Raithe

What book are you reading that captivated you so much? A slightly whimsical semi-steampunk/alternate history style novel called "Etiquette and Espionage". In early Victorian England (in a world with steampunk and vampires and werewolves involved in politics), a young girl with a certain tomboy flair is sent off to finishing school. Only to find said school is a caterpillar-like dirigible, and the finishing school includes lessons on; poisoning, intelligence gathering, knife work, how to faint in a manner to attract a target's attention at a ball and no-one elses, how to manage the house-hold accounts so you can order the steak and the strychnine on a low budget, and other such assorted things alongside the more normal posture, dance, history, fashion and culture. "At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course."

Well was one of those nights where I wasn't getting to sleep, so I made the mistake of thinking to read a couple of chapters and then plan on attempting sleep again. Enter finishing the book and realising it had gone past 5am...

I have to admit, I can't really make up my mind on that one. It is nicely crafted and nicely acted, but... While there are some really good sequences in it, the whole thing just doesn't hang together for me to make it a really enjoyable Bond film. I don't know if it's the overbundance of "hollywood hacking" or the incredibly incompetent paranoia that the good guys have - I mean, they know these machines are hacked and it's absolutely vital for the storyline that they leave them fully connected to the Internal networks for days/weeks after.. The shout outs were both good to see but wince inducing at the same time even as I was amused to see them. It just feels a little bit bizarre. And the ending left it feeling as if half the point was just to introduce us to Fiennes character.

"The victim, a pro wrestler, was found in the ring with third degree burns covering over half his body. The only evidence we found was a half-used matchbook." "Looks like he finally..." ( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) "Met his match."

Kept waking up from weird frakking dreams through the early morning. Now I seem to be facing the day with one of those grinding headaches behind my eyeballs....

Been dabbling on SS2 tonight. First time in a few weeks I've managed more then 20 minutes or so at a time of gaming. Currently just hit Operations level...

And System Shock 2 is now currently available from GOG... the countdown has ended..

If we're going with mead.. http://youtu.be/Z_DBa7L361o

As the midnight hour passes across into V-Day..

Important safety tips..

The original AvP played in the dark..with surround speakers.. That could get chilly. They really had the atmosphere ramped up.. Especially when you were moving around and could just hear that facehugger scuttling in the shadows...

Action game would either be larger than life or just smaller and would feel wierd at nearly life size. It would feel wierd to me. A strategy game at least my mpire would seem huge Can you imagine the original Aliens vs Predator game on that at the dead of night under a full moon...

Got to sleep some time post 3am. Woken up by dogs barking, dozed a lil off and on, with more dogs barking and a work related phone call. Head and stomach seem to be rebelling in assorted ways. I have a feeling I'm not going to be achieving much of practical use today....

Oh the nostalgia for The Goonies?

I play on Shadowlands, and I've had a subscription from the release of the game.... and I have to admit, I don't have those issues. Lag only crops up now and again, and rarely for any serious length of time. Occasionally I'll get caught on a transfer screen when I've been bouncing around a lot of planets and I'll have to restart the game, but that's not a repeat, every day occurence. The only people I know who have been regularly suffering something is windows 8 users, who for some reason, a batch of them seem to get sudden disconnects and game crashes.

"A New Hope..."

Dang it, I can't seem to get my gaming mojo back. Of late I just seem to get in the odd 10-15 minute attempt at gaming before I have to give up since my mood just hasn't been in it.

Dealing with the inevitable mix of cranky, grouch, hurt and depression that springs forth each year due to not being able to forget a certain anniversary, or how it's the week before valentines. It gets a little awkward when nothing you try seems to get you past the recognition of the moment. Keep myself distracted to a point and kind of forget the time..and then it'll be "oh crap, it's that start of february" and it jumps back on with both feet.

On a Rogue Trader note, I recently read through Stars of Inequity. I have to admit, after the months of waiting for this to shed lights on planets and systems, creation ideas, and how to handle setting up colonies by your Rogue Trader... I'm left feeling a little disapointed and I can't quite figure out why. Chapter 1 is pretty much random tables for generating systems, then planets. But nothing too detailed or varied. So you'll probably end up following it vaguely but throwing in your own stuff like you've been doing until this point.. Chapter 2 "Planetside Adventuers" - more random tables. For ; Profit Motives, Encounter Sites, Local Phenomena, Planetside Complications, and Treasure Generator. Although these tend to have a fair few interesting ideas for you to expand on yourself. There's also about 3 pages of "explorer's gear". Chapter 3 "Populating the Expanse" - The first part that seriously engaged me, some general look at how colonies get founded, the world details involved ; ie. All the different things players would need to do, looking at founding colonies by themselves or getting contracts with backers, the practical matters of shipping equipment, the different elements you need to bring together to form the various types of colonies, creating a colony charter.... That and a few basic mechanics for establishing, then running them in the background (and just how easy they are to fall to pieces if you don't micromanage them..). Also a brief section on establishing "Representatives" that can run things for your characters and do minion type things.. Chapter 4 "Factions of the Expanse" has some interesting ideas, but they seem more thrown in for no real reason. It's four different groups that have no fixed position in-universe, so you can drop them wherever. A mysterious explorator fleet, a rakish pirate king and his band, a semi-restrained ork fleet, and a group of unusual kroot. None of which are tied in any way to earlier elements to the book. They just feel as if they've been added so there's some "fluff" elements to give you a break from the random generation tables. One thing that seems missing, is any actual examples of systems, worlds, colonies, rogue traders actually using them. So you can't really do any comparison with what you create to get a feel for how well it balances out or if you're doing it right.. I know it's geared around helping you create new worlds and all, but it feels like too much consists of random generation tables that don't have that much variety or too much linkage together.

A nice little blog entry regarding that Games Workshop thing.. Shlock Mercenary - Space Marines, Water War and Uplifted Elephants

You watch Desperado for Salma Hayek, not Banderas..

Geez, found out some news about an old friend I haven't spoken to in months. After years of health issues that doctor's could never figure out (breathing issues, blood issues, passing out due to unexplained "heart murmers" and assorted other things), she was in hospital for a minor surgery over christmas, and the doctors finally discovered a growth. A 9 pound fibrous growth. Wrapped around her womb and up, compressing her lungs and internal organs. It had never been picked up on before, and previous doctors had just told her she needed to lose weight. Apparently what was meant to be a not-so-long surgery turned into a 5 hour event. Afterward that surgeon was amazed she'd been in class teaching, because women with growths half that size had basically become house bound due to the problems it can cause. Kind of highlights the fact that you still need to take doctors with a grain of salt. I mean she'd had these problems for years without it being diagnosed correctly.