Nerdgasm. AKA game shopping

I do online surveys that pay me (eventually) in Amazon vouchers.  This is a good thing.  In the past I've used them for cd's/dvd's and ebooks, but just recently I picked up Munchkin Deluxe. Wooohooo!
It's got the original Munchkin plus Munchkin 2, and a cool board laid out like a dungeon, and some figures to  use on it, to keep track of what levels the players are on.

In other game related stuff, I just bought a Lonely Planet guide to Jordan.
How is this games related I hear you ask?
Let me tell you.

I bought it in Waterstones, which gave me the last stamp I needed on my collector card, to get a £10 gift card.  So..........I got Zombie Dice.

Result.

Now all I need to do is get some lucky people and arrange a games night.

New Year and all that

Well, despite a run in with the lurgi, I've survived Christmas and New Year.
The work Christmas do, was terrible.  The food was pretty rubbish.  Out of all the choices, I seem to have lucked out.  The started of duck spring rolls was nice enough, but could have come from Farmfoods or Iceland.  The steak I had was decent enough, but again I lucked out, as I take my steak medium, and there was no choice about how you could get it prepared other than medium or order something else.  Not good.  When it came to desserts, I went for cheesecake, which I always do if it's an option.  Just as well, as the chocolate fudge cake others got must have been lying out for a while, as it had started to dry up.

I didn't hang about for the disco, instead I went for a wander and caught up with a couple of friends for a drink.

Onto the holidays themselves, and there was eating and drinking and visiting friends, and playing boardgames.  We also managed to work through the entire season 1 of Game of Thrones, which was excellent.

I rounded off the holidays by going to see the Hobbit, which was rather good, even it if has been padded out with some bits from other Tolkien books.  I mean it's a short book, and they're stretching it out to a trilogy!  Not that I'm complaining.  More escapist time in Middle Earth for me, so that's all to the good.

And now, sad to say, I haven't won the lottery, so it's back to work.

It's that time of year again

It's the work Christmas do, and we're off to Mansion House in town.  So, it being the Crimbo do, it's also the time of year when I pull the finger out a bit a dress like slightly less of a slob than usual.
Recently I bought a new made to measure kilt, so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present the Morrison Hunting tartan.  (it's a bit dark unfortunately)

Levellers/Citizen Fish

Went to see the Levellers last night.  They were supported by a band I'd heard of, but never heard, who came highly recommended by one of my friends, Citizen Fish.  In case you don't know, they're an anarcho-punk ska band, featuring some members of Subhumans.  This was the first time I'd seen or even heard them, and I really hope it's not the last, as they're really fun live.

On to the Levellers, and what can I say other than superb.  What a gig. I don't think there was anything I'd have liked to have heard that they didn't play, and during the last encore - The Recruiting Segeant - they got 5 local musicians up on stage to play with them.  I'd seen them asking for people who wanted to play to get in touch, on the website, so I knew it was coming.  Must have been a brilliant experience.

Citizen Fish 

Levellers

Levellers

Bit of a theme

Yesterday, K was pretty sick, so the plans to go out were scrapped in favour of lounging about in front of the tv watching movies.

At one point, she fell asleep, and I stuck on Ip Man, but she woke up part way through it, and asked if we could watch it later, as she liked the look of it, but couldn't concentrate on the subtitles.  That's a result, as I've been raving about this movie, but she never fancied it, so hasn't seen it yet.

So what did we watch?  Well, before she woke up, I watched Avengers Assemble, which is just awesome.  I even liked Thor in it, which surprised me, as I wasn't too taken with the Thor movie.  Loved Downey as Iron Man again.  He's just brilliant in that role.

After Avengers, and the Ip Man false start, it was Kill Bill Vol 2, followed by Killing Zoe, and to top it all off, I recorded Kill List on the pvr.  If you've never seen Kill List, it's a rather brilliant and rather brutal movie, starring Michael Smiley who played tyres in Spaced.  Let me say, this ain't no comedy people, so if you're going to watch it, buckle up, as there may be some turbulence.

Synchronicity

After last weekend's karate course taught by Kato Sensei from Japan, the Japanese theme continued back in the real world, when I went into one of the Wetherspoons pubs last week.  They've got a beer festival on at the moment, with a rather fine rotating selection of real ales, and on this visit, there was a pale ale from Japan - Minagof.  Obviously, the universe had meant for this beer to be in the this pub just after I'd been to a karate weekend, so, it would have been (a) rude, and (b) tempting fate if I didn't try a pint.  So, try a pint is just what I did, and you know, it was damn good.

I've been back in and sampled another couple of ales, but the Minagof hasn't been on since that first time I went in.

It was fate I tell you, fate!

(*update 06/11/12 - I was in another Wetherspoons last night, and noticed that although the beer is brewed by a Japanese company, it is in fact brewed in Guam and not Japan.  Regardless, it's a nice pint)

Thoughts on last weekend's karate course

The karate course last weekend in Largs went really well.  It was taught by 77 year old aikido master, Kato Sensei, so it was a bit different to what we usually practice.  We started on the Friday at lunchtime, and finished Sunday lunchtime, with 5 practices spread over the three days.

Prior to the course, I'd seen a clip on youtube of him doing a demonstration in a park in Paris, and to be honest, it looked.....rehearsed.  Boy was I in for a shock!  After starting out with being shown how to fall safely, we were into the first lesson.  It very quickly became obvious that the only reason the video looked staged, was because the people he was doing the techniques on knew how to fall/roll to avoid injury, and if you didn't, well you would soon know about it.  Basically, falling/rolling was the only way to make the pain stop!  It's incredible.  There's minimal movement from the person being attacked, but it can cause an incredible amount of pain.  We realised in a matter of minutes, that this stuff not only works, but is really effective.

There were some techniques, where we practiced with weapons (jo and bokken), then, without the weapons, but keeping the movements the same as we had when holding the weapons.  It was a really effective way of learning where to position hands, and what steps and body movements we were to do.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend in the company of a great bunch of people from all over the country, and an opportunity to learn from a master.

Mouse Wars

So, Disney has bought Star Wars and there's going to be (at least) another movie.  Now I'm a huge fan of the original trilogy.  So big a fan that I refused to buy the trilogy on dvd until there was a set with the pre special editions of the films (I think the added cgi sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb).
As for the prequels, well, they were decent enough.  Phantom Menace was a bit meh, but as they went on, they got better.  Mainly because the successive films has less of that floppy eared pain the arse Jar Jar Binks.  Now PM could have been good as well, except for the really irritating creation that was Jar Jar.  I mean, lets face it.  His reason for existing was to sell more action figures*

So, over to Disney.  Will they screw up?  I don't know.  I hope not, and I doubt they will.  I mean let's face it, how could they possibly come up with anything more cringeworthy than JJ Binks?  Just as long as they don't dumb it down to the level of a kiddie movie, they should be fine.

(*the only reason I can think of that anyone would buy a Jar Jar figure, is so they could ritualistically burn it.  Which would ironically possibly result in them becoming scarce, and hence highly collectable)

Looking forward to the weekend

I've got a karate course to go to in Largs this weekend.  Kicks off at 4.00pm on Friday, so I'll be heading down on the 12:45 train, to get there in plenty of time.  Before that however, I've got a float booked for first thing in the morning, so I should be really chilled and calm for the start of the course.  No doubt, my calm will be over within about half an hour of the course starting :-)

There's two practices on the Friday, four on the Saturday (followed by a celebration meal) and two on the Sunday morning.  It all winds up about lunchtime on Sunday, when I'll head into Largs for a curry.  I've taken the Monday off work to recover.

Really looking forward to it.

Winter? Bring it on

I've been having a look back at older posts from earlier this year, and have realised that all the walking we did were in what should have been the winter, and that they pretty much ground to a halt when the feeble excuse for a summer kicked in and brought the torrential rain with it.

So, with that in mind, I'm waiting eagerly for the clocks to go back, heralding the end of British Summer Time, so that the weather will dramatically improve with the onset of winter, and hopefully, we can get out walking again.  ( I realise this is in fact nonsense, as there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing).

Culture clash

It's weird.  You'd think the culture clash would have been going from here to India, and don't get me wrong, initially there was a certain amount of "we're not in Kansas anymore", but strangely, I feel more out of place now that we're back.

I usually get a dose of post-holiday blues, but this is different.  Since getting back, and apathy and lethargy had kicked in.  I don't know, I just want to be somewhere else. (So does K).

The fact that it's *just* October, and the shops are already touting Christmas doesn't help.  In fact it's depressing.  Seriously, there's Guy Fawks and Halloween to get out the way first, but no, once again we're being bombarded with "buy buy buy", and "it's only 10 weeks to Christmas you know".

Bah humbug.

There can be only one

Well, that's the kilt tried on and it's s great fit. Now all I need is a ceilidh.

Old hippies

Had a surprising discussion with a pensioner on Saturday, when he remarked that I had a "Cool Morrison t-shirt" ( I was wearing my Doors shirt).  He went on to tell me that he doesn't drink or smoke (this while holding the skinniest looking roll up I've ever seen), that he loves The Doors, and Hawkwind, and goes to small festivals all around the country.  He likes ones that only attract about 600 people, and especially likes psychedelic festivals, where, he "takes an eccy and gets into the music".

He's obviously not a believer in growing old gracefully !

Kilt ready

Got a call from the kilt shop, my kilt is ready, so I've got an appointment to go in an try it on, on Tuesday after work.

Other than that, not much to post.

Culture shock

So, I've been back from India for just over a week, and it's......weird.  I think I'd started to become
used to being in India, and I loved it.  I could easily have gone native (especially in Varkhala).  Now I'm back in Glasgow, and instead of temples and friendly people, it's grumpy Weegies, and the temples are shopping malls where the only thing worshipped is money and possessions.

I really think downsizing and not being materialistic, would be easy if I was living somewhere like India, but here you're surrounded by advertising and incentives to buy buy buy, and like the sheep we are, that's exactly what we do.

Ah well, one lottery win, and I really an out of here (providing the win is big enough to drop out)

It's Friday

So, when I finish work, I'm off to meet Pete for a couple of beers, but before that, I've got to go in to the kilt shop for a fitting for the kilt I've ordered.  Apparently it's going to take around an hour.
This is the first I'll have seen it since getting measured up for it way back in August, so I don't know if it's finished and they just want to check it fits right, or if it's partially done and they want to check sizes.

Ooh the excitement :-)

Home again home again

So we're back from India.  I was going to blog about the trip, and set up a seperate blog to do just that, which can be viewed here.  The only problem was, that the hotels used dongles to connect to their wifi, and having a linux netbook with me meant incompatability.

SO, what I'm doing is updating it on a daily basis, now that I'm back, so you can follow my travels while pretending I'm still away.

Something I've noticed since I got back is that there's a couple of friends, who I may have to either stop following, or block of FB.  They've not done anything to me, it's just that their posts are exclusively about the Independance issue.  It's not even original posts that could generate a discussion, it's simply links to articles, and they're prolific, and it's filling up my feed.  I don't need it.  I've made up my mind (pro fyi) but I respect other peoples opinions and know they may differ, and that's fine.  I'm not filling up their feeds, and I don't want them to fill up mine either.  At least, not with an endless stream of links.  (I actually visited her feed just to see if she ever posts anything other than links, and she hasn't for about 4 months.  It's getting tiring).

India

Anyone who reads this (hello!  Anybody out there?) will probably be aware, that me and K are off to India this weekend for three weeks.  There's going to be a bit of travelling round, as we'll be in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Mumbai, Varkala and Kovalam, so assuming there's web access, I've created a blog purely for the trip.

At the moment, it's just got a place-holding post, but if anyone wants to have a read as we go, it can be found here

Of course, if the internet access is non-existant/sucks, it's going to be pretty bare until I do a mass update when we get back.  (I'm taking the Luddites back-up of a notebook, with me)

So this is the summer? Aye, right.

Ok, so I live in Glasgow (Scotland).  We're used to a bit of rain during the summer, in fact we're used to experiencing all seasons in one day.  So if it's raining in the morning, it doesn't mean you wrap up, as the sun could be scorching down half an hour later.  That's just the way it is.

Except......

This year, it's pretty much pished down all summer.  True, there has been the (very) occasional spot of (admittedly glorious) good weather, but on the whole it's been hot and wet.  Not nice.

There's rumours that the weather will be better in September.  Well, to be frank, it couldn't possibly be worse, so bring it on.

The ear candy of late

Recently, the World Pipe Band championships were on in Glasgow.  While they were on, Clanadonia were busking in Buchanan St, and I managed to pick up a copy of their cd (well worth a listen btw).

Then for the first time in years, I dug out the Runrig and have been getting into them again.  One of the guys in work gave me a loan of some Capercaillie as well, so it's been a bit of a celtic theme musically of late.  Oh, I almost forgot, I've also discovered the Peatbog Faeries, who are now on my must see live list.