Cya next year!

The New Year is upon us, and you better start thinking up New Year's Resolutions. You know, those self improvements that you intend to start, and abandon in March at the very latest.

I've never been too fond of those myself, but I got to thinking about when they were invented, and that in turn got me thinking about when other stuff was invented. And that's what the last post of 2013 is about.

The New Year's Resolution can be traced back all the way to ancient Babylon, although those were mainly promises to their gods to pay debts and return borrowed stuff. Seems the Babylonians weren't too fussed about loosing weight or quitting alcohol.

The phenomenon has been observed since in many cultures and religions throughout history, and even today they are popular. One source claims that today about 40% of all Americans make New Year's Resolutions.

Are you married, or thinking of getting married? I'm married, and we went through the whole rigamarole with the rings. Being a bit old fashioned, I didn't mind at all, but how old do you think the diamond engagement ring really is?

Although wedding rings are thought to have been invented by those pyramid loving Egyptians, the diamond engagement ring (not to mention the wedding ring) is very young. While it is true that the super rich did use them as early as the Renaissance, the De Beers diamond cartel started a campaign to promote the diamond engagement ring as late as 1938. In 1947 they came up with the slogan A diamond is forever, to make sure that everyone bought their diamonds and not just the rich. And it worked too. In '39 only about 10% bought diamond rings but in 1990 80% of us were suckered in. So the next time someone confuses a diamond ring with a dowry, claiming it's the mans duty to buy one because it has always been so, you can set them straight.

That's all I have for you today and this year. Join us next year as Eccentric Spheres continues to twirl around in interesting circles.

Happy New Year!

Odd Tactics

I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone who reads Eccentric Spheres, but I read a lot of WWII history. I don't read much about the battles as such, but more about the strange goings on that occurred in that grand conflict.

Today you get to share in some of these unusual occurrences and people.

First up is Nancy Wake, a.k.a. White Mouse.

Though by no means the only female SOE agent, she's in my opinion the most fascinating.

Born in New Zealand, she moved on her own to New York at the age of 16, to become a reporter for the Hearst papers. Then as Hearst's European correspondent, she saw first hand the atrocities the Nazis were capable of, and decided to do something about it.

To make a long story a lot shorter, she joined the British SOE, and between 1940 and 1945 raised merry hell for the Germans. The Gestapo gave her the nickname White Mouse for her ability to escape them time and time again, even thought they put up a 5 million franc bounty on her head.

She performed multiple jumps into France, successfully leading resistance fighters in raid after raid. In the last year of the war, thanks to her efforts (and a few others, I'm sure) her 7000+ fighters fought 22000 SS troops, killing 1400 while losing only 100 themselves.

In one raid, she killed an SS guard with one blow to the neck. In her own words:

"They'd taught this judo-chop stuff with the flat of the hand at SOE, and I practiced away at it. But this was the only time I used it -- whack -- and it killed him all right. I was really surprised."

There's more of course, but I won't put it all here. Follow the link if you want to know more about her. Believe me, it's worth it.

But the French Resistance is not the only group who knew how to stick it to the Nazis. The Norwegian freedom fighters, though not as famous, were just as good, and probably a lot meaner. Not just probably...

In 1943, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) decided to wage a mass demoralization campaign using itching powder. This powder was distributed to resistance groups all over Europe to be put in German uniforms. And it was pretty effective. It's hard to fight when your skin feels like it's on fire.

But the Norwegians decided to go that extra mile, and pretty soon the hospitals in Trondheim filled up with very upset German troops, because the resistance put the itching powder in the soldiers condoms...

Later on, the Nazi collaborating government in Norway (see Quisling) confiscated the entire years

sardine catch to supply the German military. This naturally upset the resistance a great deal. But thanks to some intelligence they got from a mole, they soon put in a request to SOE for a laxative that would dissolve without a trace in vegetable oil. No doubt impressed by the itching powder initiative, the British happily complied, and the Norwegians went to work.

You see, what the mole had discovered was that the best sardines were to be delivered to the U-boat crews.

Imagine that, boys and girls. You're trapped in a steel tube roughly 67 meters long, 6 meters wide at best and 9 meters high. You are in there with, give or take, 50 guys, and the whole place reeks of diesel fuel and unwashed bodies at the best of times. Now, add uncontrollable diarrhea for the whole crew, and you can truly say that war is hell.

That's all folks, have a very merry Christmas or your own equivalent thereof.

Cheers!

This week we're taking a break from facts, in order to take a look at the dangers of booze. I don't want to be preachy, so I decided to let the comedy geniuses David Mitchell and Robert Webb do all the work for me.




That's it folks, drink safely and have a great week!

Fate has an odd sense of humor

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the sad, but funny fate of the Swedish King who ate himself to death on dessert. So in keeping with our recent themes, I thought we'd explore other rulers who croaked in interesting ways.

I won't include anyone who was killed in battle (a whole lot) or murdered or assassinated in a power play (also a whole lot). It's indeed good to be the king, but only if you survive.

Back in about 600 BCE, there was a Grecian ruler called Draco. Not to be confused with the little twerp from Harry Potter, this Draco was a really great guy. He worked very hard to write up laws that were both fair and just. And to stop people from inventing laws on the go.

So to celebrate his great work, they threw a party for Draco. Wasn't that nice? Unfortunately, they had a custom back then that consisted of throwing your cloak at the guy you were celebrating to show your respect. Odd habit I know, but aren't most customs a bit odd?

Anyway, it turned out Draco was SO popular that they threw way too many cloaks at him, and he suffocated under the mass off cloth they heaped upon him in his honor. At least they liked him, right?

Next up is the Roman Emperor Caracalla. He was as nasty as Draco was nice. Caracalla is known as one of the cruelest Emperors Rome ever had, and that's some stiff competition! Only Caligula was definitely worse.

One day, Caracalla was on his way to continue the war in Parthia (north-eastern Iran), when he had to answer Nature's Call. Even Emperors have to drain the lizard, to borrow a modern parlance. However, as Caracalla stood there contemplating whatever one thinks about at such times, one of his bodyguards stabbed him to death with a sword! Which might be why you've never seen a movie with this Emperor, cause how do you film that without making it into a comedy?

Finally for this week, we'll look at the demise of King George V of England. He died in 1925, after a long illness. I'm not going to go into his life here, follow the link if you're interested.

His death is what's fascinating. You see, although the King died in 1925 we only learned the true cause in 1986. Until then it was assumed natural causes did the job. But as it turned out, he was actually killed by his own doctor, Lord Dawson of Penn with a juicy cocktail of cocaine and morphine. That's right. The royal physician murdered the already dying King. And what was his motive? To save the Royal family the embarrassment of having to announce the King's death in the evening papers, of course!

What can we deduce from the fate of these three rulers?

1. You can be too nice.
2. Even Emperors need a toilet break.
3. If you're going to die, announce it in the morning papers.

That's it for this week. I'll see you all on Monday.

Truth is stranger than (science) fiction

Greetings boys and girls, another week is upon us, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to cram a bit more knowledge into our skulls while it's still 2013. Not that it means anything that it's 2013, it's really just a convenient excuse to share these wonderful facts with you.

For example, did you know that the University of Oxford was established earlier than The Aztec Empire? It's true, but it seems so incredibly unlikely, right?

And speaking of the olden times, consider that more time has passed between when the Egyptians started working on The Great Pyramids of Giza and the birth of Julius Caesar, than old Julius and us.

It's easy to forget how much happened in the relatively short period of time known as the 20th century, but Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr were born in the same year, yet we still tend to view them as belonging to completely different eras, even thought they were contemporaries.

Let's jump off planet for a moment and look at Venus, the planet closest to Earth in size. The pressure on the surface is 93 times higher than on earth, which would crush you in seconds. That's equivalent of one kilometer under the sea.

But the really weird fact is that Venus rotates on its axis only once every 243 Earth days but orbits the sun once every 224.65 Earth days. This means that on Venus, a day is longer than a year! Talk about having a looong day at work.

And finally, do you know your star sign? I bet you do, we all do. But whether you believe in astrology or not, your star sign is not your star sign at all!

You see, the Earth kind of wobbles a bit, which means that in the ca. 2000 years since the Babylonians invented the zodiac, we've shifted around enough to bump our star signs one step forward. So if you thought your sign is Virgo, you are actually a Libra. In other words, you don't know your sign at all...

That's all I wrote. It's a short post I know, but I've had a long day today, though not not Venusian long.

Take it easy, and have a great week!

What you do know will kill you

This week we'll be taking a lighthearted look at that most serious of matters: Death.

To be more precise, we will take a look at deaths that were self inflicted but not suicides. All the people featured on today's list caused their own demise either through some consequence they themselves set in motion or by not thinking straight.

First up in our macabre cavalcade is Sigurd Eysteinsson, a.k.a. Sigurd the Mighty, 2^nd viking earl of Orkney. I imagine you have to be pretty bad-ass to earn the moniker “the mighty”, especially amongst vikings, who took things like that seriously. Anyhow, in about the year 892, he killed his hated enemy Máel Brigte and took his head as a trophy. Perhaps he was going for an even tougher nickname, we'll never know.

For you see, Sigurd tied Máels head to his saddle and rode off. But he failed to notice that Máels teeth were rubbing against his leg as he rode. This caused a small wound which turned septic and killed Sigurd.

Talk about revenge from beyond the grave...

Next up is Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (1751-1771).

We're not going to go into his life so much as his demise. You see on 12 February 1771, the king decide to dine on lobster, caviar, sauerkraut and kippers. He washed the whole thing down with champagne before ordering dessert. His favorite dessert in fact, semla. These pastries are traditionally served in a bowl of hot milk, and the king scarfed it down, and ordered another, and another, and another, and then ten more! All in all, he crammed down fourteen portions, before keeling over dead.

Sure, it's good to be the king, but come on!

From king to commoner, we leap into the modern age. Here we find David Grundman, an Arizona man in a serious relationship with his shotgun. One day in 1982, he decided to head out into the desert with the above mentioned shotgun to shoot the ever living hell out of some stuff. And by stuff, I mean cacti. Mostly the saguaro cacti native to Arizona. If you can't be bothered following the link, think of a cartoon cactus vaguely shaped like a man. Shooting these cacti is considered vandalism since they take centuries to grow so big.

Anyway, after executing some smaller cacti, David took aim at a really big one, blew it's top off and promptly met his maker, as it fell on him, crushing him to death in it's spiky embrace.

I guess David got nailed in the end...

Finally, I want to present Basil Brown. Basil was a very health conscious man, and you'd not find him choking down fourteen portions of semla. Oh no, Basil was all about carrots. Juiced carrots in fact. But he does have one thing in common with our unfortunate Adolf Frederick: he couldn't stop in time either. In 1974 he drank 10 gallons of carrot juice in 10 days. That's 45 liters, or 4.5 liters a day. Another way to put it would be 10000 times the recommended dose of vitamin A, which quickly killed his liver and then him.

Too much of a good thing, you know?

That's it for this week folks. Remember, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. Or how it does you.

When it's good, it's brilliant

A new week is upon us again, and since it gets so dark so early these days, I thought we could all use a good laugh.
So I dug out three of the funniest commercials I know. Yes, commercials can be both funny and smart when they decide to really put in the effort.

Without further ado, I give you a Korean Tea commercial, and Australian Beer commercial and finally a Mountain Dew commercial with Steven Seagal (some of his best work).



Come to think of it, these are all drinks commercials. Was I thirsty when I decided on these?

Do you know what you're saying?

Everyday, where ever you go, you hear people using idioms. Idioms, or as they're usually known; common sayings permeate our languages. I doubt there is a single language in the world that doesn't have hundreds of sayings in active use.

Some, like Bee's Knees and Cat's Pajamas (both mean “a good thing”) were popular in the 1930's but have since fallen out of use.

However, a great many have survived through the years, sometimes even through centuries – yes hundreds of years – though their meanings can have changed radically.

I thought it'd be fun to look at some common ones.

Saved by the bell. To be saved at the last moment.

This one has dual origins. Some think it comes from the practice of burying people with a string running through the coffin lid and attached to a bell, allowing a person who was mistakenly buried alive to signal for help. The problem is that, although this was practiced during a short period of time, there are no records of anyone actually ringing the bell, and thus being saved.

The other possible origin, comes from boxing. A fighter would be a punch away from going down when the bell rings calling an end to the round, thus allowing him time to recover.

The first version probably stems from the 17^th century while the second comes from the 18^th century.

Fair and square. To deal honestly with someone.

We don't know who came up with this one first, but George Puttenham used this phrase in 1589 in his The arte of English poesie, and Francis Bacon said it in Of Prophecies in 1604. In any case, square was used as the definition of honest, as opposed to being crooked and twisted in your dealings. Related to this is Being straight with someone.

To pass with flying colors. To easily succeed at something.

This hails from the Age of Sail (16th to the mid-19th century), when ships had to rely on flags, or colors to communicate, since no one had been bothered to invent the radio yet. To pass with flying colors meant you were openly declaring your allegiance and intent. Compare it's current usage with a phrase like I sailed through the test, in both cases indicating how easy you found it. So to pass with flying colors has gone from complicated maritime communication to finding things easy.

First rate. The best quality available.

Another legacy from the Age of Sail, this idiom originally meant the heaviest class of ship in the fleet. Ships were classed by rates, and a first rate ship was the biggest and had the most cannons. Today restaurants and hotels can be first rate, service and transportation can be first rate etc.

If you want to learn more, google it. The web is full of site dedicated to idioms and sayings, and remember: it ain't over till the fat lady sings.

World War Zzzzz

During the weekend I decided to watch World War Z. I have read the book, and let me just say the book is as good as the film is bad. Which is to say the book (written by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks) is damn good.

The following post is stuffed with SPOILERS, just so you know.

My first reaction when I watched the trailer was one of real disappointment. One of the key features of the book is that the zombies are slow. They even reference the Romero movies (Dawn of the Dead etc.) to give the reader the right image.

In the movie they are fast zombies, a la 28 Days. So what, you ask? So everything, I reply! This changes the entire plot, from the focus to the execution.

In the novel, Gerry collects and correlates survivor stories after WWZ is over. The narrative goes from outbreak to reclamation, and illustrates how it happened, what didn't work and why it didn't, and finally how the earth was slowly an painfully taken back from the shambling hordes.

Every chapter focuses on different people in various parts of the world, from an Indian general to a Japanese otaku. From American families just trying to survive to Russian zealots hunting the dead.

Mr. Brooks also illustrates brilliantly how ineffective modern weapons are against a gargantuan horde of zombies who can't be hurt or demoralized. You have to destroy the brain to kill them, making things like land mines useless. I loved the part where an economic formula is developed to calculate the acceptable cost of killing one zombie, where one bullet per kill is too expensive to make recovery possible.

Now in the movie, Brad Pitt goes on an international run-away-from-zombies tour, only to discover a surprisingly easy solution to the entire problem. Easy but ridiculous. Since they changed the style of zombie, the book no longer works, and you are stuck with a pretty generic movie featuring rage zombies.

Stylistically the film looks great, it truly does, but that's the only good thing I can say about it. Even an actor as good as Brad can't salvage this. All the scenes with his family are wooden and feels unreal, which means that they become annoying rather than gripping. The only reason I didn't want Gerry (Pitt) to die, was because that would have made him the great Martyr, and this film has enough cliches as it is.

Every once in a while, particularly in the beginning, they throw little moral lessons at you, as if to say “Look, we're making statements about humanity here”. The helpful junkie & the uncaring cop, the Israelis and Palestinians living side by side etc etc. This does nothing for the movie what so ever, it only bogs it down with more useless scenes.

Then we come to the dumbest part: the last half hour.

Gerry is in a plane crash on his way to a W.H.O. Center in Wales. Apart from himself, the only survivor is an Israeli soldier who helped him get on the plane in the first place. (A zombie, a hand grenade and explosive decompression took care of all the other passengers).

As Gerry comes to, we see that a bit of metal has been run all the way through his gut. The soldier he's with, had her hand chopped off in Israel, but despite these horrific injuries, both make it to the W.H.O. Center! No shock, no blood loss, no lying down and screaming. Oh no, you see, they're heroes!

Once at the center, Gerry is unconscious for three days and after that, he only expresses mild discomfort when he wakes up. Hours later he's running around bashing in zombie brains with no sign of pain at all. After having his gut impaled? Riiiiight...

Finally the reason he went to Wales in the first place. Gerry-boy has figured out that the undead, and yes, the zombies are undead, not just rabid humans, avoid attacking seriously sick humans! Really? I guess they magically sense this while sprinting around.

So of course he's put in a position where he has to randomly choose a disease and inject himself with it to avoid the zombies. And of course it works, and of course humanity is saved. And no, he didn't choose Ebola by mistake...

End with joyful scene where he is reunited with his boring family. The End, thankfully.

In conclusion, they've taken a well written, thoughtful book and turned it into a boring, generic and pointless action movie.

World War Z could have been a great TV series. It's pretty much already written as one, but no, we get a bland rehash instead.

Technically well made – apart from all the jagged action scenes that are so en vogue these days – but if you're going to watch this, turn off all expectations first. There are many more “What? Really?” scenes that I haven't mentioned, but I'm sure you get the point.

Just read the book instead.

Eldritch Gaming

On the day before yesterday, i.e. Saturday, I grabbed a copy of Eldritch from Steam. At first glance I thought it was a Minecraft clone or at least some kind of spin-off mod. Something like that anyway. The reason is the similar graphics. It has a very blocky 3D style to it's graphics, not unlike the famous mining game.

But Minecraft it is not. What we have is a fun little indie game set in the 1930's Lovecraft-verse that my readers know I'm so fond of.

Eldritch is incidentally created by David Pittman and his brother J. Kyle Pittman. They've previously worked on titles like Borderlands, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Bioshock 2, so we're talking experience here.

Now the object of the game is to collect three souls from three realms in order to avert the familiar “The Stars Are Right” scenario. (At least I think so, the game is not too bogged down by story). In order to do this you have to traverse said realms and either avoid or defeat the squamous denizens that dwell therein.

There's nothing too revolutionary about the game as such, apart from one feature I haven't seen before. If you loot a dead enemy, it'll respawn. If you don't, it stays put as well as dead. This leaves you in the position to judge whether you need the resources badly enough to risk encountering the enemy again later. You are very squishy in Eldritch and you go down fast if an enemy gets the drop on you.

The first realm, The Temple of Dagon, was pretty easy, so I was completely unprepared for how hard the Realm of Nyarlathotep was, and I died pretty fast. When you die, you can resurrect in the Library, where the game starts, but you loose all your gear except for any artifacts you have stored in your chest. Only artifacts can be squirreled away, so I lost my gun, all my ammo, my boots of jumping and my compass. Ah well, back in the saddle and off you go again.

I really like this game. It's suitably tense without being stressful. But that said, expect to swear a lot when you die over and over again... Unless you're a Lady (who don't swear) or a better gamer than I am.

In my opinion well worth the about 10€ it costs on Steam. Check it out.

This is the end

A few nights ago I sat down and enjoyed This is the end, the new movie by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.

I first became aware of this movie from the most natural source there is, it's trailer. This trailer in fact:

Since I'm assuming you just watched that, I don't think I'm in too much danger of spoiling anything, so here goes.

The whole point of the movie is that all actors play themselves in an apocalyptic scenario. Usually I'm a bit leery of that concept, but here it works pretty well.

Now if you were to accuse the creators of this film of tooting their own horns and bragging through out, I couldn't really fault you for it. Nor could I blame you if you complained that it's Christian propaganda, since these accusations are technically a bit true. Can something be a bit true? Eh, just go with it.

These points are valid, but it would be pretty damn unjust to leave it at that, since it's not all This is the end is. Mainly it's a really funny movie. I laughed heartily several times and chuckled even more.

But why are these accusations true? Well the actors keep talking about the stuff they've done previously and it gets a bit much, but what would you expect actors to do at a Hollywood party? Exactly that! So I suppose we'll have to forgive them.

Then there's the religious bit. Maybe a little spoiler, but the trailer does show all the necessary clues. The apocalyptic bit is the Rapture. Now the bible does talk about the Rapture, but the version showed here, and that's so popular especially in the U.S. was invented in the 1830's, and it annoyed me a bit that they couldn't have used another apocalypse. Maybe it's just me.

Either way, this is the route they chose to go down, and the movie as a whole is good enough that I didn't really care too much. At least it wasn't zombies. We've had enough zombies for a while right?

In the end, This is the end is a funny film with good effects and decent acting. If you're looking to just relax and have a good time, check it out.

Anno Primus

Eccentric Spheres was born on 16^th October 2012, which means that this Wednesday is it's first birthday!

To mark this special occasion, I'd like to share a few facts and stats with you, my readers, about you, my readers.

First off, the total page views as of this moment is 1388. Not that many, but I'm happy with each and every one of them.

The post with the single highest page view count apart from the “Welcome to Eccentric Spheres” is the one about Ripper Street, with 59 hits.

Now the blogger stats page is a bit wonky at times, and unfortunately I can't get a proper break down of all the countries that my readers – you – hail from. However the top ten are available, and they read as this;

Finland 664 (no surprise)

United States 271

Germany 111

Russia 95

The UK 64

Netherlands 16

Poland 16

Ukraine 13

Portugal 11

Czech Rep. 7

This adds up to 1268 views which leaves 120 views from other countries I can no longer access, but I seem to remember Australia, Hungary and Saudi Arabia amongst the readers missing from the list.

So a big Thank You to you, the people who inspire me to post week after week all year long! Not a single week have been missed so far, even though I've “cheated” a couple times.

I hope you will all stick around for another year, and perhaps if you feel it's merited, bring new readers to Eccentric Spheres.

It takes guts to do this

Most of only know Stephen Fry as a comedian, but in this clip you wil lsee him in a new light.
to stand in front of a large group of not only Catholics but also Catholic Bishops and with no hestiation tell them they are full of it - and with such eloquence - is not something I think many could have pulled off.

The truth hurts.

Frikkin' Mondays...

Ok, here's a riddle for you;

What do you get if you combine lack of sleep with a full day of work?

That's right, a very tired person. Hey, I didn't say it was good riddle, did I now?

But since you took the trouble to visit me, you deserve something in return, so here's a couple of funny videos from the godd people at Cracked.com.
We return to our regular programming next week.

Drat, I can't seem to get the embed code to obey my commands, but here's the links:

http://www.cracked.com/video_18319_every-video-game-escort-mission-ever.html

http://www.cracked.com/video_18502_the-most-uncomfortable-dinner-party-conversation-ever.html

Frikkin' mondays...

A few easy rules to follow

A couple of weeks ago I sat opposite a middle aged man on the train. He was on his way to some kind of business meeting, a fact I know because I saw his papers. This is of course nothing remarkable, but I couldn't help noticing that he'd committed a couple of crucial mistakes with his wardrobe.

Now most guys will have to wear a suit every once in a while. Weddings, funerals, business meetings, anniversaries, these events pop up every so often. For some more often than others, but I'm as amazed every time I see the following really simple rules not just broken, but sometimes destroyed.

Let's return to the man I shared a train with. He was wearing a dark pin-striped suit. So far so good. Then I noticed his green and white checkered shirt. Strike one. If you're wearing a suit, as opposed to say, a jacket and jeans, you're in formal territory and mustn't use casual shirts.

He had a striped tie, which did sort of match the suit, but really made his unfortunate choice of shirt stand out even more.

Next I saw his watch. A huge sporty watch that again looked really out of place with his conservative suit. Maybe not a big deal, but it clashed badly. Strike two.

His shoes were black leather, but they were dirty. If the weather is really bad, your shoes will get messy, but you can always tell if it's old dust, as in this case. It really made him look sloppy. Strike three.

There aren't that many hard rules for us guys when it comes to dressing up, but the few that exist should be kept. Now I know times change, and to my great annoyance, it's become acceptable to use a backpack with a suit. Please. if you must do that, try to use a discreet bag, OK? Today I saw a guy in a really nice dark suit, good shirt and tie, shoes correct and a bright yellow backpack over his shoulder. Yes you read that right, bright yellow...

If you want to make it easy for yourself and not look like a moron at formal occasions, keep the following in mind;

1. Always wear black shoes with a dark suit, and make sure your socks are black too.
2. When buttoning the jacket, the rule of thumb is from the top; Sometimes – Always – Never. So if the middle button is closed, you can close the top. The bottom is never used, ever.
3. Never wear conflicting patterns and colors. Stripes and squares don't get along. The easiest solution is to wear a white shirt (always fine), and a neutral tie. If you're unsure if colors clash, consult a color wheel. Opposite colors rarely look good together.
4. The tie should cover all the shirt buttons but not pass the belt. This can be fiddly, especially if you're in a hurry, but it looks hideous when the tie is visible when the jacket is closed.

That's it in a nutshell. There are a few others, but these should see you through whatever event you're attending. If you want to learn more, google is your friend.

As a final note, I'd like to point out that if you've removed your coat, gloves and hats must go as well. Try not to use funky materials, like a terrycloth ties and bright silk shirts unless you are certain that you can pull it off. And black ties are usually only used at funerals.

That's it for now, so get out there and look good!

The Laundry Files rpg part 2

Continuing on last weeks theme of the Laundry Files RPG, I have now read GOD GAME BLACK and I'm in the process of reading the Agent's Handbook.

I love GOD GAME BLACK . It's insanely well written and oh so informative.

Although it seems to bill itself as ”just” the follow up book to the original core book, documenting the events in Stross's Apocalypse Codex, its' actually so much more.

I'm of course not going to go through the whole book bit by bit, but the best, most valuable part in my opinion is the section concerning the Black Chamber.

The Black Chamber, or Nazgul as they're also called (but not to their faces), is the American equivalent to the Capitol Laundry Services. But they are a really terrifying lot. If you thought the Laundry could play rough, the Nazgul take it to another league altogether.

Being the biggest and most proactive of the occult agencies, the write up they got in the core book was in no way enough. Here you get all you could ever wish for. And then some more.

All in all a very useful book for running the games in the Laundry-Verse, but not perhaps for other CoC games.

The Agent's Handbook is luckily more than just the gear book. It is that, but it also goes through what's needed to succeed as a spy as well as expanding a great deal on life and death (and after life) in the Laundry. After all, you can't always go out cult-hunting. You also have to file the appropriate paper work. Otherwise something much scarier than the odd soul eating beast will come after you. Namely Human Resources and Financial Control.

I haven't gotten far enough in the Agent's Handbook than this, so it'll have to suffice for now.

Have a great week!

The Laundry Files rpg part 1

A couple of weeks ago I went past my friendly local game shop, or FLGS for you who are familiar with RPG abbreviations.

There I ran across the Laundry RPG, based upon the laundry files novels that I reviewed at the start of this blog. I was immediately tempted, particularly since it struck me that my idea to use side campaigns to illustrate historical happenings fits perfectly into the world of the Laundry.

I took some time to think it over, and two days later I plonked down some cash and picked up The Laundry Files together with some source books. I laid my filthy paws on the Core Book, the Investigators Handbook, License to Summon, The Mythos Dossiers and GOD GAME BLACK. Unfortunately Cultists Under the Bed hasn't been released yet. There is an adventure book – Black Bag Jobs as well as a GM screen, but I decided against them. It got expensive enough as it was.

I thought it'd be in order to share my impressions of these books. I say impressions and not experience since I haven't yet had time to play.

Let's look at the core book first.

It's really well written, first of all, and the art is solid. Not perhaps the best I've seen in an rpg book, but very cool none the less.

The rules are the familiar BRP rules used in Call of Cthulhu since it first crawled out of the squamous ooze of pre-history, also known as 1981. But they've been updated and expanded since those days.

New to these rules are things like Computational Demonology and the whole package is really well adjusted for what you need to “get” the Laundry-verse.

Naturally, you get a lot of info on the Laundry itself, it's international colleagues, and lots of other interesting stuff.

It's a hefty read though, hard covered and packing 288 pages. That said, it's easier to get through than I had expected, and a really good read besides.

Like all good core books, it contains all you need to play, if not all you want. This leads us to;

License to Summon.

This is the magic book of the series (if you want to be crass about it) but it is also more. Rather than just list a bunch of spells, it takes you through computational demonology as well as traditional sorcery, psychic power, dreaming, alchemy and more. Speaking of more, you get a really nifty section of gear that would make Batman jealous. He never had an anti zombie aerosol...

I get an almost Mage the Ascension feel from it, though of course not as free form. But the lads at Cubicle 7 have really thought about this stuff when they penned this book.

Finally for today, I want to talk about The Mythos Dossiers.

This book is a bit hard to pin down. It contains detailed write-ups and files on the major minor mythos races, but it's not a monster manual. Since the Laundry is a part of the British Secret Service, everything is officially re-designated, so the Deep Ones are called BLUE HADES, and the Elder Things are known as ANNING BLUE SKULL, with the shoggoths ANNING BLACK.

This book is amazing, one of the best rpg supplements I've ever read. It really made me think about what these beings are, and what they can do. If you run CoC or indeed any of the multiple variations thereof, get this book!

As an example you get to read about what happened during OPERATION HIGHJUMP (real event by the way), as the U.S. Government investigated the aftermath of At the Mountains of Madness.

That's it for this time. When I've had the chance to read the rest, I'll post the second part.

Iä Iä and all that.

Crime pays!

The last couple of days have seen me pretty busy playing Payday 2.

Created by Overkill Software, it's the sequel (no kidding) of the original Payday the heist.

Like the original which I never played, and thus won't be commenting on, the point of the game is to commit heists and robberies.

The game is designed for up to four players, and although you can play with less, and even with bots if you like, some of the more advanced missions really require a full team. That said, I'd rather play with three than use a bot, since the AI is a bit limited.

During one mission that I soloed while trying to learn what's what, one AI companion just stood leaning against a wall instead of shooting at the police.

What really makes this game though is the possibility to stealth through almost any mission. The sense of accomplishment that comes with being able to pull off a “perfect crime” when the plans really comes together is awesome.

Of course, most missions seems to – in this writers experience – devolve rather quickly into a vicious gun fight with the law. Some missions even start that way, and can't obviously be stealthed.

If you want a fun co-op game with good opportunities to plan and sneak, Payday 2 delivers. If you want to pull off daring crimes with your friends, Payday way well be your game. Or if you like wearing a suit and a creepy mask, go for it!

All in all, this great game is as close to real crime as I want to get.

Show us your ID!

This weekend I've had a very interesting gaming related experience.

My wife and I used to play Star Wars The Old Republic when it launched, but like with all games you can only play it for so long. So we quit. That's not the interesting thing by the way. Wait for it.

Recently we haven't been gaming all that much together, and we've missed it. Mostly it's been a combination of no MMO and pretty different tastes in other games.

Anyway, we decided to re-activate our SWTOR accounts, in order to game together. Now the easiest way to do this is to purchase some game time from Biowares online store. Except they have some kind of error going on with that, which meant that neither of us could complete the transaction. Lots of people have encountered this error, so it wasn't just us. Also, it was Sunday, so we couldn't nip down to the nearest Gamestop and pick up a couple of game time cards.

Back in our WoW days we often ordered our time cards from an online store on Åland – an island between Finland and Sweden that belongs to Finland. They have slightly different tax laws there, so some stuff is cheaper- but they were out of SWTOR time cards. The only remaining thing to do was to look around for another online store with cards in stock, and who delivered the time codes via email.

Eventually my wife found one. Fast2play.com. She ordered them, paid for them (payment guaranteed by Visa). And we started to wait. Here comes the interesting thing.

They sent her an email demanding to see a scan of her drivers license. Yeah, a copy of her ID card to complete strangers... Not!

She mailed them back demanding to know what for, and this is what they eventually said: Our security system has detected suspicious activity with your account!

Suspicious activity? Buying two time cards with a value of less than 50€? Using their own process? On an account a few hours old? Pardon my language, Ladies and Gentlemen, but that's utter BULLSHIT!

Finally the missus said, forget it, your service is unacceptable, refund our money asap!

What do they do? They – to our enormous surprise – actually send us the codes. Without seeing a copy of her drivers license. All this back and forth took several hours, one reply from them taking almost two hours to arrive, and it's content was pretty much: “please just send us your ID already”.

The codes came with a slightly snarky comment in the vein of “We already sent you your order, what are you whining about?”

Now I don't know if we were really unlucky, and Fast2play.com is an awesome business, but dammit, you don't give out that kind of info to strangers, that's the first thing we teach children about Internet Safety! We've ordered things like contact lenses and E-cigarette stuff that's been considerably more expensive than these measly game cards without any such hassle.

Imagine you want to buy the latest book from your favorite author. You enter the bookstore and pick one up. Then you think, “hang on, my friend is going to want one too, I'll get it for him now that I'm here”. You then go to the register to pay, but the clerk tells you that you queued suspiciously, and she's going to have to take a copy of you ID, and keep it. Would you still buy those books? Don't think so....

Use Fast2play at your own discretion, but in all honesty I can't recommend them. They were polite, but that's the only good thing I can say with a straight face.

Movie Night

So as you know, a couple of weeks ago, we were without internet. In a desperate effort to stave off the madness, the missus and I decided to watch a movie.

Looking around at what we had laying around that neither had seen, we decided on Robin Hood (2010). This film seemed to have everything going for it.

1. Directed by Ridley Scott, the man behind amazing classics like Alien, Gladiator and Blade Runner.
2. Russell Crowe as the kick ass protagonist.
3. A great supporting cast with luminaries such as Cate Blanchett, Max von Sydow and Matthew Macfadyen.

Yet despite all this, the movie stunk to high heaven! We gave up after roughly an hour. It was all wrong. The timing, cinematography, dialog, everything.

I clung on to the hope it would improve with grim desperation, but finally I had to surrender to the inevitable. It should have been to medieval England what Gladiator was to Imperial Rome, but no. Lousy is all I can say. Avoid at all cost.

Instead we put on Priest (2011) a (sort of) post apocalyptic vampire slaying movie. It wasn't a great movie, but it was entertaining, and that was all that mattered. If dystopian wastelands, futuristic frontier stuff and vampires appeal to you, go for it!

With some time left we rounded off the evening with The First Men in the Moon (2010).

This is a remake of the 1964 H.G. Wells film of the same name, and boy did we like it. It had a wonderful whimsical atmosphere, almost like a Lovecraftian fairytale. Two men in 1909 go to the moon with the help of a sphere coated in Cavorite, a gravity nullifying substance invented by one of the main characters.

Well worth watching!

Details details

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about my experimental idea for running historical off shoot games from your main campaign.

Today, we're going to take a look at some useful tricks for running a game set sometime in the past.

Like with all projects the devil hides amongst the details, and historical gaming is no different.

Obviously there's no point in turning your campaign into a historical lecture, but you have to include enough vital facts and details to make the era come alive. Otherwise your Roman campaign is just “now but with togas”.

Most gamers will probably head to the armory first of all, and it's a good place to start. Find out what the major weapons of the time was, at least in general. What you find may surprise you. For example, the first pump action shotgun was designed in 1882, well in time to hunt Jack the Ripper with, should the need arise.

Naturally, the closer your game is to the present, the greater the availability of weaponry becomes. But assembling a list of the most popular firearms of the day, will be the first step in creating a good setting.

Next, look at clothes and fashion. This may seem as a bit of a lame thing to do, but it's vitally important unless every one in the world runs around in their birthday suits. Again, you don't need to go nuts here, but a couple of examples of what men and women wore amongst the lower, middle and upper classes should be enough. That's twelve pictures you have to hunt down and show the players. Not all that arduous eh?

Take a quick look at food and drink while your at it. This is not necessarily all that big of a deal, but as a reminder; any game set in pre Columbian Europe can not feature the humble potato. It has yet to cross the Atlantic. A small but important detail.

Next is transportation. What were people driving in, or were they driving anything at all? Again, a couple of the most prominent examples will do fine.

By now I'm sure your starting to get the idea. Thanks to the plethora of film and movies set in all kinds of cool eras, it's getting easier and easier to bring these times to life again.

Naturally it get's harder the farther back you go, but funnily enough, the same happen when you only go say, twenty years back. Take a look at a random X-files episode and look at what kind of technology is and isn't available. Remember that in 1993 cell phones were practically non existent and people actually faxed each other instead of using email. But keeping straight what happened when it's still so close is sometimes maddening.

Finally, I want to talk about the hardest detail; talking.

This is not something I enforce too rigidly in my games, as it gets very tedious after a while. Too many Prithy good Sirrah, and you will all be likely to try kill each other. I like to keep my players somewhat aware of their characters social standing at least. I don't want the Baronet of Whitlington to scream “Fuck you, I told you to waste that asshole”, when he could say “Damn you, I told you to kill that oaf” without spraining either his tongue or my ears.

That's it in a nutshell. With the easy availability of smart phones it's become very easy to quickly check years or events without holding up the game too much.

Now you just have to find a balance between what you feel your game needs and what your players will put up with!

Good gaming!

Damnation!

Not much of a post today, since I'm without internet, and have been all weekend.

You see, I ordered a new connection(?), and of course it didn't work. My ISP still haven't gotten off their behinds to fix it, so I'm writing this from work.

Regular updates next week. Hopefully...

Somewhere in time

I have always been plagued by bursts of inspiration for a particular period in history. Now enjoying books or movies set in these times is easy enough, but it's harder when you want to run a campaign set in a specific historical era.

The reason I say I'm plagued is that these bursts can pass as fast as they come, usually lasting only a couple of weeks, sometimes just days. With an inspiration span this short it's difficult to keep up the enthusiasm necessary to GM a campaign, and it's rude to get your players all fired up only to tell them “Sorry, can't be bothered anymore” three sessions later.

Luckily I've come up with a solution of sorts. I've yet to test it, but I believe it'll work.

It goes a little something like this;

The players roll up a “main character” each, who together will run through an investigation, or perhaps unravel a conspiracy. Something that has been going on for a very long time, in any case.

Then, when they manage to uncover a vital clue, or some important fact, you run a side game, lasting only half a session to perhaps three sessions in length, detailing what they found. In these mini games they play pre-made characters who experience what went on in that time and place. And this is what's so great. These side games can take place at any time anywhere, as long as someone is around to document it. From the American Revolution to the beaches of Normandy. Ancient Greece to Cuba in the 60's, anything is possible!

This set up has several benefits. First off, the players don't have to sit through long briefings or read tons of documents, instead they get to play the event.

Secondly, you can illustrate what the bad guys have been doing in a more visceral way, perhaps even let the players be the bad guys, if they're into that.

Thirdly, you can play around with historical settings without the need for in depth research. Just add enough flavor to make it work. I'll discuss how I do this in a later post.

When I talked to my friend, who is also a GM, about this idea, he expressed concern about how to keep the players on track when playing these side characters. An idea that hit me, and this is where experimentation is needed, is that the main PC's only get XP when the side characters complete whatever they were supposed to do. I have no idea if this is going to work, but it might very well.

Of course, they'll need proper pre-briefs in addition to the pre-made characters.

So there you have it. My experimental solution for multi-era play without all the hassle of time travel or dedicated lengthy campaigns.

A friend to your wallet

The Steam Summer Sale is almost over. As of writing this, there's a measly 45 minutes left, but I'm not sad. You see I got all that I wanted out of it's juicy discounted innards.

I don't know if it was on Cracked or Reddit, that I stumbled over one of the best economic points available concerning gaming;

Price divided per hour of entertainment received.

But let me add a small caveat. I'm a PC gamer. Games for consoles are pretty damn expensive. Not that PC games aren't rough on your wallet on release, but eventually, like on the glorious Steam sales, the same games plummet in cost, if only you have the patience to wait.

So back to the price / hours.

When was the last time you went to the movies? How expensive was the ticket? Did you get away with less than 10€ (or dollars)? Even so, you paid something to the point of 5€ per hour of fun.

and lets not go into what an evening out costs...

Let me compare that to my copy of Skyrim, which comes down to 0,107€ per hour.

Or Deus Ex Human Revolution, 0,208€ per hour enjoyed.

Even Dishonored that I just bought on the sale comes down to 0,437€ an hour.

The “worst case” in my Steam library is The Sims 3, that I've spent a fairly unholy amount of money on, clocks out on 2,33€ an hour of unbeatable fun, and what that comes down to is that gaming can be the most financially affordable form of entertainment around. Just as long as you don't shop unwisely.

Good gaming friends!

From there to here

Long long ago, in an era shrouded in the mists of time, also known as the early 1990's, I watched the TV series Jeeves and Wooster. This was the first time I had ever seen the brilliant comedic chemistry of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

After J&W ended, the channel aired the first season of their new sketch show, A bit of Fry and Laurie. Later still I tripped over Blackadder on BBC, and though neither Fry nor Laurie feature at all in the first season, they did appear in the following three seasons with varying frequency.

Over the years, they have both become household names, with many successes on their own. But how did it all begin? How did they meet? Can they even agree how it happened?

To my delight I stumbled upon the following video one evening, and I figured some of you, my readers, might get the same enjoyment out of it I did.

Happy viewings! 

Edit: i had a problem with the embed file, so here's the first part:

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Vampires y'all!

Last week I started reading the Southern Vampire Mysteries, better known to all and sundry as True Blood. The books have even been retronymed (or so wikipedia informs me) into the True Blood series, probably to make more people buy them.

As I started reading I had watched the HBO show up until season 4 episode 7, but this was a long time ago, and overcome by curiosity, I started re-watching from the first episode.

I have to say I'm impressed with the work the screen writers have done. The books aren't all that long, and since American TV has a fetish for long seasons, they've added and stretched a few things. I was pretty surprised when I discovered that these things were not in Mrs. Harris's books.

Allow me to highlight a few examples. Warning, if you haven't watched the show, there are spoilers ahead. (And some for the books, I suppose, but to a lesser extent).

Tara Thornton.

In the show, she's Sookies best friend. In the books, they went to school together, but they don't really hang that much. This means that all the plot lines that revolve around Tara in the show are null and void. No alcoholic mother, no huge fight with, well... everyone. You get the picture.

MaryAnn Forrester (aka the Maenad)

In the show, half of the second season revolves around her efforts to turn Bon Temps into one huge non stop orgy. In the books, she pops up, the vampires decide to pay her tribute, she kills a couple of people and goes away. She has barely any screen time (page time?) at all.

Lafayette Reynolds

There is practically no difference between the TV and the books when it comes to the flamboyant cook at Merlotte's, except he's killed off at the beginning of book two, meaning like his on screen cousin Tara, all the stuff concerning him are also absent from the books. This is a shame really, since he's so damn entertaining.

I could go on, but that would be pointless, however, all the important bits are included in the show. Particularity in season one, there are scenes that are recited verbatim from the book. This combined with the skill with which the screen writers have blended the original content with their own stuff, is super impressive.

So are the books worth the effort, especially since the show is so good? The answer is: Absolutely! They are highly entertaining, well worth your time. They also explain more about the world and how things work between the different supernatural beings.

Besides there's one added bonus. Sookie Stackhouse is much cooler in the books. Seriously, go check it out.

Comedy break!

Yesterday I spent about five hours on cramped trains, and having just gotten home from work, I find myself too tired to bring you anything really interesting.

But since you took the time to come here, I give you the ever funny Key & Peele.Regular post (if you can call it that) next week.

Enjoy!

So many choices!

If you like sitting down with your friends for a night of gaming, be it an RPG or maybe a board game or perhaps a card game, you've probably encountered an all too common problem:

What to play?

Of course you can peruse some off the many lists available online, but then a new problem might arise, namely:

Is this game any good for me/us?

Fear not, dear friend, for I have found us all some help!

First up is Game Geeks.

Here you can sample the wisdom of long time GM and Professor Kurt Wiegel as he reviews RPG's and RPG supplements. Just go to Episode Guide and you can view (as I'm writing this) 214 suitably short review videos. I've enjoyed watching them all even if I'm not really all that interested in a particular game, but I have also found several new RPG's I might have to try, some I wouldn't have even heard of if not for Game Geeks.

Are you not in the mood for Role-playing, and would rather have something more relaxed? Maybe something humorous and silly to enjoy while sipping on a beer? Why not watch Beer and Board Games?

B&BG is a group of friends who sit down, drink beer, play games, get drunk and insult each other. They also improvise songs and do silly impressions. Now if you're thinking why would I want to watch that?, don't worry. That's what I thought, but I'm up to season three, and I've laughed my ass off at their shenanigans more than once. Just be warned, their language is neither child nor work appropriate.

Like Game Geeks, I've found a couple of games I'm definitely going to have to try as soon as I can lay my hands on them. I've even found a couple of different beers I'd like to try.

I should point out, that the first 2-3 episodes aren't all that good, but they quickly found their format, so either stick with it, or skip them. Your choice. 

So, have a look and a laugh, and hopefully you'll find something worth your time!