Category: Blog

The Great Bear-Off

December 19, 2014

And so we begin the second half of

This is hard work you know! I hope everyone is enjoying the marathon of posts 🙂

The above is a photo taken from Bernard’s blog. He is, as we all know, a master of origami. If you’re unfamiliar with his talents, refresh your memory with some examples of his skill.

But I bet you didn’t know that he was once the student, and I the master?

It’s an undisputed fact that, way back in the days of yore, my brother’s interest in origami was ignited by my very own passion for paper folding. Indeed I was so proficient that people ~~never~~ used to call me ‘The Wizard of Whitebridge‘. In those days I could fold boats and hats and even a crane like a savant.

However I let my talents slip, and haven’t folded in quite some time. I started to wonder: could I still do it? Was I still a master, a wizard even? It was time to find out!

But what to fold? Well here’s where my buddy SFL enters the picture, since she suggested ‘bears’ as a blog topic for this 12-day marathon. Even though she may have been deliberately trying to sabotage me (bears?!?!?!?) all of a sudden it was clear: I would fold a bear!

The rules were simple: make an origami bear without consulting any pattern and instead using a fold that was completely and originally my own. I chose gold paper and started folding, using just the plans in my own head.

There was lots of pre-folding and scoring and initially it started to look more like a boat (or hat) than a bear. But that was not a problem, since I was once the god of folding paper hats! As I continued with my 100% original pattern, I ran into some difficulty when I got to a step that required a type of fold I chose to name a ‘petal fold’. But I soldiered on, and managed to complete the folds by myself and entirely without the assistance of a calmly-spoken Englishman and his channel of origami videos on Youtube.

You can see by this point I was being guided simply by the vision on my own mind, and the paper had started to resemble a bear! To allay the stress, I watched some completely unrelated videos on my iPad as I folded.

The entire process took maybe an hour to finish. I’m proud to say I did a wonderful job, and here is the result:

Magnificent isn’t it! A beautiful golden sun bear, that looks absolutely nothing like a pig! Critics may claim that the choice of paper size suggests the actions of a rank amateur, and that some of the folds leave a bit to be desired. But I can assure you they were intentional, as if to suggest ruggedness and victory against the forces of the wild.

Here’s another artistic shot of my superb creation that doesn’t look anything like a swine:

So as to compare against my skills, I asked my brother to fold a bear as well. He made some blathering claims of not having enough time and not having a suitable pattern, but this morning I received his version accompanied by the comment: “Best I could do given the short notice“:

…

He’s just showing off now isn’t he?

Into The Dungeon!

December 17, 2014

Some months ago I purchased this at a con:

This is the Dungeon! board game, based on Dungeons and Dragons and originally released in 1975. This is the 1989 ‘new’ version, which added a couple of player classes but in all other respects is identical to the original. Our set is in fantastic condition except for one omission: the rules are missing! Luckily they were only an internet search away!

Here’s the board all set up and ready to go, with only the player selection yet to happen:

Each room has a treasure and a monster. The rules are simple: kill the monsters, take the treasure (each of which is worth a gold coin value), and collect as much as is required by the character you are playing. Here’s what we chose:

Both these classes require 30,000 gold to win. The wizard (me) can cast spells but is weak at melee combat. The Paladin (KLS) is a melee fighter than can heal themselves. Within a few minutes of play we had easily plundered most of the level 1 treasures and KLS had obtained two +1 swords (making her more powerful at combat):

It’s a fun game since both the monsters and treasures are hidden, and there’s an element of strategy involved in planning your route and deciding if you’ll take it carefully and stay on the upper levels (with the paltry treasures) or delve deeper and risk terrible foes for big treasure rewards. I mostly did the former, but KLS dove ever-deeper in search of big ticket items.

Here’s me fighting off a green slime on level four:

The yellow ‘-‘ means it is immune to fire, which was half my arsenal. Luckily I had a lightning bolt (grey) and took it out easily. While I had amassed a kings bounty of treasures, their average value was low and KLS was fast catching up as she entered level five.

And then she entered this room:

Now on paper this battle didn’t seem that bad for her. With her two swords she only needed to roll 8 or better on two dice to kill it. She didn’t though, and the dragon counterattacked. This meant it got a 2d6 roll of it’s own… and it rolled a 2! This is the only way a character can die, and it has only a 1/36 chance of happening. Madelyne the (alliteratively named) Paladin was dead!

This meant all her treasure – about 15k worth – stayed in the room with the dragon. KLS had to restart with a new character, and she picked:

The warrior is a no-fuss type, lacking special skills but needing much less treasure to win. With her powerful melee attack, KLS planned to mop up the remaining level 2-4 rooms for a quick win. There was also a big pile of treasure in a Wight room that the wizard had dropped fleeing from a failed combat.

The race was on – me heading toward the dragon to cheese it to death with spells from outside the room (and therefore avoid counter attack) and KLS barreling to the wight to get the stuff I had dropped. As it turns out we both reached – and defeated – our monsters about the same time, but since I was closer to the dungeon exit I made it out first and was very narrowly crowned victor.

We both enjoyed the game far more than we thought we would! For such a simple design it’s a lot of fun, especially with the uncertainty of which monsters and treasures are where. We didn’t even venture into the deepest level (6), since the level 5 beasts were challenge enough. But next time we play we’ve decided to play cooperatively, and go for the full dungeon clear of all 80 treasures. That will be fun 🙂

Sounds Of The Universe

December 13, 2014

Well my friends it’s been altogether far too long since my last blog post! I won’t list the reasons since they are history now, and truth be told I was holding back a little, since today begins my third ever ‘blog event’! I present to you:

What does this mean? A new post a day, for twelve (very majestic) days! You can look forward to posts about crafts, weird collections of mine, year-in-review posts and even a secret or two (bears??!?).

What better way to start this cosmic event than with this:

Yes, it’s a vinyl record. I obtained this prize from a second-hand bookstore when I was in San Jose earlier this year. Although Bernard saw it first, he was strangely uninterested and I knew it had to be mine! Here’s the track listing:

This is not a music album, this is a sound effect album! None of that ‘Doctor Who Theme’ stuff here, no sir. This is a record for true fans!

Yesterday, I removed the album from the sleeve for the first time, spend about 10 minutes trying to remember how my record player worked, and gave it a spin:

The sounds that came from the speakers were not like anything on this Earth! It was as if I was right there on Exillon as I listed to the sonorous droning of ‘The Central Control Room in Exillon City‘. It was bliss.

But the next track blew me away, and since describing it is almost beyond words, why don’t you listen to ‘The Dalek Control Room‘ yourselves:

And so it continued as I listened to such wonders as the electronic hum of ‘Styre’s Scouting Machine‘ or the astral winds of ‘Sutekh Time Tunnel‘. I was being whisked from planet to planet with each new track.

Side two continued the trend, although the tracks are a lot more uplifting than on side one. As en example, here is ‘The Mandragora Helix‘ in it’s entirety:

Beautiful isn’t it? Believe me when I say the rest of the tracks on the record are just as good 🙂

This album was released in 1976, and I have the US version from 1978. It’s in astonishingly good condition for something 36 years old, and even though I will go to the grave without ever playing it again, it is certainly a jewel in my record collection!

I think these guys may agree with me…

Robot Claw