2 Star Wars collectible miniature from eBay, @ £9.35.

2 OOP Phoenix Command supplements from eBay, @ £8.90.

1 Copy of Wargames Illustrated, @ £4.00

Total: £22.25.

2 packs of Doctor Who micro-universe figures from Woolies, @ £4.99 each.

1 rare Star Wars collectible miniature from eBay, @ £4.51.

1 Dinosaur Planet RPG supplement from eBay, @ £6.24.

4 OOP Grenadier dinosaur miniatures from eBay, @ £10.29.

Total: £31.02. Just about on budget.

So I’ve managed to have two weeks off work and not make a single blog post. Okay I was out of the country and off the www for three days but still, it’s shocking.

Have I turned into one of those bloggers who only posts to talk about how they’re not posting? Oh dear.

Things I’d like to write

• A collection of the things I discovered during the site redesign project - mostly new (to me) IE bugs and Ajax gotchas and XSLT moans. This is started and every so often I open up the draft and a stare at it a bit.
• The tutorial on HTML tables in the CSS age that I mentioned mumble months back.
• All about my holidays - Lettice and I have managed long weekends in Dublin, Dover (don’t mock, the castle is amazing) and Amsterdam (see below) this summer but I’ve hardly said a word about what we got up to.
• My continuing investigation of social networking sites. I’ve reviewed Bebo and Friendster and have Orkut, Yahoo 360 and probably a few others to come. (I’m not doing MySpace and FaceBook beacuse I was already members there and it wouldn’t be a like-for-like comparison). Also something about Rapleaf/Upscoop.
• Um ….
• … the rest of this list…

Some quickies

The world cup starts today. Wales don’t really stand a chance. Fingers crossed that they don’t fuck up the group matches and finish second behind Australia. Then it’s England or more likely South Africa and that’s probably that.

I’m not sure about the new White Stripes album.

I fixed the broken shower. This makes me feel all manly and capable and productive.

Amsterdam has a ridiculous number of shoe shops - be aware of this fact if you plan to take your wife or girlfriend there. Also, as everyone speaks English there are a number of English language bookshops and even the Dutch ones have English sections, and apart from Waterstones (which presumably is supplied and priced like a UK branch) the prices are good.

Speaking of books, I attended the launch for Stuffed and Starved by my old university mate Raj.

A war between an authoritarian government and a set of independent planets. The central government wins. Our heroes were amongst the fighters on the independent side. Meanwhile a remote planet is devastated by a chemical that causes the population to become wildly violent. Not actually a summary of the background to Serenity but actually the background to the old roleplaying game Living Steel that I picked up from eBay recently.

Oh, I’m flogging some stuff on eBay. Only Star Wars miniatures at the moment but I hope to list a few books and vids plus some other miniatures over the weekend.

Very True Mood: pensive

Well, a little bit moany, by comparison with some people[1] I’ve really got nothing to complain about, and what I have is largely self inflicted.

There ought to be a law against it.

I’m waiting for a furniture delivery. It’s coming sometime between 7 and 6 today. Getting dressed before 7 on a Saturday? When you have no plans to go further than the local shops[2] today? It’s just not right.

Seeing as I haven’t posted all week…

Happy New Year

I have foolishly gone and made a bunch of resolutions, and told people what they are (so I can’t conveniently forget all about them), so I might as well post them here:

1. Give up alcohol for seven weeks. An odd length of time, but it means I can start drinking again just in time for Lettice’s 30th.
2. Give up soft drinks, sweets and crisps. Yikes! All in one go.
3. If I buy breakfast on the way to work then I must buy a cheap lunch. Kind of vague this one, but I know what I mean.
4. Pay at least £100 into my savings account every month. Standing order now set up to transfer the money the day after I get paid, so I don’t need to do anything else for this one.
5. Limit my wargames/role playing games spending. I did a little experiment a while back and the results were a bit scary. I’m aiming for a lower figure this year - £500 total, so I have a limit of £100 per quarter and an extra floating £100 for magazine subscriptions and similar costs.
6. Get a hair cut at least every two months. Lettice may want me to go for “the full Tom Baker” but there were some very frightening photos of me taken at the Christmas party and I think short is better.

Five days into the year and I haven’t broken any of them. Though the fact that alcohol free lager tastes even more revolting than regular lager and that alcohol free bitter doesn’t seem to exist, may be my undoing.

[1] Lawrence Miles has dumped his diary/blog for November and December online in one big splurge. It’s not easy reading. This guy is one of the most talented writers to ever touch Doctor Who but he’s got some serious issues - I really don’t want to say anything trite like “tortured genius” because that turns a person into a cliché.

[2] More importantly to the Farmer’s Market - West Norwood is moving up in the world!

Chris O’Dowd (Roy from The IT Crowd), just as scruffy looking in real life and Marc Wotton (Shirley Ghostman), just as creepy looking in real life, in role playing game shop Orcs Nest. Geeks, just like the rest of us.

Very True Mood: exhausted

I’m sure you’re all sick of the spoof motivational poster craze. But these four tickled my fancy… (all from RPG Motivational Posters)

Also, in case you haven’t had it pointed out to you by a dozen people already Star Trek Inspirational Posters.

Very True Mood: tired

Via littlebun and unknownlegend comes a whimsical slice of memery.

What type of Fae are you?

At least I wasn’t a bloody pixie.

Very True Mood: thoughtful

So today was SELWG, the start of the new year so far as this experiment goes.

Bit of a final splurge on eBay - some out of print role playing game books, some Star Wars minis and some old Ral Partha dinosaurs - and some miniatures from Discount Hobby, all of which adds up to £74.6.

Grand total for the first year is £738.43

So, how about year two?

Including a bus ticket and entrance fee I spent £87.68 today. There wasn’t any impulse buying which was a good thing, instead I bought stuff that I’d had my eye on for some time (plus two Star Wars Universe boosters, sigh). Namely, The Starmada X Brigade rulebook; two DZ Miniatures Mammoths and two Wooly Rhinos (now available in resin from Stratagem, also available: three cave bears and a Glyptodon - very similar to, but a bit larger than, the Steve Barber version); a bunch of starships from GZG, including a Glowbug class free trader; and some of those little ‘gemstone’ markers that CCG players use and which I need for Chez Goth games with Lettice. The only thing I was after but didn’t get was the Serenity RPG book.

Via Sharikkamur.

Spellsword
51% Combativeness, 36% Sneakiness, 88% Intellect, 5% Spirituality

Aggressive, but with the brains to back it up: You are a Spellsword!
Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you’ve fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you’re an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn’t.
Spellswords combine arcane might with combat know-how. They’re much tougher than mages, like to wear armor, and can cast spells through their weapons. They’re very, very, good at doing lots of damage to a single target very quickly, and while not quite as tough as most fighters, are still pretty hard to kill.
You’re both smart and aggressive, which means that you’re probably pretty dangerous when pissed off. You also tend to be somewhat straightforward, which is nice, and don’t have much use for spirituality or mysticism.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 38% on Combativeness
	You scored higher than 48% on Sneakiness
	You scored higher than 87% on Intellect
	You scored higher than 0% on Spirituality

Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on Ok Cupid

Two OOP HLBS Giraffes of eBay for £4.39.

One Star Wars Universe booster in Canada for $25 which is about £12.

One issue of Polymancer for $6.95 which is about £3.30.

Running total is now £663.83

Polymancer is a new independent RPG magazine from Quebec. In some ways it’s a blast from the past as apart from the glossy paper and CGI cover artwork it could have come from the 1980s - articles on when to kill off PCs; on running swashbuckling games; on using dictatorships as backgrounds; on giving incidental NPCs personalities.

The main feature is a scenario based around an alternative history where World War II came to a stalemate due to the combined use of airships and nukes. The actual scenario is just another trip down the familiar ‘HQ loses contact with isolated base and sends PCs to investigate’ lane but the background is somewhat interesting. The magazine promises more background on their web site but I can’t find it. In fact the website - www.polymancerstudios.com isn’t very good at all. But with the current exchange rate the magazine itself may be worth another look.