People over 50 are getting priority for second doses of COVID-19 vaccines, so we're told.
From a conversation on discussion.tekeli.li came the challenge: if you want to break into someone's house by throwing his plant pots through his (glass) patio doors, how do you go about it? In GURPS, obviously. Do not use this as a guide for actual criminal acts, or if you do at least delete any trace of your having read this post before they catch you.
2018 non-fiction, Charlotte Higgins explores the maze and labyrinth in fiction and their influence on the world.
This time the plan to sell all your medical records to the highest bidder isn't even being announced, presumably so that you don't find out about it in time to prevent it the way people did last time.
I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved unconventional solutions to numerical problems. (Note that this is open until 30 May 2021.)
1997 mystery, seventeenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. McCone's former flying instructor asks her to look into her disappeared boyfriend… then dies in a way that's surely not coincidental. And letting a client's death go unavenged isn't in the Private Eye Code.
Inspired by someone's passing comment on M's office in the James Bond films having a "green baize door", which I was fairly sure was wrong, I thought I'd go and check.
I've never really been much of a Eurovision fan, but these days you can get the music and shows without any commentary, so…
Over the years quite a few RPGs have used logarithmic scales for various purposes. Why aren't they more popular?
This project continues, and the ship names have been announced.
This Meetup-based boardgames group remains on-line for the moment; as usual we got together on Jitsi and then played some games on BGA.
2010 western fantasy, first of a trilogy. It's after the American Civil War, and there are a few magicians out there. Also gods, or at least things that want to claim they are.
I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved finding constrained integer decompositions and more binary tree furkling. (Note that this is open until 23 May 2021.)
Call of Cthulhu has a spotty history with automatic fire; it's one of the few rules that changed quite a lot between editions before the complete rewrite that was 7th. I don't think 7th has improved matters.
More boardgames played from home. I'm definitely cutting back on these now that the real thing can happen again.
1998 tartan noir. Los Angeles is losing itself in millennial fever, but that won't stop the hawkers of cheap film from having their show. Even if there's a fundie across the road who's talking about God sending a tidal wave to wipe out their filth…
GURPS 4th edition changed the way the cost of Allies and Dependents is calculated. I think this may be considered an error, or at least that more sophistication is needed.
1999 police procedural audio, four short stories, by Nick Fisher. DSI Julie Enfield (played, as usual, by Imelda Staunton) investigates.
For the first time since last September, I've played boardgames face to face (or at least mask to mask) with other human beings.
I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved path canonicalisation and numerical compositions. (Note that this is open until 16 May 2021.)
1936 thriller. Iris Carr is a poor little rich girl travelling by train from "a remote corner of Europe" back to England via Trieste. She talks with a Miss Froy, who's briefly amusing. Then after a short rest she discovers that Miss Froy is no longer there, and everyone claims that she has never existed… Vt, and loosely filmed in 1938 as, The Lady Vanishes.
There used to be twenty breweries in High Wycombe proper. Not any more. But there are a few good ones not too far away.
I didn't do much in the garden last year. I'm not sure why; normally I spend the summers out here, but (perhaps for the obvious reasons) everything felt even more pointless than usual. So I've been committing mayhem recently.
2016 science fiction, in the same universe as Planetfall but not a sequel to it. Carlos Moreno's mother abandoned him to go on the Atlas mission; forty years later he's a detective, looking into the murder of the leader of an anti-tech cult… of which he used to be a member.
2015 historical fantasy, fourth in the Order of the Air series. It's 1935, and the Gilchrist Aviation team are in Hawaii testing a new flying-boat – except for Jerry the archaeologist, who's on a dig looking for evidence of Chinese explorers reaching the islands.
I’ve been doing the Perl Weekly Challenges. The latest involved search optimisations and word sorting. (Note that this is open until 9 May 2021.)
1932 romance. The reprobate Marquis of Vidal, having casually fought a duel over dice, must flee to France. He plans to take his latest would-be conquest with him, but that lady's sister has other ideas.
2001 audio adaptation of Christie's 1942 mystery, in a single 90-minute episode. Someone's sending poison-pen letters in a little village, and one of the recipients has committed suicide as a result. Though Miss Marple is not so sure…
More boardgames played from home. I think I'm getting more irked with remote play now that the possibility of the real thing exists again.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. I still hate everything.)