Randomness and a bit of London Calling

[matgb]

Right then.  First off, on Friday morning I'm travelling to Luton to fly to Muenster for the weekend.  KoHIT beckons.  Monday, I fly back, and go to nadriel's place for the rest of the week (again).  So that's a week in South London, but with a guy that's working full time.  Ergo, I want a) stuff to do in the daytime and b) stuff to do when he's busy gaming and stuff.  So...

London Calling

Anyone free during the week want to meet up at any point, gimme a shout? This includes evenings as, well, I plan to enjoy myself while up there. On Friday, we're going to synth_culture, and he's arranging a bulk entry group discount thing as he's celebrating getting the job &c, which is cool.  So go tell him who you are so we can get in cheap, right?  Planning to travel back Saturday or Sunday, not sure yet (see below). Next up, like my new icon? I nicked it, naturally.

Icons, LJ and games designers

K, a few weeks back someone (I think theweaselking linked to a post by wickedthought, which I liked. Using my usual procedure of reading around, liking the content, etc, I went to his profile to add him. Name=John Wick. Bells ring in my dozy head. John Wick. Wasn't that the designer of L5R? Hmm, yes, it appears it is. L5R? The game that inspired Doomtown, changed the way CCGs work, underpins AEG and without which Warlord (and thus KoHIT) wouldn't exist? Yup, that's the one. Yesterday, he posts about the elections, says he voted Libertarian, and I have a brief discussion on the merits of Expressive voting with a different commenter, _grimtales_, one of whose replies includes said Kipling icon. So, I go to look at his other pics as, y'know, Kipling for the win. And then I look at his profile. James Desborough. Hmm, another name I know. Wait, Munchkin's guide to powergaming. So I trawl at his site, what do I find? Well, y'know how I don't do RPGs anymore? I may be tempted.  

Neverwhere

It's a free download at his site, Postmortem Studios. In fact, it's got a lot of background stuff as well, so non-gamers like faeriecween and jantshira may be interested regardless as, y'know, it's Neverwhere. 

New Friends

Then, on a completely different note, I put up a few posts on radio4listeners about Clue and the bloody Archers. ginasketch managed a completely OT comment (meant for a different comm), which lead me to stupid_free, which may beat metaquotes in amusement provision, with added snark. Gina runs the oldharrysgame comm, and is making an animation based on the genius show that Andy Hamilton created. So amusement+more amusement=new extra friend. I'm supposed to be trying to cut back on that, I keep breaking the 500 barrier and having to delete some old syndicated feeds. Why does LJ stop displaying your friends in a list once you break 500? Given more than half of mine are feeds, that's really annoying, especially given that it replaces them with a link to a directory search that only works for paid users (I'm moving a lot of my lesser read feeds to matbowles because, well, might as well make use of the reading account, right?). Have also met a Goddess of Small Things and a few more politicos (on that subject, anyone interested in UK politics not reading publicansdecoy go friend now, y'hear?) Bought 2000AD today (as always), and there's a full page add for

Dreddcon: 6.5% proof!

To be held in Oxford at Jericho Tavern, Walton Street, noon till 6pm, Sat 18th November. MacNeil, Jock, Bisley and a few other droids to be in attendance, and it's a good excuse to visit Oxford as I've a) never been and b) am on that side of the country anyway. Plus, y'know, it's in a pub. And free. Any takers?

So, I've got a week and a bit off work, I'm off to see nearly_everyone in Germany, then spending a week bumming around London and LJ has provided me much amusement thus far last few days. Also, strictlytrue also went to Ottery, and has pictures. LJ's cool, most of the time. It's just a damn shame that it's dying.

Oh yeah, the beau_bo_d_or_fd feed has started working again after the LJ crash, Rumsfeld has resigned and the Dems have retaken Congress.  I'm off to try and work out what the swing was...

Comments

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

"I'm off to see [Bad username in LJ tag] in Germany"

Who!?!??? My curious, procrastinating mind needs to know!!!

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Dreddcon: Date? I know that Dredddon might represent the end of the world as we know it, but I'd like to know by which date I should be able to say Armageddon outofhere.

[matgb]

nearly_everyone, I goofed the tag in Deepest Sender. There are people there with LJs, but they mostly write in German or Italian, so not much good to read.

Hopefully, Roberto will be there, Arne's organising, some USians are travelling. It'll be cool.

[matgb]

18th, I forgot to put the date in, but did say Sat after next in a vaguely not at all clear manner. Fixed.

As for the joke? Bad. So very bad...

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

:) I'm always up for a drink, and I was a 2000AD reader some years ago. Can I come?

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

actually wieselkind runs the oldharrysgame comm. But I created a snark feature there called "mock the fundie."

That reminds me...I need to find a stupid fundamentalist quote for November's MTF.

I did not realize your friends list was quite so big! *aims not to get bumped off*

[matgb]

Oh, I tend to never bump real people unless they stop updating or decide they no longer want to know me. As 9 of my friends are me in various guises, and I've over 200 feeds, much of which are redundant doubling, it's not really a problem, I just need to move the feeds elsewhere, especially the ones I don't read much.

Any specific type of mocking required? There's a lot going around today with the results and all.

[matgb]

Absolutely. It'll require organising as I'm not (currently) planning to drive up, so figuring out non-car methods of getting from Merton to Oxford will be fun. I'm sure it'll be easy, but I don't normally get to use public transport, Devon doesn't believe in it...

And what's with the 'used to' thing? Everyone should read it, it's suitably daft (despite Dredd)

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

Well basically, just find an idiot and quote him/her and the source its from. This is septemer's MTF

http://community.livejournal.com/oldharrysgame/2803.html

and this is October's:

http://community.livejournal.com/oldharrysgame/4108.html

If you can find an idiot, I hereby give you permission to post and mock them. If not, no worries I take great pleasure in doing it myself. *evil grin*

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

oh yeah...it has to be a religious fundamentalist of course.

Bah...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

I really should make a Dreddcon one of these years. I've been reading it since I was 3 :P

Re: Bah...

[matgb]

See, that's a lot longer than me, I only started reading properly when I first left home.

Weekend after next out? I only found out about it today, but as I'm sortof in the area...

[two-brains.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be working in a school arround mornington crescent (I cant get off the tube without giggling...)

if you fancy a beer one afternoon or evening in that general area, then it would be most welcome!

Hopefully I should actually make SC this month for once too...

[matgb]

Cool. You still on the same number as last time we met up?

And yeah, whenever I go to Camden I have a tendency to walk there to get the train home, just because. I took pictures for my Mum as well, she didn't believe it actually existed.

All going well your end?

[jackthomas.livejournal.com]

Maybe its time to get an RSS reader Matt...

They really are quite useful.

maybe even have a look at google reader - so it will keep it all online for you?

[matgb]

Trust me, as soon as I have broadband, I install a decent reader. I'm trying Google Reader (it's much better than Bloglines), but it's also annoyingly slow and bandwidth intensive.

Feeds are great, but a feedreader requires more than a 40Kbps phoneline that disconnects and redials as I type comments.

(oh, if'n you've the chance, I'm still stuck on the 'what he told her' bit on my previous post about autopope, pretty sure you said you were a fan?)

Re: Bah...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Can't afford to do it, got to get ready for Dragonmeet in December.

[jackthomas.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! Livejournal is a great way of keeping track of people and friendslocked posts etc, but it gets a bit unwieldy when you try to monitor feeds through it I find!

Afraid I have not read that one!

[two-brains.livejournal.com]

yeppers, same number (same phone too... I really ought to get round to upgrading, it's been 6 years or something now!) so give me a bell & we'll sort something out. I can't do wednesdays though.

I missed Mikes post about SC... is there a big plan? if so I may try and join you. I'm determined to go this month!

Things going really well here at the moment, really enjoying the course (particularly the art! always nice to have an excuse to play with paints & plastercene!) and the time I've been in school so far. I'm just about maintaining a decent social life even with all the work I'm being expected to do (I accomplish this mainly buy not doing the work).