The Geffrye Museum in Hoxton is about to close down for an extended refurbishment, so I went along to it. As usual, the rooms were decorated for a period Christmas.
A recent news story, the matter of Laura Plummer arrested and imprisoned for transporting a banned opioid into Egypt, has given me to think.
Also known as: why I always carry a camera with me.
Since some people were free, we got together on actual Boxing Day as well as "Boxing Day" on the 16th.
2005 mystery/thriller, first in a series. Dr Anya Crichton is a forensic pathologist (divorced, ex-husband has custody of the kid) trying to build a freelance practice as an expert witness. But several victims she examines have some unexpected findings in common.
2017 science fiction disaster film, dir. Dean Devlin, Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess: IMDb / allmovie. Earth's climate problems have been casually solved by a network of weather-control satellites, but now they seem to be going wrong.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the exploration of space, as distinct from alien planets.
I picked up Magic Maze and its expansion Maximum Security (as well as some promo tiles) at Essen. But how best to store them, preferably all in one box? To the 3D printer!
1976 classic English detective fiction; twenty-ninth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Alleyn's son Rick is trying to write, staying in a rented room on a Channel Island. But while a riding accident might just be disturbing, it seems that murder is never far away. Fortunately, neither is his father.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey. This time it was a fairly small session; people seem to be in a pre-Christmas sort of mode.
2010 steampunk fantasy. Darian Frey is still just barely holding the airship Ketty Jay and her crew of misfits together, and once more he's going to get in way over his head.
On "Boxing Day" because it's a tradition now (i.e. we did it for the last two years), a bunch of us without family commitments got together for boardgames. (Actually we did it a week earlier on St Eusebius of Vercelli's day, because some of couldn't make it on Boxing Day, and then they had colds anyway. Oh well.)
1990 mystery; third in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). Mrs Pargeter keeps another recent widow company on a package holiday to Corfu, but clearly things are amiss even before the murder and the cover-up.
Back to the boardgame café. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
1973 classic English detective fiction; twenty-eighth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The president of newly-independent Ng'ombwana is visiting London; many years ago he was at school with Roderick Alleyn, and now he insists on having Alleyn involved in his security. Especially when there's an assassination attempt at his party in the embassy.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate everything.)
1984 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Case used to be a hacker, but stole from the wrong people, and they took hacking away from him; now he's a hustler on an arc towards suicide by street. But someone wants him for a very special job.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey.
2017 historical fantasy. After the death of her parents, Mary Jekyll – yes, that Jekyll – is left penniless, but with mysteries. There's still a reward for the capture of her father's murderous friend Edward Hyde. But Jekyll is not the only mad scientist to have left a daughter.
When I'm playing play-by-forum games, there's often a deadline. Because players are scattered across the world and many people are bad at time zones, it's helpful to have a countdown to remind people how much time is left. So I made one.
It snowed for most of the day on Sunday. (Images.)
This supplement for campaign design deals with portal fantasy, specifically the sort in which people from Earth find thsmselves in a fantasy world.
Cities of Splendor is an expansion for Splendor, designed by Marc André.
1983 cosy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy, set at an agricultural college in Massachussetts. Retired professor Herbert Ungley wouldn't want to be caught dead without his toupee, but that's just what's happened.
Someone was lamenting the lack of current hovertruck miniatures in Ogre, now that SJGames is producing the iconic shapes again, so I thought I'd make one.
2017 fantasy. Makepeace has a gift, or curse, that she doesn't entirely understand. But she's going to have to learn about it fast, in part because it's 1641 and the tension between Parliament and the King is coming to a head.
The new Secrets & Lies expansion for Mysterium is designed by Oleksandr Nevskiy and Oleg Sidorenko.
2009 comedic mystery, first in its series. The nameless narrator runs No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when the private detective agency next door suddenly closes down, some of its customers start coming to him instead.
Back to Dragonmeet, since it was happening. All images are cc-by-sa.
1972 classic English detective fiction; twenty-seventh of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Troy is painting a portrait of Hilary Bill-Tasman, which means staying at his country house for Christmas. But a servant disappears in the storm, and Troy's husband is certain to be involved.
I use OpenSCAD as my primary tool when I'm designing objects for 3D printing. But it's also remarkably useful as a non-linear editor for existing 3D objects.