By Duncan on 19 May 2008 16:19

Last night I went to see a band with a friend. I'm not normally a great one for going to see bands (unless you can jive or salsa to them), as I would rather spend the evening dancing or rolling dice. But a change is good [usually, but not always].

Skindred at the megacomplex known as the Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter. Fits 300 at least . Lots of tattoos, piercings and black clothing on display.

There were three warm-up acts, which got progressively better. The lead-singer of the second band actually had a fairly good voice, at least when she stopped screaming. The third was an Exeter band, Idiom, which I quite liked too.

And then Skindred came on. I hadn't heard any of their stuff until I borrowed their albums, and they are definately better live than through an ipod. The change in atmosphere was quite noticable, with everyone up and jumping but sadly ruined by some fool setting...

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By Duncan on 07 May 2008 16:51

Been a while. Busy last month or so .

Today I gave up some of my valuable blood, voluntarily. If I had known you got free biscuits for blood doning, I would have gone years ago.

The process was fairly straightforward, except for nosy questions about medical history and sex life. Suppose they have to be careful tho, what with giving the blood to other people and everything. The nurse seem surprised I had never had an operation or taken any medication. Obviously due to the very healthy lifestyle I lead .

Next blood for bisuits exchange in August. 

By Duncan on 21 March 2008 18:37

I finally decided to try my hand at changing the design of my site from the default skin which comes with dotnetnuke. I embarked on some tutorials and looked for some ready-made skins around the web.

What you see is the result of my tinkering. It looks ok in firefox, and a bit dodgy in internet explorer. Some more tinkering will be needed to iron out the imperfections apparent. At least my minimal css skills are getting a workout.

Duncan

By Duncan on 10 March 2008 17:46

So far we like what we have seen of Dark Heresy - the new roleplaying game set in the universe of Warhammer 40k. Its gritty, fast and deadly, with only a few quirks to be expected of a first edition RPG. Now that I have run two opening adventures, its time for me to do some of the playing and let someelse run the game.

We're moving to a round robin format.  This involves rotating the games masters between adventures, giving everyone a chance to influence the campaign. Sometimes this format works, othertimes it can be quite jarring to have the different GM styles and adventure formats.

Dark Heresy is a good set up for the round robin format, as it has a common background (Warhammer 40k  and the Calixis Sector), a reason for the PCs to be together (Adepts for the Inquisition), someone to tell there where to go next (their inquisitor) and different locations to let different GMs separate their adventures (or linked adventures) from others (the different planets).

I'll let you know how our experiment...

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By Duncan on 08 March 2008 10:11

To celebrate the leaving of my 20s behind me in peace and quiet, I underwent the long and arduous journey to Dublin, flying straight from Exeter.

Having never been to Ireland before, I found their capital to be a peaceful and relaxed place (when compared to say, London or New York), where the locals were friendly and I saw no signs of trouble. The next two days were consumed with salsa, a tour of Dublin's history in the City Hall, shopping, a visit to the art gallery and a literay pub crawl alongside americans, swedish, welsh, danish and a canadian. And reading a book. You should always read something on holiday.

And lots of food. Including three mornings of fried breakfast (although the one at the airport was foul), and a fab Mexican meal. I almost caught myself turning down dessert at one point, but reminded myself it was a celebration and that chocolate fudge cake is definately a integral part of Irish culture.

I loved Dublin, though it's certainly not cheap. I can see myself spending a...

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By Duncan on 28 February 2008 15:19

My gaming group has got a lot better at table football in the last 2 months, not least due to regular practice. A lot of this regular practice comes at the start and end of our gaming sessions, and any time there is a break. Last night we even played a game or Runebound in sync with the table football, with four of us on the football while the other completed their turn before the replacing a player at the table.

We still score the odd home goal or two, and some of the taller members of our group suffer from prolonged periods of play, complaining of back pains. Sadly I don't have that problem :)

Soon the table moves out into the shack on the end of my house which is occasionally called a "conservatory". It's a little colder out there, so we shall see if people are as keen to take a turn at the football in its new location.

By Duncan on 27 February 2008 15:28

So Flybe decided to move the day of my flight to Aberdeen, originally planned to be the day before my birthday. I cancelled my trip altogether and looked around for an alternative, only to find that the trip I originally wanted to do (Dublin) was possible once more.

Flybe have strange scheduling practices.

So now I'm all booked to go to the capital of Ireland and stay in a luxury (or possibly just cheap) hotel and expose myself to the sights and sounds around. I plan on wandering randomly, doing some shopping, finding some salsa and reading a book.

And most importantly, stay away from Devon for a couple of days!

By Duncan on 27 February 2008 15:19

Fantasy Flight Games has come to the rescue of Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The press release can be found at www.fantasyflightgames.com. No comments have been made by FFG about their plans for these lines, but at least we now know they have a good home.

FFG already produce my favourite boardgames (Warrior Knights, A Game of Thrones), so I have confidence that my favourite RPGs have also found a place to grow.

Interestingly, the deal with Games Workshop also indicates the rights for (non-miniatures based) board games based on GW properties from the last 25 years. Which could turn out to be the source of some more quality games :)

By Duncan on 26 February 2008 21:17

For my book club this month, we each had to bring along a book from childhood which stood out for us in some way. It was a fascinating meeting at which I learned a lot about my fellow readers. Two had brought along books by Enid Blyton, another Black Beauty and a third some comics.

I took along a Fighting Fantasy adventure game book, Caverns of the Snow Witch by Steve Jackson.

Most of them didn't know what it was and had never heard of an adventure game book. I read it when I was 11 before going to secondary school, picking it up where my older sister had left it. But it was probably the most influential book I have read, as it opened up the genre of fantasy to me, and lead me on to read more fighting fantasy books, which lead to heroquest, warhammer and gaming in general.

And for those who have read it, my first character died to a mammoth before I got anywhere near the Snow Witch.

By Duncan on 07 February 2008 16:02

Don't know why it's taken me so long to write about this.

My dance weekend in Southport (hosted by jive addiction) was amazing, with by best-ever dances and great music. The atmosphere was buzzing in the latin quarter, the blues room and the main dance hall, with a good range of dancers and dances in each.

The music in the blues room had definite influence from the west coast swing going on, but I loved dancing to pretty much all of it. Our chalet was great once again, and there were many familiar faces from Exeter and elsewhere in the southwest. Somewhere I have photos of Party Nick's 20th celebration at our chalet.

The only disappointing part of the weekend was two of the lessons. The tango (taught by the replacements for Vincent and Flavia) was too crowded and the dips and drops was too late on a sunday afternoon.

Already booked for June and planning on September as well!