Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

I suggested we go out for a walk early this afternoon. The weather this morning had been pretty sucky so we'd abandoned plans to head into town. We took a meandering wander and ended up having a late lunch at one of the harbour cafes. Might have even picked up a little bit of sunburn while we were eating outside, but not enough to really notice.

[Alex]

Ah, the joys of parenting a child with an endless supply of energy.

Ash hasn't quite completely adapted to the newest addition to the family. The kitten managed to get into his room at 4 or 5 am over the weekend. Ash woke up and was not impressed to find it curled up and sleeping on his pillow. Other times he laughs and giggles as he chases Elsa all over the living and dining rooms. Other times he doesn't want the cat anywhere near him. Kristi's lap has become a battleground, which has currently settled into a cold war with one on each knee and woe betide anyone who trespasses even slightly on the other's territory.

I have been distracting both of them from using Kristi as a climbing frame as much as I can.

Well not quite as much as I can. Sometimes it is just too funny to interfere with.

The weather has been rapidly cycling between being too warm to be comfortable and being much cooler and wetter. We even had a couple of rare thunderstorms.

[chefzombie]

i would greatly appreciate old bridge pictures, thank you!
i remember when the twins were around 2, stacy got a kitten and they were NOT happy campers because of the lap thing. needless to say, it was already a battleground between THEM anyway. stacy put her foot down and said that her lap was cat territory only, until the kitten( she's SO original, her name was kitter, lol!) was as big as  the girls. they fell for it, lol!
  when i came up for the summer, i was informed that they sat on each side of me because they were" too grown" for my lap, and i was NOT to pet kitter ever, " she's spoiled by mom already!". and i did NOT pet her. she just rode around on my shoulder, lol!

[Alex]

Ah, the darkness. How I love to lie in it and just enjoy a silent world for a while.

When the seagulls shut the f-up anyway.

[Alex]

Saw on the news about the weather in the Gulf of Mexico. Hope anyone for the affected area stays safe and the hurricanes don't go all 2020 and form a superstorm or anything.

[Alex]

Still working our way through season 5 of Lucifer. 3 episodes to go. Watching it, I do not get the impression that they ever intended this to be the final season. Maybe I am just being suspicious there.

I wonder how the decision to pay all that money for sports and have to cancel a ton of other shows so they can afford it is working out for them this year?

Ash and Elsa are learning to play together. He spent a good 45 minutes last night running up and down the living room while carrying a ball on a stick with her chasing after him and he was laughing his ass off the entire time.

Not sure if he has forgiven her though for the night he woke up and found her sleeping on his pillow. Caused a lot of trauma that one.

Keep thinking that in Galaxy of Terror the wrong guy won. Ranger faced his fear and defeated it, which to me beats never having to come up against it in the first place. Fear is a strange thing. Those who don't listen to it at all put themselves in more danger. Those who let it overcome them moreso. The slim area in between where it is a great survival tool, such a hard place to find and stay in but well worth the effort. Oh well.

[Alex]

For Barri. And well anyone else who has an interest in bridges.

The Forth (Rail) Bridge.

So-called because it bridges the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland. This isn't exactly ancient (1890). When it was constructed it was the longest single cantilever bridge span in the world, which it remained for 30 years and is still the second-longest such design in the world and was the first major structure in the UK to be built from steel. If you ask about bridges in Scotland, the chances are this is the one people will think of first.





Glenfinnan Viaduct.

Completed in 1901 the Glenfinnan Viaduct was longest mass concrete viaduct in Britain. This viaduct is featured in the Harry Potter series and features 21 graceful arches.





Clachan Bridge.




Dating from 1792, this bridge spans the Clachan Sound which opens into the Atlantic and is referred to as the bridge over the Atlantic.


Brig o'Doon.





Made famous in Burn's 'Tam o'Shanter', the bridge was built sometime in the 1400's.

[chefzombie]

oh thank you, those are BEAUTIFUL! i think the clachan is my favorite, although the forth, the cantilevered one is BRILLIANT architecture

[Alex]

You should come over and visit sometime and we'll take you to a few of them.

One of my new co-workers seems to be something of a trump fan and a conspiracy theory. We were all having a political conversation today that roamed all over world politics. He kept telling me to google some claim or another of his, and all the results I would get would be from fact-checkers debunking his claims (one, just as an example was that Clinton had given North Korea nuclear technology).

Anyway, we spent the morning tearing his most of his claims to pieces. Those we didn't, it was more of a case of we didn't bother researching them.  He isn't a bad guy, but some of the things he believes in... Well, at least he isn't a flat earther. Nor is he daft enough to think that just making some random statement or giving us a link to a half-arsed website is going to blow our minds. Still, people who do things like that are always useful for the comedy value.

We had a big meltdown from Ash tonight. We were sitting in the dining room having our dinner when Elsa tried to come through the door. Ash reached over to shut the door to stop her coming in, but caught her paw in the door. He might not have meant to hurt her, but I didn't want him thinking this was ok either, so he got sat on my lap. For a child who must always constantly be in motion, this is a hellish punishment. Normally, he gets a timeout like this of between 2 to 5 minutes. He ended up with at least half an hour. I had been going to let him down, but Elsa jumped up beside us and he tried to push her away. The whole time he was crying his tantrum cry and struggling to get free. What can I say, I am more stubborn than a 2-year-old.

Within moments of him being set free, he was fine again though.

Back to conspiracy theories, I did come across this page randomly. I thought some of our more faith-based members might be interested in it, although I don't believe that Christians are particularly susceptible to conspiracy theories when compared to any other section of society.

http://instrumentofmercy.com/2020/05/07/why-your-christian-friends-and-family-members-are-so-easily-fooled-by-conspiracy-theories/

[Alex]

In theory, I am practising coding right now. At least, I have installed the version of the computer language we use at work, and I have the program open to type. I even have my coursebook open beside me.

Yup, that's about the limit of my enthusiasm tonight. Ash has been very full on this weekend, as we'd expect from a little boy. It's almost 21:00 and he still isn't sleeping. I think he is fading though.

It was the last day of eating out for half price today. We decided to pop out for lunch. Might as well. By the sounds of it the autumn budget is going to hit ordinary rather than businesses, or even sharing the burden equally. Since our corporate tax rates are already below the international average I can't help but feel it is about time they paid their way. Still, this is what happens when you vote for a party on the right.

Making my way through season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. It isn't holding me the way the first season did, but I will stick with it for the moment.

I see far right protesters attempted to storm the German parliment. The more things change... The world does seem to be in a bad place at the moment. I wonder if we'll see it get better in our life times?

[Alex]

Over the past few days and weeks, I've been checking in on various friends from around the world, making sure they are all ok yadda, yadda. The ones from the US have mentioned the exact same phrase, that they were embarrassed to be American. I've heard this exact same phrase from multiple people, spread over the country. Then I saw a study on the news that said the exact same thing, same phraseology. Wondering if this was something that was said on a national program or something. No one is using any alternative words, like ashamed and I am just curious if this has a common source.

Watched 'Bright' again tonight. Still can't figure out the hate for it. It is a shame it didn't have cybernetics in it too though, then we could have had a Shadowrun movie.

Managed to get a group together for a new D&D game. This time we'll be playing in person rather than online. One of the guys I work with and his wife want to play. I also have Kristi, Garry and three other potential players. I've started writing the new campaign out.. I'll give them a starting adventure, a couple of adventure hooks and let them go. Hopefully though, someone else will want to GM soon and I can get back to playing.

[Alex]

I was reading an article on Qanon. It was dealing with a bunch of their claims and how they were debunked. One of them, all they wrote was "We didn't even have to debunk this one."

Never actually looked at any of their stuff directly, all my exposure to them has been second or third hand. I wonder if their stuff is as ridiculous as it sounds, or is it more impressive first hand?

Suspect I already know the answer to that question.

Work has finally started on the high-speed line they want to build between the north of England and London. The idea behind it is that people will no longer need to commute to London and can work in the north. My bet is that all it will do is extend the range for people commuting too and from London. Not saying it is a bad (or for that matter) good project, but I do very much doubt it will achieve its stated objective. Apparently it is the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, and doubtless at least during its construction, it will provide many jobs. Maybe sometimes that is enough.

Started playing the mobile app version of Eve (Eve Echoes). I had wanted to play the full online game, but by the time I'd finished with other MMO's I reckoned the game had been going for too long and any new player was just going to get nuked by the more experienced ones. I'll see how this version goes. Between writing stories and RPG's my play time is fairly limited so I am not sure how long or how much I'll play.

[ER]

Over the past few days and weeks, I've been checking in on various friends from around the world, making sure they are all ok yadda, yadda. The ones from the US have mentioned the exact same phrase, that they were embarrassed to be American.

I'm not ashamed to be an American, but I am ashamed of many Americans.

[Alex]

Mostly, the embarrassment seemed to stem from their countries current place internationally with how Covid-19 is going, although I was more curious about everyone using the same phrase rather than what they were worried about.

Nice day outside today, so we took a stroll. Partially through this was to try and tire Ash out a bit so he'd nap. He didn't go to sleep last night until nearly 23:00. We had Garry round for a visit. He is going to be joining in my new D&D campaign, playing an evil cleric. He's always wanted to play a necromancer and figures he might actually get there this time. Currently, I have 6 people wanting to play, which is about as large as I want the group to get. It is entirely possible that we might have another 2 to 4 people wanting to play. If they all want to join in, I'd have to look at setting up a second game.

What I have so far is Garry (very experienced roleplayer who I've known for years), Roger (brother of my friend Bruce. Not met him before. He says he's played loads of D&D before), Shelly (Roger's wife, no idea on her experience level), Kristi (been playing D&D for 2 years), Mark (one of my co-workers. Never roleplayed before) and his wife Emma who equally has never played before.

Kristi is playing a Dwarf warrior, so she'll be the pain bearer, while Garry is going to have to stand back and avoid combat. He got some higher than average scores that all went into his mental abilities to improve his spell casting, and then he got some rather poor rolls that went into his physical attributes. He may struggle to land any spell that requires a to-hit roll. There are ways to get around that though. Unfortunately, as his god is evil (his actual character alignment at the moment is Lawful Neutral, which more or less means you obey the rules wither they are right or wrong), he can't access healing magic. Hopefully one of the other party members will be a healer. I have decided to throw in a complication there.

Often in fantasy literature, spells cast by priests is ok 'cos that comes from the gods, whereas wizardly magic is suspicious and gets you thrown on a bonfire. In this game, I've decided to switch that around. Although churches approve of their clerics using magic, the common folk see it as more of a blasphemy, misusing the power of a deity for their own purposes. Will be interesting to see if the party use some healing magic on some wounded villager, only to be accused of a crime against the gods.

[ER]

Nice switch on clerics and magic.

Back in the day I only tried playing D&D once, in 1996, MTG was more my thing, but I did enjoy reading the game books, and one thing I did notice in the ..."old" (?) system at least was clerics were so modeled on Medieval Christianity as to be seriously restricted. They could not shed blood so had to use blunt weapons being a big example. (Probably this has been changed, I haven't read a rulebook in a long time.) I remember thinking clerics could be part of many cosmologies and the rules should be more flexible. Maybe your cleric was an animist or part of a fire-worshipping cult, and the rules would be different. In fact I tried to push against that rule by saying I wanted to play a cleric who came from a desert cult and fought with a thorn-studded club made from a poison tree, only to be told clerics couldn't use poison, and I thought well why the bloody Jones not? It wasn't as if the D&D rule police were listening in, waiting to come kick in the door and drag me out by my hair for violating their game.

I'm also told the game evolved to be more about storytelling and less about dice rolling, which I'd see as an improvement, since I, with my high school know-it-all condescension, kept telling the guys playing the game that night that if they thought about what they were doing, it was all about mathematical probability expressed through random number generation.

To which one of them accurately replied: "What isn't about that?"

(I was being a little mean to them.)

Have fun with your new campaign! Based on your past settings I'm sure it'll be cool as heck.