I am a Kraken from the Sea!

I heard that was you…

Saw two movies yesterday. Well, one and maybe a third of another.

After about a month’s break due to Fabes’s commitments regarding the Dockers and his son we got back to work on the infamous 40k boards again. They are now all sealed, and one has had the magnets installed (they’re actually looking really good now). As is usually the case whenever we get together to work on a project however we realised halfway through that we’d shot ourselves in the feet – installing the magnets on the boards has to be done sequentially and it takes about 24 hours for the araldite we’re using to fix them to cure. Result – an entire afternoon with nothing to do but watch glue dry.

So we put on the TV instead and mercilessly mocked whatever we came across as we channel surfed. We eventually stumbled onto 1972’s What’s Up Doc? and ended up seeing some quite large chunks of it.

The bits we saw weren’t bad. I mean, they weren’t fantastically amusing, but they were OK for a slow Saturday afternoon. And it’s downright startling to realise that back in the day Barbara Streisand was pretty damn cute.

Anyway, eventually I got home, watched the new episode of Dr Who (my opinion on it is in a holding pattern until part two airs next week), then settled down to watch Juno –  a film that I thought I’d like back when it came out, but never got around to seeing.

As it turns out I was right, it was a lot of fun (for some reason Ellen Page pretending to be a Kraken is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen). And it didn’t feel at all preachy – any movie about teen pregnancy runs the risk of turning into some kind of after school special but to me Juno managed just to be a bunch of stuff that happens without any kind of big moral or message. Good, fun, quirky entertainment with characters that you can care about. And krakens.

In my own life my kitchen is now startlingly clean and organised. This is good because I’ve been fighting a bit of a war with cockroaches for a while and it looks like I’ve broken the back of their offensive. Either that or the roach bombs I’ve put up on the window-sill in preparation for fumigating the entire apartment have scared them off. Today I’m starting on the bathroom, which will be a whole world of fun, but at least won’t take as long as the kitchen did.

(Note to cold climate dwelling foreigners who may be reeling in disgust at my arthropod related revelations. In a sub-tropical climate cockroaches are always present. In cold and temperate zones having roaches may be a sign of complete hygienic depravity, but in these warmer parts of the world it’s not a matter of having no cockroaches, it’s a matter of knowing they’re around but keeping numbers down so you only see them when the weather goes all pre-Cambrian and they think they’re running the planet again and can go roaming with impunity. So having a roach problem doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a ragged-haired, garbage-hoarding, slum dweller, it just means I haven’t done the washing up as often as I should :))

Well, back to it.

A Universe Built on Bad Puns

For Tanith! For Verghast! For cold and flu relief!

In the next Gaunt’s Ghosts novel Dan Abnett should have the Ghosts face a Chaos cult called the Histi.

That way they could fight them with anti-Histi-mines!

(Yes, yes, I’ll go drive over my head with a chimera now…)

Baby, I’m Getting Better

I could leave my room, my cocoon, find the door and walk out to the sun

Well, after a couple of months of extreme stress at work, egg-induced illness over the weekend, the general hurly-burly of Easter and the circadian disruption of getting up insanely early for the ANZAC dawn service yesterday, I’m actually starting to feel human again. By this time tomorrow I might actually be up to doing useful things, rather than creeping around muttering “things, things, yes, we must do things, so many things to do” like Gollum ;D

In the meantime here are a couple of fantastic mini documentaries I’ve been meaning to promote for ages. They’re both about the urban development of London and – no! Wait! Don’t leave! They’re very entertaining! Honest!

If you doubt my recomendation (and if so, what the hell is your problem? ;)) just watch the second one, which is more polished and contains a good deal more surrealism. But honestly, you should watch them both, ideally in order.

Enjoy!

Make a daft noise for Easter

Penitet me.

Vide equus meus. Mirum est equum! Degustabis equus meus…

Sicut fructus uva passa gustat!

Quam cum iubis fit equum demulceri volatilis apparatus. Transfiguration Et vice versa cum trahitur phallus!

Obscena quod!

Ita putas? Non ego te certiorem unde fetus facta est sucus. Sucis dulcus. Sucis dulcus. Sucis dulcus. Sucis dulcus!

Adepto in equum et ducam per totum mundum et ceteris omnibus!

Corrigendus est me vobis. Totum continetur totius mundi…

Mulier taceat! Adepto in meus equum!

Westfail

Weighted Companion Cubes

So, Westfield are setting up a “virtual shopping mall”, featuring all the stores present in their physical shopping centres.

Or at least the ones willing to pay even more than they’re already gouged for to obtain a “virtual lease”.

So they can be on an e-commerce site. On top of the e-commerce sites they almost certainly already have.

Oh, and they’ll pay a commission back to Westfield on all sales.

Sounds a lot like the “virtual shopping malls” that did so well in the late 90’s. Remember them?

Thought not.

I mean I’m not saying it won’t work.

I’m just saying it probably won’t.

Prove me wrong Westfield dudes!

Crates

As if the rules aren’t complicated enough already…

I’m currently building a large terrain piece for Fabes’ and my Warhammer 40,000 games – an Adeptus Mechanicus/Imperial Navy hanger building. The plan is to have battles around the hanger, but also inside the hanger, which will include fights in the main hanger space, involving lots of action movie style firefights between rows of crates.

Now 40k has a pretty simple rule about cover – units in cover get a 4+ save. This is well and good, but misses some of the strategy and fun of fighting in a warehouse environment full of barrels, crates and explosive gas canisters. So, Fabes and I have come up with the following rules to make crate rich environments a bit more exciting…

CRATE TYPES
Crates can be divided into four types. Large Metal Crates, Large Wooden Crates, Small Crates, and Barrels/Cannisters/Ammo Boxes. Each piece of Crate terrain should be designated as one of these types.

CRATE COVER
The four types of Crates provide cover saves for models behind them as follows…

Large Metal            4+
Large Wooden       5+
Small or Barrel/Cannister/Ammo Box      6+

Cover for a barricade of crates is calculated by taking the highest cover save of all the crates in the structure. A barricade containing a Large Metal Crate for instance starts with 4+, while one with no Large Metal but Large Wooden starts at 5+. Every additional crate in the structure adds +1 to the save, to a maximum of 2+.

ATTACKING CRATES
A unit may elect to fire on a crate, or a barricade as if it is another unit. The Armour Values of crates are as follows…

Large Metal           8
Large Wooden      6
Small or Barrel/Cannister/Ammo Box      4

When firing on a barricade the attacker may designate which succesful hits impact on which crate (all hits must be allocated before resolving them).

RESOLVING HITS
When a crate is hit, roll 2d6 on the Crate Impact Table. Each type of crate gets a modifier for this table as follows…

Large Metal           0
Large Wooden    +2
Small                    +2
Ammo Box/Barrel/Canister  +4

Using a flamer, melta or plasma weapon gives an additional +1

CRATE IMPACT TABLE (2d6)

2,3,4,5 – No Effect
6,7,8,9 – If a large crate, replace with a small crate, otherwise no effect
10,11,12 – Destroyed

If a natural double 1 or double 6 is rolled, the crate explodes with a Strength of 3, an AP of 5 and the standard blast template.

So yeah, there we go. Have fun kids!

Five Lines

I had nothing better to do for a few hours…

Well, I’m no expert, but here’s my attempt at the first five lines (beyond that I recognise so few that it’s plain not worth it…)

1 Kirk
2 Spock
3 Bones
4 Uhura
5 Sulu
6 Chekov
7 Scotty
8 Yeoman Rand
9 Nurse Chapel
10 …Uh
11 …Some Dude
12 …Some Other Dude
13 Arex
14 M’Ress
15 Harry Mudd
16 Evil Mirror Kirk
17 Evil Mirror Spock
18 Gorn
19 T’Pau
20 Mugato!
21 Khan
22 Orion Slave Girl
23 …I recognise this guy but can’t name him…
24 …Richard Simmons?

25 …Klingon
26 …Another Klingon
27 …Yet another Klingon
28 … Another damn Klingon
29 Tribbles!
30 …nope
31 Captain Pike
32 Talosian
33 …No idea
34 Horta
35 Salt Vampire
36 …Sergeant Pepper?
37 Excalbian
38 Apollo
39 Nomad
40 Trelane
41 Balok Puppet
42 Balok
43 Kirk (Motion Picture)
44 Spock (Motion Picture)
45 Bones (Motion Picture)
46 Uhura (Motion Picture)

47 Sulu (Motion Picture)
48 Chekov (Motion Picture)
49 Scotty (Motion Picture)
50 Illia
51 Decker
52 Kirk (Wrath of Khan)
53 Spock (Wrath of Khan)
54 Bones (Wrath of Khan)
55 Uhura (Wrath of Khan)
56 Sulu (Wrath of Khan)
57 Chekov (Wrath of Khan)
58 Scotty (Wrath of Khan)
59 Saavik (Wrath of Khan)
60 …Some unknown dude
61 …Spock in a dress?
62 KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!
63 Dr Carol Marcus
64 David Marcus
65 Klingon Monster Dog Thing (possibly a type of Targ)
66 Kruge
67 Sarek
68 Amanda Greyson
69 …Dunno
70 …Some Chick

71 Kirk (Voyage Home)
72 Spock (Voyage Home)
73 Bones (Voyage Home)
74 Uhura (Voyage Home)
75 Sulu (Voyage Home)
76 Chekov (Voyage Home)
77 Scotty (Voyage Home)
78 Admiral Cartwright
79 Federation President
80 Sybok
81 General Chang
82 Chancellor Gorkon
83 Valeris
84 …The Smoking Man?
85 …Random Klingon
86 …Bruce K Tedesco
87 …Daniel Flintstone
88 …Unknown
89 Jean Luc Picard
90 Data
91 Riker (God damn I hate that bastard…)
92 Worf
93 Dr Crusher

94 La Forge
95 Troi
96 Tasha Yar
97 Weenus (uh, I mean Wesley, of course…)
98 O’Brian
99 …Whatsisface
100 Ro Loren
101 Guinan
102 Q
103 Lore
104 Noonian Soong
105 Lwaxana Troi
106 Mr Hom
107 Alexander Son of Worf
108 K’Ehleyr
109 … Justin Bieber?
100 Dr Pulaski
111 …Short Chick
112 …Pale Dude
113 Dixon Hill
114 Locutus of Borg
115 Moriarty
116 Dr Watson (Geordi)
117 Sherlock Holmes (Data)
118 Spot

A Yelp of Protest

Anti-virus programs are really just a conspiracy anyway… ;D

When I bought my new computer about a year ago it came (as is normal) with an anti-virus program installed – specifically BitDefender. Although I wasn’t familiar with this particular AV I decided to go with it, since I’d already paid for it and all and I’m a lazy bastard who couldn’t be bothered changing to something else.

As a BitDefender customer over the last year I have not been overly impressed. I mean, it worked – I haven’t (as far as I know) been infected with anything – but I was not filled with confidence. The program was always really slow to respond (you click to open it and have to wait for twenty seconds) and would crash completely out of the blue on a regular basis. But I stuck with it, for both the reasons above and because I don’t *need* a fantastically effective internet security suite as I run a pretty tight ship – I don’t download random programs, I surf with Javascript and Java switched off, I keep my OS and browser updated, I avoid dodgy sites, I don’t do social networking, I can recognise the difference between http and https and I scan all my email up on the server before downloading. On occasion I even boot into Ubuntu and scan my drives with ClamAV. I mean, I’m not immune to attack by any means, but I am tougher nut to crack than the average pleb.

So this week my BitDefender license expired. After considering switching to another program I decided it was simplest to renew it. I thought the renewal process might even fix some of the issues with speed and stability. So, off to the BitDefender site I went.

I put all my info in, chose PayPal as my payment method and submitted…

The site crashed.

Great. That’s really reassuring guys.

I decided to be charitable and assume there was problem with their PayPal integration (PayPal integration *is* a major pain). I reloaded the site in a fresh window, re-entered my data and chose to pay by credit card. I submitted, and the site crashed with exactly the same cryptic error message.

Two strikes, and out! Frack’em.

I’ve uninstalled BitDefender and am currently downloading a different AV program – one I’ve used in the past and had no problems with. Stick with what you know people!

PS: No Alice on Coast the other night. Boo!

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami