Xmas Period

What to do during my Xmas Period, hey? There's a fair few options.

Paint my Legs Eleven army. I had it painted up mixed between the standard Red scheme and a Greyscale Scheme, which was Nice and all, but now I want to change it all to the White Colour Scheme with some Red Symbols. I've already coloured my Classic Destroyer and Juggernaut in that scheme and it looks pretty cool. The colours stand out and any markings I put on there come out really well. The only thing I'm really missing is a Bombardiers Card, the second Behemoth Bombard Cannon (Keep forgetting to order it), the 2010 Sculpt Butcher of Khardov so that I can see about doing the Man-O-War-Butcher conversion, and a Box of Battle Mechaniks + Officer.

Also paint my FSA. I have a bunch of stuff and I haven't painted them yet. Mind you, I haven't got an idea of what colour I want to paint them. Though I did pick up some odd blue/green colour somewhere along the line, thinking "Yeah, I'll paint it that colour". I'm sure I have that stocked away with my other paints.

Finish my Video Games. I've picked up a few video games that I just haven't finished, mostly my PSOne Classic games. Metal Gear Solid; Final Fantasy 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9; I've borrowed FF13 from Scott so I'll finish that one off too; I could play Deathspank, but I don't particularly like the game; Penny Arcades "On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness" Ep 1 and 2 are still sitting there and haven't been played in a while. Oh and Crysis 1. And FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre. Patapon as well.

I was considering playing World of Warcraft, because I'm feeling a bit wistful about it. One of my friends has gotten back into it because she finished Uni and now she has plenty of time, and is just poor enough to have her account active. She's also having trouble getting through it by herself.

Oh and mum picked me up Skylanders as well, after I explicitly told her not to get me anything for Xmas. But no, i made it clear that i was interested in the game, so she picked it up. Ugh, generous mothers.

I've also been looking into Mordheim, because a few friends have mentioned it and I've been like "yeah, that sounds pretty cool." So I've gone ahead and looked into the rules for that, particularly Orc Warbands. And their story is they're the official fan club of my Blood Bowl team, and they fight for Ticket Money, riding around in their fainting Squiggoth.

That's another thing, I should finish painting my Blood Bowl team. They haven't done much lately, so they're definitely up for some fresh paint to cover those bits I just haven't done.

Skylanders

Okay, so when I'm asked "How old does your mother think you are?" I'm pretty sure I don't care. Because a few weeks ago, my nephew had his 10th Birthday and he got Skylanders. So for most of the night, I was trying to steal it from him because I've been interested in the game for a little while.

It's a fun little concept, and will probably rake in a buttload of money for Activision (if it hasn't already). You have your figurines which are at about 4 inches tall including the base, and you place them onto a Portal, a small wireless platform which you keep next to you so you may change your characters in the middle of play.

That's right, it's video game that "brings your statues to life". It's a pretty cool gimmick, I reckon. And they've thought of a lot of features about it.

For example, if you have been playing for a while and gotten your character to level 5 on your PS3, gotten some cool hats, and you want to go to a mates place who has the same game but on Wii, No worries. All your toon data is saved ON THE FIGURINE. And no matter what console you have, THEY ARE ENTIRELY COMPATIBLE. You could even use the same Portal Device thingy to plug it into an Xbox or Wii with the little Wireless USB that they provide. The only thing you need is the Game Disc and Bob's your Uncle. So anyone planning to pick up some Skylanders Gear, be sure to note what Figures are yours!

Sidenote: It is really hard to say Portal when your first thought is Aperture Science.

Now the data information I imagine works much the same as a GOCard, the figure contains a chip that reacts on radio waves provided from the Portal device. So as you're playing, your details are constantly being updated. Money, Levels, Abilities. Everything.

Each character is very individual, but is also assigned to one of Eight Elements. Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Life, Magic, Tech and Undead. The last two surprised me for a kids thing, but Tech could make for some cool stuff, and every kid loves an adorable skeleton and the insatiable desire to kill spiders gives even more incentive to play the levels.

But as is the norm for games these days, there are collectables to find, and some areas are restricted to who can go where by their Element. So while you may not be inclined to pick up all 32+ characters, you're still slightly pushed to go and grab at least another 5 of your corresponding missing Elements.

The PS3 version I received started with Spyro (Magic), Trigger Happy (Tech) and Gill Grunt (Water), and I've gotten through most of the game quite happily, just missing out on certain hats and items due to Element Gates.

So the downside? Well the cost of the new figures is a big one. They're AU$20 a pop if you get them individually, cheaper if you look around, and somewhat cheaper again if you get a triple pack. And there's 32 individual characters, with a few with Special Edition versions. The game itself comes with 3 figures, the Portal and the game for just short of AU$90.

So it starts off cheap, but can add up as you collect more and more. I'm already up to 5 at the moment because Mum keeps buying me more figures, and my aforementioned nephew is getting a double of Stump Smash so he's going to give that one to me to make it six.

Future expansions and/or DLC? I'm hoping they'll be free and Activision will recoup with what they spend on figure sales. They'll be required to bring out new figures as well, most data of which will be provided from the DLC or the figures. Though I have my doubts about all that.

But yes, I've had quite a bit of fun with it. And as much fun as I am having, which I appreciate, I'm still pissed at my Mum for getting me presents after I explicitly said "Don't get me anything".

De Offishul Damaskus Skarboyz Fan Klub

I have a Blood Bowl team, called the Damaskus Skarboyz. They're not a great team by any length, but there's always gotta be some sort of fan club. A group of fanatics that have their own Fantasy Blood Bowl team and have at least three players from their favourite team, and are always trying to get tickets to go to every game they can.

These are "De Offishul Skarboyz Fan Klub". They're Hooligans by trade, and they fight for stuff so that they can buy tickets to the Skarboyz Game.

Da Boss is a gentleman by the name of Skarbum. He swore dedication to the Skarboyz team when he saw, and slightly misread, the source of their teamname , and got his name changed by De Pol, which is a pole he carrys with him to smack anyone who calls him his old name.

His two Big 'uns are Docker and Packer, both used to work at their hometown Harbour until the Boss decided to play around with their orders making them move one lot of crates between five different spots on the Dock. Once the two caught on, they went off to have a piece of him, and saved the rest for lunch tomorrow.

Shparky is a Professional Wizard who went to the Guild of Professional Wizards. Shparky picked up his nickname after blowing himself into a wall from a fireball spell that fell short, and losing a few teeth that help pronounce the S sound in the process. Now any time he casts a spell that goes the way he wants it to, it's followed by a whistling Success.

Though Shparky is regularly hired for Blood Bowl games, the fee of 150,000 crowns is not given to him as he is not a Self Employed Contractor. He does not make any profit from being hired except for receiving free tickets for himself and the club, and free food which he spreads amongst the attendees. This caused competition within the club to go pick up the food, as everyone knew that whoever went to pick it up would only come back with half.

The four met up after the crowd came onto the field and went back to back with a few of the Team Members and, with a bit of rough business dealings, formed De Offishul Damaskus Skarboyz Fan Klub, a growing fan base that follows their favourite Blood Bowl team on a Squiggoth, who suffers from Myotonia Congenita and has warning signs of "Dun Skare da Skwiggoff or Yooz'll Regretz it" and "Keep Klear Fainting Skwiggoff" hanging from it.

Though they are quite a fan of Ork Band, they try not to listen to them while on the road. It scares the Squiggoth too much.

Limericks are fun!

Some people think that love has a Summit
If there was for us, there is a massive plummet
Because two years have gone
We're totally still going strong
And I'm still getting told that it's amazing we've done it.

This is nothing like a Mensiversary
This is actually an Anniversary
So in this limerick today
I would like to say
That I Love and Adore my Beautiful Jenny.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition (Expanded)

I'll just start off to say... It's not the Halo I quite remember. It could just be the Graphics Throwing me off, it could be that it's been so long since I last played it, or it could be that I'm trying to find the flaws that whatever . But the game doesn't feel comfortable, I'm still thrown off for some reason and it's starting to bug me.

I feel there could be improvements, but then again, the original Halo could have had improvements too. Less repetitive and winding corridors mainly. Any further improvements were left to later Halo Games because they had more of a direction of what they want out of their games.

What they've done is very nice indeed. The game is very pretty, and the new skins for the enemies and friends are very cool. It definitely makes it want to feel like a new game. The AI remains to be as docile as it was in the day, leaving you to do most of the dirty work, seeming really sluggish as you circle around hunters to score that one pistol shot in his arse. And the Warthog feels so heavy and sluggish it's almost not funny.

It feels like the old game, but prettier.

Then you roll it over to the Classic Mode using the "< Back" button. The screen blacks out for a moment and everything rolls back to what is supposedly what Halo looked like back in 2001. That's something that I'm quite sure is not quite right. It doesn't seem to change it to what it did look like, but rather to a version of the game still being half made. Tiles textures, and hardly any actual detail. the original halo had plenty of detail.

I'm going to give it a go again tonight, maybe leave it on Classic Mode for a little bit to see if the graphics are actually loading or not.

---

Okay, so I had a look at it again last night and ran through until I got past the Library level. I even spent a better part of a level in classic mode to see if I was actually correct in my assumptions, and I think it was a case of what level I was looking at. The first time I loaded up the classic level, it was right at the beginning when Master Chief was taken out of Cryo stasis. That was a rather piss poor example to look at it, really.

And occasionally I'd flick it over to see the difference between the two, and the graphical difference is significant. Croist, the overall layouts may be the same, but you don't feel so lost. I went through the Library level and it was exactly the same level, with those son of a bitch flood coming out of the wood works, and Guilty Spark leaving you in a closed room which gets Flooded (See what I did there?) and you're always panicking because your shotgun is trying to get reloaded and you're getting shot at and whipped at the same time, and etc etc etc.

It was a time like this that I wish that the Flood were as easy to kill as they were in Halo 2 and 3, where a Melee Attack will, at worst, knock them down.

As for my weird feeling, I think it's just the three suggestions I made. The Time since I last played, The Searching for Flaws, and The Refreshing new graphics. Everything else is pretty much the same as it has ever been. When i said you don't feel lost before, it's mostly because the new graphics compensated for that. Each different segment you go through, there are large symbols on the walls at the ends of corridors so you know you're in a different section. Doesn't mean anything else has changed, but hey.

I do like the extended scenes though. The Master Chief talking between Cortana and Guilty Spark was really fulfilling. That's one flaw I was sure on, Cortana's animation. Seemed a little dodgy at first, but thought it was just me. Then it happened a second time. And then the third time, I was sure. It was clunky and didn't really sync very well. Or at all.

Anyway. Playing through the game, on Normal difficulty because I'm more curious on the changes than the challenge at the moment, the levels look wonderful, the skins on the enemies are distinct and interesting, and the visuals for each level are vastly improved and more impressive.

There's always a wonder though of how different the game would be if it used the same system as Halo Reach? The better AI and controls would be a nice change, such as the less sluggish Warthog mounted by dopey AI friendlies, and the Scorpion Tank mounted with 2-4 marines with Sniper rifles... that could be ridiculous actually.

And poppers reviving knocked down flood? And transforming the dead bodies!? The Library would get as dangerous as it would easier! You blow apart bodies with melee attacks and shotguns, but they get back up from the BILLIONS (That may be exagerrated) of poppers that crop up.

Mr Zurkon wishes you a Happy Kill Day, Scott and Gavin

Scotts Birthday Weekend just passed and it was exhausting. The entire premise of the weekend was for Scotts 25th, we'd go to his place and just play various games to suit the moods. Naturally, we hit some snags.

It all started Friday Night. I got home after work, had a shave because my beard was getting wild, a shower, and then made sure I had everything packed while I wait for Aaron to come pick me up so we could go to Scotts and we'd just stay the weekend.

So we hit our first snag. It got to about 8pm and Aaron hadn't turned up. Aaron expected to be at Scotts and prepared by 8pm, so we were getting worried. Turns out, Aaron was first on the scene to a Car accident at the end of his street. So he was held up and said he may not worry about coming around tonight.

Scotty organised with his parents to come pick me up, which was really nice of them to go a out of their way for me and Scotty. We packed up my stuff and off we went to his place to set up my stuff which included:

• Xbox 360
• Monitor
• Wargaming Miniatures, including Warmachine and Dystopian Wars
• Clothes
• A greenbag of Games and Gadgets
• Castle Ravenloft D&D Board Game

Soon as we got to Scotts place, we began assembling my Xbox Array to play. It started off really well, playing Gears of War 3 Horde Mode with Richard who joined us from Xbox Live in Townsville, and levelling up our skills. Richard and I hadn't played Horde 2.0 before, so the only thing we could do was build Caltrops. Scott got us to do that while he saved his money and got a Turret. We got to about Wave 15 before a wipe, I think.

That was when we traded players. Richard went off to bed, and Aaron arrived with Mcdonalds in hand. We talked for a little while about the car crash as he set up his Xbox and TV/Monitor so we could play Halo Multiplayer.

Snag 2. Just that afternoon, I had picked up a copy of Halo Anniversary so that I could play Halo Reach Multiplayer with everyone. I knew we would play it at least once during the weekend, because Halo is Scotts favourite game EVER, and Halo Anniversary Multiplayer is supposed to be compatible with Halo Reach Multiplayer, as they both use the same system. It's designed to be that way.

But that's not entirely the case. If you are playing Halo Anniversary and your friend has Halo Reach, you can only play multiplayer with each other if A: Your friend has the Anniversary Map Pack for Halo Reach, so that you can play on the limited list of Anniversary Maps, or B: The player with Anniversary BUYS Halo Reach. An option available is for download at a price of just under $100.

That's a big snag. We tried a couple of different things, such as Installing Halo Reach to the console, swapping games between consoles, etc etc etc, and we got nowhere.

The other problem we had was Xbox Live Logins. At any one time, between three consoles, two Xbox Live accounts were logged in, which caused no end of frustration. Eventually we gave up and left it for Gavin to figure out, since he's the one who basically set up the Network within Scotts house. Turns out it was actually a router problem and Gavin solved it. The only thing he was worried about was lag, which I think I was the only person to actually experience it.

So I moved over to Aaron's console and we would just do splitscreen. Three Xbox Live Accounts were logged in, but it was just 2 consoles so it got through without hassle... if it weren't for the Matchmaking. We sat there for about a half hour getting three other people, then one, then none, then five, then none. No idea what was happening, but we gave up to play Ratchet and Clank All 4 One. Scott was apprehensive only because he thought the game was Splitscreen. That is not the case, I told him. It's a single camera that players all interact on.

So Scotty unwrapped the unplayed game, as he had been waiting to play it with someone (i.e. Me) and slid the game in. We waited until it finished installing, preparing trophies, loading the game, and then had a wonderful hour or two of Ratchet (Scott), President Captain Copernicus Qwark (Me), and Doctor Nefarious (Aaron) running around throwing out wonderful lines such as

"Ammo. Stuff to kill stuff with." - Qwark

And

"The Doctor is in... AND HE HATES YOU" - Doctor Nefarious

Twas a hilarious time fighting for Bolts and trying to shoot each other across chasms, and eventually we retired to the mattresses left on the floor.

Come Saturday Morning, Aaron and I started off the day by driving down to his place and looking for his copy of Gears of War 3. It took us about 45-60 minutes each way between his place and Scotts, then we spent a half hour looking around the upstairs of his house searching for the game only to come downstairs and find it there.

When we got back, Scott Aaron and I began playing a Dystopian Wars game. Three way game, 1500 points each, Federated States of America (me) versus Prussian Empire (Aaron) versus Covenant of Antarctica (Scott). With the positioning, and our poor starting locations on a 6x4 ft table, Scott felt compelled to fight Aaron first. Aaron approached him very quickly as the closest target, sending off only a handful of things my way which took a bit longer to kill than they should.

I spread my forces out a little, having one Enterprise Dreadnought and the Independance Battleship head straight up the guts towards the middle of the Islands, firing off at whatever was in range. The other Enterprise Dreadnought came up around the other side to flank Scott. The proble with that plan is that they're very slow. 6" across a 6ft board takes time, even if I'm only aiming to get halfway across it, and there's only a handful of ways to increase it's speed.

So we started on Saturday Morning and ended Sunday afternoon. Scott came out best thanks to his really good rolls. The cheeky son of a bitch complained about my own rolls after seeing I had a really impressive attack roll against his Dreadnought, a critical hit. Which he turned around and rolled shields against it, and ended up negating the entire attack.

At the start of our final turn, I declared a forfeit. Scott had a rather badly beaten up Prometheus Dreadnought after what seemed like a lifetime of turns, much longer than I really wish it was since he was Squaring off against my Enterprise Dreadnought, and a Submerged (Not sunk) Battleship which had gotten in the way of the reversing Enterprise Dreadnought, who sunk after the collision and dealt 1 point of damage to the battleship leaving him on 1.

What I had remaining was a highly damaged dreadnought on the far side of the map (4/10 health left) and an untouched battleship. But with Scotts rolls, and the amount of dice that Scott was pulling out of his arse, I wasn't going to bother. I kinda wanted it to end. Aaron had already left with a bitter taste in his mouth after his Blucher Dreadnought killed 1 Frigate in the entire game. That's fair.

Back to Saturday, Gavin got the Router Fixed and we began our games of Halo Reach, six of us including Myself, Scott, Aaron, Gavin, Richard and Chase, until we eventually tired and moved back to Gears of War again. Because there were six of us and Horde 2.0 only allows 5 players, I stepped out because I was feeling a bit drained and my back was kiling me from leaning against my Warmachine/Hordes bag on top of the mattresses. It's not good back support.

Skipping back through to the next day, we finished off the Dystopian Wars game, and had afternoon tea which we elected as Red Rooster. Something different from Pizza or Mcdonalds. We won't be going to the Red Rooster at Strathpine again. They have the worst prepared Burgers and Rooster Rolls I have ever seen. I was lucky to get a Wrap.

Lastly, before we ended the night and Aaron dropped me off to pick up Caryl from the Airport, we played another hour of Ratchet and Clank.

That was my weekend at Scotts. Happy Birthday Scott and Gavin (They're 4 years apart, but born the same day).

Welcome to last week

Huh. Epic Vlad II, huh? That's a very Epic sort of picture.

See, I like Vlad. He has had a very cool life written out for him within the Warmachine Expansion books. He had a fkn ridiculous fight ahead of him last I saw in Legends, where he, Drago and a large contingent of the Ironfangs were trying to hold off the Llaelese resistance who were being assisted by the Protectorate.

But I've never liked the idea of playing Vlad, and that's because I keep hearing "Oh he's Sooo Good, you'd smear vegemite all over him and have him for breakfast."

Maybe not in those words, but you get the point.

So I steered away from him and kept with casters that I saw more appeal in, like Irusk and more recently Brian Blessed.

Though with the image above of E2 Vlad, I'm tempted to give the E1 Vlad model a go since I've never actually played him, so getting an idea of where he really stands as a Warcaster is something different for me to do.

I'm still yet to play Strakhov or Zerkova yet, since I've only just assembled them over the weekend, and I know I will play with them eventually, but this just adds to the list of Casters I want to play.

And if I wanted to do a theme list, it's really simple to get all the bonuses.

• Blood of Kings

Vladimir Tzepesci, the Dark Champion

- Berserker

- Drago

- War Dog

Great Bears of Gallowswood

Ironfang Pikemen (Max)

- Officer and Standard

Ironfang Uhlans (Min)

Kovnik Markov

Seriously, that's 35 Points at Tier 4. Kinda easy, really.

So now, lets talk about Vlad3. Lets extrapolate the man your man could Warcast like.

The most promenant thing that I've already made a joke about is that he's on a Horse. A Big Horse. I'm not sure if it's the same breed as the Man-O-War Drakhun's Horse, but it's still a biggun. It makes him the second Cavalry Warcaster in the game, the first being Jeremiah Kraye from Cygnar.

The second thing I notice is his weapons. His first incarnation had two Swords, a Longsword and a Shortsword, both family heirlooms which he has used for many battles. His second incarnation had these two weapons smithed together under the direction of Zevanna Agha, a guide of the motherland and to the Royal Family of Khador, turned the pair into a Greatsword.

Now he has a Flail and Spear. So I'm curious what story will lead to Vlad's new weapons.

After that... well that's all I really take from the image so far. I'm curious where it will lead!

COR, BLIMEY

HE'S FKN AWESOME

Video Game Junk

The other day I was trying to get music onto my Xbox by trying to find blank discs to burn the music on to copy them onto the HDD (Which didn't work out, you have to rip them from an Audio Disc, not MP3 Disc) but as I was searching around, I found an old Playstation disc. I had a look at the front of it and saw the title "The Hunter" on it.

There was only one game I could think of that this could be. It was a shitty little game that my friends and I played back when we were Teens. We found the game at the local Video 2000, hired it and played it until we could understand the game. Then we put it back and somewhere along the line, probably a year or two later, I found it again and picked it up permenantly.

I don't know why though. By a shitty game, I mean it's cheap and nasty. You play a Relic Hunter, who runs around a randomly generated Grid filled with 3 other Relic Hunters and boxes and flags. Then you're dealt cards from a stack of about 100 cards which provide one of a few bonuses when used, such as a Movement Bonus, an Attack Bonus, A defence bonus, offer a trap, or whatever.

Then you try and find one particular Relic which you've been hired to grab, and then you run for the exit. Which can be difficult because your movement is determined by a D6 and your movement bonus. You determine that by points you allocate when you make your character and each time you level up.

That's all it is. Oh, and if you run out of cards in the deck, the Dungeon Monster comes out and tries to kill you.

If I could turn it into a board game, I probably would, but for now I think I'll leave it for my Playstation.

Infantry-machine

Regularly on a Sunday, I head down to an LGS and have a casual social day with some of the newer players. Yesterday was a very successful day and I had three games with three different people* and had some really fun matches, playing 3 games using Harkevich. I'm really getting into Harkevich. I think he's my second choice Warcaster in Khador, hands down.

* - Personal rule is that if there's multiple people at an event, play different people each game. Exception is only if there is a game that was far too quick. Eg: I was playing against Stryker one day, he cast Earthquake and drew line of sight to my Warcaster and killed him at the top of second turn.

So First game was against Aiden, AKA Callum. I say AKA because I have been calling him Callum for weeks now, months even. It hasn't bothered him, but it's still that bit embarrassing that I can't remember his name.

Anyway, he was playing the following 35pt list.

• Karchev the Terrible
• - Berserker
• - Berserker
• - Juggernaut
• - Devastator
• Battle Mechaniks (max)
• Man-O-War Shocktroopers

It's a nice little list that intimidates most players. But I was playing a hardy list that was able to take him on.

• Kommander Harkevich, the Iron Wolf
• - Black Ivan
• - Destroyer
• - Destroyer
• Great Bears of Gallowswood
• Graylord Ternion (AKA: The Gaylords that make everyone go POOF! **)
• Koldun Lord
• ** - You're welcome Kel.

It was going really quite well. He had everything he wanted going where he wanted them to go, and killing what he wanted them to kill. Unfortunately, he left Karchev a little too far open.

We had an open playing field, using the 40k Crater Terrain and some of the Ork-style Linear Obstacles. We agreed to the craters being cover while completely within the circles, and just rough terrain otherwise. That didn't quite slow him down very much, except for his Shocktroopers and Battle Mechaniks. Tow did pretty much the rest of the job. I just lobbed out Bombard Attacks left right and centre at Shocktroopers and Battle Mechaniks.

Sidenote: As I was searching for the Crater Templates, I found This rather adorable picture.

But when he had finally moved into charge range of my models, he had left Karchev a little open to attack. So I charged him with some Great Bears, two of whom barely reached him so the last charged the Shocktroopers nearby. They didn't kill him, but they did a good job tearing him up. Otherwise, I think I put a few dents into the rest of his army by popping my feat, firing off at Karchev before charging into whatever. I think Black Ivan charged into Karchev, but simply grazed the paint off with this Claw.

Aiden was panicking a little bit, though. He had ARM 23 Warjacks in his face, and had a large dent put into Karchev. So he tore apart Black Ivan using Sunder, his POW 19 Reach weapon, and I think he killed a Great Bear as well. Shocktroopers tried their best to take down a couple of Great Bears, but Tough rolls kept at least two alive.

Otherwise, he tried his Darndest to tie up my other Destroyers with his Warjacks. The Devastator tied up my White Destroyer, while the Red MK1 Destroyer was facing off a MK2 Juggernaut.

My turn was the final straw and I had a couple of options to kill Karchev. The First was with Great Bears. I worked out the maths, and figured they would put a dent into him, but wouldn't kill him unless I had some good rolls. The other option was the Red Destroyer. He was tied up with the Juggernaut, but that could be easily sorted out by making him stationary with Ice Cage. My unit of Graylords had just enough movement to get two into melee with the Juggernaut, and one standing back who would suffer a -4 to hit a model who is in Melee, but his chances to hit would increase with each Ice Cage, which lowers a models DEF Cumulatively.

So all I needed to hit with the first two attacks were 3+, on 2d6. So I jinxed myself and got Snake Eyes, an Automatic Miss. The other two hit, even the one with a penalty, but I lost hope for a moment. Then I realised the Koldun Lord has the same spell, so he unloaded onto the Juggernaut and made him Stationary.

That guaranteed Big Red's freedom to kill Karchev. But to see what luck I have, I got the Great Bears to make their attacks. Three attacks later, Karchev was Destroyed.

Aidens Moral of the story: Great Bears Rock.


I'll skip the second game, only because I have an interesting thought process to go with it, so that'll come after I tell tale of my Third game.


The third game was a long awaited game against Liam, Aidens older brother. He's just picked up Dr Arkadius and has been hankering a game with a multitude of Warhogs in his list. He also picked up Sturm 'n Drang as well. Since it was later in the day, and he'd been playing Arkadius all day, we had a go at Sturm 'n Drang at 35pts.

• Sturm 'n Drang
• - War Hog
• - War Hog
• - Graymeat (War Hog that I nickname so because he's like a Zombie)
• Bone Grinder (Min)
• Brigands (Max)
• Slaughterhousers

It was a hard fought match. I'm getting rather annoyed with Dig In in general because with fielding the same list as I did before, I can't guarantee something will be destroyed by stray AOE's unless I targetted something in particular.

Well I got a few lucky shots onto the bastards, and a couple shots into a close War Hog, while I approached his wall of Bacon. I wasn't sure which way the fight would go, whether his War Hogs would kick several shades of shit out of me (Which is likely) or he would crumble like a piece of paper.

Turns out I was the paper and he was the Scissors, but somehow my paper mache skills turned it all into a rock. Everyone was in the fray with each other, Graymeat was a handspan away from Harkevich himself, Great Bears in between after running as best they could to prepare to charge next, and then everything everywhere else. Each War hog had faced off against a Destroyer jack of any kind, maxing out their Fury stat to kill said Destroyers, leaving only Black Ivan on half health, and Graymeat was the only one who was left on only 1 fury.

So i thought about it for a moment. What could I do? The only way I could win is if I assassinated Sturm 'n Drang right then and there. I had to think. And think I did. I examined the positionings, my models abilities, his models stats, worked out the maths and the conclusion was: I had to play like I had a pair.

Graylords would use the magical shotguns to clear out some enemies. Particularly a Bone Grinder who was sitting nearby Sturm 'n Drang. Clear out one or two others and I would have a fairly clear line, and I get bonus points for being so awesome and clearing out his infantry except for about 2 models.

Unfortunately... I didn't succeed in killing that Bone Grinder. I did succeed in killing a single Slaughterhouser, after three Magical Spray Attacks. Disappointing, but it was only a bonus. The main thing was Harkevich. He would charge Graymeat and use his Beat-back ability to push Graymeat out of the way of the Greatbears. Why? Because then they can charge Sturm 'n Drang. So I kept all my focus, and used them all for Additional Attacks.

Beat Back: If this model successfully hits a target, the target is pushed 1" directly away from this model. This model may then advance 1".

Six out of seven attacks hit, and the last 1" move was to get out of the way for the Great Bears to Charge Sturm 'n Drang.

Now he had two fury for Transfers, which he planned because he was understandably a little paranoid something will happen. He hadn't seen how I'd murdered Karchev, but he didn't know what kind of luck he'll have. So I charged in with the great bears, and he took the first hit of 8 damage. The second hit was successful, but I rolled a pair of 1's and a two. Don't even think I dented his armour.

The third attack was a little funny. It was a good roll, but he said he was going to transfer to someone other than Graymeat, which I told him he couldn't because the other two War Hogs were on Full Fury, so he couldn't. So it went on to Graymeat, who was already well tenderized from Harkevich's Mechano-mace and a Great Bear the turn before. With a transfer, it killed Graymeat and left Sturm 'n Drang on 3 HP. With one last attack, the final blow was struck and I was surprised to find that Sturm 'n Drang don't have tough. And neither do Bone Grinders.

All in all, it was a fun game with a surprisingly bullshit assassination.


Lastly, we revert back a match to my game with Glenn. Now Glenn hasn't been playing for very long. I met him though Monsterpocalypse, and since that hasn't made a massive revival in recent times, he is slowly moving into Warmachine through a Retribution list using Lord Arcanist Ossyan. I was somewhat excited since I haven't really played against many Retribution Armies before.

The Slightly odd thing was that he didn't have any Warjacks. He was designing the list based on Ossyan's theme, so he had gotten a few of his Themed lists stuff, but the Warjacks he had ordered hadn't come through so he played with what he had at 25pts.

• Lord Arcanist Ossyan
• Houseguard Halberdiers (max)
• Houseguard Riflemen (Max)
• - Officer and Standard
• Houseguard Riflemen (Max)
• - Officer and Standard

I had to adjust my list appropriately, and it took me a little while to really figure out what I wanted. Though I was disappointed to find I'm one point short of having a Behemoth in the list, I made do and got myself comfortable.

• Kommander Harkevich
• - Black Ivan
• - Destroyer
• - Destroyer
• Koldun Lord

Just like the first game, we played amongst the Craters and walls, using Aiden as the Third Party Terrain Lord, and we adjusted the rules so that the Craters weren't rough terrain any more, but it was still required that you must be completely within to gain Cover.

It didn't come into much use, though. Two units of Riflemen with CRA are easily going to shoot a large chunk out of Harkevich. Which they did. Twice. And killled him.

It made me think of the days of Infantry-machine, where a Warjack heavy list would have a hard time against an Infantry list. Is that still true now? Not really. I'd taken out a large chunk of his Halberdiers with AOE's that actually hit, and some good dice rolls on my Blast Damage, but that was about it. I'm not sure why i was so focused on the Halberdiers when the Riflemen were the more dangerous of the lot, both with CRA +11. It's a pretty hard hit, especially with his rather good dice rolls, plus Ossyans feat which gives an addtional damage die on Ranged Damage Rolls.

But is Infantry-machine still promenant in Warmachine and Hordes? Hordes are obliged to put Warbeasts in, or else they won't have a spell pool. But there's nothing like that in Warmachine. Warjacks are an option, not a necessity, so you can go right on ahead and play with a bucketload of Winterguard if you want. Whether it'll be effective as a list, who knows.

I don't field armies without Warjacks simply because I like Warjacks. They're what brought me into the game. But I could field a Warjack-less army if I wanted. The question just remains is "Do I even want to try?"

Consolidating Blog Rolls

So I got tired of having three different blogrolls, one for my Wargaming Stuff, one for my Monpoc Stuff (Which is all but dead) and my normal one here, so I figured I'd import the 115 posts from the other two into here, make some modifications and publish them. There'll be a LOT more Game Warning Posts.

Apologies in advance if I'm on your RSS feed or Google Reader Feed that says "Hey, you got a bucketload of posts you haven't read." They probably won't interest you anyway, unless you're one of my nerdy friends.

Word Verification: Gaign

Uniqueness

One of the cool things about Warmachine and Hordes is that there is a flavour to the game that takes the game to new Levels. You have unique units, and solos, and unique themes that some units follow by. Then on top of that, you can get Characters who may follow a theme, but have a uniqueness to themselves. Warjacks come in all different shapes and sizes. Few are to a particular theme, but as a general rule they are all unique.

Character Warjacks started off simply emphasizing a particular Warjack. Beast-09 is a character Juggernaut, for example. Drago is a character Berserker. Lately, the character Warjacks started getting more unique layouts. Black Ivan is a character Destroyer, however rather than the Executioner Axe, he has a special set of claws. Torch is a character Decimator, but replace the cannon with a flamethrower-mounted Open Fist with a spike.

The rules are all very cool and all, there is no denying how awesome it is to have a Warjack in melee with a Torch to catch a few guys up the back. Same thing with Black Ivan, it's awesome to have a Warjack that has a base Defence of 12. No seriously, it's awesome.

The models themselves are where I actually have a problem. Beast-09 and Drago received unique Models. Every feature about those models screams "I am who I am and you better remember that". They dominate the field leaving everyone feeling they have been struck by gods.

If you turn to the Warjacks next to them, Black Ivan and Torch... and you get two Basic Warjacks with some unique features. Replaced arms, bobs stuck on their shoulders, and a head to match. They don't have things hanging around their neck, or writing over their cowling. They don't even have the Khadoran Anvil over the engine

Business wise, I know that the expenses of making an entirely unique warjack would be phenomenal with having to create moulds which only last a certain number of times and cost an arm and a leg to make, and then no guarantee of sale makes it difficult. Whereas the plastic kits are cheaply made, and then smaller pieces are made of metal and slot on to the figures.

What does Black Ivan look like though? Does he look as plain as a normal Destroyer? Or does he actually have inscriptions across the bulk of his body that point from what regiment of the Khadoran army he was brought up from under the guidance of Harkevich?

What about Torch? Is he really a Juggernaut with a Buzzsaw and a Flamethrower? Or is he an Assault Kommando with armour tempered to withstand Fire and Acid, and able to throw smoke grenades to disrupt enemy attack?

It makes me wonder how different these impressive Warjacks would be if they were just a little more... Unique.

Of Trolls and Talismans

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game, is a Board Game that many a nerd who has played it GROANS at the very mention of it. "It takes so long!" They cry, "It will take us late into the night!" Which is a lie, we started at 6:30 or 7pm and the three of us finished at 9! We being Scotty, Corey, Paul and I.

Last week we pulled out Talisman to play. I'm not sure what edition it is, but I imagine its old since the dust on the cover of the box is so thick that you need to chisel it off. We followed one house rule which was that players chose a random character. The character cards were shuffled and they draw from a random spot, or it's just drawn from the top of the deck.

Last week we drew random cards and came up thusly.

• Medway - Assassin
• Paul - Prophetess
• Corey - Sorceress
• Scott - Priest

I had absolutely horrible luck, with my stuff being stolen by bandits, and being kicked seven ways from sunday from the least likely of all things, the Wild Boar, the Weakest monster in the game. The worst part is that it happened twice. It's more humiliating than Corey who had his arse kicked by the Farmer every time he landed on the Tavern. Every. Time.

This week, we all ran through the character cards and as soon as I saw him, I had to play him. The Troll. He's the strongest character, but he's about as bright as those glow in the dark constellation stickers you put on your ceiling (or want to, if you haven't done so already). Actually, that might be giving him a little bit of credit.

The other special feature of him is that he is always safe in the Crags. Normally, you can get lost or you can fight a terrible spirit that found you, or you can gain a Strength when a Barbarian leads you out, and any of these can happen depending on what you roll on a d6. But not the Troll!

So he's a very VERY straight forward character. Later revisions allowed him to gain a Life if he rolls a 6, but that's unlikely since he isn't interested in anything except "bashing sum wun wiff his stikk".

Which he did. He bashed quite a few things that most others wouldn't have normally bashed, and benefitted from it. The poor fella did draw a Craft 10 Demon, which is impossible for him to beat with his Craft 1... But I had a cross. "So I'z got da kross and smished da demon." Then I immediately doubled my craft.

"I have now found that the reason the apple fell on my head is because the tree is actually attacking me."

I picked up a few different things, one of the biggest things that brought me some of the POWER I held was the Amulet, which meant I couldn't cast spells but I couldn't be targetted by them.

Except for a Witch. Who cursed me and turned me into a Toad. Goddamn witch. So that meant I dropped all my items, including the Amulet, the Cross and the Flask of Water, and all my Gold (I think i was on like 5 at that point) and then I just hopped about just like a toad does. There was a font of Wisdom, luckily, and so I doubled my craft again. A Toad with a Craft of 2 is pretty impressive. Especially when it goes up against a Craft 4 Monster and Ties with it. But when I turned back into a Troll the extra craft didn't roll over, so didn't quadruple my Craft, sadly.

Sidenote - To fight someone, you get the relative stat (Strength or Craft) and roll a d6. If you equal, you tie. If you roll higher, they suffer lose a Life. If you roll lower, you lose a Life.

Now as I mentioned, when you get turned into a Toad you drop all your Gold and Objects on the spot that you get turned into a Toad. So that means it's available for other players to pick up stuff. So during the 3 turns that I am a Toad, my stuff is up for grabs. I'm also easily killable, but nobody was in the habit of trying to kill anyone.

Except me. And I had incentive too. Paul, who was playing the Elf, found a way to sneak over and pick up my stuff by telepoting through Woods Spaces. And when he got there, he convinced the fucking Witch to Pay him to take my stuff of her hands, the greedy bastard . But luckily for me, he hadn't had a good run. He was down to 1 Life, so all I needed to do was conk him on the noggin and that's the end of that. So as a vengeful Troll with about 8 or 9 Strength to his name, he hunted down that Fucking Elf and got back his Objects, his Gold plus Interest (Paul had a significant amount of luck with regards to Gold) and then trundled off satisfied with himself that there was one more squished Elf in the world.

After that, I was a train of havoc going all the way up to the Crown of Command to "Kill da little peeple". It was funny though, I drew the Hermit just before I went into the inner level, and conveniently enough he was on the tile I landed on and he gave me a Talisman to let me get to the Crown of Command.

"Choo Choo! Take Dat, Dwarf! Take Dat, Warrior! I got da Powah!"

Sonic Generations

I think I may have mentioned that I'm a fan of Sonic. He has been a childhood hero and remains to be. I think I have a photo somewhere that has me in my favourite Sonic Hoodie, and one of my various Sonic Shirts at the Mana Bar while playing Sonic on the Wii.

The only disappointing era's of Sonic games was really the 2006 Self-titled version. Anything after the Mega Drive until that point, I haven't had the chance to play, so to be fair I'm not going to say bad things about them. I have Sonic Adventure now on my PS3 since they made a port for it, but I just haven't put the effort into playing it yet.

Instead, I've been playing Sonic 4 which I have yet to really complete. It's difficult, and the controls are noticably different than the traditional games that I've played, though the system is meant to be much the same. What's closer to the classic is Sonic Fan Remix. And what else is likable about it is that it's got a different, but more appealing art style, really detailed and different than Sonic 4.

But I'm not really here to talk about those versions of Sonic the Hedgehog. I want to talk about Sonic Generations.

The Idea behind Sonic Generations is a combination of older and newer formats of the Sonic Platformers, the classic 2D and the newer 3D format. In turn, they follow the theme of various different levels from those same generations, picking Zones from the various games and then giving both a 2D and a 3D version of the levels with Original layouts.

One of the funny gimmicks of the game is that both generations of Sonic are able to meet each other. Old Sonic was a blue hedgehog with black pupils and no iris, and didn't really speak much. Or at all. New Sonic, after he defeated one of the Robotniks in the Archie Comics, changed to have Green Iris and Gold Buckles on his shoes, and he's taller.

I picked it up yesterday and I plugged it into the PS3 and invited mum to watch it with me. And to boot, we flicked it over to 3D to see what it would be like with the effects. What we did know of the game was that it was a bit... quick off the mark. If you performed the Spin Dash technique, you would have missed a portion of the level due to the speed he was travelling. Classic Sonic was quick, but this is ridiculous.

The 3D just made it more intense, with the detailed levels and the various colours and speeds, it was just driving Mum and I nuts. I don't think I'm going to load up the 3D again except for a special event when i want to show someone.

The Gameplay system they use is very reminiscent of the classic Sonic that I played many moons ago, with various different additions, such as Skill sets for Sonic to apply to himself (First two of which were to land on his feet whenever he gets damaged, and to have the rings stay around for 10 seconds), and challenge modes for the different levels. So there's plenty to unlock since the game encapsulates the better part of the entire franchise, and also includes special feature such as Art, Music and Videos.

I'm very excited to get into this game. It's my favourite character, with elements from all generations, and... well yeah. That's about it, really.

Manning Up

Every so often I actually go out. Not go to a mates place to play games, but actually out to do something Normal. Like go out to a play. Which is what I did on Saturday night, to see the World Premiere of the final Felafel play: How To Be A Man. I put on a nice shirt, my glasses so I could see, and made the trek from Roma Street Station where I stepped off the Bus.

Now, I get a little nervous around crowds. It's just the way I am. So just before I went to the Theatre I stopped off at the Alfie Hotel (aka: Hotel LA; aka: Lord Alfred Hotel) and grabbed a cider and sculled that down to ease the nerves. Then I wandered up to the theatre to collect my ticket.

As I waited for the lovely girl to print my ticket, as I left mine at work on friday, I was approached by an unfamiliar face who had approached me knowing full well who I am. Turns out it was Abe, one of the Burgers who had turned up for the same play as I did! He introduced himself and offered me a drink, which I happily accepted because I'm an alcoholic and still a little nervous.

It was annoying that I had so many nerves that night. I got hand fed from Greg and met Dan from Smart Enough 2 Know Better and even though I listen to his shrill garbling and Gregs Barotone (at least I reckon he has the deeper voice) and I should know that he's a very casual sort of guy, I got too nervous and ended up making a bit of an arse of myself in front of him. Insert Facepalm Image of your choice here. Actually, use this.

Anyway, I had a nice chat with many of the Burgers, and even the Burger King himself, until everyone had to clamber into the Theatre itself wearing a fake Moustache that Simon Bedak was handing out like lollies. I was i seat A9, front row centre aisle. It was a good seat, I thought. It would give me a wonderful view of the play. I could see things without having to squint at the little details. The small entertaining things that can really make a play better.

Now after saying that to myself, had a wonderful introduction to the city of "Bong Kok". If you go see the play, you'll understand very early on what I'm talking about.

The stage itself was amazing. set in the back yard of a shoddy old sharehouse that even had the family safe (One of the panels made from a cut up Beer Carton), it had all the feel of a scungy house full of rats, cockroaches and nests of feral possums living in the tall grass. And the traditional Sharehouse Couch sat amongst it.

The entire play was magnificent. I can't say anything bad about it. Even Bong Kok. It was a massive shock to the system, but it was still hilarious. Girl Clumsy directed a masterpiece, scripted by Simon Bedak, and written by John Birmingham and Dirk Flinthart.

But the main thing that the show taught me was how to Man Up (funny that). And pretty much all of the Burgers suggested and agreed with starting a donation run to get Jenny to Australia. A JenCon Oz Fund. Everyone wanted to put forward for her to come here, whether it means she'll be spending lots of money here, or even just using the contributions to keep her here longer (Which is probably a better use of the contributions, actually).

I'm currently in discussions with Jenny about organising it, so we'll let everyone know when it's all ready. I'm thinking a Paypal thing?

Campaigning for fun

Now a month or two ago, I said about how I was going to play Gears of War 3 with my friends, playing through the wonderful campaign as a Four-player Cooperative rather than running around by myself. It's a lot more fun, especially if we all start off at the same point, then we all experience the same thing, achieve the same goals, save the same damsels, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

When I got my new Xbox and downloaded my Gamer profile, I found that I'm missing achievements for certain games, like Halo 3 and Gears of War 2. I ran through Gears of War 2 again alone because I didn't think of inviting anyone. But it wasn't as fun as with a friend. Not to say it wasn't a fun game, it was still as awesome as I remember it the first time, but I know it's better when you have someone playing with you, whether it's through the internet or sitting next to you laughing their heads off as you decapitate a couple of people with a hydraulic powered crossbow.

So in preparation to playing through the Halo 3 Campaign, I've asked my friends to gauge who would be interested in playing the Halo 3 Campaign with me. I've asked Scott and his only apprehension is the control scheme being so different to the Halo Reach scheme. It's rather different, but I'm thinking of adjusting my own settings to use the Green Thumb control scheme for all Halos upward of Halo 3.

Other games that I want to play Coop are Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One. I want to get that game and play with Scotty. I know he's waiting for me, but it's just a matter of picking up the game so we can start. Also, Portal 2 has an update for it's Cooperative Campaign, so we're going to get in on that at some point when I mention it to Scotty.



Next year, when Borderlands 2 comes out, we're going to dive into that one as well through the Xbox. Scotty was planning on getting it for PC, however it was put down to general consensus that we would all play on the Xbox. Which brings me to the subject of Cross-Platform gaming, but that's another blogpost that I've drafted away and haven't bothered to type in since I started it.

I was thinking of making a Blog for our escapades through whatever games together, somewhere we could organise times to play and such, but that seems a bit much. Though we could apply it as well for our Wargaming as well, if we decided to use as such if we were doing a campaign amongst ourselves. That would actually be really cool if we were, but we're not.

Actually I thought about running the old campaigns for Warmachine amongst friends, but haven't sat down with a copy of Escalation or Apotheosis and worked it out for MKII Settings. I don't know if there are any very good conversions out there, or even if there's one released from PPress, but I'm going to give it a crack. I'm really wanting to go with "Point Cost / 2, Rounded up" to determine Victory Points.

So wondering about whether or not I should do the blog or not. It wouldn't be interesting, I think it would mostly have notices for what and when we're next playing, unless we do a battle report for each of our campaign games, but I dunno about that.

Now I've completely lost track of what I was talking about.

Irrational is a wonderful prefix isn't it?

It gets you away from any explanation or reasoning that there ever could be. However, it doesn't really get away from the embarrassment that ensues, like what happened to me last night.

Now I have a couple of irrational fears. One of which is heights, and I'm mostly getting used to it now. I can get on top of a building and look over the edge and see everyone down the way. I don't know how I'd go on the roof of a skyscraper, but I don't see it being very good (he says as the warms trickles down his leg). Stupid Acrophobia. I don't know where it came from, because I've always had it since I was little, but I've slowly grown out of it, though occasionally the fight/flight will kick in and I'll just refuse to go any higher.

Mum even tried to help me get over my fear by sending me to awkward places that were much too high, or sending me out with family friends to go out to places of elevation. One time we went out rockclimbing and I just refused to climb. Wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it. He went through all the safety instructions and everything, and assured me over and over that it was perfectly safe. I even watched my sister do it, climb up and take her time and everything, but NOPE. Not budging. I at least did something at an Indoor Rockclimbing centre. But I got little more than halfway and I got stuck until I was told I could come down.



Another time we went out to the glass house mountains for a bushwalk up the mountain. There was a part with a fairly steep climb up a smooth rock. I got halfway, but I couldn't get a grip on my shoes. So I got stuck and decided to go back down and waited there for the others to go all the way to the top and back down again. I sat there for a few hours feeling a bit embarrassed, but adamant that I couldn't do it. When I got home, mum was pissed that I didn't get anywhere with it, but I never asked for her help with my fear of heights. She should've discussed it with me instead of sending me off without even asking whether i wanted to go.

I think that was my angst period too, where I just didn't have any choice of what I wanted to do, I just got told "You're doing this, that's final" regardless of whether I had a massive problem with it or not.

Anyway, I have a case of Acrophobia and occasionally my legs will turn to cement and I'll get stuck.

My other irrational fear is Glass Elevators. And I just mean Glass Elevators, where the walls have windows out into open areas, or you can see the floors going up in front of you in the door. Elevators with Windows. Display cases on a wire. This is another one from my childhood. Mum and dad had me at the Myer Centre and we were about to take the escalators going up, and I started bawling my eyes out and carrying on getting upset at the escalators to the point that Mum said "Alright, lets try the elevators." No good. I got in there and I was worse. Just stepping in there and I just went off like someone was trying to kill me.

And that one has really stuck through to today. I've taken glass elevators only a few times after that, using the small part of metallic wall as a set of blinders while feeling the rock in my stomach sink down into my feet as the buttons highlighted the floor we were on. They move so quickly those elevators, so the inertia really just makes me sink.



When I have the chance now, I just take the escalators. It's much easier for me to peel the bandaid than rip it off.

Last night however wasn't one of my bravest days. I got offered to go see Immortals for free because a friend got given 20 free double passes at the Myer Centre. I was offered to join in and I said yes, because a free movie is the best kind of movie.

We all met up at Hungry Jacks and had some dinner before taking a very long way around to the Cinema, going up Queen Street rather than going down Albert Street, but eventually we got to the right set of lifts, and that's where everyone got on the lift and I just kept on walking away and down the stairs and up Albert street to King George Square Bus Station and Jumped on a Bus and let it take me home. Didn't tell anyone. Just bolted. Like the Massive Pussy I am.



See, what had happened, is that I completely forgot that the Myer Centre has Glass Elevators. And tou know that fight or flight mechanism? That self explanatory thing in your brain? Yeah, for some reason it just had a big red sign that said "FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT." Even the idea of escalators didn't turn me back. Scotty suggested "Look straight ahead"
Nope: "I don't have tunnel vision Scott, I can still see the way down and I have a fear of heights." Scotty even called me later after the movie to see if I was alright and I just explained that to him, that for some reason I just flipped out and had to go.

The only thing now is that when I see my friend again, I'm going to get ridiculed. Probably quite a lot.

*Shrug* It's the price you pay, I guess.

A different sort of Tron

Back in the day, when I were a wee lad, probably about 5 or 6 years of age, I was given some Lego sets as presents and, over time, I have lost the various pieces until it has pretty much completely disappeared. Whether it's a few pieces dropped off at a friends place, or just disappeared into the ether, I don't have a single piece of it now. Though I still have a memory of it.

What I really remembered of it was that it was Red, and it had these massive wheels for bush bashing across a barren planet like Mars. That was all. And I'm sure I had an absolute ball with it while I was young, and with the little Pirate Set I have at work, I want to expand it out to more. Something bigger, but not big enough to cover my desk.



So I did some Google searches. "Mars Lego Vehicle" was the first through Image searches and it came up with nothing except random lego sets from something else entirely. I looked at the wheels and just found everything wrong, wrong and wrong. None of them matched.

I looked up Wikipedia to see where that would take me, and what I found was that there are various different Themes of Lego. Now I already knew this, since I could still see Medieval and space and modern and etc etc etc all around the Lego Aisles in the shops. But series of a theme would only last for a few years at a time, so I figured that the set I was looking for would probably be best found on Fleabay.

Eventually I found it. The M-Tron Series Celestial Forager/Astro Wrecker.



I searched more on it too and I found out that it is also part of a super set called the "Secret Space Voyager", which has me curious and I want to build it. Too bad I don't have any money.

What's Black, White and Red all over? Two Destroyers and an Ivan

Every Sunday I head to Spring Hill to play games at the LGS there. At least I try to. Yesterday I made it there and had a couple of really enjoyable games with Kommander Brian Blessed. I mean, Kommander Izak Harkevich.

Now, I originally thought he was an awkward caster. He has a heap of spells that are really interesting, but he's just hard to really get off the ground. But this yesterday was different. They were significantly better than the last couple of games I had using him, where he'd be overloaded with Warjacks (I had a Behemoth and two destroyers I think) and I would hope for the best out of their ranged attacks.

This time, I got a fantastic result out of the two games i had with him. The first game was 50pts against Kara Sloan. I technically lost, but got a wonderful moral victory out of it.

The lists were as follows.

• Kommander Izak Harkevich
• - Black Ivan
• - White Destroyer
• - Red Destroyer
• - War Dog
• Great Bears of Gallowswood
• Greylord Ternion
• Widowmakers
• Winterguard Infantry (Max)
• - Officer and Standard
• - Rocketeer (1)
• Koldun Lord
• Kovnik Jozef Grigorivich

• Captain Kara Sloan (*6pts)
• - Cyclone (9pts)
• - Defender (9pts)
• - Stormclad (10pts)
• - Squire (2pts)
• Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
• Storm Tower (2pts)
• Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
• - Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard (3pts)
• Sword Knights (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
• Trencher Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
• Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)

He started off with a list of things he hadn't used, and some reliable fellas. I pulled out mostly reliable stuff, and designed Harkevich's battlegroup to include three warjacks. So Black Ivan, and two Destroyers. I love Destroyers and I only wish they were P+S 18 still, rather than 17.

One thing I was happy about was using the Koldun Lord. I've rarely used him, but he came into great use. My second turn, everyone was in range to shoot, so the Koldun Lord gave a point of Focus to Black Ivan to Boost Damage since Ivan's affinity offers automatically boosted attack rolls. Then the other two Destroyers would boost to hit using focus from Harkevich.

With Harkevich's four focus, he upkeeps Escort from last turn and put the remaining three to use for Broadsides. Out of the 6 AOEs thrown out there and and slightly beyond the Stormclad I caught a couple of Stormblades and one AOE caught Kara who she copped a boosted damage roll for either 4 or 7 damage.

Next turn, I got my chance to charge into his Stormclad and Cyclone. With the Escort up and his Feat popped, Black Ivan and Red Destroyer charged in and tore a good chunk off the buggers. Harkevich gave them two focus each as well, I think, and White Destroyer was left guarding Harkevich's Flank from a Defender that was creeping around.

Russ's turn was spent either missing half the attacks on Black Ivan, or slowly Grinding at the Red Destroyer. That +3 armour to my Khador Warjacks? Holy **** biscuits on a **** platter does it make a difference. I sat there and took so little damage. It helped that I crippled the Stormblade's Sword Arm, but CRIMENY.

Oh and it was rather funny when the Cyclone who couldn't shoot any more and hold up my Winterguard from Advancing, sat there and tried to double handed throw Black Ivan. Twice he tried this turn and the next, and with both Strength Test Rolls we equalled on the dice. Which means I win since I have 1 more Strength than he does. I had to laugh because the chances of rolling higher than 2d6 with only 1d6 is very improbable.

Fourth turn, the last before I was shot to oblivion, I surprised him with some Winterguard Fun. Grape Shot plus "For The Motherland" makes for an infantry killing turn. Which I did to his trenchers and the better part of his remaining Stormblades. I think there were two left, including the officer who had taken about 3 points of damage, one after the other, through the game.

The Greylords, who were mostly putting clouds on the Warjacks to defend Old Mate, had charged in last turn and one tried to kill a Trencher but failed to hit. One kept back to surprise them from the side, so the other two were basically sacrificed to hold up the trenchers. At the fourth turn, the remaining Greylord was suddenly surrounded by Running Sword Knights, and luckily three of them were in a line. So off he fired the Magical Shotgun and away went two Sword Knights, the last two taken out by Harkevich's Hand Cannon and White Destroyers Executioner Axe.

That was when Kara moved up and got a bead on Harkevich with her Rifle and the Defenders Cannon. Two shots, and he was down and out. As you'd expect from a Boosted Weapon Master POW 12 and a Boosted POW 15.

Before I forget though, the Great Bears of Gallowswood made up their points value, I reckon, by stopping the Black 13th from doing anything significant. Granted, he didn't lose a single model and I lost all three Great Bears, but you know what? If the Black 13th were more in the fray than taking the long way around the flank, it would have been a very different game. I probably would've lost more Winterguard much earlier in the game.

Russ conceded the moral victory to me for BUTCHERING his army and pulling off a "Bullshit Assassination". Which wasn't quite bullshit, it's the way I would expect a dirty Cygnaran player to Assassinate me.

---

Second game was against Aiden's Karchev the Terrible. This was a massive grinding match, pitting Khador versus Khador. But it was really fun at the 35pt Level with the following lists.

• Kommander Harkevich, the Iron Wolf (*5pts)
• * Black Ivan (10pts)
• * Destroyer (9pts)
• * Destroyer (9pts)
• * War dog (1pts)
• Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
• Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts) (4pts)
• Koldun Lord (2pts)

• Karchev the Terrible (*5pts)
• * Berserker (6pts)
• * Berserker (6pts)
• * Decimator (9pts)
• * Juggernaut (7pts)
• Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
• Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)

This game was fun, but could've worked out a bit better if he changed up one thing. We threw each others Warjacks against each other, and I mean threw them. Mine charged first during the feat turn and he had Towed most of his warjacks into the Fray. There was only one Warjack that missed out in getting into the fray which was one of his Berserkers. He fell a little way behind the rest of the Party.

The mistake that was made was that a poor Berserker had gotten ahead as well, and copped the better part of about 6 Bombard Attacks, and a Charging Black Ivan. He was quickly torn apart. Afterwards, Karchev got into the Grinding melee with his own Axe versus my Feated Warjacks.

The better option, which he agreed with, was to have Karchev move a little way out of melee and use the ranged attack to Knock down everything in front of his own Warjacks. Oh and to get his Berserker up the front a bit quicker, maybe taking the place of where Karchev was. That way, Karchev wouldn't have been punched into Oblivion by Black Ivan with Fortune cast on him.

One thing that was Frustrating? Black Ivan has Critical: Brutal Damage. Out of the 6-8 attacks I made against Karchev, do you think I made a SINGLE Critical hit? NO! Everything else in my army got Criticals Galore! But could Black Ivan do it? No, the spiteful bugger decided to extend Karchev's death.

---

So overall, I had a good weekend with some great games. I can't wait for next week!

You take away my single player, I get angry

Disclaimer: This is aimed at the whingers. Not those who actually like having more hours worth into their solo play.

You Bastards.

I'm in the same pool as the author of the above post, where I can get a better sense of accomplishment playing the single player campaign. In my case, I will admit that I'm absolute crap in Multiplayer and I don't want to hear, to quote @TheWah, "Fourteen year old american children questioning my sexuality".

So now they're going to take away from me a small part of my pleasure in a franchise I actually like? That's some super bastardery right there.

I like long campaigns. I heard in the same podcast, where the quote above is from, that console games aren't entirely worth it, which is somewhat true for someone of my standing. $90 for one game and you play for 24 hours, or $90 for 45 games on your Gadget and you play forever.

So to have my gameplay time drop by a third, I feel like I've been ripped off by the wrong people. All because of a bit of whinging about "Oh it's TOO LOOONG".

Tell you what. Have a cup of cement for breakfast. Maybe that'll harden you the fuck up.

Of Nerds and Birthdays

I think I've mentioned how much of a geek Scott is. He always has a list of Preorder Receipts as long as his arm from the local EBGames store near his work. He has a back log of games he hasn't played due to being distracted with certain other games.

So when his birthday comes around in a month time we're going to celebrate his birthday by, you guessed it, playing Video Games. We bring our own TVs/Monitors and our consoles (maybe computers) and we network up to enjoy some good old fashioned LAN Gaming.

Halo, Gears of War, etc etc etc. All good games for a good time, all for Scottys Birthday. Then we're going to play Dystopian Wars and Warmachine/Hordes over the entirety of the weekend of the 11th and 12th.

Which makes me think of my own birthday next year. Now Scotts place has plenty of room to work around. We can set up three/four consoles around a couple of tables in his downstairs room or even the garage.

I reminisced about going to The Bunker many years ago as part of my own birthday. And with the talking about "Nerd Hold", the Man-Cave/Club-House, it made me think about Mums Shed in the Back Yard.

The shed was built many years ago, back when I was young (Not that long ago for some of my readers - :P ) due to the old shed being... well a wreck. It was a few sheets of corrugated iron stuck together by rusty nails, cobwebs and Hope. Maybe a few dead bodies as well. Not people, just things like Spiders, rats, snakes, cockroaches, and the dead, dried out spirits of Skin Mags.

That was torn down and the new shed was built, along with a Pagola that mum asked for. The Pagola is pretty good too, with a very large tree over the top, and one of the best breezes that runs through it on a summers day. The Old Boy chucked all of his tools in there onto shelves he built into the walls, and then everything just sat there. Back came the Creepy Crawlies, but the spirits of the Skin Mags didn't come back. I think.

Now back to the subject at hand, my train of thought was going towards using the shed for a LAN party next year. This isn't likely, because of a few things.

1. The place is filled to the brim with crap from my sister and bro-in-law. They moved house earlier this year and just filled it to the fkn brim.


2. The creepy crawlies. They've probably nested in there, so it'll take some time to get rid of them and making sure the place is secure for people to stay in there for more than 5 minutes.


3. The rotting wood. I'm sure that the place is rotting on the inside, particularly those shelves that were built into the wall. So I will have to look into tearing those down.


4. The Wiring. Now, the Old Boy isn't an electrician. In fact, I think the only electrician we know is Aaron, and we didn't know he existed until I repeated Grade 12 at Aspley. So all the power going through to the Flourescent lights? They're from a power socket in Mums laundry which connects to an extension cord leading out to the Pagola and into a large array of other various extension cords. We're likely to blow the power out.

So there's a few things to sort out if I want to use the place for a small gaming space for a day or two. We could grab a couple of cheap couches and small entertainment units from the St Vinnies, chuck them in the middle of the place and hook up the systems for a good time. And in the Pagola, we'll have our table-top games or even some board games, and a BBQ is there which just needs a clean, and I can pull out my desk speakers and pick up some random music from Dee.

Sounds awesome to me. Heck, if I actually did go through with it and had the money/Time, I would build my Sonic Arcade Cabinet. That would be pretty awesome.

Board games and Pandora's Box

I've been getting more and more into board games and of a Tuesday I've been indulging in board games with a couple of the other regulars. Last week was "Wrath of Ashardalon", a D&D board game which worked out pretty well to play, and then last night was "The Order of the Stick Adventure Game".

The Order of the Stick is a parody of the classical Dungeons and Dragons game, following a mismatch band of player characters. The Board game follows one of the first dungeons that the party run through to fight the Boss at the end.

Now you follow through the dungeon and it's pretty cruisy. You explore rooms and attack the monsters that appear, grab the subsequent loot, and then move on. As you go deeper, you fight more monsters per room, based on the floor you're on. So floor 1 is 1 monster. Floor 2 is 2 monsters, etc etc.

Then occasionally there'll be a Leader monster which will increase the size of the monster fight. So instead of one monster, you get 2. Larger fights with bigger pay offs, but more risk. You're only rolling D12's and your friends can either be nice or they can be a complete bastard. I copped that once or twice from Cory.

There's also Support abilities, where if you have a monster of a type listed on the monster card somewhere on the same floor, they gain a special rule or bonus. Such as +2 to defence and attack. Or the Horde Ability.

Horde means that for each monster of the same type on the same floor, you add another monster. So if you have a Goblin Warlock with Horde, and you draw three goblins, you have to add another 3 monsters. And if they're more goblins, you have to draw more monsters per goblin.

We came against the fight for Lord Xykon, who has Horde for Goblins and Undead in his army, and we opened up Pandoras Box. We drew the Kobold King and two of the Goblin Characters, who also have Horde. We also drew about 5 Demon Roaches, who count towards Kobolds, Goblins and Undead. Basically, the battle Exponentialized until we got to 23 and said "Nope. That's it. We're leaving it at that."

After we got through the fight, I sat down and did the calculations. I ran out of cards after taking them from the top of the Battle Deck, and Recycling the discarded battle deck cards.

At least it was Fun! I got to put my Great Cleavage to good use.

Fk me I can ramble

I read an article just before about the state of PC Gaming and standardising systems. I found it was an interesting article and got me thinking about two things. One is building my own PC, something I had a friend do a few years ago with my current PC (Which has a wonderful time dancing through games like Crysis which is a system hungry game) and PC Games themselves, and the quality thereof.

When I got my current computer built all those years ago, probably about 3-4 years now, I gathered up a bunch of money and said "Take this and build me a slightly above average PC for the time. It was a good PC and outperformed his own (A small shot to his pride I believe, though he did make it... I liked taht he called it Beast-09)

The thing he was irked about was the case. He was adamant that I would need a new Case for my PC. However, I refused. I already had a computer tower and I just wanted it gutted and filled back up because for one, I wasn't going to fork out another $200 for a fancy box, and two, the case that I owned had a very comfortable handle on the top. So if I had to move it around, it was very easy. And three, even if I could get a new case that fulfilled the such needless desire of point 2, I still didn't want to fork out $200+ for a new case.

I was happy with this.


So I had him build it and did it for about $800 with almost the entirety of the internal hardware being refurbished. It was wonderful and it still is. I use it to play the PC games that I do have, and if I purchased any recently I would probably still be able to play it, though chances are that I may need to tone down some details.

Actually I haven't bought a PC game in a few years, so I'm not too sure on that, but I'll be sure to let someone know.

I've been thinking about case mods over the past few months though. I was originally thinking along the lines of my consoles, the Xbox260 and the PS3, but after surfing for ideas I couldn't really get any ideas on what I would want to do to either of my consoles. I'd want something unique so that it's MY console. Not anyone elses. Mine.

I also looked at computer Case Mods too, and there are some really nice ones out there. Some themed around computer games, some hilarious, and some you just laugh at because you're aware what it's a joke of.


A little while before I started searching case mods, I was also thinking about my "Nerd Hold", the game cave I had thought about at the time. How I wanted game tables and a small lounge in front of a projector or large TV. That sort of thing.

But what I didn't really think about was the Decor of Nerd Hold. In my mind, I kept thinking of something that didn't have much effort put into it. Like a large corner studio apartment with a support pole in the middle of the room, sitting a couple of stories up from the inner city street below visible through the slat windows that went from waist high to the ceiling.

In one corner is the kitchen on a raised level, with oven and a centre table, and either cupboards all around with corner steps leading to each other section. In the opposite corner are the lounges with the TV or top quality projector which is connected to the PC and consoles (naturally). In the windowed corner, a Wargaming table and painting desk, and I forgot what I was going to put opposite that. I think it was a Pool Table.

And apart from the kitchen, the entire thing is cement floor with rugs over them.

But that doesn't sound like a nice place. Sure, it's good enough for Nerds, but what's wrong with doing something nicer? Like I could go for class, and have polished wood floors, desks with leather trims, coffee tables that hide the PC's and consoles and display onto a wood framed television, or a theatre screen flanked by burgundy curtains, and just close enough for the 120* of vision. The kitchen would be as mentioned before, but put it level with the floor. and the inner corner is a Bar. I'd debate taps.

I'd match the Pool table to the theatre with Burgundy felt, and a flourescent light over the top with a wooden cover (rather than the usual metal one finds these days. The Wargame tables would have to be custom made, but something like the pool table without pockets. Like The Sultan.



Grain walls and polished floors, I wouldn't be able to get away with it unless I were rich or knew how to build it all myself. Which I don't.

But going back to the subject of Case mods, I had seen several Wooden Case mods which gave me the idea of the room just mentioned, and they were really nice. They could be used as really nice couch side tables.

There's always the idea of using the actual table though as the Computers Case. Given a bit of thought into the internal structure, and some space for air and such, and you'll have a really nice computer blended in with the scenery. Quiet too, as the wood absorbs fan noise and vibration very well.

That's one thing I like about PC's. Though they take up a large amount of space, you can make them look really nice. Alternatively, you can get them as small as a laptop. And while it won't be as powerful as a desktop (debatable), it's still the ability to have something that will do the job and cover as little area as possible.

I can't even remember what day it is

I was meant to write here a lot more over the past three weeks. "At least once a week I will put up a post to let everyone know that I am alive, and that Jenny hadn't put me in an ice bath and replaced my kidneys with a potato and some cool looking stitches" I said to myself. But, to misuse a word and include a suffix, I was suffering a bad case of Distractedness by a beautiful and wonderful woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with.

But so everyone knows, I didn't have an ice bath and gain cool scars and have my kidneys replaced with Potatoes. I DID however stub my toe on my suitcase one night as I was drunk stumbling to bed (details later). Bloody thing swelled up, turned black and now it still kinda hurts but only when I force it to do something, or drop something on it.

The last three weeks were fantastic and, because my Jewish powers of money calculating failed me, I ended up overspending my money. But then again I didn't leave with much in the first place. And LAX hit me fkn hard too. Three double Rum and Cokes and a breakfast burrito cost me $47. And that's BEFORE Tip! But I'm glad I had those drinks, I had a Fkn sore neck from the Bris-2-LA flight and that just really loosened me up.

The first week was probably the least pleasant, because of the weather. It was a little miserable and I had picked up a cold, or a bad case of jetlag, but I was coughing and sneezing and trying not to choke on my own mucus while staying in bed and keeping warm while waiting for Jenny to get back from Work. She'd taken the first week as half days because her Holiday hours weren't quite enough to cover the three weeks, not to mention she has to save some time for when she comes to Brisbane.

We started off a little late getting into photos (I think?), because it was about a half week in and Jenny turns to me to say "Have we taken any photos?"
"Uhh, I don't think we have yet."
Suddenly, like a magician performing a card trick, her phone appeared and started taking happy snaps of us and Taz in bed, smiling and kissing and generally being really fkn cute. Except Taz. He just looks like that all the time.

Now, I want to place this disclaimer that the following events are all true, but are completely out of chronological order. My memory is like one of those shoddy motorcycles that needs about 8 kick starts. Or in my case, A Photo!

This photo starts me off on the second last day Ii was there. Well, the Last Night I was there. I hadn't cooked anything for Jenny for all of the three weeks, though I meant to do some stuffed potatoes for her because they're good and really satisfying. But we never actually got around to it because we were doing something else, or I just couldn't be arsed.

But Jenny says to me as we watched Outrageous Fortune (details on that later) "I'm hungry, but I don't want to eat potato chips for the rest of the night."
"You're right," I replied. "We need something that will satisfy our hungers. Something that we can really enjoy. Something that I can actually cook."
That's when she reminded me we got stuff for Spaghetti Bog, like the sauce to which I remembered something about Marinara sauce and Bolognaise sauce and how they're different, or the same, or something or other, and ran with that. I even looked at the ingredients of the Marinara Sauce (Tomato, Tomato, Tomato, wine) and was happy with what was in it. So I took the risk and through blind luck, it was really good!

As I was cooking, and getting worried that I hadn't cooked the meat enough though I couldn't tell because of the sauce making it look like a freshly killed animal, Jenny wanted to get a video of me and so she recorded "A Womans Ultimate Dream", where a man is cooking in the kitchen and singing Madonna.

Now I was singing Madonna not because I like the song "Beautiful Stranger", but because I have a weird habit of singing it in a funny accent. I like to think it's South African, but listening to the recording the accent kinda ran to the frozen wastelands to sound very "Comrade" about halfway through the song. But now it's up and available for my friends to see and now I think there's going to be a few good laughs tomorrow night at the Lads Night Out about my 15 minutes of Singing Stardom.

Most dinners we had though throughout the weeks weren't at home. We spent many many nights going out for dinner and enjoying ourselves, because I think I explained myself before about where I stand with making dinner. One of the best dinners we had was at Old Chicago, a franchise restaurant that does Chicago Style Pizzas.

I ordered an individual serving of a normal pizza, because I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know how to ask for the Pizza that looks like a friggin cheesecake. It was the nicest pizza I have ever had. A wonderful crust, and the sausage and pepperoni and the sauce... I'm salivating right now just by thinking about it.

That night was with Jennys workmate David, his wife Jessica (I think that's right?) and their youngin, Jonathan. One of the cutest babies you'll come across, and he really plays up the attention. He even turned up to Jennys Birthday for a little bit and everyone was like "Aww, look at him". And the little poser kept posing for Jennys Mum as she took photos! Cheeky bugger.

Side Note: This was going to be a group photo of Jennys Friends, but I didn't feel comfortable with it so I've given you a Squirrel that Jenny and I saw at Notre Dame. We felt we had to take a photo because I've never seen a Squirrel before.

Jenny was really happy on her Birthday party, the saturday after her actual birthday. So many of her friends turned up, and even her Grandmother and Aunt Colleen made an appearance! Not to mention Jenny was given lots of drinks. I think there were 3x Dirty Girl Scouts, 1x B-52, a Flaming Red Head (I don't think it was set on fire though) and like 3-4x Long Island Iced Teas. She was absolutely tanked. I'm so proud of her. That was the night I stubbed my toe, too. Bastard suitcase.

Naturally, the next day we sat at home and recuperated. "Oh I won't be having drinks for a LONG time after this". Which is fair enough, though like a week or two later she was complaining that her Pepsi didn't have enough alcohol. Which is when I solved her problem with Bacardi 151 (That's the proof btw) which we bought at the start of the holiday and we still haven't finished the 2 litre bottle.

I laughed too when she said "Oh my god, fourty bucks? That's expensive!"

Luckily that was all after we went to Notre Dame, the University down along the northern border of Indiana to the north of a place called "South Bend". Aside from the little bit of irony that South Bend is to the north of a state, I was quite surprised at how close Indiana is. An hour and a half drive I think it was.

Side Note: Jenny wore her Felafel Shirt this day!

From what I have been told, Notre Dame is one of the more prestigious schools across the US, with a large Gridiron following across the country. There's even a movie about it! We watched some of it on Recuperating Sunday and Jenny pointed out where we'd stood in the movie, like the Grotto and the Park and the Lake.

I was surprised at the size of the campus. It's the size of a friggin suburb, and it's just... pretty. Picturesque trees across covered parks; long lines of old dorms with green strips straight down the middle where people played with frisbees across the zig zagging footpaths; the Golden Dome of the Basilica with a statue watching over the people driving up the main drag into the Campus.

Everything about it was really nice. The Grotto was impressive too, with people walking in to light a candle and pray for loved ones and such. And the gate to the stadium? Well you can see the photo above. It kinda looms above you.

Though the most surprising thing about the campus was walking between two of the Dorms to look up and see a Bike Riding a Tree... Or a Tree attempting to ride a bike... Whatever it was, it wasn't working.

I kinda pity the poor sod who has lost his bike.

It was a nice walk around the campus, and there were a lot of people because it was the day before a game, and Jenny kinda hoped that Regis Philbin because he apparently walks around on that day since he's such a big fan. But if he was there, we missed him. I reckon he may have been in the Throng of people that were at the "Bookstore". It's a big store, and it doesn't just have books, it's got clothes and a coffee place, and novelty stuff, and it seemed like there was no heating because it was bloody hot. I was afraid Jenny was going to faint.

Mum wanted me to get a flask for when she goes to the Ice Rink for my Niece. But all the ones that she's gotten here have either fallen apart or just haven't kept her coffee cold. So thinking that because in Kalamazoo they get such serious winters, they must have a decent way of keeping coffee warm in their flasks. I'll get results within the next few weeks.

The other present was a stubbie cooler for my manager. She likes getting Stubbie Coolers from various places so that was easy except for the choice of a normal stubbie cooler, or a jersey one.

When Jenny moves to Australia, I'm going to have to find out what channels the NFL is on so Jenny can watch the Packers and the Notre Dame games. We may even have to set something up for every Saturday/Sunday where we get a few people over and watch the game over lunch.

Y'see, just about every Sunday, Jenny and her family go to a pub called Shakespeares to watch the Green Bay Packers play. Now I don't know if there's a pub or restaurant here that play the NFL games, though I'll probably have a look around, but the alternative is to get some other fans over and watch it at home. Though the only other NFL fan I know is one of my workmates who lives at the Gold Coast. To boot, he's a Chicago Bears fan, so there'll be a fun rivalry there, especially when both teams play each other.

One of the most amazing things that we did was just a few days before her actual birthday. Her parents and a few others had hired out a house along the beach of Lake Michigan, and it was one of the nicest houses I'd ever seen. I'd been to a few houses since we went to a Parade of Homes, Where you get a ticket and walk through a couple of houses in the area that have been recently built, remodelled, or were made by certain designers.

Now the house at the lake, it was designed in the likeness of a ship. Not to say it had a galley and there were hammocks everywhere (though that would've been cool), but the general shape was like a ship. Pointed towards the bow (and a garage extended out), and widens at the aft. Inside was three storeys and a basement. The top floor, which lead up a square spiral staircase, was a single room that looked out onto the lake, with a balcony as well. The view was fantastic.

Getting to the beach was intimidating though. It was a long climb down the stairs and the stairs were mostly rotten and slanted, so I just didn't want to take the risk going down the 100+ precarious steps so I could get some sand between my toes. Jenny agreed so we went and sat down at the firepit which had several chairs placed around it. There was no fire going, but that's okay. The whole house was amazing.

For the Parade of homes, Jenny and I visited 3 houses, two of which were like small mansions and the last a cosy little home in the outer suburbs. The first house was really nice, and i was quite taken back by the enormous basement and the really nice Bar in the middle of it. The other really impressive thing was the long bathroom they had. Jacuzzi and shower with granite tables which looked out into a forested yard. It was a pretty awesome.

The second house was cosy, but a bit disappointing. It was small and had some nice views, but it was already lived in, so it wasn't quite as fun as browsing the brand spanking new house we saw before. I can't remember what quirky thing we found about it though.

The last house was my favourite of the three. It looked out onto a lake (as in one you could see the other side of) which didn't seem too safe to swim in, but it was nice to look at. The house was like two houses put on top of each other, and just melding in at the middle. Sub-letting downstairs wouldn't be hard at all, if it weren't for the view from the basement, my favourite part. The windows looked right out onto the back yard, and was open and just had plenty of potential for an entertainment area. I really liked it and wished I could afford to buy the place, though half the house we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

And I'd have photos of it here, but we weren't allowed. Which sucked, because the view out the window on the top floor was pretty awesome.

One of the first outings we had was the Walk for Altzeimers. Jennys friend was part of the Event Team and invited us along many months ago. It was a simple 3k walk, so we figured it'd be nice and we brought Taz the Shit-zu (yes I know that's not how you spell it) so that he could go out on a nice long walk, and because Jenny was Dog-sitting for her Brothers Girlfriend, we brought along Whiskey the Jack Russell.

Now we were expecting Taz to act out like crazy, because he acts like a brat at home by bothering us when we're trying to do something. For example, Jenny will open her laptop and Taz will grab his favourite toy (I think he favours the colour Green) and put it on her lap. And when she doesn't do anything, he'll climb further onto her to get her attention, and usually trying to drop it onto her lap.

Same thing with me, but I'm usually lying down so he'll drop it on my chest, and eventually shove it in my face. But then as you go to grab it, he'll bite down onto it, sometimes he'll catch you fingers, and just try and fight you for it.

But strangely, Whiskey was the annoying one. People had food all over the place and he was obviously hungry. Jumping up onto his hind legs, and having me pull him back all the time from people. the walk was easier, but he was enjoying all the smells and sights and sounds. He just couldn't keep still. It was funny, but made wrangling him a challenge.

Another walking-with-Taz moment was not long before I left, we went out to a park a little way away from Jennys parents place, and as we walked around the park we walked under a particularly cool looking tree. And what do I find?

We didn't take it home, but it was a random thing to find in the middle of a park while walking a dog of his namesake.

Strange toys were apparent at Kalamazoo too. Jenny had a funny idea of taking funny photos of a toy that I'd brought along. I don't have many stuffed toys, and recently I had received a Blastoise from my friends Aaron and Caryl. So I took him.

The family was a little confused that I had brought it with me to Jennys family dinner at Fletchers Pub. "What is it? What's it from? Is that a native Australian Animal?" Yes, that was an actual question from Jennys Grandmother, the lovely lady. It was fun seeing her at Jennys Birthday and I swear she was putting the moves onto me. "I'm sorry, but your granddaughter has already scooped up my heart." I dunno if I said that to her, but it would've been a great line.

Not to say that Jenny is an Organ harvester. Though she has been watching a lot of Dexter, so she may have learnt a thing or two...

As for TV Shows, Jenny has been engrossed in watching Outrageous Fortune. We watched as much of it as possible so that she was able to understand most of the terms that come along, and because she's gotten used to the accent she likes to have the two of us count to ten in Kiwi Accent. She loves it so much and hopes to get her mum into the show too. I'm waiting to see what her mum says.

One thing Jennys family and I didn't do last time I was there was try Vegemite. Now, it's something that had to be done because I got them interested in this anomoly, this Black Tar that smells so gross, but is eaten with toast by Australians.

So Jenny and I trekked to World Market and had a search for it, because I hadn't brought my own jar along. Which is a shame because I spent $9 on a Small Jar of the delicious beer by-product. Ridiculous! While I was there, I showed Jenny where to find the Tim Tams (which are just packaged as "Arnotts Originals"). Jenny likes Tim Tams, thanks to Girl Clumsy, who happily sent her gifts which included said Tim Tams.

But the Vegemite, when tested, got a few funny looks but no looks of absolute disgust. "It's a little salty, but doesn't taste like anything in particular". Which is fair enough, but I think I just didn't spread enough on there. Jenny was really scared to try it because it stank so much. One time I kissed her after having a slice of toast and Vegemite and she's like "OMG EWW EWW EWW BRUSH YOUR TEETH EWW EWW EWW".


Now there's a few things in America that Jenny and I did that we don't have here in Australia. For one: Halloween. Now I know it isn't impossible to do over here, but it's just that it doesn't have a big following, because it's an American Holiday and all.

So Jenny took up the chance to go Pumpkin Hunting and Carving. So we went to Gene's Pumpkin Patch. Gene has a farm a little way out of town, and his farm really gets into the theme of Pumpkins by having just about everything painted Orange. He even wears an Orange Shirt and Orange Hat.

We had a quick browse around the farm, and found ourselves a couple of pumpkins that looked good (According to Jenny, I saw Orange and just didn't know what to do with myself) and took em home for some carving. And with a little knife I dug into that bastard only to find out how bloody stinky these pumpkins are. There's stringy bits and bucketloads of seeds and you gotta scrape em all out with this curved plate and it's gross and stinky, but FUN! Like playing with mud. Only it's pumpkin.

We carved out some pretty good ones, if I do say so myself.

The other thing that I can think of (because I forgot the second thing I was going to say (I think it was something to do with Squirrels)) that they do that we don't do is DRIVE THROUGH BANK TELLERS. I don't mean ATMs that you can drive up to and push a few buttons and wait for the BEEP BOOP BOOP to say that your money is out and you can take your receipt and whatever, I mean PNEUMATIC TUBES AND A PERSON AT THE OTHER END OF A RADIO TO SERVE YOU! MADNESS! I sat there in the passengers seat looking through the sunroof and watching the capsule with Jennys Bank Details fly up into the ceiling and come back down with a receipt for her to sign and to send back up the tube to come back down with an envelope with cash and another receipt and her bank card!

MADNESS!


Now there's more that I've missed because in the flowing rant that I have here it just hasn't come up, but it has been a fucking fantastic 3 weeks with Jenny. It was really hard having to leave, because she's just so wonderful to be around and that hole that one feels when they're alone? She fills it perfectly. I came home only to be happy that I'm off a fucking plane (Sore neck again) and I went to bed feeling unnatural because I couldn't cuddle her again.

But, fingers crossed that something terrible doesn't happen, Jenny can come here to Brisbane in March and we can cruise around like we're on top of the world, even though it's not quite the arse end of the world (but you can see Logan from a safe distance *Badumtish*).

This is my favourite photo of her. I Love Her. And I miss her already.