Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Alex]

In ancient times mankind had stories of the gods and men like Hercules, Finn MacCoul and so on to look up to and be inspired by their deeds. Other men would claim to be divinely inspired and seek to teach others through religion. Throughout history there have been men and women who have raised their fellows up, encouraging them to achieve more than they ever thought. You can travel through the ages reading of their stories. They are rarely perfect individuals (indeed those whose biographers claim them to be perfect are perhaps the least believable). Charlemagne, even Bonaparte (I mean you must be something special to convince the French they can go to war and make a good job of it). In more recent times we have those who stood against tyranny, our grandfathers generation.

Where are our heroes today?

[ER]

I think the inundation of media storytelling, of fiction, non-stop and unavoidable in our culture today has replaced the sorts of heroes you were talking about. Now we have Vader, Buck Rogers, Conan, movie and graphic novel types, superheroes, video game heroines, even maybe superstar athletes from real life. I think our spirits are starving for legendary heroes we don't know are made up and we've latched onto even the flimsy legends of political superstars in this century in our collective quest to feed ourselves on what is lacking.

Just wait and plenty of tales of epic heroes will emerge around campfires after the next dark age. (I'm serious.)

[Alex]

As someone who knows how to handle a sword I look forward to the next dark age with some enthusiasm.

And, yes Vader is a hero. After all, he killed Palpatine by lobbing him down a generator shaft. Shame Sidious never did learn how to prevent himself from dying. Or at least carry around a parachute. Or how to float through the air (or even a vacuum). If only he'd took a few lessons from Leia he might still be Emperor.

Looks like a nice day out of east window. North window has blinds closed, but doubtless behind it is a raging storm. Got up this morning, fed the little one and caught the news before leaving for work.

Well, when I say I caught the news, I watched BBC Breakfast. While they cover the important subjects of the day, they tend to be more light hearted about most things. It’s sort of a gentle break into the events of the world. Wouldn’t do to upset people before breakfast y’know.

As much as I’ve had to sadly take account of the BBC actually being very biased on how it reports certain things, it is still one of the news sources I more or less trust. When I hear about something, say for example the death of a celebrity I like I try to check it out from three different trusted news sources before I’ll believe it.

No doubt it will surprise everyone that Fox News isn’t one of my go to sources. Or indeed anything that has been owned by the Murdoch empire. I find it one of life’s minor annoyances when I can’t check a story over multiple sources, even ones I disagree with their outlook on. After all, if you only ever listen to views that agree with you, how do you ever challenge your own views and assumptions.

Finding out you are wrong about something is an essential part of growing and learning after all, and that is something I never want to stop doing.

Well, not until I get to officially be a grumpy old man at which point I will suddenly become set in my views and refuse to budge from them, although I will wave my walking stick disapprovingly at young people.

I am so looking forward to that. Anyone who wants to join me in the endeavour should let me know well in advance so we can all pick the same retirement home to hang out in.

Oh, and I want a cattle prod built into my walking stick so if any of those offensive young people get too close I can just zap ‘em.

And I want a Taser so I can zap ones that don’t get too close either.

I think being an OAP is going to be a blast. 😊

[Alex]

I got all excited about this until I realised it said virgins and not vegans.

[Alex]

When I used to play Warhammer 40K, generally I'd play marines, although I preferred Imperial Guard. I only ever used two types of troops though for my marine armies. Assault units for close up smushing and Devistator units for long distance smushing. Never did find much use for those namby pamby tactical squads that were neither one thing nor the other. I'd split my 10 man Devistator squads up into two 5 man groups, one with heavy weapons providing covering fire and the other five man squad, well they would be a speed bump to slow down anything that got past my assault troops. The troops might come in different forms, be they Ravenwing, Terminators or what ever but they'd always come down to one of those two catagories.

Despite my friends telling me how vital tactical squads were to winning, I just kept on going with my assault & devistators and beating them. Always surprised me slightly than none of them tried using my tactics against me. Jump troops or bikes (never trusted teleporting) rushing to where ever they were weakest, las cannons pounding away at enemy tanks... I could guarantee that my troops being marines would do what I wanted them to do.

I wonder if that is why I switched to IG. Bit more of a challenge.

One of the problems with Bolt Action is that pretty much every squad is a tactical squad, rather than a specialist. Although a group of even inexperienced troops with submachine guns is fun. Just a shame I can't equip an entire squad with Bazooka's or Panzerfausts.

[Alex]

Saturday morning has arrived. It is bright and sunny looking outside and I finally remembered to get up and have cereal for breakfast.

OK, so there was no milk in the fridge so I had fried eggs instead, but at least I actually remembered about the healthier option right?

Still seem to be on a Gary Numan kick at the moment with 'Love Hurt Bleed' and 'My Name Is Ruin' being my two favourite songs of his at the moment. Kristi was asking for a list of potential Saturnas presents for me and I included one of his albums on the list. I am pretty sure she has picked me up a couple of sourcebooks for a science fiction role playing game I used to love playing called 2300AD. It was a hard sci fi game (ships had to spin to generate gravity for example). OK, the most unrealistic part is that France has became the dominant world power (yeah right, as if!), but other than that it is fairly realistic. Exploration of space has spread out in three directions (limited by the way space travel works basically, so you need stars within a certain distance). The main direction is known as the French arm, while another I think was split between the Chinese and American (or maybe they were two separate arms, it has been a long time since I played it). Mostly the games we played were set either on earth or on the French arm where a war between humanity and an alien race has started. The aliens (nicknamed the Kafer by South African mercenaries fighting against them in the first encounters of the war), have the potential to wipe out humanity. But then humanity might equally wipe them out.

Anyway, I am wandering off on a sidetrack here (not that I have a main track or anything here).

So the new Dr Who debuts tomorrow. Am I going to watch it? Most likely not. I did watch the first episode that old guy did - partly because my nephew was staying with us and he is a big Dr Who fan. The fact that they've made him a her in immaterial (although I do wish women would come up with original female characters instead of using preexisting male ones).

Looking at you Ghostbusters here. Sorry Paul Feig, but the reason your movie flopped is because the majority of people (and rarely for me, but I agree with the masses here) thought you made a s**te movie. I am not sure if any entertainment industry really understands how to make a remake work, but Hollywood certainly doesn't.

Ash woke up, so took him a walk to the shop to get some milk. I can always have those Weetabix for my lunch.

Ever met an unhappy atheist? Now there is a bunch of people I don't understand. You know that you have this one life. There are no punishments or rewards for you beyond the veil of death so life should be a blast for you. After all there are no eternal torments out there for you so why not act without consequence. I mean if you are religious you have to fear that moment of crossing over, because no matter how good you have been, lets face it you are going to have some degree of doubt that the big man is going to judge you harshly and it is an eternity of red hot pokers being shoved up yer bum as a consequence, or that maybe you followed the right god, wrong branch and that pork sandwich you had last Tuesday is going to send you to the afterlife equivalent of HMP Wandsworth (or Alcatraz for you stateside people). Maybe there has been a translation error what was really top of the list of commandments was "Thou shalt not scratch thy arse in public" and as a result you are truly damned.

But for our atheist, none of these calamity's need concern him (or her). As the song says "Why worry about a thing?"

[RCMerchant]

Yeah, I'm an atheist. I don't give a f**k! 

[Alex]

Watching a show on Amazon set in Scotland. It's called 'Cops and Monsters' and is so far about a young woman joining a section of the police force called PIT (Paranormal Investigation Team), which investigates crimes committed by vampires and werewolves. The acting is a bit amateur but I'll stick with it for a while and see where it goes.

[316zombie]

i strongly recommend monster house for your samhain movie festival. 
  apologies for not being around much, to all and sundry. this is in reference to an earlier post of alex's, which is why i'm posting it in this thread.
 I WAS WRONG. it took me almost 12 years to figure that out, but i have now. i do NOT fault my hubby on this, as he trusts my judgment implicitly, and i'm not wrong on financial stuff very often.
  it's a long  involved story, but suffice it to say that we are taking voluntary foreclosure on our little house. I WAS WRONG TO BUY IT. at this stage of life, i now understand that, and the fact that we need to become renters again. sooo...you'll probably hear ALOT of whining from me about the rigors of getting back into the house hunting game after 22 years...but i'l start the whining tomorrow. for now, know that WE ARE OKAY WITH THIS. as a matter of fact, we are getting a bit excited about starting a new chapter of life in a new place with so much less worry. with luck, we'll find a place by/on my birthday, or by his at least... but if not, we keep looking, and learning.
like alex said, that's how you keep living, right?

[ER]

i strongly recommend monster house for your samhain movie festival. 
  apologies for not being around much, to all and sundry. this is in reference to an earlier post of alex's, which is why i'm posting it in this thread.
 I WAS WRONG. it took me almost 12 years to figure that out, but i have now. i do NOT fault my hubby on this, as he trusts my judgment implicitly, and i'm not wrong on financial stuff very often.
  it's a long  involved story, but suffice it to say that we are taking voluntary foreclosure on our little house. I WAS WRONG TO BUY IT. at this stage of life, i now understand that, and the fact that we need to become renters again. sooo...you'll probably hear ALOT of whining from me about the rigors of getting back into the house hunting game after 22 years...but i'l start the whining tomorrow. for now, know that WE ARE OKAY WITH THIS. as a matter of fact, we are getting a bit excited about starting a new chapter of life in a new place with so much less worry. with luck, we'll find a place by/on my birthday, or by his at least... but if not, we keep looking, and learning.
like alex said, that's how you keep living, right?

Good luck to you, guys. I hope this proves an upward move.

[Alex]

Ash appears to have learned how to say "Mmmmmmmm."

He seems rather happy about this. Indeed he is apparently capable of saying it all day long. Other hobbies include trying to play with electrical cables and wanting to eat Kristi's Oldhammer High Elf army which I am going to have to find a place for it to live that isn't on the bottom shelf.

Saw a book I want to buy on eBay this morning. The book costs £8.44, but has an addition £22 postage and packing. Yeah, I think I'll scratch that idea thanks.

Kristi decided to look after Ash last night so she could have a long lie in this morning, so currently letting her sleep while Ash crawls from place he isn't allowed to be in to some other place he isn't allowed to be in.

I am the prisoner of a tiny demon of my own making. And it is wonderful.

Yes, I know you are not supposed to start a sentence with "And", but that is included in with the other rules of the language I don't overly care for.

Hmm, the morning news is filled with politics. When it comes to voting I always bear in mind that left wing governments tend to be good at looking after people but crap at dealing with money while right wing governments certainly tend to be better at looking after money but are s**t with people. While I'd rather find a happy middle ground, the lack of a choice there leaves me going with the left. Certainly business has repeatidly proven itself incapable of operating responsibly without heavy government oversight, be it the conditions factory owners imposed on their workers in the industrial revolution, or the whole exploding fuel tank cost of repair vs the cost of compensation thing, aggressive tax avoidance schemes... I could list things all day long here and still not be done.

Funny this is, the further you to the extreme left or right, the more they sound alike. Sure they call things different names, but it works out to the same policies and results.

Oh, and Barri 'Monster House' is on the list of things to be watched.

Ever made friends with a social misfit / outcast? Being one myself, pretty much all my friends have been outcasts of one stripe or another. One thing I have noticed about them is that, lacking in regular social skills the first way they try to establish themselves in a group in via physical force. Despite frequently being outcasts because of their lack of physical prowess they will try dominating others by slapping others in the social group, or acting like some tough guy (or gal). Eventually others in the group will get fed up of this behaviour and turn round and hit them back, at which point the person will realise this approach isn't working and retreat. They might try intellectual superiority, but generally (and normally despite their own opinions of themselves) they aren't any smarter than anyone else in the group and after embarrassing themselves a few times, things will settle down. Pack mentality will win out and they will find their position in the group, where ever that may be (and it isn't always at the bottom either). I've lost count of the number of times I've seen this play out. I've even seen it happen online, although in that case it tends to jump the initial physical stage.

Thing is that if someone is an a***ole, this will teach them how to behave in a group. But underneath that the person is still an a***ole and given the chance will immediently jump back into that role.

[RCMerchant]

Well, not until I get to officially be a grumpy old man at which point I will suddenly become set in my views and refuse to budge from them, although I will wave my walking stick disapprovingly at young people.

I am so looking forward to that. Anyone who wants to join me in the endeavour should let me know well in advance so we can all pick the same retirement home to hang out in.

I already have a stick! 

[Alex]

It has been an exhausting day today and I am not sure why. I got up with Ash, looked after him until Kristi got up, did the laundry which is my usual sunday thing and washed some dishes. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Once Kristi got up we took a quick walk to the shop, picked some stuff up and then I spent a bit of time taking a new D&D player through character creation and ran a short scenario for him just to introduce him to the rules.

Still not gotten my bath, although Kristi decided about 49 seconds ago to run me one. No idea why I feel quite so worn out, but there you go. Is their a god of energy that I can sacrifice someone too for some.

Started painting my latest Germans. I really need to increase the numbers of my Axis troops so I can play a decent sized game. They are a unit of Luftwaffe infantry who had a grey blue uniform, and for some reason a camo coat worn over the top. Actually going to try painting the camo pattern. Started with a light brown base and I'll do the other colours on top.



I suspect it will look like a disaster, but hey ho.

[316zombie]

thank you, ER.
i have my stick too, i'm ready! 

[Alex]

It will be more fun than both Cocoon movies put together!

Nights fall so quickly here. I was watching a weather report, just a couple of minutes long. It was daylight when it started and a velvet dark night sky by the time it finished. I love these nights, especially when I can walk alone in them, perhaps a light rain that puts off most other walkers.

Looking forward to next weekend when I get to go see JOHN FREAKIN' CARPENTER!!!! live playing at the Barrowlands (incidently my favourite concert hall ever. First went there in '92 to see Motorhead touring off the back of '1916' (which was their best album in a long time imho). The support act The Almighty blew me away and Motorhead were even better. Spent the whole night in the front row between the mosh pit and the barrier. Got kicked in the head a few times by crowd surfers, but it was all worth it.

I'd see Motorhead, The Almighty, The Wildhearts, and Queensryche multiple times in the same location before the Academy took its place as the go to gig hall (I'd see Motorhead, Joan Jett, The Damned, Girlschool and various other bands I can no longer remember in there, but it just wasn't as good). Iron Maiden even played The Barrowlands once, when Blaze Bailey was singing with them, and I maintain it was much better than any time I saw them with Dickenson fronting the band playing the SECC. But then, I haven't really enjoyed seeing Maiden with Dickenson live. He addresses to the crowd tend to leave me feeling p**sed off at him and it would be much better if (other than singing obviously), he'd just shut the hell up.

Tosser.

I love a good band live. It fills me full of energy and life like nothing else and is one of the few times I can almost feel like I am part of a crowd. I get pretty damn hyper before hand and can stay on a high for days afterwards.

Never came across any drug that could keep me high that long. Not that I've ever really been one for chemical highs. I did shock my workmates when I pointed out to them I'd once done some very high grade cocaine, but that was given to me as an anaesthetic (mixed in with some adrenaline). Had to snort it up my nose before they shoved a bloody camera up there to find out where I was bleeding from.

Still counts though, so can scratch "Do some coke" off the bucket list I guess. Well, if I ever get around to writing one anyway.

Running a mini D&D game on Thursday morning, the first part of which is now on my D&D thread. It is to introduce the new character to the group. Assuming he doesn't get killed anyway. Going to work on it tomorrow night. Wednesday night I'll be doing rehearsals for the play I am in and Thursday night, well that will just be too damn late unless the someone decides to give us all time machines. Or at least just me. Screw the rest of you, I want to go jaunting along the time lines without any of you!

First thing I would do is go back in time and punish the man who has inflicted more pain, misery and suffering than any other human being.

Shakespeare. I'd take a mallet and grind his finger bones into a fine powder with it.

Make centuries of school kids suffer your turgid, overrated writing will you! I will have my revenge!