You know how 9/11 happened because the security at American airports ranged from shit-to-non-existent?

Well, under new regulations brought in by the incredibly expensive Office Of Homeland Security, a replica M60 machine gun was discovered at the customs desk and banned from being taken on the plane.

Slight problem with the replica. It wasn't entirely convincing as a real piece of military hardware.

In fact, it was 2" long.

Read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2173150.stm

How can GI Joe protect American oil interests overseas if he gets disarmed by customs?

Post-Pulsar bar crawl, and am having a very interesting conversation (and exchange of files) on MSN with a close female friend. Currently wondering if she's drunker than I thought, and if she'll be embarrassed about this tomorrow.

I am very annoyed at certain characters in my WFRP adventure (though not the players, since they're playing in-character). The dwarfs, in particular, played by Craig and Mike (who was actually being played in absentia and scarily in character by Jonno, the GM). Guess what, they had plans that clashed with mine.

The story so far: the Heideldorf Wurstfest (an annual sausage trade fair) is underway, but it turns out the fair's organiser, a sausage-maker called Heinz Schiller, uses human meat as the secret ingredient in his famed Sonderwurst. So, Plot 1, we have to gather evidence to expose Schiller as the mass murderer and cannibal (we assume) that he is.

Then it gets complicated. Plot 2 arrives, in the form of a group of gangsters from the city of Nuln. It turns out that Ernst Gottlieb, a major crimelord, was one of the unfortunates who got their hands on certain sausages from a batch several years ago. This batch was polluted with the flesh of a tainted Chaos cultist, and those who ate it quickly developed mutations. Gottlieb and his gangsters were amongst this number, and Gottlieb quite quickly went mad (his previously fat body wasted away until he was literally a head sitting on a tiny blob of shapeless flesh). He worked out what had caused his mutation and went to Heideldorf to get his revenge.

Unfortunately, being completely mad, his revenge involved destroying the entire village of Heideldorf, plus all the various merchants who had come along for the Wurstfest. So, our primary objective changed from exposing Schiller to preventing Gottlieb from getting his own back by slipping powdered warpstone (solidified Chaos magic) into Schiller's sausages, which would have the same effect on anyone who ate it as the sausages that Gottlieb had eaten.

Now, we broke into Schiller's sausagerie in the middle of the night (after I accidentally killed one of the guards when trying to knock him out), but couldn't find the poisoned sausages. Ignoring the fact that we were destroying evidence against Schiller, we set the building alight, to ensure that the poison was destroyed.

We still can't be sure this has been successful. However, the fire provided a major distraction, during which time the party split up and carried out four more simiultaneous tasks:

1) Mike and Craig (Toveen and Bomba, both dwarfs) went to break Geddy Ironnerve out of prison. Geddy is an insane dwarf warrior who has sworn an oath to kill Schiller, but can't quite remember why. They knock a guard unconscious and rescue Geddy. Geddy immediately sets off to kill Schiller, the other two dwarfs warning off the various mercenaries that get in their way, by destroying their weapons or knocking them unconscious.

2) I (Konrad Helsinger, mercenary sergeant), went to the boarding house to eliminate Ernst Gottlieb and his companions. Much of the party had refused to attack Gottlieb, either because they were scared of taking on a high-ranking gangster, or because they had moral objections to non-judicial executions (the guy confessed to being the head of a scheme intended to turn an entire village into insane mutants, for fuck's sake!). However, I had managed to secure the loyalty of Elanna and Bomba. I met Bomba just as the newly-freed Geddy spotted Schiller running to put out the fire at his sausagerie. Geddy and Toveen ran off to get Schiller, and Bomba went with them rather than come to the boarding house (it's a dwarf solidarity thing).

Naomi's character, an elf kleptomaniac transvestite called Elanna, or sometimes Elan, took advantage of the disturbance and fucked off. This is important, because she was carrying the three jars that contain traces of the warpstone that Gottlieb put into the sausages. I intended to plant these in Gottlieb's room after I killed him, thus signalling very clearly to anyone investigating the attack that these mutants had intended to poison the Wurstfest.

Now alone, I broke into Gottlieb's room, killed his henchman Utrecht and then tried to get Gottlieb to tell me where the poison was - "I'm going to kill you whatever happens, Gottlieb, but if you tell me where the poison is, I'll make it quick." He wouldn't tell me. I cut off one of his ears, bounced him off the wall and picked him up by the hair. He still wouldn't tell me, and was obviously so far gone into insanity he'd never have cracked, so I killed him.

3) Elanna broke into the pub. Earlier that night, she had witnessed something that made her suspect that karl, the landlord of the Dancing Dragon, was involved in the Sonderwurst scandal, so she went along to get a confession out of him and then blackmail him over it. She spent the rest of the evening in a fist fight with Karl, who wasn't having any of this being-knocked-unconscious-so-he-could-be-tied-up hoohaa.

4) Myst (Helena) and Dahlarn (president-elect Laura) broke into Schiller's house and collected any documents that might provide evidence against Schiller. Baron Giovanni (Jez) waited outside for them to bring the documents, since he was the only one of the three who could read. They found some compelling evidence, but have not yet had the chance to tell me. Please note, I deliberately assigned these three to breaking into Schiller's house because they were the ones opposed to me taking out Ernst Gottlieb and his henchman.

So, anyway, Geddy, Bomba and Toveen are chasing Schiller around the village. Several guards are attacked and wounded during the chase, and when Geddy actually starts beating Schiller to death, the fighting becomes more serious. Bomba kills at least two guards before Manfred Harwit, a retired witch hunter, gets involved. Bomba kills him in a single round, smashing his skull with a warhammer. Yes, a member of my party has murdered a witch hunter, a Templar of Sigmar. Fan-fucking-tastic. Nice one, you fucking stunty bastard. I'll set your beard on fire for this.

Now we're stuck with the situation that Schiller is close to death, there are three incredibly strong dwarfs stopping anyone from keeping him alive long enough to expose the Sonderwurst conspiracy.

Baron Giovanni is trying to persuade Geddy to stop killing Schiller, since they've got evidence to convict and hang him. Geddy isn't listening.


What happens next?
Quite simply, there's going to be more violence. All three dwarfs need taking down, or at least persuading to stop killing people.

I also need to get the jars back from Elanna and plant them in Gottlieb's room at the boarding house, before anyone notices that there are one and a bit corpses in the room.

If we can resolve the entire Heideldorf situation through legal channels, as well as prevent a mass poisoning, we could be in line for a nice reward (or hush money), as well as lots of Experience points.



Potential problems:
1) Two of our number have just killed several men, including a witch hunter, in full view of the entire village. They're in line for several charges of murder, and will probably hang for it. Our only option is to disown the dwarfs until we can prove that there was a conspiracy (which we think the witch hunter may have been involved in, although this is looking increasingly unlikely). It might get to the point where we can't defend the dwarfs for what they've been doing away from the main body of the party, and we have to cut them loose completely and let them get tried, convicted and executed. I sure as hell aren't becoming an outlaw by rescuing them, particularly since that'll involve having to kill innocent people.

2) We've killed the witch hunter. If he wasn't involved in the conspiracy, he could have been a powerful ally. If he was involved, he can't confess any more, and we lose a major piece of evidence.

3) Geddy is about to beat Heinz Schiller to death. Fuck that. I want to kill Schiller myself, or at least get him killed on my terms - he tried killing us earlier, by sending us to a ruined keep where his co-conspirators tried to turn us into sausage meat.


Things I've learned from tonight:

1) Always share your plans with the other characters. This should stop them from doing other things and turning a well co-ordinated, twisting conclusion to an adventure into a pointless bloodbath littered with the corpses of innocent victims.

2) Never allow dwarfs into your party. Elves are fine, if a bit stuck up occasionally, or too bloody moralistic. Halflings - well, we've had bad experiences with a halfling before now, so I'd probably object to any replacement. But dwarfs... They're combat bunnies by nature, and incredibly aggressive. To the average roleplayer, this means that the only way of playing a dwarf is to kill everything that isn't friendly. This was fine last term, when we were wandering through dungeons infested with skaven and mind-slaves, but the current adventure requires actual thinking and subtlety. Bomba and Toveen basically threw away any chance at a sophisticated, intelligent conclusion to this adventure by releasing a psychotic Geddy from prison and then helping him to publically murder a senior member of the community, several mercenaries, and worst of all, A FUCKING WITCH HUNTER!. Dwarfs are not all psychotic idiots, and I will be really annoyed if the next dwarf in the party is played like this. (Chances are neither of these dwarfs will survive the adventure - if I don't kill them, I'm sure the dozens of mercenaries in Heideldorf will.)

Random thought for the day: Incest is an anagram of nicest.

Make of that what you will.

This one's been doing the rounds. The first time I found it was on Laura's site, Shadow Grove, but then Helena put it on hers, and then Kate posted it as well. This is my version, but where there's been an overlap with Kate's, I've left it as is.

/--Seven things I love:
+ Writing
+ Sex
+ Roleplaying
+ Good, intelligent science fiction
+ Friends
+ That warm feeling of being cuddly with someone
+ Chocolate


/--Seven things I hate: (Pretty much the same as Kate, but I'll swap 'period pains' for something else.)
+ Dharmesh Mistry. He's a cunt, scuse the French. He's one of those people who should have been drowned at birth.
+ Being ill
+ Being late
+ Unnecessary Stress
+ Being let down
+ Letting people down
+ Arguments


/--Seven things in my room
+ Computer, aka my best friend
+ A bed, handy for sleeping in
+ A sink, handy when you can't quite be bothered going all the way to the toilet (just kidding!)
+ Several cases of wargaming miniatures at the bottom of my wardrobe
+ Realm of Chaos: The Lost And The Damned, looking nice and thick and hardback and god-damn-collectors-itemish on my bookshelf. Oh yeah, I'm that cool.
+ A mint condition, hardback copy of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Another thing that makes me incredibly cool, or maybe a total Games Workshop fanboy. One or the other.
+ A chrome lava lamp with silver wax inside. Very soothing while feeling stressed.


/--Seven Random Facts(TM) about me
+ Some people think I'm allergic to peanuts because I always say, 'Does it have nuts in?'. I just don't like them.
+ I want to be a published author who doesn't have to have a real job
+ Even if I don't need a job, I want to work as a games developer for Games Workshop, or maybe just write roleplaying stuff.
+ When I offer someone a shoulder to lean/cry on, I mean it, and don't have ulterior motives. (Or if I do, it's subconscious, and the primary conscious concern is about the person in question's feelings)
+ I'm far better at articulating an argument on the internet than I am verbally.
+ I'm one of the shyest people you'll ever meet, and have the self-confidence of a terrified squirrel.
+ I'm partially deaf, particularly in the right ear. This is why I always hold my phone in my left hand.


/--Seven things I can do
+ Complete most computer games within a week of buying them.
+ Drive
+ Paint models to a reasonable standard
+ Leave more comments on other people's blogs than on my own
+ Concede a point in an argument and change my mind if presented with a convincing argument. Some people think this makes me weak-minded. I think that makes them stubborn and stupid.
+ Forgive (in most cases - see things I hate, above)
+ Sail calmly through all but the most devastating crisis without betraying any stress whatsoever (but see things I can't do, below)


/--Seven things I can't do
+ Muster up enough stress to force me to get off my arse and do something about a crisis, rather than just sit back and think, I'll do it later...
+ Juggle
+ Sing
+ Dance
+ Seduce someone (at least, not when I'm trying).
+ Hold out on forgiving someone. If I have a bustup with a friend, I always end up apologising first, even if I did nothing wrong, simply to get rid of the horrid sick feeling I get when I think I've just destroyed a friendship.
+ Finish something I'm writing. Everything's work in progress.


/--Seven things that scare me: (I'll leave this as Kate wrote it)
+ Spiders
+ People I love dying
+ Arguments
+ Violent people
+ my own lack of self esteem
+ other people laughing at me
+ the thought of losing my friends


/--Seven things that attract me to the opposite sex
+ Nice warm eyes, pools you can bathe in, that sort of thing.
+ Intelligence
+ Nice breasts. We're not talking any particular size or anything, just nice for how they are.
+ Sensitivity
+ Huggableness
+ Not insanely argumentative
+ Not immature - no sulks, tantrums, backstabbing, sleeping with a friend to get at you...


/--Top Seven Films
+ Excalibur
+ The Last Of The Mohicans (Daniel Day Lewis version)
+ Saving Private Ryan
+ Fatherland
+ The Fellowship Of The Ring
+ The Two Towers (despite the skateboarding elf)
+ Blade Runner


/--Seven things I plan to do before I die
+ Get my work published
+ Become well known within the roleplaying and/or wargaming communities
+ Roleplay, a lot.
+ Have sex, a lot.
+ Create my own mythos/fantasy series (I'll keep this one from Kate's list)
+ Have kids, just so I can be a cool parent. But not for a while yet, ladies, don't panic.
+ Change the world for the better. Maybe this will require entering politics, but I'd be crap at that.


/--Seven things I say a lot
+ My god, I'm stressed
+ What?
+ Mm (or some other non-verbal, non-committal sound).
+ My god, I hate being single
+ Bugger
+ Thanks
+ Sorry




Tonight is election night at LURPS. Laura is about to become President. Congratulations, Laura.

I've come up with a plan on how to deal with Heinz Schiller the human-sausagemaker, Ernst Gottlieb the mutant crimelord and Geddy Ironhead, the deranged dwarf trollslayer. And I'm not going to tell anyone about it until it happens. I just hope none of them have plans that clash.

Just added a new link on the left. Helena, currently playing a Wood Elf called Myst in my WFRP campaign.

She's an idealistic, Good-aligned, demi-human, prone to doing the right thing and not killing people unnecessarily (even if they're psychotic crimelords).

Maybe not the most useful mindset for a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventure.

[EDIT:] I've been informed that Mist is actually spelled Myst, like the computer game. Consider it corrected.

The Purity Test

This is what you need to do: Answer YES or NO to the following 100 questions.
Then send it to as many people as you like, including the PERSON who sent it to
you, and put your score in the subject box. At the end of the test, total up the
number of NO answers. This is your score. The higher the score, the 'purer'
you are. All questions pertain to men and women not related to you, unless
otherwise specified.


I. Have you ever:

1. Had a cigarette? No
2. Had alcohol? Yes
3. Tried pot or hash? Yes
4. Tried stronger drugs (coke, acid, shrooms, etc)? No
5. Thrown up from alcohol? Yes
6. Kissed a woman? Yes
7. Kissed a man? Yes
8. French kissed a man? No
9. French kissed a woman? Yes
10. Put your tongue in someone's ear? Yes
11. Had someone put their tongue in your ear? Yes
12. Fondled a woman's breast, or had your breast fondled? Yes
13. Put your mouth on a woman's breast, or had it done to you? Yes
14. Seen a nude man? Yes
15. Seen a nude woman? Yes
16. Had telephone sex? No
17. Undressed a man sexually? No
18. Undressed a woman sexually? Yes
19. Been sexually undressed? Yep
20. Fondled a man's genitals? No
21. Fondled a woman's genitals? Hee hee hee... yup.
22. Had an orgasm? God yes, frequently and repeatedly for years. Oh, you mean with someone else there? Yes.
23. Climaxed from a partner's fondling? No
24. Brought a partner to climax thru fondling: Yes
25. Performed fellatio? No
26. Performed cunnilingus? Not for long enough that it counts. :-(
27. Climaxed from oral sex? No
28. Brought a partner to climax thru oral sex? No
29. "Finger-fucked"? Yes
30. "Dry fucked" (with all your clothes on)? Yes.
31. Bathed or showered with a man? No
32. Bathed or showered with a woman? Yes. It was nice.
33. Drawn blood while making out? No
34. Bled while making out? Yes. I had my lip bitten, and it swelled up and bruised.
35. Spent the night in a man's bed? Only my own.
36. Spent the night in a woman's bed? Yes
37. Been caught during sexual activity by parents? No
38. Falsely promised something for sexual purposes? Not that I recall.
39. Gotten someone drunk for sexual purposes? No
40. Been propositioned by a man? I've been complimented, but never actually propositioned.
41. Accepted? N/A
42. Been propositioned by a woman? Yes
43. Accepted? Yes
44. Watched an X-rated movie? Yes
45. Watched other people having sex? No
46. Had sex? Yes
47. Given/gotten cunnilingus during the woman's period? Eugh... No.
48. Had sex during the woman's period, or done to you while on your period? No
49. Had anal sex? Eugh... No. Not planning to either.
50. Picked someone up only for sexual purposes? If that includes ex-girlfriends, then yes.
51. Used the phrase "I love you" falsely to entice someone to bed? No.
52. Acted or dressed differently than usual to seduce someone? Yes. Didn't work though.
53. Bought birth control? Yes.
54. Put a condom on someone else? No.
55. Put a diaphram or other contraceptive in someone else? Does reminding someone to take the pill count? Okay, no.

II. Have you:

56. Had sex while drunk or high? Yes
57. Had sex with more than 1 person since you began having sex? Yes
58. Had sex with more than 10 people since you began having sex? No [sigh]
59. Had sex with more than 1 person at a time? No, but if anyone's open to offers...
61. Had sex with a virgin? No
62. Had sex with someone younger than 15? No
63. Had sex with someone older than 25? No
64. Had sex with someone whose last name you didn't know? No. What about first names? (Only kidding)
65. Had sex with other people in the house/area (dorms included)? No
66. Had sex with other people watching? I sure hope not.
67. Had sex in anything other than the missionary position? Yes
68. Had sex more than 3 times in one night/day? Yes. 7 apparently.
69. Had sex while being watched? Haven't we already done this one in 66? No
70. Had a man come in your mouth? Er... no.
71. Had sex in a car? No
72. Had sex in an airplane? Never even been in an aeroplane.
73. Had sex in an elevator? No
74. Had sex in your own house? My room at Chancellor's. I suppose that counts.
75. Had sex in a public place? No. It'd be nice though. (A private public place, obviously. Not in Alex Square or anything.)
76. Had sex under 3 feet of water? No
77. Had sex on the first date? Yes
78. Had sex with most of your clothes on? Yes
79. Had sex without birth control? Yes
80. Had sex to get something (a job, drugs, etc)? Do orgasms count? If not, no.
81. Had sex while tied down? No. But sounds good, might want to in future. (I'll leave this unedited from Emilie's version.)
82. Hired someone for sex? No
83. Forced someone to have sex? Fuck off, no
84. Been forced to have sex? No
85. Participated in S & M? No
86. Engaged in transvesticism? No
87. Engaged in "Golden Showers"? Eugh... no.
88. Thought you or your partner was pregnant? Only found out about the scare afterwards, so I suppose this counts as a no.
89. Had an abortion (or has your partner)? No
90. Gotten VD? No

III.Have you ever performed sexual acts:

91. While being filmed or photographed? No
92. With someone more than 5 years younger than you? No
93. With someone more than 10 years older than you? No
94. With someone of your own sex? No
95. With a relative? No
96. With an animal? No
97. With an inanimate object? No
98. With a human vegetable? No
99. With a retarded person? No
100. With a dead person? No (Don't these count as inanimate objects?)

Total: 65% pure. Damn.

How's everyone else do?


Hmm... A bit of a crap purity test, really. It gives the same weight to 'Have you smoked a cigarette?' as it does to 'Are you a necrophiliac?', 'Do you like bloodsports?' and 'Have you ever forced anyone to have sex?'

Rather suspiciously, it also counts a 'yes' answer to 'Have you been forced to have sex?' as being a sign of a lack of purity. A bit too close to blaming the victim, if you ask me.

And after posting the auction, I discovered three other copies of the same book, none of which have had any bids made for them.

Bugger bugger bollocks.

I need to get home and find something else, more valuable, that I can sell. I've not got anything here.

Maybe some of the videos that I've later bought on DVD. (And then I can put the proceeds towards buying myself a new DVD player - or why bother? There's various DVD-playing games consoles in my house next year.)

Since making the last post, I've just spent another £20+ on about fifty rifle-style weapons for Necromunda and a regiment of 20 Ungor beastmen for my Warhammer 40k Daemon World army. Fortunately, my cheque book's run out, so I can't pay for them until my new cheque book arrives, by which time hopefully my parents will have given me some cash.

Dammit, I'm an eBay addict...

Hmm, having spent over £100 on eBay over the last few weeks, I've decided to start earning some of it back.

My first attempt at selling something over eBay is a book I bought on a whim last term, This Is The SAS, an old pictorial book about the regiment, from 1941 to 1982. Not bad, but it's not particularly something I want to keep forever. When I go home at Easter, I'm going to try and sell a lot of my other old books.

If anyone bids on this thing, I'm guaranteed to make at least a tiny profit - I paid £1.00 for it in a second-hand shop, and the starting bid's £3.00.

I could also do with cancelling my TV licence. I reckon I'm paying about 50p-£1.00 per hour I actually spend watching TV.

[UPDATE]
Hmm, just taken a look at my TV licence. Apparently it expired in October. I should have another one somewhere, that means. I'm sure they've still been taking Direct Debit payments for it.