Still here

Just a quick post to put some activity on the blog so it doesn't get deleted.

Cloud Clads

Last night Pete came up with an interesting idea for Cloud Clads, take the TooFatLardies naval idea of each ship moving on its own card, and firing on its own card.

That got me thinking about some other things I've wanted to do on our naval game, which might be a good chance to try on this one.

the main one being to get away from the idea of ships being a bunch of points that slowly get whittled away until it sinks. I want ships to be more to go down to a collection of criticals brought on by a progressive structural failure.

Shooting to be simplified (only 4 range bands, modifiers being range, target size/speed, crew quality and maybe something for gunnery).
Smaller guns to get a higher hit chance due to more shells going off round the target.

So, each ship has a structural integrity (SI) rating, which has 3 numbers. These are the minor, major and catastrophic damage levels. There are multiple SI ratings, where the numbers decrease, these can be lost by criticals, when the last one goes the ship breaks up.

When a shell hits a ship, its damage is compared against the SI rating, and depend on which number it is <=, then a count is made for a minor, major or catastrophic hit.
If the number rolled is equal to the hit number (and the hit number is greater than 1), then the hit is marked on the next higher hit type (higher from catastrophic is 2 catastrophic).

There is also a count for on-going damage.

Each side has a "Take Damage" card in the pack, when it is drawn, each ship that has at least a count of one in any category, takes possible damage.

There are critical tables against each category, numbered 20 across the top (compares to a D20 roll) and 1 to 6 down the side (compares against the category count, can have multiple rolls if more than 6 (I.e. 8 would have one against 6 and one against 2)). The critical caused in each table depends on the higher the dice roll (or lower to match up with shooting) and the category count. Obviously major hits are worse than minor, and catastrophic are even worse.

The rolls are made in the order of minor, major and catastrophic, after each one is calculated then its count is erased. This allows for results of lower categories causing higher counts.

Once those 3 categories are done, the same process is applied to on-going damage, but this is not erased.

There is also in the pack a card for damage control (one per side). when this is drawn, any possible repairs can be fixed, and the on-going damage can be reduced.

Most damageable things have 3 results, +10, +18 and destroyed. The 2 +'s are the numbers that need to be rolled on a D20 to fix the item.

There are various crew levels, this represents how much the crew have been knocked off their feet. This is increased both by criticals and by the ship taking a number of hits in a turn, this can be reduced during damage control. Each level of crew gives modifiers to shooting/damage control.

Speed is to be represented by boiler rooms, each one produces so much speed, which are added together to give the top speed.

There are 6 height levels, a ship can choose go up by 1 or down by 2 safely. Each ship has 6 lift panels. These are represented on a ship by a 6 by 6 grid, across the top is the number of panels left, down the side the current height. Each intersection has a number which represents the roll on a D20 that needs to be made to get the ship to level out there (adjust for crew levels). If a critical says drop X levels, then the number at the new level/panel intersection is checked, if made it stays at the new level, if no it drops one more. If panels are destroyed, then the ship drops a number of levels equal to the panels just lost.

When firing, if shooter is higher then the actual range is reduced by 10cm per level distance, but with an actual range blind zone of 5cm per level (I.e. with a height difference of 4, then the target appears 40cm closer for calculating the hit number, but can't be shot at within 20cm).

If the shooter is lower, then the actual range is increased by 20cm per level, once again with a blind zone of 5cm per level (I.e. with a difference of 4, then the target is 80cm further away, and can't be shot at within 20cm). Any hits occurred when shooting up count as one category higher, to represent the thinner armour that must cover the lift panels.

Still alive

I am still alive, just not seemed to post much recently, not sure why.

Anyway, some bits for me to remember in the future. Mainly what I am watching/planning at this time.

Music
She and Him Volume 1. Really good album, just very easy to listen to. Zooey has got such a good voice.
The Ting Tings, very nice first album.
Johnny Cash, got a best of album, did not realise how many of his songs I have actually heard of before.

Just spent a while on You Tube, going through ACW songs. Split from there into some folk music.

TV
Veronica Mars. Living are showing the whole of the 3rd series each night at 3:30 am, just get the V+ box to series record it, and watch the episode the next morning. Really loving it, can not find many faults with it at all, which is kind of strange as I have got the impression that the fans did not like the 3rd series. Hope they will repeat the 1st and 2nd series in the same way after this one finishes.
Gossip Girl. Blake looks too old to make Serena believable, I have a hard time telling the blokes apart, but I do like the show. Not sure how long it can go on for, but for now I will carry on watching it.
House. Always good, not sure if I really like all the new assistants, but they are a minor point of it.
Greek. Watched the first one, I will keep at it for now.

Wargames
Fire and Fury. Got last Sunday at Partizan, looks quite good. Going to be done in 6mm, just going to have to find some ready made bases in nearly the correct size.
The Great War. Also got last Sunday, only had a quick glance at them, but do not seem too bad. Not sure what scale to look at, as far as I am aware no-one else has any WW1 figures so I have got a free run on that. Maybe 6 or 10mm. Base size is roughly the same as that for Fire and Fury.

Just checked, looks like East Riding Miniatures do them, 1 inch square bases.

Been playing
WW2 naval. Our rules. Still got to sit down and have a total rethink on them, lose the mark of points bit and have effects totally based around explosive effects of weapons hitting.
Pulp Fiction. Bob has been putting on some games on a Thursday night, mostly they work, but it does lend me to wonder if a better way of doing it would be to give each player one decent character with some abilities, and quite a few add on minions with no skills. Allow each player to really get to know one character, and then put in the advancement rules to allow them to build up other characters. Sort of a dungeons done on mass.

Some old pictures I found floating around on my PC. Taken at some point in 2001.

Firstly, some of the family. To say that some of them look nothing like this now would be a massive understatement.








The angels in the picture below are still sitting on my painting table unfinished. The only difference these days is that their wings are blue.


Since this I've changed the table for a wheeled cupboard thing, and the table top is a lot more cluttered with paints, brushes and tools.

Ships

These are some of the models I've recently painted. All they need doing now is to give them a spray coat of varnish.

Firstly, a Klingon D7 cruiser escorted by 2 F5 frigates (or small destroyers as they really are)



Next is some 1/2400th scale Napoleonic sailing ships.


Must admit, doing this post was harder than I expected. Picking photos seemed to place them at the top of the post, where I then had to cut and paste them where I expected.

I suppose I could always try reading the help pages next time.

Small surprises and TV

Couple of small surprises this weekend, nothing major but stuff I did not expect.

First was in the first episode of the new series of Dr Who, when Rose suddenly appeared (and then disappeared). Must admit, I did think that Billie looked haggard a bit, could be the expression she was meant to be showing.

Second surprise was when I opened the curtains and found the world was white. Looked a good 3 inches of snow covering the garden and car, but it was already melting.

Not that it bothered me, as my V+ box is over half way full, I thought I should sit down and start to clear some of it, so in order here is what I watched this morning.

Big Bang Theory - I really do like this American comedy, nothing really new in the whole premise, but it does seem to work.

iCarly - not actually recorded, but caught live. A Nickelodeon tweenie show that I have started to like. I just love the theme tune, and the show works by not having anyone be too annoying (unless that character is meant to be). Also, nice to have one of have a kids show that does not seem to go in for the massive moralising most of them do.

NCIS - probably my current favourite of the American cop shows. Avoids the CIS(s) odd ball death syndrome that has plagued them over the last few series.

Boston Legal - not one of the best episodes this week, too much of the Alan Shore does his left wing rant bit. Still good TV though.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - to be honest, remove Summer Glau playing Cameron and I would probably have stopped watching after the first couple of episodes. Her portrayal of the innocent killing machine is one of the best bits of acting I can recall, and the writing that provides the character is also spot on. The problem is, remove her and the show is average at best.

Moonlight (2 episodes) - the current "sexy" vampire show. Very much in the same vein as Bloodties, just without the mystical bits. A watchable show, even if the 2 episodes I watched really highlight my 2 problems with the show.
a) Sophie Myles - an OK actress, who is the chemical equivalent of Argon, no matter who she plays opposite there is no reaction. I know people rated her in the Dr Who episode "Girl in the fireplace", but I just do not see it. In the Moonlight episode she had to play sexy to get into a night club, run by Holly Valance. Sophie has a hard time pulling off sexy at the best of times, but to try it with someone like Holly on the show is just asking to look stupid. I can take Sophie as the lead, but as a dedicated journalist and not as one half of the main pair.
b) Coraline - Mick's wife. Not sure how it is going to play out, but now she is "back" then I can see a lot of episodes when Mick gets confused if she is Coraline or Morgan. Could get very old fast.

Writing the above about Moonlight has brought up an interesting point, it, Bloodties, Angel, Blade, all of them have a good "sexy" MALE vampire as the lead. I can not recall any show where there has been a good female vampire in it. Harmony on Angel is about the closest that comes to mind, and she was not so much good as rather incompetent at being bad as well as scared of Angel.

Funeral

Monday went to a mates mothers funeral, or a friends funeral as I got on well with her.

It set me thinking, as probably most people do in those circumstances, as to what I would like at mine.

Firstly, I would want a humanist one, I am not religious at all, so seems a bit hypercritical to go for the whole CoE thing. She had a humanist deliver her service, and apart from seeming a touch padded out, it went well.

Secondly, got to go for cremation, actually at that point you could just leave my body at the side of the road for all I care, but if it has got to be legal then turn me to ash rather than waste a bit of land on me.

Thirdly, the music. About the only certain one I want is during the committal (the bit where the coffin goes behind the curtain), I want the original Thunderbirds theme. The whole bit always reminds me of something off the TV series.
The rest of the music will change as my tastes do, but for now, the following apply.
The entry - The original Battlestar Galactica theme tune. Great wallops of soring string music.
The end bit when everyone leaves - A St Trinians mix, start with Flash Harrys theme off the original movies (the piano picking out the notes one), which moves into the Girls Aloud St Trinians theme (off the new movies). A bit of a silly song as people start to move, into a nice full of life song with some good lyrics about being yourself.
The middle bit - currently not decided all that much, either Debbie Gibson's "We could be together" which I love, especially the line "If you said jump, I'd say how high", which seems to be how I've ended up living my life, or Suzanne Vega's Marlene on the Wall, which I also love, and was (still is?) the only song I knew all the lyrics to. Plus it is also semi sad sounding, and I want tears at my funeral damn it :)

As for the rest, I suppose a wake back at a pub somewhere, seems more "me" than something at a house. Be nice if people stayed to get drunk, rather than having a polite drink and leaving.

V+ box wish list

Had a bit of a thought as to what I would like added to the software on the V+ box.

1) If I am recording 2 programs that run one after the other on the same channel, be clever enough to use the one tuner and split the small cross over point into the 2 separate programs. Gets annoying if I try to record 3 hour long programs, 1 at 9 on a channel, 1 at 10 on the same channel and 1 at 10 on another channel, one of the 10 ones will fail due to the over/under run additions bit.

2) Give me an easy way to select where in a recording I want a program to start, to do it at the moment I have to start watching, stop watching (after 1 few minutes), select to start again, and then mess about on the start from when I left off bit to choose a time.

3) Lose the times 2 bit on the fast forward, I never use it.

4) Allow in pause mode, for me to return to pause mode if I have hit creep forwards. Hitting play/pause just restarts at the normal speed.

5) Most important. Return to the old style favourites, where hitting the favourite button cycled through them, not bring up some menu for me to select from (with the delay between channels now, I am not sure if it would work as well)

For all I know, most of these might somewhere be in the system, can not seem to find them though.

V+ box + TV oddities

I've had a Virgin plus box for about 3 months now, and generally I really do like it.

Major point in its favour is series record, just means all I really need to do is notice when a series starts and tell it to record it. Of course, that does throw up some occasional problems, such as telling it to record the new series of Flash Gordon on Sci-Fi, and finding it had recorded the movie as well.
Going to be interesting to see if it automatically catches the fact there is an additional showing of Torchwood on Good Friday.

The box is not perfect though, I have noticed some strange quirks on the software. Most annoying is the fact that the sound occasionally blips out for a second on recorded programs, mostly on stuff off Living, but sometimes on other channels, but never on the main 5. Asking around friends and family who have a box, they also get the same problems.

Had a different sort of bug this morning; yesterday I left it with about 47 hours free, it recorded 2 hours worth last night. This morning it says 55 hours free (nothing seems to have suddenly vanished). I watch one of last nights programs, deleted it, and the box then says 54 hours free! I watch and delete another hour, and it goes to 55 hours free.
Not a major problem in itself, just a bit worrying what will happen if I get to around the 5 hour free mark.

I notice a new series of House starts this week, on a Thursday, the same night I am trying to record Terminator:Sarah Connor Chronicles, Boston Legal and The Big Bang Theory.
Although the box has the ability to record 2 things at once, taking into account the 2 minutes added onto the time (to allow for over runs), this does mean at a couple of times I am trying to record 3 things at once.
Now, it is not that hard to get around (The Big Bang Theory can either get moved to the Ch 4 plus 1 showing, or I get it on E4 the day before), but this does lead to a rather annoying thing I have noticed in the past, the fact that if a new series starts that I want to watch, it has at least a 50% chance it will be on, on a Thursday.
Not sure why, obviously series start on every day of the week, just the ones I watch are more inclined towards Thursday. A certain percent can be covered by the fact that they are new series of existing shows, which were on a Thursday before, but that still does not cover why that day in the start.

I noticed this week that Michelle Ryan is over here touting her Bionic Woman series. I assume she must be under contract to do this, as it has been canceled in the States (or if not officially, most people seem 99.999999% sure it will be). Must be hard on her, trying to build up something that has failed, and taken her best chance at Global stardom with it; in hindsight, I should have watched the interview to see if that was mentioned.
I did catch the first 2 episodes on a download site, nothing really wrong with it, but nothing that made me want to catch any more.

Things not to do when painting wargames models.

I was trying to paint some 1/2400th ACW ships (Tumbling Dice) while attempting to catch up on some of the stuff I'd recorded.

The program I picked was Bottom Live 3: Hooligans Island (I know it is old, but managed to notice it was on Dave, and decided to record it).

Gave up on painting after 20 minutes, doesn't really work when tears are streaming down my face.

Good show, very funny, but I've got to wonder how much of the "mistakes" were genuine, and how many were scripted. Especially some of the prop ones.

Earthquake

Had an earthquake this morning around 1am.

I'd been in bed for about 10 minutes, when the bed started to vibrate. I was really expecting to start hearing some music, as I thought it was some pillock with his car stereo turned up full.

After a few seconds, when I didn't hear anything and the vibrating was continuing, I thought it was a (very) low flying aircraft.

The main shakes lasted around 10 seconds as a guess, then there was around another 15 seconds or so of it, noticeable due to my bedroom door vibrating.

Had a quick check this morning, seems to be no damage to the house.

All in all, not really scary, just unusual for England.

Juno - So good, so whatever.

Saw Juno today.

It is a good film, well acted, but there is something slightly lacking in it.

Hard to say what really, certainly not as funny as I expected, there are some good lines, but nothing really that invokes a good laugh.

It certainly felt a touch long, but there is nothing I could say that could be removed to shorten it.

Biggest problem may be that now, 2 hours after I saw it, it is mostly forgettable. The story I can remember, and some of the details, but the rest just seems one big blur.

I did like the soundtrack, going to get a copy, nice to see they've got Ellen's version of the one song on it.

So, all in all, , it is fine for a couple of hours in the cinema, and has a nice feel good mood to it, just isn't going to be one I'll go out of my way to watch again.

Penelope (may contain spoilers)

(Contains spoilers)

Saw Penelope on Tuesday, with my 10 year old niece (now her sister has got too old to be my excuse to go see "kids" films).

Very well done, great acting off Christina and Catherine, rather predictable to a large extent (obviously the curse gets broken and she ends up with Max).

The only really surprising bit to me was how the curse was broken, as it didn't seem to really fit the description of being loved "by one of her own kind". Technically, she is of her own kind, but so is her Dad, and the film does give the impression that he loved her no matter what. Then again, not much of a film I suppose, if the curse was broken when she was about 6 months old.

One problem I did have with the film is that Penelope is supposed to be so hideous that grown men run screaming from the room when they actually see her. Problem is, she's Christina Ricci with a pigs nose, and actually looks like Christina Ricci with a cute pigs nose.
So rather than run screaming, a more realistic response would be to be somewhat taken back, realise that with the nose she is still hot, imagine that with the curse lifted she'd be hotter and say "yeah to marriage" in a second (yes, I am this shallow).

Having typed the above, it occurs to me there is another flaw in the movie. At the start it is strongly implied that the prospectives a) know about the curse b) spend some time getting to know her through them being on opposite sides of the mirror.
After a period, Penelope comes out to meet them, face to snout as it were. They then run off (through plate glass windows on the first floor). Even though they should be expecting something to be wrong, are supposed to be well brought up not to do that, have got to the point where they like her personality, and she looks like CHRISTINA RICCI WITH A CUTE PIGS NOSE!!!

Once again, not much of a film though if they didn't.

Still worth seeing as a movie though, even with the above comments.

N.B. by cute pigs nose, I mean the pigs nose is cute on Ms Ricci, not the nose off a cute pig. Pigs are not cute, they are bacon.

A test post by e-mail

Just wanted to check that I can post be e-mail.

Not that I ever will of course.

Thanks

A first post

A first little post, just to see what it looks like.