So I'm off work today to go to the doctor's (but not the DOCK-TOHR). Just spotted on the way through from the kitchen was Tasha, sitting in her chair, and doing some sort of evil knees-up to the tune of "Oye Como Va" by Carlos Santana.

She told me she was the Mighty Boosh.

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of the Star Wars expanded universe. I will, however, concede that some of the Star Wars stuff outside of Proper Canon (the films, Battlefront II) can be cool. The same, sadly, cannot be said of the Yuuzhan Vong. Now, they've got their problems, and they are many, but a lot of it can be explained by realising that they're based on a bunch of unused concepts from non-starter 2nd Edition AD&D campaign settings (Dark Sun) and much the work of notorious Drow-fetishist R.A. Salvatore who NEVER REPLIED TO MY EMAILS ABOUT THE SPOW, WHAT ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR US NOW?
Anyway, to smooth over the fact that they are space drow, they also incorporate a little bit of Spelljammer's technology and they made them look like orcs.

I like to imagine them actually coming out of a Star Wars RPG session - I can see Pete DMing, Mike and Tony playing their Twi'lek con artists and Trandoshan bounty hunters and whatnot, and Phil comes in asking to play a character from a previous campaign. Pete's not paying attention and so things go well until there's a fight, blasters are drawn, and Phil's all "I quaff a potion of Giant Strength and ready my keen longsword +3!"
At that point, you either politely mesh it in or just pause and say, "I think I'm going to need to see your character sheet".

Not sure where that's going. It's late and there's a cat.

You know, it's all my friends list seem to be talking about these days is Iron Man, Iron Man, who can do whatever an Iron can, and such. Well, I'll tell you that I wasn't exactly queueing up in costume to watch Robert Downey Jr. hammer back the scotch and fight the evil as the bodyguard of billionaire industrialist and defence contractor Anthony Stark, but we did queue up in costume to get our tickets for one of the most awesome spectaculars you'll ever see.



I admit I think the costumes may have been a bit much, and Tom looks very little like M.C. Gainey, but the only comments we got were from people who were cross about Natasha's Ving Rhames outfit.

Wow, back a whole Useless Days and already with the Youtube?

Leave me alone. I like Mitchell and Webb, dammit.

Hrm. Can I not post a poll anymore?

Anyway, on to the point. Boba Fett: Awesome or irritating?

Answers in the comments, please, as well as a for why. I will permit Expanded Universe rationales on this one, as much of Fett's pervasive presence comes from the Expanded Universe, giving one the impression that Bo'Shek the Rockabilly Spacer cannot but open his fridge without finding Fett, helmet off, hunched on the top shelf and eating his chicken, getting his jetpack all in the potato salad.

So, to recap. Fett: Yes or no?

Once again, I'm at the cutting edge of actually reading the damn showcases I buy. Recommendations on the past six-months-worth of read volumes as follows:

1. Dark Horse Presents the Savage Sword of Conan. Yes, I KNOW I'm on a big 70s fantasy kick what with reading 1st edition D&D and all that, but COME ON. It's Conan! CONAN, people!
The art's pretty good, too.

Conan. You can watch his brow get more troubled as you read.

2. Showcase Presents Booster Gold, volume 1. If I ever find a comic more 80s than this I will be very surprised indeed. I suspect "Showcase Presents Hall & Oates Vs. Predator, Vol. 1" would be less 80s.
Actually, that link contains pretty much all the information you need regarding Mr. Jurgens' meisterwerk.

3. It was a toss-up between the delayed-reading-but-rewardingly-mental Showcase Presents Wonder Woman vol. 1, and the almost-immediately-read-but-remarkably-formulaic-even-for-a-war-comic Showcase Presents Enemy Ace vol. 1, but obviously Wonder Woman is a girl and so must lose out to Hans Von Hammer.
I'm kidding! Enemy Ace is great, but it does tell pretty much exactly the same story 50 times in a row. I'm guessing Kanigher forgot - he seems to have been busy.

HONOURABLE MENTION: Anything with Superman in it, particularly the story where he melts the south pole to build cheap houses. THANKS, CLARK.

So, I've been looking at the ol' 1st edition of basic Dungeons & Dragons as Junior is keen to learn the family nerditry. The following is a verbatim extract from the 1st Edition Basic Set (1981 printing) Example of Play:

DM: Black Dougal, you find out that you missed a tiny discoloured needle in the latch. Roll a saving throw versus Poison, please!

Dougal (rolling): Missed it!

DM: Black Dougal gasps "Poison!" and falls to the floor. He looks dead.

Fredrik: I'm grabbing his pack to carry treasure in.

That example of naked callous greed and psychotic indifference to life or death made me realise what I'd missed about roleplaying: The atmosphere that can only result from making half-a-dozen armed, greedy, paranoid adventurers hang around with each other and murder goblins for a living.

And, you know, that got me to thinking. Years back I set up a Birthright email campaign which I later gave short shrift to because I THOUGHT I KNEW BETTER. Well, I didn't. Any idea that waddled into my potentially broken brain was more or less a no-starter, due to my inability to finish anything. I mean, when was the last time I updated this? The new job cranks back my free internet and that's that, more or less. And if I'm on here, I'm playing Knights of the Old Republic - the irony of that being that I hate every single character in the game, and thus hanging out with that lot in a computer rpg is roughly equivalent to hanging out with a bunch of people I don't like who are forever badgering me for free stuff or telling me they don't trust me and I do not want my game time to be roughly equivalent to visiting my blasted sister.

GAH.

Anyway, I've lost track of where I was.
Ah, yes. Birthright. I missed it, you know, after I repeatedly bludgeoned any attempt everyone made to inject it with fun in favour of my own more stupid and awful ideas which, bless them, everyone was polite enough to not tell me sucked. I often shoot too high, and goodness knows I did it enough with that poor Birthright group. Maybe I should just stick to something that, with even the tiniest amount of gumption, I could bloody well do.
Of course, that requires the tiniest amount of gumption. Or at least being forced to do something for, say, about two hours a week which I should sodding well be able to manage.

THUS! it is my new pledge that I will return the Birthright group to life. I will dedicate one evening per week to Birthright-related stuff for the time being, and people will have that time to sort out any actions they want to do. It will move at a fixed pace so that I cannot grind to a halt after getting distracted. I will fix up a solid and reliable system for determining whether or not an action is a success beyond simple GM fiat. For now, I think we can definitively call a coin-toss "solid" and "reliable". I will go through the old archives and piece together what once was. I shall inform the players old and new alike.
Put bluntly, I will do something, dammit, and if I faff about then I should be told I am faffing about. Also, don't let me get any funny ideas.
Now, I set up the campaign on a Yahoo group but I'm honestly not 100% sure that the old Yahoo setup is the way to go for this kind of thing. I was thinking maybe a forum, that way we could have a thread for every season so people can refer back to it easily, as well as a thread for each domain in case the rulers want to make proclamations and the like. We can also have an events section. Basically, it might sort itself out quite nicely by theme and action in a forum.
What do people think? Where can you get a free forum?

Also, I'm back. More or less. My arm hurts from typing.

So I make the effort, and all of a sudden I ain't got nothing to say.
Hrm.