Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Trevor]

My favourite John Carpenter movie hit the cinemas 25 years ago today. And when I say favourite I should point out that I have many favourite Carpenter movies. This though was the last of his period of greatness in my opinion anyway.

This, Alex?



100% agreed: chilling, eerie, disturbing and yes, funny.

"Oh, not The Carpenters too...."
"I'm sorry about the balls, it was a lucky shot, that's all." 

[chefzombie]

all i can say is that i am horrified, disgusted,disappointed and TERRIFIED of what is next for the country i was born in. and i'm wondering if i want to continue living here...that will depend on what happens in november i guess, but at least i DO have other options, if necessary. the rest of my family doesn't though, and THAT just sucks.
  good luck with the interview sugar, i'm hoping that you and kristi and our BMDO baby ash get to maintain your happy lives in lossie! 

[Alex]

My favourite John Carpenter movie hit the cinemas 25 years ago today. And when I say favourite I should point out that I have many favourite Carpenter movies. This though was the last of his period of greatness in my opinion anyway.

This, Alex?



100% agreed: chilling, eerie, disturbing and yes, funny.

"Oh, not The Carpenters too...."
"I'm sorry about the balls, it was a lucky shot, that's all." 

Indeed Trevor it was In The Mouth of Madness. The closest I've ever seen to Lovecraft on the big screen.

[Alex]

Sitting just whiling away some time before I head up to do my twelve-hour night shift. Hopefully, it will be quiet and dull. Excitement on these kinds of jobs is a very bad thing indeed.

Kristi has taken Ash down to see my mum for well, maybe a week, maybe less. It depends on how much he exhausts my mum. She is still recovering from the whole aneurysm thing. She was warned it would take months to recover but was convinced she would be back up on her feet in no time. Reality has come as something of a shock there. Still, from what I am hearing she hardly needs to use her cane for walking anymore so that shows she is making progress. Just messaged Kristi and found out she has arrived safely down there. She was a bit worried about getting down there with Ash and had decided to travel without a pram since he is walking more and more. There are only a few bits between trains that he'll be able to do under his own power anyway.

My LRDG trucks arrived, so I've been painting them up today in between just doing various bits of housework and watching horror movies. Figure once the trucks are painted and fully assembled that is at least my 8th army group all finished. I think my Japanese and Kristi's US troops will need some attention and then my WW2 armies should all be finished.

I've been working on my new gig jacket some more. The back is all finished now, the sleeves and front are being worked on. I aim to have it finished early next month in time to go to my next gig. The previous incarnations have been softer fabrics are could be sewn by hand. Since this (hopefully final) incarnation is leather, well that just isn't practical. I won't say it would be impossible but certainly damn difficult. Ran out of some of the materials I needed last night, but fresh supplies have been ordered and should be here in a day or two. At that point I'll be looking to finish the outside and work on the lining (yup, inside gets patches too).

[Alex]

A bit over halfway through the first shift and all is quiet.

Boring though. I introduced myself as Alex to the two regiment guys and asked for their names. They gave me surnames. Some people are just too deep in the system I guess.

Writing some D&D stuff though. Picking up with the party having an assortment of international leaders come to visit and have a parlay. The party will be responsible for their security and feeding everyone, providing a conference area where the Western Heartlands can iron out their differences and stand united against the Thay/Mulhorand alliance that has so far swept all before it.

I feel it is one of the easier tasks the party has had to take on.

[Alex]

Day twos guarding is creeping closer. No one stole the what is basically a modified 737 last night. Got bad weather hitting tonight so if anyone wants to try and take it in that, then best of luck to them.

I'm not going to be standing there in the cold wind and rain giving you first aid when you get shot.

I have been listening to the storm coming in all day, the wind getting louder. Hope any fishermen out at sea or any other souls out there have a safe night and the weather doesn't get too bad.

Sitting watching random stuff on a streaming service. Almost midnight and the halfway point of the shift. Then I get to go home to an empty house, sleep for a bit, do some stuff in the house and then rinse and repeat. Kristi is having fun with Ash down at my mum's. He is able to climb out of the carry cot we use for him down there. I have suggested they turn it upside down and put something heavy on top. That should keep him inside. They were going out looking for a proper cot for him to sleep in. I'd rather he was made to stay inside the one we have. Not sure how much longer he'll be sleeping in a cot anyway. I guess he'll be moving to a proper bed sometime in the next year. Certainly when he learns how to talk and can be told to go back to his bed and sleep. Him being down there does at least allow me to sleep during the day. If Ash sees one of us sleeping he likes to climb onto the bed and onto our heads.

A subtle hint to get out of bed there. He will also hand us our glasses.

Still, I am missing them both.

Joe was on guard at our home base as I was coming into work to guard elsewhere. He looked like he was enjoying the weather, but at least his shift was almost over at that point. I've done day guard once and it might have been the most boring experience of my life. If I had been in a regular job I'd have quit mid-shift and walked out, never to be seen again.

Nights back at home base at least has things happen on it that gives you stuff to talk about for the rest of the week. I've had potential bombs, street fights, drunks trying to steal my weapon, drunks demanding entrance, someone having a psychotic break from reality, mercy flights dropping off people for transport to hospital, imposters claiming to be from the UN demanding to inspect the nuclear weapons our F-15's carry.

Except our nuclear weapons are kept by the navy and we don't have F-15's.

All manner of randomness.

[Alex]

Another night with nothing happening.

Oh blessed boredom, may you continue to keep me happy for at least the rest of the month.

I wonder if Spiderman's webs would be biodegradable, or does someone have to go around after him cleaning them up. Presumably, that would take some pretty powerful solvents and a lot of PPE. Not to mention a head for heights. Imagine if Amazon gets the go-ahead with the whole drone delivery thing, the issues they could have there with them getting caught on left over webs.

Speaking of drones I wonder when we will see the first terrorist attack using them in the west? That has got to just be a matter of time. Hell, if I was a terrorist that would be the route I'd be going down. You can take out large numbers of people from a distance and be long gone before anyone can track you down, unlike today's suicide bombers, or guys with blades or cars who get caught or killed. Yeah, you don't get your 40 virgins, but what is so great about virgins? Give me one woman with a bit of experience. Since their innocence is renewed eternally you are going to have to teach them everything every damn time.

Sounds more like a kind of hell to me.

Then again it is hardly the only mainstream religion with very mockable beliefs... I used to wonder how any grown, intelligent person could possibly believe against all the evidence that there was a single god out there who created everything and we are her favoured children. These days I just don't care and leave them to get on with it. If god does have a favoured species, I doubt it is us. I'd put my money on viruses and bacteria, maybe parasites. They seem to get a much easier time of things than us.

Of course, there is always the theory that we are just here to give the beetles something to look at.

[ER]

And then there's me, the committed theist who doesn't like God very much.

[Alex]

And here we are again. Listening to a podcast of The Shadows Over Innsmouth. My camera watcher is confused because he want's to watch some abomination called Love Island on TV and his laptop is strangely not working. I could tell him how to fix it, but I don't want to listen to it and he needs it to be at full volume apparently.

Heh heh heh.

I finished my LRDG trucks. Decided to customise them a bit and changed out the rear machine gun for an anti-tank rifle instead, on the second one. It at least gives them a small chance against any enemy tanks. One of the wargaming forums I am on had someone make a complaint about people not painting historically accurate armies and saying he'd refuse to play anyone who turned up with such a force. He was looking for other people's opinions. Normally I don't bother getting involved, but I made one of my occasional joining in bits and posted that if that was something you worried about then perhaps you need to take a step back, re-evalutate your priorities and deal with real problems. If I go out and buy an army it is up to me how (or even if) I paint them. If you want to paint up your own army and you enjoy it then fine, but don't expect the rest of the world to fall in line just to please you.

Most of today though I spent just listening to music and relaxing. While I miss Kristi and Ash I do also enjoy having alone time. They are coming home Thursday or Friday. Kind of hoping for the Friday so I can be there to meet them when they get home instead of needing to go catch some Zees.

Raining heavily outside. I'd thought about giving my runner a break and going to pick up our evening meals myself. Then I decided you know what, it sucks being a lower rank.  There was a time I'd never ask a junior to do something I wouldn't do myself. Now, well rank has its privillages.

[Alex]

When I was a kid one of my favourite shows was called The Book Tower. Each week a random celebrity would review kids books, and having a life long love of books it was essential viewing. Plus the greatest ever Dr Who, Tom Baker was a frequent guest on the show. I remember them reviewing a book when my age was still somewhere in figures, called 'The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'. It was a book where you rolled dice to fight creatures, picked stuff like do I want to go left or right and so on, not something I had hitherto come across. Anyway, I watched the show and the book went to the back of my mind, not forgotten but certainly filed away. Sometime later, I guess I'd have been somewhere in the 9 to 12 age group, my grandfather on my dad's side had a stroke that left him paralysed. He ended up in a nursing home in a place called Dunoon. At the time the US had a naval base there. I think it was a submarine base. Anyway, that is kinda irrelevant to the story and the base has long since been closed down.

I was only taken out to see him there one time, and it would be the last time I'd see him before he died. We spent the day with him walking around town, getting ice creams and playing 'Spot the Yank'. It was easy to do, they all had like three cameras hanging around their necks. Again though, that is a diversion fro the story. When we dropped the old fellow off back at the nursing home I noticed they had a rack of second-hand books for sale as a charity fundraiser. I picked up a couple, one was a sci-fi novel by a kids author I'd read a couple of books by and liked (Flamers by Nicolas Fisk if anyone cares), and a copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountian. Think they cost me 10p each (10 cents for American readers) each. I still have the Flamers novel although Warlock... has vanished somewhere in the mists of time. Saw a copy of it on ebay today for 99p so figured what the hey, I'll pick it up.

Wow, that is a long way to explain that I bought a book today.

If you ever find yourself in the vicinity, I think Dunoon is worth a visit. Ok, I've not been there for over 30 years and it has no doubt changed a bit, but it had lovely scenery.

Anyway, from that book there came a series of books which I duly collected when I could and that was my gateway drug into the world of roleplaying and wargaming. If I hadn't happened to find that book that day though I suspect I'd have found some other route into my hobbies.

The wind has picked up again today. I am so glad I am going to be inside our nice warm office and not out fixing aircraft on the line. We can see people out working on our security cameras. They look cold, wet and miserable.

The two regiment lads I have as my QRF are both out the mob soon. They are talking about what jobs they are looking for in civvy street. Mostly menial work. Should have picked a role with a trade lads. Best of luck to both of them out there.

[Alex]

Watching 'The Color Out of Space'. Nic Cage is putting in a surprisingly restrained performance. It doesn't follow the plot of the story closely much beyond the basic premise and the names of characters but I've seen worse adaptations of Lovecraft's work. Looking at you here Stuart Gordon.

My minion's laptop hasn't been working. He knows nothing about computers so I offered to have a look at it. Had a look at it and I could see the problem was it had been downloading an update and had been switched off mid update. Anyway, did a factory settings restart and then updated all his drivers for him.

Then I set all his homepages on all his browsers to play "Never Going To Give You Up" every time he starts one of them up.

Heh heh heh.

I only managed 3, maybe 3 1/2 hours sleep today. Or yesterday rather as it is now 2 am-ish. Well, closer to 03:00 than 02:00. I am starting to struggle a bit. Funny I used to be able to do all-nighters absolutely no problem. I was randomly thinking back to when I used to do a milk run. Several of the customers were single old women who I guess didn't have a lot of social contact with people and when I was around each week collecting the milk money they'd want to talk as long as possible, whereas by that point I'd been up since 3 am running around carrying a couple of crates of milk for 4 or 5 hours. If the weather was bad, then I'd be cold and wet. All I'd want to do at that point is get finished and get home to get washed up, some breakfast and a couple of hours sleep. I'd do my best to be nice though and talk to them for a bit. One old woman, in particular, would often ask me to pop round and visit her during the day for a cup of tea. I guess she just wanted some company, but I don't even like tea and I never went round to see her outside of business hours. I'd imagine she will be long dead by now. It wasn't unusual for customers to expect me to go around to their house and deal with stuff outside of my work hours, something I always refused to do. One even turned up at my house wanting to speak to me while I was sleeping. They too left unsatisfied. My mum told them she was not waking me up for whatever reason they wanted to talk to me. They too wanted me to come down to their house when I woke up. Yeah, that didn't happen either. Frankly, I wasn't being paid enough and while I believed in doing a good job, I also believed that expecting me to do extra unpaid work just because it was convenient for them, was crossing a line.

Anyway, after thinking about the old woman so desperate for company that she'd ask me to come visit her I thought about one of my ex's and it occurred to me, if she lives long enough that old woman is going to be her.

Then I thought, well that isn't my problem. So I'll leave her to karma and hope that things turn out better for her, even though I am very sure they won't in this particular case. What a future to look forward to, sitting there alone every day. Would you welcome death as an old friend and a relief from that kind of life, or is it so precious that you still cling on to it, even as all it brings you is sadness and loneliness? Its a difficult concept for me to understand. I can quite happily go for long periods without talking to people. Indeed oft-times I need just that. A separation from the rest of the species. Engaging with people is exhausting and I wonder how people who are more sociable can manage it. Maybe its like lifting weights. The more you do it and the heavier you lift the bigger your muscles get. Well that is one workout I am going to skip.

[Alex]

I heard back today that I hadn't gotten the job I applied for, so one way or another I'll be leaving Lossiemouth. Good job I have those two backup plans. If I want any feedback I can phone the warrant officer and he'll let me know why I didn't get the post. I can only see that as being useful though if I was going to apply for the post again. Since I only have time for one more posting it isn't something I am looking at. Nice of them to offer though I guess. I'll look at my other options next week and see where I go from there.

I went to order the meals for tonight's shift. The civvy we've been dealing with is a bit of an arse to deal with all week. Today he'd left the phone off the hook, so I tried for about half an hour calling and each time the line was still the same. I told my runner to pop over there, find out what the options for the meals were tonight and then call me. He replied that I was to keep calling and if we hadn't received an answer by 22:00 he'd pop over (this was at 20:30 hours). Anyway, I reminded him that this is not an anarcho-communist commune or even a democracy and he'd be going NOW to check on that and not when he felt like it.

There are a lot of young kids who come through and really don't seem to realise that yeah, we are a lot more laid back than the army or navy but ultimately this is still the military and when someone of a higher rank gives you a (legal) order then you go it. Anyway, he trotted off at that point and its Cajun Chicken or omlettes.

[Alex]

Warning. Nerdy Wargaming Stuff ahead. If you aren't into this kind of thing you should skip this post.

Seriously.

Anyway, I decided to plan out everything for my desert raiding LDRG force. I am aiming for a 1,000 point force.

So first off I need an officer to be in charge of everything. Yeah, cos they do such an excellent job in real life.

Anyway. /rantover.

Officers give out a morale bonus depending on their rank and experience. I figure for a force like this, the boss man should have been in plenty of firefights previously and know something about this kind of warfare. Maybe a bit of maverick, so not been promoted too high up the ladder.

HQ units.
So, I'll make him a 2nd Lieutenant, but a veteran. He has a batman (no, not Bruce Wayne) to hopefully stop him wandering into too much trouble. Both of them will be equipped with submachine guns to make them into a small, but hard-hitting assault unit.
1 Veteran 2nd Lieutenant: 78 points.

Medics in Bolt Action tend to be a bit useless (anyone within 6" of them who is killed has a 1 in 6 chance of being saved. It is surprisingly hard to have them somewhere they are going to be useful), but I figure anyone going behind any lines is going to want one, so to add a bit of characterisation to the force I've included one. They only have pistols which are only supposed to be used in self defence so I am not going to give him any companions. In the back of my mind, I've created a mini back story for this guy, that he was a medic working behind the lines when suddenly he was transferred to the front where he finds himself accompanying battle crazed special forces. He would very much like to go back to his old life.
1 Regular Medic: 23 points.

During World War 2, because the UK had a manpower shortage they tried to make up for it by using lots of artillery. Indeed the artillery corps was highly trained and something of an elite unit. To represent this in the game, any British force gets a free Forward Observer who once per game can call in an artillery strike. After that, they are of limited use. Anyway, so I have him and I'll give him a friend, again with an SMG so I have another assault unit once he has called in the big guns.
1 Regular Forward Observer (Arty) with the accompanying soldier. 13 points (because of the friend, otherwise he would be 0 points).

I also bought a second FO, this time an aircraft one. This guy is represented by my Sir Christopher Lee figure who actually did this job with the LDRG during the war.

I wonder what he'd have been like if he'd played James Bond instead of a bad guy?

Again Sir Chris gets a friend.
1 Regular Forward Observer (Air) with a companion: 88 points.

Ok, so now it is time for the PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry). I need to take two units of veteran infantry as a minimum for this force. The units start off at five men each, but I'll bump that up to 10 and give them an LMG (Light Machine Gun) each. One of the other riflemen becomes a loader, so he doesn't get to shoot anymore, but the LMG makes up for that.
2x 10 veteran men with 1 LMG per squad: 340 points.

Ok, so I want to buy some more option infantry units, but I am running low on points and I still have vehicles to buy. Because of the nature of the LRDG, I need to provide enough vehicles to transport everyone, but I can't buy any tanks or heavy vehicles. The LRDG liked to take 30cwt trucks, strip them down and festoon them with weapons. The also used jeeps and really tooled them up Mad Max-style. I can take up to three such vehicles. Since they are a very characterful part of the force I want to include as many of them as I can. First off I took a pair of trucks, both veteran. The first has a pair of LMG's, one fore and one aft. They can't carry any troops but they have a goodly amount of supporting firepower. For the second one, I upgraded the rear MMG to a light anti-tank gun. If I come across a Tiger it won't even dent the paintwork, but it gives me something that can deal with lighter armoured vehicles and the early mark Panzers. Finally, I take a SAS desert jeep. This tiny demon of annihilation carries 3 MMG's and an HMG. That is a lot of firepower for a small car.
1x Veteran LRDG Truck with two MMG's: 54 points.
1x Veteran LRDG Truck with one MMG and one Light Anti-Tank Gun: 94 points.
1x Veteran Jeep with 3 MMG's and 1 HMG: 87 points.

Briefly, I consider taking a sniper, but to me a sniper spends ages working into position to take a shot, not riding into battle on the back of a truck so I dump that idea and get back to vehicles.

Now I need to provide a vehicle for each unit. I only have two choices when it comes to that, regular 15 and 30cwt trucks. The 15's will carry up to 8 men while the 30's take up to 10. I am not allowed for some reason to put multiple units in the one vehicle until I get to 8 men. One of my minor gripes with the game. Anyway, I have 4 units with less than 8 men so I buy each of those units its own 15cwt. I can't stick any guns on those, so don't see any major benefits to paying extra points to make them more experienced. These guys run onto the battlefield, drop the troops off and then back off to a safe distance until its time to collect their sections and get the hell out of there. One of my grandfathers was a truck driver during the war. I wonder if this is what he drove?
4x Inexperienced 15cwt Trucks: 100 points.

I could only fit in the minimum required infantry squads and each of them is going to require a 30cwt truck. These I can upgrade and add guns to. I put an MMG on one and an HMG on the other. Ideally, I'd like these guys to be veteran but I don't have enough points and if I don't put guns on them then there is no point in making them veteran so I settle for them being regulars with guns, rather than veterans without.
2 Regular 30cwt trucks with one pintle-mounted MMG and one pintle-mounted HMG: 122 points.

Anyway, I think that comes to 999 points. On the other hand, it is 03:31 and I feel tired so mistakes may have been made. My rough battle plan is that all my units will start either being a vehicle or loaded into one. On the first turn, my transports rush forward and drop my infantry at strategically important locations. The unarmed trucks will then back off (because of how the game works, it is a good idea to keep those trucks around, even if they can't really do anything useful. On the other hand, if my troops have to advance on foot over open ground then I will be prepared to sacrifice them as mobile cover). The other vehicles with my high proportion of car-mounted weaponry will pour down an ungodly amount of firepower onto enemy units hopefully forcing them to keep their heads down and pinning them in place (firepower tends not to wipe out units in this game, instead forcing them to go to ground and possibly refuse to obey orders to get up and fight).  The tiny jeep is the most mobile of my units and will act as a mobile reserve providing additional firepower wherever and whenever needed. Any enemy vehicles, I'll assign the anti-tank gun to hunt down and hope I can get some kind dice rolls. My two forward observers will be used to break up tough enemy formations and force them to spread out. Again these attacks don't tend to wipe out units wholesale (although they can do a lot of damage), more having a psychological effect. You place a marker on the table where you want an aircraft or artillery strike, then roll some dice to see what kind of fire support you get. Sometimes this goes badly wrong and hits you instead, but generally, the result is that the other player will start rapidly trying to move his troops as far away from your target area as quickly as possible, scattering his (or her) troops in as many different directions as possible. Having two of them in my force is really going to mess things up for my opponent.

[Alex]

Kristi and Ash should be arriving into Elgin around now, and then jumping in a taxi home. Looking forward to seeing them, but I am also sitting and enjoying my last moments of peace and quiet.

Lordy, do those two like to make noise. 

I got the house mostly tidied up in their absence. It isn't perfect, but it is good.

Tonight is the last night of my first week on guard (assuming I don't get called out on standby). I think I am going to risk having a beer tomorrow if I am not called out by 19:00. The job is easy enough and I've been doing a little bit of writing and a lot of reading, watching movies and chilling.

Life is sweet.

Next week I'll have to make phone calls, look into getting my next posting sorted, but right now I am going to ignore all that and just be happy. For the moment, I've stuck pizza in the oven which should be ready for Kristi when she gets here along with a nice cold glass of diet coke.

[ER]

Do you guys pronounce it El-gin (as in the drink) or El-gun (rhymes with gun)? When showing us Lord Elgin's marbles in the British Museum, the guides on different occasions pronounced it both ways. So far I've taken Cassie on Skins as my definitive expert, and when she got sent to Elgin for one of her breakdowns, she rhymed it with the firearm, Elgun.