Geek Night

Last night’s Geek Night was fab: thanks to everybody who came. I didn’t win a single game, but that’s not what it’s about at all, really, is it. Kings & Things was fab, and it was great to get to play Tigris & Euphrates again (and lose for a change, damnit, at it). It was also great to watch the Illuminati game opposite, in which Andy destroyed the United Nations and Sian (who seemed to quite enjoy it, the happy little conspiracy theorist that she is) fought to control “weird” groups, and then there was the Chrononauts game with Jimmy and Pete, and… it was a fab night, anyway.

In other good news, Andy‘s going to launch his version of my Dingbats Challenge, soon, I gather, having receive a little technical support from my version in getting it set-up. Watch this space.

And finally – people coming to Knightmare Night tomorrow: fear not! For time turns and season four is on it’s way… there shall be at least two more Knightmare Nights hereafter!

Right; back to it… but first, lunch.

First Season Of Diplomacy

As I’m sure I’ve said, I’m running an online game of Diplomacy: my web-based adaptation of a classic 1959 board game of strategy and diplomacy. It’s an unusual board game, in that (apart from the random assignment of countries, at the beginning), it involves no luck – the game is based entirely upon your ability to persuade others to help you, lie convincingly, and know when to trust your allies.

In any case – I thought I’d allow those of you who’re not playing (players are Sian and Andy R [Austria], Claire and I [England], Ruth [France], Andy K and Faye [Germany], Jon and Hayley [Italy], JTA [Russia] and Matt [Turkey]) to see what’s going on, as well, soo…

You can now spectate our game of Diplomacy by viewing the turns, maps, and reports as they are made available. And I’ll be providing updates as and when I feel like it here, on my blog.

Spring 1901 Orders in a game of Diplomacy

In the first turn, most of the Great Powers pushed outwards with their forces, as can be seen in the map, above. I’m particularly interested by the position of the new location of Austrian, German, and Russian armies, in Eastern Europe (and very close together), and by the decision of France to push towards Italy with her land armies (leaving only a ship to perhaps later claim the supply centres of Portugal and Spain). Also interesting is the Turkish ship moving into the Black Sea: which claims to pose no threat to Russia, but I’m not so sure…

As JTA says, it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out as a result of the aggressive stance taken by some – particularly the South-East European – nations. It’s a fascinating little game.

Suppose I’d better get some work done.

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Playing Lord of the Rings, in The Flat

I’ve been pulling old videos off of devices I used to use. This came from an early-2000s mobile phone, back when mobile phones were REALLY bad at video. It features Paul M, Ruth V, Matt R, JTA, and Claire M playing a single turn of the Lord of the Rings boardgame (it was a complicated turn).

I’m not sure whether they won in the end, or what the final score was, but I’m sure I’ve got it written down somewhere.

Also available on YouTube.

Weekend

I seem to spend most of my time on this blog posting retrospectively about what I did on any given weekend. Will try to spice things up with a little more thought and debateworthy stuff in the future – I’ve got some ideas. In any case:

Friday was Andy’s gig – not as good as the last one I went to, but still a fab show (and, in particular, some great guitarwork this time around). Claire couldn’t come – she was in Gregynog on a Computer Science away-half-weekend (the replacement for what used to be the “second Aberdyfi weekend” that we used to have in the first year).

Saturday was Troma Night. Rory (visiting) and not-gay Gareth (recently discovered to be in Aberystwyth) came along, as did Claire’s friend Ruth, and a good time was had by all.

And, of course, Sunday was Geek Night. We played Hacker for the first time in ages, as well as a little Fluxx. Matt seems to be a huge fan of the latter – perhaps it apppeals to the mathematician inside him.

Oh, and: Yay!

I Don’t Think ACME Get Many Customers

I recently bought three board games (Munchkin 3, Fluxx and Puerto Rico) from ACME Computer Games in Bangor (yes, I know, the same guys who got confused over my order before…). Somehow, I don’t think they get many e-customers: I just grabbed this screenshot from their web site –

Screenshot showing Munchkin 3 and 'People who bought this also bought:' listing Fluxx and Peurto Rico

Notice that I’m looking at Munchkin 3, and the Customers Who Bought This Also Bought says… yes, my two other purchases. And nothing else. Hmm.

Still no sign of my order, or any word from them (I placed the order over a week ago). Better give them a bell, I think.

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Munchkin game… Of Doom!

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

This repost was published in hindsight, on 11 March 2019.

Ruth wrote:

Dan: “Let’s play Hacker!”
Andy: “No, let’s play Munchkin. It’ll be shorter.”
General Agreement3 and a half hours later:

Dan finally wins. All players have been at level nine almost constantly for about half an hour. Several attempts at winning have been made, but all have been prevented, mostly by Andy. Dan wins by one point, in the face of all the cards Matt and Andy had left to prevent him.
All cheer. Except Andy, who nearly chokes on a pringle at having his plot foiled.

And now for something completely different…

…I like to call it sleep.

PS no idea why this is down this side. Pressed something randomly, too tired to try and fix it.

PPS O. Now it isn’t. Odd.

A Very Happy Unbirthday, To Andy

Went to Andy‘s unbirthday party (sadly the original party, this summer, had to be cancelled as nobody who matters could make it). That was fun – drinking and TwisterTM. Will try to post pictures as they become available (JTA has more).

I played Twister until I hurt my back. Then I stopped. Andy did remarkably well, and won two successive games.

Update 7 October 2019 (15th anniversary of this post). Andy’s LiveJournal is long-dead and purged, but I’ve recovered the text of his post, which I linked to, from archive.org:

The Birthday which was not a Birtday [Oct. 7th, 2004|01:13 am]

[ mood | Mood? Me? ]
[ music | Virgin radio – quiet can’t wake anyone ]

Wow people turned up I was impressed. Yay for Andy’s Aber friends. Wish more people could have been here but many studying in silly far away places so couldn’t but thanks all who did show especially those who engaged in twister. You have either all gone home and/or gone to bed so will leave you all for the night. Love al my party friends… Andy

Things That Have Been Happening

I’ve had a couple of moderately hectic days, and somehow haven’t found time to tell you all about them yet. Let’s see what I can remember:

The Tale Of Troma Night 50
Troma Night 50 was a success: a chance to re-watch some of the films that made Troma Night’s 1 and 2 so… bizarre. And it was great to see folks like JTA, Andy, and Liz returning once more to the enlightened watchers of awful films (Liz reports favourably on Troma Night 50).

The Tale In Which Geek Night Returns
And just to make the weekend that little bit more fun, we had a (long-missed) Geek Night on Sunday night: two games of Chez Geek and one of Carcassonne. Sadly, my copy of Munchkin hasn’t arrived yet. The idiots who were supposed to be sending it to me addressed the package as follows:

Daniel Huntley
The Flat
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 XYZ

…completely missing the address line. And then they were surprised when the package was returned to them by the post office. Grr.

The Tale Of Kit And The “Awwww” Chain
It’s kind of sweet that Kit’s posted a declaration of love onto his blog. And now everybody’s posting a whole chain of “Awwww” responses. Looks like I’m not the only one who found this a happy little uplifting post. It’s the little things, really.

The Tale Of The Students Who Couldn’t Use A Bus
Yesterday, riding my usual bus to work (the 526 to Penryncoch) we stopped, as usual, as the bus stop on North Parade. At this time of year, all the students have returned and a lot of them can be seen at this bus stop waiting for the morning ‘university service’ bus to take them up the hill. Obviously these particular students are unable to read, because events unfolded a little like this:

First Student: Up to the university, please.
Bus Driver: This bus doesn’t go to the university.
<university service bus pulls up behind>
First Student: Oh. Can I just go up the hill then?
Bus Driver: No; this bus isn’t going up the hill. This bus is going to Penryncoch.
First Student: Oh.
<first student gets off bus again, making room for second student – stood behind first student – to step up to the driver. meanwhile, students are getting on the double-decker parked behind, which has the words “University Service” on the front. second student puts a ten pound note in the cash tray and stares at the driver>
Bus Driver: Where are you going?
<second student spends two or three seconds staring at the driver with a look on her face that implies that she’s never heard of buses going anywhere other than to her destination>
Second Student: To the university!
<the university service bus pulls out and overtakes us, and starts going up the hill>
Bus Driver: No. This bus does not go to the university. This bus does not go up Penglais Hill at all. This bus is going to Penryncoch. That’s why the large luminescent letters on the front of the bus say… Penryncoch.

How difficult can it be? You’re probably a second year or above, now (by the fact that you’re presumably living in town) – pull your finger out.

The Tale Of Claire Getting A Job
I found myself in Game a couple of days ago, where a student was applying for a position working for them in the run-up to Christmas. They turned him down flat, of course, because he was planning to leave town as soon as term finished – 18th December, or thereabouts – which kind-of defeats of the object of Christmas staff. But “a-ha”, I thought, and grabbed an application form for Claire, who applied and was subsequently snapped-up. So Claire’s got a job again, which is nice.

The major side effect of this is that it’s very liklely that we’ll both be spending Christmas in Aberystwyth. Which is unusual and kind-of scary. Still; we’ve agreed that we’ll try and zip around the country and visit our respective families the following week, if we can’t manage to do so otherwise (Claire will be working on both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day). Hmm… Nothing more to add to that at the moment, so “Hmm” will do.

In other news, she’ll probably get a staff discount. Yay. =o)

The Tale That Involves The Technium
SmartData is moving by instalments. By this time week-after-next, we ought to be in our shiny new WDA-sponsored office in the newly-built Aber Technium, on the harbour’s edge. This is a win for several reasons:

  • I can walk to work. I mean – I can meaningfully walk to work. A one-hour walk, like where we are not, isn’t “meaningful”.
  • We’ll have a 2Mbit dedicated line, with no contention. I smell DVD downloads.
  • We have a bigger office, shiny new desks, a proper server room, a meeting room of our own, and a balcony.
  • We’ll have a new 0845 phone number, which looks all shiny and professional.
  • If I get my way <big grin>, we’ll also have a digital whiteboard and projector. Toy.

Will keep you posted.

I’m wasting time and I have plenty to get on with, so that’s enough of an update for now. Kittens.

Hide & Seek

Claire, Paul, Bryn, Ruth, JTA, Andy and I went to the beach this evening to play frisbee and watch the sunset. We even got Bryn participating, which is somewhat a rarity for any of this fun outings that involve physical activity. Everybody seemed happy to be taking a break from exams. Aber is wonderful this time of year – why must it coincide with exam time?

Paul got some mint-choc-chip ice cream without chocolate chips. Don’t ask.

Afterwards, we all went to the Castle and played hide & seek as it got darker. Paul went first, and I was last to be found – I’d climbed over a wall to a fenced-off area, in which I was very visible, but not in a place anyone would look. I went second, and took ages to find Paul and Ruth. It shouldn’t have taken so long to find Ruth – she was just in the shadows of a tower – but Paul had a brilliant hiding place: inside the ruins of a chimney (how he squeezed in there I’ll never know). For our final game, with Ruth hunting, I hid on top of a tower – with a great view – where I could become completely concealed by lying down. I was found third-from-last, with JTA and Claire remaining hidden for ages (despite many [not particularly helpful] text-messaged clues sent by JTA to Ruth). JTA had wedged himself between two upstanding slabs of rock, and could only be seen from above. Claire, better yet, had lay down and slid herself into what appeared to be an old drainage channel from one of the buildings into the courtyard.

Finally, we all returned to the flat for a game of Chez Geek: Paul won, and deservedly so (despite us all ganging up on him quite brutally at the end).

Time for bed, methinks.

 

Long Deadline

[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]

[on 13 October 2018, I was able to confirm that only the image is now missing]

[chez geek card]

The problem with long deadlines is they creep up ever so quickly.

This weekend, I’ll be learning JBoss, Ant, and JUnit, and then writing an an online bank program. Eep.

 

Just Plain Weird; And Other Observations About The World

[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]

[more of this post was recovered on Friday 24 November 2017]

This is just plain weird. How to perform a fecalectomy on a keyring.

I’ve got some damn cool new board games, including the second best one in the world, and another one in the top 100, according to the voters on BoardGameGeek. Paul, Claire and I played Hacker from Steve Jackson Games (the people behind Chez Geek and the inspiration for all those weird cards I’ve been posting to my blog). Later, Bryn, Paul, Claire and I played Carcassonne, a clever tile-laying game, and tonight, Claire and I played Tigres & Euphrates, another tile game. I’m rediscovering my love of board games, and slowly forcing it upon others as well. Bryn bought a copy of Risk, and Claire’s spent forever cutting all of the little pieces out…