October 2008 – Wyrmlog

But who’ll look after the graves?

I know, I shouldn’t mock the internet people.

Some comments from the news article Family sets sail for Australia like it’s 1854 on news.com.au today…

By 1854 every ship afloat was equipped with sextants and chronometers, which accurately measured latitude and longitude respectively and made navigation safe and reliable. If this bloke is “navigating by the stars” without even these instruments, he is not replicating an 1854 voyage, he is back in the age of the Vikings.

Posted by: chris of canberra

Chris of Canberra – read the article mate. They are recreating a voyage undertaken in 1854 by 7 people escaping from abject poverty. How were people below the poverty line in 1854 going to be able to afford a sexton and a chronometer. Navel chronometers were insanely expensive pieces of kit back when all clocks were mechanical.

Posted by: Badger of Melbourne

Badger of Melbourne – I’m currently planning a sea voyage myself and never stopped to consider the high cost of hiring church officials to take with me. Thanks for the heads up!

Posted by: Purple Wyrm of Sexton vs Sextant Land

I know I shouldn’t mock, but sometimes I just can’t help myself 🙂

The Illuminati are Coming

Photos and card games

OK, rather than blog I’ve lately been spending a lot of my time uploading photos to my Flickr account. This is awful I know, but since most of them are vaguely Urban Exploration related I figure it sort of counts as work towards Abandoned in Perth, which has been sitting around abandoned for quite some time. I’ve got about two thirds of the photos up that I want, so I’m over half way to having time to blog again.

Had the guys around to my place yesterday and we did a block more playtesting on Plyin’ the Black. It’s still a work in progress, but we seem to have figured out most of the numeric issues regarding difficulties and bonuses, and come up with a way to make Reavers scary as hell without totally unbalancing the game. We’ve also (finally) figured out some ways that a player can actually win – which when you think about it is something that a game actually needs to be a game. Stay tuned for more (eventual) updates.

(Oh, did I mention that I got Jewel Staite to autograph a copy of the rules at Supanova? Well I did. Yey! 🙂

We also dug out my old INWO cards and played a rather shambolic game with completely random decks. It’s actually more fun that I remembered. Fabes has run off with them all to ‘learn the rules’, which is code for ‘analyse every single card and construct a deck that will destroy all the other players in the second round’ – but hey, it’ll be fun to see how he does it 🙂

My lunch break is over now, so I guess I’d better get back to work. *sigh*.

It’s Flickr-mania!

Finally uploading some photos

Spent much of the weekend uploading images to my previously dormant Flickr account. A lot of it’s urban exploration stuff, although various other things have slipped through as well. Organisation is a bit of nightmare on a free account (which only gives you two sets) – I may have to pay for a ‘pro’ account at some point (pay for a web service? pshaw!).

Anyway, if you enjoy looking at pictures of trashed buildings, here you go 🙂

Quote of the Week

The stuff about Bowie’s codpeice is gold too

…Miss Piggy- and Gonzo-loving kids and parents must have thought this J.R.R. Tolkien-like epic would be an adorable Kermit-dressed-as-a-Hobbit romp. What they got were the Skeksis, lizard bird creatures that ate other Muppets and shrieked in such a way, I still can’t get it out of my head….

From The 26 Most Disturbing Kid Movies Ever, unsurprisingly discussing The Dark Crystal

So much for more frequent posts eh? Still devilishly busy at work and also feeling somewhat sick and run down. Hopefully things shall improve shortly.

On a spoilers-for-Battlestar-Galactica note….
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..They killed Cally!! You bastards!

(Do I really have to point out that that’s a nod to old-school South Park?)

I don’t care that she (apparently) smelled of boiled cabbage and developed total amnesia over Baltar putting her on the death list, I still loved her!

Booo evil crypto-Cylon woman! Boooo!