Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Alex]

Nope, as it turns out, under certain circumstances it will change my alignment to Lawful Evil (basically fascist). Now, as my character is a barbarian if he isn't a Chaotic alignment he loses the ability to rage (causes more damage in combat but gets exhausted by the effort). My alignment only changes though if I willingly change while aware of my condition.

Come the next full moon things are going to become very interesting for the group since my character is the most powerful fighter in the party by quite some margin (although we did have a player death and Ander's said his replacement toon will most likely be a fighter so that could change). Being a lycanthrope will make me more powerful on top of this, making me resistant to damage unless they have a silver weapon (and they don't). The group also lacks the spell power required to remove the infection.

This hugely complicates my character sheet and will take some working out.

[Alex]

Today started at 05:30. Well, at least Ash slept for 12 hours so we got a decent nights sleep even if it wasn't a long lie-in type morning. Finally dug out my big box of old Warhammer 40,000 figures and started sorting through them to be sold. Some of the very first Space Marine figures ever made are in that lot so hopefully someone out there will be interested in that sort of thing and make me an offer.

Got another two (or depending on how you look at it three) presents for Kristi. Both had to be ordered online as I couldn't source them locally. Still got up to 4 things to get, one of which I can't buy until it comes out in the middle of next month. Its tickets for something she's mentioned she really wants to see and must confess I am somewhat keen to see myself.

Indeed I think her present is available the day of our next general election. Third I think in 4 years? I'd have to look up the exact times and that is more effort than I want to put into that subject. Neither of the two main candidates are suitable or fit for high office and yet here we are. In recent years the trend in UK politics has been for people to increasingly vote away from the two main parties (quite understandable given the effluent they tend to pick to be their leaders) so some sort of coalition is a possibility. We've had two of those in recent years. Neither has been a sparkling success with neither the Conservative / Liberal Democrats (referred to quite accurately as the ConDems, or the much looser alliance between the Conservatives and the Northern Irish Unionist lot (and I forget their particular party name to be honest)) really bringing any lasting good, but causing damage aplenty. As in so many things, moderation is the key and they've given us too much of their brand of politics.

Who will win? I think the Tories (conservatives, equivalent to the republicans in the US) will end up as the largest party, but I am much more sanguine about thweir chances of securing a majority. Too many random factors in this one to call accurately. Will Farage's brexit party succeed where his previous party failed (spectacularly it has to be said) to split the Tory vote allowing Labour to get in, or will he split the Labour vote instead since this is an issue that crosses traditional party lines. Sometimes this kind of thing is interesting to watch, but this time around it is more tiring. We've had this one issue dominating the country for too long and many other problems are being ignored.

When the Tories fall to infighting (much as they did in the aftermath of Thatcher's fall from power), they really do not know when to stop. Indeed I am not sure they have really united behind a leader since then. Too busy trying to be the biggest fish in a shrinking pond instead of thinking we could make this pool a whole lot bigger and give everyone a big slice.

Such is politics.

[Alex]

Well, that is the problem child gone at work and he is now someone else's problem. Got a new problem child to deal with in one of the other departments I regularly have to deal with. He likes to phone up and shout if he doesn't like something. Since he is the same level as me though I can shout back, although thus far I have resisted this temptation. I have used my stern voice on him though and tonight he did apologise for how he acted. If he does it again I am simply going to tell him I am going to put the phone down and he can call me back when he has calmed down a bit.

Yup, I am going for the less emotionally satisying option of the moral high ground.

[chefzombie]

back in the day, i didn't tell the problem child anything, i simply set the phone down on my desk and went back to the kitchen to work. i'd go back in 10 minutes and hang the phone up, then wait for her to call back or show up. eventually she learned to calm down when she spoke to me, lol!

[Alex]

Ash slept until almost 10 this morning so I and Kristi got a long lie-in together.

Ooooh, that felt good to say.

Ash slept until almost 10 this morning so I and Kristi got a long lie-in together.

When he did wake up he was running about in his usual fashion. He'd ran into my bathroom while I was in there washing so when I finished up I put my hand on the back of his head to gently guide him out the bathroom.

He grabbed my hand, shoved it in his mouth and bit down hard.

He got shouted at for that and spent some time crying in his cot when I put him in there for a time out.  Once he got out we all went out for lunch. Went to the Coulard Inn. I went for a mushroom stroganoff which was okish. Kristi had a bacon cheeseburger which was much better. It isn't that the stroganoff was bad it just wasn't to my taste.

Watched 'My Name Is Dolomite'. Thought it wasn't half bad. Eddie Murphy has finally started showing his age a bit though.

[chefzombie]

ah yes, the precursor to the terrible twos... tay's twins are in the midst of it, my heart goes out to her.

[Alex]

Decided to have a drink last night. There was about half of a litre bottle of Jack Daniels lying around so I drank that and then washed it down with a bottle of Haig.

Wrote out an epically long post on here, but decided not to post it last night when I went to bed finally sometime after 2 am. I put my computer to sleep and decided to leave it until the morning. This morning I decided not to even read what I had written last night and just deleted it all.

Had Ross around today for a games day. He brought the Resident Evil board game around. I must confess while I have watched the movies, I have never played the computer game(s?). I have no idea if the game is true to the computer version or not but I would have to say it is very good at building a tense atmosphere. You'll have a couple of zombies or perhaps zombie dogs running towards you and you have to consider if you are going to use some of your very limited ammunition on them, or do you risk letting them close and try to take them with your knife. If you get wounded, there are ways to heal yourself but they are limited and you get reequip everything between missions. The group gets one extra medkit per mission for example, so if you've used two someone is going into the next mission without one. I'd managed to find a shotgun which holds five rounds but I only pick up an extra three rounds between jobs. While it is good at killing the bad guys you had better believe that I am hoarding those shotgun shells for the more dangerous creatures out there even to the point where it can put other group members at risk.

Resource management is a super important part of the game.

After that, I taught Ross how to play Blood Bowl. Its sort of American Football, but with spikes and chainsaws. My humans made it 3-0 against his Orc's but he said he'd enjoyed it and would play again.

At one point during the day, Ash managed to get his finger stuck in a door. He'd pulled the door open with his hand over at the jamb (how can his arms be long enough to reach both sides of the door, he is tiny?) and trapped the tip of his index finger in the door. Of course, when I heard him screaming I'd come charging through and pulled his finger free. He is a white stress mark across his fingernail but no bleeding or bruising so that is good. Of course, he associated the pain with me though and once I'd rescued him he wanted nothing more to do with me and went to his mum for cuddles instead. He screamed for a few minutes but calmed down and was quickly back to being his happy self.

[chefzombie]

i'm betting he can extend his elbow/wrist joints like i can. watch him when he's pushing things and see if he rotates his arms so the inside of his elbow is upwards. i can add 2-3 inches to my reach that way. he's be able to do at least an inch at this age. drov emy momma NUTS to see me do it, lol! 

[Alex]

Headed into work on Monday and found that every time I started walking, I then felt like throwing up. Got sent home for three days, so will only be in work Thursday and Friday this week.

Despite the not feeling well part I am going to call that a win. Of course, since I'd been sent home ill this automatically means Kristi goes out for the day and abandons me.

Fair enough, it meant I got the house to myself for a whole day! Watched the 'Joker' movie which I thought was good, although not great. Other people seem to love it and fair play to them. As I understand it though, no one in Batman knows his real identity, whereas well if he did shoot a talk show host live on air, well pretty sure that the people who tracked him down and invited him onto the show at a very minimum would know his name and indeed home address.

Seem to have been watching a few films where no one is sure what is real and what isn't. 'The Girl on the Train' and 'Videodrome'. Hadn't seen either of them before and watching the second of those I kept thinking hmm, didn't he remake this as 'ExistenZe'?

Ventured as far as the local shop today, which is more or less as far as I am allowed to travel when I am sick in quarters. There are worse fates out there than being stuck in my man cave so I'll settle for that as a pose to being in the office. Borrowed Kristi's laptop and I've been playing Total War: Warhammer II some more. Currently running about as Dark Elves chasing after a large Skaven army that keeps destroying my cities. It keeps running around being hard to corner and bring to battle, so I am going to ignore him and let him run rampant through my territory while my main army goes and raises his cities to the (under)ground.

I am finding myself avoiding the news more and more as time goes on. The current reason is the UK election. It's all I hear about until the 12th and then a day or two afterwards as the results are endlessly analysed. The problem with that is that they cannot differentiate between short term trends and long term sociological movements.

[chefzombie]

that sounds like the beginning of an inner ear infection, did you see the doctor? i hate that, i get that way when vertigo strikes.

[Alex]

I saw one of the nurses and she kindly signed me off for three days (I'd only asked for one).

[chefzombie]

hopefully it's just a 24 hour virus, but if the nausea gets worse you'll need antibiotics, so don't wait too long, okay? it can destroy your hearing and i don't want that to happen to you.

[Alex]

Been feeling fine the past couple of days, but then I've not been out walking at my usual rapid pace. Got an appointment tomorrow anyway.

I've been productive while I've been off though. The oven has been cleaned out, I've been clearing shelves and reorganising board games and just generally sorting little bits and pieces out. Also been messing around on some silly phone game. It hadn't been engaging my attention and I was going to quit until some guy started kicking me out of every advisory council I joined (higher level lords in this game can take the place of lower level ones). This I wouldn't have minded but he started trash talking every time he did it. So I stayed quiet, worked hard, spent some money and overtook him and now every chance I get I pay him back, not only kicking him out of councils but just generally doing things to wind him up. Last night there was a big competition where players have their hero's battle each other. I waited until the last few minutes then attacked him, giving me enough points to have a top 5 finish which gave me enough points to significantly increase my in-game power (I'd been working it so no matter what he did I ended up 400,000 points ahead of him, after last night it boosted my lead to 1,000,000. Now he complains that I am picking on him, which makes me smile.

Back to work tomorrow, but I can't complain is it will have been a damn short week.  It will be nice to get out of the house even if it is just for my 20 minutes to and from work four times a day (to work, home for lunch, back to work and then home again).

[Alex]

Made all the Star Wars fans we know jealous by getting to watch The Mandalorian before Disney+ is available. There are some advantages to having an American wife. When I was asked if it was good or not I simply replied "You'll have to wait until March to find out."

Heh heh heh.

For myself I thought it was ok. Very formulaic for the first episode, but still enjoyable in an undemanding way. Watched the second episode today and I must admit I am interested in seeing where the story goes, which is a good way of hooking me and why, while I enjoy them both I prefer something like Babylon 5 over Star Trek.

Oh well, off to do some writing.

[chefzombie]

that's star trek based? hhmm... i THINK i saw that available on one of the roku channels, i'll check it out soon. glad you're feeling okay!