Munden's Bar

The concept of The Curse of the Yellow Sign ( by John Wick) looks like it would make a good little LARP. In fact with John' suggestions for staging and the like, it's almost a LARP as written.

Almost makes me want to run it at Fright Night.

via fraser_by_proxy, I am a :
( Chaotic Neutral Human Wizard/Sorcerer (4th/3rd Level) )

So, in searching through cupboards for miniatures, not only did I discover miniatures, but I discovered a role-playing game that came with miniatures, The deluxe edition of The Game Lords' Guild Space, a sci-fi RPG based on their Metascape rules system

It's pretty mind-blowing trip back to the bad old days. Then I made the mistake of looking it up on the web, to see if anyone still remembered it. I discovered that not only was there now a second edition free on the web, but I was not clever enough to play this game, as the site says :

MetaScape II is a very advanced role playing game targeting a mature, experienced audience. To successfully grasp this system and wield its power, you need to be mature and intelligent. Seriously, if you're not at least in upper high school or college with above average intelligence and maturity level, this system is NOT for you. Go download or buy one of the many RPGs designed for more mainstream players. If you are new to role playing, leave now.
This system was designed by master RPGers with a target audience of themselves. It is not made for, nor targets the mass market. The rules are advanced, extremely thorough, and often complex. We placed it out here on the net for a select few other masters to play and enjoy, not for typical gamers. It would take a typical gamer weeks to fumble through the rules and attempt to play.
OK, the warning has been made. We realize that some will take this warning as a challenge or choose to ignore us. At least we can now present the rules with a clear conscious. If you are not one of the exceptional gamers of the world, well we warned you.

However, I am clever enough to know know the difference between conscience and being conscious. and it seems our so-called "master RPGers" are not! It's all so bad, that just like Senzar, one is tempted to believe that it's deliberate parody. Alternatively, it could be extremely cynical marketing, to suck in those who think they're smart. Because in the box I also found a Player Rank Application :
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Is, for those reading this who are not local, a role-playing convention held yearly at Turnbull House, a community event location, which is just over the road from the back entrance to the New Zealand Parliament buildings.

I haven't always made it along, often because the 48hr Film Competition has been on the same weekend, but this year they were some distance apart, so I got to go. It's good to go to a con like this where almost everyone is known to each other, so there's a lot of trust. I registered and got my name down for a game in the first round, caught up briefly with people like eyes_of_winter and exiledinpn, and then popped out to grab a coffee.

( Three Sixteen : Carnage Amongst The Stars )

( Aeon Angelus Necronomicon: Evolution )

( Murder Most Mysterious )

As several of my friends and a number of newspaper and other media reports have pointed out,Thompson and Clark ( who claim to be "New Zealand's leading security, corporate intelligence and protection agency with "an impeccable record", are in fact complete buffoons who know less about security and intelligence than a moderately interested amateur like myself, and whose idea of "intelligence" is to repeat almost verbatim the press releases of those they are reporting on, with a few unsubstantiated editorial comments added. In fact, it sounds like they operate exactly like the KGB used to in the seventies. Based on their methods, one has to wonder who trained the people at Thompson & Clark?

People who work for them have also been publicly documented conspiring to commit a crime. It may be a bit much to ask the Police to actually do their job for a change and charge the relevant members of that company with those crimes (see below) , but can't we at least have Thompson & Clark removed from the list of companies that the New Zealand government is allowed to employ?

There is a point that I haven't seen raised so far in the reporting of the robbery of the dairy in Auckland in which an Indian shopkeeper died. The police, who prevented the ambulance officers from reaching the dying man, claim, via police spokespeople that they were following Standard Operating Procedure or SOP. New Zealand Police Standard Operating Procedure does not, it seems, contain any requirement to actually confirm the presence and location of an armed perpetrator before sitting down and waiting for armed response units. This, despite the fact that members of the public were still wandering into the shop.

It was correct of the police to condemn the man caught on camera stealing from the shop after the shooting and while the shopkeeper was lying bleeding on the floor, but if it was obviously safe for a cowardly thief to walk into the store, why didn't the police even try to verify whether there was an armed perpetrator in the area?

Does this mean that if there is a report of an armed perpetrator in a city, but the police don't know where they are, all except armed police city-wide will hide in their cars and offices until a member of the public can find the perp for them? Because that's what it sounds like. Surely the very first thing any standard operating procedure should contain is a need to verify the actual presence and if so, the location of, any armed perpetrators?

The fact that the police were faffing around obviously believing, or at least acting as if they believed, that the perpetrator was still in the store, means the actual location of the perpetrator was not being looked for, and there was a criminal with a gun running / driving thru Auckland without the police looking for him.

I obviously don't know the full facts, so it's quite possible that the police on the scene were doing what they believed they should have been, but with the information that has currently been presented, it seems that New Zealand Police SOP needs some significant reform to bring it into line with standard police tactical response world-wide, around verifying the presence and location of armed perpetrators before applying armed response procedures. If, however, it turns out the SOP already contains this obvious requirement, then someone in the police is at fault, whether it is the responding police, their controllers, or the people who trained them in the SOP.

(Comin' atcha from the George R.R. Martin school of titling!)

Thanks to amphigori & lamprey I got to spend the first part of this long weekend in a castle by the sea, pretending to be a mediaeval mage. I drove up Friday night, after fish and chips, and was surprised at how little traffic there was for the beginning of a holiday weekend. I made good time, and people seemed to be driving sensibly, though I did to see two lots of emergency vehicles heading south with flashing lights. I also discovered that there are no open petrol stations on the main road between Silverstream and Paraparumu, as I forgot to fill up at Silverstream and drove with the gauge on empty all the way to Paraparaumu, searching for a petrol station all the way, driving economically, half expecting the car to start spluttering at any second. Luckily when my gauge is on empty it seems I can drive from here to Paraparumu!

( long and image heavy )

Stay unitl till your love is...

Damn, I'm enjoying these old eighties hits off the Billboard Top 100 my colleague G dropped on me a while back! Since the last real post I have attended a TNC, watched Jumper, and said farewell to fraser_by_proxy.

The TNC was quiet, but I enjoyed it anyway, especially catching up with J and boggling him that JetPilot was my son. :) Haven't had a Kingfisher Strong and a really hot chicken tikka masala in too long.

Friday hooked up with a crowd of about eighteen organized by tog42 to watch Jumper. We basically took out the entire front row of the mid section. Saw a Star Trek trailer! Jumper was exactly what I expected, a fun bit of fluff with one or two good ideas and not a lot of caring about whether it all made sense. I think it started too slow, and for once I think they didn't have enough combat scenes. There were some annoying bits, why is it that people who get kewl powerz are so dumb in movies? And the motivation and background for Samuel L. Jackson's character was weak. There were so many better potentials there.

Afterwards everyone went to The Welsh Dragon for fraser_by_proxy's farewell. Twas a fun night, caught up with numerous people, including panda_pitt, whom I hadn't seen since he moved out. It always seems odd buying beer in a public toilet though. Rode the train home with wyldcard.

Saturday I got up early and went on a cleaning spree, followed by shopping in the afternoon. First time I've cleaned the lounge windows in I can't remember when. But it was so damn hot (34 degrees they say) I ended up showering twice. Still, I did get my Easter shopping done in advance, and the heat gave me an excuse to treat myself to a Megachoc shake at Wendy's. While buying the shake I admired a bishonen with straw blond hair, who was wearing only jandals, black shorts, a black blaze tattoo, and a single large, shiny silver nipple ring. Hmmm, idly dreams of being bishy like that oneself...

I have to apologize to rivet for not making her party (though it sounds like it went off well), and say "happy birthday" by LJ. Though hopefully ferrouswheel hugged you enough for both of us!

The reason I was unable to attend rivet's party was that a session of jarratt_gray's Mage game had been arranged. My character, Drake, successfully managed to create himself a new body (after having spent the last few session wandering around the underworld as a spirit) with the help of a lizard. It was a great session, with a flashback scene, in which Drake, his long-time friend Hunt (exiledinpn) and a four-year (and seven months!)-old Nyx(evie_fae) dealt with a fly demon, which was memorable for the discussions on how Hunt was going to raise Nyx. Later, the troupe played a giant fly which it inserted it's proboscis (played by evie_fae) into my chest tried to suck my essence, and then played spiders, a butterfly, and a praying mantis, the spiders trying to convince me I needed to learn to weave a web. They decided it was easier to play spiders than flys, coz with spider's you don't have to say "bzzzzz" all the time. Yep, we play some weird (but wonderful) stuff! Thanks, jarratt_gray! :)

I've been turned on to OffTheBack, an interesting local site where they sell one product a day at a cheap rate until either the day ends or the stocks run out. They also do a weekly book in the same way. Most of the time it's ignorable stuff, but every now and then there's a gem, and I love the simplicity and cleanliness of the concept as a web business.

London is still standing. Sorry.

Skipped off work early after being afraid a meeting with the customers would delay getting to the train and rode through the night to St.Pancras at high speed. St Pancras is an "International" railway station as the Eurostar leaves from it. I don't quite understand why a train heading to Europe leaves from a northward facing station, but it does. St Pancras has the slogan "Meet me at St. Pancras", except the designers have made arty signs that make the slogan come out as "Meet meat St. Pancras". At the end of the huge arched hall is a huge bronze of a bald guy holding and kissing a woman in a tight skirt that looks somewhat 1940's in style. At least it made me think of soldiers saying goodbye in 1940. I don't know if that was intentional.

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Hmm.... it seems it's after 1.0am. I wanted to write more, but should probably go to bed instead.

It tuns out that according to the Facebook Match "Things That Attract Me" quiz, I am "Twins" with bekitty and "Two of a Kind" with both jenni_talula & neongraal. Then again with only a small number of things to rank, it's probably not that surprising to get a few such matches even if everyone sorted randomly.

Listened to this interview from Naomi Wolf (best known perhaps for The Beauty Myth) about her new book The End of America. There's nothing new in it, but it's a good review of history, and a discussion of the blueprint for dictatorship. (Thanks meesto)

Watched a lot of season 2 Dexter. Really enjoying it, it's great for us closet socio-paths to see a like-minded character as a TV show lead (Bones is the other fun one). Y'know, although it might be rather scary for them, I think people who want to know what goes on in my head would learn a lot from Dexter's struggle to fit in.( some spoilery stuff if you haven't seen the first three episodes of season two )

Also really enjoying Heroes now. The second season has finally hit it's stride, with people being pushed to their limits in all directions.

Bought tickets to London today. Bought tickets to DragonMeet last night via PayPal and arranged to pick them up via email with angusabranson. So next weekend's schedule is now fixed. I arrive at London St Pancras (domestic) at ten to seven Friday evening on an East Midlands service. Tell me where to go when I get there please, guys! Pub, club, restaurant, street vendor, whatever, but give me a street address!

Last Friday, as we were going to work, I'm pretty sure ( this stone owl ) on the roof of the school across the road from us, winked at me.

As cha0sslave seemed to like "Alice" the T3 Guitar Hero model, I'm sure he'll like this X-Box advertising campaign from Poland, especially this (NSFW) "action shot" :)

I'm still listening to NMA's High a lot, and while I know what they're really about, the lyrics of Nothing Dies Easy are giving me theme ideas for Changeling games!

And nothing dies easy, it holds on until the end
It takes all of your power to push the blade in
The last glow in the ashes, a last spark in the eye
Breaking the glamour, breaking the spell
Breaking another bad part of myself
Breaking the glamour, breaking the spell, nothing dies easy

And, for the Mage players, if Drake wasn't dead, I think Wired would have to be his theme song. Then again, for those that remember that far back, it could almost be something that Spyder would have done. I think I'm missing role-playing, let's hope the DragonMeet fix will tide me over till I get home.

Damn I'm missing not having a guitar with me. Tempted to buy a crappy one, and throw it away when I leave. But I find that hard. My guitar at home is a crappy one, but even so it's mine, and to me a guitar is like a sword is to a samurai. Heh, cheesy animé idea right there ! Re-do Bleach but with musiicians and guitars. Sure Moorcock did something similar with the real-life band Hawkwind in Queens of Deleria, and Truman's Grimjack played battle rock in the Demon Wars, but they didn't do the guitar samurai thing! :)

Finally, while the song is actually talking about why there are suicide bombers and soldiers, the following lyrics seemed rather appropriate given what seraphs_folly is working on (he says cryptically :) ).

There is something in us all that wants to surrender
To be guided through it all like star-eyed children
...
I am part of something I am one of the Chosen

Can you tell I'm alone with nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon except listen to music, watch TV and surf the web, and ramble on?

Enforced idleness is good for one thing though, I feel my batteries of "wanting to do things" charging. It's like forty days and nights in the desert, and like the album I'm listening to and the messiah in the dessert I am high above a desert. Admittedly, I am in the comfort of a penthouse apartment and the desert is a city full of people I don't know, and the chains that keep me here are of my own making, and there's not really a thing preventing me from getting royally pissed and going to a strip club, not a wife, not money, not fear, not morals, just a sense of asceticism and no real desire, a sense of being happy with what I have and the afterglow of a late night/early afternoon phone conversation with my lover.

I should stop this is already far too long.

First off, mr_orgue's new gametime_nz LJ made me think of last years game_ic, and I read through some of the story posts, got nostalgic, and was again impressed at the writing that people did. Well done, people!

Then I spent time sorting out ancient email folders at work, like back in 2003 even! And got nostalgic over the people who used to work here and the things we did.

This morning I woke up with Underworld's Underneath the Radar in my head.

Now my reading has triggered Ozzy Osbourne & Lita Ford :

If I close my eyes forever, would it all remain unchanged?
If i close my eyes forever, would it all remain the same?
Will you ever take me? - No I just can't take the pain
Would you ever trust me? - No I'll never feel the same

I really should get my mind on some work instead. But no, instead I post, and nostalge. And invent new words.

Does nostalgia derive similarly to from Nosferatu? Nos, noctis. Is one only supposed to be nostalgic at night? Turns out, no, nostalgia is Greek, nostos "homecoming", algia "pain". Isn't that annoying? That there's words derived from both Latin and Greek! :)

Oh well, at least I learned something, and possibly, so did you!

I'll be off to TES tonight, so might see a couple of you there!