Month: January 2011

Straits of Canada

See the small person I don’t like wearing jewellery and makeup.

Reading my feeds this morning I stumbled over the news that a regulatory body in Canada has banned Dire Strait’s Money for Nothing from the airwaves for reasons of being offensive.

My initial reaction was “WHAAA?”, however on reading the article this was revised to “Oh, yeah – that bit”. The problem is of course the third verse – not one of Mark Knopfler’s best moments – where the song repeatedly uses a rather nasty pejorative. Someone complained – quite justifiably in my opinion – and away we go.

There seems to be a lot of outrage floating around over the decision, but personally it doesn’t bother me that much. I’m as big a Dire Straits fan as the next guy (assuming the next guy is also tragically out of step with modern music) but the verse really is in rather poor taste. More importantly there’ve been versions of the song without the offending verse available ever since it was released – as long as these versions are still allowed on the radio, what does it matter? You don’t listen to Money for Nothing for the words, you listen for the durn-d-d-d-duuuurn! durn-durn-durn – durrrrrrn-durn! d-durn-durn-durn! d-d! (and for Mr Sting wailing about MTV).

The people who complain about this sort of thing are typically the ones who want to keep on using the offensive terms in question. They hide behind a facade of second-person artistic integrity, but fundamentally they want to keep the word ‘faggot’ in the song because they want to keep calling gay people – or simply anyone they don’t like – faggots. The idea that their apparently God given right to hate and belittle others is under threat is what upsets them – not that a song from 30 bloody years ago will now have to be played in slightly modified form.

Sheeze. You might as well complain about not being allowed to sing that verse from Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport.

On second thoughts…

They’re the anchor of the Free Mantle Systems

Maybe my Valhallans were fighting the anchor of the Free Mantle Systems, the Freo Marines?

Freo! Name: Freo Marines
Founding Chapter: The WAFL Marines
Founding: Unknown
Chapter Master: Matheus Pavlach
Homeworld: Freo
Fortress-Monastery: The Dock
Battle Cry: Freo! Way to Go!

😀

Imma Charging Mah Lazers

Reinforcements incoming from Philadelphia

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve gone and thrown stupid amounts of money at eBay to start a collection of Valhallans. This is slightly better than throwing stupid amounts of money at Games Workshop to start a collection of Valhallans, as the stupid amounts of money I’ve thrown at eBay are about half the stupid amounts of money I’d have to throw at Games Workshop for the same amount of models. They’re still quite stupid though.

Since Fabes’ Space Marines seemed to be fairly intimidated by my Laser Cannons, I’ve bought a couple of them. Also a mortar team, an officer and a couple of large, nasty surprises, the nature of which I’m not going to mention because then they wouldn’t be surprises any more (you have read up on all the vehicle rules haven’t you Fabes? 😉

When my reinforcements arrive from Sunny Philadelphia I’m planning to do some conversion work on the officer. He’s a very fine model, but is basically a bit too 19th century for my tastes. The general look of the Valhallans is World War II Red Army – having them commanded by a mustachioed Cossack in a giant fur hat just doesn’t gel with me.  I’ll be chopping down his hat and replacing it with a ushanka for a start, and plan to go with a more subdued paint job than the example above.

I’ve also bought some scary neodymium magnets for weapon swapping. They’re very tiny ones, so hopefully I won’t accidentally amputate anything trying to get them glued into place.

Finally I’ve avoided blogging about the floods because really, what’s to be said? It’s a disaster, and me going on about it in my usual irreverent style wont make it any less so. I’ve donated to the relief appeal and my thoughts and sympathy are with all those affected. That’s about the best I can do.

The Black Swans

Aussie Marines

So, today at work I was thinking – exactly what Space Marine chapter were my Valhallans fighting on the weekend? After some thought I decided it had to be the Black Swans…

The Black Swans
 Name: Black Swans
Founding Chapter: Unknown
Founding: Unknown
Chapter Master: Septimus Rowe
Homeworld: Cygnus Occidentalis
Fortress-Monastery: Ratnast
Battle Cry: Cygnis Insignis!

Hailing from the semi-arid, sandy world of Cygnus Occidentalis the Black Swans dwell in the orbiting fortress monastery of Ratnast and hone their combat skills fighting the fearsome burrowing creatures known by the natives as sand-gropers.

OK. Done now 🙂

Gossip

The seamy underbelly of the local web design scene…

Not naming any names here, but an apparently disgruntled employee (or possibly ex-employee – certainly an ex-employee once they figure out who it is) of a major local web design company has mailed copies of their entire client list to every other web design company in the city.

As we used to say in primary school – ooooo-ma!

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Fabes

In the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium there is only Fabian

Back to work tomorrow. Kill me now.

Headed up to Fabe’s place for another test game of Warhammer 40k yesterday. This time we had 1500 point armies and played on a full sized field on his living room floor – which left both of us with agonisingly painful necks and knees.

I fielded a force of Valhallans (printed out onto paper and stuck onto bases with blu-tack), while Fabes rolled out his newly purchased Space Marines, backed with a bunch of the Space Hulk models Matt left behind when he debunked to the Alps. Because we’re still learning we played without vehicles, which led me to some interesting conclusions…

1: Footslogging Imperial Guard across a battlefield is not much fun.

2: Footslogging Imperial Guard across a battlefield without any kind of mobile cover is even less fun.

3: Footslogging Imperial Guard across a battlefield when your opponent has spent over half of his 1500 points on Cyclone Missile Launchers and Conversion Beamers is possibly the least fun thing ever.

It was basically a prolonged duck shoot. I barely got any units out of my table quarter, and conceded defeat at the start of round five when a Space Marine Captain took out my Company Commander in single combat (and my knees were killing me).

That said, I did manage to hold off disaster for quite a while – mainly by rolling an unreasonable number of fives and sixes while Fabes kept rolling ones and twos. My heavy weapons teams inflicted a fair bit of damage and my Company Commander survived far longer that he should have thanks to his refractor field. The champions however were my ratling snipers, who managed to eliminate Fabes’ Master of the Forge despite drawing the attention of numerous grenade and missile launchers and a nearby group of snipers containing some whiz-bang special sniper character who seemed to have spent the entire battle huffing obscura (The sniper! He does nothing!).

My least useful unit was the massed one consisting of 20 veterans (with various heavy weapons) and a Ministorum Priest. The first round of missile strikes reduced this to about five models who promptly fled – I managed to rally them but the game was over before they got back in range of anything (The Eviscorator! It does nothing!)

Despite being smashed by Fabes’ somewhat underhand weapon choices it was a really fun day. I think I may have to consider buying some models…

Tunnel Dreams

Idiot dreaming of future rail lines.

If tomorrow the people of Perth arrived en-mass at my front door to appoint me absolute Monarch of the State, there would be a number of programs I would immediately initialise. For instance, the coversion of East Perth Power Station into a royal palace, the banning all imports from Texas (with the exception of Ms Kelly Clarkson) and the distribution of knighthoods and government allowances to people who don’t generally hack me off (a small and exclusive group).

But my major legacy to the state (apart from the continuation of the royal line – ideally with the assistance of Ms Kelly Clarkson) would be the expansion of the city’s public transport system via the construction of a number of underground rail lines. And they would go like this…

(Asterisks indicate interchanges with other lines)

The Northern Suburbs Line – Sorrento, Greenwood*, Ellersdale Avenue, Balcatta Road, Mirrabooka, Norranda, Morley, Broun Avenue, Bayswater*, King William Street, Ascot*, Blackrock Road, Belmont.

The City/Ariport Line – International Terminal, Domestic Terminal, Ascot*, Tranby, Burswood Island, WACA, Victoria Square, Perth Underground*, Cloisters*, Mill Point, Perth Zoo, Douglas Avenue, Ellam Street, Burswood Island (again).

The University Line – Glendalough*, Dog Swamp, Edith Cowan, Hyde Park, Russel Square, Cloisters*, Observatory, Nicolson Road, QE II, UWA North, UWA South, Applecross, Canning Bridge*, Goss Avenue, Curtin, Boundary Road, Hill View Terrace, Oats Street*.

There’s a fair potential for expansion there – for instance the University Line could be linked with the Northern Suburbs line with an expansion between Oats Street and Belmont. The other end of the University Line could be run out to Scarborough Beach, and a further expansion up to Sorrento could complete the loop. Norranda station is well placed for a branch line up to Whiteman Park and Ellenbrook. There’s also plenty of potential to expand into the southern suburbs – or at least there would be if they were anything more than a barren wasteland haunted by wind and ghosts 😉

I’ve obviously got it all figured out. On with the coronation! 😀

Alles klar, Herr Kommissar

For the Emperor!

Spent an entertaining day up at Fabes’ place yesterday figuring out how to play Warhammer 40k. We ran a very small scale (375 points) test game in which my Valhallans completely wiped the floor with his non-specific Space Marines. My stunning victory was down to a number of points..

  • We had very little idea what we were doing
  • The ridiculously low points value we ran with meant the Valhallans outnumbered the Marines about 3 to 1
  • Fabes kept rolling 1s

But hey, it was just a run through to figure out the movement and shooting rules, so I shouldn’t crow too much 😀

I enjoyed the game enough to go and check out the cost of some Valhallan models (we were using proxies for everything) but – as one expects from Games Workshop – the prices are insane. If I can be bothered I might look at some alternatives, World War II Red Army figurines obviously – but no promises. I mean seriously, do I need another hobby? 😀

It may have been called “Adam 1985” or something…

Televisual Memories

Yes, yes, happy new arbitrary point in the earth’s orbit and all that. I have more important things to talk about. Like TV.

(If I were running things then the year would start/end at a solstice or equinox or something. You know, a date that means something. Hrumph.)

Anyway, I remembered a TV show the other day that I haven’t thought of for years. The trouble is I don’t know the name of it, and can only remember a few fragments of plot. This is driving me nuts so I thought I’d start off the new year by putting all the details I can remember about it up online, thus making it someone else’s problem.

It was a live action show. I have a vague suspicion that it was made somewhere in Europe, and dubbed into English – or at least it was filmed in English but in association with a French or Belgian or Dutch (or maybe German) TV network. The plot (insofar as I remember it) was that at some point in the future the world is threatened. You see, in the future everyone wanders around in white robes in a big white building, listening to a super intelligent computer – which appears to be nothing more than a large perspex cube. This computer predicts that some kind of cataclysm is going to occur – a comet, or a planet or an asteroid is going to collide with the earth. Oy gevalt!

Now, the super civilisation of the future is based around the discoveries of a brilliant scientist who was born in the 20th century. In his memoirs he mentioned that he once developed a formula that could be used to move a planet – exactly what the future people need to do to save the earth. But, the formula doesn’t appear anywhere in his papers. So the future people decide they need to travel back in time to the 1980s (when the scientist – about 12 years old at the time – says that he developed the formula) and get it off him – without disturbing the time line by walking up to him and saying “Hey! We’re from the future!”.

So a small team travels back to the 1980s and spends most of their time stumbling around, not actually achieving anything.

They do however (somehow) become involved with a local tramp, who wanders around whitling things. Right at the end of the series they rescue the tramp from being hit by a car (and for some reason) immediately need to return to the future without the formula. Because the tramp is supposed to be dead, they take him with them. Once back in the future they get all mournful about how the mission failed and they’re all going to die.

Meanwhile the tramp notices that the perspex cube supercomputer isn’t level, and quickly whittles a wedge to correct the situation. The computer then announces “Hey, guess what! I wasn’t on a level surface so my calculations were off, the comet/asteroid/planet is going to miss us, hooray!” and everyone lives happily ever after.

The series ends with the boy genius and his girlfriend sitting on a pier back in the 1980s. She asks him what he’s carving into the wood, and he tells her it’s a formula to move planets. THE END.

It was a very weird show – everything was very grey and grim. Lots of melancholy shots of salt marsh and things. I remember a couple of other scenes, one of the future people ransacking the kid’s house (which in the future is a scheduled monument of some kind), and a couple of the time travellers sitting around at a party noting that all of the songs the locals are singing are about love. But that’s it.

So, what the hell was I watching? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Happy new year y’all! 😀

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami