Disordered Thoughts and Curmudgeonly Ramblings
Satan Built My Website
Deville’s Pad may be a fantastically cool venue, but their website is hellish.
Graphics optimised for a white background on black, horribly compressed maps and menus (to the point of near illegibility) and completely built in Flash so you can’t select/copy any of the text or open anything in a new tab.
It’s horrible. I don’t know what they paid for it but whatever it was they got badly ripped off.
(By the way, the design is great – it’s the implementation that’s jaw-droppingly bad).
All are the three and of the three
The document now known as The Book of Truth was discovered in southern Namibia in 2004, apparently having been deposited by a temporal wormhole of the kind now known to spontaneously occur in that region. Although the date of authorship is unknown, temporal studies have suggested that it originates from at least 4oo years in the future, and (based on isotope readings of the ink) was probably produced in east Asia.
The document is in the form of a slim booklet, hand written on coarse paper, bound with a leather cover fastened with clasps of poor quality steel. Carbon dating of the paper suggests that the document is between 100 and 150 years old. It is written in a language barely recognisable as English, displaying a heavy influence from a south Slavic language – most likely a dialect of Croatian. Translation of the text has been hindered by the fact that the metal components of the work are highly radioactive, whether this is an effect of the time-travel process, or due to environmental factors at the point of origin is currently unknown.
What translation has been possible suggests that the work is religious and philosophical in nature. Extracts from the first two chapters (which are divided into numbered verses) are presented below.
Chapter 1
1: All in creation is composed of the three, and the three are that which is Good, that which is Evil and that which is neither, and the names of the three are potos, ekos and notos.
2: In the moment of creation was made hadaz, the water of the heavens. And hadaz was formed both good and evil.
3: And hadaz did beget the stars, and the stars did beget all. The metal and stones, the air and waters, all that is living and non-living.
4: And all are the three and of the three.
5: Potos and notos shall gather together as a fly in the temple of the wise. And ekos shall weave around them a veil.
6: And the veil shall be many layered and the outmost veil shall be most highly regarded when complete.
7: And the ekos within the veil shall be where it is not, and none that knows where it is shall know where it will be, for there it is not, though it is.
8: And all that is real shall ascend.
Chapter 2
1: That which is light is strong, but that which is heavy is weak and its weakness will be shown when struck.
2: That which is the heaviest is the weakest and in its breaking is poison, but the poison may be harnessed by the wise for acts of power.
3: But the poison of the breaking shall last for a thousand years and corrupt the earth and vex the wise.
4: For it is not the power of the stars, and the power of the stars and the blending of the hadaz shall evade the very wisest.
Life After the Apocalypse with Power Armour and Demons and Tube Stations and Things
7 Mate (as Network 7 is insisting on calling it’s third channel) is promoting the series Life After People with that picture from Hellgate London.
You know, the one that curiously distorts the layout of the city to get the maximum number of devestated landmarks in?
With the game shut down and all I don’t know what the copyright status of the image is, but it seems like a strange choice. I mean the series is Life After People, not Life After the Apocalypse with Power Armour and Demons and Tube Stations and Things.
Odd.
Goodies
Two of my eBay orders arrived yesterday (well, actually they arrived earlier in the week and I was only able to pick them up yesterday) which means I now actually have some models for my force of Valhallans. Not a huge number, but it’s a start.
Let’s see, I have a Valhallan Commander (who needs assembling and painting), two Iron Legion lascannon teams (the posting on eBay said they were Valhallan, but hey, I can convert them), a Techpriest Enginseer (who needs some repairs and a decent re-paint) and two partly constructed Sentinels that I’m going to modify the crud out of.
I’ve got some other bits and pieces on order including parts for the Sentinel project, a Commisar and an Valhallan Officer. And a whole load of flock for the game table that Fabes and I constructed over the weekend. I’m also wondering if I have the patience (and money) to build some bear cavalry… mmm…. bear cavalry…..
In other news it’s 9:30 in the morning, and already 37 degrees. The temperature is not expected to drop below 20 until Thursday next week. That’s the minimum temperature I’m talking about. Oh joy.
Later…
Ah! They’ve revised the forecast! Now we’re going to be hit by Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane, Typhoon, whatever you want to call it) Bianca instead.
That sounds catastrophic, but by the time cyclones get as far south as Perth they tend to lose their puff. It’s due to hit on Sunday and will just be a slightly larger than normal storm. The good news is it’ll drag temperatures down to the much more reasonable low 30s with slightly cooler nights. Hooray!
The other history of England
There are times that I really struggle to hold my tongue.
On the train this morning I had to endure an emo guy informing one of his friends about English history. Highlights of his lecture included…
I was severely tempted to leap out of my seat and beat him around the head with a copy of Macaulay, but instead contented myself with the thought that a single kick would snap both of his skinny-jean clad legs like twigs.
Old photos
I’ve started work on a major cleaning project – basically going through everything I possess and deciding what I can either throw away, give away or sell. It’s long term, but so far I’ve spent some time doing it every day since Wednesday, so maybe I’ll be able to keep at it long enough to have a unit that I won’t be ashamed to show to guests.
Some good has come of the project already however, in that I’ve found a long lost set of photos (yes, actual physical photos!) recording the state of East Perth Power Station and surrounds back in the mid 90s – right at the start of the the Graham Farmer Freeway and East Perth Redevelopment schemes. I knew that I had them – it could be argued that they record my first attempt at urban exploration – but I had no idea where they were, so it was fantastic to stumble over them.
I’ve spent the afternoon scanning the most interesting 17 in and posting them to my Flickr stream, so head over and take a look.
Oh the irony!
A client complains to us that when his site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6 the text on his homepage looks like “it was done by a child”.
The email informing us of this is in bright blue comic sans 😛
(By the way, the text looks awful in every browser because he’s gone wild with the CMS and made it a dozen different sizes and colours with underlines, bolding and italics everywhere. It just looks particularly bad in IE6 because of its problems with automatic line heights…)
They’re the anchor of the Free Mantle Systems
Maybe my Valhallans were fighting the anchor of the Free Mantle Systems, the Freo Marines?
 |
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! |
😀
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.
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…
  |
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 🙂
