Category: Geekery

1045 and All That

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…

  • ‘One of’ the King Georges went mad from Syphillus.
  • The Saxons were French. They moved to England and thus became Anglo-Saxons.
  • King Henry VIII got divorced and married seven times as none of his wives could give him children.
  • William the Conqueror invaded in 1045.
  • Brittany, Scotland and Ireland all have exactly the same music.
  • The Irish and ‘Scotch’ hate the English, while the Welsh love them (because ‘they’re on the same island’).

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 East Perth

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.

I Shouldn’t Laugh…

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…)

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! 😀

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