Rhuben

Mwahahahaha!

2009-06-01T16:24:29Z

Mwahahahahahaaa! I ams in TUFTS University Library, stealing their interwebs!

Arrived!

2009-05-03T04:19:25Z

So, the first order of business is to tell everyone that I have arrived safe and sound!! Dave and Jenny picked me up without any problems, and had a pretty sign to greet me with :) and I am now at their lovely house, and it's huge! And the computer was all ready, so I actually remembered to type this e-mail!

So yeah, the flight was good. The seat was awesome, plenty of leg room, window view was good. Definitely got a good look at that wing :) Watched some films, played some Apollo Justice, though had to stop cos I was getting sleepy and the battery was low (I guess I forgot to charge it - whoops!). I watched Anchorman first, and was kinda disappointed. It had some good bits, but was mostly meh. Then Justice happened, and it was good. Then I watched Yes Man, which was actually fantastic! I really enjoyed that one! It was was a great film. And then I just enough time to watch Inkheart. It was literally just enough, as I was getting interrupted by loads of announcements at the end, telling me we were coming in to land :) But the film was pretty good. I'd had no idea that it had Paul Bettany or Andy Serkis. The plot was also a bit unexpected at points and kinda cool :)

So, yeah, I'm here, everything's awesome, and I have a giant room! Bigger than any I've ever had!!

Bodiless Ao

2009-04-24T16:46:44Z

I am pleased to announce that for at most a week, Bodiless Ao will be welcoming guests to the Sci Fi library, as long as they hail him, in all his awesomeness.

I love it when a plan comes together

2009-04-23T19:48:37Z

All the components for my plan have been acquired, and all is ready. It merely awaits execution...

Plans

2009-04-21T12:33:22Z

I figure I should mention here that I plan to visit my brother and his wife in America and stay with them for some 71 days. It should be awesome, as they are fantastic people. I'll be heading out on the 2nd May and getting back on 12th July in the morning (in time for games!). If anyone has any suggestions on things I should do whilst i'm over there (I'll be in Boston, specifically in Hopkinton) then I'd be happy to hear them.

The skull has arrived, along with a DVD (?!) which seems to simply be a slideshow of their products. The night cap has arrived and is a bit big for the skull, but hopefully a safety at the back should be able to deal with that. The skull itself is pretty good. I'm very pleased with it. I'm not sure how I want to attach the jaw (and I reckon I do want to attach it), but the current plan is to simply use blu tac.

However, the last remaining component is proving very difficult to acquire; the fake jewels. I could not order these until I had the skull, though I think that perhaps I should have asked skullsdirect to customise the skull for me... Anyway, I don't intend to replace the teeth with fake diamonds as it would be too difficult and go so very wrong. I do want to try to do the rubies in the eye sockets, though, as that should be much easier. But my searches on the internet are proving fruitless. The best site I've found for it is in Canada, and thus the shipping is far exceeds the cost of the jewels ($44 compared to $5), though it would get here in time. But I'd be paying almost as much for the eyes as I did for the skull! The next best site (also based in America) gave a more reasonable cost but no indication of how long it will take to arrive, and my best estimates suggest 6-10 days, which is a bit too long. All of the UK sites I've found are no good, they don't have big enough jewels!

So I am left to ask for assistance. I want ruby-coloured jewels to fit into the eye sockets, which measure some 37mm by 30mm, with a depth of 25mm to 33mm (the bottom sticks out further). A lot of places sold 40mm by 30mm which is a bit big, but might do the job anyway, particularly as the next size down was always 25mm by 18mm, which really is too small, I think. So if anyone has such jewels, or knows a shop where I can go and buy them, I would love to hear about it.

Suggestions weclome

2009-04-07T23:58:10Z

For the purpose of accomplish something in my Drow War game, I need some help.

I want to pull off a silly stunt with Bodiless Ao (a demilich). In order to do this, I need a human skull, approximately life-sized, and male, though I doubt anyone will know the difference. I also need a nightcap, to be worn by the skull. Additionally, although this is less important, I should consider placing fake rubies in the eye sockets and fake diamonds in place of the teeth.

If anyone has any suggestions on where to find these things, or how to achieve any of this, I would be happy to hear them. Additionally, I hope to execute this plan at some point soon after 19th April (my next session).

If anyone is curious as to what I intend to do with them, then read on: One of the things I can do with this senile demilich is to have one of the player character's wake up with Bodiless Ao on their pillow, wearing a nightcap. So to fully achieve the surprise that this should bring, I feel I should actually do this to one of my players. For the moment, I figure this is best done to Wouter, because his housemates are happy to assist, and I very much doubt he'd be annoyed by it.

Objection!

2009-03-19T02:04:47Z

So this amused me. Phoenix Wright is so awesome. I've just finished the first game. Now to move on to the second... :)

Snow.

2009-02-03T04:29:01Z

Although I do love how snow looks when it covers everything, and it's so beautiful as it falls, I do hate what it does to public transport. So I shall take this opportunity to tell of my trip home from D&D on Sunday. It has to have been the longest it's ever taken me; almost 8 hours!

So I was at Victoria at half past eleven waiting for a train to open up, and they all got cancelled. Every single one of them. So I wandered over to the ticket office to queue up and figure out how to get home, and shortly after, there's another announcement. One train, and only one train is going to try to go to Brighton (and various other stops). What I like to think happened was that the staff are standing around discussing what to do, and this guy (who must clearly be a heroic mortal) decides that "Damnit! I'm gonna get these people home! Even if it takes all night!" clearly his motivation is to get everyone home. He was the most determined driver ever.

So a load of people and I rush over to the train and get on board. The driver explains the plan: since this train is still warm, it might be able to go through the snow, so we're going to go as far as we can before the train breaks down. Everyone else around is all tired and miserable about it, but I'm sitting there willing this guy to go on, cos I think he's awesome! So we get out of the station, and we go a little way out, and it breaks down. *sigh* So the train shuffles back and forward a bit whilst the driver tries to get it to move, we've got lights switching on and off, and you can see the sparks from the rails every so often, but the train's not going anywhere.

But this Determind Driver won't give up yet. So he announces his new plan! We're going to go back into the station, pick up 4 more coaches, to bring us up to 12, which'll give us more motors, and hence more power, and then give it another shot! So back we go, grab our coaches, and head on out again. We manage to get past where we were before, and I'm silently cheering this guy on and we manage to all the way, all they way, to the bridge! And it breaks down again. So we shuffle back and forward again as he tries to get it to move, but it's not happenning. So he gives up, announces that it's not going to work, and we go back into the station. It's a shame really, it would have made for the most epic train journey ever. I can just imagine the movie trailer now...

Anyway, so we get off the train, and I wander down the platform looking for this guy becaues I want to tell him how impressed I was. I find him in a group with other passngers and other staff members, but I can't talk to him because he's on the phone to someone. He's trying to find some other train that get us through the snow, he's not done yet! Sadly, after a lot of talking and him wandering up and down the platform, he doesn't come up with anything. And at that point there's an announcement on the station that all the trains have been cancelled, all the buses have been cancelled and they can't find taxis for people. So they advise everyone to wait on the train, because it's warmer there, until they can come up with something.

Thus I am left to sleep on the train, and it's not very comfy. We all had to pop off for a bit as they moved the train to another platform for something else to come in, and it was cold on the platform, I was glad to get back on the train. So I try to sleep, and don't sleep terribly well. I do have a dream though. I dream that I'm on a train, and it's snowing! It breaks down and we all have to get off and walk. Being so close to reality, that dream was a bit confusing for me...

So at about half past 5 there's an announcement that they're going to try again. There's one train leaving at 6:02 going to Brighton and various places and another train leaving at 6:00 going to East Croydon and Gatwick Airport only. They also mention that there's about a 50% chance that they'll be able to get out. So I get off the train and wander over to the Gatwick Airport one, hoping that I've chosen the right train. I would have been so pissed off if the train I chose failed to get out whilst the other one did. Anyway, so the train is packed, I manage to get a seat. And after waiting a while, we head off. I'm so tired at this point, and I just want to be home and in my own bed, cos I've been in New Milton for the past 5 days. So we get out of the station, and take it to the bridge, and we take it past the bridge! And we just keep on going!

I finally manage to get back to Croydon, and the station is full of people. There are no trams or buses, of course, so I have to walk back. And thus I trudge through snow that's almost a foot deep with my suitcase. So after not very long I shove the laptop into its front pocket, lift it up onto my back and continue to trudge through the snow. Everyone else is walking through the road since the snow isn't as deep there, but I can't remember the last time we had snow that deep (I was too young to remember) so I was kind of enjoying it, hehe. It's tricky to tell when pavement stops and road starts, however, and I even end up on the raised platform of a tram stop before I even know it. I did slip at one crossing, though. Under the snow, the pavement sloped down into the road and I just fell over suddenly. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt at all - and I mean that! I expected it to hurt, particularly as I was carrying heavy stuff!

Anyway, so I get up, continue on, even the alleyway is full of snow, just as deep, and I finally get home. I put my stuff down outside and have breather just to take in the moment. I chat to this other guy outside, who turns out to be my neighbour, and he'd just come back from his attempt to go to work. We chat, I go inside, and I find dad getting ready for work. I tell him he's not going anywhere, but he doesn't believe me. Instead he's trying to find out from the news on the really dodgy TV with terrible signal. But he's got a primary source right there in the form of me! I spend the next 20 minutes convincing him and telling the story, and then tell mum what happened to. And then I call Ken up, and I tell him that he and his wife aren't going anywhere either. But they don't believe me. I spend the next 20 minutes convincing them as well. And then finally, at about half past seven, I go upstairs, crawl into my nice warm bed that I haven't seen for a week, and go to sleep at last!

I didn't get up until half past 3 :)

Platelets

2009-01-07T02:34:47Z

So I got a call from the National Blood Service today. They were calling to let me know the results of my platelet count. To be able to donate platlets it needed to come out as 200, and mine turned out to be 284! Oh yeah! Go me! So with my "very good veins", they're very keen to get my tasty platelets.

That was a good way to start the day. :)

So that was odd...

2008-12-24T22:53:43Z

So we had a thing from the post office saying they had mail for us that hadn't had postage paid for it. So I was asked to head in and get it. It was oh so helpfully addressed to Mr Rihan, which could be any of 5 people. The guy behind the counter also thought it odd because the road name was spelled wrong, but then everything else matched up. But I took it all the way home and opened it up.

And it turned out that it was in fact for me. It contained (some of) the cards that I had lost in my wallet. Not the exam string or the blue ribbons that I had cared about, but nevermind. I did at least get my paladins of chivalry card back, and my blue blood donor card, so that was something. all in all, it was a nice surprise, really :) But rather odd...

Blood

2008-09-30T17:50:41Z

Apparently my body is ready to give blood again, what about everyone else? Can a trip be arranged?

Zomg!

2008-09-23T20:17:25Z

Heroes season 3 on BBC 2 next Wednesday at 9pm!

Phone

2008-09-16T22:04:36Z

I ams have a new phone!

It's pretty standard for current phones, nothing amazing, but a big step up for my decade-old phone: camera, texts, ring-tones, blue-tooth, not broken screen... My old number has been transferred so there's nothing anyone to bother with, except that I might take photos of people to attach to their number :)

At the moment my ringtone is a toss-up between katamari and Stand Bush's The Touch (from the old Transformers movie).

Tetbury

2008-05-29T01:29:03Z

Some of you will have heard of my intention to travel all the way to a small village near Bristol in the Cotswolds in order to carry a 60lb sack of wool up a steep hill. I originally saw it on the news and thought to myself then that what with me having a gigantic case that I carry around twice this race is something that I totally can (and must) do! So I'd been doing some training leading up to this weekend (that being the bank holiday one just gone). Sadly I was unable to recruit anyone else to come along since a lot of people are in the middle of exams. But it all turned out all right.

I left home on Saturday a bit late (I was noting down train times and things) but managed to get across London to Paddington a lot faster than National Rail thought I could. Turned out my ticket didn't go through London though, so I bought a travelcard (I didn't mind much, though). Managed to get there at 6:15, making good time. Met with my friend Paul, who I would be staying with, and walked to his place. Chatted with him and Ian (another friend) for a while then went out to eat at a place called Gormet Burger. The food was very good. There was lots of waking, though it didn't bother me that day.

Got up early on Sunday, so that we could go to Tetbury, have a look around and I could train a bit. But we didn't leave till about quarter past ten. It was raining too. I then learned that it takes about 50 minutes to walk to the station as we missed two trains. So we had to wait an hour for the next one, and then had to wait another hour for the train to Kemble. Then we got a taxi (for £20) to Tetbury. It's a nice little village. The rain had stopped by then, too. Not many places were open, though. We finally had lunch at The Crown, which was very nice, spoke to the owner a bit. Had a walk around, walked in on a service in the church and promptly left. We finished looking around and then I ran up the hill 4 or 5 times. Steep hill is steep. You can get a good pace leading up to it, then you hit the steep bit and you really slow down. Then you hit the not too steep bit and you fail to speed up because your legs are too tired. I spoke to some random people in between runs, and to someone who was setting up for the race. We were pointed towards The Snooty Fox where a couple sacks were in the entrance hall. There was also a really big dog, too. Anyway, the sack wasn't too heavy, and I decided to grip it in the middle rather than the corners. Anyway, got the taxi back, the driver was friendly. He even checked the train times for us to make sure we wouldn't have to wait too long at the station. Anyway, eventually got back quite late.

Got up early the next day, left by 7:30. Was raining a lot on Monday. Made good time walking to the station. Only took an hour to get to Kemble. Had to wait a while for a taxi, though. But helpful taxi driver called round various people for us when we couldn't get through to anyone else (he was busy and couldn't pick us up himself). Was still raining when we got there. There were stalls selling things and rides, and a band, and places were open. We had some cream tea (though I had ice cream) and wandered a little more. We correctly assumed The Crown would be full so we went to eat at The Royal Oak (additionally I wanted to see what it was like). However, they were doing a BBQ outside, not food inside. So we just had a drink and warmed up a bit. The people there were friendly though. Had food at The Close, which was very nice. Although I had to pop outside to record the morris dancers. Then we went to Gumstool Hill to watch the races.

The team races were done first, and there were a lot of people lined up to watch. The atmosphere was good. People cheered for everyone to encourage them to keep going. The team races involved 4 people per team, 2 at the top, 2 at the bottom and the sack started at the top. They also had kids in teams doing it with very small (relatively) sacks, but they just did the course in sections. The individual races started at the bottom and finished at the top. I misjudged on Sunday where the track started, so it was a bit longer than I expected. There was a bit of a mix up in my heat, Some guy was already there in a green bib when I got down there (not entirely sure why). So with 5 people and 4 sacks, I waited. The problem then got worse as we had 6 people and only 4 sacks. but I went this time. The confusion prompted incorrect names from the commentary, but it got cleared up at the top of the hill. Oh, and the races were started by Jake Meyer, who is the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, and the youngest man in the world to climb the 7 Summits (the highest peak on each continent). I got to shake his hand :)

Anyway, I had a practice lift of the sack just before the race. I put it down saying, "That's all right," feeling satisfied. The guy next to me tried it and didn't agree with me. So then the race started, and it goes downhill a bit to start with, then flattens out and goes up the very steep hill. I was quick going downhill and a bit unsteady. I almost bumped into someone, so I decided to slow down. Then we came to the hill and one guy put the sack down and I just kept on going. I got past the steepest bit, and felt I wasn't that tired, my legs weren't too bad. I then heard and spotted Paul, Louise, and Ian in the crowd, managed to smile at the camera and then remembered that it's a race. So I sped up and overtook another guy. The third guy had already finished. I got to the end and just chucked the sack on the ground. I was tired and my legs weren't happy, it felt weird to walk, but I wasn't that out of breath. I did the race in 1:15. The guy who beat me got 0:58. I reckon I could have done better, but I don't think 15 seconds better. I was a bit too relaxed and enjoying it, I forgot to run as fast as I could. After that we went back to The Royal Oak, had a burger and a pint, chatted to people, relaxed a bit and recovered. Then we got a taxi back to Kemble. Had to wait a while for the train, though. Played a bit of Three Dragon Ante on the way back to Bristol, and again when we got back. Then went to bed.

Tuesday I slept in. I was tired. Was relaxed about heading back, chatted to Ian about 4th edition and stuff. Got to the station in good time, and got home without difficulty, though I didn't go through London on the way back.

A video should be up somewhere once I get the camera back to Alan.

Nerdiness

2007-08-21T01:35:40Z

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Gamer/Computer Nerd You enjoy the visual stimulants of a video game, chatting on AIM, or reading online comics. Most of these types of nerds are considered dirty who lack hygeine, of course they always end up being the ones who make a crapload of money. And don't worry, that's just a stereotype; I'm not calling you dirty. ^_~
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
Drama Nerd
Literature Nerd
Social Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

.hack

2007-07-11T23:58:11Z

This week I are been mostly rediscovering .hack

I played through the games a couple of years ago when my brother Dave brought them over from America (in America!). I really enjoyed them then and was really looking forward to the next set. I forgot about it all, though. That is, until Sergey asked me a few questions about it after watching the series (.hack//sign). So then I managed to find movies on youtube that reminded me of everything that happened in the games, and I remembered how awesome it was. I was pleased.

Then, at Dave's party, I was talking to Smithers about it, who was kind enough to lend me his copy of .hack//sign. So I have now watched it all the way through, and it was fantastic! I really really enjoyed it. I suspect it might be quite a different experience to someone who hasn't played through the games, since that allowed me to know exactly what was going on. This made it throughly enjoyable :) I decided to watch the dub and was delighted to find that they used the same actors that they had in the games. But connections to the games aside, I really liked the characters, their interactions, the plot, and the soundtrack was amazing. I need to get the soundtrack...

Now I'm really looking forward to the next set of games - and the accompanying anime series. I know they're out in America (!) already, but I expect that it will be some time before they're out over here. I may have to use someone's 1337 torrent skillz to get the series without having to wait long... :)

Results

2007-07-03T23:44:32Z

So I know what my masters turned out to be now. I got a 2:2.

Not the 2:1 I wanted, but I'm told it's still good.

Done!

2007-06-12T16:31:38Z

I'm done! Done! DONE! No more project for me! No more work for ages, just relaxing and having fun! Project will hopefully get enough marks, and the presentation went well, I think.

Now to play the many games I've been putting off and watch the many things, and get back to running the Drow War. Now, everything shall be awesome!

Conception

2007-02-06T17:13:43Z

Ach, catching up on teh interweb takes sooo long! I had intended to leave 2 hours ago. Anyway, now to the point of this post...

Last week, I was at Conception from Wednesday till Sunday! So if you had wondered where I was, now you know. It was a hell of a tricky thing getting there, as I had a piece of coursework due in an hour before I had to leave. But I managed it and had my gigantic case packed and everything. Though amazingly, it was so much heavier than it usually is! This probably had something to with the laptop and PS2 and Wii inside it. I went down there with Mark and Vicky. Peter eventually admitted that he was still too ill, which he still bitter about.

The train journey went very quickly, we got lots of food for the next few days and I set up the consoles. The chalet we were staying in was huge! The living room had a dining table with chairs, a decent-sized tv, a big comfy chair and 2 big comfy sofas, with coffee table and a big kitchen. It also had a bathroom, a room with 2 single beds and a cupboard, another room with two single beds and a walk-in wardrobe, and a room with a double bed and a walk-in wardrobe and an en-suite bathroom. There was so much space!

Anyway, I didn't get into any games on Wednesday, was too slow, so jsut played on the Wii. Went to bed at about 2. This was a bad plan, as I had to get up for gaming at 8:45. But we managed it, and played 3 modules of Living Greyhawk, with no deaths! :D The first one overran a bit, though, so we had to skip lunch. I was so hungry by the time we had dinner.

We stayed up late again and had to get up early again. Played more Greyhawk, but took the evening off to get some sleep for once! Though I was almost in a LARP, that evening, but I'm a bit glad that the other people showed up (I was the 1st reserve, so only had a place if someone else didn't show up) as I was so tired.

Has no trouble getting up on Saturday, I played a couple more games of Greyhawk, and then turned up to a Call of Cthulhu LARP, which was great fun! It was a wedding reception, at which I was the butler. The dodgiest butler ever. I'd been stealing all sorts of things from the castle, and my goals were to expand my criminal activities, find someone to fence my stolen goods to and to find out why some guy I was suspicious of was actually here. I made a bit of a slip up at the start by telling the groom (my boss) that his brother was elsewhere because he was dead, which I had heard from his insane mother. However, she denied it completely. So I was in a bit of trouble for that. Mind you, he was actually dead at the time. I was also accused of stealing a vase shortly after that, in the course of which we had the fantastic lines;

"What makes you think I did it, sir?"
"I saw you do it with my own two eyes"
"Perhaps you were dreaming, sir"
"I do not dream"
"You... You do not dream, sir?"
"Not when I am awake!"

But I was let off if the vase somehow made its way back to where it should be. So I wandered over to a GM, asked I had stolen this vase, and then put it back where it should be. I spoke to lots of people, started setting up a dodgy deal wiht the best man, was prevented from speaking to someone I wanted to speak to by having to escort someone else to the library. When it came to the time for the best man to make his speech, a mysterious gift arrived, which I handed over to the bride, who opened it to find the severed head of the groom's brother. Lots of screaming ensued. People then grabbed swords off the walls and searched the the castle for the murderer. I spent much time listening in on things and continuing to arrange dodgy deals with the best man. Every so often the groom asked to do something, nd I never failed, he thought I was fantastic, as did the best man as I was his contact man. Not too many people died in the end, though Deagon did managed to get resurrected by the Deep Ones there.

It was great fun.

Oh I also have lots of shiny new minis that I imagine will take me a long time to fit into the case in the proper order...

Sunday I just slept lots and packed. We passed time on the train by playing Order of the Stick, but didn't get very far. Overall, it was an awesome convention and I look forward to going again next year.

Things

2006-10-29T00:23:27Z

So it's been a busy week, as I expect they all will be. I've been pondering my newest D&D character in great detail and I think I've got him sorted now. I haven't done anything on my project this week as I had assessed coursework to worry about and sleep to catch up on. I finally got another chance to play Warrior Knights this week and it is still pretty cool. I still to check for a FAQ for it on the interweb as there are a few things not covered in the book.

In other news, I went to the Sadler's Wells theatre to see a ballet of Romeo and Juliet. It was rather good. The dances were good, the fighting was cool, all of the roles were done very well. I very much enjoyed it. In particular, my mother's friend's daughter did an excellent Lady Capulet. My mother's friend also showed us a review of the ballet from Modnay in the Guardian (I think) that agreed that Lady Capulet was fantastically done. It was cool.

The next Cowboy Bebop CD showed up today, so now my laptop contains twice as much awesome as before! Now I have Tank, and Spokey dokey. Every track is full of cool.

Today, in addition to being my birthday, was the first Maths Matters meeting (as they're now calling it). This is the thing I did last year where I presented to schools about how cool maths is. I don't think I'll be presenting this year, though. I'm not sure I can afford the time. The morning was quite fun, grouping up with random people and discussing a question in only a minute or two and coming up with an answer. Some of the things were what superhero would we be, what is the meaning of life and doing a live news broadcast for an alien invasion. It was quite fun. I also got to see some snippets of the presentations from last year that I hadn't seen before. I quite enjoyed it. I was exhausted when I got home though, and had a bit of a nap.

Hmm, I think that shall do for now.

Stuffs

2006-10-23T13:04:32Z

Well, it's been fuggin' ages since I've updated. Let's see, how was the summer? Not great to be honest. I spent much of it not dealing with something very well. I got a lot less done than I would have liked. I only got in a couple of sessions of the drow war in, I even lost my brother from the campaign. Hell, of the 6 campaigns we had running, only 1 had a session (the drow war). Another one started up and was quite fun though, so I guess that's something, but I'm still very disappointed.

My brother got married in secret in July. Told us the week after. Clearly they had a cunning plan to avoid all the organising and having to choose a best man. A bit annoying as we were all wondering who he was going to choose. But they're getting along in their flat. Though they'll be moving to a better one in December.

They were good bits to the holiday, though they were mostly in September. I got my models sorted out, my case sorted out with more foam (though I only finished sorting that out last week). Played a lot of Twilight Imperium, though. And a lot of We Love Katamari (everyone needs to play that game, hehe). I also managed to copy up all the lectures that I'd never got round to doing from previous years. Although this took a whole week (30 hours of work) to do. It felt good to get it done, though. Means I didn't do anything on my project though.

It's good to be back at uni, though and having game running again. However, it didn't start out too well. I managed to get rather ill in the first week of term. You see, my elbow spontaneously decided that it as infected. It swelled up pretty big, made me feel like I had a horrible cold (headache, shivering, aches and pains). It was very unpleasant. I got some antibiotics from the doctor, which helped a lot. Oh, and some pain killers. It wasn't easy handling Fresher's Fayre and stuff with that infection. It even spread down my arm. The as a bit worrying, but that was because it was loose fluid, so it had simply flowed down my arm. It was also annoying cause I eas exhausted when I got back home from London, so I couldn't try to catch up on the reading I should have done on my project.

I was better the next week, but I learned that my supervisor had managed to get forget that he was meant to be supervising me. This is a bit my fault because I hadn't done any work on it or snet him any e-mails, but it was rather worrying nonetheless. Things seem to be kind of ok, though. I still need to read a lot of stuff on it, but I'm not in trouble.

Overall, I'm really busy, trying to find time to do work and trying not to have to lessen the time I can put towards role-playing. I reckon is doing quite well at the moment, though. I was surprised to find out that we have a lot more money than we thought, so I look forward to spending it. Also, it's good to be gaming again.

In other news, my cousin got married a couple of days ago to very cool guy. It was good to see a lot of the family and the food was very good. It included things like chicken and bacon on a stick and something even better than cocktail sausages: sausage on a stick (as in, actual proper sausages cut up and put on a stick). It was great.

Also, my brother recenly acquired a music CD with the music from Cowboy Bebop. Though this wasn't the first CD, this was Cowboy Bebop Blue, apparently the third CD they've done. It's full of awesome, and I have it on my laptop. It's great :)

That should do for now.

P.S. My laptop is awesome now that it's behaving again :)

Things

2006-07-12T23:52:10Z

Have I mentioned that I like D&D minis?

You see, it occured to me the other day that if I had kept all of the boxes from the D&D minis that I had bought over the years, I could build a fort on my the landing just outside my room. In those boxes shown above are the entire set of the minis, plus the 6 boosters I bought yesterday. I have to say that huge miniatures really are huge. Particularly the aspect of tiamat. In short, I am impressed. I also suspect that I have mentioned this before.

Also featured in the picture above is my new gigantic case of doom. I have mentioned to some of you that I have significantly damaged my gigantic case. It is not entirely useless but I think that it would not last many more trips to London and I wouldn't want to be in London when it broke entirely. Thus I began my search for a new gigantic case of doom. This time, however, I decided not to buy a cheap one that would simply break in two months. Nay, this time I searched for a proper case, one that has been thoroughly tested for its quality. I had one in particular in mind, but it was no longer there, so I had to search the local shops, I even asked Moleman to search the shop where he worked. But alas, everywhere I looked, the cases were insufficiently huge. Then I remembered the shop that I normally purchase my wallets from. They sell cases. So I checked it out, and sure enough, they did have a sufficiently large case. After studying it carefully and checking its dimensions, I bought it. It's rather nice. It even has a thing I can attach my laptop case to, which is very handy. It also has a 7-year guarantee, so if it breaks, I should be able to get something. It's even bigger than my previous case, though I think it's a little shorter, but it has one and a half times the depth! It's a good thing I've been buying more foam...

I look forward to when I next play some D&D at uni.

rhuben @ 2006-07-10T16:22:00

2006-07-10T15:32:18Z

Nicked this from Baz. I'm quite pleased that I scored as a tactician.

You scored as Tactician. You're probably a military buff who wants to have the chance to think through complex problems. You want the rules, and your GM's interpretation of them, to match up what happens in the real world or at least be consistant. You want challenging yet logical obstacles to overcome.

</td>

Tactician

92%

Storyteller

92%

Butt-Kicker

75%

Power Gamer

67%

Specialist

67%

Method Actor

50%

Casual Gamer

Law's Game Style
created with QuizFarm.com

In other news my minis finally arrived today! And they're so shiny! Ad friggin' huge! The aspect of Tiamat is massive. The aspect of Bahamut looks a lot better than its picture did and griffon cavalry isn't so bad when you have it in your hands. I really like the small fire elemtnal though. I'm not sure why, but I do. I've even thought of an interesting 200 point bonded fire summoner warband, but I need more fire elementals and magma hurlers. I've spent most of today looking at them all and writing some warbands for this evening. I suspect that two of them are lame and two of them are good. We shall find out about one of them this evening. Unfortunately I was unable to come into uni because of this. I had rather hoped that the set would arrive 3 days ago, but I didn't think it likely. But at least arrive today rather than any later.

Lastly, I'm much better than I was yesterday. Yesterday I didn't want to get out of bed. I was eventually forced out of bed by my brother and his fiancee showing up and after they left, I almost crawled back into bed, but convinced myself to get up. I eventually managed to pass time by playing games, but I really wasn't good company yesterday. I need to spend more time around friends, then I'll feel less crappy, which is why I'm a bit bothered that I didn't head into uni today, but the new minis kept me occupied.

Twilight Imperium

2006-07-08T20:01:44Z

So I've two games of it this week. And they've been rather good, although Tuesday's was far sillier! We made tech absurdly cheap and made it so that you don't choose your strategies any more, you take turns choosing one to give to someone else! It made the game work very differently. It took ages though and I built a ridiculous amount of units! I managd build everything except a fighter and 2 war suns. And my fleets didn't even get to die so I could build them again. Anyway, although I didn't realise at the time, I won that one in the end, though it was bloody close. we all had 8 victory at the end, so it was down to the number of completed objectives (where I had the most, but I forgot to count my secret objective at the time).

Today I had another game, which was far less silly. It was a 5 player game, I used the Xxcha. We used the distant suns and leaders variants. It was nice to have those diplomats on my home planets. I have to say that the central bureaucracy is clearly in their home system, as they must stop invasions due to the attackers having the incorrect paperwork, and only stamping it 4 times! It was a very close run game. I stuck to my part of the galaxy and was nice and peaceful. But I got attacked as I was getting close to victory, but managed to fend him off with effective use of PDS. I milked 12 shots out of them in 1 turn. 4 of which were allowing my lone carrier to steal back two planets from an enemy carrier. No one managed their secret objectives this time. We actually managed to get down to the 8th objective card, which was Imperium Rex. At the time i had 8 victory points and someone else had 9. Had it not been imperium rex, I'd have won. It was a good game, though :)

In other news, I ran Fane of the Drow on Wednesday. It was ok on the first map. Though the lack of antitoxins and potions of lesser restoration messed them up in the end. They beat the monsters without much trouble, I managed to have them run round a fair bit of the map too, which was good. In the second map, they used brute force, which was problematic, but they managed to get through the initial blockade. Spiders of lolth are rather nasty. The draegloth was also very nasty. The character with powerful charge managed to seriously hurt it though (4d6+13 and he's only level 4!). Anyway, but on the third map, it all went wrong. They seemed to be doing pretty well, but then one of them was left fighting the main bad guys alone whilst the others wasted time killing mooks. It ended in a TPK. Bugger. Ah well, it happens. It was the lack of co-ordination that killed them. Hopefully Fields of Ruin will go better. Also, I had an obscene number of 20s early on, but thankfully very few of them were criticals.

Lastly, I miss people. More specifically a person... Humm... Time for DDO methinks

This week

2006-07-01T16:24:55Z

Gah, it's annoying how being tired makes one more susceptible to being emotional. Yet again this week hasn't been a bad one.

On Monday I purchased many things, like shoes (without holes!), a watch and many things for my DS. GLC was good. We played history of the world, which I didn't do particuarly well in this time, but it was fun. I also learned that the next set of D&D minis is coming out a lot sooner than I thought (i.e. next week!) and I've ordered a complete set of off the internet (yay!). Hopefully it'll get here by Monday, but I doubt it.

Tuesday I was rather disorganised. I had my first game of Warhammer in months. As such, I didn't know where the models were, I didn't have the army book at home, so I didn't know which models I'd need, so I just packed loads than I needed. It was meant to be an 8000 point game with 4 bretonnian players each using 2000 points against a chaos player, but 2 people didn't show up, so it had to be shrunk to 4000. I could've increased this by 2000, but I wasn't sure that I had the models. Plus it would've taken longer to play and to set up. Things looked a bit iffy to begin with, the set up could have gone better, but we were fine on one flank, the other was a bit trickier as the battle standard made all the nearby units stubborn (making them hard to deal with). I drew as little battle plan on my DS for the hell of it. Combat was begun rather quickly, with sending a couple of units into a trap of fast cavalry. Thankfully one of the units that would flank us panicked and ran away, though my pegasus knights were bogged down fighting nurglings. His army moved forward, we held back, somehow managing to stave off his magic. turn 2 saw more combat, on the right flank, our knights were dealing with his beast herds and spawns. In the centre, the nurglings were being annoying and a giant smashed into some infantry (not so good). We sent questing knights to deal with it, but they were appalingly bad, and hardly hurt it when they should have killed it. On the left flank, my general (who was designed to kill large targets) charged and killed a daemon prince (who wasn't quite large), which was handy as it would have been really bad to have him behind our lines. Oh, and my knights errant took down a very tough lord and his knights, which was very lucky indeed. turn 3, our opponent made a terrible mistake, he placed his battle standard on a hill far enough back from the unit in front, for my general to charge him. On our turn the right flank was dealt with, the centre looked iffy, but we had knights heading that way, so it'd be fine and at last the fight was begun on the left flank.my general, some pegasus knights and some yeomen all smashed into his battle stadard's unit and killed it. Allowing my grail knights to kill his general's unit (I love having a proper-sized unit of grail knights). At that point it was clear that we had won. Only two significant units remained on the board, one of which had just been hit in the flank by my grail knights and the other was facing up to my errants. The errants couldn't on their own, but as it was about to be our turn, the horrors would have been wiped out in his turn, allowing us to charge his biggest in the rear. It was a safe assumption that the daemons would have fallen to knights in front and rear. So victory was our's! It was a fun game :) I was reminded why I like the game.

Wedneday was far less interesting (unless of course you didn't the previous paragraph). I purchased many creme eggs as a shop down the road was selling them for 10p each (how could I resist?). I had wanted to bring them to Smithersfest, but i forgot them. I spent the evening sorting out stuffs that should have been done long ago. It's have to hav eit finally dealt with. I also managed to play some DDO with my brother Dave and my sister-in-law, which was great. It also meant that I finally got to discuss with Dave what to do with the uni Drow War group. I have at last decided, now to figure out how to implement it.

Thursday wasn't a great day. More sorting stuff out. I spent most of it trying to tidy up the area where I wanted my computer to be (it's been on the floor in fron tof the computer desk for ages). I also decided to finally move the old computer elsewhere to give me more room. However, I had to copy across stuff from the hard drive before I could do that, just in case the computer finally dies. This took hours and hours to do :( And the computer almost broke many many times. Hell, by the end it was having a blue screen of death every couple of minutes. I had forgotten how unstable that computer was. However, in the wee hours of the morning I was very rude to a good friend of mine, for which I am very sorry. I really was only kidding, and I took far too long to apologise for it. Sorry.

Hmm, perhaps that's part of what's bothering me...

Anyway, Friday was better. I was going to head into Sci Fi for lunch, but i was too sleepy, and it didn't look like there were many people there, so I decided to wait. This gave me a chance to play Guild Wars though. Played with my necro a bit, found the limit on creatures and that verata's sacrifice has been nerfed. Thankfully blood of the master has become a lot better. But I did a couple of quests and it was good to play again. I even started my Factions character, but I stopped when my sound finally died. I had expected it to break sooner. Anyway, after that I decided to begin the long arduous task of trying to get it sorted out. I suspect that only solution will be to simply buy a new sound card, but I guess we'll see.

oh, and the new super mario bros is very good. It was fun beating Kath at the multiplayer :p

Smithersfest was good. I'd been looking forward to it, and it didn't disappoint. We watched gunbuster, fifth element blade runner, galaxy quest and dragon half. The only one I'd not seen before was blade runner, and unfortunately I was too tired to understand it. I think I missed a fairly substantial part of the middle, which spoiled it a bit. It was good to see dragon half again. It's full of crack, but my favourite thing about it is the Great Damuramu, who always refers to himself in the third person, has a very compact brain and will forever regret his failures, hehe.

That's better.