Harken back to 1996, when the web was new, and Netscape 1.0 was the cool new thing.

I was enrolled in NUS to do pharmacy. Endured a month of orientation. And was really eager to start using this Internet thingie, which at the time was still somewhat exclusive to academic institutions. I managed to find a terminal at the crowded medical faculty library and logged onto the Leonis server.

Wasn’t anything on Pine. I only had a dozen friends with email then. Wasn’t anything to surf on Lynx either.

Next to me, two medical first years were talking about the previous night’s faculty dance, and Pauline’s hot body. That’s my NJC class rep you’re talking about you lecherous fungi!

Eventually, I started surfing the newsgroups. Can’t remember what reader I used then. That was the one and only time I’ve used that Unix based newsreader.

The first thing I learnt, was pyramid scams and Nigerians who desperately wanted to give me money. But somewhere along the line, I searched for a Tolkien newsgroup.

And there was a post about a Lord of the Rings game. I emailed the guy, remembered the server address, and promptly thought nothing more of it.

Mogwai

Months later, I was in the UM med library. With the three new computers. And there was still nothing to do on the internet. No one will have heard of Hotmail.com for another few weeks. I couldn’t access the Leonis server from an IP outside the NUS campus. Alvin was watching what I was doing… I guess I was a curiousity at the time. Some people were watching me with the same fascination as anyone who saw Mogwai for the first time.

On a lark, I telnet-ed into towers.angband.com:9999 to show him The Two Towers MUD. (MUD means Multi User Dungeon). That’s the grand-daddy of MMORPG for you damn fool kids of today. In our days we didn’t have your fancy 3D G-Force graphics. Or any kind of graphics for that matter. But we had an acronym that you can PRONOUNCE you snotty little MOe-PERG-Gers…

That was how Ganong the Silvan Wizard was born. Followed by Takezo the Dunedain Ranger/Assassin. And Gaster the Warlord. Kidd the Sheriff. Then Haomahru.

It was absurd how a whole bunch of quasi-adults spend weeks on this game, typing “Kill orc” and “Get all from corpse” repeatedly. And when I said weeks, I meant multiples of 7 x 24hrs… Everyone of us was at least 2 weeks off before the craze tapered off.

Irregardless, some of us still maintained their characters. My Takezo is already deleted after such a long period of non-activity.

I just checked.

But I hear that Gaster is still alive. Hibernating the last 255d 18h 24m. His age is 21d 17h 9m.

That still doesn’t beat Ganong at 35d 13h 27m old.

GMail Terminal Theme

Cute! Themes for my GMail!

I’m setting my GMail to look like this :

Brings back those warm fuzzy memories when I suffered at an internment camp for half a dozen years, and my one solace was subverting the library’s VAX/VMS OPAC terminals to steal a telnet connection to my nyx.net email account.

At that time, we had all of THREE computers with WWW access! For 2 bloody faculties!

Never understood why those terminals needed the function to search the libraries at Berkeley or something. But am most grateful for it. Subverted the connection to telnet into my free Unix shell account at nyx.net.

Nyx was my primary email for many many years. Till an ex-classmate *discovered* email in 2001 and gave my address to a spam list (in exchange for promises of petrol vouchers)… I was royally PISSED OFF. I had a stronger relationship with my email account that I’ll ever have with that passing acquaintanceship.

But I still soldiered on with my nyx.net. Thankfully I figured out how to setup SpamAssassin and filtered out THOUSANDS of spam. Until I finally got a GMail invite.

I *heart* Google. This new theme is way cool.

Except when standing next to a moronic hunk.

People still call it the Rackham style, and buying a Rackham miniature puts you under tremendous pressure to at least aim higher than your skills otherwise permits. Ends up, many players leave their minis primed, but unpainted, cos they’re always waiting until their painting skill is worthy enough.

But at the time the game started in Malaysia, I was already commited to WARMACHINE, and didn’t feel like supporting another game, however fine the minis are. Then finally the english rules came out, (Rackham is a French company), and I flipped through the rule book and see if anything might pique my interest. A large hard-cover book, and it was BORING AS HECK!! From cover to cover, it was just rules, and nothing else. Did they have to make the gameplay so complex that it takes a whole book to explain it?

Eclipsante

Where’s the fluff?? Where are the stories that flesh out the miniatures! So many different races, two human factions with incredibly beautiful armoured knights, two elven races, dwarves on steam-powered pigs, un-dead dwarves, goblins, an undead horde, barbarians with minotaurs and centaurs, Amazonian warriors with gravity defying mammaries, orcs, Wolfens (the race that identified Rackham), and S&M Wolfens (seriously, with black leather bondage gear and all). So many characters and heroes from each faction, there should be tons of background on many if not all of them.

The minis are brilliant. But the stories aren’t accessible, they’re only published in their rather expensive magazine, Cry Havoc. After being spoilt by Privateer Press, I expect good fantasy fiction with every metal soldier I purchase.

Despite my gripe, Rackham WAS an amazing company. They MADE consistently good looking sculpts. I’m not very familiar with their entire line, and have only scrutinized the Orcs of Bran-o-Kor. A single unit type, the Jackal Warriors, can be armed with your choice of swords, clubs or axes. And Rackham manufactured two sculpts for each weapon profile. It was a testament to the company’s commitment to quality.

But then they started going the Games Workshop way.

Changed the game from being skirmish encounters, to regiment battles. What this means, is that you’ll need to buy TONS more metal soldiers to play a game. Business logic : force the customers to buy more, then company makes more money. They even started going plastic to reduce cost of manufacture and shipping.

Consequence : Players quit.

Rackham players wanted to play with beautifully painted, heroic characters. Not hordes of shoddily painted nameless soldiers. Also, the expense of owning so many figures was prohibitive. And many of their molds were coming to the end of their life-cycles and the transition to plastic took too long, production & distribution problems. New players couldn’t get hold of stuff they wanted. Even the promotional paint-jobs went from Golden Demon standard, to Mage Knight level.

A friend recently went manic and started hunting for Rackham minis everywhere. Especially for the OOP (out of production) pieces and limited run clan boxes. He was placing huge orders from online stores all over, buying as if the game was going out of style. Which it is… The minis are heavily discounted all over.

Brandon kept bugging me to join in, but I resisted. Still, I guess I could see myself grabbing a nice cheap mini just to paint. Especially since I’ve bought the Painting Tutorial DVD from Miniature Mentor, I’ll just grab a Wolfen Prowler, and try to follow along with the DVD.

Wolfen Prowler

The Prowler is a masterful piece of work.

Even the sword will be challenging to paint. Using many shades of grey to simulate the shine and reflection on a metal blade. A technique called Non Metallic Metals.

So I had my heart set on painting this piece, the defining representative of Rackham in my collection. Then suddenly came news that the store didn’t stock the Prowler. Rackham products were getting scarce all over.

So I asked Brandon if there’s another nice mini to do. And he pointed me to this:

Animistic Shaman on Brontops

The Animistic Shaman on Brontops.

How can you say no to a big green orc, riding an armour-clad dinosaur, and waving an axe fashioned from a large femur? It’s sooo majestic!

And since I’m getting this orc already, what’s a few more to round out a small force so that I can also use to play with my friends?

I’m unimpressed by Confrontation’s gameplay. Their rules went through several revisions, and some of the earlier rules were just odd, like the random unit activation… And they’ve made so many different armies, so one force isn’t balanced against another. There are a few obviously powerful armies, some are mere annoyances, and the newer armies have too few unit types and lack tactical options. And Orcs fall on the latter category, it appears. But what the hey, that only means that they’re the most common stock that’s still left on the shelves of online merchants, and can be bought at steep discounts up to 75% off. Quite a bargain.

So I ended up buying a moderately sized force of the Orcs of Bran-O-Kor. Got all the different Orc Warrior Mages. Some random fighters. And whatever hero that was on discount. (One of the heros arrived without the head).

And since I’m already making a sizeable order, I also got a few beautiful pieces of Wolfen just to paint. Just when I though I can stop, my friend placed yet another order and tempted me with an OOP box of Goblin Pirates.

Goblin Clan - The Skimmers of the Oceans

I have a lot of work cut out for me…

But the good books come out a few months later.

Robin Hobb usually never disappoints, birthing a book almost every September. She’s a little behind this year though. But it’s a new trilogy, so that probably takes time. And my authors aren’t getting any younger. Excerpt from her new book, Dragon Keeper can be found here.

Terry Pratchet just came out with Nations. I’ve got the audio book, and yet to finish it. It’s not a Vimes novel, so there’s less urgency.

Meantime, there’s also Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.

A family is murdered, but the baby escapes into a graveyard where its ghostly denizens adopt and care for him.

It’s like Kipling’s The Jungle Book, but with ghosts, ghouls, a vampire and a werewolf. I don’t know about you, but it makes just as much sense as a boy raised by a bear or by apes.

The boy grows up in the company of ghosts who had been buried there since before the Roman conquest of the British Isles. His guardian is a vampire, who brings him food and bails him out of trouble. A werewolf teaches him how to say “Help” in different human and non-human tongues. He earns the friendship and adoration of a witch’s ghost. Goes treasure hunting in a barrow. Makes human & inhuman friends. Makes human & inhuman enemies.

Great fun to read, and over all too quickly.

Before I ran this script from http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/ubuntueeetweak.sh, my Fn+2 button (to toggle Wifi on/off) wasn’t working. Only after this script, I could switch off the wifi when I’m not using it.

The wifi draws a lot of battery power.

Also, pretty much finished building a boardgame.

Presenting, 18AL. I printed out most of the components on card-stock, and used sap-film to laminate both sides. I’ve also salvaged a rotary paper cutter from the big office-move-and-junking-old-stuff. The cutter which I also repaired back to working condition. And it helped a lot making this boardgame.

This is one of many series of 18XX games. 

A boardgame geek introduced me to 18FL some years ago. The game simulates a period of history when locomotion changed the world. When robber barons manipulated companies for their own greed and profit. And to win, that’s how you must play.

The greatest appeal of the game is that there’s no randomness. No dice. No shuffled cards. You always have all the information. It’s up to how you play against your opponents. Thus also, the mind games is quite high.

In a zero-sum game, what benefits you, will screw someone else over. And tension can mount through the course of the game.

Makes it exciting and always interesting

Thus far, the only way we’ve been able to play, is when this friend can find the time, and invite us. Cos these 18xx games are usually handmade and hard to get hold of. It’s like the garage band of boardgames.

Now, I’ve got a set made myself. Just need to find the time to round up some players and teach them the game one weekend.

Just when I thought I’m done with the Uchi-uke after becoming 3rd kyu, I find out that I’m still doing so many things wrong.

Was paired up with the visiting Tai sensei from Japan, and he gave me a lot of pointers, despite the language barrier.

i) Hit the attacking arm hard. But without extending the forearm away from the body. Aim to hit the attacking arm with the part of the forearm close to the elbow. Hit with just enough force that it throws the attacker’s facing just a little off centre and expose his kidneys.

ii) Stance: rest just slightly more on the back leg than the leading leg. That puts your head a little back, giving your body more room to manuever to avoid the incoming blow, while maintaining a good upright posture.

iii) After the uchi-uke, when you throw the punch, make sure your stance is right. Too used to practice situations where you merely demonstrate the end of the technique with a tap to the ribs. In combat situations, this punch should be delivered with force. Thus your feet needs to be lined up, body crouched, shoulder lined up to deliver the strongest force possible to the target. Practise and self examination to get this down right. All the manuevering/theory becomes pretty pointless if you can’t deliver an effective punch.

Tenshin Geri

Very new to this technique, so probably am still doing everything wrong. Also a bit mixed up with Han Tenshin Geri.

Jujinuki :

Another technique to break an opponent’s hold on the arm, as illustrated on the linked site. It can be finished in one of two ways, with an upright posture, and smack the freed hand into the opponent’s nose, or break away while in a crouch, and finish with an attack on the groin.

Jujigote :

Starts the same as the Jujinuki. Opponent grabs your fore-arm, but this time you use your free hand to clasp/hook his hand onto your arm, fix it there, while you perform the rest of the jujinuki. This should bend the opponent’s attacking arm into an S shape. After that, it’s a ’simple’ matter of rotating the opponent’s palm.

A few notes: ‘rotate’ the palm. Do not push/pull it. Keep the S shape, and rotate along the median plane of the opponent’s body.

When done right, this twists the arm tendons in a manner that it does not want to go. But only when the arm is held in an S shape.

Very interesting to know.

Link here for own future reference…

It was only a short absence, and it almost felt like I had to start again near the beginning. All my leg muscles have lost some of its stretch, and it’ll probably take a few weeks to stretch them out again. Also getting breathless rather quickly. And muscles aching after the 3hr practice.

Still, am enjoying the adrenaline again, and missed the workout.

I finally got my brown belt and 3rd Kyu certificate from passing the grading exam in September. And while I was gone, a number of other fellow white belts have also moved up to brown.

There’s a new Japanese black belt I’ve not met before. Presumably a visiting sensei. Kids crowd around him during breaks to watch his magic tricks. I also received about a half hour instruction with him. Can’t understand when he’s explaining in Japanese, but was able to assimilate the demonstrations easily enough…

He showed us that on top of the Koho (hard techniques) and Juho (soft techniques), there’s also Seiho (acu-pressure points). And that was very enlightening, as well as painful. Am still a little out of my depth when he started demonstrating a few pain compliance techniques, but I think I can remember one of them at least.