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philmophlegmI'm being lazy by combining these into one post, but hell, it takes up less space.
The rules are:
1. After you read this leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.
The_Marquis asked:
1. Traveller, is it the sci-fi background or something else that attracts you to the game system?
2. Are you still an accountant or is most of your job 'managing' accountants?
3. Is Wrexham a place or a state of mind for you now?
4. Have you ever considered reading for any other degree or qualification?
5. Would you ever consider a career change, such as becoming an official Traveller Archive keeper?
To which I replied:
1. It's mostly the Traveller background. Very well developed (over thirty years) and giving scope for a very wide variety of scenarios.
2. Probably neither. In my professional career, I've always been an auditor first and an accountant second (like most large firm accountants). I do very little accountancy on the four days a week that I work for JOLF, but on the one day that I work for bunn, then it's almost all accountancy (plus at the moment data entry of regimental badges). Although my grade at JOLF is 'senior manager', I don't actually manage anyone. Last October, I transferred to our Department of Professional Practice. Some of my time is spent supporting auditors with questions of audit methodology, and some (most during the spring and summer months) is spent running our internal quality control programme ('QPR'). I do like managing people, so I've asked to take on a couple of people as appraisees. One of the other senior managers in Plymouth is probably retiring in the next year, and another one has too many appraisees, so I may well get some.
3. Now that my parents have moved to Cornwall, I don't really have any cause to go there now. I did go to our Liverpool office last year, and stopped off in Wrexham on the way for nostalgia purposes. It still seemed nice. But I think it is more of a state of mind now (and in some ways not too dissimilar from south-east Cornwall).
4. I came out of my last accountancy exam vowing never to do another exam again, and I've held true to that. I thought my degree was easy - ACA exams (and especially finals) were several levels more difficult and pressured. And I get stressed by exams.
5. Sounds nice, but I bet it doesn't pay as well! I'm pretty happy with my current career and job.
Wellinghall asked:
1. What is it that makes Traveller so great?
2. What's your favourite memory of Taruithorn?
3. What do you like about living in Cornwall?
4. Would you move back to Wrexham if you could?
5. What car would you have, if you could?
To which I replied:
1. Like I replied to The_Marquis, it's mostly the background. In Traveller, communication and travel between the stars takes weeks - so you can do it, and it's fairly common, but not so common that a single high-tech centralised government can rule a vast empire. And this allows the GM (or 'Referee' in Traveller) to set up lots of different situations. Traveller copes just as well with a war using muskets as it does with interstellar dreadnoughts armed with meson guns.
2. Just one? That's hard. There's a whole thread there waiting to be written. I'll go with my funniest Taruithorn memory instead. It's jhgowen leaping from the riverbank by the Victoria Arms onto the flat bit at the front (bow?) of a punt, timing his jump perfectly and landing on the flat bit of the punt, but critically overestimating the degree of friction offered by a piece of wet, flat, polished wood, sliding elegantly across the flat bit and ending up in the Cherwell.
3. Most of the things I like are rather more specific than 'Cornwall', so if you don't mind, I'll answer with what it is I like about living in the Tamar Valley. It's an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and World Heritage Site, yet not very touristy at all. At night, it's quiet enough to sleep with the windows open - the loudest thing you'll hear at night is an owl or the river if it's running fast. There are no street lights in the village, so you can also sleep with the curtains open. It's only a 35 minute commute to work without having to bother with public transport. It's near to both moors and the sea. And when we moved here in 2000, the house prices were cheap enough that we could afford a six bedroom house.
4. Probably not, but it would be high on my list of favourite places.
5. If it's just one, that's also a tricky question. http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/9390.html has my top 9. If I had to choose just one, I might actually go for what I've got at the moment - Honda S2000. Supercars are all very well, but maybe a git to live with day-to-day if I'm only allowed one car.
Chris_Maslen asked:
1) There's a chap wandering around the Laurelin server on LOTRO using the name Polo, is it you?
2) If you're not playing LOTRO what games are you into at the moment?
3) What is the latest news from Wrexham?
4) What do you miss most about Oxford?
5) What do you miss least?
To which I replied:
1. Nope, not me. Although given that it was my nickname at school and it's a legitimate Tolkien name, it would be a good one.
2. The only MMOG I ever tried was Eve, and couldn't quite get into it. I'm pretty solitary in my gamng habits, so stuff like LOTRO and WoW doesn't really appeal. I usually have three games going on at any one time - one of which is almost always Football Manager, and the recently the other two would have been from Rome: Total War, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Silent Hunter 3 and Virtual Skipper. However, since May, I've been on a major Pro Cycling Manager splurge. This is a game that always gets bad reviews from the UK gaming press because a) it's bugged to hell and b) they know nothing about cycling. However, if you wait for about a year (until the next year's version is out in fact), install twelve months of patches, change the rider and team database for the ppdb database developed by two guys in Holland AND you know something about professional cycling and real tactics, then you end up with a very good and very realistic simulation of professional cycling.
3. Errm...ok - rower Tom James from Coedpoeth (just outside Wrexham) was a member of the GB four which took silver in the World Rowing Championships.
4. Maybe punting. I was good at punting, and I'm generally bad at anything involving either physical strength or agility.
5. The whole political correctness, home of lost causes thing.
The rules are:
1. After you read this leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.
The_Marquis asked:
1. Traveller, is it the sci-fi background or something else that attracts you to the game system?
2. Are you still an accountant or is most of your job 'managing' accountants?
3. Is Wrexham a place or a state of mind for you now?
4. Have you ever considered reading for any other degree or qualification?
5. Would you ever consider a career change, such as becoming an official Traveller Archive keeper?
To which I replied:
1. It's mostly the Traveller background. Very well developed (over thirty years) and giving scope for a very wide variety of scenarios.
2. Probably neither. In my professional career, I've always been an auditor first and an accountant second (like most large firm accountants). I do very little accountancy on the four days a week that I work for JOLF, but on the one day that I work for bunn, then it's almost all accountancy (plus at the moment data entry of regimental badges). Although my grade at JOLF is 'senior manager', I don't actually manage anyone. Last October, I transferred to our Department of Professional Practice. Some of my time is spent supporting auditors with questions of audit methodology, and some (most during the spring and summer months) is spent running our internal quality control programme ('QPR'). I do like managing people, so I've asked to take on a couple of people as appraisees. One of the other senior managers in Plymouth is probably retiring in the next year, and another one has too many appraisees, so I may well get some.
3. Now that my parents have moved to Cornwall, I don't really have any cause to go there now. I did go to our Liverpool office last year, and stopped off in Wrexham on the way for nostalgia purposes. It still seemed nice. But I think it is more of a state of mind now (and in some ways not too dissimilar from south-east Cornwall).
4. I came out of my last accountancy exam vowing never to do another exam again, and I've held true to that. I thought my degree was easy - ACA exams (and especially finals) were several levels more difficult and pressured. And I get stressed by exams.
5. Sounds nice, but I bet it doesn't pay as well! I'm pretty happy with my current career and job.
Wellinghall asked:
1. What is it that makes Traveller so great?
2. What's your favourite memory of Taruithorn?
3. What do you like about living in Cornwall?
4. Would you move back to Wrexham if you could?
5. What car would you have, if you could?
To which I replied:
1. Like I replied to The_Marquis, it's mostly the background. In Traveller, communication and travel between the stars takes weeks - so you can do it, and it's fairly common, but not so common that a single high-tech centralised government can rule a vast empire. And this allows the GM (or 'Referee' in Traveller) to set up lots of different situations. Traveller copes just as well with a war using muskets as it does with interstellar dreadnoughts armed with meson guns.
2. Just one? That's hard. There's a whole thread there waiting to be written. I'll go with my funniest Taruithorn memory instead. It's jhgowen leaping from the riverbank by the Victoria Arms onto the flat bit at the front (bow?) of a punt, timing his jump perfectly and landing on the flat bit of the punt, but critically overestimating the degree of friction offered by a piece of wet, flat, polished wood, sliding elegantly across the flat bit and ending up in the Cherwell.
3. Most of the things I like are rather more specific than 'Cornwall', so if you don't mind, I'll answer with what it is I like about living in the Tamar Valley. It's an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and World Heritage Site, yet not very touristy at all. At night, it's quiet enough to sleep with the windows open - the loudest thing you'll hear at night is an owl or the river if it's running fast. There are no street lights in the village, so you can also sleep with the curtains open. It's only a 35 minute commute to work without having to bother with public transport. It's near to both moors and the sea. And when we moved here in 2000, the house prices were cheap enough that we could afford a six bedroom house.
4. Probably not, but it would be high on my list of favourite places.
5. If it's just one, that's also a tricky question. http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/9390.html has my top 9. If I had to choose just one, I might actually go for what I've got at the moment - Honda S2000. Supercars are all very well, but maybe a git to live with day-to-day if I'm only allowed one car.
Chris_Maslen asked:
1) There's a chap wandering around the Laurelin server on LOTRO using the name Polo, is it you?
2) If you're not playing LOTRO what games are you into at the moment?
3) What is the latest news from Wrexham?
4) What do you miss most about Oxford?
5) What do you miss least?
To which I replied:
1. Nope, not me. Although given that it was my nickname at school and it's a legitimate Tolkien name, it would be a good one.
2. The only MMOG I ever tried was Eve, and couldn't quite get into it. I'm pretty solitary in my gamng habits, so stuff like LOTRO and WoW doesn't really appeal. I usually have three games going on at any one time - one of which is almost always Football Manager, and the recently the other two would have been from Rome: Total War, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Silent Hunter 3 and Virtual Skipper. However, since May, I've been on a major Pro Cycling Manager splurge. This is a game that always gets bad reviews from the UK gaming press because a) it's bugged to hell and b) they know nothing about cycling. However, if you wait for about a year (until the next year's version is out in fact), install twelve months of patches, change the rider and team database for the ppdb database developed by two guys in Holland AND you know something about professional cycling and real tactics, then you end up with a very good and very realistic simulation of professional cycling.
3. Errm...ok - rower Tom James from Coedpoeth (just outside Wrexham) was a member of the GB four which took silver in the World Rowing Championships.
4. Maybe punting. I was good at punting, and I'm generally bad at anything involving either physical strength or agility.
5. The whole political correctness, home of lost causes thing.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 05:46 pm (UTC)Lol, that's one of my funniest memories of Oxford too, and I wasn't even there and only heard about it much later.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-18 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-18 11:57 pm (UTC)Asking to be asked.
Date: 2007-07-17 09:53 pm (UTC)Re: Asking to be asked.
Date: 2007-07-18 08:53 am (UTC)2. Photographers seem to be divided into two types - photographers who see it as a science (and really get into the equipment) and photographers who see it as an art. Which are you, and why?
3. Do you still name your umbrella?
4. What do you think of Bristol?
5. Tell me about your favourite RPG character.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-19 05:29 pm (UTC)Sickly sausage rolls
no subject
Date: 2007-07-20 06:11 pm (UTC)2. Recount your favourite sportng moment (any sport).
3. Tell me about someone who perhaps isn't famous (or at least not very famous) but who in your opinion deserves to be.
4. Of all the Tolkien-related stuff you've sold on eBay, have you ever sold anything that you actually wanted to own, but felt that you had to sell because of how much it was worth?
5. I mysteriously appear at your house rudely demandng that you feed me. Using only ingredients that you currently have at home, what will you get for me? (I'm assuming that you won't just show me the door!)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-21 02:38 pm (UTC)1. All of my current suits are single-breasted (although I do have a double-breasted blazer). Most have two buttons, but one (in a partially successful attempt to get round the problems caused by my long body) is three-breasted. Colour, usually dark and conservative - navy, charcoal &c, although I do have a lighter suit (in colour and weight) for summer.
I tend to go to Sousters nowadays - a proper tailors in Woburn, who do off the peg, made to measure, semi bespoke, and true bespoke.
2. Playing myself? Taking three for eight, life offices versus consultants, Birmingham Actuarial Society :-) If I'd pushed for a slip, I might have had four for seven :-)))
Watching? My first professional cricket game - Leicestershire winning the John Player League, 1977, with David Gower and Ray Illingworth at the crease.
3. Earl Beorntnoth? John Smith was probably the best prime minister we never had.
4. Yes, but not desperately wanted to own. The closest is probably the Folio de luxe Silmarillion. There are one or two things I've bought, then found a better copy (better condition, or first edition) later on, and ended up selling the earlier copy at a loss.
5. "Creatrix, would you like to feed this man?" ;-)
Just at the moment, we are a little short of food, as it's a while since we've been shopping. If you wanted a three-course meal, the best we could do at reasonably short notice would probably be soup from a tin, roast partridge with boiled new potatoes and some green vegetable, and vanilla ice cream with sliced bananas and maple syrup. A lighter snack might be cheese and bacon on toast.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-21 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 10:04 am (UTC)1. I'm also a big fan of Rome (the telly series). My A-level history course was mostly about this period in fact. If you had to pick a side, who would you root for? Caesar / Pompey / Octavian / Antony / Brutus / Cicero?
2. Tell me about your favourite RPG character.
3. Tell me about your favourite NON-MMORPG computer gaming moment.
4. Saddam Hussein was apparently also interested in fantasy art. If the Iraqi dictator had commissioned you to paint something for one of his palaces, what would you have painted?
5. I think the McCoy era of Who is somewhat underrated, or at least the later part of the era is. The Curse of Fenric is actually one of my favourite Who stories. What is your favourite McCoy story?