Dr. Stu on the Dr. Who Finale

Lots of daleks, lots of cybermen, some Time Lord technology and yet no real build on the Time War metaplot after two seasons. And the epic clash never really seemed epic enough to me - I was hoping for some devastation of Earth as the two races clashed. As a minor nit, what happened to all the cybermen converted on Earth who had not been exposed to the void?

Other than that it was pretty good.

Well, bye bye Rose. Can't say I'll miss her, though she was relatively heroic. After spending most of this season acting like Sebastian Love from Little Britain she was stranded on a parallel Earth with a better job working for alt-Torchwood, resurrected parallel earth father, preggers and happy mother, butch Mickey and yet somehow this wasn't enough for her. Both she and I would prefer this...



Personally I think the Doctor and Rose's relationship has become obsessive, like they ultimately don't give a damn about anyone else in the grand scheme. I really hope the new companion is suitably level-headed and they don't try to pair the Doctor off with her as well.

The goodbye was suitably teary but I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up causing some sort of catastrophe trying to get back to the Doctor. The cliffhanger was a bit tacked on though if the Doctor is going it solo for the special it should be interesting.

Quiet on the southern front

I've also been watching the original Star Trek on Sci-Fi and forgot how utterly brilliant it was compared to the Next Gen. Scarcely an episode goes by without Kirk getting into a fist fight. Comparing this with an episode where Wesley has to sit starfleet exams or Data gets a date the Original series has a fast pace and looks no less dated than the Next Gen in my eyes now. And with class bits like these, who can blame me?



In particular my favourite episode is the original 2nd pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, with the silver eyed old buddy of Kirk that slowly gets evolved into a shirt-ripping-paper-mache-rock-proof-god-monster. I've been told I focus too much on shirt ripping but it's not an episode of Star Trek without one of the following:-

1. Kirk getting his shirt ripped


2. Kirk fighting in the sand


3. A Vulcan nervepinch disabling an individual only as long as the plot dictates


4. An Enterprise security guard/transporter chief being overpowered (usually when guarding a prisoner by turning their back to them)


5. The crew being entertained by Uhura singing and having the most low-tech recreational activities

I've had a house guest the past week. We've watched the 70% of my Sky box taken up with original Trek, as well as a few of the new episodes appearing on the New Voyages website. Other than that, it's been quiet. His nibs is on three weeks holiday so there is peace and sense in the office for that time.

File Extensions

From Korvar the Fox...

Magic Table

At work today a table appeared outside our door magically containing biscuits and coffee. A crowd of folk in the labs came out and ate some food but left about 4 biscuits and a plunger full of coffee. It was quite heartless to do so right outside our door so justice demanded I make off with all the remaining biscuits and donate the herbal tea to Andy.

However, imagine our surprise when the plundered table magically reset itself to contain a buffet lunch. I can only surmise what other goodies said table will bring.

This Week I 'Av Been Mostly Watching...

Watched the pilot of Star Trek The New Voyages last night. For a fan-made internet show it is brilliant and captures the spirit of the original series perfectly.

Heavy Lifting and the Ice Cream Van of the Damned

I played hookey at lunchtime and drove to Manor Road to help move our kit from there to secure it now term is ending today. Talk about closure, I will either have to go the leisure centre for fencing now, or start going to the gym like I've threatened for months.

Driving with 3 heavy bags in the back of the Stu Mobile was surprisingly difficult and I doubt my skill dazzled Naomi, our armourer, by completely failing to pause anywhere within reach of the entry buzzer to the university, but other than that and a lengthy parking sequence we managed to get the kit moved. On a really hot day.

Which made it a bit more surreal when I moved the car round the back of the University, got out and saw the ice cream van I'd decided to not go to following me. It's the first time I've nearly been run over on the pavement by a car wholly on the pavement. And then I was again nearly run over by the ice cream van as it decided to drive through the park. You might think on a hot day having an ice cream van seemingl try to mate with you is a handy thing, but I assure you it gets old fast.

Technology, We Love Thee

Best pointless link ever.

Tom Baker Sings Radio Killed the Video Star...

I know I linked this already but thanks to the magic of SMS Text his style is distinctly like William Shatner's "recitals".

And while I'm at it, I've not linked this in ages. Or inflicted this



on you. Prepare to be in distress!

Dr Stu rambles on again...

Some more opinions of Season 2 Doctor Who. One controversial. One not so.

Love and Monsters: I really liked this episode despite it being not about the Doctor, but rather about some chap called Elton, purely for an excuse to show some footage of and make some gags about Sir Elton. Also RTD didn't want Elton to be a geek but he just came across as a well-dressed one.

The story basically was guy obsesses over Doctor, guy joins other obsessives, obsessives discover that there are better things in life than being a sci-fi Doctor Who fanatic and start a band, evil guy turns up and gets them all back to obsessing over the Doctor, guy relearns there is more to life and decides to grow up and date a girl, evil guy absorbs his fellow obsessives but they pull him to pieces, Doctor shows up to dispense wisdom and collect his paycheck and Rose actually shows compassion and empathy for a change.

It actually seemed to be a critique of the sci-fi fan, but this story did seem sufficiently tender in places that I enjoyed it, right up until the quite tasteless implication of a sex-life between Elton and the pavement slab girl. And they mentioned Slitheen. Because they're so great. For a family instead of a race they have been mentioned more than the Daleks and Cybermen.

I really expected to not like this episode and still think ultimately RTD cannot write science fiction, but when it comes to writing about relationships this is clearly his forte. He should write Coronation Street, not Doctor Who.

He was a man with a rudimentary pulley-system for reaching his boots. She was a pavement slab with a truly disgusting sex life. Together they fight crime.

Fear Her: Wow, talk about painting by numbers. This was a last minute addition to replace an excessively expensive script penned by that modern day Oscar Wilde wit Stephen Fry. It showed.

It was a solid story, if with the worst scribble monster ever and the bit with the Dad seemed a bit OTT. Worse yet the bit with the Doctor and the Olympic torch made me afraid I might contract diabetes from the sickly sweet television I was watching. In reality if the torch dropped there'd be a scrum of "concerned Lonodoners" trying to pick up the damn thing. Also did anyone try to check on the torch bearer?

As to next week, either the BBC aren't even trying to stop the spoilers about Rose dying, or this is some sort of clever misdirection to completely throw us off regarding how this season ends. Actually...

Graduation Stuff

It's been an interesting few days as once again Dundee seems to have changed dramatically in the 2 months I've been away. The old Esso garage has been demolished to make way for a Tesco Extra, the ruined warehouses on Monifieth's shore have burned down and the university seems to be one big building site at the moment.

My trip up was relatively uneventful though I had the worst hayfever ever. My face seemed to swell up making me almost unrecognisable to the dogs when I got in. I even had to pull over and take two tablets outside of Scotch Corner.

I spent most of Tuesday trying to recover from the long drive, went into town and visited the sauna to try and clear out my hayfever before graduation. I also fell foul of the Highlander Games and Groucho taxes and happily parted with tons of cash.

Also, kilt hiring is traumatic for me. Kilt hiring with my mother is slit-your-wrists-in-the-changing-room traumatic. Thankfully this time I endured the former, last time it was the latter. And why is Scottish National Dress so damn complicated to put on?

Graduated today, so the saga of the PhD has finally drawn to a close with, as one of the AC department's other graduands said was "a lonely long drawn out ceremony to match the lonely drawn out process of doing a PhD."

My folks didn't get an official photograph taken and instead decided they'd like one at 11pm after I have long since returned my gown and am about to return my kilt on the morrow. We also didn't go to the garden party as mum and Andrew weren't feeling too well and there was no parking to be had around the university. Bit of an anti-climax then really, as none of my supervisors were in attendance. Did get to see some folk though.

Home James

I'm off to Dundee tomorrow, so it's good night from me for a while. In the meantime amuse yourself with Kirk Vs Picard Debate.

I in the meantime will be relaxing back home, trying to find myself and doing a montage something like this:-

Good Geek!

I and my fellow droogs had a good trip to the sci-fi exhibits at the National Space Centre today. There was monsters, more monsters, Doctor Who, Firefly props (including Vera, Jayne's gun), a makeup exhibition where people were (slowly, makeup takes hours) assimilated into Borg. Given the first Borg took 2 1/2 hours of painstaking work I doubt Earth will be assimilated this century.



We attended an audience with Davros and even asked the legend in his own mind a question about holiday plans. He doesn't have any ever apparently.



For my sins I was suckered by a Dalek for saying, "Extermination looks really painless. Being suckered like that guy in 'Dalek' looked really painful". Daleks are apparently tetchy but who knew? I was also exterminated at least on 3 separate occasions. At least 1 of those they weren't even aiming for me, but then when did you ever know a villain that could shoot straight?



And I met the original K9. Don't think his owner was too pleased about taking the above photo, but a fanboy will do what a fanboy will do.



The last thing we did was go on the Alien Experience, recommended by Glen, who'd been on it previously. The thing is a 6 minute trip to the evil Weyland-Yutan's lesser known Leicester branch. It ended with us being chased by aliens and me yelling to a colonial marine to shoot a xenomorph that was about 3 feet away from me and said marine, and turning round in an airlock to be confronted by a squad of well armed marines. Thankfully they weren't American so there were no friendly-fire casualties.

My camera died this morning so all these photies are annoyingly from my mobile, but Claudia has much nicer photos that hopefully I'll upload at a later date.

Dr. Stu on Rose "Chav" Tyler

Damn, no more of this after Season 2...



I wonder what the next companion will be? If I were to have a say it might be something akin to Dr. 2's companion, Jamie. A bloke to chum around with and not have any of this sexual tension stuff that the Tardis is replete with.

Some Motivational Posters

Spaced Out on YouTube

And now the latest cull from YouTube - the never shown ending to Spaced season 2.



And of course the best bit in Spaced ever...

Taysiders in Space

I used to be a Trekker. When I was 15. I'm better now, but I'm watching the Next Gen reruns on Sky 1. So I looked up Star Trek on youtube and got this...



I'll throw in a couple more as well...



And get over it guys...



Not Star Trek but what the hell...

Dr. Stu rhymes with Dr. Who

The Impossible Planet and Satan Pit.

Now that was Doctor Who! And science-fiction - for once I didn't think, "What do Dr. Who and Eastenders have in common? Well they're both set in London in 2006."

They had space, space suits, aliens, space ships, space, demons, space walks, space, alien planets, space absailing, space. Note the space. It wasn't set on Earth in the past, Earth in the future, Earth in the present or a planet that is called New Earth. It also wasn't written by RTD so it didn't have a single fart joke, pop music, or even an appearance by the Slitheen (though apparently the Slitheen were meant to replace the very cool Ood in an old iteration of the script).

Rose was even vaguely tolerable in the second part. It was a shame the Ood died as it wasn't really their fault an evil entity dominated them, and the Doctor chose to save 1 woman over 40 or so tentacly aliens.

I've obtained Genesis of the Daleks and watch the first 3 parts. It's pretty darn good even if Skaro looks like a quarry and not the red planet shown in the McGann movie. It's obvious the original series went downhill after Tom Baker left the show. Certainly the Davidson serials I've seen were nearly as bad a Colin Baker's reign. Nearly. Or should I say Kinda?

I'm hoping to get a hold of the bits of Shada that were filmed. The McGann reconstruction of Douglas Adam's lost script was utterly fantastic.

Anyroads this weekend there is a sci-fi weekend in the Space Centre. Expect lots of duff photos of me being chased by Daleks and goofing around.

Oh, and I finally found this clip...

Dead Ringers Rocks

Stuff I Like: Green Lantern

When I was young I used to read Superman, Batman and all the others, back when the only place to get US comics was on Blackpool shore. Back in the late 80s and early 90s however US comics started appearing in newsagents like the one in Monifieth. I picked up two of my favourite DC comic titles - Aquaman and Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn.

Hal Jordan, US (naturally) test pilot is selected by the Guardians of the Universe to join the Green Latern Corp, an army of intergalactic space corps armed with green rings that allow them to build any construct or do practically anything their imagination can conceive of.

Eventually other Earth Green Lanterns were chosen, including John Stewart, in a 70s socially minded revamp. Eventually Hal turned evil, laid waste to the Green Lanterns and a young fella called Kyle was chosen. Hal's better now, and Green Lantern again, but only John and Kyle have appeared in the ace Animated DC Universe.

I said I thought John Stewart in the Justice League cartoon which I started watching was pretty dull. This clip proves I'm wrong, everything after 3 minutes in this video is pure cinematic genius:-



A suspiciously Hal Jordanesque origin is also on YouTube (not sure how legal that is, but the entirety of the John Stewart one is there if you look.

A Death Mark's Not An Easy Thing To Live With

I received a letter from Leicester Council informing me that I hadn't paid any council tax in 2005 when I lived in the Dump, Ullswater Street, and that since I was doing my civic duty and trying to pay it now I had reminded them they could potentially ring some more money out of me. Quite a bit in fact given it was a 5 bedroom house I stayed in.

The fact that I was a student until September 2005 has once again slipped their mind and they were now at the call "Boba Fett" stage of proceedings, much like they were the time they had all the details correct other than who was living in the damn dump. So rather than be encased in carbonite and used to lure a chum into a disasterous sabre duel in the bowels of Leicester I thought it would be a fine idea to give them a ring.

There's nothing more soul destroying than dealing with councils in any fashion. Their hotline consists of the following gems repeated over and over with the obligatory lift-classics music.

"You are number 5 in the queue."

"If you have missed a payment you are an unremitting debtor and there is nothing we can do about it other than make things worse."

"You will not get to speak to a manager or team leader. Only a poor peon earning £5 an hour. That's all you deserve as you are scum."

I managed to placate the minion I eventually got through to, I didn't even have to pay them triple. It turned out after threatening me they cancelled the request for dosh. Councils are a hive of confusion and villainy, be careful.

Morrowind

I'm feeling the usual high level of self-pity as I've somehow managed to come down with a summer cold (or more appropriately a cough) despite the weather being pretty darn warm.

Things continue to tick along nicely - work is going ok and I'm having a rare series of early nights and staying in watching TV. Doctor Who was very good this week and put me in mind of John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, which is the single most scary film I've seen in a while.

I've taken to playing Morrowind on the beast, though I do also now have Oblivion. I started playing Morrowind and while I've encountered no plot beyond fetch-and-carry quests for lots of guilds it's very nicely done graphically and impossible to get the theme out of your head. I presume the plot comes along at some point.

More Full Motion Video

The Video Game Acting Awards... with a few games I've played like Dark Forces 2, Phantasmagoria and so forth.

Lucky Bar Steward

As the world continues to crumble around me in Leicester I've been playing Kill Doctor Lucky, which is one of the most silly boardgames I've ever played and I've played a game called "Oi Dat's My Leg".

Kill Doctor Lucky is essentially reverse Cluedo, where you try to kill the good Doctor without any witnesses and are constantly foiled by misplaced banana peels, badly positioned furniture, kung-fu masters in the armoury and the fact Dr. Lucky turns incorporeal when you try to force feed him rat poison.

Other than that, and the epic struggle to get a wireless router working so I now have net access in my flat (yay, though Tiscali sucks as an ISP) things have been quite quiet. The new PC has arrived and seems at times nearly as tempremental as the old one, and I've discovered some "wonderful" features about leaving a PC on overnight in my gaff.

Stuff I Like: Kyle Katarn Rocks...

Anyone remember the Jedi Knight games? I was browsing YouTube and found several of the excellent cutscenes from the first Jedi Knight game (confusingly the second Dark Forces game). These cutscenes made a better film than the Phantom Menace ever did.

Kyle Katarn rocks - he's like some weird Jedi mofo fusion between Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. The baddie, Jerec, was especially English and camp, but very, very good. The game was so quotable with great lines like...

"Dark Side? I've been there. Do your worst."

"MMMOOORRRGGAANNN KAAATTTAARRRNNN? This dead man holds the valley's location. Very intriguing."

"Excellent Katarn, you have started your journey to the Dark Side, but that is not enough!"

Here's some of his finest moments...

Like the ever-so cool intro that resembles a New Hope...



... and Kyle's first ever appearance on Nar Shadda, a city in Star Wars that needs to fire its town planning department!



... Kyle is so hard he goes up against a squad of Tie-Fighters on foot. Jan, his sidekick/love interest/first murder victim saves the day.



... and when in true Star Wars tradition Katarn avenges his father's death with the business end of a lightsabre (yes, this time what Jedi told you was true, the baddie really did kill your dad).



Especially cool was that your actions in the game determined the continuation of the above scene. If you became a light side Jedi (with cool defensive powers but no offensive powers) you just stand there. If you become a dark jedi (with offensive powers and no defensive powers leaving you vulnerable to every Dark Jedi's offensive powers) you slaughter the captured love interest for no real reason and then take on every last Dark Jedi in the game.

Here's the "official" version of Kyle's choice...



Sadly they don't have the Dark Side ending where you become Emperor of the Universe, which is how the game ended for me. Also doubly sad was how when the FMV bubble burst Kyle was recast as a bunch of pixels for Jedi Knight 2 and 3 (or Dark Forces 3 and 4).

Real updates soon.

Grudge Match

This is some pretty weird bilingual crap.

Today's Thought

Tom Baker says... "Wah?"

This wins cool link of the decade for me.

Geek's Knight

Not much to report, I still seem to spend a lot of time larking around (sorry, I wanted to use the word larking today) when I should be continuing to work on my new gaff, but it's all good anyroads.

I got identified as King of the Geeks this weekend.

Quizmaster: "Which Monty Python provided a voice for Transformers the Movie?"

Stuart (too loudly as usual): "Pah - easy." (Incidentally it's Eric Idle who provides the voice of the Junkion leader)

Quizmaster then proceeded to identify me loudly on his microphone as a total geek, which to be fair I am. I mean I watched Merlin: The Return this weekend.

Worst. Arthurian. Film. Ever.

These guys told me never to watch it. Apparently they destroyed their video tape after watching it. But I did watch it. You know why. I didn't destroy my Sky box (though I may need it replaced as it only does Sky+ stuff after a reboot some times).

Merlin: The Return comes on Sky Movies every weekend - I've seen it on the listings without fail for over a year, like some sort of TV trap waiting to suck out your soul. As my soul is still currently remortgaged to El Diablo the Devil's Oven I risked recording and watching it especially.

So what's it about?

Arthurian stuff happened, including all the affairs and so forth. We know this because the text at the start of the film says so. Arthur went to sleep and Mordred was banished when Rik Mayall from Bottom cast a spell that cursed Mordred with immortality for 1,500 years in a Netherworld.

Never curse an enemy with immortality. It always bites you in the ass.

Lancelot and Guineveire (an attractive chick who looks like she should be in a pop video) are also trapped with Craig Sheffer... I mean Mordred... in some evil netherworld I mean Mordred and yet routinely wander around his evil realm, free. Craig's netherworld is populated with a harem of hot chicks who are willing to be sacrificed to turn into really dodgy CGI skeletons. To be honest I would rather stay with the unsacrificed chicks than escape the netherworld.

Tia Carrere (or NoCareer after this) is an evil scientist who wants to release Mordred because then he will let her do her science stuff unfettered by the mundane people. Apparently releasing 1,500 year old bad dudes is a way round the grant system.

There are also two of the worst child actors ever to see the light of day, Patrick Bergin (the guy from the good Robin Hood movie that came out at the same time as Prince of Thieves) as King Arthur, Adrian Paul (Highlander the TV guy) as Lancelot and Mordred's mother, who I presume is Morgan LeFey or Morgwase, whose only role is to share a disturbing snog with her son.

It's all cringeworthy. The glorious Knights of the Round Table try to take on a petrol tanker and fail miserably to either damage it or notice the driver. Merlin drops out of the sky in front of the kid's car and they go, "Oh it's just Merlin, the crazy guy that lives in our village." Characters are routinely captured and held by knights only to be inexplicably free and able to meddle in the next shot.

It's bad. Don't see it. PLEASE!

Dr Stu on... y'know *spoilers*

Finally got round to watching the Cybermen episodes. Pretty damn good actually, though the first part was relatively weak. And those ear-pods look uncomfy, I certainly wouldn't keep them on all day, much less drive a car during download time.

I had this reaction to Jackie's fate, I thought they were going to chicken out and make it all a nice and happy ending.

I'm going to miss Mickey. Of all Rose's chav-pals he was the one I identified with most (computer geek, spare part in the team etc.) though he got a terrific send-off. I don't understand why everyone was so crappy to him and I . At the moment I would rather have a Troughton-Jamie style duo than the "Doctor and Rose "I want, I want" Tyler Show".

Yes, Rose continues to grate. Now she doesn't want Mickey to leave her, she wants to save her mum from the Cybermen (yeah - screw the rest of the planet, let's make some screaming parallel-universe Chav a priority), she gets jealous because the Doctor talked to some waitress at the Tyler party. It's all me, me, me with her, as Miss Piper noted in the Dr. Who Confidential afterwards.

If anybody wants me I will be watching Tomb of the Cybermen at work. Scott Adams would be proud.

Star Wars: Betrayal

Star Wars: Betrayal - nice 'deaths' in the lightsabre matches.

More Rings Dreadfulness

Ok, if you thought Taking the Hobbits to Isengard was bad, bad, bad... wait until you see Duelling Cloggers. Everything from 4 mins 30 seconds is pure class.

So What's on my Sky Box?

Justice League Unlimited - this is a pretty funky cartoon. Just listen to the epic theme music though I wish they'd used Hal Jordan or Kyle Rainer as Green Lantern. John Stewart, at least in the episodes I've seen, doesn't seem to have much character. I do like how they focus on B-stringers like Green Arrow (who I'm beginning to think is really cool), the Question (never even heard of him until I saw this show), Captain Marvel and so on. Naturally like all quality US TV it's just been cancelled, so if that isn't a seal of approval I don't know.

I also watched The Batman but when the Joker tried to take over Gotham by firing a giant piece of chewing gum at the police station I realised it probably wasn't for me.

Xena - ahem. I'm watching this for the historicalness of course.

Doctor Who - well you knew I watched this.

Red Dwarf - no point in paying for DVDs if it comes on UK Gold. Well actually there is, but not today...

Star Trek TNG - the sets look flimsy and plasticky now, the stories lack grit and the characters seem to lack any flaws, but it's still watchable.

Lost - I'm going to wait for this to catch up to where I was, but I'm also looking forward to the 2nd survivors group ep.

Battlestar Galactica - you guys have finally caught up so it is safe to talk about how cool the ending of Season 2 was. The last 30 minutes of the episode basically fast forwarded one year with Baltar as Prez, having settled on a barren looking planet and abandoning the search for Earth. And now the Cylons have taken over their puny little colony. Epic stuff, especially as a lot of the middle of Season Two became quite pedestrian.

Bizarre...

Archie Meets the Punisher

Previously on TFASK

- Visited Beaumont Leys to pick up a package. It's in the arse-end of Leicester.
- Saw 16 Blocks. Very good film.
- Bought loads of very cheap plastic furniture. At least it's not patio furniture.
- Now have Sky+ installed successfully. Surprisingly difficult even with a PhD in gizmos sciency stuff. It took only 3 attempts to work out how the card was inserted and 2 phone calls to Sky. And a shifty discount of £3 from the extra installation fee.
- Now at last I have my own spy satellite I feel really mature...
- Had people waving around a replica sword in my apartment after only being in it for 5 seconds. If you've seen my apartment waving anything 5' long is not a good idea.
- Had worrying observations about my place made, like, "You know, you can handcuff people to your bed."
- Learned how to play bar billiards last night.
- Bought a new computer.
- Not seen Dr. Who yet. :(

Thy Name is Karma

It seemed a regular day in the office. Someone had come in to see B. and he was nowhere to be found. We assumed he'd forgotten or simply didn't care about the meeting when the phone rang. I answered it...

B: "Huff... huff... I'm trapped in the lift."

S: "Oh, right. Err... are you ok?"

The conversation went on, and I had to inform the person he was meeting that he was stuck in the lift just outside our office. I even checked he'd phoned the proper faultline from the lift phone. His response didn't fill me with confidence, so I phoned them after I hung up. But I didn't hang up quite yet...

During our conversation I thought he was sounding somewhat panicked on the phone. He's not exactly the Fonz when it comes to keeping cool, small things like an unsorted stack of papers can send him into a frenzy of emotions. I may, I thought, have been his only lifeline to the outside world, the only thing keeping him from thinking about spending an eternity entombed in the Charles Wilson building, forever wedged between the sandwich shop on Floor 1 and the carvery in Floor 5, and tormented by the smell of fresh cooking. So I summoned up all my high school crisis counselling and kept talking conversationally...

S: "Do you have something to read?"

There was a thick silence on the other end of the phone. Thick enough to tar the potholes in the M1 with. He inhaled for a lot longer than I thought was humanly possible before continuing...

B: "No not really. Well I do have your P60."

S: "Well, don't read that!"

B: "I should go."

S: "Don't worry - they should have you out within an hour. Good job it's not lunch time just yet."

Cue laughing from behind me...

Not long after this I phoned the porters and informed them that there were people in the lifts stuck. They sprung into action, which suggested he'd not quite phoned the right people. He got out after about 20 minutes, during which we talked with his visitor about how dangerous broken lifts can be. Only then did I remember I had a camera as he disembarked... bugger.

Call of Cthulhu

For those of you who've never read Lovecraft's short stories, apparently they're on the web here.

SHiT and Shiny Stuff

The SHiT guy came round ridiculously early this morning. He wasn't thrilled with prospect of climbing a 40 ft. building to install a satellite, and he didn't exactly speak glowingly of my comedy partner from Monday. Then he marked that there is a satellite next to one of the other flats, the one my comedy sidekick assumed was mine, and thought that was better. However, being a contractor, he was liable so refused to install until I had permission from the landlord. Which I now have as long as I don't invade the privacy of the young lady who lives in the flat above.

This begs the question about the satellite. Is this some spy satellite sending messages to SPECTRE? Is it controlling the weather patterns for the western civilization? Or is it some old dish the old tenants forgot about?

Whilst on the way back from getting approval from my landlords I made a mistake.

I fell hopelessly in love...

I went to the Bank of Scotland today to pay in my deposite cheque. As you might know this sort of thing is bad for my blood pressure. Really bad.

You see the BoS only has a business branch in Leicester. You go in, find the express pay-in, pick up the envelope to put your cheque into and then realise there is no form to accompany your cheque. In traditional BoS branches, nay in every other frickin' branch I've ever been in you can just pick one up, fill it out, put the cheque and form in the envelope, post it and leave. No need to queue. No need to talk to anyone.

In the Leicester branch there is a suspicious gap between the paperwork where the aforementioned form is supposed to sit. This then causes you to join the queue for the teller, wondering why there was an express pay-in drawer, 'cos this is certainly not proving to be "express" in any sense of the word. Not counting any forms of public transport in the Greater London area between 5pm and 6pm that use the words "express". In most cases this is pretty much on par with them.

The teller, or B.'s grandfather*, is a fellow who puts me on mind of the bank teller in the last episode of Twin Peaks in terms of haste. Despite there being a queue he subscribes to a form of Zen-Bank Telling. This usually involves him sitting in the bank offices, not at the desk. He hobbles over eventually, making you feel really sorry for every step you made him take, every bead of sweat on his forehead and every breath he is going to waste transacting with you.

You try to explain you need the form to place with the cheque into the pay-in envelope.

He explains that you should have a book of forms that were given to you when you opened your account.

You riposte by explaining that you did not open your account here. You opened yours at one of the other branches of the BoS that don't subscribe to this little known practice. You then ask politely if you can have a book of these forms for future use.

He slides past your riposte by saying that you cannot have a book of these forms because you are not opening an account.

You counter by explaining the principles of banking, whereby you give money to the bank and they invest it, make money, keep some for themselves and give you a pittance in interest. You explain it may be in the BoS's best interest that they take the cheque from you and place it in your account.

He mutters something, wanders off, comes back, brings the form and fills it in slowly, in copperplate hand-writing, refuses to let you use the Express pay-in service and does it all for you. With an average completion time of 20 minutes or so.

Today was different however.

Today I fell in love with the teller.

No - not the decrepit guy! They had a young, blond chick on the desk. One with radical notions in customer service and the need for speed that only the young get. She was even pleasant, asking what on earth the C. on my card means when it says "C. Stuart Kerrigan". I actually came out of the BoS smiling.

It's a miracle.

* It's a running joke in our office if we ever encounter anyone who offers poor customer service, is unnecessarily rude or simply makes it clear to you they consider talking to you an unfortunate part of their job that appears on their hate list way below "Scrub urinal kegs in men's toilets" we assume they're a member of B.'s extended family. For example B's father used to drive the 20 bus from the city centre to Casa Al. You could tell - he didn't consider stopping for passengers part of his job.

Dr Stu on... y'know

I still have no TV, at least until the SHiT hits the fan tomorrow, but conveniently I just happened to be packing the last of my stuff from Casa Al when Doctor Who came on. Convenient that...

Good stuff. Doctor Who seems to be going through some sort of Highlander phase at the moment with all the lost loves the Doctor seems to have suddenly popping up over the place and aging. Despite everyone getting up in arms with the Doc snogging Dr. Grace in the tragically cut short McGann hour nary an episode goes by without Tennant playing tongue-hockey with (usually) someone of the female persuasion.

Nice story, though again they need to explain the rules of time-travel. The Doctor has a tardis, why can't he use it to rescue the maiden fair or travel to another time and build a Dalek-only destroying device. He keeps mentioning something about being caught up in events already, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. As far as I can tell the Tardis is simply a vehicle to get the Doctor into the episode. He can't however time travel back to the first 5 minutes of the episodes and fix his mistakes.

Clockwork robots, not scary. Madame de Pompadour, very tasty. Mickey as a companion is good as finally there's someone on the Tardis who doesn't want to hump the doctor. I just hope they don't kill him like a punk. Overall it felt like a traditional Doctor Who story.

The Sky's Not Quite The Limit

We continue our season of (hopefully funny) rants...

I've had a lot of workmen in the flat recently but none of them have managed to do any work, which is a bit of a shame as that was the sole reason I was calling them in.

On Friday I missed out on frisbee in the park to go for a 4pm appointment with the utilities guy in my apartment. When he finally turned up at 5:15pm he literally breezed into the flat and offered the following pearl of wisdom:-

Appliance Guy: "Yeah your thermostat is bust!"

Stu: "No shit Sherlock! Isn't that what I said was a problem? Does that mean we live in one of those weird parallel universes where Stuart is right? Even just once? Man - do you have the phone number for Rod Serling?"

Appliance Guy: "Oh, I'll need to order a part."

Stu: "How totally unexpected! I'll eat microwaved slush for the next six days! Actually, take two weeks if you like, I'm off down the pub..."

That's how the conversation would've gone if I had a backbone and a temper. Clearly though the appliance guy was on some sort of meditative nirvana to make those kind of astute observations. Operating on a higher plane it would've been crass to bring him back to Earth with my vulgar cursing and swearing. So I simply said thanks and let him go. He had been here for a minute after all.

I was advised this morning the Sky guy would be round from 9:30-11:30. Nice vagueness there, but I decided to wait until 10am and then go to work if he hadn't shown up.

If the demonstrating gig ever gets boring, if I ever snap and try to insert a bookshelf up my co-worker's rectum, this Sky guy and I could clean up on the stand-up comic circuit. Seriously, the banter was fantastic. Morcambe and Wise, Two Ronnies, Monty Python, move over. Stu and Sky-Guy are the new act.

I mean with repartee like this, how could we fail?

Sky Guy: "You sir are the most fucking lucky person on the planet! You are so unbelievably fucking lucky! If I didn't have both hands full with this ladder I would shake your hand."

Stu: "Why's that?"

Sky Guy: "You might be the only flat on your fucking block to be able to get fucking Sky."

Stu: "Really, that's good, because with everything else like broadband or cable I've been ridiculously unlucky."

Sky Guy: "Yes, in fact if I climb up here and hold the dish in place I can see if you're getting a fucking signal you fucking lucky son of a gun!"

Stu: "That's not my flat."

Sky Guy: "That's ok, you're getting no signal anyway."

Stu: "Arse! What if you point it over there where there's no buildings?"

Sky Guy: "Nah, I have to point it right at the building for some reason."


And that's pretty much how it happened. Almost verbatim. I think the Sky guy swore a few more times in a hilarious and whacky way.

The upshot is that I can't get Sky at my elevation so they will have to get in the Special HeIght Team (which doesn't hold much hope for me as it abbreviates to SHiT). On the other hand if I were to invite the installation guy around every evening after work I wouldn't need TV as I'd be very, very amused.

I think I'll be getting NTL although I might wake up Wednesday morning and find that a SWAT... sorry SHiT team are sliding onto the roof with ninja stealth. But I doubt it. Do you think they'll climb this building on a ladder? And put a dish on the right-most chimney?



Other than that I've been in the pub a lot this weekend. Or off replacing broken things in the flat, like the iron without a stopper to prevent water spilling out of it.

Or my computer, which has decided to take more memory dumps in one day during games/mp3 playing than I take regular dumps in a week. I started to write my amazing novel (which I think is going to be one long rant) until I got half-way through page 1 and the computer blue-screened of death me, claiming the memory core needed dumping. Personally I took it as a sign my novel should never be written.

I think after four years the old girl needs to be taken round the back and shot under an unworking Sky dish pointing the wrong way. Anyone recommend a decent cheap base unit?

Taking the Heat

It is the start of the blistering warm season in Leicester. Without warning the temperature has shot up, the sun came out to party and my central heating decided to continue to belch out heat despite being below told to output nothing. This is one of the joys of storage heating - you have to predict tomorrow's weather and set accordingly.

I've been trying to ignore El Diablo in all this excitement. I fear that if I were to open the oven I'd find Monday's experiments coupled with this extreme heat have generated enough energy to form a small sun complete with microscopic solar system within the oven, inhabited by little people made from charred roast lamb who now worship me as their creator and are, even as we speak, embarking on a holy war between the Orthodox faction who think my name is spelt "Stuart" and the newfangled revisionists who spell it "Stewart".

Anyway...

This weather makes walking into work very pleasant, as London Road is shaded by a large amount of local fauna, and the park along from the university seems to have suddenly sprung to life with students.

Things have been interesting acclimatising to my new surroundings. Thanks to my boss I've sampled some of the local ales and takeouts on Queens Road. Incidentally the portions of chips in Leicester are staggering no matter where you go, but most of you know that from previous posts.

Yesterday lunchtime I found myself in the beer garden of the local free house known as the Old Horse (did I mention I like that pub?) eating one of their blue burgers (the cheese on the burger is blue, not the actual burger itself, that would be wrong). Their beer garden has a very smelly rabbit, some owls and a Tardis, much like the one in Buchanan Street in Glasgow. I'll have to take some photos on my next visit.

Then that evening for variety I found myself back at the Old Horse (good job I like that pub innit?)

I think a quiet weekend is called for to finally get my house in order so to speak. And a return to the gym. I have about 1 years worth of DVDs to watch including six seasons of Hercules I bought as a guilty pleasure dirt cheap from the States. I just find watching 21st century values in ancient Greece a laugh but was never quite taken with Xena. I've also got a ton of Cadfael mysteries, Sherlock Holmes, Family Guy and a hankering to rewatch Firefly.

El Diablo - the Devil's Oven

What follows is not so much a story as a rant. And a sequel to the exploding fridge story.

With the last of my furniture assembled last night I decided to relax with a ready meal I had bought whilst out shopping for furniture, before retiring to the pub. Over the past few days I'd been relatively lax in important areas like eating, so I still have a completely empty fridge apart from this one ready meal. I decided this would give me an excellent chance to test out the new oven and reading the instructions prepared to put it in the oven for 40 minutes.

About 25 minutes in I realised I had accidentally put the oven on defrost mode, not proper fan assisted mod. The meal was still perched there on the shelf looking decidely frozen. So I switched to fan assisted cooking at about 180 degrees.

About 15 minutes later I was somewhat surprised by the fact my oven smelt of burning. I was also somewhat surprised when I opened the oven to see the melted plastic tray containing the ready meal. My sanity took somewhat of a turn when I stared at the heater element, all round, red and malevolent looking, much like the Eye of Sauron only more scary as it was very real, very tangible and the fan was blowing immense quantities of heat into my face. I began to wonder if the dirt on the oven I had cleaned two days ago was in fact the charred remains of the previous tenants who had made the mistake of doing a 2 hour pot-roast. What really worried me was when the aforementioned tray now caught fire, using the extra oxygen my witless self had just provided it with by opening the door.

After a manly session of fire-extinguishing (and wishing I had a key for the padlock on the window in the kitchen) I gingerly scooped up the charred remnants of my meal and assumed I had been witless enough to select grill instead of fan. After all, the two options look so alike (!). I certainly didn't have enough evidence to blame the oven... yet.

What followed was an inexplicable desire to repeat the experiment with the oven. Maybe burning my roast turkey dinner and setting it alight in under half the regulation cooking time awakened some primal instinct in me that had lay dormant since the dawn of time. Maybe it was male stubborness, a desire to conquer the oven, to bend the Eye of Sauron to my will. Maybe I was damn hungry and didn't want to eat even more takeaway food.

I don't really why I set out on May Bank Holiday, I just remember cursing my luck in looking for groceries on the day where all of England grinds to a halt, where society ceases to function for 24 hours. However I and my noble steed, the Stu Mobile opted out of the quest for the Holy Grail in favour of the more difficult quest for a replacement ready meal. My search, at 8pm, took me to the far off countries of King Asdas, who sadly was closed, to Lord Sainsburys, also closed. At this point my steed was tired and I was weary with hunger and exhaustion. The grail, no the ready meal, seemed far from my grasp until I realised with great excitement that Sainsbury's petrol depot was still open. I secured myself a truly appetising (and overpriced) vegetable lasagne and some other necessaries.

Returning to the laboratory I read the packaging and decided to put it in for 30 minutes at 150 degrees, instead of the suggested 200 degrees. Pre-heating the oven didn't seem to work, after 20 minutes the temperature gauge had still not clicked off. None the less I pressed on my experiment, for I felt my doctorate, nay my very life would be at stake if I did not.

Checking on it at 5 minutes I fought for my soul as I stared into the evil eye of what I named El Diablo, a name that comes to me unbidden in the night now. By willpower and wiping the sweat from my brow I pulled the oven shut before the overwhelming heat overcame me. At 15 minutes I was forced to remove the oven tray as the lasagne looked decidely overcooked. At this point the oven was worryingly warm to the touch on the outside.

I can only conclude, dear readers, that either my oven is possessed, or that the thermostat is bust. Other than that all is well. I shall be favouring my microwave for now.

The Rimmer Stu Experience...

I've uploaded some photies of the new pad, some fencing ones that might as well get backed up, and some general Leicester photos on my photo blog. So I uploaded all the stuff I should've uploaded months ago, fixed links broken due to an "upgrade" and added in a video blog which contains lots of videos. I don't appear in many thankfully!

The Old Blowhard Dr. Stu on Dr. Who

During the Big Move (tm) I thought I'd continue my commentary on Doctor Who. Because I'm like that.

Wow - now that was an improvement over the previous episodes! Best episode of the season not counting the Xmas Special, this episode had real emotion between the Doctor and his old companion, marred only by soap operaness from Billie Piper and the inevitable catfight between SJS and Billie. Maybe its me but they do the Doctor some injustice by bringing this level of sexual tension into the companion relationship. It really makes the Doctor a -very- dirty old man!

Anthony Head was wasted - he should've been the Master. Mind you they might reuse him, though given this isn't a RTD episode they probably won't. The whole alien plot was interesting. For once they weren't just trying to steal money, and what was especially good was when Giles was tempting the Doctor the opportunity to play god and resurrect the Time Lords. Though why doesn't everyone try cracking that mathematical algorithm? I know I'd have a try if no-one else does, and I certainly have the imagination of a child!

Rose loses even further points in my book when she had the gall to pull a face when Mickey finally signed up as part of the Tardis crew. Rose is really due for a serious slapping right? Well done Mickey! You've obviously done the maths!

Since roughly 50%-75% of the episodes take place in the present day he is only in slightly more danger by actually accompanying the Doctor. And he will get to see all the amazing places they talk about that they went to between episodes. I just hope he gives the other two a reality check and doesn't end up dealt with as brusquely as poor, dumb Adam.

K-9 didn't get a lot of screentime, and given he seems relatively immortal I don't understand why the Doc doesn't take him along for the ride. I wonder if this spin-off will actually be connected to the Doctor Who series and feature SJS?

Oh, and if you want to see something really gross I tracked down this link to my least favourite Doctor on Wikipedia. Amazing what learning can do.

Moving On...

Most of my boxes have been moved thanks to Al and his very large car boot, and after breaking for a pub lunch at the Old Horse (did I mention I like that pub) I unpacked all the vital components in my new flat.

So I unpacked the TV and DVD.

Then I checked my inventory, tried to read my metres and tried to hoover up a lot of the dust that seems to have permeated the flat.

Nothing major has gone wrong but it seems I'll need to buy a freezing unit, a decent hoover and learn how on Earth my heating system works and see about getting a phone/broadband/TV system fitted before I go criminally insane. And get rid of some stuff as space is a little tight.

Other than that all is well and its going to be an interesting long weekend.

I'm not insane, dammit!

From the Cthulhu SaniTest

Your SaniTest(TM) Results

Your score is: 139

For easier understanding, the HPLHS SaniTest assessment algorithm converts your raw score to a scale of 1 to 10. This number is your INSANITY INDEX.

INSANITY INDEX 7.92 Well, that's a pretty high score, although safely away from the really scary end of the madness scale. Your score indicates that you are extremely delirious. You may be prone to disordered speech, confusion, and paranoid delusions. (Although president George W. Bush exhibits many of the same symptoms, in his case they indicate immense stupidity rather than actual madness). Other notable people who score at this level include actor William Shatner and former surgeon general C. Everett Koop.

This quiz also ends with a page of nutbags that proves Six Foot Hobbit is also a cylon. So far two humanoid models have been uncovered by me, Napoleon's #1 soldier. Ribbit, gibbit.

Some Sharpe and Witty Commentary, Plus Dr. Stu on Dr. Who

Once again I post my opinions on what I've been watching lately...

Sharpe's Challenge - Fantastic! I can't believe they got Mr. Moviestar Bean back for this, but thank goodness they did.

Part One felt a bit like Sharpe by numbers, with the following elements culled from every Sharpe story, including:-

1) Wellington charges Sharpe with a mission
2) Intelligence guy briefs Sharpe and gives him a more personal reason for going forth and being heroic
3) Violent and nasty Sergeant that is a clone of Hakeswell and doesn't mind murdering a Colonel with little provocation.
4) Simmerson, the most incompetent general ever, is in charge of the operation and makes every decision incorrectly. How on Earth did he go from retirement in Sharpe's Regiment (my favourite of the old series except for Sharpe's Justice, also set in corrupt old England) to being posted in India?
5) Vaguely competent middle-ranking officers who respect Sharpe but have to obey Simmerson
6) Seemingly impenetrable fort
7) Evil renegade officer that is a mirror of Sharpe, played by another Pierce Brosnan Bond villain no less!
8) French dudes

They even conveniently made poor Sharpe single again so he could sleep around and then he didn't even get the girl in the end. Also I don't remember Sharpe or Harper verbally bitch-slapping Simmerson in previous episodes, so good on them, though I began to feel by this point in part 1 that the script was someone's Sharpe fanfic.

The move from Spain to India was quite jarring in this, and I must confess my knowledge of the India campaigns is even less than that of the Napoleonic campaigns.

Part Two however was fantastic from the get-go, though Simmerson was pushed aside abruptly half way through. This was without a doubt the best an episode of Sharpe has ever looked (Sharpe's Waterloo suffered from budget cuts and recycling footage from Waterloo the movie). The Forlorn Hope, breaching etc. was done much more spectacularly than in any of the old series, and the end fight put me in mind of Rob Roy's climax. Slightly.

Definitely getting burned onto DVD tonight!

Incidentally, another picture of Sharpe from a parallel dimension...

Doctor Who - Argh. Where to start?

New Earth was barely ok as it was a little too camp for my liking. There's only so much "Ooh, now I'm a man. Look I have new bits" that I can take. This is supposed to be Doctor Who, not a cruder version of Red Dwarf.

As said the plot ended very deus-ex-machina and I did wonder how those plague zombies survived, and how on earth were the viruses only spread by touch, not by air? Surely all the air in the hospital isn't completely sterile particularly when being hammered with every disease ever (which isn't the best way to run controlled experiments)?

I suppose it is the year 5 billion...

Which is the other problem with this, by 5 billion surely even the grass itself should've evolved, much less humanity, into something completely unrecognisable. Without the nostalgia for the current era as well.

At least I hope by 5 billion people have more important things to worry about than suspiciously 20th Century style dinner parties on suspiciously 20th century film projectors, genitalia, and naming cities after civilisations 5 billion years ago.

It does seem to be typical of Russell T. Davies that he writes the more inferior scripts in the series full of toilet humour and jokes more belonging in his Queer as Folk show. For example Boom Town was very silly with the "date" for the condemned Slitheen (god please don't use them again!), don't even get me started on the Big Brother one (again, it's the distant future, BB is hopefully by then a long forgotten slump in TV history), though the final episode showed promise even if the Bad Wolf thingy was completely pointless.

Tooth and Claw was better episode was better but it suffered from

a) kung-fu monks for no reason. Now obviously one line explaining all the monks were Glasweigan would have sufficed. :)

The monks were doubtless hard, but how did they know kung-fu? What happened to them at the end of the episode? After all, once the wolf was dead the heroes still had to deal with fire-arm wielding kung-fu fighting monks who seemed quite capable of preventing them from leaving the manor. Seems like this is a future episode, or (more likely) a forgotten plot-thread.

b) More RTD silliness for silliness's sake - the "nakedness", remarks about the laird and his masculine evil-kung-fu-fighting-turned-evil-butler-oh-god-I'm-out-of-hyphens, and most especially the let's get the Queen to say "We are not amused" over a £10 bet after just watching a man get ripped to shreds tested my believability over what was otherwise a scary episode.

c) Not very Victorian - some of the things Doc and Rose said would get them ostracized from most polite Victorian society muchless 'er maj's. And I suppose as someone pointed out, it did at the end.

However it had some clever ideas in it. Are they leaning towards making the Doc and Rose far too "laugh in the face of danger" until they get some sort of reality check? God I hope so, 'cos I can only take so much Billie Piper. I am beginning to think they need to ditch her and give Tennant his own companion.

Call of Stuthulhu

I have this game and I'm not afraid to play it. Honest. Until the giant worms show up.

The Return (again)

The dark grey overcast sky, the hooting of horns behind you when someone fails to immediately pull off from a green light, being stuck behind a 10 mph road sweeper on a blind bend, sudden stopping buses and suicidal pedestrians reminded me I was in Leicester as I drove to work this morning.

I managed 8 hours yesterday despite being stuck behind some awful learner driver outside Matalan's in Dundee :) and got back in time to watch the new Sharpe, which is pretty good.

Other than that Uni is still very quiet with the kids all gone for the hols, the office is in disarray and I'm cooking up things to do to keep me occupied before the big move on Friday.

Other news - I have set up a radioblog playlist so people can hear all the weird music I like to listen to. It can be heard here or on the link on the side.

Ace

I picked up the Red Dwarf VII DVD recently because it had a special feature reconstructing a forgotten episode and I realise how much I'd forgotten how good the show was. And that my favourite episode was "Stoke Me A Clipper", though anything with Ace Rimmer in it was excellent.

There's something fantastic about watching the opening sequence of the episode with Ace diving out of the plane on a plastic crocodile, fighting Nazis and rescuing the princes. And then there's a medieval bit with lots of jousting. Top episode.

True Red Dwarf VI, VII and VIII had some forgettable episodes, like "Rimmer World", "Beyond a Joke" or the very last episode of the series (what was that about with Death?). It definitely belongs on the list of shows I wish they'd renew, along with Twin Peaks, Robin of Sherwood and Babylon 5: Crusade.

Recently I finally managed to go back to the Union with my amigos and we spent the evening playing a really sad Red Dwarf quiz (it was either that or gay kissing chicken, so I thought we did really well by opting to be sad rather than camp).

To give you some examples of the questions, here's a bunch of brainteasers to see if you are sad enough to drink with us...

1. In the beginning of the episode Dimension Jump Ace Rimmer meets 4 characters before embarking on his adventure. Which one of those characters does not say "What a guy" in the episode?

2. Who sang the song "High Noon" during the episode Queeg?

3. What is Stuart's favourite joke involving weaponry in the episode Angels and Devils? (hint: It involves blades).

4. Who are the team members in Can't Smeg Won't Smeg?

Liberal Lad

I've always thought of myself as socially right-wing and economically left-wing, making me a well balanced central individual overall. Apparently I'm wrong dude.

You are a Social Moderate (55% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (11% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Happy Easter

Happy Easter y'all. I am back home, well and truly climatized now thanks to calzone, the Monifieth chipper, several pitchers of bizarre coloured liquid and honest to goodness fresh air!

From My Inbox

During the 11 hour drive home the following appeared in my Inbox...

Titanic 2: The Film They Never Should Make

and

Nationals 2006

Got back from the Nationals in Sheffield yesterday and I'm on my way back to Dundee for the first time in 4 months, but I thought I'd pause to tell you about how it went.

This year I didn't play Open Fantasy or D&D, I went for Myths and Legends, an excellent category that better damn well be there next year!

Apparently there is quite a large cross-pollenation between Leicester Uni's fencing and roleplaying society. One chap I met on my first week of fencing was there playing Bloodbowl and the quiz guy from the Ratbar was playing White Wolf. (I play with DeMontfort Uni as I actually know folk in that society).

Proving its an amazingly small world J... from the 2004 flashback was in our group and was in good form, as was the girl with the t-shirt. Also joining me was another J..., a chap from DeMontfort Uni (my current club), Di from Stirling and a lass from Manchester.

First of all Sheffield has a lot more women in it than I remember. Not just women roleplayers but babes judging by the tavern we ensconced ourselves in on Saturday night.

We were staying at the Grosvenor House Hotel about 20 minutes away from the uni. I thought the morning walks were quite pleasant but the hotel itself was pretty pretentious and while it tried to be posh reminded me of a certain cheap working man's hotel in Nottingham. Maybe it was the kebab thrown in the corridor late on Saturday night, or the fact neither of us could get our room open without shoulder barging it, or the fact they insisted on taking my credit card so I could order from the bar and yet refused to serve me on Saturday night.

Minor accomodation issues aside it was quite pleasant, the drink was good and the food we had both days made me feel -very- full. But how were the games I hear you ask? Or is that the voices in my head...?

Day 1 - Pendragon

Pendragon, for those of you not in the know, is a game set in the idealised Arthurian mythos. It's a time when men were knights, women were damsels (often in distress) and it was a time of High Adventure(tm). As we're all knights everyone is subtly different (some a Roman, some are Christian, some are devout, some are not so devout).

The character I played was kind of like Mulder from the X-Files. I was a Pagan (i.e. worshipping nature, goddesses etc.) which meant I believed in faeries at the bottom of the garden, abductions and so forth. The rest of the party were Christian, and unlike most 6th century Christians seemed to feel the urge to act like the Spanish inquisition. They were cynical at best when I tried to persuade them our party had been abducted by Faerie whilst on a mission to rescue some peasants but eventually my superior knowledge and the sheer weight of evidence convinced them.

We jousted fey knights for possession of the peasants, trounced the rogues valiantly as befits Arthurian knights and returned to the land of mortals with glory and renown. Only by pulling a comely wench could the game have gone better.

Day 2 - Robin Hood (7th Sea)

This was interesting, a stripped down version of the 7th Sea system where heroes are so tough they can take on 5 men in one go (I did). We were playing Robin Hood and his Merry Men. I so desperately wanted to play Rob but being a gentleman/idiot (delete as appropriate) ended up as Little John instead.

The scenario was set 20 years after Robin's pardoning and was a brilliant idea for a movie...

Robin Hood vs. Dracula

If they can do Freddie vs. Jason they can do this surely!

Anyroads, muttering about Robin had gone soft and things weren't like the old days we went to Witby to stop a gathering of goths... I mean vampires... from taking over the world. And won. Huzzah. Though at times it did feel the other characters were there to make Robin look good the game was definitely cinematic.

I have photos. Mostly of people wearing bunny ears. Coming soon.

Next year - Edinburgh apparently. Bradford won it again but this time gave it to relative newcomers GEAS to host.

This is the Sickening!

I can't believe these guys slate one of my favourite films. The Director's Cut is much better. Honest.

Nationals Are Coming

Well, I'm nearly off to the Nationals in Sheffield. Unlike the poor saps up north I don't leave until 4pm which means I'm in work today making a pretty Java 3D scene for practice.

In the meantime because I'm leaving sharpish I thought I'd amuse those of you not going with some "Classic Adventures of Stuart Kerrigan" re-runs. For those of you bored or who have have no idea what the Nationals is like, I rooted through my archives to bring you the story of the Nationals 2004, which was in Sheffield. Again.

Hark ye now and hear of a more innocent time, when men were men, women were women and I was pretty much 2 years younger and much the same. Hear of a time before Leicester, and endure a flashback special effect as we go to...

The Student Nationals, Sheffield, April 2004

Every year the University roleplaying societies hold a Student's Nationals where the various clubs duel out over competitive roleplaying (basically roleplaying where DMs arbitrarily decide who is the best). I must have been to 6 of them now, playing farflung categories as Cthulu, D&D, Chivalry (Pendragon - which I actually won!) and now Open Fantasy (basically any fantasy RPG they can find someone to DM).

This year was in Sheffield. I'm familiar with Sheffield's campus as I went to a conference there... or so I thought.

After 7 hours or so on a University minibus that seemed to wobble in the April wind, the first hour of which I discovered my initial chair selection was somewhat dangerous to my pelvic region and chance of having heirs, I was a little bit tired. However others in our party had it worse, including a car which was involved in a crash near Newcastle.

I stayed up to about 2am that night, drinking other people's beer (which always tastes best) before retiring to my bed. I think I did likewise on the Saturday night. Despite my 8:15am wakeup I was surprisingly alert both days. I went to call out the games.

Now, let's take an interlude to explain my attitude towards D&D at the Nationals, and why for the past 2 Nationals I've played in, I have given D&D a mile's breadth...

I've never enjoyed D&D at the Nationals. The first year I did it, in Glasgow, it was exceptionally dull. The first game having obviously been written the night before using dungeon geomorphs (basically random dungeon maps). The second game had obviously had nothing like that much preparation used.

The second year I did it, it was some bizarre PvP scenario, where there were no roleplaying encounters and the only combat beyond some cannon-fodder orcs was with other members of the party, who were secretly all-powerful liches that were a bit indestructible.

Last year I ran the D&D - using retrofitted US RPGA scenarios (no time to write them!) and I hope it was a lot of fun. We had a murder mystery on Saturday and a plot-ridden hackfest on the Sunday (hangovers probably would get in the way of a cerebral Sunday scenario, say that 3 times!)

Suffice it to say I like D&D - hell, I write enough of it, but I will never return to play it at the Nationals. Besides Egor seems to have a monopoly on that category.

Now, I was sharing my thoughts on D&D with my fellow players and DM in the Open Fantasy. As I sat down I peered over the table, only to see the DM set down a set of 3 familar books.

Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide... Monster Manual

But, no, we were not playing D&D, but rather a D20 Renaissance game.

Sounds promising I thought. At least I knew the system.

Suffice it to say that it was D&D. And a dungeon hack, with a suspicious "written the night before" feel to it. Sunday was L5R, a setting I am not really comfortable with.

If a person were to ask me in the street which game I would more likely have enjoyed a campaign of I would have answered D&D, but however it was the L5R that was infinitely superior this weekend.

Now I shall go on to describe my group. Apologies to those who I do not remember the names of.

J... - Older roleplayer, very good. Had an encyclopaedic knowledge of L5R and enough gumption to turn his hand to the characters he was given at. Came in a well-deserved 3rd place, being the only person on our table to win (there are 3 tables of players, and 3 DMs, who decide which players win what). If I'd been picking winners on our table it would have been a toss up between him and...

Je... - Good lass. Very good roleplayer. Overlooked when it comes to prizes, which is a crying shame. Played with Jess in Open Chivalry 2 years ago. I enjoyed it, she didn't. It certainly didn't show at the time however, as I seem to recall her knight, "Rory the Red" being quite memorable. Je... had the good fortune? of playing my wife on the Sunday. Good sport. :)

Foreign Girl - Quiet, but competent. My mind boggled as to why her con badge read, "Do not bother me. I am sleeping." Either she has a very enthusiastic boyfriend, or she just knows roleplayers too well.

Quiet Guy - Quiet Guy knew D&D/D20 and he knew L5R. Therefore he was a pretty competent roleplayer, a kind of quiet and useful type.

S... - The rest of the table (including the DM) were not sure if it was shyness, the effects of alcohol or something else which deserves more understanding than I was capable of at 10am on a Saturday.

S... seemed content to say nothing for the entire game, sitting there, shoving as many M&Ms into her mouth as she could, and occassionally choking on them. At the risk of seeming unkind S... needed to be brought up to speed on what was happening any time she was required to make an action. This usually resulted in her doing something completely random. On the Saturday I dubbed her the 'Random Dwarf Table' given her tendency to fall asleep in combat, look for the kitchen or throw grenades at things we really did not want to grenade. Like engines.

A sample of the random dwarf:-

DM: "Ok - S... there are 20 orcs charging you. What do you do?"

S...: "I'll sleep."

My favourite was on the 2nd day... (dialogue probably changed due to crap memory than to protect the innocent)

DM: "Ok - the evil samurai has approached your shugenja with his sword. If you do not step in between him and the shugenja he will possibly attack him."

S...: "Why would I do that?"

DM: "Because you are his bodyguard?"

S... (learning character's background for the first time despite 45 minute preamble the DM gave us): "I never asked for that!"

DM: "Sorry - I decided this when I was generating the characters."

S...: "No, I will defend myself."

SK to Shugenja: "Sorry dude."

English Dude: English Dude fancied himself as being a gentleman and the leader of the group, that is to say, regardless of which character he was playing. You might have seen him wandering around the pub on the Saturday night with a top hat and cane on. I would like to believe it was a costume, but I could see that as being his normal dress style as well.

He was basically the avatar of everything that I might find annoying. Bossiness, an inability to keep his hands off my character sheet - even to the extent of writing things on it for me, an inability to keep quiet and not offer advice, and so on.

I'm not talking awkward, but rather telling me what to do every time I wasn't sure, and annoyingly enough this makes you look dumb as you simultaenously decide to shoot the monster with your gun to him telling you to do it.

So, there you have it. Of a table of 7, there was me, 4 decent people, 1 oddball and 1 prick.

Saturday's D&D was promising at the start but there was no roleplaying after lunch, only a series of 4 predictable hackfests as our 6th level characters took on baddies that I estimate were around 1st level. Crossbows and muskets proliferated the game to remind us it was renaissance.

Sunday's L5R - which upon learning that was the Sunday's system, I dreaded (previously we'd had an Open Oriental category to catch L5R when Dundee ran the Nationals).

It was fun however. I played a Rank 5 Dragon Magistrate - basically a detective with this barmy idea that Rokuganese courts should consider 'evidence'. However my character had (when played by someone else on Saturday) been discovered to have 0 combat skills, which means any attacks on him automatically succeeded. He was now mediocre at Japanese archery - sadly not something that staves off assassin's blades (which made me wonder how I made rank 5).

It was fun. The party had a pretty decent history together, for instance I was married to Je... who had cheated on me with Quiet Guy (at least it wasn't English Dude), while J... was a pretty fecking competent bodyguard (perhaps explaining why I was rank 5 magistrate, not rank 5 fertiliser). My character was even useful - as it was a murder mystery! Yes - a murder mystery!

The Awards ceremony at the end was mercifully quick. Only 3 out of 20 person team won, and Egor won D&D again, making him insufferably smug. He seems to show remarkable consistency in winning it - though his winning streak was broken last year by him having to DM it.

Sunday saw the minibus depart - and after only a few potential collisions and a few crap exestential conversation with M..., who we quickly discovered is a moron - we arrived in Dundee where the chaps kindly drove me back to Monifieth and my bed by 3am.

Another Weird Link

I have too much time on my hands.

How to traumatise your child.

Taking the Hobbits to Isengard

I've been laid down with the cold that past couple of days. I really shouldn't get the cold. It makes me find songs like this masterpiece. If that doesn't convince you I'm ill, nothing will.

Best of Times, Worst of Times

It's been a week with highs and lows. One of the lows has been so low I've taken a while to get back into blogging. Rather than blog it you can read about it at the top of this page here and I'm sure they'll put something more appropriate than I could write.

The term is coming to an end, which means no more students for over a month and a week long furlogh back home around Easter-time. It also means my favourite Leicester Uni cafe-bar will no longer be able to provide me with excellent caramel milkshakes and an excuse to get out of the office. Needless to say the fiasco-factor in the office has been at an all-time high. I've also managed to go from January-April without catching some sort of man-flu off my good students. Or so I thought until this morning...

Other than that and the plans for the move before next term, things are progressing. There might be a ceilidh in the offing this weekend and the Nationals are coming up next weekend. For both of you who don't know what the Nationals are, it is a weekend of roleplaying hi-jinx and hopefully meeting up with some old friends for a pint and reminiscing about Greeks, crossbows, woks and rolling some random dice. Expect some sort of blog on that, and possibly some photos. And some drunken behaviour.

Moving Again...

Yes, proving once and for all I cannot seem to settle down in Leicester I've put down a deposit to move out of my digs and into a nice flat on London Road (the main road with the station for those of you in the know) in Stoneygate (the posher end nearer the lecturers). It'll now be nice and convenient for y'all to visit...

I won't be moving in until April, roughly after I finally pop back up to Dundee for a week or so over Easter.

I've mostly been in the pub...

St. Patrick's Day came and went, and it was certainly a lot better than last year when I had barely unpacked from my arrival in Leicester. I even managed to get one of those goofy hats. Not the one pictured in the post below, that was actually taken prior to the event.

I have added more hosteleries to take visitors from oop north to when they come down to visit, and deduced that the Last Plantaginet is still the best pub in Leicester. Not only does it close at 1am on a Friday now (!) it also has a taxi rank right out in front of it, sells bottles of blonde Leffe for £1.65 and doesn't play loud booming music that drowns out stimulating(?) conversation. This shangrila does come at a terrible price however as I was somewhat worse for wear on Saturday morning. I put this down to one of 4 hypotheses:-

1. I am getting old.
2. I haven't been -really, really- drunk in quite some time.
3. Guinness and I have been estranged for too long.
4. All of the above.

Sadly there was little respite to be had as I had a birthday party to attend on Saturday evening. Swearing off the demon drink I finally started getting ready about 5pm, noting a slight tiredness and slugishness as I went for yet another Chinese buffet (same sort of food, slightly pricier, no ice cream to play the dessert game with) and Henry's Champagne Bar, where I was introduced to Mr. Henry himself and did not succumb to the urge to drink Champagne.

As both Thursday and Sunday were spent in the pub after fencing a worrying trend is beginning to emerge in how I spend my evenings. Rumours of my descent into alcoholism are wholly unfounded.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Try not to get too drunk.

Mr Flibble Says...

... don't get hungover on Stones.

Mr Flibble hid in my gaming bag thanks to Al and inadvertantly attended a poker game on Tuesday and became an instant hit with some of my amigos. He's a good bluffer. Mr Flibble will be making other social calls within Leicester this week I suspect.

It's Official

I'm Dr. Stu. The diploma came in internal mail to Leicester Uni today. Don't know how, don't know why - I intend to graduate in July.

Now Mr. Stu is gone. He has been replaced by something stronger, more alive. He feels like he could........ like he could..........

I'll get my coat.

Lately I Have Been Busy...

I've been busy not updating my blog lately as it seems I rarely get a moment's peace at work, and at home I can't really seem to be bothered. Both of these excuses are really lame but I've also been busy and have:-

- added numerous Leicester hosteleries to the list.
- discovered another pub that rivals the Last Plantaginet for my favourite pub in Leicester.
- played Star Wars the (D6) RPG on the eve of my birthday.
- went to see Lucky Severn as part of my birthday romp. It's good, and you should see it too.
- wound up my WFRP campaign for a temporary? hiatus.
- got invited to student keggers with inevitable dodgy booze and grub.
- argued with University students who scored 85% but aren't happy with losing 15% of the total marks.
- stabbed a lot of (different) students with fencing foils. But that's ok because they give you points for that (the fencing league, not the University sadly).
- gone to student pub quizs and used my amazing Doctoral intellectual powers, knowledge of the Transformers the Movie Soundtrack and the other people on the team who can actually answer the questions to steal/win booze from the prize table. As I'm not paid enough to buy my own booze this is my action for solidarity and fidelity (see below). I just hope my students don't recognise me...
- not gone on strike with the AUT as I'm not sure I can. The only person in the office in the union (guess who) didn't want to strike as he didn't like the way the vote went, complained about the lack of people on the picket line all day and today has complained endlessly about how the strike seems to have bizarrely disrupted teaching.
- drunk Funky Monkey shots.
- drunk more Funky Monkey shots.
- drunk blue Funky Monkey shots.
- nearly drank Lambrini, but fortunately my cool factor prevented me, and instead I ate (someone else's) birthday cake.

A Six Foot Hobbit-esque Post

It's 2:30am and I'm nissed as a pewt. Well, not really, but I am enjoying a pint of water as a precaution against bath tub dismemberment tomorrow. Ask Steve and Egor if you don't know what that means.

Birthday happened, and a lot of other interesting stuff but that's enough of that for now. I will post a more detailed account when I am sober and have the time, peace, quiet and motivation - I just wanted to do a Six Foot style posting. It's an homage, not a rip-off. :)

More later, and in more detail honest.

This blog is 1 year old! Yay!

I Knew This...

You scored as Idealist. Idealism centers around the belief that we are moving towards something greater. An odd mix of evolutionist and spiritualist, you see the divine within ourselves, waiting to emerge over time. Many religious traditions express how the divine spirit lost its identity, thus creating our world of turmoil, but in time it will find itself and all things will again become one. Cultural Creative 75% Idealist 75% Existentialist 63% Romanticist 56% Postmodernist 44% Modernist 44% Materialist 31% Fundamentalist 31% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

'Tis a Small World

Another week seems to have whizzed by and its been relatively non-descript. Work has been quite hard this week - Monday was quiet but the rest of the week was choc-a-bloc with work and some sort of job evaluation where the University wants a short summary of what we do. Naturally some of us found ways to make this very very difficult.

Today I did my first league fencing bout on our ladder and I actually managed to win, which is good because it leaves me with an unbeaten record (i.e. I've not fenced anyone who is either left-handed or ridiculously good) and because the fellow was calling me out for a fight for some time now. I don't know why this happens - I'm an affable chap and yet it seems everywhere I go danger and quarreling follows me.

After some victory drinks of diet coke to celebrate not moving down on the fencing league I made the discovery that it seems like a sizeable portion of the fencing crowd are roleplayers and card game players - knowing of such games as Citadels. Not only that but our American armourer was a dead sister in the Gamers. Sure enough - putting the DVD in and with some creative zooming it is probably her in a 3 second cameo. And at least 2 of the fencers are applying for PhDs in Dundee.

Sometimes life is full of coincidences.

Apparently I'm a Noble Sort

Numenorean


To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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