the similarity with Weetabix Weetabix Fullsize Weetabix, they turn into an amorphous (well, bowl-shaped in my experience) squidgy mass at the merest mention of milk. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it removes a lot of the point of being bitesize - wouldn't it be better to have a proper Weetabix with proper raisins and chocolate chips? And speaking of which, I was willing to accept that the addition of raisins might be acceptable because I do like raisins and maybe the scientists who invented these hit upon a winning formula, the Golden Ratio perhaps. Well they didn't, they just found that the more chocolate chip space they fill with raisins instead the cheaper it is to make them. And fuck that.
Rolling in drunk in the wee hours: You know how when you've been drinking all night and your mouth is all damp there's nothing you'd like so much as something ultra-absorbent to soak up all that moisture? No, me neither. These are bitesize bricks of dust, and the super-desiccated raisins are slightly smaller than the depression in your back teeth.

Kellogg's Chocolate Wheats
When I was in primary school there was a new cereal called Toppaz, which were fibrous parcels with a lot of sugar on top, and were pretty good. They spawned Raisin Splitz, fibrous parcels with a raisin in the middle, which were also pretty good. The evolutionary process continues (as does the trend toward more descriptive and boring names) by not only sticking chocolate in the middle instead of a raisin but by making the wheaty bit brown, and possibly chocolate-flavoured. It certainly is in my brain anyway. Admittedly the chocolate isn't anywhere close to resembling actual chocolate but for some reason that doesn't seem to matter except as a curiosity.
Lashings of ice-cold milk: This is the kind of thing that makes me excited about going to bed, because that means soon it'll be breakfast time. These aggressively maintain their independence and integrity in the face of milky adversity to the last, and even late in the meal when the wheaty-bit isn't as crunchy as it was, the chocolatey substance in the middle still has some texture. As a matter of fact, a short period of immersion actually improves them, because the stringy bird's-nest construction allows milk to permeate without ensoggenation. The biggest problem is that they're so much fun to eat that I go through a packet in two sittings, and it uses up all my milk. All this thinking about them has made me excited about going to bed now.
Rolling in drunk in the wee hours: Their chocolatey look makes them perhaps more appealing than they would be if they were a different colour, but that doesn't matter because a different colour is exactly what they aren't. The stratified construction means each one is a voyage of discovery with a chocolate prize awaiting the intrepid, and munching through that multi-stranded exoskeleton is therapeutic. The result is a bit splintery but it's still damn hard to stop; the greatest motivator to do so is that if you don't eat them all now and instead go to bed, you can have them for breakfast! Everyone's a winner.

Shane Goes to War

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:51:00 GMT

I've been on a bit of a modern-combat media bender recently. I stopped short of purchasing Afghanistan d20 based on reviews that it's mostly complicated rules for adapting the poorly-suited game engine to that setting, but have guzzled lots of other stuff.

Combat Mission: Shock Force (computer game)
This modernised successor of my old favourite, Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord, takes a near-future hypothetical U.S. invasion of Syria for the blank slate value and makes it a fantastic simulation\game. Although released too early causing mediocre reviews, it's been patched up to the nines and is fucking great now. Asymmetrical warfare, real-time or turn-based or play-by-email, and you actually get cleverer and learn real stuff by playing it. An expansion added U.S. Marines and more Syrian units to the U.S. Army, and forthcoming are the Brits and other NATO forces. I'd say I've thrown away countless hours on this but I don't consider them thrown away at all.

Eight game-breakingly munchie Javelin ATGMs is out of ten game-breakingly munchie Javelin ATGMs

Black Hawk Down (movie)
The First Battle of Mogadishu as told by Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer - that's genius. Like Zulu and We Were Soldiers before it, it spends only the necessary time on basic character introduction and context-setting before getting into the intense and amazingly-shot recreation of the real thing. It's a little compacted as is the nature of the medium, but basically everything on screen really happened. A surprising number of the central characters are played by non-Americans, including Eric Bana doing a spot-on south-eastern redneck accent and Ewan McGregor getting revenge for every bad European accent ever perpetrated by a Yank on film.

Eight Ranger chalks out of ten Ranger chalks

Three Kings (movie)
Starting as the First Gulf War ends, a motley crew of U.S. soldiers sneak off on an ill-advised quest for gold. It's got soldiers and shooting but it's not a war movie, it's got subtly hilarious dialogue but it's not a comedy, it's got history education but it's not a lesson. This one is about the characters and their journey into Iraq and the realisation of what's important to them, and it's executed very well indeed. There's not much not to like.

Nine infected pockets full of bile out of ten infected pockets full of bile

Shootout: The Battle of An-Nasiriyah (television documentary)
Despite some oversimplification, repetition and an annoyingly dramatic narrator voice-over, this documentary about the U.S. Marines' messy encounter with Iraq's "Ambush Alley" in 2003 is surprisingly slick. The re-enactment footage is solid, the breakdown of the events easy to grasp, interviews with participants to-the-point... this is worth a look (in total maybe 45 minutes long) if only as a great plot for a combat-heavy role-playing game. "Army? I thought we were supposed to be the first up this road?"

Seven close air support friendly fire incidents out of ten close air support friendly fire incidents

Jarhead (movie)
Another movie of the book of the reality, what stands out here is the complete lack of any specific interesting event. The guy went to boot camp, trained as a scout sniper, went to Kuwait, invaded Iraq (First Gulf War) and nothing great happened at any point. A Marine's biography movie rather than a war movie, what most stands out is the cinematography, which has some beautiful and surreal moments. It hits all the necessary - comradeship, training, desire to fight, lack of understanding - and remains interesting throughout because this is what it's like for most folks, who don't get the major battles but still have a story to tell. The "hooray, the war is over and nobody will ever have to come back to Iraq ever again!" is a bit over-done, but then nobody accused Americans of understanding the subtleties of irony. And it's nice to see the same dehumanising training techniques made famous by Full Metal Jacket are alive and well.

Seven girlfriends on the Wall of Shame out of ten girlfriends on the Wall of Shame

Generation Kill (television miniseries)
The problem with a series following a bunch of arrogant, misogynistic, right-wing, racist, would-be-murderer men-children is that it's hard to actually care about the characters. It's the series of the book of the real stuff, this time U.S. Marines (why's it always the Marines?) spearheading the Iraq invasion at the start of the current festivities. The production values are top-notch but the script can waver, especially noticeable when they spout unexplained acronyms and jargon in every sentence and the one that gets explained with a painfully amateurish exposition scene is the one for coffee or something (I still don't know who the oft-referenced commanding officer Godfather is). It's pretty good, it's just not as enjoyable viewing as it could be. Excellent sergeant major though. Amusingly, the guy who looks most like an actor is actually an ex-Marine playing himself.

Six Whopper Juniors out of ten Whopper Juniors

Bravo Two Zero (television movie)
Sean Bean versus Iraq! I read the book of this when I was in my early-to-mid-teens (it's from the First Gulf War again), and it's the same old story; boy goes to Iraq, boy hunts SCUDs, boy meets Iraqis, Iraqis capture boy, Iraqis kick boy in face and put cigarettes out on him. This looks like it was made on a tight budget and the script suffers from having a narrator, but the story is decent and the torture scenes fairly convincing (dental torture made me squirm a little). News archive footage is used for most of the flashy stuff, which fits to some extent with the rest of it but again looks cheap, and good weapon usage doesn't quite gel with racking up a Rambo-esque 100 kills. Not bad, it's no Sharpe.

Five LAW rockets fired at a lorry when there's a perfectly good BTR right beside it out of ten LAW rockets fired at a lorry when there's a perfectly good BTR right beside it

The List

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:40:36 GMT

I've finally collated my list of methods of transportation used by James Bond in the movies, which was considerably more effort than you might imagine. Each method is listed only the first time it appears so a few of the later movies have nothing listed even though they revisit older systems with a new twist (ski BASE in The Spy Who Loved Me combining skiing and sky-diving, for example). Some broadly similar activities, such as swinging from a rope, a vine or a cable have been grouped as one. A number of items use improvised equipment in the movies (snowmobile skid snowboard in A View To A Kill, cello case sled in The Living Daylights, brake parachute kite in Die Another Day, etc.) but are listed as the sport they actually are. I've broken boats down into more categories than, say, planes or cars maybe because I know more about boats, or just because boats have been around longer and therefore have more distinct varieties. Generally we have to see Bond doing it, rather than just a shot of a plane landing and then Bond walking out of an airport. Is it enough to ride in, or does one have to pilot those which Bond pilots? Uncertain as yet, but in general I'm going with pilot it if he did. This list is imperfect and possibly inconsistent and I intend to refine it further during subsequent viewings of the series.

Ones in italics are ones I've used, which is the point of this. I guess this could be one of those things that people put in their own stupid weblog things if they wanted. There are a few I assume I've done but can't remember specifically and so have left un-italicised.

Dr. No
Foot
Car
Motorboat
Sailboat
Conveyor belt
Crawling through pipes

From Russia With Love
Rowboat
Ferry
Train
Pick-up truck

Goldfinger
Snorkel
Passenger jet

Thunderball
Rocket pack
Freediving
Swimming
SCUBA diving
Parade float
Helicopter
Motorised underwater propellor thing
Winched up
Hydrofoil
Raft
Picked up bodily by passing aeroplane

You Only Live Twice
Fired out of torpedo tube
Lift
Slide
Taxi
High-dive
Light plane
Whatever the fuck Little Nelly is
Rubber suction cups on hands and knees
Monorail
Military submarine

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Horse-drawn sleigh
Hanging from \ crawling on cable
Cable car
Skiing
Avalanche
Belly-slide!
Bobsled

Diamonds Are Forever
Passenger hovercraft
Van
Moon buggy
Off-road trike thing
Swinging from line
Lifted by crane
Pipe-maintenence rig
Thrown into swimming pool
Rolling across water in buoyant sphere thing
Cruise ship

Live And Let Die
Hang glider
Rotating wall segment
Double-decker bus
Platform lowered through floor
Hopping across backs of crocodiles and alligators

The Man With The Golden Gun
Pedal rickshaw
Climbing on scaffolding

The Spy Who Loved Me
Skydive\parachute
Camel
Horse-drawn cart
Personal submarine
Ladder
Riding on top of a track-mounted camera array
"Wetbike" jet ski type of thing
Undersea escape pod

Moonraker
Gondola
Zipwire
Ambulance
Gurney
Horsey
Space shuttle
Floating in zero gravity

For Your Eyes Only
Parasol as parachute
Ski jump
Zamboni
Dragged behind boat
Rock climbing
Fall broken by line
Ascending a rope

Octopussy
Vehicle towing a trailer
Taxi trike thing
Clambering about on ledges and windowsills outside building
Waterborne disguise machine
Underside of train
Jumping from one moving vehicle to another
Hot air balloon
Sliding down banisters
Rowed galley

A View To A Kill
Snowmobile
Snowboard
Half a car
Fire engine
Mine cart
Swiftwater

The Living Daylights
Tram
Snow sled
Roller coaster
Twirly fairground thing
Dodgems
Ferris wheel
Little airport tractor
Towed behind plane

Licence To Kill
Helicopter winch
Water skiing without skis
Stair ascender
Golf cart
Articulated lorry

Goldeneye
Bungee jump
Helicopter eject module
Tank

Tomorrow Never Dies
Fighter jet
Moving factory platform
Cart
Motorbike

The World Is Not Enough

Die Another Day
Surfing
Small hovercraft
Land speed record attempting machine
Kite surfing
Pointless skydiving sled thing

Casino Royale
Digger

Quantum Of Solace

Gaelcon, Day 3

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:57:53 GMT

Another early morning spent beside the printer, as I'd agreed to demo Burning Empires for Adam's indie games track, primarily because it seemed like such an impossibility. I'd initially wanted to explore some other indie game demos on Monday morning but it turned out none were running because Adam wanted to get a LARP in. On closer inspection, the LARP I hadn't wanted to play turned out not to be by the writer I thought (of whose LARPs I've played quite enough, thank you very much) and to be about something more interesting than the name would imply (specifically, the development of the atomic bomb, rather than elves or something). My policy of not buying tickets days in advance of course reaped its evil rewards here, as there were no slots left. This left me with the choice between Deadlands, which I loved for a long time and ultimately grew pretty sick of, and Star Wars, which nowadays uses the horrible d20 system. humbug and Viettrung were playing Deadlands, so I figured I'd give it another shot.

As we waited for the game to start, my attitude to forthcoming Deadlands grew from resigned acceptance to enthusiasm. In the event of the GM turning up and saying "I don't really know the Deadlands system, so if it's okay with everyone we're going to just use percentile dice" we'd loudly declare that no, that's not okay, we'll handle the rules and he can shut up and do what he's told - "we'll rules the shit out of him". We discussed options for providing appropriate dice and cards and poker chips (chocolate-covered raisins for red, yoghurt-covered for white?). If he said "bear with me, I just got handed this scenario ten minutes ago and haven't played Deadlands before" we'd execute a swift and violent improvised kung-fu manoeuvre and replace him before anyone noticed.

As it happened, the game writer turned up with paper miniatures and a battle-mat and props and mentioned it the game using the Savage Worlds generic game system, rather than the proper Deadlands "Classic" rules. He did confirm the rumour though that one of his GMs had taken it upon himself to convert the scenario to the Classic rules and would be running it that way. We poised ourselves for the burst of speed required to get to this guy's table when he'd put in his appearance, and when he did we were all over him. It ended up with only one of the five players at the table being unfamiliar with the rules, and we were able to run it so smoothly that it took no longer than either of the other tables, and while we were at it we corrected the GM on a few subtleties he'd been doing wrong in his regular game. The scenario, unfortunately, was super linear - get on train, get attacked by a group, get attacked by another group, get attacked by another group, final boss battle. I don't know quite what is running through an experienced gamer's head when he writes that and is happy to be represented by it. I correctly guessed the gimmick very early on into the scenario (each battle represents one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) and it ran over time and through the break. Playing proper Deadlands again for a short while was enough to make it fun, but as humbug said afterward "that was three hours of great followed by one hour of not being able to get lunch".

Fortunately for me, the indie games track ran on its own non-traditional hippie schedule, so I had plenty of time to kill before my Burning Empires demo. I ran into the indie group in the bar as they were on their way to play something, so Dizzy and I tagged along. The game was InSpectres, and was probably the most fun I had all weekend. We played it rules-light due to unfamiliarity but it still ran brilliantly, from dubious beginnings ending up like something straight out of the pages of the Real Ghostbusters comics. It was hilarious and extremely enjoyable and when I got home I was dismayed to learn that it's currently out of print.

When that ended I was technically expected to be demonstrating Burning Empires, which I'd been somewhat dreading. I called a halt to the campaign I'd been running recently due to lack of it being great, with the intention of revisiting it in the future and applying what we've learned from that attempt, but I didn't feel I'd do a great job of showing it off at present. After the fast-playing and funny InSpectres, a heavy science fiction rules set didn't seem like the way to finish off the con, and nobody declared that they'd been waiting to give it a shot, so I was let off the hook. I browsed the trade stands once again with Dizzy, and had a good time fine-tooth combing the bring & buy stall where I found something good.

Eventually the games were done and there was plenty of time to kill before the scheduled time for the closing ceremony. My attitude of inhaling Gaelcon to the max had me looking forward to it, but that was far from unanimous. Pursuant to some animated discussion humbug, Dizzy and I decided to go in search of chips, then back for a pint. Our route to chips brought us past a bus which Dizzy decided to catch, so more animated discussion produced a plan to get chips, go home to get the zombie board game, humbug would roll a saving throw versus comfy chair, back to the con and play the game until the closing ceremony, whereupon he'd go home and I'd attend that. The place with a chipper turned out not to have one at all, but we took the wrong route home anyway and passed another. The saving throw was passed and after eating and toiletries we returned to Clontarf Castle.

We had about enough time to get drinks in and unpack the game before word went around that the closing ceremony would be early. I went to that and didn't win anything and neither did anybody else from my extended adventuring party, but it was fun and not too long and included some at least partially choreographed violence against the RPG co-ordinator. People with more money and less chips in their bellies than me went to restaurants and I went home.

Gaelcon was freaking great, better than I'd let myself hope for. Some of the games I played were mediocre but that's the chances you take at a con. I very much enjoyed the opportunities the indie track afforded, the trade stands were top notch (although it'd be nice to have the opportunity to buy more specialised stuff, like indie RPGs and those obscure wargames things and rubber weapon people that used to turn up) and from what I could see it ran pretty slickly. On the downside, the after-hours socialising wasn't up to much. I guess the core crowd is getting older, although apart from the distressing number of babies to be seen (they're disgusting) I don't know why that makes going to the pub less appealing. Maybe that's why I'm so consistently single.

In my current extended state of non-wealth I didn't buy much, but what I did get was good.

A 50% share in Last Night On Earth
3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars
Two sets of FUDGE dice
Second-hand copy of The Contract Directory for SLA Industries

Gaelcon, Day 2

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:12:46 GMT

With the amount of work I'd put into my Silhouette Near-Future Non-Space Fantasy Science Fiction Paramedics game it was little trouble to be up bright and early again, printing out literally half a ream of paper's worth of scenario. The thing is a bit of a phone book on its own, and I was expected to have three copies just in case. On the walk via breakfast rolls I threw last-minute thoughts at humbug who was acting as the second GM, and when Dizzy showed up at the con I did the same for him as we moved down to one of the RPG rooms. We brushed up on last-minute rules and uncertainties, having been assured that three full tables of tickets had been sold so we'd all be required. Soon players began to arrive, and as mine was furthest from the door, it was the last to fill.

To my delight, the game went well. It may have been a little heavy on me telling players what happens because there's little they can actually decide based on their own knowledge, and I left out certain little details by not having refreshed myself on the module just before the con, but people seemed to have a good time, nobody stuck an axe in my head for not using the Shadowrun rules system, we got it played out in time (rather than the seven hours it took in playtest) and the guy who was into Shadowrun took the scenario with him when it was finished. Better yet, I'd been concerned that non-me GMs would have difficulty running it because of the amount of jargon and procedures, but when I looked around the other tables looked to be having a blast. Mine was pretty straightforward, but humbug's went in for some extra-curricular investigation and Dizzy's got into all kinds of Shadowrun silly anarchy. They both reported that their players seemed to have enjoyed it a great deal, which as you can imagine is pretty gratifying.

During the lunch break I ran into Adam, who was running the indie games track and was recruiting people for a Grey Ranks learning experience. I'd been interested in Grey Ranks for some time and the group were enthusiastic about drawing people in, so Dizzy and I decided to do that for the afternoon. Nobody'd played it before so two guys who'd read the book decided to co-GM and we worked our way through character creation and one chapter or day or whatever the game segments are called. Now, the subject matter of the Warsaw Uprising is fairly grim, and mixing in the fact that all the player characters are teenagers is grimmer. There were some funny moments but it's a pretty dark setting. Ultimately, I came away deciding that although some elements appealed to me (the seriousness, the game mechanics for tracking your character's psychological state), I don't like games where all characters go off and do independent things instead of playing as a group, I don't like high school dramas, and I have yet to get my head around enforced scene economy mechanics to the point where I'm comfortable with them and like them (although I do appreciate what they're trying to do). More than anything though it was the teenager aspect of it that removed it from my wish list, I just hate that stuff.

That wrapped up into general conversation about merits and demerits of the game, games in general and so on. The guys who'd been running it were really nice, and when one of them thought I might be interested in the game 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars for below cost price, which I immediately and delightedly snapped up. They started planning what to play in the evening, settling on A Flower For Mara, one of the few Jeep-form games available outside of Scandanavia. I'd have loved the chance to play this too, but about then humbug and DoC rolled out of their Cthulhutech game loudly declaring their intention of procuring pies. I wanted pies and to attend the charity auction, reveling as I was in soaking up as much Gaelcon as possible, so when Dizzy decided to go home and Adam decided he also wanted pies, a bit of searching located humbug and DoC in one of the venue's restaurant bars. A perfect venue for a few rounds of Perudo before my swanky fish & chips arrived (swanky fish & chips are just like proper fish & chips but with tartare sauce instead of salt & vinegar).

That left some time to kill before the charity auction would kick off, so we rented a Carcassone set and played a game of that, then traded it in for Monopoly. I am undefeated at Monopoly and have played a reasonable amount of it (and am poor and know little of economics; interestingly, Dave 2000 who is not poor and knows much of economics hadn't played it) but this version annoyed me. It's all modern-like, which means you can buy the LUAS and The Internet and The Spire (upon which you can build hotels), and the money has suffered hyper-inflation. I think the smallest denomination (you know, like the one pound in proper Monopoly) was 10,000, so any transaction involves navigating a confusing sea of zeroes to figure out what's going on, and mistakes were somewhat frequent. The charity auction started when we were still in the opening land-grab stages of the game and we tidied away.

The guy who used to run them had retired, deservedly so, and although I tended to find him a bit whiny and emotional in that role he was certainly good at it, and his successor wasn't making it. "I'm here to sell stuff for charity!" "Then why do you have a Charisma score of 9?" we muttered. Our group has never been into the auction thing, with the one-time exception of Dave who catapulted himself to the top of the Camarilla heap at Warpcon in a money for experience points scandal one year and hasn't looked back, but I enjoy attending them and observing the antics. I put my pocket shrapnel into the fund to get the auctioneer to continue the evening wearing nothing but superhero underpants, but unfortunately the keep-his-clothes-on-for-fuck's-sake fund won by a huge margin. There weren't any noticeable killer lots, like, say, Gary Gygax's purloined wedding ring with the grave dirt still on it, but somehow they ended up with an impressive total of over 20,000 eurobucks raised, which should be about a third of the rent on an undeveloped Kimmage, or whatever it's called nowadays.

One notable event was a lot of fairly ancient Dungeons & Dragons box sets and such, with the bidding opening ludicrously low. Long having been a fan of loudly hating D&D I had no interest in buying them, but was surprised at the silence emanating from the less enlightened DoC, humbug and Dave 2000 around me. I was shocked when it sold for a paltry 75 quid, but aside from some comment about how the buyer would probably be shoving them down his trousers or something, it was soon forgotten - until the buyer sat down at the empty table in front of us, fate taunting those who could have given these products a good home. He started off by trying to shove the antiques into his backpack, but had trouble getting them to fit. It was too horrific to be anything other than amused and slightly scandalised. Eventually he removed some of the well-preserved packaging and left, a valuable cardboard box discarded on his table. Even I wasn't comfortable with this, but we explored our emotional peculiarities by using it as a bin.

DoC was driving and dropped us home for a not particularly late night.

Gaelcon, Day 1

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:21:52 GMT

I'm going to have to divide this up since currently most of my spare time is consumed by trying to get through the existing Bond movies again as quickly as possible so I can go see the new one. I'm up to A View To A Kill.

Gaelcon is my favourite convention ever. Many of the others in the country have their charms, from fun chaos (WARPcon) to small-town charm (Itzacon and ConFESS) to "our girlfriends are in another country!" (Q-Con), but Gaelcon is bigger and longer and slicker and swankier than them all. I'd been dying for this year's one ever since I knew I'd be in the country for it, and in fact had even started writing a scenario for it before that for someone else to run. As far as I'm concerned Gaelcon is the hub around which Irish gaming rotates, but it would seem that there are less thinking the same way than once upon a time. Many people I know weren't planning to attend at all, or just for a while. Some people have chosen to get married on this weekend, which frankly makes them the worst type of people ever to walk the face of this planet; Hitler himself pales in comparison. I'd heard that the con was smaller, with less trade and poorer organisation last year.

Nevertheless, I figured I could fight through the apathy. I attempted to round up my Friday gaming group to instead go for the official unofficial pre-Gaelcon drinkies in town, now in Cassidy's instead of the traditional two-bit sleazy dive Fibber's. Ultimately it was but myself and Stu who made it there, to find Matt already several pints deep and counting. The crowd was modest but grew a bit, and not having many known factors to talk to increased the cross-pollination, which is exactly how a con should go. By the end of the night some kid from Limerick had made the mistake of wondering how to run a convention within my earshot - I advised the hell out of him, at length, until he made his excuses and left.

I was up bright and early on Saturday morning to politely shower myself into ungamerly non-stinkiness and get to the con before the doors opened. With humbug and Matt and some delicious breakfast rolls which the shop on the way sells by the kilo (I shit you not) we arrived to find the doors not yet open and a few gamer types milling about in the cutely castle-decorated lobby area. Ultimately queueing started and my name was crossed off the list of writers in exchange for weekend ticket number 39.

I'd been bracing myself for the trade area to be mediocre, based on what I'd heard about last year, so I was pleasantly surprised when three of the four sides of the main hall were wall-to-wall with delicious things to buy. Boxes and boxes of books, piles of card games, large displays of board games, rows of dice, armies of miniatures, and possibly best of all a bring & buy stand stuffed with cheap goodies with profits to charity. I don't know how many laps of the place I did over the weekend and it never got old. I hardly bought anything because I'm so poor, but that was okay because there wasn't actually much I want; it's still great fun to browse though and the trade stands always do wonders for the atmosphere of Gaelcon.

Game tickets for the entire weekend were available at a rather inflated price compared to what I remember (three euros for an RPG, rather than one pound) but my moral stance (which would later bite me in the ass) prevented me from signing up for games on a future day when I might have suffered some hideous accident and be denying someone else a spot and the game its full complement. I got a ticket for the Conspiracy X RPG (an RPG is a role-playing game, and a role-playing game is a dynamically moderated form of improvisational theatre) in the afternoon and the Legend of the 5 Rings LARP (a LARP is a live-action role-playing game, and a role-playing game is a dynamically moderated form of improvisational theatre) in the morning. Our adventuring party then decided to buy a game to kill the time until the morning slots started, and I suggested that I'd heard on some podcast that The Last Night On Earth is good. We hadn't seen any copies around but I had my video camera with me and its zoom function let me browse the stand on the other side of the room from my seat. They had an expansion set but none of the base game, but the second thing I found on the stand three feet behind me was it, so I split the cost of that with humbug to further complicate our Axis & Allies: Europe custody battle and that left four minutes to go until the morning games. Into the bag it went, to its box's detriment.

I'd been a little wary of the Legend of the 5 Rings LARP because of the blurb in the programme, which contained maybe a few too many words beginning with capital letters. L5R can be like that, where you can be expected to know a lot about the setting going in, or have to learn it on the fly; that guy's wearing a sky-blue kimono with gold trim and a tree motif, marking him as the Capital Letter sect of the Capital Letter clan, who are proponents of the Capital Letter family's machinations but secretly allies of the nation of Capital Letter, practitioners of the dark arts of Capital Letter. I threw caution to the wind on the grounds that fortune favours the bold, but things didn't get any better when it failed to start on time and the public address system was used to urge people to buy tickets. Eventually it got underway with 14 players out of a possible (and assumed) 25.

Indeed it was capital-lettery. When asked if I had any sort of character preference I requested "not the side-kick with a dark secret", which evoked an "oh" and some shuffling of papers before handing me an aged warrior and advisor to the high priestess of pseudo-Egypt. This was the best thing about the game, since even in these opening minutes of the convention a fair proportion of the room already smelled like gamer; so it was great when the high priestess turned out to be played by a surprisingly pretty short lady who kept standing next to her aged warrior adviser and had nice-smelling hair, which was therefore just under my nose - an attractive air freshener. The theory I'd been spouting to one of Adam's Pommie-buddies on the way there about how even a bad LARP can be made fun by soaking up whatever fun other people are having for yourself by being loud and obnoxious was put into practise, unfortunately by someone not myself (who seemed pleasant outside the game, although one wonders how a person can look at his pink hair and black lipstick in the mirror in the morning and emit a Fonzie-like eeeeeeeyyyyyyy and thumbs-up of self-approval) over-acting a character who was supposed to be a bit of a dick. There was a little bit of combat, which never EVER works in this type of non-combat LARP, but fortunately it was limited to one quick bout. At the end of the day, it's hard to judge the game because it barely had half the players for which it was written, but my instincts were right - too many capital letters.

A pint for lunch was a grand idea, and presently it was time for the afternoon RPGs. I'd never played Conspiracy X despite having received the core books for my birthday at Icon one year, but I like the look of the system in a number of regards (creating a cell of U.S. government bad-asses; being able to tap phones or call in SWAT teams or get satellite images or quarantine towns; explicit rules for gun-fu) and was looking forward to giving it a good run in a scenario by the guy who wrote the fun Vaticon Trilogy game I played in one year. When we moved into the RPG room, the writer's table filled up without me somehow, and the other one, by a GM who seemed to know what he was doing, was already fully populated. Word was that the third prepped GM had only received the scenario is the past hour; I headbutted my bag in frustration because I HATE THAT (I hit my extremely sturdy video camera case and it hurt). Eventually he was unable to be found and another GM was dug up and handed the scenario for the first time right then and there; I HATE THAT worse. Then in he walked, saying he had no idea what this is about (HATE THAT) and that he doesn't know the Con X system so would we mind if we just sort of wing it (AAAAGGGGHHHHH), and to top it off it was a guy whose games I make a specific point of avoiding because they're boring and unoriginal. Things had lined themselves up to so perfectly represent everything I hate that I was left in the rather nice position of it not being able to get any worse, and indeed it didn't (except the scenario was pointless). In fairness to the guy, he runs an entertaining firefight, something I can't do for toffee, and that's pretty much all there was to the game - no investigation, no role-playing, nothing. It even had one of my high points of the weekend - "Oh shit, we're in Chicago! Do we have SCMODS?" humbug and Dizzy, who eventually got there, were at the writer's table and without the benefit of having been at the lowest point man can reach, didn't enjoy it near as much as I did. Apparently the other games running at the same time were great though, so I'll chalk this one up as a loss, but like the morning's game a learning experience (yer man's not so bad; avoid the capital letters).

With humbug and Dizzy I headed away for vittles, eventually finding a Chinese restaurant where we fed our faces and returned to find Matt had already sorted out our tickets for the pub quiz. With the arrival of assorted other halves and Ian with his (leaving me and Matt the only singletons) I'm not sure if we made two tables or one illegally big one, but it didn't matter since we didn't win first and second places like that one time.

The quiz was good solid stuff, with fun use of multi-media - song excerpts, music video excerpts, what-happens-next-in-the-television-programme, identify-the-game-from-the-close-up-of-a-bit-of-it, name-the-painter, who's-the-odd-one-out and so on. There were bonus rounds where each table would nominate one of their number for one of the listed categories, and using some system I didn't hear about because it was explained during my round five tables were chosen for each one. My number came up near the end for Action Heroes, and I outlasted three of my opponents but screwed up royally when I didn't recognise Steven Seagal's most famous character's name, and me ostensibly a leading expert of Steven Seagal, having once attempted to watch all of his movies. Well fuck you! You don't know what it's like! You haven't been where I've been! Those movies are ALL THE SAME. If I don't remember them it's because my brain has some kind of self-defence mechanism which is why I'm writing this now instead of serving time for shooting a bunch of people from up the Spike. I learned a valuable life lesson from my Seagal project, and that's that sometimes it's okay to quit. Nevertheless, I do logically feel I deserve any ridicule anyone cares to offer for blanking on Casey Ryback. I think we eventually came fifth; there were questions about television programmes and such that I'd never even heard of. We've lost our touch really.

Once we were kicked out of Clontarf Castle word was people were going to Cassidy's, but the only person I could convince to accompany me was a very tired Matt (and Dizzy figured he'd go into town and then back to his parents' place). Cassidy's was starting to evacuate and word was the next stop was Fibber's, and I was all excited about seeing it again because it's been years and years. Dizzy departed and I tromped north with Matt, waltzed past the bouncers and into EXACTLY THE SAME. That hole has barely changed at all. Same costumed freakshow, same sea of black t-shirts in various stages of fade, same layout, same music as ten years ago downstairs. I didn't get a chance to try the pints or the toilets but I expect they're still as awful as ever. But in subtle ways, it was EVEN BETTER. There was a band playing, a death metal type of thing, with a lead singer guy with one of those unintelligible roaring voices, except it was a chick! Instead of a general smell of urine and sweat and stale smoke and sticky floor, there was a general smell of urine and sweat and stale smoke and sticky floor and hippie incense stick. We did a lap looking for people but came up empty, and Matt started to have difficulty breathing for some reason, so we went home, and I didn't mind because I'd seen that it's still there, and I was running my scenario in the morning and had lots of printing to do before then. Bed bed bed bed bed.