TESTING

Okay, so since it turns out NONE of the past week or twos comics have actually been posting properly, this is a test post to see if things are actually working. This what I get doing one a day for a whole week.

Testing The New RSS Doohicky

This Year In Hell

So, once more we find ourselves at the end of yet another. Honestly, where do these things keep coming from? We should probably get someone in to look at that, the damn things seem to breed like cockroaches. Just when you think you finally gotten rid of one, another one shows up. Thus making years the opposite of buses. But I digress.

Every year I try and do a little write up of stuff that I thought was good. Not in any strict top 10 whatever kind of sense, but just as an exercise in forcing myself to remember that maybe not EVERYTHING is horrible. As time goes on this seems to get more difficult. I'm not going to lie, this has been a rough year, and my ability to look on the bright side has been atrophied to the point of extinction. But that's enough about the last series of Doctor Who. We're trying to be positive here. So let's begin shall we.

What Comes After? - Notes On An RPG Setting For Overpower

As the seasons change and the wheel of the year moves inexorably onwards, a young man's thoughts turn, inevitably, to RPGS. Well, the thoughts of the younger men anyway. I'm feeling about 80 over here. But some members of the collective (who presumably are only feeling about 60) have expressed the desire for playing a new RPG game. And one of them said:

Quite fancy something rules-light...and theme-wise I'm feeling superheroes or modern horror (zombies, etc.)

Which got me thinking.... Why not both?

All The Things

One of the things I really love about science is, if I'm being brutally honest, the potential for sheer bloody minded pedantry. Because it's very important to be clear and precise. You can't just assume that everybody knows what you mean when you say something. Everybody may well be working under a different set of knowledge or assumptions regarding whatever it is under discussion. This is perhaps what makes many people regard scientific terminology as often cumbersome. Clarity comes at the expense of brevity.

I bring this up so you may have get a sense of why it is that I sometimes I get all nitpicky over matters of terminology. Terminology is important. It's sets the tone and thus effects out attitudes and expectations. And today I want to talk about one particular bit of terminology that bugs the ever-loving shit out of me. I'm sure you too will have encountered this at some point. Maybe you'll be talking about TV shows with someone, and they will bring up a popular program you've never seen. And you know exactly what it is they will then say.

"Oh, you HAVE TO see that show!"

Do I really? OR WHAT?

S&W Episode 3rd Edition: A New Setting

I've been thinking a bit about RPG stuff lately. Specifically about super hero RPGs. After all, we've been playing quite a bi of Sentinels Of The Multiverse recently. In addition to which the spectre of actually trying to get an RPG going has been mooted, and I've actually had some positive feedback on the notion of running Overpower. Which is gratifying. It's always nice when you manage to do something that people actually enjoy. So, on the way to work one morning I was thinking about setting ideas for games, when I had a REALLY good idea. One of those rare ideas you have where the more you think about it, the more sense it seems to make, and the less you can believe that someone hasn't already thought about doing it.

What if you ran a super hero game set in the Star Wars Universe?

God Trek II - The Wrath Of Fans

Okay, so in my last post I feel I may have perhaps come across as overly critical of religion, but there is a very good reason for this: I AM overly critical of religion. It's just.... kinda dumb and wholely unnecessary. But it would be remiss of me not consider some of the positive aspects of this condition. It always pays to consider both sides of any argument.

However briefly.

The thing is, whilst there undoubtedly are some positive effects, we've actually already developed past the point where we need religion to provide them. This is something I've been meaning to talk about pretty much since I took up blogging as a hobby. Which I suppose should help illustrate to all the young earth creationists that some things really do only happen on geological time scales.

Anyway point is we're going to be discussing SERIOUS BUSINESS topics again this week. So with that in mind, let me introduce you to your all new lord and saviour:

Oh yeah, we're going there.

One Million Pounds B.C.

So yesterday I had occasion to pop into the local tesco on my way home from work. After 2 days of fasting I had quite naturally decided to eat ALL THE SAUSAGES. Only I needed rolls. But I'm not here to talk about sausages.

Just for a change.

No, see what I want to talk about is what it was I found confronting me on the way in:

Feel free to start spontaneously singing Misfits songs when you see this. I did.

Big honking Dinosaur skull for only 99p? FUCK YEAH!!!....

Or is it? Let's find out.

Down In The Park Part 5: A Friend Called 4?

Ye gods, have I REALLY been going on about Jurassic Park for five fucking posts? Even worse, have I been been wibbling on at such length purely because I just wanted to talk about A TRAILER?


I really do let my enthusiasm get the better of me sometimes don't I? Anyway, let's see if we can't get this over and done with so I can actually go and get on with my life. Well, I say life. I probably mean washing up, but close enough.

Quite Possibly the 2014th Years End Review You've Read This Week

Urg, it's that time again. For some reason I feel it customary to write some manner of year end summary / review thing. But I have to admit I've been putting it off somewhat. It's not that I haven't really had the time, it's just that, for me personally, this past year has been absolutely fucking AWFUL. So it's kinda hard to maintain the whole cheery "look at all this cool stuff" vibe when being confronted with the start of a new year only makes you wonder if, having barely scraped through the last one, THIS will be the year when you finally kill yourself.

This is why I'm no fun at parties. New years are like birthdays: only celebrated by those who actually have a future.

Still, despite having a full on breakdown I suppose the year wasn't entirely bereft of tawdry consumption, so let's have a look at some of that and just pretend that I didn't bring up the whole inevitable self-termination thing, shall we?

Deepy Weepy, Timey Wimey

So, in last weeks Dr Who we had a gigantic Kaiju sized Dinosaur. As a man with an interest in Dinosaurs this naturally got me thinking about various matters of Paleontological science in relation to Dr Who. Specifically it made me think "Whilst the scale is obviously a bit off, I wonder what implications the morphology of this particular specimen have for accurately dating the period of the Silurian Civilization?".

Sometimes I'm just THAT Rock & Roll.

Be EXCELLENT to each other.

Skirmish Game Campaign Setting Introduction: Intergalactic Terror World.

In her initial paper outlining the analysis of the mysterious alien mineral that would eventually come be to be known as Ouroborite, Professor Heisen noted that when properly refined and controlled the substance could be employed to produce a near limitless source of energy.

She also noted that in it's naturally occurring unrefined state it had a tendency to rip the head of physics, shit down the neck of sanity and thence merrily bugger the corpse of the space/time continuum. All the while laughing hysterically at the very concept of objective reality.

Potent stuff.

Friday The 2013th

Another year over. And you know what that means don't you? Tedious "Best Of X" lists. Millions of them, slithering out of the internet and into your disinterested eyes like some kind of ghastly occular leech intent on draining out your ability to feign even the slightest interest in the most hideous fashion possible. Only when it finally heaves it's twisted bulk through the screen it finds that there's not actually anything left to feed on as all mental resources have been depleted in pretending that you don't hate your friends, family and the miserable excuses for presents they gave you, even though you would probably be happier setting them all on fire. Thus, defeated it slinks off to die in a pit of rotting feculence and the twitching corpses of it's decaying brethren.

Happy New Year?

That metaphor rather got away from me there. Still, never mind eh? It's time to trawl the archives and try and work out what things from my past year didn't actually suck. As always actual release dates are less important than when I actually first experienced the item in question. So with the rambling and provisos out of the way, let's get on with it shall we?

Terminology Velocity

One thing you quickly learn when performing even a cursory review of Dinosaurs in general is that they are possessed of a great variety of long, complicated sounding names. Now, obviously we need to call them SOMETHING, and using latin or pseudo-latin sounding terms allows us to apply some measure of appropriate description so that everybody knows what we're talking about. Even if we're not always sure exactly how to pronounce it.

Of course, one of the other functions of such nomenclature is that it all sounds very clever and official. Which is just as well really. Because if we were to actually set the TARDIS telepathic circuits to translate right down to the root meanings of terms and try to have a conversation about Dinosaurs we would sound, in all honesty, utterly retarded, if only for the number of times you end up saying lizard in a single sentence.

So that's what I'm going to do. Enjoy.

Advent (Geological) Time

It's at times like this, with the festive season well and truly underway, that a mans thoughts inevitably turn towards the one obvious subject of relevance for this time of year:

Dinosaurs.

What did you think I meant?

The Foe From The Future

Okay, so last time I was banging on about the whole Ultimate Villain poll thing and how utterly ridiculous half the entries were. And I was left wondering why it was that outside of the 2 Steven Moffat created entries there was such a lack of anything from the new era of Dr Who that could be considered even slightly appropriate, let alone a reasonable contender for second place after the Daleks.

Unless we're talking about these Daleks of course, which are different and thus must be feared and hated.

And thus it is I feel compelled to embark on an in depth analysis of original monsters from the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors run and see if we can come up with anything a bit more iconic. So strap yourselves in, this might take a while....

The Ultimate Foe

Recently the BBC Doctor Who site ran a poll to determine the Series Ultimate Villain™. As a man who has spent an excessive amount of time and a whole series of posts thinking about Dr Who monsters this was obviously of some interest to me. Not that there's ever really any doubt about the outcome of such an exercise.

Spoiler Alert?

But it can be a bit of fun anyway. After all, the Daleks Winner is to be announced as part of some special programme (even if it is on BBC 3), so at least we'll get a cool rundown of classic nasties to watch out of it if nothing else.

Then the list of nominees started getting filled out. And I found myself faced with a question: Is this some kind of joke?

No, REALLY. Is it?

Doctor Death

If you're anything like me then you spend far too much time sitting around thinking about Doctor Who. If you're not anything like me then I guess you're too busy having some sort of real life with all your going out and personal relationships and such like. No need to be so smug about it, you're not impressing anyone with that sort of behavior

Anyway, at this particular time if there's one subject on the mind of Doctor Who fans, it's that of death & regeneration. Matt Smith will be dying for our entertainment at christmas, to be replaced by Peter Capaldi. And before we even get that far we have the mystery of the extra Doctor in the anniversary special. Currently the hints and rumours indicate that he's some sort of previous version. Which if true makes the whole Season 6b theory and UNIT dating problems look pretty tame by comparison.

Still that is all to come. As it is I've been thinking about the various deaths of the Doctor over the years, and thought it might be fun to go through them and see what we can learn about both the Doctor, and who his deadliest enemies really are.

And I'll tell you right now, it's not who you think. Not by a LONG WAY.

It's A Metaphor

Wild Knights, Hot Crazy Box

If you'll indulge me I'm going to be doing something a little different today. Generally speaking I try and keep things kinda general, or at least not overly technical. But today I feel like talking about a particular Yu-Gi-Oh card. And this, obviously, is going to get fairly specific. So if you're not all that into playing Yu-Gi-Oh then I guess there's a strong possibility that none of what I'm going to say will mean anything to you.

Just remember:

Now, having said all that, let's talk about Number 85: Crazy Box

Perfectly Ultimate Great.

I could give any number of reasons why it is my blogging output has been so lax of late, but if we're being brutally honest then it's going to mainly because of Yu-Gi-Oh.

And we all know just how brutal Honest can be in a game of Yu-Gi-Oh Am I right?

This is due in part to finally getting one of the DS games. Which is rather unfortunate as it rather derailed the post I was planning on what an awful, gimmicky system the DS actually is because I was to busy actually playing the damn thing to do anything else. Still, having finally completed the story mode I've been left thinking about Yu-Gi-Oh games in general. Their strengths, weaknesses and how they could be improved. And so it is that I find myself writing this article, in an attempt to design the Perfect Yu-Gi-Oh game.

SPOILER ALERT: It isn't this. Not even slightly.