Of Games and Geeks (by sarah)

Last weekend my friends Ella and Oliver came up - first they stayed at Andrews place in Cheltenham were I joined them on Sunday. We eat the most fantastic meal that Andrew had prepared and organised with a walnut suace and pasta - mmmmmmm.

We did lots of chatting and catching up and they tried to get me to play a computer game with them and I explained that I get to addicted to things like that so best not plus there's the RSI issue and I don't want to take up my avaliable computer time on games - I would love to play games don't me wronge but I have made the sensible if boring decission on this one.

I then insulted Ella by given her a Christopher Pike book about Vampires that I thought might inspire/help her with her huge literary endevour.

I said I was happy to play a board game or something though so we played a game called munchkin (I think) the rules of which were a bit of mystery to me and hence I lost - though I did get to be an elf with a very long sword and have a chicken on my head (though apparently the chicken thing was a curse adn bad). The aim seemed to be to work as a team and stab your partners in the back.

Anyway I had a fun time loosing.

Then Monday we went out around Cheltenham and I scoured the charity shops for the next books in series's I need - in the end I found one of them in a discount book shop and so actaully bought a new copy! (I'm addicted to the Lemony Snicket series).

That night Andrew came around to our place and we played Lord of the Rings Monopoly which David got me and Al. I as always was legolas 🙂 I didn't win. Poor Al didn't get to join in as he had to work - Jean didn't want to stay with us and went and played in her room and then went to bed early - wow?!

Oliver spent an age going though the shoes box of magic the gathering cards I have (I don't know what to do with them but he sorted it out and handed me a starter game pack thing that was in their). The shoe box belonged to Al's Step brother Simon who decided he didn't want it anymore.

Al took Andrew home and me, Ella and Oliver played one of my oldest board games - Elixir though there was a bit of an issue over having not explained the rules to Ella.

Unsuprisingly I won this one.

Al had taken Andrew back at like 11:30 or something like that - Oliver was gearing up for another game as he eyed the Dangons and Dragons games. This was vetoed and instead we looked at the board for Anticipation - my second oldest board game that doesn't actually belong to me - it was our 'family' game when I was growing up and me and David played it for hours and hours.

Tuesday Al actually came for lunch with us and we wandered down to the Black Horse (the village pub known for excillent food). This pub is normally packed out - but it was empty - so empty I thought we'd wandered into a closed pub - but no apparently the pensioners who are all normally in there don't have any money as it all came from their investiments so the main clientelle untill the tourist season starts is gone 🙁

He was very sad about this 🙁 The food is still excillent though with silly big portions - Ella told me off for eating my cheese and chutney wrong :/

In the afternoon me and Ella went for a walk and got lost and midge bitten which was fun, we discuessed our futures in science and litrature and the nature of society and that sort of girly stuff

As always I felt sad when they had gone as I really miss geek talk. Andrew is also moving to Ammerica at the end of April as well 🙁

The Crows of Penwood (by sarah)

Today me and Alaric spent the day sitting in a freezing cold hut surrounded by mad crows that shred wind screen wipers surrounded by wiered plastic torso's that you can peel the skin off of.

We were shown lots of gory pictures of festering wounds of various types and shown how to strap people up. Disembodied faces littered the surfaces and strange thumps and crashes echoed through the desolate hills that surrounded us. Screams of help filled our ears.

Then one by one we begain to disappear - off course this was to go and by lunch from the near by supermarket and we were in fact just at a first aid course but really there where mad crows and resusi-anni dolls can be really scary looking before their faces are attatched - not that they are exactly friendly with the faces.

Still we enjoyed the course - though Al went all weak from the pictures of blood and even though we have both done alot of first aid courses and training in the past we are still learning stuff like I didn't realise that 8 yrs old is the cut off for the child/adult boundary for treatments.

Hardness in the belly can be internal bleeding and erections can be symptomatic of spinial injuries in men.

In exchanging stories I found I have actually had to do a lot of actual first aid on real people which I had sort of forgotten about. We got some free bandages, a mouth sheild and a menigitis card out of it.

At the end we were trapped by a rain storm which added to the strangeness of the setting too - so I think I shall be writing one or two stories about the place 🙂

Sorry About the Ads (by sarah)

I know I said I wouldn't do this but our blog gets far to much traffic not too really! Plus Al was board with how it all looked so I thought I'd sort it all out in one foul swoop.

Green Monster (by sarah)

A Revue Monster is joining the ranks of the Monsters.

Green Monster reviews science fiction and fantasy with a smattering of horror and hopes you will all appreciate what his veiws.

Tony Hart :( (by sarah)

It turns out Tony Hart has died aged 83, as without him the Wiggly Pets would never have existed I felt it only right to do a post about him over on Salaric Craft. 🙁

It would have been nice to actually meet him.

Bizarlly this and watching the old Wind in the Willows with Jean has made me want to annamate the Wiggly Pets once more. I remember speaking to a BBC bod about it a couple of years ago but then never heared anything about it and then that thing on CBBC appeared which looks similiar so I think they must have already had that in the pipe line :/

Oh well went I get some spare time (next millenia at this rate) I will animate them myself - I have a few other things I would love to turn into animations too! And as always being me they cover a broad range of tecnics that are probably now redundent with modern pooter power which makes me all the more excited as maybe I can just muck about on the pooter and get something that looks right.

Not right now though - far to much stuff to do:/

RIP Tony and thankyou.