games

23 Jun

Its 2 years since James nearly killed me. And 7 other people. Including himself.

That  title is an exaggeration. Almost.

Anyway, 5 months since I last blogged… huh. I’ve been busy.

I bought carpet!

And a fridge!

And lots of wood, and bricks, and some door handles, and a sink. And a bunch of other things (I can’t be bothered listing everything). They all came neatly packaged in a big a thing called ‘a house’. Well most of it did, I had to later add some of those things. Ikea is too close.

The whole process was pretty  straitforward/insanely over complicated depending on how you look at it… offers… offer accepted… mortgage…mortgage accepted… sit and wait for contracts to sign… then wait for other side to sign contracts… encourage lawyer to annoy other lawyer to ask his client to hurry up… get a call… get some keys… walk up to my own home and walk in. Fun.

Now I have a room full of my junk, and several other rooms full of board games and computers. And this slightly-zoomed-in wonderful view, right behind the computer i type this on:
It's like those vampire books, except good.

 

And some super unfriendly cats that keep staring at me… then running away. Or hissing. There were photos, but apparently they can remotely destroy any photos taken of them.

 

So, I’ve been working on making the place as mine as I can… though I still haven’t really decorated. There’s furniture… mostly black furniture… some’s brown! And then there’s the board game stuff…

Most of my board games. Most…

And, the table I spent 2 months building:

Black dot is a Carcasonne Meeple, for scale. I had no bananas.

Whole thing is modular and expandable… 2m x 1m, up to 2.75x1m. Ish. I’m gonna replace the green felt with some sort of starscape for space games, and the little square things work as dice trays. Legs are detachable, so it can be armchair height, or dining room table height. It does, however, weigh a ton.

Most work I’ve ever done with wood, and I had splinters. Owies.

I’m considering adding things to make it extend automagically, and… other… fun things. Possibly involving touchscreens.

Other things I’ve been doing involve the mystical Ikea, like this lampshade:

Its not on fire.

It comes in lots of bits and its cable is WAY too long. (this is an older photo, things have been tidied up since then.) It shrinks into a sphere when you pull the cord. And makes things darker. Like mood lighting, cause I haven’t rigged the lights into computers… yet.

So, here I am, wondering one main thing… how to decorate. All of my rooms are off white or… whatever this colour is:

DSC_0250

I think its kind of green. And most of furniture is brown/black So, I’m looking for ideas, ideas which are appropriate for me, Dave. Not a teenage girl. Nor a 27 yr old woman. But yes, good ideas are welcome. Or wall furnishings. Like pictures.

As mentioned in my last blog (though no one answered the question) the answer was R2-D2. Obviously.

And thus, I’m done.

Dave.

 

31 Dec

This blog is not about puppies.

Hes tired and hes typing.

That may not be a good thing.

So…

Hi!

its been about 3 months since I last typed something here.

Amazingly, not a lot has happened, so you might be thinking you’ve started reading this for no reason, and nothing will come of this, but, I fear, your pessimism is badly placed! Something will come of your visiting this page today, I assure you! And so, to the business of entertaining you, and your fellow human beings! And the 2 cats that might read this! LETS GO.

House hunting is HARD. Mostly cause i have to do the whole financing thing first, but once thats done its just hard to see a good place to go viewing at the right price. There’s the ‘obviously need work’ ones… the ‘holy crap you made that look big but its obviously too small for a kitten’ ones, the “wait… where is exactly is that… oh.” ones, the “that’s a lot of flags….” ones, the “TIGER. THE NEIGHBOUR HAS A TIGER” ones, and finally the “I can’t see anything wrong with this, whats wrong with it, oh that’s a peace wall” ones.

Though I’m sure i’ll find a place sooner or later… Preferably one without an impending doom, and not overly pink. So very many of them are very pink…

Moving on… I have minions! Ish. For a bit. Not really. I’m training people. And making sure they do things right. In work, not other places… though if you consider yourself my minion let me know and I’ll make sure to treat you as you expect!

My obsession with boardgames has not diminished, much to my friends joy/consternation, and i now own 47 base games, with a few variants too bringing them to over 50. If anyone would like to organize a night to play said games, heres a list, and I am always ready to play 🙂

Since my last blog I turned 28, and that has led to absolutely no differences in my life whatsoever. So, next big thing…

Hmm..

I got a new phone! Yes, this seems to happen very often but this time, this time its different. This time its a Sony Z3 Compact. This time, it doesn’t need charged very often. This time… its awesome. It doesn’t bend.

A few things I found out in the last month:

  • Apparently I’ve mellowed out from being absolutely weird 5 years ago to just being a bit weird.
    • but the better kind of weird where my weirdnesses are actually useful.
  • Being polite is confusing to some people…
  • Steam trains are loud at 9AM..
  • I don’t know how to be more excited about episode 7 than I am already…
  • I can stay awake much later than i thought and still be functional…
  • Cats aren’t as evil as I once thought..
  • Tea isn’t that bad when its made in the right way…
  • I kinda want to build a snowman so you won’t get very far singing that song at me.
  • Its apparently normal to own a printer.

Ok, that last point, Printers. Printers are a horrible creation, a necessary evil of the pre internet age, that are only required by the unfortunate few. You see, I have printed around about 10 sheets of paper in the last 2 years, and I expect to print even less next year. Now, if i was to set up the printer I own, but is currently boxed up in the attic, it would cost me a good half hour to get working, another x amount of time to get ink for, and then theres paper. On the other hand if I were to print those few pages a year in work, or some other printing location it would cost less, take less time, and therefore be better. And thus, I have no need for a printer. Its not like I spend a chunk of my time printing photos of cats and sticking them up around my computer, or beside my bed….

Ok, so now i’ve un-necessarily argued against owning a printer, I think thats enough of a rant for tonight.

Good something*!

 

*Where something is a day, night, morning, cat, evening, or otherwise. I don’t know what kind of semantics pattern you have if you sleep 16 hours a day.

22 Sep

The back end of nowhere is kinda pretty

Its been a while!

Its September, the month of… something. What normally happens in September? Schools start back… but I don’t care about that anymore. OH. No… wait… I don’t care about holiday prices dropping… OH!I DO care about all my friends being in the country again! Except those that fled to England. Or Scotland. Or, in one case, America. Did I really scare you that much? I’m sorry! Come back! I won’t do it again!

 

Anyway…. today is the 22nd of September. Or the 23rd… if you’re reading it tomorrow. Or in Europe! Or further east! But more likely tomorrow… This means it is now 3 weeks till my 28th birthday, and I’ll come up with something to do then. Maybe. Its a tuesday, so… yeah.

So what did I do over the past few months? I did several things. lets go in reverse order, so I can remember them…

I got a promotion! I’m now a ‘Senior Software Engineer’. Appropriate as I’m about to turn 28…

I moved to Belfast! Again. This is likely explained better below. My dad no longer has a manse…(yay promotion!) so we get to live in the city now! A small apartment…

I moved to Greenisland again! For 3 weeks. That means parents, and that means less fun 🙁

I moved out of Belfast! Ruth came home and wanted her house back 🙁

The Word weekend happened! I have to do the audio… I should get round to that tomorrow… but it was awesome!

I bought a Drone! Its currently out of action after a… let’s call it an emergency landing. But it’ll be fixed up soon!

We started a Second RPG group! they were much faster than the other group… just saying…

Tech Camp happened! It was brilliant. I’m tired and running out of words…

Loughbrickland connect happened! People were shocked and amazed at my ability to get internet in the back end of nowhere… but I did! Kids were brilliant and it sucked to leave for the next thing… which is above…

July happened! I don’t remember July much… nor June. What happened in those 2 months? Did i get my car in June? No? It was May? Ok then. I got a new car! Its a DS3. Its not a girls car. Its awesome.

I went back in time! Wait. No. I’m not supposed to mention that. It hasn’t happened yet.

 

 

Smile, you’re not turning 28. 🙂

Dave.

 

 

 

Oh, yes, the title. I’ve spent a lot of time in the back end of nowhere. And managed to get signal there! I took photos. They were pretty. I’ll put them somewhere.

3 Jun

Edge of the Empire: Its a saga. An awkward confusing saga.

Hello!

So, as some of you are aware, I, am a massive geek, and the geekiest thing I do is lead 5 people through an adventure of their own imaginations in the Star Wars universe.

Seriously its fun, you should do it. I can help.

This is known as an RPG, and I’m the GM, or Game Master, if you like using whole words. The most popular RPG is Dungeons and Dragons, but this is a star wars version, known as Edge of The Empire. The players control characters and I control the environment, and dice make decisions on anything uncertain which is known as skill checks. So, a bunch of smugglers, bounty hunters, and a droid, are in this particular game. They each have their own elaborate backstory, motivations and obligations that they MUST abide by, and complete the objective of the adventure. If they want to do anything in secret, the players communicate with me over facebook.

I’ve recorded the last 2 sessions, but the first session needs some explanation:

The initial player characters:

Kith – Played by Vicki, a bothan bounty hunter and owner of the ship.

Nate Draan – Played by Dave Luke, a human smuggler

R5-T16 – Played by Ryan, An astromech droid with a few… modifications.

These 3 characters met in the first episode and managed to get a mission from a Twi-lek called Reom to hunt down a lost Seperatist ship from the end of the Clone wars, believed crashed in the outer rim. They were forced to flee the station they got the mission from after some entanglements with other treasure hunters, but did obtain the Droid they needed to find the location of the ship.

Characters introduced:

Chenni – played by Gerard, a Wookie, An angry wookie.

Valo – played by Matt, A Chiss Bounty Hunter.

Episode 2 can be found here:

Beyond The Rim Ep2

And the next episode, here:

Beyond The Rim Episode 3

There’ll be another session soon….

Dave.

13 May

A plea. A campaign if you will.

“You’re not pretty enough.”

“You’re too complicated”

“What even IS that thing?”

“Eww… vampires”

These are just some of the reasons given to not interact with them. They do not deserve this, they are just as worthy as the others, and deserve just as much love. They are misunderstood, and slotted into that ‘weird’ category to be brought out only with weird people.

But they just want to be brought out and enjoyed like the others, instead, they just sit there, in a dark room, effectively useless.

 

Did you know, 50% of my boardgames haven’t even been played? There’s hours of fun sitting in boxes that are lucky to have been opened… some haven’t even had their components sorted!

Theres a wealth of awesome worlds and universes to create stories in, and they’re just sitting there, empty and unused!

I don't love the puns. SO MANY HORRIBLE PUNS. but you might!
A universe of sheep! And Puns! Whats NOT to love?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A plethora of interesting aliens and monsters to befriend or kill!

Lovecraft is weird.
Like black men! (You shouldn’t kill black men)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or this friendly critter!

Seriously, its a horror game.
Hes so lovable, and not terrifying at all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ultimately, he fears for his games. That they’ll grow lonely and unloved…

This fecker cost me £12, I'd like to actually use him at some point.
This little guy just wants to blow up a tie fighter… won’t you let him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TNG, season 4, episode 5. Just FYI.
Its like that episode, where the only thing in the universe is the enterprise. And its just sitting there, with Beverley going mad… He just wants to blow up a Romulan! BUT THERE ARE NO ROMULANS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They can't, they're plastic.
If these tanks could cry, it would be tears of loneliness. And tininess. They’re very small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So please, consider playing the complicated games, and join Dave on a day hes going to organize at some point to play each of them. Or he’ll be kept awake at night by 15 sobbing board games.*

 

Dave.

 

 

 

*Don’t do the math on how much 15 board games are worth. Seriously. If you do… don’t double it. And definitely don’t rob my house. They’re not worth much second hand.

17 Mar

I’m so tired…

…not just physically tired, (I blame risk for that) but tired of other things.

Tired of holding back my ideas, tired of living miles from my friends, tired of money, tired of youtube, tired of being too busy to look up, tired of thinking too much, tired of the internet, and mostly tired of not getting the opportunity to serve God as much as I want.

This is why I haven’t blogged in a while, its difficult when you’ve no time to think about stuff, hence why I’m typing this at 11.00pm on the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend. I just want to have a job that truely matters, live near my friends and not have to worry about anything.

Meh.

Anyway. That was different.

You should watch these videos! They’re educational! In a fun way! I now know a lot about the Mongols. But watch it!

http://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse

I’m also looking for music videos for music that is any good. Please let me know some.

Where was I… oh yeah, tired. Physically tired! Board games. Risk at 9.00pm is a bad idea. It was a worse idea when it came to 2.00am.
Board games are awesome.

Gah. Time to sleep. Or continue watching Dr. Who. I haven’t decided yet.

12 Jan

So, turning on the radio and hearing sex at 11am is a thing now.

Yeah, this happens on Radio 4. Its… certainly not a great thing in work.

Anyway. My last post was before Christmas, so as this is after Christmas, I should probably talk about that.

It’s January! I bought a telescope! FOR SPACE. And its been cloudy since I did that, so, after I worked out I can see Holywood, now its just… sitting there. Boo. I got it from Jessops 2 days before they closed for good. So I’m kinda glad it works.

Now I’ll actually talk about Christmas. Probably. That number I was talking about? IT’S GONE DOWN. And now its at 19. Ish.

Moving on, last night I defied the protests, and decided to come into town anyway to hang outwith my friends. It worked surprisingly well, after discovering 2 of the 3 routes into town I have were blocked, one of which by the heartless jackasses who did this:

Gagh.

And as I type this I see another story coming out of a delayed GP for a dying man.

…

Yeah.

Anyway, there were also a major number of hopefully unrelated road accidents, and I discovered several back roads I didn’t know about. And then played Settlers of Catan. It only took Steven 20 minutes to start giggling. I would’ve been proud if I hadn’t been trying to make it happen. If you don’t understand why he would giggle… here:

So, Christmas.

It was the usual great Christmas, with friends, family, and more friends. I took many annoying photos, blinded some friends, and took more annoying photos, attended a few awesome friends parties, danced a little at New Years (thats right. That happened.),  introduced a friend to the original star wars trilogy, and dodged 2 burnt out cars on the Newtownards road one night.

So, all but the last made my Christmas awesome. Mainly the awesome people involved, except for the ‘protestor’s.

Now comes the geeky stuff.

Its CES! Things were announced there! And other things have been announced too.

3 important things (they were mostly announced last year… but more detail!):

Ubuntu Phone! This is a new OS that likely only geeks will use. But it will allow your phone to become your main computer MUCH easier.

4K… things!

4K is the next big resolution after Full HD, and many 4K devices have been announced, from TVs to tablets designed for pro photographers. You won’t notice/want to pay for the difference for a good few years probably, but, hey, MORE PIXELS. ’bout time.

Lastly…

The Oculous Rift, a totally immersive  gaming or movie experience.

There were other things, like a totally waterproof smartphone that actually looks kinda good, a gaming handheld that can play PC Games, and a car that can pick you up. By itself. But those are the things I liked.

And thats it for now.

This was irregular dose of nonsense.

Dave.

 

 

16 Nov

Wheeeeeeeeeee…..

Hey! Look! A blog!

Its not about Christmas, because its still November.

Anyway, my head is bleeding. See?

Ignore the crazy eyes.
The consequences of forgetting a hat.

This is what happens when you don’t wear standard full face masks on an airsoft shoot. Remarkably, it doesn’t hurt. Though I have no idea how I did that with my eyes. There may be some damage there.

Remember, this blog is not about Christmas.

So, other than airsoft, this evening I was at the Town Hall for the Hackerspace I am a member of, called Farset Labs. Farset labs is a fun place where many random things happen, all of which are perfectly legal, and only marginally unsafe, and they just bought a 3D printer. This means we get to make random things out of plastic really easily, like spare parts, joints, scale models of our own heads…. We also got a parrot AR drone, which should be fun, and we have a Massive R/C helicopter but none of us can fly it… and star trek pinball! And numerous random things like Megadrives, bbc micros, NExTs, and a strange talking rabbit that reads out the weather and utters random things. What I’m doing there currently is building a remote web controlled rover that I have all the parts for… I just need to program it  and work out how to stop it burning itself out. And burning things down. Theres another project in my mind too but I need the printer first. And to design the thing. Its pretty cool.

Ow… one of my fingers hurts too. But not from airsoft, I slammed it in the gate at work’s car park.

Tomorrow I finally get to play one of my more recent purchase board games, Halo Risk, which promises to be an… experience.

Its actually this big. Really.
Click for boardgamegeek reviews.

Having never played Risk before I figure this will be an interesting evening, filled with much bloodshed (my head will have stopped bleeding by then, hopefully, I mean imaginary blood) and the usually kind of anger and betrayal that comes from friends playing board games.

Speaking of which, never play a board game with Timie Wilson. I’m convinced he is either a very good cheater or INCREDIBLY lucky. I had to sacrifice my entire army to stop him from winning Civilization the other night. And I didn’t even win. Grr.

Remember folks, this blog has nothing to do with Christmas.Well… maybe I should talk about Christmas… or not. NUMBERS. Today’s number is 328…for now. These numbers have yet to go down. And they’ve yet to be guessed correctly. I’m fairly certain none of you are trying. Seriously. Its really freakin’ obvious.

I can’t stop watching this. I don’t know why.

I’m not sure what this says about me.

Could be worse though.

I could’ve linked this.

That’s right. Now watch that 40 times in 3 days and you’ll get the kind of psyche I have where I want to jump up at a particular point everytime I hear that frakin’ song.

That’s one of the more meaningless blogs over.

I think I should go lie down.

Remember. Its November. Maybe the next blog might be about Christmas. But this one wasn’t.