helsmuth

2011-02-15T03:33:00.001+10:00

Monster Slayer

In a society where vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night subsist parasitically on the blood of innocents, hunting such creatures can be a lucrative career. When citizens are faced with a threat far beyond the capability of their local militia to handle, they would willingly pay a hefty ransom to have it taken care of. That is where the professional slayer steps in: an individual familiar with a wide variety of monsters and trained in the effective means of killing them.
Hit Die: D8
Requirements:

Alignment: Any non-evil
Base Attack Bonus: +4
Skill: 8 ranks in Profession (slayer)
Psionics: Must have a power point reserve of at least 1 power point.
Special: Must have the Collector of Stories skill trick

Class Skills:

Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (local) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (sexual) (Cha), Profession (slayer) (Wis), Psicraft (Int), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex)

Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier

Table: Monster Slayer

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Powers Known
1	+0	+2	+2	+2	Slayer Contracts, Slayer Lore	—
2	+1	+3	+3	+3		+1 level of existing manifesting class
3	+2	+3	+3	+3	Detect Evil	+1 level of existing manifesting class
4	+3	+4	+4	+4		+1 level of existing manifesting class
5	+3	+4	+4	+4	Aligned Attack	+1 level of existing manifesting class
6	+4	+5	+5	+5		+1 level of existing manifesting class
7	+5	+5	+5	+5	Speak with Dead	+1 level of existing manifesting class
8	+6	+6	+6	+6		+1 level of existing manifesting class
9	+6	+6	+6	+6		+1 level of existing manifesting class
10	+7	+7	+7	+7	Track Evil	+1 level of existing manifesting class

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monster Slayers gain no additional proficiency in any weapon or armor.

Powers Known: Beginning at 2nd level, Monster Slayers gain additional power points per day and access to new powers as if they had also gained a level in whatever manifesting class they belonged to before they added the prestige class. They do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus feats, metapsionic or item creation feats, psicrystal special abilities, and so on).
If a character had more than one manifesting class before he became an Monster Slayer, he must decide to which class he adds the new level of Monster Slayer for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level.
If the character did not belong to a manifesting class before taking this prestige class (for example, if he was a soulknife or a ranger with the Wild Talent feat), he does not gain manifesting levels.

Slayer Contracts: By making a Profession (slayer) check, Monster Slayers can find out about any bounties offered for slaying monsters in the area. The size of the bounty reflects the degree of success, but it is normally limited by the wealth of the population center (the citizens of a thorp can't afford to hire a Monster Slayer, no matter how desperate they are).

Slayer Lore: Whenever a Monster Slayer fights a creature, he may make a Knowledge check based on its type, as described on page 78 of the Players Handbook, provided that he has at least one rank in the appropriate Knowledge skill. The DC of the check is 10 + the monster's hit dice.
If the check is successful, he receives a +1 insight bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls against that creature type for the remainder of the combat. For every 5 points that his check result exceeds the DC, this bonus increases by +1, up to a maximum of +5.
The Monster Slayer can only make one Knowledge check per creature type per combat. If he fights creatures of multiple types during the same combat, he can make one Knowledge check per type, thereby possibly gaining different bonuses against different opponents.
The Monster Slayer can use his bonus from the Collector of Stories skill trick for this check, but only once per encounter.
This benefit is an extraordinary ability.

Detect Evil (Sp): Starting at 3rd level, a monster slayer can use detect evil at will. His caster level equals his class level.

Aligned Attack: To use this ability, you must expend your psionic focus. When you make a successful melee or ranged attack, you deal an extra 1d6 points of damage, and your attack is treated as good-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.You must decide whether or not to use this ability prior to making an attack. If your attack misses, you still expend your psionic focus.

Speak with Dead (Sp): Starting at 7th level, a monster slayer can use speak with dead once per day. His caster level equals his class level.

Track Evil (Su): A 10th level monster slayer can use the Track feat to track an evil creature by its lingering evilaura, making a Wisdom (or Survival) check to find or follow a track. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10 (nomatter what kind of surface holds the scent). The DC for tracking a normal aura increases by 2 every10 minutes, for tracking a strong aura by 2 every hour, and for tracking an overwhelming aura by 2 every day. This ability otherwise follows the rules for the Track feat. The monster slayer can ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.

2011-01-20T10:58:00.001+10:00

Awaken

An awakened animal gets 3d6 Intelligence, +1d3 Charisma, and +2 HD. Its type becomes magical beast (augmented animal). An awakened animal can’t serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.

A bummer about that last sentence, but anyway this remains a fun spell that nevertheless creates headaches for the DM.

The augmented subtype states:

A creature with the augmented subtype usually has the traits of its current type, but the features of its original type.

An animal has the following features:

—d8 Hit Dice.
—Base attack bonus equal to 3/4 total Hit Dice (as cleric).
—Good Fortitude and Reflex saves (certain animals have different good saves).
—Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die.

A magical beast possesses the following traits:

—Darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision.
—Proficient with its natural weapons only.
—Proficient with no armor.
—Magical beasts eat, sleep, and breathe.

So let's take an example: a giant squid with 18HD

Huge Magical Beast (Augmented Animal, Aquatic)
Hit Dice: 20d8+26 (116 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: Swim 80 ft. (16 squares)
Armor Class: 17 (–2 size, +3 Dex, +6 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +15/+35
Attack: Tentacle +22 melee (1d6+9)
Full Attack: 10 tentacles +22 melee (1d6+9) and bite +16 melee (2d8+4)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./15 ft. (30 ft. with tentacle)
Special Attacks: Constrict 1d6+9, improved grab
Special Qualities: Ink cloud, jet, low-light vision, darkvision 60ft
Saves: Fort +13, Ref +15, Will +7
Abilities: Str 28, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 5
Skills: Listen +18, Spot +18, Swim +25
Feats: Alertness, Diehard, Endurance, Toughness (2), Power Attack, Blind-Fight
Challenge Rating: 12

Since this creature could now potentially be advanced by character class, there is the question of Level Adjustment. But I'd rather not go there ...

2011-01-09T18:11:00.000+10:00

You look around the dismal hut and jump as you see three ugly faces gawping at you! The room is untidy and contains little more than a straw mattress and a low table. The three creatures, a group of BLACK ELVES, are staring vacantly at you. A heavy, sweet smell hits your nostrils and explains their lethargy. They are puffing at a hookah containing Smoking Weed. One of them gathers himself together enough to talk to you and asks you to join them. What will you do?

2010-12-17T12:34:00.002+10:00

Poison Elves

(originally posted at the RPG Stack Exchange)
A new player character race for D&D 3.5, modeled after the Poison Elves of Drew Hayes' comic book series.

The diametrical opposite of the Grugach, Poison Elves are the urbanized, hookah-smoking assassins of Elvenkind. Prone to substance abuse and impulsive actions, they are nevertheless very capable survivors. Most Poison Elves are Neutral Evil alignment, and their preferred class is Rogue. They are originally descended from the Qualinesti, but were disaffected with the insular nature of their bretheren. Living in Human cities, they gradually developed into a separate race. Many expect the Poison Elves to breed themselves out of existence by intermarrying with Humans, but it is little known that many of them also have Shadar-Kai parentage. LA+0

These traits are in addition to the high elf traits, except where noted:
+2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma. These adjustments replace the high elf’s ability score adjustments.
Immunity to nonmagical poisons. This replaces the high elf's immunity to sleep spells and similar magical effects.
+2 racial bonus on saving throws against all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases. This replaces the high elf's +2 bonus on saving throws against enchantment spells or effects.
The poison elf is not automatically proficient with any weapons. This trait replaces the high elf’s weapon proficiency.
Automatic Languages: Common, Elven. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages, such as Druidic). This trait replaces the high elf’s automatic and bonus languages.
Favored Class: Rogue. This trait replaces the high elf’s favored class.

My acknowledgements go to John McKnight & Kwi Kim, who introduced elf (poison) as a player character race for 2nd edition D&D, back in the summer of 1995. I would also like to acknowledge the members of the RPG Stack Exchange for their valuable contributions.

LiveJournal community

2010-11-23T15:48:00.000+10:00

Desperate & Dateless?

2010-11-12T10:24:00.001+10:00

Challenge Ratings and Encounter Level
(originally posted at the RPG Stack Exchange)

The Challenge Rating of a monster is a very useful guide for judging the difficulty of an encounter, but it is not an exact science. Experience with your own players will tell you how tough an encounter they can handle, and what kinds of encounters they are best at.

When the entire party can gang up on a single monster (even one with multiple attacks) tactics on the battlefield can be less important than when they are outnumbered. However, the more monsters you have, the less certain the estimate of Encounter Level (EL) / "CR Equivalency" becomes. You should also be careful when advancing monsters (adding extra hit dice to increase their CR), as this too can lead to some nasty surprises.

I find this online calculator to be very useful for estimating EL, especially when I'm using monsters with a range of different CR's in a single encounter: http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm

As far as multiple encounters per day are concerned, this too depends on a number of things. A fighter or a warlock can likely go for longer than a wizard, but even they likely have limited use magic items (particularly healing potions) that they will run out of eventually. When they are near a settlement where they can go shopping and are likely to get an uninterrupted 8 hours of rest, it isn't a problem. However, when they're deep in the Underdark, surrounded by enemies, things can get a bit tough.

Rather than having multiple EL 4 encounters in a row, you should aim for variety. Table 3-2 Encounter Difficulty, in the 3.5 edition DMG, recommends the following:

10% easy (EL lower than party level)
20% "easy if handled properly" (whatever that means...)
50% challenging (EL equals Average Party Level)
15% very difficult (EL 1-4 higher)
5% overwhelming (EL 5+ higher)

In Pathfinder, the range of encounters is a little tighter:

Easy (APL –1)
Average (=APL)
Challenging (APL +1)
Hard (APL +2)
Epic (APL +3)

(APL = Average Party Level)

However, I think that the advice still holds: don't aim to make every enounter "average". Now and then, throw something "epic" at them to keep 'em from getting too cocky. You should drop some pretty heavy hints, though, that they need to run away to avoid a TPK (especially the first time you do it). In a level-based game like D&D, it's always good to have something to strive for.

2010-11-02T16:28:00.006+10:00

Auldhame
Gnod Yriah and his army of 1000 orcs had captured a village on the river Brallen, 70 miles downriver from Marchion. They used it as a staging point for raids on neighboring thorps and hamlets, as well as blockading the river and capturing any merchant caravans or ships that came past. Yriah, being a barbarian, is illiterate (as are most of his army). However, the adepts (orc shaman) are not.

The village itself has a diameter of 1000ft, so roughly 18 acres (785,398 sq ft)

A village has an adult population of 401-900, with 2 adults per acre (43,560 sq ft) of crops

450 acres of arable land (150 acres left fallow + 150 acres of winter wheat), irrigation ditches

14 acres of forest and 18 acres of meadow

I created this map using Campaign Cartographer: City Designer 3 CD-ROM and exported it to PDF.

I installed the printer driver for the HP DesignJet 4500 postscript plotter and defined a custom page size of 1066.80mm wide (the maximum) by 1930.40mm, equivalent to 42in by 77.8in. The size of the map was somewhat limited by the gaming table that we play on.

This gave us squares that were pretty close to 1in, perfect size for our miniatures. We use a scale of 1in = 20ft (each miniature represents 16 medium-sized creatures) for mass combat, using the Mongoose Open Mass Combat System.

2010-10-08T17:29:00.004+10:00

Affiliation Contacts

Helena d'Mezzo
http://minties.deviantart.com/art/Zara-45732245
female half-drow bard 1 / cleric 9 of Oghma
Affiliation Score: 28 (superstar)
Init+0; Senses: Spot+4, Listen+4, Darkvision 60ft; AL: TN; Spd: 20ft (run x3)
Hp: 48 (1d6+9d8+10)
AC: 23 (+9 armor, +3 shield, +1 natural)
Atk: ranged +7/+2 (mwk comp shortbow 1d10, 19-20/x3, range incr. 120ft)

SA: 5/day - Turn Undead (Su) {turn level 7, turn damage 2d6+9}
SQ: immunity to sleep, +2 save vs enchantment, Bardic Knowledge +2,
Calm Emotion (Su), Healing Hymn (Sp), Inspire Courage (Su), Inspire Competence (Su)

St: 13, Dx: 10, Co: 10, In: 12, Wi: 17, Ch: 14; SV: F+7 /R+6 /W+12
Skills: Bluff+8, Diplomacy+21, Disguise+13, GatherInfo+9, Perform+7, SenseMotive+10
Feats: Versatile Performer (CAdv 112), Negotiator, Wanderer's Diplomacy (PHB2 85), Landlord
Languages: Common, Elven, Undercommon, Guild Sign Language (Amazing Chicanery Troupe)
Domains: Trickery, Travel
Cleric Spells (CL 9, SV 13+lvl):
5th — teleport^D, flame strike
4th — dimension door^D, delay death, revenance
3rd — fly^D, chain of eyes, invisibility purge, interplanar message, searing light
2nd — invisibility^D, make whole, silence x2, shield other
1st — disguise self^D, sanctuary, shield of faith, protection from evil, detect evil x2
0th — Amanuensis, Purify Food and Drink, Read Magic
EQ: +1 full plate armor, +1 heavy shield, amulet of natural armor +1, +2 gloves of dexterity, +1 vest of resistance, pearl of speech (orcish), wand of cure light wounds (45 charges), 993gp and 5sp cash

Helena travels between the theaters that have been established in various cities throughout Eastrealm, passing on instructions from the guildmaster Lukwind, and collecting any information and gossip that the performers may have gathered. She is almost always in disguise when she performs this function, preferring to keep her drow heritage a secret. She generally uses disguise self or invisibility to conceal her comings and goings, reserving teleport and dimension door for emergencies.

Bolias Faldar
male dwarf expert 5
Affiliation Score: 4 (bit player)
Init-1; Senses: Darkvision 60ft; AL: TN; Spd: 20ft
Hp: 26 (5d6+8)
AC: 18 (-1 dex, +9 armor) or AC 22 fighting defensively
SQ: Stonecunning, +2 save vs poison, spells & spell-like effects
St: 13, Dx: 8, Co: 13, In: 12, Wi: 14, Ch: 13; SV: F+2 /R+0 /W+6
Skills: Heal(9)+13, Know:arch&eng(5)+6, Know:dungeon(5)+6,
Know:geog(5)+6, Know:nature(5)+8, Perform:stringed(9)+10,
Search(9)+10 {stonework +12}, Survival(9)+17
Feats: Self-sufficient, Toughness
Languages: Common, Dwarven, Undercommon
EQ: +1 full plate armor, +2 shortsword of throwing, ring of sustenance, lyre of building

At the moment, Bolias drives the tunneling stronghold that the party uses to get around. His stonecunning and survival skills, as well as his knowledge of geography and dungeoneering, are vital to keep from getting lost. Someday, he hopes that Lukwind will put him in charge of running one of the guild's theaters.

2010-09-15T18:14:00.002+10:00

An Affiliation for Bards
The rules for affiliations can be found in chapter 7 of the Player's Handbook II.

Name: The Amazing Chicanery Troupe
Symbol: A white snake, with red eyes and tongue

Motto: Trickery is mightier than the fist
Members: Lukwind, his cohort and followers
Secrets: Lukwind's identity as a Changeling; Rohit's identity as a Vanara; Helena's identity as a half-Drow
Type: Business
Scale: 1 (neighborhood)
Capital: 1

Criterion: Affiliation Score Modifier
Character level: +1/2 PC’s level
Charisma 13 or higher: +1
Bard: +1
Can cast 3rd-level or higher illusion spells: +1
Can cast 3rd-level or higher enchantment spells: +1
5-9 ranks in Perform, Tumble, Sleight of Hand or Gather Information: +1 per skill
10 or more ranks in Perform, Tumble, Sleight of Hand or Gather Information: +2 per skill
Extraordinary performance as part of the troupe: +1 per performance
Has no ranks in Perform, Tumble, Sleight of Hand or Gather Information: -2
Charisma 8 or lower: -2
Failed to show for a performance: -2 per performance

Titles, Benefits, and Duties:
Characters who participate in a performance of the troupe do not earn money as they usually would for the Perform skill. Instead, this money is assumed to go into the coffers of the troupe. In return, members are fed and given a place to sleep. The troupe is not a wealthy organization - its prestige, particularly that of Lukwind, its founder, is what attracts new members to join. The guild does not charge dues - participation in its performances is all that it requires.

If a character expects to be away from her responsibilities while pursuing other goals (such as adventuring), she can ask her guild to waive these service requirements while she is away, but in return for that favor she must agree to pay the guild 10% of the value of any income or treasure gained on her expedition.

If the troupe is unable to perform for an entire week then the affiliation capital drops by 1. An affiliation whose capital falls to –1 is disbanded and cannot be refounded for a period of 1d4 months.

Guildmasters are expected to spend at least 8 consecutive hours per week dealing with administrative matters and interacting with other guild members. However, because of their enhanced status, they are no longer required to attend every performance of the troupe. Their duties increasingly involve scriptwriting, composing, choreographing and directing.

Affiliation Score	Title: Benefits and Duties
0 or lower	No affiliation.
1-3	Understudy or backstage crew (costumes, scenery, etc.)
4-10	Bit player: walk-on parts or a member of the chorus. Obliged to participate in the performances and rehearsals of the troupe. Generally, this requires 1d4–1 days (8 hours per day) each week.
11-20	Thespian: plays a leading role. You begin to build a loyal fanbase in any locale where you have made an Extraordinary performance. +2 bonus to Reputation checks for being recognized.
21-29	Superstar: headlining act. Your arrival in a town or city is a major event. Due to your command of public opinion, the authorities are far more indulgent with you than usual. Fans flock to you whenever you make an appearance. (mob with attitude=Friendly; DC 20 Perform check to make them Helpful; DC 60 to make them Fanatical. On a natural 1, they riot)
30 or higher	Auteur: your innovations are at the forefront of the development of the art form. Many of the world's top performers would give their left arm for the chance to work with you, but equally many are insanely jealous of your success. Whenever knowledge of your arrival has spread throughout an urban centre, the DM will secretly roll 1d6 for each of the highest-level bards, rogues and experts (2 of each in a small city, 3 in a large city, or 4 in a metropolis): 1-2: jealousy 3-4: indifference 5-6: fawning Jealousy (hostile): this NPC might be perfectly nice to you in public, but they are secretly plotting to have you assassinated or kidnapped. Indifference: this NPC feels that you are overrated, and will tell anyone who cares to listen. But they wish you no ill will. Fawning (helpful): this NPC will perform favours for you, in exchange for the opportunity to rehearse and perform with your guild. If you choose, you can recruit them as a follower or cohort. Otherwise, they will return to their normal lives once the favour has been reciprocated.

Executive Powers: Gift, craft, pariah.

Members:

Lukwind, a changeling bard and master orator
Rohit, a vanara ninja and accomplished acrobat
Helena, a half-drow cleric who has a way with words

Noirin, a dwarven weaponsmith with a deep baritone voice
Talabelia, a half-elven tinker with a repertoire of card tricks, shell games, etc.
Limji, a kobold rogue who specializes in traps, as well as tumbling
Bolias, a dwarven citharist who drives the mobile stronghold

Enemies and Allies:

Thurstan Brightstone, the priest of Hermes in the city of Marchion, has given Lukwind's troupe his patronage.
Deborah and her band of pirates have become the sworn enemies of Lukwind's adventuring party

Background, Goals, and Dreams:

There are many Rokugani stories about the snake, the most popular being the “legend of the white snake”. In the story, two snake-demons, one White and one Red, assumed the form of two very beautiful women who came to a small town one day and met a student known as “Hui Sang”. The White Snake demon fell in love with Hui Sang. They got married, raise a family, and had a new born baby. with the Red snake working as their maid.

One day, a Shugenja who was also an exorcist known as Fa Hoi (literally, Dharma Sea) arrived at the village temple and noticed that there was something unusual at Hui Sang’s house. The exorcist monk considered the wife to be evil and waged a big battle with her. She lost and was confined under the Temple of Shinsei in Kim Sang. The husband died shortly after with a broken heart.

The couple left behind a orphaned son, who proved to be a very intelligent student with great wisdoms. Twenty years of hard studying enabled him to pass the civil service examination with flying colours, and he was appointed as a senior officer in the Imperial Court. When the Emperor heard of his parent’s stories, he was furious. He ordered Fa Hoi to be arrested and punished. The mother White Snake was released and the father was given a great posthumous honour.

If you are a snake, then, you are cunning, beautiful, attractive, with great wisdom. You are not afraid of difficulties, are determined to success and will finally achieve your goal.

2010-09-01T14:56:00.003+10:00

Planescape: Torment

Retrospective by Kieron Gillen (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

More lengthy, academic analysis of the game:

Carr, Dianne (2003) Genre and Affect in Silent Hill and Planescape Torment
Game Studies 3(1) ISSN:1604-7982

The PC game has been re-released on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. However, you'll probably need to install the fixpack to run it successfully on XP or Vista.

Planescape: Torment has been released on GOG.com

It is their second most-requested game title.

GemRB Game Engine

open source re-implementation of BioWare's Infinity engine, 1998-2002

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gemrb/files/

http://www.moddb.com/mods/gemrb-the-infinity-engine-clone

http://linux.prinas.si/gemrb/doku.php

http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showforum=91

Pages of Pain

Troy Denning's book

2010-06-08T13:08:00.006+10:00

D&D em português do Brasil

No próximo sábado, eu vou jogar Masmorras e Dragões com meus amigos. Nós rolamos os dados e contamos histórias. Eles descem para o subsolo, mas não dragões já.

Depois, nós fizemos um churrasco de canguru e bebemos cervejas. Mas talvez demais ... está tudo bem, porque eu não dirijo. Eu viajo de trem para a Costa Dourada.

Where in the world is Gutboy Barrelhouse?

Je ne détruis pas le bugbear

2010-05-22T10:52:00.003+10:00

Opposed Haggling Rolls

My simple rules for bargaining in D20, and why you shouldn't use them:

player rolls either Bluff or Diplomacy (or Charisma check)

opposed by the merchant's Profession or Sense Motive (or Wisdom)

If the player is buying, subtract the first roll from the second and add to 100%. That is the adjustment to the final price (for example, player rolls 44 and merchant rolls 18, so the player pays 18-44+100 = 74% of the standard PHB price)

If the player is selling, subtract the second roll from the first and add to 50% (eg. 44 - 18 + 50 = 76% of standard price)

As you can see from the above example, the player could potentially buy an item and then sell it back to the merchant for a 2% profit. However, I make the player roll 1d4+1 for the number of hours that it takes to find a buyer or a seller (a Gather Information check with DC 10 + 1 per 1000gp value). So they need to decide whether to take the standard price (or 50% if selling an item), or to spend their valuable time haggling over a few gold pieces.

So, what if you don't have NPC stats for every merchant or potential buyer in town? If you know what level they are, you can generally assume a skill bonus of level +3 (ranks) +2 (stat) +3 (skill focus), so +9 for a first level merchant up to +28 for a 20th level merchant (highest level commoner in a large city is 4d4+9) although you might want to factor in stat gains, magic items and Epic Skill Focus at that level.

A quicker option is to just take the caster level (of a magic item) or the price/1000gp as the skill bonus for the opposed roll. So for a +2 sword you would roll 1d20+6

These rules are fine for occasional use, but if the players are trying to shift a dragon's treasure hoard then it could take them weeks (and many fidgety calculations) to arrive at a final price. So my advice is to be stubborn: even though it seems unrealistic that the PCs always buy at 100% and sell at 50% of standard prices, it will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

2010-04-15T21:31:00.000+10:00

Rules Light, it sure ain’t

In case you're wondering what these OSR gamers are on about, this is the contents of my game bag:

netbook and power supply
dice
pens, pencils, dry-erase markers, calculator, notepaper and graph paper
rulebooks: DMG, Rules Compendium, PHB2, Ultimate Toolbox (Aeg), Common Ground I
monsters: MM1, MM2, MM3, MM4, MM5 & Fiend Folio
(usually only 3 of the above, tailored to the encounters that I have planned)
game module of the moment (in this case, Splintered Peace) as well as relevant issues of Dungeon Magazine for any side-adventures I have prepared
portfolio of player handouts: maps, pictures of monsters and NPC's that they might encounter

15.4kg (34lbs) on the bathroom scales - too much for carry-on baggage, that's for sure. Enough to stress the rear suspension of my mate's ute, not to mention the risk of a dislocated shoulder or slipped disc!

But that isn't even the full story. I rely on my players to provide the following:

dry-erase board with 1 inch squares
an extensive collection of D&D miniatures
dinner and snacks
multiple copies of the Player's Handbook, as well as a copy of the Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, Arms & Equipment Guide and Complete Arcane
their character sheets, dice and writing implements
most of them now bring their own laptops

Of course, if I really wanted to, I could just bring my netbook and run the whole game off PDF, even using a program to generate random numbers instead of rolling dice. But where's the fun in that?

2010-03-30T17:04:00.008+10:00

A Crisis of Population Density
A static, hereditary aristocracy seems illogical in a world where adventurers accumulate wealth and power in epic proportions. My aim is to describe a setting that is much more an extrapolation of the D&D rules, rather than an emulation of a pseudo-Medieval, low fantasy setting.

Which is not to say that Helsmuth and Eastrealm do not contain pseudo-Medieval elements and an aristocratic class. However, that is not the driving force of civilization. Instead, the basic building block is the adventurer who achieves "name level" and establishes a stronghold. This harks back to 1st edition AD&D, which is part of why I like it, but is still just as relevant in 3rd edition (particularly with the Landlord Feat as described in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, and the Leadership feat as described in the DMG).

Many sourcebooks such as A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe and Dungeon Masters Guide 2 are founded on the assumption that the default D&D setting is a simulation of medieval Europe: a rigidly structured social hierarchy with the nobility/church at the top and serfs at the bottom.

However, to me D&D is much closer in feel to the wild west: isolated communities surrounded by vast tracts of badlands and untamed wilderness inhabited by hostile "savages". The local sheriff and his deputies try to enforce the law as best they can, but many outlaws have little respect for the conventions of civilized men.

Feudalism 3.5

At 9th level, a character can take the Landlord Feat. This provides funds to build or expand a stronghold, starting at 25,000gp and increasing each level. Additionally, any money of his own that the character spends on his stronghold is matched by the landlord's contribution.

In the case of fighters, this feat represents a noble title granted by their liege lord. The character then has a feudal obligation to maintain an army, defend his territory from monsters, and come to his lord's aid in time of war.
In some cases, the noble title might not be earned through impressive deeds, but might be inherited from a deceased relative.
For clerics and paladins, the feat represents labor and materials supplied by their religious organization, for the purposes of establishing a place of worship. Of course, there are no shortage of warlike deities in D&D, and so many of the military obligations also apply. The stronghold often includes facilities for the construction of magic items (healing potions, and the like).
Monks might establish a monastery in a remote area, or a martial school within an established settlement.
Successful Bards construct their own theatre. The funds from the Landlord feat represent the sponsorship of wealthy patrons of the arts.
Thieves build a secret hideout for their organised crime syndicate, filled with traps and secret passages. If there are several powerful rogues in the city, then each will claim a district of the city as their territory. See Gary Gygax's Canting Crew for more details.
Wizards seek a quiet location for arcane study and contemplation. Generally, they are loathe to be disturbed, and protect their privacy with a wide range of magical defenses.

Barbarians, Druids and Rangers tend to live a nomadic life, and are therefore unlikely to ever settle down and establish a stronghold. A Druids' Circle will be established in a place of great natural beauty, which is likely to be outside the city limits. Elves and others who love nature will gravitate towards this location for their homes and businesses.

Build It, And They Will Come

According to the 1st edition DMG, any random encounters of a "suitable" type might decide to establish a permanent home within your demesne. Of course, any monsters that aren't driven off by your patrols will likewise make themselves at home. If you decide that 20-200 orcs might make good neighbors, then more power to you.

In this manner, your shell keep or hill fort might develop organically into a thriving city-state (over many hundreds of years, of course ...). The city of Marchion in Splintered Peace is a nice example of such a history: what started out as a paladin's castle gradually evolved into a trading post, then a mageocracy, and finally a small city with an elected council.

Marchion also illustrates another interesting feature, which is that it is built on the foundations of an ancient civilization. Fortifications (and by extension, cities) are built in strategic locations with access to bountiful resources. Empires might rise and fall, but if such conditions persist then future generations are likely to re-settle the same spot. Real-world historical cities such as Troy developed in this manner - not to mention the many European cities that were abandoned by their inhabitants following the collapse of the Roman Empire, but then resettled at a later point. This gives a basis for the idea that every metropolis is built atop sewers, catacombs and other subterranean construction from a bygone era. Megadungeons, ahoy!

Medieval Demographics Made Easy: Numbers for Fantasy Worlds (S. John Ross)

Manorial system vs. farmland (Rob Conley)

More on historical medieval demographics contrasted with D&D

On The Loss of D&D's Endgame (James Mal)

Boxed Set 3: Companion Rules (the 'C' in BECMI)

End-Game Implications (Joe Bloch)

The Problem with the Endgame (Dan Collins)

No Heroes In War

2010-03-22T16:53:00.000+10:00

My D&D Campaign

Actual Play thread at RPG.net

The thread begins with session #30, which is admittedly suboptimal. Older sessions, including James Thomson's awesome module the Maze of Screaming Silence, are available on my campaign wiki.

I haven't written AP reports for every session, which is why I chose to do it that way. I still have my notes for most of them, though, and do intend to write them up at some stage. The November 2009 session, when the party slays a black dragon, is still a work in progress.

The game started out as an attempt at an urban sandbox (session #1, July 2005 => session #6, August 2006). However, that fell pretty flat with my players, who felt that they really didn't have enough information to make meaningful decisions about what to do. When I introduced the plot hook for the Maze of Screaming Silence (one of the characters began having foreboding dreams) they jumped at it.

Most of the next 9 sessions were spent in transit, since the maze was located "at the wall of the world, in the decadent empire of Yagga-Kong." This is where I made the most use of the En Route (Penumbra D20) series of mini-adventures. The maze itself was a single session, in December 2007.

One of the characters, Lord Martok Atronan, had heard some disturbing rumors about his noble house. Having saved the world from certain doom, he convinced the party to visit his family estate in the countryside. Session #17 to Session #23 were spent dealing with the vampires and other monsters that occupied the manor, as well as the less than trustworthy peasants in the nearby village.

Martok's mother and siblings were missing, so the party set off on another journey to track them down. Three sessions featured more encounters from En Route I, II & III then Session #27 was a sandbox-style game in a village. Session #28 was the beginning of two published adventures: Deception at Villa Zarios, from Dynasties and Demagogues (Penumbra D20), as well as Splintered Peace (Penumbra/D20).

I intend to run the WotC module City of the Spider Queen in the near future (with the same characters). At that point, I'll probably start a brand new thread at RPG.net

2010-03-10T14:29:00.002+10:00

En Route
Preventing an overland journey from deteriorating into a tedious succession of random encounters has always been a struggle for me as a DM. Therefore, when the player characters found themselves over 300 miles from the next plot point in the main storyline, I was keen to try out some of Penumbra's mini-adventures:

Dancin' The Night Away
"A travelling party is charmed into serving at a pixie's dance and must escape."

very harsh: all of the DC 20+ Will saves are not something that I would want to inflict on my players very often. If you take away their ability to act, then you reduce them to a passive audience. They are sure to find this trying on their patience.
However, it is in keeping with the reputation of the fey as enchanters and illusionists. Gwydd and his band of cheeky tricksters are only after a bit of fun at the adventurers' expense, but their ploy stands a significant risk of backfiring.
The player who heard Amadan's warning should have known better, but he fell for it hook, line and sinker. Fortunately he had the diplomacy skills to patch things up once he had realized his mistake, but not before half the party had succumbed to sleep arrows.
keep in mind that, according to the Monster Manual, the pixies' sleep and memory loss arrows do not do any damage (contrary to what is stated in the text of the adventure).

Dead Drunk
"While visiting an inn, the party runs afoul of a drunken poltergeist that possesses one of the players."

a great scenario to use when one of your players skips a game (as an NPC, his drunken antics are more inexplicable)
the player in question is still wondering what his character got up to in his absence - it has become something of an in-joke amongst the others.
The Fox's Fraud
"A small party meets a waylaid traveller alongside the road, who is really the leader of a bandit troupe that uses subterfuge to mask its small size."

my players were not intimidated at all by the ruse, and attacked the bandits immediately. You will need to put in a lot of effort to sell this scenario convincingly.
dependent upon Spot and Listen checks for the adventuring party to know that they appear outnumbered. Many of the characters were oblivious to the fact, and acted accordingly.
Goblin Trippin'
"Although goblins and men rarely coexist peacefully, one particular band of goblins has more than a malicious gleam of hatred in its eyes. What has stoked these wicked creatures' fury so greatly?"

by interrogating the Goblins, they discovered that a nearby village's grain supply had been infested with ergot
a good encounter for the druid (or any herbalist) to shine, while also providing an opportunity for heroism in warning the village
The Hellcow
"After a strange encounter with an old man and a cow, the party has to deal with a troublesome spirit that possesses animals."

the heroic ranger who rode forth to assist the farmer was suitably perturbed when the old man clutched his chest and fell to the ground
there was much discussion amongst the players whether to eat the cow or leave it be
a great encounter for adding a touch of humour to an overland adventure, with plenty of opportunities for the players to attempt creative solutions
A River Runs Through It
"Religious fanatics and a pack of mischievous pixies block the party's progress across a swollen river, demanding that they submit to an embarrassing ritual before crossing the only bridge."

one of the player characters submitted to having all her hair shaved off, but the others were having none of it.
with only 13 hit points, Shoshanna was an easy target, standing on the bridge. She toppled into the water and Andros, her charmed bodyguard, dove in after her ... in half-plate armor
the party included an elf and a half-elf, who were immune to the pixies' sleep arrows
in the end, a last minute diplomatic plea from the party druid saved the day. Fortunately, none of the pixies themselves had been attacked, so their attitude was only Unfriendly and not Hostile. The druid convinced them that the joke had gone far enough, and they called a truce.
Sideshow Of Doom
"An evening's entertainment turns to terror when the heroes discover that the freaks in a sideshow have been created from former spectators."

a good scenario involving detective work. My players enjoyed piecing all of the clues together.
brought out some character abilities that had previously been little used: gave the Ranger an opportunity to use tracking; the Druid put his Spellcraft to good use; and the Rogue employed Use Magic Device on Gadrian's wand, to return the sideshow freaks to normal.
Circus of Fear, the Penumbra adventure due out in 2002, was never published.
Wayfarer's Rest
"The party stops at an out-of-the-way inn, which turns out to be owned by a bunch of murderous maniacs."

EL of 5 is totally misleading! Shanson is an 8th level Ranger with four companions (not including the minotaur), meaning that the EL is more like 9 or 10.
Found myself fudging a lot of dice rolls, to avoid a Total Party Kill.
Splitting up the party, as this adventure does, can be very cumbersome to DM.
These are only a sampling of the many mini-adventures contained in this book and its sequels (En Route II and En Route III). An indispensible gaming resource that transforms "random" encounters into unforgettable events.

2010-03-09T11:40:00.004+10:00

Fields of Blood: The Book Of War

Eden Studios have created a truly impressive pen & paper resource management sim. They describe in detail how a DM and players can incorporate these rules into their D&D 3.5 campaign. For 10th-20th level characters who decide to establish a stronghold and raise an army, this book provides a comprehensive, coherent basis for adding wargaming to your roleplaying.

However, there are aspects of these rules that are unsuitable for my own game: the rules operate on a fixed level of detail and impose certain assumptions on the way that settlements function.

Mass combat involves units of 100 basic troops, or their equivalent (a handful of giants, or one dragon). Resource management employs hexes with maximal diameter of 12 miles (just under 100 square miles in area). Since the empires in my game span millions of square miles, it is infeasible for me to describe every hamlet and outpost in such painstaking detail. Likewise, clashes between armies of thousands would be very time consuming to simulate on that scale.

The way that settlements work in Fields of Blood seems quite different to what I would expect from the Dungeon Master's Guide and DMGII. Rather than extrapolating from the D&D rules, there are certain abstractions and changes that do not sit well with me as DM.

The first of these is population growth. By investing resources in a specific settlement, the player can "upgrade" it from hamlet to village, from village to town, and so forth. The rationale for this is obvious: even Elves would be unlikely to establish a settlement and see it grow into a bustling city within their lifetime. However, although it makes the game more interesting, this isn't a rule that I would want to incorporate into my campaign world.

Another issue that I have is with the role of clerics and wizards in society. In Fields of Blood, each settlement has a single dominant religion, with an associated place of worship. None of the other myriad smaller cults that might exist have any impact on the game. This is in complete contrast with any d20 city sourcebook I have read. One might view it as simply an abstraction, but to me it doesn't fit with the standard D&D fantasy setting.

The existence, power level and political involvement of a Mage Guild is a tricky thing to establish within the 3.5 rules. Within a settlement, the level of any sorcerers or wizards is lower than most other classes. The Fields of Blood explanation is that most high level arcane spellcasters live in ivory towers, preferring to isolate themselves from society. The solitary archmage is a common trope of the fantasy milieu, to be sure, but you need to decide whether this fits with your conception of 3rd edition D&D.

Overall I liked this book a lot, but can't see how I could make use of it without redesigning my campaign from the ground up.

2010-03-08T15:23:00.003+10:00

Encounter Distance
Maximum spotting distance in the DMG goes up to 6d6x40ft on the plains, for creatures up to Colossal size. However, some Spelljammer ships are even bigger than that. Also, unless you are in an asteroid field or close to a planet, there is nothing to obscure vision. You don't even have the usual limit of the distance to the horizon, which is an important factor in naval combat.

In real life, the main difficulties are the contrast/lighting conditions (wooden ships wouldn't reflect much light, but the white sails of some vessels would) and the angular size of the object.

A medium-size creature (say, 6ft in height) between 240ft and 1440ft away would have an angular size of between 14 and 86 arc minutes. It is a DC 20 Spot check to notice the creature at that distance.

A Drow/Neogi Deathspider with 175ft beam length would appear to be the same size if it was between 7,000ft and 43,000ft (8 miles) away. So if the lookout succeeds at a DC 20 Spot check, then he or she would notice the enemy ship at a distance of 6d6x1000ft. Even an SR10 ship would take at least 4 rounds to cover that distance at tactical speed.

This raises another issue: judging range to target when you have no visual reference to compare against. "That's no moon ... it's a space station!"

Some useful links:

http://www.1728.com/angsize.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity

2010-01-07T11:31:00.006+10:00

Open Mass Combat System

Mongoose Publishing introduced the OMCS in Seas of Blood (2001), then expanded upon it in Quintessential Fighter (2002).

Of all the mass combat systems I've come across for D20, this one is the easiest to convert a creature stat block into its corresponding mass combat statistics. Unit Hit Points (UHP) are equal to the total number of hit dice for all members of a unit, adjusted by Constitution modifier (and possibly by Toughness feat). Cavalry units receive a 50% bonus to account for their mounts. Particularly large or small units receive a modifier to damage from their ranged attacks. And then you're basically done.

You roll a single to-hit roll for the entire unit, which is just the ordinary to-hit modifier for a single member of the unit, adjusted by the relative size of the unit and its target (eg. if a unit attacks another unit half its size, it receives +1 to hit and a x2 damage multiplier. Conversely, it's opponent is at -1 to hit).

You can make your units as large or as small as you want, although it is suggested that the opposing sides should have the same number of units. Also, ideally you want a unit to be homogeneous (composed of creatures with exactly the same stats), with the exception of the unit leader.

Whichever side takes the most damage in a round of melee combat needs to make a Morale roll. This is where the unit leader's Charisma modifier (and Leadership feat) come into play. Again, there are bonus and penalties for the relative size of the units, as well as how many UHP the unit has remaining. If a Morale roll is failed, the unit Withdraws from combat, although they can make another roll every round to rally.

This system dramatically cuts down on the amount of die rolling required for NPCs fighting other NPCs, enabling you to better focus on the actions of the players.

I used the OMCS in a battle of 1000 orcs and 200-odd ogres against 6 player characters and 100 cavalry. One of the player characters died, but they were ultimately victorious (thanks mostly to area-of-effect spells killing large numbers of enemy troops as well as damaging morale).

However, there were a few house rules that I chose to introduce. I don't feel that they slowed down the game too much, while the additional detail that they provided was worthwhile. I'll discuss those in my next post.

2006-03-28T15:44:00.000+10:00

More sauce...

http://saucemaster.info/

http://saucesoft.com/

http://www.corptech.com.au/viewProject.asp?id=365

2005-07-04T11:00:00.000+10:00

The 11th Australasian World Wide Web Conference

2nd to 6th July, 2005 @ Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Australia
There were 3 papers in my session, with 4 presenters, the session chair and an audience of about 20 people. Mine was the second paper, I was up there for about 18 minutes or so going through my slides and demonstrating the template editor and FO output plugins. After all 3 papers, there was a general Q&A forum where all of the presenters fielded questions. One issue raised was why we had used Java so heavily rather than a pure XSLT system (XHTML and OfficeML). Someone else asked “what does the Oracle database do?” There was also some speculation about how well the Excel output would handle 3rd party XML, formatted using a custom FO template. I explained that we did not yet have a XSL 1.0 compliant implementation, and to the extent that we had not implemented all of the FO elements there would be visual discrepancies between the ideal (PDF) output and its spreadsheet equivalent. A Web developer from RMIT also raised a question about maintaining all of the FO templates in the face of changes in the XML Schema Definition. This is definitely something we should look at w.r.t. XDO/FRM (some process for taking an existing FO template and updating it to match a revised XSD)
There is definitely a resistance at AusWeb to “death by Powerpoint” or being “talked at”. Allan Ellis, the conference chair, made the point that a format of brief presentations followed by general discussion makes better use of the physical co-location of the delegates. I feel that you are much better able to demonstrate the depth of your knowledge of a topic by fielding questions, rather than by delivering a rote presentation. It also means less pressure to “entertain the audience” and more pressure on the attendees themselves to read your paper and come prepared with intelligent, insightful questions.
In total, there were about 100 delegates at the conference although some years there has been up to 350. Besides technologists and academics, there were also a number of T&L people (educators), librarians and the armed forces. The food and accomodation at Royal Pines wasn’t too bad, and evening activities such as the trivia night and BBQ were great opportunities to meet people who were using XML for a wide variety of purposes. I will give a brief overview of some other papers and poster sessions that I attended:
Keynote speakers were not that great – the IBM guy, the lawyer but particularly the entrepeneur were clearly there to push an agenda (and/or to sell stuff). The librarian from Berkeley gave a fantastic talk, however, that covered a heap of areas and issues in his field.
13 papers were presented in the Technical & Standards track, although due to overlap I was not able to attend all of them.
XUP seems to have a lot of potential as a next-generation paradigm for developing highly interactive enterprise GUI. There is a big shift away from installing applications on the client computer, and the current trend of using ECMAScript to implement interactivity in proprietary software has some major downsides. The alternative proposed by XUP is to define the user interface using XML on the client, defining event listeners that trigger a SOAP request (either synchronous or async), which is handled on the server. Lower maintenance costs, coupled with tighter control over IP (since all business logic is implemented on the server side) could make for a very tidy solution.
DotNotelets and DotTegular are interesting from the perspective of Agile methodologies. This Web application presents a user interface for creating a hierarchy of resizable, moveable notes. Clicking on a note drills down to the next layer of detail. Although originally developed for concept maps, it seems like an excellent tool for documenting use cases (the "planning game").
Xinq (XML-inquire) made excellent use of XQuery and the XML:DB API for rapid prototyping of searchable and updatable browser interfaces.

2005-06-03T15:42:00.000+10:00

Insert shameless plug for my AusWeb conference paper here ...

2005-06-03T14:28:00.000+10:00

San Diego, I am willing to consider ... but Texas? Colorado??

>

American Cities That Best Fit You:

65% San Diego

60% Austin

55% Denver

50% Philadelphia

45% Atlanta

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

2005-06-03T14:12:00.000+10:00

You are 29% Sketchy

How sketchy are you?

2005-05-29T20:14:00.000+10:00

In the morning we had a much smaller breakfast, bloated as we were from the curry the night before. We walked over to the cinema, and watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (an absurd and hilarious movie which Aileen sort-of enjoyed, or at least tolerated). Afterwards we had lunch at Cairns Central shopping centre before heading to the boardwalk, kicking off our shoes, and sitting in the shade reading our books.
We went back to the Tradewinds and collected our luggage from the concierge, who ordered a taxi for us. An uneventful flight back to Brisbane, to discover that Amie had missed us more than Natalie! Dinner at McDonalds, then home to fall asleep exhausted in our own bed.

2005-05-29T10:00:00.000+10:00

view from our hotel balcony ... of the mud flats. For some reason, whenever we walked past the water, the tide was always out.

2005-05-28T21:06:00.000+10:00

Buffet breakfast is included with the hotel room, so Aileen & I headed down there at about 9 the next morning. After 2 plates of hot food, we felt like we needed some exercise so we strolled down the boardwalk to the wharves, to see the navy ship in port. Of course there were police cars everywhere as a group of protesters in white lab coats were denouncing tyrannical US imperialism, etc.
Next we walked up McLeod St to the shopping centre and bought gifts for everyone back home. By then it was well after 1pm and we were feeling exhausted. We enjoyed a hot spa and then snacked on junk food for lunch. We had picked up some mudslides on the way back to our hotel, and so we cracked open a couple of those as well. I had a couple of hours' sleep, and Aileen woke me up at 6:30 so that we could go out for dinner. We ended up having a dodgy curry at Mother India, which played havoc with our digestion. We headed back to the hotel to watch Shadowlands on DVD: an evening of CS Lewis & CS Cowboys.

2005-05-28T10:58:00.000+10:00

USS Blue Ridge

2005-05-27T21:44:00.000+10:00

Cannes?
Flight landed at about 8:30pm. $12 taxi to the Tradewinds, where we had dinner at Latitude 351: grilled barramundi in white sauce with chorizo sausage, a lychee mojito and a cappucino for moi; gnocci with spinach, an iced chocolate and a sticky fig pudding for madame. Went upstairs to our room to watch the Cowboys triumph over the Bulldogs 48-12; Aileen fell asleep so I got changed and headed on over to Spence St.
The USS Blue Ridge was in town, so it was Hip-Hop night at Sporty's and Troppo's. There was a live DJ at Metbar, but I passed on that because my first priority was the club where Mark, Miguel, Smasher, etc. used to work. Sporty's was very different from the sports bar in Surfers (I don't even know if it had a video screen) but reminded me very much of The Edge. After a couple of hours and a handful of bourbons, I felt right at home. The finalists of the Cougar Bachelorette of the Year were on stage, which was an added bonus. I caught the last half hour of the DJ's set at Metbar, then headed back to Sporty's - by which time they were also playing house music. Stayed for one more drink, and was home in bed by 3am.

2005-05-27T17:57:00.000+10:00

6pm flight from BNE

2005-02-22T14:15:00.000+10:00

a short history of leveraged synergy
(or synergistic leverage)
Compaq bought DEC in 1998, for US$9.6 billion
Compaq's CEO, Eckhard Pfeiffer, resigned in April 1999
In June of 1999, Compaq sold AltaVista to CMGi for $2.3 billion
May 2002, HP acquired Compaq for $21 billion
February 2005, Carly Fiorina resigns as CEO of HP
...
December 2004, Oracle completes its acquisition of PeopleSoft for approximately $10.3 billion

2005-02-22T11:23:00.000+10:00

Tell me something I don't know ...

You Are 30 Years Old

30

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

2005-02-16T17:51:00.000+10:00

Ecchi
Indulge your inner overfiend:
http://www.somethingawful.com/hentai/ - quite amusing reviews
http://www.jmate.com/reviews.php?type=1 - linked from Jlist
http://www.animetric.com/bgames.html - not quite what I would call "Bishoujo" games ...

2004-09-06T14:12:00.000+10:00

Samaritan Girl (Samaria) (2004)
Director :- Kim Ki-duk
Country :- South Korea
IMDB :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397619/

A Good Lawyer’s Wife (Baramnan gajok) (2003)
Director :- Im Sang-soo
Country :- South Korea
IMDB :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372782/

Last Life in the Universe (Ruang rak noi nid mahasan) (2003)
Director :- Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Country :- Japan, Thailand
IMDB :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0345549/

The Corporation (2003)
Director :- Mark Achbar
Country :- Canada
IMDB :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/

My Neighbours the Yamadas (ho-Ehokkeyo Tonari no Yamada kun) (1999)
Director :- Isao Takahata
Country :- Japan
IMDB :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206013/

Pom Poko (Heisei Tanuki Gassen Pompoko) (1994)
Director :- Isao Takahata
Country :- Japan
IMDB :- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110008/

2004-08-11T19:54:00.000+10:00

Splendour in the Grass

Friday Night

left the city at 4:15pm, swung past Moorooka to pick up Mirko, took 1/2 hour to drive from one end of Garden City to the other (in peak hour traffic), arrived in Byron at about 7:15pm
Pty Ltd played a very good live set at the Beach Hotel, had fish & chips for dinner and a few schooners of Heineken ...

Saturday

the show didn't start until midday, so when I got up in the morning I grabbed breakfast at one of the local bakeries and went for a walk along the beach.
once we arrived at Belongil Fields, the first place that we ended up was the Tipi Circle. It felt just slightly weird to be dancing to a DJ in the middle of the day, but loads of fun!
the crowd at the main stage was overwhelming - we were about the 1,000th from the front for Xavier Rudd, and only caught brief glimpses of him as he played. An impressive performance, but not a good way to see it.
to say that Franz were tight, would be an understatement - this time, Mirko & I went right to the front of the tent on the far right, and then gradually moved our way towards the centre. Had an excellent view of most of the band, and the crowd was very enthusiastic.
at this point I realized that if I was going to be anywhere near the front for Polly Jean, then it was going to take serious commitment. Like, dancing at the main stage for 8 hours nonstop type of commitment. At the end of Franz Ferdinand I pushed towards the front of the stage, and got to within a dozen or so people for the start of Spiderbait.
needless to say, these guys were f*cken awesome! They played all the favourites: Calypso, Buy Me A Pony & Outta My Head among them. Kram seemed impressed by the enthusiastic crowd, and I must say that the feeling was mutual.
I can't say that E6 impressed me in quite the same way ... in fact, my impression was more of a bunch of pretentious wankers. I quite enjoy listening to their music on the radio, but something about Dick Valentine's stage presence just made me want to punch him hard in the face...
The Dissiciatives played a very low-key performance, and failed to stir up much crowd reaction at all. Itch-e & Scratch-e, where have you gone?
I can't say that DKT/MC5 really grabbed me either, although it was amusing to see Evan Dando storming off stage during the first song because his mic wasn't working, and refusing to come back on until after Tex Perkins' performance.
after almost a 1 hour soundcheck (during which I desparately tried to restore circulation to my legs), PJ Harvey finally take the stage. I must say, it was well worth enduring the lacklustre performances of certain other bands, and the interminable wait for the roadies to set up, for this: to be the 5th person back from the barrier, with a clear and unobstructed view of the PJ magic. A Perfect Day Elise & Good Fortune made my evening complete.
a cup of coffee from one of the tents, and then caught the shuttle bus back to the hotel to get to bed at about 1am.

Sunday

unfortunately needed to drop Mirko off at the train station (85km north of Byron), and so missed Eskimo Joe's performance
today we were all pretty much exhausted, and ended up sitting on the grass, drinking JD & Coke and listening to the bands.
having said that, I did still get to see a brilliant performance by Pete Murray, where he segued into I'm Still Alive in the middle of one of his own songs, and also performed a cover of Heart of Gold.
Grinspoon live is an experience not to be missed, if you ever get the chance. In spite of feeling totally ratshit by this point, I headed into the main tent and danced through their whole set. Phil walks onto stage wearing a sash with "Miss Teen Australia" written across it, and you just know that he has got attitude to burn. Not to mention Pat, who is a dude's dude if ever there was.
we spent the rest of the night sitting by the bonfire, where we could hear Sonic Animation's excellent performance and wish that we still had the energy to move.
it was still quite early when we got back to the hotel, so we threw a bit of an after-party in our room before crashing out in front of the Tour De France.

Monday

in the morning I made everone walk through town searching for the perfect place to have breakfast, but I was glad I had since some friends of ours showed up as well and we ate together. Eggs Florentine, and copious amounts of coffee.
afterwards I went for another walk along the beach, alone this time - everyone else was just too buggered.
on the way home I stopped off at Robina for lunch, and dropped in to catch up with the gang from AgileTV.

2004-08-11T17:08:00.000+10:00

The "el Caro" crew, at Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay
Dirk Cumtonsils

2003-08-21T19:34:00.000+10:00

My 15 minutes: on June 26 I went to Empire with some friends from work, and this photo of me was posted to inthemix.com.au

2003-06-16T20:32:00.000+10:00

Punjabi Palace, the finest Indian restaurant in town
Punjabi Palace provides an extensive and delicious variety of dishes from all over India. We always use fresh ingrediants and take extra care in preparing each dish to suit your individual taste. If you like your meals with a bit of extra spice you have the choice of mild, medium or hot. We look forward to seeing you at Punjabi Palace.

2002-12-22T11:28:00.000+10:00

Photos of the Sasha gig at inthemix.com.au

2002-12-09T20:18:00.000+10:00

Sorry guys, I was too worn out after seeing Sasha at C-moog last Tuesday night.

Are you planning to see Sleater Kinney at the Zoo this week?

2002-11-12T10:48:00.000+10:00

Anyone interested in this?? It might be sold out by now.

Andrew,
I hear that DJ Shadow is appearing at Family nightclub on the 6th of December... methinks a worthy gig to catch even if it's ~$50...

2002-10-25T16:02:00.000+10:00

Microsoft Crash Gallery

2002-10-22T14:02:00.000+10:00

The Apple Store sucks
By Lukas Hauser
September 5, 2001

Last weekend, I stopped by the Boston-area Apple store on its opening day. That shit sucked.

Every Mac chump seems to be masturbating in the Apple store's feces. "This store is GREAT!!!" "Wow, I was REALLY impressed with the layout of the Apple store!" "This store is GREAT FOR APPLE!"

Fuck each and every one of you. Go back to shopping at the Gap.

Now, I'll admit that the idea of the Apple store has some promise. It had promise 3 years ago when I wrote to Steve with the same exact specifications for an Apple store that we just got now. But Apple is dropping the ball on this one. Maybe even both of its balls.

Contrary to this feel-good delusion shared by most Mac nerds, the Macintosh platform is in more danger than ever before. Why? Mostly because no respectable teenager would be caught dead with a Mac these days.

This wasn't always true, obviously. But Saturday I was struck most by the fact that most of the Mac nerds waiting in line at the Northshore store's opening were over 50 years old. FIFTY FUCKING YEARS OLD. If I were a Sum 41-listening teenage punk, I'd get my ass as far away from an Apple store and its old-ass user base as possible.

But the indignity of having old computer users wait in front of a computer store wasn't enough for Apple. It had to go and hire old computer SALESMEN to work at the fucking place. Goddamnit.

The youth is the future, Apple! You need to immediately create a task force at Apple whose mission is to dramatically shift the Mac demographic to 11-18 year olds. How do you do this, mostly? Games, of course.

But judging from the pathetic selection of software at the Northshore store, Apple has no clue of this. Jesus Christ, there were twice as many fucking CHILDREN's programs on the shelves as there were games for post-adolescents! (A fine distinction, to be sure.) The ugly-as-fuck primary colors of shit like "Bobo the Clown Teaches the Alphabet" completely overshadowed the product boxes of other games. Hey Apple, you have a children's section! Keep the fucking children's software in the children's section. Its dominating presence in the non-children's aisle was an embarassment of the highest order. Again, if I were a teenager I'd never step foot in an Apple store. It's like Apple is exclusively targeting kids under 8 and senior citizens over 80.

So, some suggestions for Apple regarding its lame-ass store:

Again, get all children's software out of the main software aisle and into the children's section. Don't perpetuate the valid notion that Macs are for babies.

Get more games. Sure, computer games are for losers. But them's the breaks. Overwhelm the visitor with 100s and 100s of games. They exist. It's imperative that Apple always have EVERY SINGLE Mac game there is at its stores. Here's a small sampling of games that Apple DIDN'T have at the Northshore location: Myst III: Exile, Riven, Myst, Myst III, SimCity 3000, Myth II, Civilization 2 Gold, Warcraft 2 Battle Chest, StarCraft: Battle Chest, StarCraft Expansion Pack: Brood War, Unreal Tournament, Diablo, You Don't Know Jack Snack Pack, Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Fallen, Master of Orion 2, Railroad Tycoon 2 Gold, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Star Trek Starship Creator Warp 2, Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Collector's Series, Last Call, Terminus, Rogue Spear, Redneck Rampage, Descent 3, Star Trek Klingon Honor Guard, Quake, Quake 2, Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now, Madden 2000, Links LS 2000.

Have "Oni" or something playing on the new G4 that you had on display in the window. The G4 that was on a pedestal in the window instead had on its monitor a picture of... itself.

Turn the store into an AirPort wireless lounge, and advertise this fact. No PC notebooks allowed. Get big couches in the front. Maybe serve Snapple while you're at it. Get it? (When Microsoft bought a chunk of Apple back in '97, a Microsoft employee told me that the joke in Redmond was: "Apple? I thought we were buying 'Snapple'!!!".)

One of Apple's most important and hip markets is sound engineering. Bjork goes on and on in this month's SPIN magazine about how she loves her Mac because of the way it runs ProTools. Yet the Apple store didn't have ProTools for sale! This is like not having Photoshop for sale. Apple, get ProTools in your store -- even if its just a low-end version -- and have it featured in the "pro" section. I can't stress enough how important this would be in convincing the majority of musicians out there who use PCs that they should walk out of the Apple store with a ProTools workstation in hand.

Another embarrassing thing was that the t-shirts Apple gave out were size XXL. Stop making these shirts so fucking unwearable! Who's your intended audience with these things? The comic-book store owner from The Simpsons? Give out MEDIUM shirts next time. Sure, you won't have as many fat dorks wearing the Apple logo. But that's a good thing. (Note: when you get around to the SoHo location, make sure you give out SMALL size "I Love N.Y." shirts. That's what the kids are wearing, you jackasses.)

www.mired.com

2002-10-22T13:23:00.000+10:00

Compare Microsoft's approach with Apple's: Tony Hawk or Ellen Feiss...Ellen has attracted cult status: www.ellenfeiss.net

2002-10-22T12:52:00.000+10:00

Microsoft pulls phony switch ad
More at slashdot...

2002-10-22T12:43:00.000+10:00

The Mac is the 'Nigger' of the Computer Industry

2002-10-16T11:13:00.000+10:00

And the winner of this year's Ignoble Prize is...

2002-10-16T11:10:00.000+10:00

Confessions of a Mozillian

2002-10-16T11:07:00.000+10:00

Desktop R/C Mini-Rovers

2002-10-10T13:51:00.000+10:00

The Pathology Guy

2002-10-09T16:31:00.000+10:00

GoldCoastClubbers.com

2002-10-09T10:16:00.000+10:00

http://www.robotech.com/

Relive Robotech

In the Gallery area there are some really good flash videos, it's bringing it all back now.

Who is this?
The "ace" of the Zentraedi Forces, a fearsome warrior who pilots the female Power Armor. Upon discovering the combat talents of Max Sterling, she takes it upon herself to hunt him down, but finds herself frustrated by the micronian ace and decides to infiltrate the SDF-1. Eventually, she finds him and after being humiliated in a video game duel tries to kill him. After this fails, she suddenly finds herself in love and married in a historic wedding that unites the humans and the Zentraedi. Afterwards, she sticks by his side and helps rebuild Earth from the ashes left by Dolza's fleet.

2002-09-30T18:02:00.000+10:00

Rolemaster links

What is RMSS?
Rolemaster mailing list FAQ
ICE
Terry Amthor's Shadow World -- the 360° Quicktime panorama objects are very spiffy!
Eureka Miniatures -- 100 club for custom 28mm miniatures
Reaper Miniatures
ShadowForge Miniatures -- specialising in female sculptures
Canterbury Miniatures -- in New Zealand

2002-09-30T16:14:00.000+10:00

CIA World Factbook 2001

2002-09-16T08:43:00.000+10:00

Read Me: "Still Life in Books"
(A [hopefully] weekly serial about life in an imaginary public library)

Part Three: Read a book and be transported to another world

Chuck came into the workroom looking panicked.
"I'm being swamped by customers out here," he said to me. "Can you come help?"
I got up and went into the public space only to find two customers waiting.
One Chuck had returned to serving. The other was a disgruntled-looking old lady. Shrugging, I went up to her and asked how I could help.
"The sign outside in your forecourt states that books will take me to another world. This one hasn't." She brandished a book at me. "I want one that does."
"Ma'am, the sign is a metaphor. It doesn't mean that by reading a book you will be physically transported to another world. It just means that by using your imagination you can *pretend* that you've been transported."
"Metaphor, schmetaphor," she snapped. "I want a book that will transport me to another world."
I took a deep breath for patience.
"Okay. Could I please see the book?" She passed it over and I pretended to inspect it. "All our other customers who read this book have satisfactorily found themselves in another world. Are you sure you're using it correctly? Did you read it all the way through?"
"Well, no. After the first few pages I still hadn't gone anywhere, so I stopped."
"There's you're problem then," I beamed. "You only get transported to another world if you read it all the way through. Why don't you take it home and try again by reading the whole book."
She took the book back and gave me a look of distrust, but she left without arguing the point.
I turned to Chuck, who was trying very hard not to laugh.
"You made me serve her on purpose," I accused him.
"Yep. I could tell she was a weirdo. When you work the front counter as long as I have, you begin to develop preternatural early warning systems for difficult customers, so I try to palm them off as much as possible. Well done, by the way. That was some quick thinking you did to get rid of her. I'll have to palm my difficult customers off onto you more often. It's quite entertaining."
I gave him a dirty look and left him to deal with the mass of customers that was quickly building up.

Next Week: 'Chuck Gets a Difficult Customer'

[Disclaimer: No characters are based upon real people, living or dead, except perhaps the writer, and he doesn't mind much. Oh, and if you don't like it, stop reading it]

2002-09-02T17:26:00.000+10:00

It's all true, especially the part about ogling women's breasts...

>From: "Terrence"
>Subject: The Further Adventures of Dirk and Terrence After Davo Left Last Night...
>Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 19:50:48 +1000
>
>The Further Adventures of Dirk and Terrence After Davo Left Last Night:
>
>Dirk and I stayed at The Monastery for a further 15 minutes after Davo
>left so we could get a stamp in case we decided to come back, which we
>didn't. Instead, Dirk wanted to try and get into Family again. I was
>strenuously against the idea, being quite zombified at that point and
>knowing full-well that the bouncer would take one look at me,
>think: "This is that smart-mouthed prick from earlier in the evening!",
>and tell me to piss right off! However, Dirk's uncommon sense prevailed
>and we walked back to Family. Upon arriving we found that the line we'd
>been in the first time around was still there, and we stood in it
>again, all the while with me thinking: "We're just wasting our time.
>That's the same bouncer we encountered before up there at the door and
>he's just going to turn us away again." After 15 minutes we got to the
>head of the line and by a stroke of luck the bouncer's attention was
>elsewhere. However, we still had to deal with the Door Girl, who took
>one look at me and pulled the rope across in front of us, saying: "Have
>you been turned away already tonight for your dress?" I gave Dirk an 'I-
>told-you-so" look while the Door Girl tried unsuccessfully to get the
>bouncer's attention. After several tries she got upset and pulled the
>rope back to let us in, saying acidly: "You're breaking the dress rules
>very badly, sir!", spiiting the word 'sir' out as though I didn't
>deserve to be titled so. We were in! We were actually in, but at what
>cost?! How dare she obliquely accuse me of doing the wrong thing and
>making her night frustrating! How dare she talk to me as though I'd put
>her in a position to have to break the rules for me! She bloody well
>did it of her own accord, the bitch! She's an employee of Family, and
>she had every right to ask me to walk away, and yet she caved in and
>let me through, and then had the gall to make out that it was my fault!
>Fuck off!
>Anyway, I'm sure you're surprised that we got into Family after all.
>Dirk was well pleased (and more than a little amused at my run-in with
>the Door Girl!). I was sulking, but after a while i felt better. The
>place was packed to the gills and it was hard to navigate a way
>through, and while Dirk was seeing it for the first time, I actually
>discovered areas that we haven't seen! There's a fourth level to
>Family, with a bar lounge and high energy dance floor. You'd have loved
>it! We'll have to go there with the ***right*** clothes next time and
>enjoy its atmosphere.
>We didn't dance; we just stood on the balcony overlooking the main
>dance floor, tapping our feet and looking down the tops of the girls
>below (well, maybe I'm just speaking for myself there...). We stayed in
>there for half an hour at the most and then moved on.
>But that wasn't the end of our adventure! I decided that to get home we
>should walk up Gregory Tce towards Ashgrove and try to hail a cab
>driving in that direction, just to save us finding one in The Valley
>and having him have to drive through The Valley to get us out and
>thereby paying more money. As we walked up the street it occurred to me
>that just up ahead in Spring Hill was The Adult Cafe, once the site of
>the infamous Players brothel. A strange notion suddenly took me to want
>to find out if they actually served coffe at The Adult Cafe. It wasn't
>hard to convince Dirk to go along with the idea, and we headed on in.
>There were a couple of well-dressed ladies at the counter, and the
>conversation with them went something like this:
>
>Well-dressed Lady: Hi. Have you been here before?
>
>Terrence: No. We wanted to find out if The Adult Cafe actually served
>coffee.
>
>WDL: Yes we do. Are you just after coffee, or would you like to meet
>our girls?
>
>T: We're just after coffee, thanks.
>
>In retrospect I think that last line should have been delivered
>something like "Wee'd like to meet some girls, thanks", but we all make
>mistakes. So The Adult Cafe is indeed a brothel, but it also actually
>serves coffee. Good coffee, too...
>
>Terrence.
>
>----------------

2002-09-02T17:17:00.000+10:00

...some words

2002-08-30T09:48:00.000+10:00

THE GREATEST PARTY OF ALL TIME -- courtesy of FARK.com

2002-08-28T17:39:00.000+10:00

Zimbabwe Changes Name to AAA Zimbabwe

2002-08-28T08:14:00.000+10:00

Could this be Terrence?

Terrence McCormack

Audio-Visual Librarian and Head, M. Robert Koren Center for Clinical
Legal Education

Law Library

Room 542 O'Brian Hall - Amherst Campus

Buffalo, New York 14260-1110

Phone: (716) 645-2831 or (716) 645-2045

E-Mail:
Cormack@acsu.buffalo.edu

Fax: (716) 645-7982

Last Updated Sept 2001

2002-08-23T09:46:00.000+10:00

modern methods for machine learning

Bayesian Belief Networks

MSBNx - Bayesian Network editor & toolkit

Support Vector Machines

AT&T implementation
homepage for a book, with lots of links to online implementations of SVM
big site on kernel-based learning methods

Markov Processes

HTK = Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (?)

Computer Games

Game AI
http://www.generation5.org/
comp.ai.games
rec.games.programmer

2002-08-22T09:33:00.000+10:00

I love the night life ... I got to boogie ...

Gold Coast nite clubs
Cocktails & Dreams
Fever
Melba's
The Clock

2002-08-19T16:28:00.000+10:00

http://sausagesizzle.blogspot.com

2002-08-15T08:58:00.000+10:00

Seeking independent verification of Terrance's theories on seduction, I consulted a colleague who is not only played Rugby in university, but is also a golfer and a roleplayer. In his opinion, anything short of lying spread-eagled on a bed and whispering his name alluringly would show an appalling lack of effort, and therefore fail to succeed in seducing him. Although I have not put this to the test, I suspect that it is somewhat of an exaggeration. Incidentally, he does not wear a necktie.

2002-08-10T21:00:00.000+10:00

ALLAN'S EVER-EXCITING D&D ADVENTURES UPDATE

...written this week by his fellow D&Der (and AQ-customer) Ankarino Lara, aka the somewhat verbose Professor Wormbog:

As you'll recall from last time, one of our party -- a slimy lout with dripping skin and an offensive, swaggering demeanor -- unintentionally caused a dimensional rip with his extradimensional bag of holding, sending several of us far from our home plane. As Son Ute (of the Seritan Empire), Maxar (the Sorcerer), the slime master (the slime master), and Professor Wormbog (a tall and sturdy tiger-mawed half-orc draped in Victorian finery) recovered from our accidental inter-dimensional trip, we were relieved to find ourselves in the well-ordered plains of Arcadia (itself a Plane). After a short chat with a helpful Arcadian native on one of the roads leading to the nicely shaped walls of the geometrically perfect Arcadian city of Innutan, we decided that we must be off to rescue our lost shaman, Amar, if possible, and also locate the wayward & vile Rakshasa corpse that we desperately needed to speak with. With a knowing nod and a jingle of the power-infused crystals about Prof. Wormbog's tunic, our foursome returned to the Prime Material Plane (PMP) via the manifestation of the Professor's teleportation power. There, after further misadventures in a booby-trapped wizard's chamber, we acquired the necessary looking glass to scry upon our missing shaman and the misplaced body of the Rakshasa.

Retrieving Amar was a tricky endeavor. As we looked into the smoky scrying mirror we were horrified to find Amar, standing on on side of an impossibly large metal cube, floating in a river of molten rock! As our view zoomed in and out, we realized he had fallen into the plane of Acheron, the Hell of eternal battle-men. These cubes, the size of small continents, were many in number, all floating across the sea of lava and colliding with each other with appalling consequences. Further, each cube was swarming with thousands of marauding warriors, resigned to do battle and be killed, only to awake again for another days war. And there among the murderous droves, Amar sat crouched and weeping, trying to hang on to his last bit of life-blood. The Professor and Maxar bravely turned themselves invisible, clasped hands, teleported into Acheron, flew over to the crouching Amar, and teleported him out in the nick of time, as a circling blue dragon swooped for the kill.

Retrieving the Rakshasa corpse was even more convoluted. Gazing into the smoky glass, we spied the dead Rakshasa lying on a crudely made table, and a gruesome, purple-skinned hag loitering by its side. The walls were befouled with carcasses hanging on meat hooks. All manner of corpses littered the floors -- the bodies of Humans, Halflings, Angels, and Devils alike decorated this most fiendish hovel. Fortunately, the Professor speaks Infernal, and overheard the hag bartering feverishly with four tittering insect devils with bloated bellies as they negotiating a price for the prize they found. Rakshasa corpses are in high demand in the Hells, it seems, worth quite a few human souls (in the form of horrid human-headed worms). With a knowing nod and a rub of his crystals, the Professor's tunic unfurled revealing a second set of arms. He manifested a few more powers and announced that he would retrieve the corpse. In a blink, he was gone. Exactly 18 seconds passed, and with a 'pop!' and a hiss, the Professor reappeared, bleeding heavily from a nasty shoulder wound, but carrying the Rakshasa corpse! Astonished, the party asked how he managed to defeat the five devils alone. After a short pause, Professor Wormbog revealed his origins, and explained in great detail what transpired in the hag's chambers...

Next week -- Who is this Professor Wormbog??

2002-08-05T09:48:00.000+10:00

boredom haiku
+++++++++++

five syllables, then
seven, then five syllables
blah blah fucking blah

2002-08-05T09:44:00.000+10:00

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Terence"
> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 1999 2:17 PM
> Subject: How to seduce a roleplayer
>
> In a recent issue of Cleo magazine there was an article describing how to
> seduce men. One of the advice columns described how to seduce men who had
> different passtimes. For instance, to seduce The Football Lover - who is an
> unsubtle man at best - all you have to do is grab him by the tie (would he
> be wearing one, I wonder?) and lead him to the couch. If the man is The
> Tennis or Golf Player - a social game - you should talk a lot to him (what
> about all the tantrums when "The ball was in, God damn it" or when you're
> lying in the rough?).
> But for some strange reason, the Cleo writers forgot to include The
> Roleplayer. I've decided to ammend their thoughtlessness with the following:
>
> Roleplaying
> ==========
> He's shy and awkward around women. He has a penchant for rules. He will
> often drift off into a fantasy world in which he believes that he's a tall,
> handsome hero.
> Winning tactics: Don't approach this guy or he'll scurry away mumbling
> incoherently (if he doesn't freeze altogether). Just pretend that you're his
> fantasy figure. Call yourself a fantasy name like Red Henna and convince him
> that you're a female elf with a charisma of 19, then roll those funny-shaped
> dice!

2002-08-02T15:35:00.000+10:00

4ZzZ have upgraded their transmitter, so they can now be heard loud and (semi-)clear on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. I was having a listen this afternoon while I was driving around, and although the reception is not perfect I am looking forward to tuning in on Monday at 1pm for "Kaspa's Show", and Tuesday at 1pm for "Poo Party"

2002-08-02T11:15:00.000+10:00

A history of chickpeas, and a yummy recipe!

2002-08-02T11:06:00.000+10:00

Read Me: "Still Life in Books"

Princesca of Peru.com said: "Terri: Soy muy triste que sus cuentos de la biblioteca están acabados. Adiós, Princesa. PS: Pienso que su fotografía es muy linda!"
I got myself a Spanish-English dictionary from the local publc library and did a rough - *very* rough - literal translation. Please be kind; I only just passed French in High School, and I failed Latin at Uni.
"It is sad that [the] story of the library is finished. PS: [pienso = fodder/feed?!] [the] photograph is very [linda = cute/sweet]."
Gracias, Princesca.

2002-08-01T17:51:00.000+10:00

Digital music players replace turntables at some clubs

2002-08-01T17:47:00.000+10:00

The food timeline

2002-08-01T17:21:00.000+10:00

Follow the depressingly fascinating adventures of a newly-minted pornographer.

2002-07-31T11:20:00.000+10:00

Read Me: "Still Life in Books"

Princesca of Peru.com said: "Terri: Soy muy triste que sus cuentos de la biblioteca están acabados. Adiós, Princesa. PS: Pienso que su fotografía es muy linda!"
I don't know you're language, Princesca, but I'm getting a Spanish-English dictionary out of the local public library as soon as possible to work on a (very) rough translation. Thanks for your input, whatever it may turn out to be...

2002-07-30T14:05:00.000+10:00

Estoy rodando en el suelo que ríe. Ha!

---- Principio del mensaje incluido ----
De: "Terrance"
Enviado:Wed, 24 May 2000 21:11:51 +1000
Asunto: The serious and the not so serious

> Finally, on a lighter note, I've been working over the past semester on a
> Great-Expectations-esque serial about working in a library. It's not
> finished yet, and I doubt if it ever will be, but I got some feedback on it
> from digital strangers. One person known only as 'Bruin' said it was crap and
> I should stop it - I kept going anyway - and another person, apparently from
> Peru, sent me a note in teh native language. Anyone read Spanish so I can
> translate it?
>
---- Fin del mensaje incluido ---

2002-07-28T12:02:00.000+10:00

Allan's D&D Update:
---------------------
We, uh, well this is going to be confusing...we'd been battling these demonic called rakshasas, you see, who were disguised as members of our party. We defeated them, but one of the dead rakshasas was the only person who knows where this secret meeting is about to take place -- a secret meeting that we need to get to in order to prevent a war from erupting between factions of the Empire. So, our party's shaman began chanting a spell to speak with the dead, in order for us to interrogate this rakshasa corpse. Unfortunately, before he could complete the spell, we were interrupted by an attack from a wizardly rakshasa who teleported in, conjured up several strange monsters, and left. These monsters tried to destroy the corpse so we couldn't talk to it, but we fought and killed them. So then, our shaman was again going to attempt to speak with the dead, but we wanted to make sure we were safe from further interruptions. So Allan's character Maxar the Sorcerer cast a spell which creates a, uh, a... an extradimensional refuge of sorts that we could enter into and be safe. But what another member of our party didn't realize is that you cannot bring one interdimensional space into another extradimensional space without potentially hazardous consequences. Indeed we all learned this the hard way when the last one into Maxar's refuge found that his bag of holding -- itself an extradimensonal space -- caused a violent planar disruption. This magical accident sent our characters to random other planes of existence. Four of us wound up on the very orderly plane of Law, but we don't know where the shaman went, nor the rakshasa corpse. Hopefully not to the Plane of Fire or the Plane of Negative Energy... Such a ridiculous disaster.

2002-07-26T14:48:00.000+10:00

Breastfeeding Ruth

2002-07-26T14:46:00.000+10:00

Index of /

2002-07-26T14:43:00.000+10:00

This page is not going to be constructed.

2002-07-26T11:30:00.000+10:00

The Herald - Zimbabwe News Online

Commonwealth Sports Awards Shifted

April 15, 2002

The Commonwealth Sports Awards scheduled for Harare, Zimbabwe in October have been moved to Manchester. Zimbabwe has been suspended from the Commonwealth Council and is being pressured to be suspended from the Commonwealth Games themselves over irregularities in the past election.

The Commonwealth Sports Awards are held to honor the excellent performances of athletes in the Commonwealth Games.

Zimbabwe going ahead with Commonwealth Games Plans

April 12, 2002

Though some nations are calling for Zimbabwe's exclusion from this years Commonwealth Games, and some in Zimbabwe are calling for a boycott of the games, Zimbabwe is moving forward with plans to participate and has named a general manager, Robert Mutsauki. Mr. Mutsauki was head of Zimbabwe's delegation to the last Commonwealth Games in Malaysia and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

Zimbabwe may boycott, or be banned from Commonwealth Games

April 7, 2002

Political strife within Zimbabwe is throwing its participation in the upcoming Commonwealth Games into question.

The Council of the Commonwealth last month suspended Zimbabwe for one year over electoral irregularities and Robert Mugabe's controversial win. The European Union and the United States both imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Australia's prime minister, John Howard, is now mentioning the possibility of the Commonwealth suspension extending to the Commonwealth Games. Canada and New Zealand have been involved in the discussions, which led one Harare newspaper, the Herald, to label the proposals as racist, and coming from white dominated nations. Canadian representatives are not yet behind any ban from the games. The Herald also called for all of Zimbabwe to unite and as a counter measure to boycott the Commonwealth Games.

Any verdict on the matter would need to be made by the Commonwealth Games Federation. The current suspension cover only Commonwealth council activities not sport.

2002-07-26T10:22:00.000+10:00

sem assunto!
>
> PS: Pienso que su fotografía es muy linda!
> (please que for a photgraph of my penis, love linda.

2002-07-25T16:13:00.000+10:00

Zimbabwe

- Bob Marley

Every man gotta right
To decide his own destiny
And in this judgment
There is no partiality
So arm in arms, with arms
We will fight this little struggle
'Cause that's the only way
We can overcome our little trouble

Brother you're right, you're right
You're right, you're right, you're so right
We gonna fight, we'll have to fight
We gonna fight, fight for our rights

Natty dread it ina Zimbabwe
Set it up ina Zimbabwe
Mash it up ina Zimbabwe
Africans a liberate Zimbabwe

No more internal power struggle
We come together, to overcome
The little trouble
Soon we will find out
Who is the real revolutionary
'Cause I don't want my people
To be contrary

...

To divide and rule
Could only tear us apart
In everyman chest
There beats a heart
So soon we'll find out
Who is the real revolutionaries
And I don't want my people
To be tricked by mercenaries

...

2002-07-25T15:46:00.000+10:00

Bill's Guide to Girls

Wear as many rings as possible. (This denotes affluence).

Always carry a spare handkerchief. (Unexpected messes can put some girls off).

Think of something clever to say at every opportunity.

Drink a lot to calm your nerves.

Don't trim ear or nose hair as this can be a turn-on for some girls.

Sweat a lot if you can - if you can't, it doesn't matter.

Buy a good book on the subject. (I can't think of one at the minute, but there must be one).

Pick your moment. Pub closing time is always good as most unattached females are getting a bit desperate by then.

Dress in the latest style - shell suits are big now of course. (Well mine is).

Put your own idea in this slot. (And let me know what it is by Friday if you can).

2002-07-25T10:10:00.000+10:00

the Saumaster is graduating after completeing his bachelor of gynecology and dental surgery

http://www.uz.ac.zw/

University of Zimbabwe, P O Box MP167,

Mt Pleasant, Harare,

Zimbabwe

Tel: 263 4 303211

2002-07-25T09:42:00.000+10:00

So Good to relive the Terrence and Princesa Tocalaroca Era!

Possible Princess of Peru

2002-07-25T09:11:00.000+10:00

----- Original Message -----
From: "Princesa Tocalaroca" tocalaroca@peru.com
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2000 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: "Still Life in Books"

Che floated down the Amazon on a raft he named the "Mambo-Tango" in
1952, as chronicled in his book "Latinoamericana: un diario per un
viaggio in motocicletta"

Your translation is very interesting, although you missed the most
interesting bit (at the end of the message -- clue: mensaje =
menstrual).

I wonder what Terrance will make of this? Will it have the desired effect,
of restoring his 21st-Century Canterbury Tales to its former glory?
Time will tell...

Viva la Revolution!!!

Princesa.

2002-07-24T19:56:00.000+10:00

Terry,

I am very sad that their stories of the library are finished.

Good bye,
Princess

PS: I think that its photography is very pretty!

2002-07-24T17:22:00.000+10:00

The Financial Gazette
AllAfrica Global Media
Southern African Research & Documentation Centre (SARDC)
SADC Today (Southern African Development Community)
AIDS Control & Prevention Project (AIDSCAP)
Zimmedia multicultural film & video production company
Mama Africa stories by 6 of Africa's most skilful and imaginative female filmmakers

2002-07-24T09:35:00.000+10:00

ive been to the desert on a horse with no name...what is che doing in peru?
i translated it to the best of my ability fo r you who are espanol illeterato

> Terri:
>
> Soy (SOYA) muy (BEANS) triste (TASTE) que (VERY)sus
(SUSpicious).(FULL STOP MISSSING) Cuentos (LABIA) de
(THE) [THE LABIA] la biblioteca (IS REFERED TO IN THIS
DOCUMENT AND LISTED IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHY)
> están acabados.(STANS OPINIONS COUNT)
>
> Adiós,
>
> Princesa
>
> PS: Pienso (PENIS)que (VERY) su (LIKE)fotografía es
(A FOOTBALL) muy (BEAN) linda!

2002-07-23T20:24:00.000+10:00

Who is this masked "bruin" of yahoo.com??

And why does he always hurt the one he loves?

2002-07-23T08:57:00.000+10:00

----- Original Message -----
From: "Princesa" tocalaroca@peru.com
Sent: Viernes, 19 de Mayo de 2000
Subject: "Still Life in Books"

Terri:

Soy muy triste que sus historias de la biblioteca están acabadas.

Adiós,

Princesa

Picosegundo: Pienso que su fotografía es muy linda!

Mensaje enviado desde Peru.com mail
Consigue gratis tu cuenta de correo electrónico @Peru.com en http://www.peru.com/

2002-07-22T09:52:00.000+10:00

Read Me: "Still Life in Books"

You've probably realised by now that it's not going to get finished. I did have an idea about where it was going. Someone was going to get shot. Try and guess who was going to shoot whom!

Instead of finishing, here's what the critics thought:

Thanks for your input, "bruin".

No one else said anything.

It was amusing while it lasted...

2002-07-21T13:11:00.000+10:00

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop: everyone's heard of them, no one knows what they do.

Mark Sinker investigates Auntie's best-kept secret.

Six composers, too shy to make claims for themselves, go to make it up. But Brian Hodgson, who's worked with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop since the early 60s, and headed it since the mid-80s, is less reserved. You think about it, and you begin to wonder if this pioneering institution's secret effect on Britain's ears might not be huge. "It's likely," he says when asked, "that the first Electronic Music that most of today's composers heard they heard when they were listening to Listen With Mother. Composers will say, 'I wanted to get into electronic music because of Dr Who.' We've changed the way that people listen to things ..."

Dr Who you knew about: everyone knows they did that. But also Life On Earth, The Body In Question, dozens of documentaries - Horizons, Everymans, whatever - hard and soft science, fiction; animals, plants, galaxies and minds; international prize-winning programmes for Radios 1 to 4; countless jingles, signatures and weird subliminal whispers, every week across 35 years. Turning out music for 150 programmes a year, to be half-heard at most twice, and then put away in their own vast, almost unused archive. Worldwide the only institution of its kind: product of its times (a nation happier with the past for once looking to the future): a labour-intensive music factory with a necessarily ephemeral output ranging from hardcore psychodrama to bridge-passages in politically sensitive documentaries, from the alien monster-noises for radio thrillers, all the way to the little songs on Schools TV that help kids remember how to spell.

*

In a long-ago pulped official history of the first 25 years of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the fairly legendary Radiophonic Worker Delia Derbyshire tells how she created the Dr Who theme tune with a series of 'carefully timed handswoops' over oscillators - tomorrow's sounds yesterday, unforgettably.

The even more legendary Daphne Oram had created the Workshop - the UK's unobtrusive answer to Stockhausen's Cologne sound-labs and Pierre Schaeffer's concrete studios in Paris - out of little more than hand-swoops and vision, and the backing of the BBC's Drama Department (the Music Department then not remotely interested). Built up by Oram and later Desmond Briscoe, the Workshop's Heroic Phase consisted in the wrestling of sound - for frontline drama, then-startling productions of Beckett, Ionesco, Capek and Cocteau, and of course for science fiction, always greedy for new noises - from laughably primitive equipment: "They basically had, in 1958, 2000, of which they spent 600 on a third octave filter - half of one, in fact, they couldn't afford the whole thing," says Hodgson. "2000, one room, a packet of razor blades and lot of nerve ... There were 12 oscillators turned on and off by pressing keys, tuning each note separately - wobbulators - and an echo device you had to turn on the day before you wanted to use it."

*

Oram, Derbyshire and Briscoe are long gone, retired or moved on. Hodgson left for a while, exhausted either by the world's inattention (and 11 years of Dr Who), but returned in the late 70s. No less than three of the present six were BBC hands - with expertise in studio management and recording and audio technology - from those wing-and-prayer 60s days: Dick Mills (who joined the Workshop in 1958), Malcolm Clarke (1969), Roger Limb (1972). Peter Howell joined in 1975, Elizabeth Parker in 1978, Richard Attree, the most recent recruit, in 1985. Only Limb, Parker and Attree had previous academic music training.

You can tell an 'engineer' from a 'musician' on paper: their histories give them away. But in practice, all of them are expected to keep abreast of the technology to hand, from the dawn of tape to the computer, and all of them are expected - give or take pet skills - to take on whatever's come up. At the last possible minute, the fine cut - sometimes just a rough cut - arrives, and they sit down and watch it, with a director's possibly unhelpful brief in hand, and think about what they can do to make it more of what it already is, without being noticed. "Heightening the representation without actually telling lies," is Mills's description of one of his jobs.

Mills is in fact a genius with sound effects, tape loops and the rest: his first brush with Radiophonics, Plot On The Moon, was about two scientists (male) going to the moon (one falls for a Moon Maiden and comes back pregnant) - but he's also worked on a Prom performance of the Spanish-English composer Roberto Gerhard's Collages. Clarke blames his A-levels - Physics, Art and Music - for his ending here, where among other things he's provided sound-colour for radio programmes about the work of Picasso, Klee, Dali and others.

Limb plays piano in jazz-bands almost every night: "There's a lot of ignorance," he tells me cheerfully, "even within the BBC. We still get letters from people who expect us to mend Radiophones, go round in white coats with soldering irons." Howell has put as much work into sound search-and-retrieval computer programmes and the Workshop's pioneering computer-studio design as his radio interpretations of Dante's Inferno and the Book of Revelations. Even as a child, Parker's only wish was to write the music for television programmes. Attree, the youngest, the pop kid, sees the avant garde electronic sector they orbit - Planet Darmstadt and satellites - less as over-fiercely 'modern' than simply a bit old, a bit grey: "If I'm doing a Radio 1 piece", he says, "I approach it exactly as if someone had asked me to write a symphony for The BBC Symphony Orchestra."

And Hodgson - the boffin turned administrator - has quietly transformed this backwater department of a supposedly aging and sluggish State Broadcasting monolith into a buoyant, trend-setting unit, with Music and Technology magazines beating a monthly path to its door. My poor little Sony is overwhelmed, and somehow forgets to record two of the seven interviews: Parker and Clarke lose out.

*

So there's this music pouring daily out of the corridors of Maida Vale, from the heart of the Official Culture Industry. Inevitably, part of it simply domesticates this or that vanguard, turning revolutionary wild-style to soap opera ends. And certainly some of it, put together in haste and routine, is lame and derivative.

But this is only part of the story. To work successfully here, you don't only have to know and understand all music, from plainchant to HipHop, you also have to recognise every little advert trick as it turns cliche, to second-guess every misleading sonic gesture.

"It's always been a problem," Howell explains. "Sound association from people who aren't experienced enough using their ears to realise it might be a different sound they're listening to. You could come up with a menacing string sound that sounds like bees, but you can't use it in a context that would be effective, because of its associations. You often hear it on the air where people have been very courageous in use of sound, and what they actually come up with is something that's confusing. The listener doesn't know if it's a sound effect or incidental music commenting on an emotional level. And as soon as you confuse the listener for a split second, you've crashed in flames." Is that a tortured soul, or is it just the hoover? The liberation of dissonance turned suddenly daft: in the court of the ear's subconscious, there are no plea bargains. Unlike 'real' composers, Radiophonic Workers understand that less is often best, that you can't bury mistakes under artistic 'explanation', that the priority of computer's intention is a long-fled myth.

*

Howell has a poster up on his wall, advertising performances of a work of his, and a work by Parker, at an Electronic Music Festival in Milan last year, alongside such Euro-luminaries as Xenakis: substantial recognition, in its way. He's mildly critical of Britain's resistance to - for example - a prestige cultural venture like IRCAM, a state institution dedicated to the Experimental and Music On Fast Forward, but it's obvious that he and the others are really more in love with the very specific challenges Radiophonic Work throws up, the variety, the loopy pressures, the expertly-crafted anonymity, the creative stamina demanded by 30 or 40 commissions a year, the bulk of them generated and judged - though not composed - by someone else: "What the Workshop doesn't need," states the official history somewhere, "is half a dozen Mozarts."

This is the age of the synthesizer, the sampler, MIDI. The Mad Scientist days recalled by the quaint old name - when the Workshop was pioneering sound-collage, audio treatments and the first steam-powered synthesizers - are vanished forever: the rich control and possibility of Digital on one hand the underrated sonic experience of listeners and viewers on the other mean that this technocentric age, ushered in under Hodgson's direction, leaves them more than ever cultural cogs, craftworkers of enormous resource, touching and dabbing behind the scenes. The way they more than half like it. So is the only reward a job well done in the time allowed?

"One of the great thrills," says Roger Limb simply, "is that I have heard kids singing my songs, coming out of school, having just watched Look & Read, or whatever."

So there's a kind of immortality too?

"Yes. Everyone's immortal for five minutes."

This article first appeared in issue 96 (February 92).
© 1998 The Wire.

2002-07-21T12:43:00.000+10:00

John Cage once asked the following questions "Will we ever get to where the ugly sounds are considered beautiful?" "If we drop beauty what have we got, have we got truth? Have we got a way to make money?" I would answer a resounding yes to the first question, don't know if there's such a thing to the second and a tenuous probably not, depends on how much you mean, to the last. And I would offer the music of The Fall as support for my answers. The Fall have definitely gone a long way towards my own acceptance and enjoyment of the ugly sounds as beautiful. I always flash on them when I think about Cage's questions. Mark E. Smith isn't rich but he's been able to continue putting out records for over 20 years. The only truth he seems concerned with is of a personal variety, one that exposes the lie of utopia that some would use as a pretext to increase control and eliminate individual dissent.

There are rarely any elements of obvious beauty in The Fall's songs, melodically or lyrically. Tales of spirit possession, psychic powers, death by roller coaster, wire tapping, media manipulation, character assassinations, and personal rants against entire schools of thought populate their records. Images float in and out from the alternate worlds inspired by writers such as Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Burroughs and William Blake. Lyrically there is always the assumption that things are not as they seem on the surface and that something dark and threatening lies underneath it all. An almost Gnostic insight of a flaw in the fabric of the external world, the fault for which lies with whoever created it.

Their music is chaotic yet repetitive, verging on atonality at any moment. Jerky rhythms, harsh keyboard patches and angular scratchy guitars abound. Primitive cassette recordings are cut in at random, suddenly shifting the sonic landscape in a way that seems neither natural, predictable nor correct. Their music is jarring, abrasive and can consequently be both incredibly exciting and terribly annoying, depends on your mood, your own nervous system.

I remember disliking or at the very least not appreciating The Fall the first time I heard them. I just couldn't get to it. That guy with the strange voice droning on and on over a repetitive minimal backing. Get the fuck out of here. But I learned. The more I listened the more I learned and the more I learned the more I liked it. My initial take on the lyrics was "this is neat because they're abstract enough to where I can take something new and different away from it every time". But as I continued to listen and read the lyrics I realized, no, there are specific themes and events being related in these songs. But it takes time to decipher the meaning because the information is conveyed in a skewed, unusual and surprisingly original manner, despite the obvious influences of the aforementioned literary figures.

So these days I find I can't do without The Fall. Sure I go through stretches where I don't feel like hearing them. But I also go through periods where I listen to them in large batches, and almost nothing else. Mark E. Smith is one of my ultimate individualist heroes, similar to Jonathan Richman in that both are staunch believers in being themselves 100 percent regardless of the consequences, but Mark's negative and sardonic take on life makes him more like the anti-Jonathan. The yin to Jonathan's yang if you will. Ironically, by all reports, Mark is easier to approach and strike up a conversation with than Jonathan.

M. E. S. is always playing the devil's advocate, even when it makes him look an ass, remember his support of the Falkland Islands War? But even within his most lame brain assertions and reactionary stances there lies a desire to shake things up and not tow the line or join the party which I find both admirable and endearing. He's the loveable old grouch, hell I wouldn't be surprised if he had a heart of gold underneath that rough exterior. The BBC should give Mark E. Smith his own T.V. show, a talk/variety show. Mark could drink and insults his guests or maybe a situation comedy structured around the curmudgeonly but loveable old drunk.

I guess I admire him too because even though he talks a lot of shit he backs most of it up. How many other bands that have been around for over 20 years are still putting out relatively interesting records. His allegiance to the working class and a staunch work ethic is admirably demonstrated by the regular as clockwork release of Fall records over the years. He genuinely seems like he's not happy unless he's working, actually he doesn't sound too happy then either, but you get the point. He walks the walk.

The rush of hearing songs like 'The Classical' (the best Fall song ever?) 'Totally Wired' 'Leave the Capitol' and 'English Scheme' is difficult to put in words, for they conjure up such strong but diffuse feelings. If you have ever felt a seething rage, the kind that makes you feel so alive you feel as if you might break through your own flesh, a form of indignation that borders on psychosis, set to careen completely out of control any moment, then you're halfway there. It's a visceral rush, a strong feeling, even when you're not exactly sure what it is he's on about. My friend Chris once offered this insight into how MES constructs many of his lyrical rants "he takes a concept, something abstract and then proceeds to rant against it in an extremely personal manner". Witness 'The Classical''s assault on European classicism as one of the clearest examples of this method. "Kill it, kill it!"

From a general health stand point there certainly is much to recommend the avoidance of an over indulgence in this type of extreme negativity. One needs only to look at Smith's face these days as it continues to collapse in on itself, to witness the ravages that this outlook can wreak, though all that speed and alcohol I'm sure hasn't helped. And yet we stand to lose a lot more if we try to simply ignore and repress these feelings. Mark E. Smith had the good sense to take his disgust, anger, paranoia and resentment and externalize them into an original and fascinating form. He took the ugliness he felt both in and around him and gave it an expression that was so strange, striking and exciting that one could almost call it, well, beautiful. And I for one find the world a much more interesting place for his efforts, not more comfortable but more interesting. After all comfort's over rated, isn't it?

Tangents - home of unpopular culture

2002-07-20T14:42:00.000+10:00

Rachel's Songs About Fucking

2002-07-20T14:41:00.000+10:00

ARE YOU A MEATHEAD?
Take this simple quiz and find out. Simply check every answer that's true about you, and give yourself the number of points next to the question.

I OWN A SHIRT WITH THIS ON THE FRONT:
(1) _ "Ten Reasons A Beer Is Better Than A Woman"
(1) _ "Get A Job!" with one skeleton giving another a blowjob
(1) _ a bootleg shirt featuring cartoon characters doing something outlandishly out of character and/or saying something profane
(2) _ "One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor!"
(2) _ "I'm not as think as you drunk I am"
(2) _ (in fuzzy letters) "MASTURBATION WILL TURN YOU BLIND"
(3) _ any college you did not actually attend
(3) _ any bar
(4) _ "NEW YORK FUCKING CITY!!!"

MY CAR
(1) _ is an IROC
(1) _ is a Prowler
(1) _ has a very very loud stereo system
(1) _ has a horn that plays "The Theme From the Godfather"
(2) _ is a silver Prowler
(2) _ has sweet racing stripes
(2) _ has a Bad Boy/Yosemite Sam sticker across the back window
(3) _ has the brightest high-beams the law will allow
(3) _ has a horn that plays "La Cucaracha"
(3) _ has flames across the side
(4) _ is worth more to me than the lives of my wife and family
(5) _ is currently parked in a Handicap spot. What?
(5) _ is nicknamed "The Pussy Machine"

MY HOUSE IS DECORATED WITH
(1) _ velvet, velvet, velvet!
(1) _ a street sign
(1) _ Precious Moments Figurines
(2) _ an "If You Sprinkle When You Tinkle, Please Be Neat and Wipe the Seat" bathroom poster (add a point if it isn't framed)
(2) _ a plaster matador statue
(3) _ a plaster matador lamp
(3) _ Christmas lights 365 days a year
(3) _ plastic-covered furniture
(4) _ more than two sports-related memorabilia
(5) _ plastic fruits/vegetables/plants

ON A NORMAL DAY, I WEAR
(1) _ one gold-plated chain
(2) _ a gold-plated chain, plus a crucifix
(3) _ two gold-plated chains with a big crucifix and a fake-diamond ring
(4) _ three or more gold-plated chains, more than one fake-diamond ring, and something brass that spells out my name
(5) _ enough jewelry that people think I cleaned out QVC

ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS, I WEAR
(1) _ a polyester suit
(2) _ my "formal" baseball cap
(3) _ the fancy gold-plated jewelry
(4) _ a tuxedo t-shirt
(5) _ a shirt.

THE FUNNIEST THING I EVER SAW WAS
(1) _ that farting scene in Blazing Saddles
(1) _ This doll, it's a guy, and you squeeze this bulb and he pulls his pants down!
(1) _ "Truly Tasteless Jokes XXII" - that Blanche Knott, boy, she's still got it
(2) _ my "10 Ways a Beer Is Better Than A Woman" t-shirt
(2) _ "Married with Children," the first season
(2) _ Dice!
(3) _ this guy, he called up Larry King and started saying, "Baba Booey motherfucker" over and over
(3) _ The Three Stooges
(4) _ Gallagher
(5) _ the Special Olympics

I HAVE HAD
(1) _ a screaming match with my wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband outside of a bar at 3 in the morning
(1) _ more than one DWI charge (add a point for every DWI charge)
(1) _ a repo man visit me
(2) _ a mullet (guys)
(2) _ high hair (women)
(3) _ the best days of my life on the high school football team/cheerleading squad
(3) _ trouble understanding why people "shush" me for talking loudly to my wife and kids during movies
(4) _ a mullet (women)
(4) _ high hair (guys)
(5) _ the best days of my life in my old fraternity/sorority
(5) _ sex with a prostitute
(5) _ a trip to a nationally syndicated talk show to tell my significant other that I am dumping them/cheating on them/gay
(5) _ date rape charges filed against me after a party (add 5 points for each additional charge)

HOW TO SCORE
Total your points on all the statements you have checked. Now go back and check the rest of the statements you were ashamed to admit to truthfully the first time around and give yourself double points for those. Now go back and check all the statements that were true, but you figured didn't count because you had them "ironically," and give yourself triple points. Add 100 points if you mentally added a "How to Have Sex" joke after the "HOW TO SCORE" heading.

POINTS
0 - 10 points - You are either a liar, a hippy, or a pretentious intellectual. Any way you slice it, you are probably not very popular.
10 - 40 points - You have an ordinary level of meatheadedness. Congratulations! You are an American!
41 - 60 points - Congratulations, Mr. President.
61 - 100 points You are a meathead extraordinaire. Shouldn't you be in a chat room, asking someone about their "AGE/SEX/LOCATION GOTTA PIC??!!!!"?
100 points + - Time to pack up your things and move out to Staten Island, kind of a Meathead Wildlife Preserve, where you will feel safe in a habitat among your own kind.
Liam McEneaney 1:55:45 AM

2002-07-20T13:45:00.000+10:00

Saucemaster references from around the world:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/6976/zrcont.html

This is Saucemasters journal of a trip to Spain. "What could be more romantic than being in Europe all alone with nothing to burden you and no plans to tie you down? the answer: plenty. I kept notes" (pg1). Saucemaster tells of freezing his ass of waiting for trains, stores and museums that are closed despite the fact that there are open signs in the windows or the hours posted say they should be open, run ins with pickpockets, and of course wandering around lost looking for a hotel or at least a better map. The writing is chronological and suprisenly flowing I had a real problem putting this down and getting back to work, always a sign of a great zine. $? 3980 derby drive/ Cumming,Georgia/30130/USA

http://www.topica.com/lists/tlcnet-streettalk@igc.topica.com/read/message.html?mid=700001198&sort=d&start=0

Re: signalized intersection safety DJ SauceMaster
Oct 09, 1999 12:35 PDT
On Sat, 9 Oct 1999 Tony-@aol.com wrote:

Well, let me add this thought to the comments that there are plenty of
residential intersections with no stop/yield signs for any entering traffic
at the intersection. If there are a lot of these, then: (1) clearly these
intersections must be quite safe because local citizens would put up with
unsafe conditions in their neighborhood; and (2) accidents at these locations
would not be related in any way to "busy," intersection-controlled
intersection crash rates.

i lived in brookline mass this summer (just outside of boston) and there
were tons of residential intersections w/o stop signs. at first i thought
that was crazy dangerous...but after a few times driving in those areas i
came to realize that it wasn't so bad since everyone had to be really
careful not to hit each other. i mean, bad drivers make those
intersections dangerous, but any respectful and reasonable driver should
be fine in that kind of situation... overall i felt pretty safe with
those kinds of intersections.

live happily-
love-
gabe

-----------------------
"Express yourself
Create the space
You know you can win
Don't give up the chase
Beat the man
Take him on
You never give up
It's one on one"
-NewOrder
-----------------------
Gabriel J. Cohn
1600 Grand Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55105
(651)-699-3059
-----------------------

From The Bookjacket: The Great Barbecue Companion is barbecue's best buddy - everything you need to know about barbecue sauces... and then some.

This lively collection of sauces covers all the best flavors associated with barbecue: sweet, savory, hot and spicy - sometimes mixing all four. Bruce Bjorkman, a.k.a. "Mr. Barbecue," veteran of hundreds of barbecue competitions, takes readers on a journey through the world of barbecue sauces, from Texas to the Carolinas to Cajun country, and from Asia to the Caribbean.

More than 100 recipes
Saucemaster Tips
Barbecue lore and anecdotes
Mail-order sources of sauces and spices
Calendar of Kansas City Barbecue Society sanctioned contests
About The Author: Bruce Bjorkman is a columnist with the National Barbecue News and Barbecue Today. He holds an Advanced Pitmaster Degree, has won numerous awards in barbecue competitions, and has been a judge at the prestigious Memphis in May World Barbecue Championship.

http://www.angryredplanet.org/

saucemaster - 8 bit construction set

2002-07-18T09:25:00.000+10:00

Read Me: "Still Life in Books"

A serial about working in a public library...

Part the Second: A Poor Standard of Classification

The door to the public space opened and Chuck the Counter Jockey stuck his
head inside.
"Has anyone seen a baseball cap left here recently?"
"I'll field this one," Sheila said to me. She got up and went outside, taking the cap from the book chute with her.
Outside Chuck indicated an anxious-looking, bespectacled woman who stood nearby. As soon as the woman saw the cap in Sheila's hand she sighed with visible relief.
"Thank you ever so much," she said to Sheila as the item was handed over.
"Where did you find it?"
"In the non-fiction shelves under 646," the Shelving Fairy joked. The woman smiled gratefully and thanked Sheila again, not having seen the amusing side of Sheila's comment.
As the woman left, Sheila felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned to find the tall, dark and handsome form of Terence the Reference Librarian standing behind her, impeccable as ever in his Armani suit. How did afford *that* on a librarian's salary?
"I heard what you said to that client, Sheila," Terence said sternly. "You shouldn't make jokes like that in front of clients."
"I'm sorry, Terry, but I didn't think it would do any harm."
"It doesn't," the Reference librarian smiled, "but she obviously didn't get it. The first rule of library humour is to have another librarian around to appreciate it, especially if it involves making fun of customers to their faces without their knowing it. By the way, I don't agree that a baseball cap would be catalogued in the 646s. That's in the context of 'Technology'. I think a more appropriate number would be the 746s."
" 'Textile arts' in 'Arts and Entertainment'? I can see how you'd think that, but you don't know the circumstances under which the cap was found, which was the book chute, so reference to technology is quite appropriate in this case."
"The technology of the book chute?" Terence asked doubtfully. "A rather tenuous connection..."
"Will you guys please not start an argument in front of my customers?" Chuck interrupted. "I get enough of *those* from the customers themselves as it is. Go ask Kate to settle it, or something."
Kate the Cataloguer was busy in the workroom.
"Kate, what classification number would you give to a baseball cap?" Terence asked.
"What context is it in?" she asked in reply, not in the least bit surprised that she was being asked such a question.
"It came down the book chutes," said Sheila.
"How on Earth did it get there? Never mind." She thought for a moment. "I'd put it in the 391s under 'costume and personal appearance'. It's only a piece of clothing, after all."

2002-07-17T10:20:00.000+10:00

i break their hip...i make 'em weep...

2002-07-16T16:09:00.000+10:00

Sauce: yeah, I used to work on AltaVista (way back when it was cool :-), but babelfish technology was done by Systran. I think it assumes neuter gender for irregular nouns it doesn't recognize. BTW, I might still have all those "Still Life In Books" emails -- but unfortunately not the Princesa Tocalaroca ones (I don't think I BCC'd my real email address, and I've lost my password for Peru.com). We are taking a walk down memory lane, aren't we?