philmophlegm (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
philmophlegm) wrote2011-01-11 01:25 am
philmophlegm) wrote2011-01-11 01:25 am
Entry tags:
Bit of a Christmas review
I still have two weeks left of my Christmas holiday. I haven't posted much in a while, so here are some Christmas thoughts and events.
JOLF Christmas Party & Awards
The major event of the pre-Christmas period is usually the JOLF Plymouth Awards, which I have been organising since 2001. Another good set of awards this year. (As a related aside, is anyone out there aware that Una 'Aunt Sally' Stubbs is associated with a certain sexual fetish?) Anyway, everyone seems to have agreed the party, although the effects of free booze starting at 1.00pm on youngsters not long out of university are predictable. I took one of our second years home after she'd fallen over for the third time. One of our first years ran off in tears and another one ended up with a black eye after falling off one of the third years.
Weather
The ice and snow did disrupt us this Christmas, although probably not as much as last year. I had already planned on staying with my parents in Menheniot following the Christmas party because I didn't rate my chances of getting down the lane to our house. This was definitely the right thing to do. It started snowing on the Friday afternoon and continued overnight. On the Saturday, I only just got out of Menheniot - at one point I got a push and later I joined the A38 dual carriageway with a stylish four wheel drift. We had planned to do Christmas food shopping at the Tavistock farmers' market that day. However, Victoria was trapped in Chilsworthy by the snow, so I had to do it on my own. Tavistock was pretty much deserted when I arrived, although the large car park had filled up by the time I returned with food. This was a shame because it had occurred to me that this would be a great chance to have some fun sliding around on the ice in a 300bhp rear wheel drive sports car.
Obviously I didn't manage to get the car home. Even the main A390 was dangerous slippy. I never lost control, but a middle-aged man driving a front wheel drive Ford Focus did a complete 360 degree spin coming the other way. He would have hit me if I had been ten seconds further up the road. This event happily caused the young woman driving too close behind me in another Focus to drop back somewhat. The closest I got to Chilsworthy was Drakewalls Service Station on the A390 in Gunnislake - about an hour's walk away.
The car had to stay there for a few days, although I was able to get to Plymouth to retrieve my laptop, allowing me to actually do useful work in the week before Christmas. I had my Blackberry, so I could do some work without my laptop, but not much. Thankfully, things weren't too busy.
The weather also prevented us from going out in bunn's car to get a Christmas tree. So we had to supply our own. So bunn went out into the garden and cut down one of our holly trees which proved to be pretty much the ideal size. Result. I then insisted in decorating it in a minimalist style - no tinsel, no lights and only bunn's hand-carved baubles (carved from the stumps of Christmas trees past).
Relatives
We've always tried to stay out of ruts when it comes to the whole 'which family do we spend Xmas with?' issue. Last year, everyone came over to us, which would have been fine were it not for the ice (over the course of the day, all three elderly parents slipped over). This year was going to be Christmas Day at bunn's mum's in Mary Tavy and Boxing Day at my parents' in Menheniot. We changed that plan when it looked like we would be able to get to Menheniot on Christmas Eve, but not necessarily on Boxing Day (we'd seen the forecast). So, Christmas Eve in Menheniot with our three dogs (we're fostering one, Bob, at the moment, as well as our own usual two). Bob demonstrated his fondness for my parents by heroically not urinating in their house.
Christmas Day was therefore in Mary Tavy with six dogs and three humans in a small bungalow. There was much dog walking. We walked the dogs in the woods near the old Great Consols Mine alongside the River Tamar on the way. It was cold. Really cold. I have never seen a river as big as the Tamar frozen over. Bunn took photos of three foot long icicles. The best of all was seeing water flowing out of the hillside (there are underground streams) actually steam as it hit the freezing outside air.
Anyway, you know how you remember certain Christmas Days because of certain events? In the last few years, we've had 'the Christmas when we interrupted lunch to throw snowballs at each other on Dartmoor' and 'the Christmas when the village was covered in sheet ice'. 2010 will be remembered as 'the Christmas when the f***ing foster dog pissed on everything'. He pissed on the floor at bunn's mum's. And again. And again. Worst of all, he pissed on the presents under the tree.
Presents
I got lots of prezzies. That's the best bit of Christmas in my opinion, and I still think that at 38. Frankly I got too many to list. I will say though that Ars Magica has quite an involved character generation system and that alpaca wool is a truly excellent substance to make socks out of. Some people on this list will be impressed by the Traveller t-shirt that bunn bought me. I received my final present (the second series of 'Bush Tucker Man') yesterday when we tidied the games library. bunn had somehow missed it when she wrapped my presents.
Clothes
I decided that my full length Matrix-style black leather coat was starting to get a little tired, both in a repair and in a fashion sense, so that's going. In its place I bought a nice three-quarter length wool coat (of the sort that goes over a suit) from Moss. I had also mentioned to bunn on a shopping expedition to Exeter that Barbour made some very cool biker jackets. We then came across that exact jacket at half-price in one of Exeter's more upmarket clothes stores, so I had to buy it. After all, a man cannot have too many Barbours (I now have three). This one comes with a rather James May-esque lining.
Rock Band
I bought Rock Band 3 before Christmas (with Beatles Rock Band thrown in for free) plus the new keyboard controller. Unlike the guitars and drums, the keyboard controller is actually a proper keyboard, with a midi socket and everything. Playing keyboard is nevertheless doable for someone like me who has never played an instrument in his life. For people who had piano lessons as a child, it'll be easy. I also spent a lot of money on extra tracks and importing all my other Rock band songs into version 3. My copy of Rock Band 3 now has 337 songs!
Back pain
I have never had back pain before. I've had the odd bit of stiffness (about once a year, which is about as often as I do any exercise), but never actual pain. Last week, I had proper back pain - enough to keep me awake at night and make the act of getting out of bed a five minute job. It went after that. The only thing I can think of that could have caused it is the marathon three-and-a-half hour Rock Band session from a couple of days previously, during which I played guitar. Now I know why rock concerts don't generally last for more than two hours.
Sport
One good feature of December and January is that there is lots of good sport. United had a good Christmas. The Raiders missed the playoffs AGAIN, but had their best season since 2002 in going 8-8. This season included some huge victories over hated rivals too (the two wins against Denver being the best). Nevertheless, Al sacked the head coach a couple of days after the end of the regular season and is now prevaricating. The new coach should be and almost certainly will be offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, so why Al doesn't just hire him is anyone's guess. Jackson is responsible for this year's vastly improved offense. Of course, the NFL isn't the only version of the sport. This time of year is also college football's postseason. As I type this, I'm watching the buildup to tonight's National Championship Game (University of Oregon versus Auburn University, led by Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton).
Television
Lots of good telly on this Christmas. In fact some of it is still sitting on the Sky+ waiting to be watched. The Doctor Who Christmas Special was probably the best of the specials. (Let's be honest, some of them have been subpar.) Michael Gambon was excellent. Top Gear was fantastic (with MX-5!). We didn't watch many films (one of the Harry Potters and Star Trek). Peep Show was tragically funny - in fact it gets better with every series.
Facial hair
I have eschewed modern trends and adopted King George V as my style icon. This occasionally involves moustache wax and a certain degree of twirling. bunn and my hairdresser approve of this style. My mother does not. Tough. Probably won't keep it permanently though.
Fountain pen
My parents bought me a fountain pen for Christmas last year and to my surprise I find that I prefer to write with it even when I'm just scribbling notes at work. Before that, I had usually been the sort to grab the nearest biro. I had therefore thought that something to treat myself too with a bit of my bonus would be a really nice fountain pen. I got as far as sitting down in Plymouth's poshest jewellery shop, Michael Spiers, and trying various Mont Blanc and Cartier models. I had decided pretty much to go for one of the Cartiers and headed back to the shop at 4.30. They had told me they were open until 5.00pm (this was New Year's Eve). They lied and had already closed the shop. To make things worse, as we were peering through the windows to see if anyone was still around, they pointedly turned the outside lights off.
To be honest, this put me off buying from Michael Spiers. I didn't really want to buy online because a fountain pen is like a sports car - you need to take it for a test drive first. While I watched telly, bunn did some browsing and discovered a story about Conway Stewart. Conway Stewart is an old British fountain pen brand whose factory is in Plymouth. Winston Churchill used a Conway Stewart. The British government sends them to world leaders. The bad news was that the story was that they had just gone into administration. (Perhaps if they had marketing good enough that I was aware of them, they wouldn't have been in such trouble...) Anyway, the more we researched the firm, the more it seemed they could provide the sort of pen I wanted. Pen afficionados on forums seemed to really rate them. Their pens are very attractive to look at with a wide range of styles. They are handmade by local craftsmen. I'd be supporting struggling local (small scale) industry.
To cut a long story short, I emailed them to ask if I could come to the factory and try a few pens out. I did this this morning. It really is a tiny firm, operating out of two small light industrial units on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Plymouth. The sort of factory that a picture framer might operate from. The good news is that the administrators (not JOLF) look like they will find a buyer for the firm as a going concern. And I bought a pen. Specifically, I bought a Conway Stewart Finesse in Blackrish finish with a medium nib. It's a medium-sized pen, but very heavy because the barrel is solid sterling silver. To quote Boris the Blade in 'Snatch', "Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work you can always hit them with it."
JOLF Christmas Party & Awards
The major event of the pre-Christmas period is usually the JOLF Plymouth Awards, which I have been organising since 2001. Another good set of awards this year. (As a related aside, is anyone out there aware that Una 'Aunt Sally' Stubbs is associated with a certain sexual fetish?) Anyway, everyone seems to have agreed the party, although the effects of free booze starting at 1.00pm on youngsters not long out of university are predictable. I took one of our second years home after she'd fallen over for the third time. One of our first years ran off in tears and another one ended up with a black eye after falling off one of the third years.
Weather
The ice and snow did disrupt us this Christmas, although probably not as much as last year. I had already planned on staying with my parents in Menheniot following the Christmas party because I didn't rate my chances of getting down the lane to our house. This was definitely the right thing to do. It started snowing on the Friday afternoon and continued overnight. On the Saturday, I only just got out of Menheniot - at one point I got a push and later I joined the A38 dual carriageway with a stylish four wheel drift. We had planned to do Christmas food shopping at the Tavistock farmers' market that day. However, Victoria was trapped in Chilsworthy by the snow, so I had to do it on my own. Tavistock was pretty much deserted when I arrived, although the large car park had filled up by the time I returned with food. This was a shame because it had occurred to me that this would be a great chance to have some fun sliding around on the ice in a 300bhp rear wheel drive sports car.
Obviously I didn't manage to get the car home. Even the main A390 was dangerous slippy. I never lost control, but a middle-aged man driving a front wheel drive Ford Focus did a complete 360 degree spin coming the other way. He would have hit me if I had been ten seconds further up the road. This event happily caused the young woman driving too close behind me in another Focus to drop back somewhat. The closest I got to Chilsworthy was Drakewalls Service Station on the A390 in Gunnislake - about an hour's walk away.
The car had to stay there for a few days, although I was able to get to Plymouth to retrieve my laptop, allowing me to actually do useful work in the week before Christmas. I had my Blackberry, so I could do some work without my laptop, but not much. Thankfully, things weren't too busy.
The weather also prevented us from going out in bunn's car to get a Christmas tree. So we had to supply our own. So bunn went out into the garden and cut down one of our holly trees which proved to be pretty much the ideal size. Result. I then insisted in decorating it in a minimalist style - no tinsel, no lights and only bunn's hand-carved baubles (carved from the stumps of Christmas trees past).
Relatives
We've always tried to stay out of ruts when it comes to the whole 'which family do we spend Xmas with?' issue. Last year, everyone came over to us, which would have been fine were it not for the ice (over the course of the day, all three elderly parents slipped over). This year was going to be Christmas Day at bunn's mum's in Mary Tavy and Boxing Day at my parents' in Menheniot. We changed that plan when it looked like we would be able to get to Menheniot on Christmas Eve, but not necessarily on Boxing Day (we'd seen the forecast). So, Christmas Eve in Menheniot with our three dogs (we're fostering one, Bob, at the moment, as well as our own usual two). Bob demonstrated his fondness for my parents by heroically not urinating in their house.
Christmas Day was therefore in Mary Tavy with six dogs and three humans in a small bungalow. There was much dog walking. We walked the dogs in the woods near the old Great Consols Mine alongside the River Tamar on the way. It was cold. Really cold. I have never seen a river as big as the Tamar frozen over. Bunn took photos of three foot long icicles. The best of all was seeing water flowing out of the hillside (there are underground streams) actually steam as it hit the freezing outside air.
Anyway, you know how you remember certain Christmas Days because of certain events? In the last few years, we've had 'the Christmas when we interrupted lunch to throw snowballs at each other on Dartmoor' and 'the Christmas when the village was covered in sheet ice'. 2010 will be remembered as 'the Christmas when the f***ing foster dog pissed on everything'. He pissed on the floor at bunn's mum's. And again. And again. Worst of all, he pissed on the presents under the tree.
Presents
I got lots of prezzies. That's the best bit of Christmas in my opinion, and I still think that at 38. Frankly I got too many to list. I will say though that Ars Magica has quite an involved character generation system and that alpaca wool is a truly excellent substance to make socks out of. Some people on this list will be impressed by the Traveller t-shirt that bunn bought me. I received my final present (the second series of 'Bush Tucker Man') yesterday when we tidied the games library. bunn had somehow missed it when she wrapped my presents.
Clothes
I decided that my full length Matrix-style black leather coat was starting to get a little tired, both in a repair and in a fashion sense, so that's going. In its place I bought a nice three-quarter length wool coat (of the sort that goes over a suit) from Moss. I had also mentioned to bunn on a shopping expedition to Exeter that Barbour made some very cool biker jackets. We then came across that exact jacket at half-price in one of Exeter's more upmarket clothes stores, so I had to buy it. After all, a man cannot have too many Barbours (I now have three). This one comes with a rather James May-esque lining.
Rock Band
I bought Rock Band 3 before Christmas (with Beatles Rock Band thrown in for free) plus the new keyboard controller. Unlike the guitars and drums, the keyboard controller is actually a proper keyboard, with a midi socket and everything. Playing keyboard is nevertheless doable for someone like me who has never played an instrument in his life. For people who had piano lessons as a child, it'll be easy. I also spent a lot of money on extra tracks and importing all my other Rock band songs into version 3. My copy of Rock Band 3 now has 337 songs!
Back pain
I have never had back pain before. I've had the odd bit of stiffness (about once a year, which is about as often as I do any exercise), but never actual pain. Last week, I had proper back pain - enough to keep me awake at night and make the act of getting out of bed a five minute job. It went after that. The only thing I can think of that could have caused it is the marathon three-and-a-half hour Rock Band session from a couple of days previously, during which I played guitar. Now I know why rock concerts don't generally last for more than two hours.
Sport
One good feature of December and January is that there is lots of good sport. United had a good Christmas. The Raiders missed the playoffs AGAIN, but had their best season since 2002 in going 8-8. This season included some huge victories over hated rivals too (the two wins against Denver being the best). Nevertheless, Al sacked the head coach a couple of days after the end of the regular season and is now prevaricating. The new coach should be and almost certainly will be offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, so why Al doesn't just hire him is anyone's guess. Jackson is responsible for this year's vastly improved offense. Of course, the NFL isn't the only version of the sport. This time of year is also college football's postseason. As I type this, I'm watching the buildup to tonight's National Championship Game (University of Oregon versus Auburn University, led by Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton).
Television
Lots of good telly on this Christmas. In fact some of it is still sitting on the Sky+ waiting to be watched. The Doctor Who Christmas Special was probably the best of the specials. (Let's be honest, some of them have been subpar.) Michael Gambon was excellent. Top Gear was fantastic (with MX-5!). We didn't watch many films (one of the Harry Potters and Star Trek). Peep Show was tragically funny - in fact it gets better with every series.
Facial hair
I have eschewed modern trends and adopted King George V as my style icon. This occasionally involves moustache wax and a certain degree of twirling. bunn and my hairdresser approve of this style. My mother does not. Tough. Probably won't keep it permanently though.
Fountain pen
My parents bought me a fountain pen for Christmas last year and to my surprise I find that I prefer to write with it even when I'm just scribbling notes at work. Before that, I had usually been the sort to grab the nearest biro. I had therefore thought that something to treat myself too with a bit of my bonus would be a really nice fountain pen. I got as far as sitting down in Plymouth's poshest jewellery shop, Michael Spiers, and trying various Mont Blanc and Cartier models. I had decided pretty much to go for one of the Cartiers and headed back to the shop at 4.30. They had told me they were open until 5.00pm (this was New Year's Eve). They lied and had already closed the shop. To make things worse, as we were peering through the windows to see if anyone was still around, they pointedly turned the outside lights off.
To be honest, this put me off buying from Michael Spiers. I didn't really want to buy online because a fountain pen is like a sports car - you need to take it for a test drive first. While I watched telly, bunn did some browsing and discovered a story about Conway Stewart. Conway Stewart is an old British fountain pen brand whose factory is in Plymouth. Winston Churchill used a Conway Stewart. The British government sends them to world leaders. The bad news was that the story was that they had just gone into administration. (Perhaps if they had marketing good enough that I was aware of them, they wouldn't have been in such trouble...) Anyway, the more we researched the firm, the more it seemed they could provide the sort of pen I wanted. Pen afficionados on forums seemed to really rate them. Their pens are very attractive to look at with a wide range of styles. They are handmade by local craftsmen. I'd be supporting struggling local (small scale) industry.
To cut a long story short, I emailed them to ask if I could come to the factory and try a few pens out. I did this this morning. It really is a tiny firm, operating out of two small light industrial units on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Plymouth. The sort of factory that a picture framer might operate from. The good news is that the administrators (not JOLF) look like they will find a buyer for the firm as a going concern. And I bought a pen. Specifically, I bought a Conway Stewart Finesse in Blackrish finish with a medium nib. It's a medium-sized pen, but very heavy because the barrel is solid sterling silver. To quote Boris the Blade in 'Snatch', "Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work you can always hit them with it."
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Always sad when companies like that go under. Possibly taking irreplacable pen making knowledge with them.
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- Choose house
- Allocate characteristics
- Choose virtues & flaws
- Allocate XP to abilities
- Allocate XP to arts/spells
- Add flavour (background, sigil, appearance, etc - based on the above)
Not much different from:
- Roll stats
- Choose Service
- Decide whether to go for pre-enlistment
- Roll for survival etc
- Choose skill tables and roll on them
- Decide on detail of skills, and whether to re-enlist
- Muster out
Or
- Choose class
- Roll/allocate stats & HP
- Track down all your race/class specials
- Choose feats
- Allocate points to skills
- Choose spells
- Add flavour (if desired)
I think the main difference is that virtues and flaws allow for a much richer variation between characters than most systems give you, so you want to think about it a bit more.
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I fancy trying to keyboard on Rock Band 3. I do play the piano, so it will be interesting to see how it translates. I'll wait for it to come down in price a bit, though. Plus, we've just ordered various Guitar Heroes for XBox, so we can play all the old songs on sensible guitars not those horrid little old Playstation ones, so I've got loads and loads of unlocking ahead of me.
I like Ars Magica character generation. I takes quite a bit of thought, yes, but I feel that I emerged from it with a living, breathing character who I could reasonably hope to roleplay, and not just a collection of stats. Though maybe that's just because I created him myself. Other characters - Traveller, Game of Thrones etc - have been created for me, which makes a difference, I think.
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That said, if you were playing a piano piece which only used 10 white notes then it would, indeed, be exactly the same.
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Pen - that would totally have put me off buying from that shop too. What you really ought to do is go in some time and wave your new Conway Stewart around and say "You refused to wait on me. Big mistake. Huge." a la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman :-)
...and all right, I'm still wondering about Una Stubbs...