Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

Down in Ayrshire again, this time for Elizabeth's 40th birthday party. Even with the 5 bedrooms, my mum's house is a bit crowded with her, Elizabeth, Jim, my aunt Nancy and then me Kristi and Ash. Last night it was the three of us in the one bed.

That isn't the fun kind of threesome.

Everyone else is getting the hall ready while I am watch Ash and keeping Elizabeth company while we listen to some Iron Maiden using her Alexa. While I am aware of Alexa, I've never used one before. It is possible to get it to play the song you want? I asked for Still Life and it has played a bunch of other Maiden tunes but not the one I asked for. Earlier on she asked it to play The Time Warp and it played other songs from the RHPS instead.

Maybe it is just whatever tech billionaire owns it f**king with people. Wouldn't surprise me.  

Heading back up the road tomorrow. Might finally have a round the table roleplaying group going. Got 3 people wanting to play Call of Cthulhu. We shall see if it actually happens or not, but I am hopeful.

Seeing a lot of articles right now about how we need to stop trying to exterminate rats and learn to live with them. Yeah right. I don't want to make them extinct, but I am not learning how to co-exist with them either. Found a Castle Greyskull to give Stewart for his birthday, which worked out well as we forgot to bring down his last birthday present, so he got his next birthday's present for his last birthday and he can get his last one for his next one instead. We are taking both Elizabeth and my mum to see The Drifters live in Aberdeen for their birthdays (as well as getting them a hotel for the night afterwards).

EDIT: Kristi just got back and asked Alexa to play the Time Warp and it did so right off. Yup, billionaire f**king with us, plus well all women are witches. 

[Paquita]

Ha! I wonder if Alexa only understands American accents? Another strike against ai.. for now.

[Zapranoth]

CoC is one rpg I haven’t played.  Do you just roll up the extra character sheets at the start and have them ready at hand?

I always just hear Meat Loaf’s voice in the Time Warp chorus.  Guy sure could sing big.  Once you notice it, it’s like the cowbell in Don’t Fear the Reaper.

[Alex]

CoC is one rpg I haven’t played.  Do you just roll up the extra character sheets at the start and have them ready at hand?

I always just hear Meat Loaf’s voice in the Time Warp chorus.  Guy sure could sing big.  Once you notice it, it’s like the cowbell in Don’t Fear the Reaper.

We are now up to 4 players with me GMing (or being the Keeper if you prefer). Last time I played we just made up new characters as required. I find the problem with making backups as that people want to play them and will retire their current main, so while I don't discourage the practise I've learned not to encourage it either. I am looking at running a 2nd edition game (which I've never played before) of AD&D in the Dark Sun background where you are supposed to have 4 backup characters to account for the high death rate. It will be online so if you fancy giving it a try let me know and I'll poke you when that campaign starts. I've been buying a few fishmen, Mi-go and a Shoggoth as well as assorted investigators/background figures and cultists.

With the three of us sharing a bed at my mums for the weekend, Ash woke up yesterday. He was lying face down, raised himself up a bit and looked right, then left then right again and said "Oh my gosh, oh no. There is two of them."

[Alex]

We were heading into Elgin today. Kristi asked me how her hair was and I told her that her hair reminded me of Sho'Nuff. From her response, I gather I was supposed to lie about this rather than being entirely honest. We picked up the latest edition to the family today. A black kitten whom Kristi has named Ripley. I was going to go with Lilith myself, but when Ash saw the picture of her he declared that his Nergal was coming back and she'd to explain that this was a different cat.

Apparently 5 years ago today I threatened to post lots of stuff up about Marvel movies just to p**s off Sven who wanted people to post spoilers for whatever movie was coming out next. Can't say I miss this guy, although I am convinced Morpheustheunwoke was him back on a different profile. There were too many obscure opinions he expressed that were the same as his, not to mention his general sentence structure, word selection etc. Even when he slipped up on his spelling, it was the most common errors he made.

Still, Collect the Monkey made me laugh.

Working on an outfit to run Call of Cthulhu in. I am considering ordering a top hat, shirt sleeve holders and also thinking about a cane and cape. Capes really need to come back into fashion. If I can achieve that, then next I will look to normalise the wearing of gentlemanly swords. Once all that is in the bag... well jousting has to come along sooner or later. Yeah, all you countries that drive on the wrong side of the road are really going to have problems then.  

[Alex]

An old friend Sarcastic Chris (I know a lot of Chris and Daves so they all get nicknames, although as in this case, they weren't always related to their personality) was at my sister's birthday party. I've only bumped into him once since I joined the military. Back then he was always boasting about how he'd beat the hell out of some guy or some similar story around that kind of theme. I don't think I ever believed a single story that he told me. Anyway, within 3 minutes of us saying our helloes he started up with the same old rubbish. I more or less zoned out at that point, although I didn't have to put in much effort there. The music was overly loud (and I say that as someone who likes to stand right up front at heavy metal gigs, quite often beside the speakers) and I was struggling to hear everything he said. Got the gist of it though. I was quite glad when both Adam and Ash wanted to leave early. Between the noise and the crowd, neither of them were doing well.

I really wish my sister in law had gotten Adam diagnosed with Autism earlier. She knew he had something but didn't want him tested as she didn't want a label put on him. That meant he didn't get the help he could have had much earlier. Although we haven't had an official diagnosis for Ash, the doctors have told us they are sure he has high functioning autism and certainly the school he is at has given the appropriate support. Right now it is just a matter of waiting in a long queue until it is his turn. We've been a lot more proactive than most parents and know a few who have been trying to get some movement since the start of the school year and are really struggling to get anywhere. Makes me glad that we moved as early as we did. Initially Ash's nursery said he wasn't settling well and wanted to cut down his hours a bit. We said ok to the first time they wanted this, but every time something wasn't going according to plan the only suggested answer was cutting back on his hours and I said no, you are being paid for ***X*** amount of time (think it was 6 1/2 hours per day), he is entitled to it. Lets sort out something. After that the nursery couldn't have been more helpful. I can look at other parents though and see where we'd be right now if we had just caved in. I can also look across the Atlantic at how things are handled there with my Kristi's younger brothers kids. Their mother had to fight to get them proper help and not just dosed up on meds. I remember messaging Hali regularly during that time and giving her as much support as I could that she was doing the right thing and not to just let people pressurise her to going for an "easy" fix.

There are only so many resources to go round. Shame that people have to fight to get access to them regardless of where they are from. Just one of the joys of capitalism I guess. Not that I'd prefer communism, theocracy, dictatorship or anarchy or any of the current mooted alternatives (I wouldn't mind a go at a meritocracy though).

The first minister of Scotland has had to stand down after getting himself caught up in something. I have been ignoring current affairs stuff recently so I have no particular idea what combination of circumstances brought him down. I'd imagine Rishi Sunack will be following suit after the next general election. Lets just hope they don't let Liz Truss back in. I hear she followed the rubber goon faced Nigel Farage over to the US market. I wonder why failed UK politicians find more of a market over there? I wonder if she'll be able to make a success of selling her book. Her publishers certainly didn't have much faith in it (she got a less than £2000 advance for it. Compare that to what fellow idiot Boris Johnson got for his (I believe still unpublished) memoir and its less than chicken feed).

[Alex]

The cold, wet and windy days are gradually slipping into warm and windy ones. I am getting to go to work and come home in. I guess it is nicer, but I'd settle for a year-round autumn myself. Blame the asteroid that smacked into the earth, gave it an orbital wobble and created the moon I guess. Or god if he is more your bag. Either way, it works out the same.

Saw an article about how expatriate US citizens view the election back home. It pretty much ties up with how I've been seeing things and what I've witnessed Kristi experiencing. If that kind of thing interests you, the article is here: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/the-us-is-seen-as-a-joke-american-expats-on-trump-biden-and-the-2024-election/ar-AA1nVRG8?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=781bb0c3e0a1477ff6b754183954b892&ei=27 I've not met any pro-trump US ex-pats, although we do know a few of his supporters from other countries. Or at least we used to. Mostly they drifted out of our lives during the pandemic and we've only heard from them sporadically since. Kristi's final separation from her church came down to the attitude towards vaccines from one of the local church leaders. I think it was something that was going to happen anyway, this just made it happen sooner.

Not heard anything from my brother-in-law since his kids passed on my message to him. I told them that the next time he threatened to hit them, that they were to reply that if he hit them, then I'd hit him. He might be twice my size, but he is badly out of shape and a fight between us is only going to go one way. Plus a cop who knew him at school as already told me if I punch him out the police won't do anything. By coincidence I'd sent my mother-in-law a tee-shirt that says "My favourite child is my son-in-law." She sent me back a present addressed to her "favourite son". We had a bit of a chat online and she told me that Jason's behaviour is really upsetting her. He sent her a list of things she needs to apologise for before he'll speak to her again.

I wonder if that list includes things like letting him and his family move in with her when he lost his job, being a free babysitter for his kids whenever he needed and paying his bills for him when he couldn't afford to? Going to take a rough stab in the dark and guess no on that one.

[Alex]

Playing a lot of games on my new laptop. It certainly runs them all a lot faster and gives them a new lease of life. Damn shoot to do tomorrow, so that means a pain in the butt 05:00 start on what would otherwise be a day off. We'll drive up to Fort George, let off some rounds and then come home. The quicker we can get it over and done with the happier I'll be.

Kristi is working tonight, so it is time for some bad movies. I've fallen behind in my watching over the past month.

Hot night tonight. Guess we are in for an overly warm summer. Feeling glad I don't live further south. London is being told to expect 30 degrees Celsius to be a regular summer heat. I guess air con will start to be more of a thing in the UK as a result. Yeah, Kristi won't be upset by that one.

Playing a game on my phone. It seems to have a lot of Indian and muslim players. They spend a lot of time telling people that their country or religion is the best one in between desperately looking for a cute girl to be their best friend. Make of that whatever you wish.

Got two of the CoC player's characters done. Nikki went with a 1920s Private Detective who was an Olympic swimmer, while Harris went with a Catholic Priest. Yeah, we know what evil secret there is going on there then. Kristi is planning on going an Antiquarian but hasn't created her character yet.