evildrganymede

jynersolives, 14 days ago to DoctorWho

Hot tip for anyone interested in getting into (modern) #DoctorWho

1. Get a good VPN so that you can access the BBC iPlayer and watch for free

2. DO NOT START WITH ROSE OR ANY EPISODES 1!!! Instead start with these episodes:

s1e6: Dalek
s2e4: Girl In The Fireplace
s3e10: Blink
s4e10: Midnight
s5e10: Vincent & the Doctor
s6e11: God Complex
2013: Day Of the Doctor
s8e4: Listen
s9e5: Girl Who Died
s10e3: Thin Ice
s11e6: Demons Of The Punjab
s11 special: Resolution

evildrganymede, 3 months ago to VideoGames

Hm, what's this free game on Steam - "The Ur-Quan Masters"? Sure, I'll check it out...

Where has this game been all my life?! It's insane! I met the Spathi (Space Captain Fwiffo) on Pluto and they're like something out of the old Captain Kremen skits (fully voiced as well - is everything voiced in this?). Gotta love the way they say ULTIMATE EEEVIL in exactly the same way all the time :D. I think this is gonna be a lot of fun! #videogames

evildrganymede, 11 months ago to boardgames

Solo 3p test run of Thunder Road: Vendetta! This is the field at the end of the first turn. #boardgames #ThunderRoad

evildrganymede, 9 months ago to random

Looks like it finally got me :( #covid

The test expired a couple of months ago so maybe it's wrong, but I had a really croaky voice yesterday and got slammed hard with flu-like symptoms last night (coughs, shivers, fever dreams) and I did a covid test this morning and it's positive.

Also I can't smell marmite or peanut butter (or anything else) anymore, which indicates the test might actually be correct :(. I didn't have much of a sense of smell before but I hope that comes back eventually! EDIT: I just checked again and I DO have smell! Yay!

I'm jabbed up to the nines so hopefully this will pass soon without further incident but it still sucks. At least I got it before I went on holiday!

evildrganymede, 2 months ago to boardgames

oh lordy! This game is HUGE! 😲 #boardgames #voidfall

evildrganymede, 3 months ago to Catroventos

How is one supposed to pronounce "Dunwich" (as in HPL's "The Dunwich Horror", or "the Dunwich Legacy")?

I always thought it was "dun-witch" but I just heard someone call it "dunnitch" and weirdly I never even thought to pronounce it like that - despite being from the UK where we have places like Norwich ("norritch"), Greenwich ("grennitch"), Woolwich ("woolitch"), Bromwich ("brommitch") and also Warwick ("warrick") and Chiswick ("chizzick") ... but then we also have Ipswich ("ips-witch"), Northwich ("north-witch"), Middlewich ("middle-witch") and of course Sandwich ("sand-witch").

So now my mind is blown. Which is right - "Dun-wich" or "Dunnitch"?! #english #hpl #lovecraft

evildrganymede, 1 month ago to scifi

Well, look what I found (in a second hand bookshop up the road in Sidney)! #starblazer #scifi
@nyrath @iamgerardthomas

evildrganymede, 9 months ago to random

&%@$ing Air Canada... just when I'd got everything sorted for my trip to NZ next month they pull the rug out and randomly reschedule my connecting YYJ to YVR flight so I'd miss the Air NZ flight from there... and apparently there isn't another connecting flight available the same day. So now I have to wait a few days to hear back (via expedia) about whether I can be rebooked on a connecting flight on the previous evening and will have to stay overnight in YVR. ARGH.

evildrganymede, 8 months ago to random

Aw, very sad to hear that David McCallum died :(. He was amazing in Sapphire and Steel (and pretty much everything else he was in too, but that's one of my favourite TV shows ever!). I think he had a small part in Babylon 5 too?

evildrganymede, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to battletech

...and they're done! All the mechs from the Inner Sphere Force Packs are painted (and the AGoaC and Beginners Box). I started this in June 2022 and this was my first proper painting run (after a practice run of a Skaven Blood Bowl team) and I've been painting whenever I can since then. 50 mechs done! I have some Clan boxes but I'll be doing those all in one clan's scheme per box, which should be a bit easier than coming up with a new paint job for each mech (I did one IS force pack in Kurita colours just as a test run).

I'm quite proud of all of them but I think my favourites are the "character" mechs - the Cylon Centurion, Skeletor Atlas, He-Man Victor, Shockwave Cyclops. The Stalker, Dragon, Orion, Archer and the Unseen mechs turned out pretty good too. The Thug is probably my least favourite because of the garish colour scheme but at least it stands out :). 1/3 #battletech #miniatures #miniaturepainting

evildrganymede, 6 months ago to TheCulture

The Culture Drawings book is full of pages like this - all these raw worldbuilding thoughts and sketches lovingly scanned in and restored! Whether there's much that can actually be deciphered coherently is another matter, but it's kinda fascinating to see :) #TheCulture #IainMBanks #SciFi

Delinquent Class GOU

evildrganymede, 7 months ago to Astronomy

The Psyche mission finally launched today and I am looking forward to the data it sends sends back when it gets to its synonymous destination! We haven't seen a world(let) quite like this - Is Psyche (the asteroid) just going to be a huge lump of metal in space? What would craters even look like there? Or is it still going to have some kind of regolith on it? We'll find out in 2029! #psyche #astronomy

evildrganymede, 6 months ago to scifi

I'm reading Children of Time (about halfway through?) and so far it's brilliant, so I picked up the rest of the trilogy today :). Humans accidentally uplift a civilisation of Jumping Spiders as part of a terraforming project, what could possibly go wrong? :) #scifi

I'd say "warning: not for arachnophobes" but considering I am one it's not traumatising me too much - at least the author picked the cute ones :). I just view the spiders as an alien race really, but they're really well done! Definitely worth picking up, I'd say. #scifi #scifibooks

evildrganymede, 5 months ago to random

Am I alone in thinking that the Winter Solstice (today) marks the middle of winter, not the start of winter? It just makes more sense to me - this is the shortest day in the northern hemisphere so winter should be on either side of it as the days shorten toward and lengthen away from that, rather than just starting when it's the shortest? #wintersolstice

evildrganymede, 4 months ago to boardgames

Just finished a cracking game of Heat: Pedal to the Metal on TSS (since we're snowed under here) - I found a very good mod with TONS of custom made tracks that were the same as the ones from Formula De! So maybe I can finally play the Nurburgring!!.

The race was very close right up to the end with me ahead for most of the first lap, but my opponent took the lead in the second lap and negotiated the last tight corner much better than I did... and to cap it all a couple of the Legend bots managed to overtake me right at the finish line so in the end I came fourth!

I think this may be the racing game I've been looking for though! I love Formula De but this does racing so much better and more elegantly (and it's also more playable with two players).#boardgames

the pack bunches up now as we hit the first slow corner.
by the time we hit the first hairpin we're neck and neck (a couple of the bots are catching up but two of them are far behind).
Final positions after the second lap - Red (my human opponent) wins but the blue Legend bot almost caught up with him! Yellow bot comes third, comfortably overtaking me as I barely make it across the finish line in fourth place in that round after a rough second hairpin (I didn't spin out but my options weren't great), with the Green and White bots left far behind in fifth and sixth place!

evildrganymede, 10 months ago to PetBirds

A few test shots with the Pixel 7 Pro from my bike ride today, they come out pretty well! I also saw a snake on the way back (which is definitely worth more nature points than birds and insects!) but I couldn't take a pic of it because it was about to get run over by a rack of cyclists and I had to tell them to avoid it and it had slithered off into the grass after that :(.

I think I might have seen an eagle (two actually - there was another circling high up with the one I took a picture of). #naturephotography #vancouverisland #saanich #birds

female brewer's blackbird, maybe? Might have been a juvenile, it was getting fed occasionally.
not sure if this is a female brewer's blackbird, it seemed thinner and the neck is longer.
is this some kind of eagle?! It was soaring overhead in circles, it actually flew about 10m above me at one point. It may have been eyeing up the swallows flitting around near the ground (which were impossible to take a picture of because they never stop!).

evildrganymede, 10 months ago to random

Woohoo! Sold my Federation Commander collection and pretty much reclaimed what I spent on it (other than tax and shipping). That's nice for my bank account and saved the buyer a lot of effort tracking them down anyway!

evildrganymede, 11 months ago to random

I think people who have car alarms need to be shamed and run out of town along with their infernal noise-making machines.

EDIT: a car alarm has been going off (repeatedly) for pretty much two hours since 5am. The amount of death and destruction I want to rain down on the owner is incalculable. WTF is even the point? Nobody ever calls the police if an alarm's going off, its sole purpose is just to annoy everyone who can hear it.

evildrganymede, 6 months ago to ADHD

In September (just before my 50th birthday) I was diagnosed (by a medical profressional) with #ADHD. I have the combined variety - 6/9 inattention, 5/9 hyperactivity/impulsivity.

ADHD means that my brain chemistry is a bit wonky (and has been all my life, which explains a lot of things about me). ADHD is a neurological issue - people with ADHD have a bunch of physical differences in their brains, issues with neurotransmitters, how dopamine affects them, and neuron networks firing in their brain when they shouldn't be, all of which basically get in the way of life & mean (among other things) that we can't sit still, we get bored & are distracted very easily, forget things, and can't focus for a long time on tasks (mostly. Sometimes we hyperfixate on things instead!). There's a huge spectrum of symptoms & it manifests differently for everyone who has it but there are definitely commonalities that are shared. There's a saying though: "If you've met one person with ADHD, you've met one person with ADHD", because we're all different!

I've seen some people in local groups here who were diagnosed as adults who have had their lives completely messed up by this, but for me it seems I managed to figure out my own coping mechanisms and while it's still had a significant effect on my life it's not absolutely wrecked it like it has for some people. I'm not sure whether that's because it's not as severe for me as in others or because I've just managed to deal with it & work around it better, or maybe it's both.

This little pill, however, could change everything for me. After much research and consideration (and talking to people, including a very good ADHD coach to help me understand things) I've decided to start on medication that hopefully will bring some balance and order back into my brain. I'm starting on 18mg Concerta today & we'll see how that goes (the dosage may have to increase) but hopefully this will have a positive effect and let me concentrate & focus better!

evildrganymede, 10 months ago to traveller

Is it me or does the ship in the Star Wars Outlaws trailer have a bit of a Traveller Far Trader vibe going on... maybe it's just the general slab-like shape, I dunno. #traveller #starwars #rpg #scifi

Marava far trader from Traveller

evildrganymede, 10 months ago to boardgames

I barely survived the part 1 ("The Gathering") of the Night of the Zealot scenario in #ArkhamHorror! I thought I'd failed it but then I remembered I had a Dodge card in my hand that I could use and that saved the day for me! I was just playing solo with a single Investigator (Roland) on Normal difficulty which was still pretty challenging - but it was fun! Will probably attempt Part 2 on Friday or the weekend. #boardgames

evildrganymede, 6 months ago to books

I've finished re-reading The Lord of the Rings! It was fun to read it again after so long - I read it all at once in a big omnibus edition back in the 80s, as I recall I somehow managed to read the whole thing in a weekend (or maybe from Friday to Monday at least)! By the time the PJ movies came out my memory of the story was very fuzzy (especially after the first volume)!

It was interesting to compare the book to the PJ films and realise how different the films were - they mostly got the right idea but a lot of details were certainly different - e.g. the Elves didn't show up at Helms Deep, the Entmoot went a bit more smoothly, the Ringbearers didn't go to Osgiliath, the Army of the Dead didn't auto-win the battle at Pelennor Fields (or even show up there at all), etc. But a lot of things that were there were just shifted around or said by other characters at different points (Saruman's demise, for example). Still, I love the PJ movies and don't think any less of them - now I'm just reminded of the full story :). It was fun to read it again and easier to read too (probably because of familiarity from the movies).

I may even go through the Appendices at some point, there's some interesting stuff in there (apparently there's a new "Nature of Middle Earth" book out there somewhere that goes into more of the worldbuilding which I'd be very interested to read!). And I'd like to read the Fall of Numenor book too at some point (probably when it stops being an expensive hardback!). #books #lordoftherings

evildrganymede, 28 days ago to astrophotography

I did go back up to Christmas Hill tonight (which was quite crowded!) but sadly there were no more aurorae. It was a clear night though and I figured if there was no aurora then I could try out the astrophotography mode on my phone.

One thing I discovered is that the phone mount on my tripod is terrible. It's a springloaded thing that makes it very hard to actually take the photo (because the mount is in the way), see what's being photographed (because the mount covers half the screen), and also not damage or turn off the phone (because the mount clamps on the sides which is where the power button and volume are). But I managed some kind of uneasy, asymmetrically-mounted compromise that worked!

I'm not sure why some turned out blue and some turned out brown/grey though. I think I've identified some of the constellations in the frame at the time (though they're also harder to see in these pics because there's so many stars). But I think they turned out well! #astrophotography

different photo of the same patch of sky but now it's blue-tinted for some reason.
cassiopeia, and cepheus above it somewhere? (looking north)
looking directly up. the big dipper might be in here somewhere?

evildrganymede, 22 days ago to Wargaming

We finally played "1066, Tears To Many Mothers" last night and it was good! It'd work well as an introductory wargame (it's really a very interactive tableau building card game).

The artwork is amazing on the cards too, though some of the noble folks look a bit too clean & modern for the 11th century. I'm sure the artist based some of the characters on moderns actors too, Harold Godwinson looks suspiciously like Russell Crowe! :D

You start off with the appearance of Halley's Comet & progress through several objectives to get to the Battle of Hastings (strangely the Saxons took the comet as a bad omen, and the Normans took it as a good omen. Not sure how that's decided!). While you're doing that you can pick off/damage units that are being build in your opponent's tableau, move your cards around, & do other actions. The resources to buy cards are very tight in this game & it seems that it's best to get the resource generating cards out there as early as possible - otherwise you need to spend cards from your hand as resources & it's easy to run out of cards there! You're also somewhat at the mercy of the random draw to determine what is available on a turn - at the end I had some very high cost units in my hand that I had no way to pay for and put in play!

I started off pretty well as the Saxons, fending off Vikings in the north and then tromping down to the south of England to face the Normans. But I got stuck on later objectives as I didn't have a lot of cards with Zeal and so the Normans beat me to the Hastings objective and got a headstart attacking the wedges there. By the time I caught up I was already demoralised and I hadn't really arranged my units in the wedges very well - in the end the Normans took two wedges and won. I almost killed William with my archers earlier but he managed to shrug off all his wounds with a timely "heal one character" card!

It's a fun, clever, thematic game with lots of interesting decisions - worth checking out! #wargaming

about halfway through the game.
The End - the Saxons couldn't gain a big enough advantage in the Battle of Hastings and were defeated by the Normans!