Games

Last night my friends and I played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. There's not a lot new to that, except that we played on the new-to-me gaming table The Coolness was kind enough to allow me to set up in the garage. I built a pair of tables for Black Diamond Games' game center back in 2007:

Yes, that's a three year old Boo in the background.

This is not the exact table, as this one was beat pretty bad in its storied career at Black Diamond Games.

The first table is, however, now gracing my garage again. With the eight-by-four table I was able to use about 88 percent of the Dwarven Forge terrain I own all at one time, a first.

The players, my usual crew, enjoyed the display and accomplished a tiny bit more than I'd anticipated. Most importantly, it was fun. Fun for me and my players, who took to the rougher conditions with good humor and excitement. And now I can leave it up and not annoy the Coolness with my 'toy soldiers' and books lying about.

We knocked off at midnight.  I had a soccer game in Antioch, some miles away, at 0900. Last night was the time change. You do the math.

I made it in plenty of time. No one else was near the pitch. It's cold and windy, and the pitch is both slanted and canted toward one end.

As go time approaches we're short two players, one woman and one male. The other team has a very large roster, and leant us two players.

The first quarter was frustrating for the opposition, with several off-sides calls against them. They had several players who liked to shout out calls for the refs, who are really quite good at their jobs and needed no such prompting.

The field was a bit short, and the opposing goalie had a beast of a boot. He hammered one up and my center stop got a foot to it without stopping it. One of the refs-in-training, the center striker for the opposing team, shouts, "He can't touch it!" as he races me for the ball.

I use my feet to clear the ball.

"He couldn't touch it!" the guy continues to shout.

"You want to ref, jackass, put on a yellow jersey!" I grumbled.  I shouldn't have. It wasn't sportsmanlike, and I have no excuse.

Hearing me, he called me some version of fucker.

The ref, hearing him and failing to hear me, kicks the other player off for cursing. The quarter break came up immediately after.

As I am walking off, one of the yoked out players for the other team comes jogging up to me on our half of the field with his shirt off and stops me with a hand to my shoulder, asking me why I'm "Threatening players."

My expression was, I'm sure, contemptuous. I told him to take his hand off me, that I hadn't threatened anyone.

He didn't immediately remove his hand, so I removed it.

"Don't touch me man, I'll kick your ass!" he shouts, muscle-tits bouncing.

Clearly, I wasn't going to be able to communicate with him.

The ref, doing his job, came over and told everyone to shut it. The original ref in training came back on the field. I asked him to hold it a moment and spoke to the ref. I owned the words that led to the ref-in-training being sent off, and told him I wouldn't be upset if we were both given a yellow card and played on. Most everyone on our team was worried the game was going to be called on account of the muscle-bound guy's antics.

Thankfully, the ref didn't card anyone, and play resumed.

And it resumed cleanly. Their offense continued to be upset with the off-sides calls, but there was nothing approaching the level of drama from that first quarter of play.

We won 3-0. I had three saves I'm quite proud of and about seven more collections that were mine to screw up. I played well, but the rest of our team really clicked and played outstanding ball. I hope we can continue in this vein, perhaps with less drama. It's my first clean sheet since I began playing with the team, and I think I earned it.

A Little Bit Frightening, A Whole Lotta Cool

From The New, And Hopefully Improved, A Friend To The Watch

A tiny excerpt I hope you'll enjoy:

Malost’s scathing look chilled Erron as much as his earlier praise had warmed, “Because the Pathless Dark promises much, and some listen, boy, some listen.”

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

My last post was a video of the awesomeness that is: Rodrigo y Gabriela.  Go listen to it if you haven't already. It, and they, are amazing.

I have purchased the album,  11:11. Fast where it should be, deliberate where it should, and always powerful, the music is truly a pleasure free of guilt. Chac Mool, the shortest track, is a favorite I have found new things in every time I listen to it.

This, from an older album with a number of cover songs on it, shows some more of the skill this pair bring to their guitars:

If You Don't Think This Kicks Ass, There Is Something Wrong with you

Updaterage

The last few weeks have seen some major changes:

I went to advanced officer training last week. In past years, AO has stunk like BO. This year was a vast improvement, with useful classes taught well.

I did very well in FATS (FireArms Training Simulation). I found it interesting that I was among the best at it; not the shooting, necessarily, though I did well enough at that. No, I was able to regurgitate, with a greater degree of detail than anyone else in the squad, exactly what had gone on in each scenario. I'm not sure why. It certainly isn't being more used to computer screens and the like, as many of the squad were in their twenties, and surely played more games than I.  It might have been the roleplaying games, or the fiction writing, or it might simply be the ADD that shoves part of my brain into record mode as I game everything out in my head; one part interacting with folks, another analyzing their responses and attempting to predict and push toward the desired outcome. As I write this, I think it must be the ADD.

The week of AO ended on Thursday, beginning my vacation. Plans for said vacation include: playing some Star Wars Old Republic, some roleplaying, and generally goofin' off.

My writing is no longer represented. Things just turned out that way. My agent was unable to represent me in the way we both wanted. I say that without rancor or upset. I am saddened, but look forward to the future. So much so that I sent The Last Captain off to Baen books on Friday night. Work on the Fantasy project continues apace, and I think I am doing well at it. As in all things, we shall see.

Today was the first of the scrimmages that precede the regular season for the coed adult soccer league the Coolness and I are in. I made sure not to over do it and end up with another brutal hamstring tear like last year. As it is I played half the game and did well enough, pulling some pretty saves. I need to work on my punts and goal kicks, however. I shanked quite a few off course. Isabelle sat behind me in goal and gave encouragement, even when I blew it. The Coolness had a good game as well, though both of us need some serious conditioning.

Take That, Aaron Spelling

Last night I was on the couch writing while my daughter watched ye olde Charlie's Angels. Now, she has watched a bit of TV over her eight years, and she reads a great deal, so I do expect her to occasionally see where simple plots are headed. What happened last night was a bit different, and rather stunning.

The scene had the Angels are chasing a hood on foot. The bad boy with large perm runs up to a bike stand and steals a bicycle, Angels and Boz in close pursuit.

"Watch," my daughters says, "There'll be just enough bikes for all of them."

Sure enough, there were four bikes remaining for the Angels and The Boz to mount.

Now I know the writers for Charlie's Angels weren't writing high drama, and there were a lot of bouncing boobs and short shorts to conceal plot holes a grown-up man (oxymoron, anyone?) might fall for, but still!  

She's only eight, and picked it up so fast and uttered her observation so easily I barely heard her.

I despair of when she's old enough to read my profanity-riddled work and tells me, with a roll of her eyes, "Dad, did you have to? It was soooo obvious where you were going with that!"