New Years Parochial Letters Day

If anybody actually reads this shite sorry for not blogging for a couple of months but Rosa and I got caught up in the whole moving house rubbish and then had to have a second honeymoon as the romance was going out of the whole marriage type thing. Anyway I'll be catching up on all that but what you've really missed is the missives to my local newspapers so,

Sick to back teeth of bleating

I am sick to the back teeth of bleating pensioners, policemen, firemen and nurses constantly complaining about their lot. Pensioners have never had it so good with heating allowances (even if working), free travel (somebody has to pay for it) and woman OAPs receiving their state pension from 60 while my generation must slog on until we are 68. The definition of fixed income is when your income does not increase. This does not happen with the state pension even though this is a pensioner mythical complaint. Nurses, firemen and police wages are well over the national average and very considerably above the local average. What they conveniently ignore is the taxpayer-funded, index-linked pension schemes they receive are paid while they are still relatively young and fit enough to enjoy them. And the benefits they receive cost far more than 6% to 12% employee contributions. Bitter? A wee bit, but I have every reason to be. — Honest Harry.

One of the things that make me proud to be a Dundonian is that we have always been at the heart of the socialist movement from marching for workers rights in the 19th century to having the first female shop steward in the 20th. We've always been a fairminded lot who believed in supporting our elderly and adequately compensating the peeps that work in our essential services. Given all this I'd like to thank Harry for showing that there are massive arseholes everywhere.

Mince and pudding

As a 50-year-old who has lived in Dundee all my life, I have never heard of a tradition of white pudding and mince. — I. B.

As a 34-year-old who has lived in Dundee all my life I have never heard of a tradition of covering yourself in treacle and jumping into a cattery but I've never felt the need to write to my local paper about it. What great conversations must go on in the B household.

Customer hope

MY HUSBAND and I are regular customers at Jimmy Chung’s, Dundee, and continued to visit during unfounded rumours regarding seagulls. The quality of food and excellent service has been maintained and I hope customers return. — Chris Treanor, Dundee.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this issue months back. What fascinates me about these clearly rubbish rumours is that they've eschewed the more traditional cat in curry stories. Either way it's nice to see such warmth directed to the Chinese residents of our fair city. OTOH I wouldn't eat in Jimmy Chung's all you can eat buffet if you paid me.

Festive lights warning

I RESPOND to your reader, who was heartened by the display of Christmas lights on a Dundee house. Although this may provide a moment’s satisfaction, the harm to the environment is increasing. The extra use of power will be detrimental to the world in future years. Let’s all have a green Christmas. — Environmentally Conscious.

Just a reminder that your Christmas celebrations are badwrongfun so take down your tacky crap!

And finally you'll be aware that what to do with criminals has been a hotly contested question in the City of Discovery over the last year. I'll leave the last word to Alf,

Hard labour

I was talking to a young man who was unfortunately imprisoned for a few weeks on a minor offence. He whiled away most of his day glued to the television. He revealed that before this he had never watched Joe Pasquale or Noel Edmonds. I thought hard labour had been abolished. — Alf Carlin, Shepherds Loan, Dundee.

Parochial News Day

It's that day again so I thought I'd start with the important news,

Rapper stars in Dundee-made kilt
	Snoop at the awards ceremony in the Dundee-made outfit.
The MTV Europe Music Awards in Munich had a surprise Dundee flavour when rapper Snoop Dogg hosted the show in an outfit made by one of the city’s kiltmakers.
The Kilt Hire Co. in Commercial Street could not quite believe it when Snoop’s agent from America contacted the store and asked them to design a customised outfit for the rapper, record producer and actor to wear while hosting the show in Munich’s entertainment arena, Olympiahalle. Performances at the celebrity-studded show included those by the Foo Fighters, Amy Winehouse, My Chemical Romance and Babyshambles. Scott Shields, branch manager of The Kilt Hire Co. said after receiving contact from Snoop’s agent, there was an extremely animated atmosphere in the store. “We were excited last night as we were hoping Snoop was going to wear the outfit as there was a chance he wouldn’t — there was definitely a buzz,” he said. “It’s not every day we get something this big. “For the kilt we went for the Scottish-American tartan, which is mostly red and blue, and the three-quarter length jacket was custom-made with electric blue on it and a detachable hood.” The outfit included a customised sporran with Snoop’s name on in his very own copyrighted font. Scott continued, “His agent called last night to say Snoop had tried the outfit on before the show and loved it, especially as it had electric blue on it which went with his trainers, so it all tied in.” Snoop made his arrival at the awards show in typical gangster rapper style and began hosting the event flanked by girls on motorcycles. The 14th annual MTV Europe Music Awards was staged in Munich — the third time the awards have been held in Germany since the inaugural show in Berlin.

More proof that us Dundonians are down with the hood chillin to the hip tunes in a gangsta stylee whatever that actually means. It's more likely that the unemployment, access to hard drugs and rampant teen pregnancy get him all misty about home but there you go.

In much less important news,

Armed police in early morning raid

Man held in Dundee terrorism swoop

By John Paul Breslin

A MAN has been arrested in Dundee under the Terrorism Act after potentially explosive materials were seized at a house in England.
Police said the 31-year-old, from Goole in Yorkshire, was arrested in a residential area of the city at 1.30 am yesterday.
The Counter Terrorism Unit and firearms officers from Tayside Police carried out the early morning arrest at the house at 119 Pitkerro Road (right).
Another 31-year-old man was arrested in Goole on Wednesday on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act when potentially explosive material was discovered during a search of a house.
Material from this house has been sent for forensic examination.
Police said the suspect arrested in Dundee had been returned to Yorkshire for questioning.
Warrant
The man arrested on Wednesday is still in police custody after a warrant of further detention was approved at court on Friday.
A spokeswoman from the Counter Terrorism Unit said police were not searching for anyone else.
She refused to discuss whether the arrest had any connection to Islamist terrorism, although it is understood this is not the case.
Dundee taxi drivers said they had seen up to 10 officers at the house at around 3 am yesterday and had seen a policeman standing guard at the entrance since then.
One local resident said, “I went to bed at about one o’clock and there were no police, but when I woke this morning I could see a lot of officers going into the house.”
“I thought it was a burglary at first but it has to be more serious than that because there are so many officers going into the house and there has been someone guarding the entrance all day.

This one came a bit out of the blue especially as we live on Pitkerro Road. They've definitely confirmed there's no Islamic link so it'll be interesting to find out what's up. Mibbee he just planned on a big firworks party for Guy Fawkes night. That was tonight btw and there was a top display in Baxters Pary.

And in a bit of non-news Perth smells,

‘Nauseating’ smell tackled

PERTH and Kinross Council last night confirmed it has been investigating a “nauseating” smell noticed in Perth in recent days.

Several residents have contacted The Courier to complain of the smell, which has been traced to an agricultural works to the south-west of the town.

The smell was noticeable throughout Perth, with some people citing a possible sewage problem.

One householder, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “It’s been horrendous.

“I’ve noticed it most of the week and thought it might be a problem with the drains in Perth.

“At times it is nauseating.”

A businessman added, “I was walking down South Street when I smelt this awful stench.

“I thought it may have come from a lorry containing chickens.

“It’s something that needs looked into.”

However, Perth and Kinross Council confirmed it has established the origins of the odour and that the matter has now been passed on to SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency).

A council spokesman said, “Investigations by our environmental health staff traced the source of the smell to agricultural works south-west of Perth. SEPA have been notified and are dealing with the matter.”

Dundee United 2-1 Rangers

My boys Wilkie and Robson stuck it to the dirty Huns and put us third in the SPL Garry is a happy man.

My Dad'll be happy at the score too, we watched the first 10 minutes on the telly with him. For those who are interested he's doing okay with the heart op stuff but he's picked another virus and the slowness of recovery is getting to both of the Auld Dears. My Dad's a good bloke and doesn't deserve all of this but it will get better. To cheer them up we told them that within a year we're planning on moving to Africa to do voluntary work for a year or two. My Dad was okay but my Mum's a bit gutted, what you going to do though?

In other news Brigit is still wrong

Parochial News and Dundee-Hab Day

Well it's been a while what with weddings and stuff getting in the way but the news and accompanying letters about our fair city soldier on. Currently we're having a resurgence of the Dundee Taxi Wars as private hire cars undercut the the normal taxis, it's been going on for a while now and I'm sure you'd love to hear all about it but I frankly think it's dead boring so let's look at this instead,

Ill-thought out ad

The offending billboard.

THERE are billboards in Dundee plugging divorce advice from a firm of solicitors. The ad shows some poor man rolling his eyes, while his wife is clearly nagging him in the background. Women must be furious at this ill-thought-out sexist ad. — Barry Boon, Dundee.

Yup one of our local solicitors is advertising divorce to get away from that shrew of a wife. The picture says it all, Poor Boab's stumbled home after a hard weekend of spending all his pay in the pub and the bookies and that shrew of a wife starts in on him right away. Well now Boab knows exactly where to go for help. Somebody should tell Blackadders that we don't need reminded solicitors are arseholes. Come to think of it is Blackadder really the best name to have if your a solicitor, surely advertising yourself as a relative of a famous comedy conniving bastard isn't the best way to create a sense of trust with your clients?

With Taxi Wars II: The Yellow Plates Strike Back ramping up as taxi drivers have a go slow to get their message across, I'm serious they're actually driving slower than normal in protest, we Dundonians must turn our eyes to other modes of transport. Whilst I continue to practice X-treme Urban Cycling other dudes and dudettes have to get their gnarly kicks from public transport which has it's own hellacious dangers, I'll stop that now,

Buggies should be banned

I watch people getting on and off buses with buggies and sometimes they have great difficulty with the larger ones.

I watch people getting on and off buses with buggies and sometimes they have great difficulty with the larger ones. I fear if there was ever a fire on a bus there would be a tragedy as passengers behind buggies would be trapped. Buggies should be banned. — Observer.

Too much time on your hands and a hatred of single mothers gives Mr Nutty McNutty of Nuttyville here some really weird ideas. I personally think they should ban old people from buses because they smell of wee but I don't feel the need to tell the world about it do I?

Also just so you know,

Clean cats

I HAVE two cats. One goes out to the toilet and clears up after itself. The other uses its tray. I would not go out in the dark to walk two cats at night. — Marion Bathgate, Charleston Drive, Dundee.

Cheers for that Marion! To be honest after 20 minutes of digging I found out what this was all about but if I have to go to all that effort I don't see why you shouldn't.

And finally we move from our local paper to the pages of a national Sunday broadsheet where we can find out how the City of Discovery is seen by others,

This Modern Life The Habby Habit Kneehab, Wii-hab and me-hab: the new rehab John Hind Sunday October 14, 2007 The Observer For addiction workers, rehabaholics (people who habitually go in and out of rehab) and modern linguists alike, little has proven more addictive this year than any (and every) new word with 'hab' in it - and preferably at the end. Uttering some of these words, such as kneehab (rehab involving prayer), threehab (no booze, no narcotics and no tobacco) and Dundeehab (a holiday away from the city with the highest rate of drug addiction), they almost make old styles of rehab sound fab again. Others, like e-hab, DVDhab, Wii-hab and Blackberryhab, subcategorise the experiences (whether parentally imposed or due to physical injury) of cold-turkeying from new technology. Article continues In a nation hopelessly hooked on the 'habby' habit, a penniless professional crack fiend will recite his Rehab Portfolio, a professional golfer who's missed a tournament is said to have been in teehab and a healthy eating campaigner implores the poor and/or obese to go into kebabhab. There is now prehab, dehab and freehab for, respectively, the night prior to entering into rehab, the morning of departing rehab and the period prior to being implored to get back in again. There is me-hab for those believing 'the trick is to get away from oneself', thee-hab for those blaming everyone but themselves (usually during gabhab therapy sessions), and she-hab and he-hab for those identifying the opposite sex as the problem. Some, in groupiehab and girleehab, are just plain showing off. As are those who list celebrities they've shared a bucket with in Prioryhab. While those in Jihab sound like they might be taking the 'higher power' in Step 5 a little too seriously for their own good.

Cheers for that peeps!

Oi Brigit!

Brigit and I had a wee talk in the pub the evening after the wedding in which Brigirl asserted that the Marvel Villain Juggernaut is not that tall. Though this deep and important conversation was interrupted by a mad drunk woman climbing over the bar to harass the landlord I've always intended to prove the poor deluded antipodean wrong. Thusly I present the mighty Juggernaut,



If you'd like to note that Juggers, as we like to call him, looks pretty tall and the Marvel site puts him at 6'10" tall. Now I know Brigit probably doesn't remember the conversation but as a true geek I have to say nyah nyah nyah!

Don't let me down gently, in fact don't let me down at all!

I'm a bit behind in the old bloggingtypethinklikesay for the only good reason which is hanging out with mates got in the way. Last week we dived through to Ireland to chill with Rosa's Irish posse and this weekend we've suited and booted ourselves up for a bit of the Italian food and the hanging it gangsta stylee with the dundee posse. You all must be jealous of the exciting urban life I live.

The other thing I've been doing is this,


Let's talk about it later though eh?

Suffice to say that the whole marriage thing has made me realise how fantastic all our friends are and hope that you know we're thinking of you.

Unless you're battling online in which case I will shoot you in the face!

MeNoFearNoHaka

So its 45 minutes until New Zealand comes up against the rugby might of Scotland at Murrayfield. The beers in the fridge, the snacks on the table and Rosa's got her Kiwigirl t-shirt so it's game on and time for another sporting prediction from Garry.

We're going to stuff the All Blacks!

Some of you may think this unlikely but mark my words we can do it and once we do it'll be onwards to Scotland being crowned champions of the World!

Did that sound convincing?

Sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water...

And whilst contemplating the silvery Tay I think to myself in a Michael Caine accent, "Self, what's it all about?". I stand there as the Sun goes down pondering the imponderables such as is there truth without beauty, what lies beyond the veil of death and can somebody be both a Dundee fan and a decent person. Eventually as the last misting of twilight hits the water I think fuck that for a game of soldiers and go to the pub to argue about last nights episode of Heroes with Irish Paul. Let's face it when push comes to shove, at the end of the day and when alls said and done it's not about whether the pint's half empty or full it's about who's on the next round.

The plane the plane!

What Graham needs.

Wedding photies!

I've been getting a lot of hassle about photies for the whole wedding type affair so here's a link to the photobucket. A'body who took photies will be updated on how to add your pictures so we expect quite a few updates in the next couple of months,

Wedding Photies

The boy done good!

So I went and got married to Rosa a couple of weeks ago. OK so that's perhaps the weirdest sentence I've ever typed and I never thought I would be typing it but there you go you can't account for stuff happening can you?

Anyway we had a few days of before the event so we could spend some time with the Mendes family and various mates that were arriving early and much fun was had by all as Marieke marvelled at the sheer quantity of pubs in Dundee, Ed became addicted to a table tennis on the XBox and Sarah and Rosa ran around liked demented 5 year olds shouting Kath & Kim quotes at each other. Through all this teetotal Irish athlete Ruairi was an oasis of calm-like stuff being competent at everything, the wee man even fixed my bike!

Rosa's auld dears arrived on Thursday and whilst Teresa was just as fantastic as expected Anibal was the most surprising. After three years of worrying what the scary Portuguese Catholic father would be like he turned out to be a sweet, interesting and fun guy, just the type of person you would expect to be Rosa and Eds father really so that was a lot of pointless worrying.

Anyway I woke up at 6am on Saturday the 18th of August and lay in bed for three hours in a weird kind of panic that continued for most of the morning. I wasn't worried about marrying Rosa, that's never been in doubt, but I was really nervous about going up in front of a'body and letting her down. Luckily my mates and Rosa's mates Brigite and Mike were great throughout the morning even if they did complain about my relentless pacing. The worst moment came when I went for a quick haircut after our greasy spoon breakfast. In a fit of bravado I decided to dive across the road and try out the new Polish barbers. The very nice middle-aged women seemed to know only two words of English 'scissors' and 'clippers' but it seemed impolite to suddenly run out the door so I sat with a deep feeling of dread as she combed my hair into a side parting. Now this something that hasn't been inflicted on my hair since 1985 and though I'm sure it's a hairstyle all the cool kids in Poland are wearing to whatever horrific death metal band is popular there right now the thought of turning up to my wedding sporting such a hairstyle made me finally realise that the phrase 'turned my bowels to water' actually refers to an actual physical feeling. This wasn't helped by suddenly wanting to vomit as well but being British I couldn't say anything to the woman let alone do a runner with half a haircut. Luckily she brushed it back at the end but not before I had visions of Rosa breaking my legs in front of a'body.

The rest of the getting ready wasn't quite as bad though we were running late due to helping my Dad get ready and there was a minor panic when the CD for Rosa coming up the aisle didn't play but then she came and everything was alright. Rosa was absolutely stunning and having her there completely relaxed, this and Reverend Bobs fantastic service made sure everything went great. Bobs reading was incredibly touching and he managed to get across how serious the ceremony was whilst keeping a sense of fun.

As to the reception it was simply the best party I have ever thrown with everybody getting on brilliantly and no fistfights much to Sarah's disgust as she believes every wedding should have one. I think this was helped by Rosa and I making fools of ourselves in the first dance as can be seen here and here.

To be honest I always figured the actual wedding would be something to get through but whilst stuff like posing for pictures was a pussy it actually turned out to be the best day of my life EVAH!

Go figure.

Cartoon boyfriend when you gonna rub yourself out?

So I can't be arsed whingeing about the upcoming nuptuals or worrying about my Dads recovery from heart surgery so lets have a look at another game.


Toon is another classic game from Greg Costikyan who's other great comedy game Paranoia has already been mentioned. Based on all your favourite Warner Brothers cartoons it's rules are simple and easy to learn whilst offering an incredibly good simulation of their subject matter, frex none of the characters can die instead they get amusingly squashed/spiked or whatever and sit out the game for three minutes. Like Paranoia playing it can be either fun or frustrating depending on how much your willing to through yourself into the genre but, also like Paranoia, once you throw yourself into it the abandoning of normal roleplaying structure is liberating and incredibly good fun and fun is what the game's all about. So enough of that let's get on with the PC building malarkey...

Every Toon has four attributes, Muscle which is how strong and good in a fistfight he is, Zip which is how fast and dextrous he is, Smarts which is how umm smart he is and Chutzpah which is how much of a wideo he is and these are all decided on the roll of a single 6-sided die.

Our boy rolls 2 for Muscle, 3 for Zip, 3 for Smarts and 6 for Chutzpah. So he's not all that strong and only average when it comes to speed and brains but he can charm the birds out of the trees and get them to buy the pints all night.

The Toons also have Hit Points which weirdly enough are points that measure how much you can be hit. These are worked out by rolling a single 6-sided die and adding 6.

The wee man rolls a miserly 1 which when 6 is added leaves us with a rather poor 7. He's definitely a bit of a wimp but who cares when death only lasts long enough to nip out for half a fag.

Now the Toon needs to be described. You can choose or roll his species but the rest is up to you.

Our boy rolls a 33 so he's a rat. Ratski, as we'll call him, is normal rat sized though he walks on hind legs, he wears a bowler hat and bow tie with collar and carries a cane. Ratski's a wee chancer who's always on the lookout for an easy score of good food, easy living and the love of the laydeez.

We then have to choose a natural enemy.

As a rat Ratskis natural enemy is pest controllers of course.

We then choose the Toons Beliefs and Goals which are exactly what they seem to be.

Ratski's Belief is, Work is Bad - This character will go to any lengths to avoid working including using more energy and time than the actual work would have required. Ratski's Goal, Find and eat pie - The wee man is obsessed with pie and will go to any lengths to obtain and eat pie.

The Toon also carries 8 items 4 of which can be normal and 4 of which can be anything that the Animator (GM) allows.

Ratski's normal objects are, String Marbles Bottle of Glue Newspaper His other objects, Two-headed Coin President Nixon Mask Itching Powder Anvil

Toonboy then gets to sort out his skills of which there are 23 with a level of between 1 and 9 which has a starting value of the attribute it's based on frex Ratsko's Fight is based on his Muscle and thus starts at 2. There is then another 30 points to add to the skills to the maximum of 9. To use a skill you roll two 6-sided dice (2d6) and you are succesful if you roll under the value with a roll of 2 always being a success even if your skill is 1.

Let's not pedantically work our way through the skills except to say that whilst we'll give him a range we'll concentrate on his personality as a chancer who'll run rather than fight. You'll see them on the character sheet.

We can also spend some of the 30 points for skills on special powers called schticks which cost a varaibale amount of points each and are rolled against at a value of 5.

Ratski's a bit of a wide so let's give him Quick Change/Disguise which lets him disguise himself as nearly anything as long as he makes the roll.

The last thing you do is draw a picture of your Toon. I can't draw to save my life and since the old life isn't in danger I'm not going to try. If you want to try please send the pictures on a stamp-addressed postcard to the usual address.

But I gotta know what's your fantasy

Now back to G making a character from every game he owns. Rosa's been ok about what she calls my 'stupid boy-project' because it keeps me quiet and means that I'll mibbee manage to sort out all the books that are boxed up in the spare room in time for the wedding. What this actually means is that books are now strewn about the ho0use as I leaf through loads of old stuff I forgot I had and decide that even though I haven't even considered digging a certain book out in 15 years I really don't want to get rid of it cos y'know I might need it at some point. Anyway whilst digging through my old stuff I've come across the first RPG I ever bought so lets make a chracter for Final Fantasy.

Sorry but that's the best image I could find.

This whole roleplaying thing started for me a little earlier when My Uncle Andy got me The Warlock of Firetop Mountain for my 10th birthday. I was immediately hooked into the choose your own adventure books and less than a year later when I picked up The Fighting Fantasy RPG at the incredible expense of £1.75 I was stuck with this as my hobby for life. Anyway let's get started,

Our adventurer has three statistics Skill, Stamina and Luck. We determine Skill by rolling a 6 sided die and adding 6, I roll a 5 making starting Skill 11, Stamina by rolling two dice and adding 12, I roll a 6 and a 1 so starting Stamina is 19, and Luck by rolling a 6 sided die and adding 6, I roll a 5 making starting Luck 11. The adventurer carries a sword, a backpack, a lantern, up to 10 provisions, amount is up to GM, which can be used to restore Stamina and a potion of Skill, Stamina or Luck which can restore the relevant statistic. And that's it really apart from naming him, let's call him Bob.

Combat is resolved by rolling 2 dice and adding Skill withe the loser losing two Stamina. Luck can be rolled equal or under to inflict more or take less damage though you lose a Luck point and run the risk of the opposite effect happening if you're unlucky. There are additional rules for multiple combatants and doing stuff like moving silently, pretty much all additional actions require you to roll under your Skill with 2 dice, but that's pretty much it. There then follows two dungeons for your players to explore done in a format familiar to anybody who's ever played a Fighting Fantasy gamebook. They're both good fun and we kids had quite a few happy hours of this.

I never got any of the other books as by the end of that year I was running a Middle Earth Roleplaying campaign which was a huge leap in complexity but I can't think of a better introduction to roleplaying. It cost so little that you could take a risk, already had a format which every bairn of my age was familiar with and whilst simple it still managed to do a decent though basic job. Top game!

Dundee United 0-1 Barcelona

Should have been 1-0 to United but the ref was an idiot who disallowed a clearly onside United goal then gave away a dodgy penalty.

Parochial News Day

There is only one story in the news this week and it's that Dundee United are set to give Barcelona another famous drubbing tonight!

BARCELONA THOUGHTS

Most thoughts at Dundee United today turned to Barcelona as preparations for Thursday’s glamour friendly against the Spanish giants got under way (writes Tom Duthie).

With a stand-in goalkeeper and a striker to find, however, Tangerines boss Craig Levein also had other things on his mind. Fan and player focus for the next few days, though, will be firmly on Barca, who flew into Edinburgh at lunchtime before heading for St Andrews, where they will be based for the rest of the week. With the Spanish season finishing little over a month ago, their pre-season work only started on Saturday and, as well as games against United and Hearts, Frank Rijkaard’s superstars face double training sessions most days here. Not on the plane from Spain were Copa America stars Lionel Messi and Raphael Marquez, they will remain on holiday until next week, while club captain and key defender Carles Puyol is missing pre-season work because of injury. Heading for Fife, though were the likes of Ronaldinho, Deco and, of course, massive summer signing from Arsenal Thierry Henry. At Tannadice, Craig Levein made no attempt to hide the fact the prospect of doing battle against such talent meant there was an extra buzz about the place when his players arrived for training this morning. “Of course there is. This is a game everyone wants to be involved in, and all the players will be trying to show they should be,” he said. “I’m no different. To be working towards a game against Barcelona is nice.” That won’t stop the gaffer taking care of the business he has to in the run up to the start of the SPL season on Saturday week, tickets for the opener against Aberdeen are on sale now, and his search for a striker continues. Now added to the many calls he’s been making about an attacker are enquiries concerning goalkeepers after it emerged Lukasz Zaluska had broken his foot and will be out for six weeks. “You’ve no idea just how much work I’ve been doing to fix up a striker. I’d like one for Thursday, but the most important thing is I get a player of the right quality so I can’t say that will happen,” added Craig. “Now I’ve also got the goalkeeping situation to think about as well. We knew Lukasz had a problem, but didn’t realise how bad it was until he got a scan and he didn’t either. “With the Barcelona game so close, it is obviously a big disappointment for him, but these things happen in football and now it is a case of looking around for cover.” Craig was happy with yesterday’s 2-2 draw against Raith at Stark’s Park, a game that saw young Ghanaian Prince Bauben make his debut. The 19-year-old has been on trial and has signed a three-year contract. He is seen as one for the future, but his early progress suggests he may force his way into the squad sooner than expected. “He’s got talent, though the reason he played yesterday was because he needed games. “The game was a good exercise and very competitive. “It gave the boys a good run out and I was pleased to see (Christian) Kalvenes and (Willo) Flood get action.”

I feel fully confident in a 2-1 victory for the Tigers and you all know how rarely my sports predictions are wrong.

It's the suede denim secret police!

So I'm off work after taking a fall off my bike leaving me with a bad arm, broken finger and awfy sair skint knees. Luckily I can report that wearing a helmet is now officially a good thing as though my old noggin was cracked hard on the pavement I ended up with nary a lump. So as I'm laid up at home I can actually start on my RPG characters with a new edition of an old game,


Now Paranoia's a strange one to start with because in many ways it's the antithesis of what's expected in RPG's. In most games players are expected to co-operate to achieve their goals whilst in Paranoia they are gleefully encouraged to stab each other in the backs, other games have a clearly defined mission whilst here the mission is invariably impossible, an excuse for players to stab each other in the back or a long-winded joke and finally where other less fun games discourage random player deaths it's unusual to play though 5 minutes of Paranoia without somebody getting theirs and it doesn't really matter as every character has five clone backups ready to take his place. This all makes Paranoia the Marmite of roleplaying, you either love it or hate it and very little will convince you otherwise.

Before we make the character a bit of a skiffy to the background. Paranoia is set in Alpha Complex a gigantic post-apocolyptal underground city ruled by The Computer. The Computer was originally installed to keep the citizens safe but has gone completely mad and is now involved in a perpetual hunt for mutant commie traitors. The players play Troubleshooters who's job it to hunt down traitors which of course they are. Think Brazil, THX 1138 and Big Brother chucked into a blender with The Marx brothers and you're about right. Okay on with the character,

First we're asked for the characters name and gender. Making him male's easy enough as to name this is a bit unusual in that it's done as Name - Clearance - Sector. He's red clearance so we'll call him Ronnie-R-Gun and not worry too much about it. We then hace to roll a 20 sided dice/2 for 6 skills the assign specialities and such. Rather than bore you with details I'll nip off and do that.

We now roll for the characters Service group and appropriate firm to find his day job. Ronnie is in the Armed Forces working as in the Ammunition Fresheners firm. You then pick a specialized skill, Ronnie gets energy weapons to make him leet with lasers. We then roll for the mutant power, having a mutant power is treason BTW, Ronnie get's Matter Eater which allows him to munch down on just about anything which can prove very handy when trying to eat at the staff canteen. After this is a quick roll to see what secret society Ronnie belongs to, being a member of a secret society is treasonous of course, and we get Communist. Ronnie is a Godless Communist out to destroy all that is good in Alpha Complex! He also gets more skills particularly Propoganda which is very very treasonous. To finish off we give Ronnie two tics, Ronnie is an habitual nose-picker and giggles like a girl when stressed. And here he is,

If anybody's wondering the base mechanic is to pick the relevant skill then try to roll under it's number with a 20 sided die eg Ronnie would have to roll under 12 to shoot somebody with his laser. You know it's not until now that it hit me that the new Paranoia doesn't have any of the normal stat we'd expect in an RPG like strength, intelligence etc but instead replaces them rather niftily with the general Knowledge and Action skills. This works really well for the loose type of play encouraged in the game by keeping everything simple.

That was actually quite fun though I'm not sure if it's interesting to read as peeps who don't play RPG's will probably find it even more incomprehensible than my normal blog but there you go. I'll inflict more on you soon.

In just 7 days I can make you a man!

I've never really mentioned my hobby of playing roleplaying games which I've been doing for about 24 years now. I'm currently running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay every week or so which was supposed to be an epic, dark fantasy quest but has turned out to be more Blackadder in Fantasyland as my players bumble their way from one mishap to another. A great example of this is Rosa's character Podwit a pie-obsessed, psychotic hobbit currently planning on faking his own death in order to avoid having to marry some lass he picked up in the pub when he should be concentrating on trying to save the world. I worry about Rosa sometimes.

Anyway this has all come up as this bloke mentioned in an RPG forum I visit his intention of creating a character for every game he owns and as I need a stupid project to distract me from all the wedding stuff I've decided to do it myself and inflict the results on you lot though I'll probably get distracted after the first few but it's something to do.

And yes you're right I am a sad wee geek who really should get out more but what can ye dae?

Will you buy this game?

Uh Oh We're In Trouble!

A short missive because I seem to have not blogged in some time. I've tried on a few different reasons for this and none of them seem to fit. In the end I think it's been a general laziness with the whole intraweb thing mixed with a growing unease about the upcoming nuptials.

Now don't be worried I'm just as sure as ever about getting wed to the daft Kiwigirl and it seems she's still deluded enough to think I'm worth it but this whole wedding thing is a complete pain. The bastard thing creeps into every part of your life until it seems everybody's talking about it and just when you seem to escape you find yourself babbling on about it. After this you start to chuck on everybodies elses expectations and you end up in some sort of twilight zone. It's late over here and I feel the need to shoot things in console land so I'll give you one really weird example...

Asking the Father of the Bride for her hand in marriage.

Now I personally consider this sort of crap to have gone out with brothel creepers and would never have considered asking Rosa's Dad as fucked up a question as this and wasn't surprised when Rosa said that despite being a bit old-fashioned it's not something he would expect. Now this is all knowing that Rosa's Dad is a Portuguese Catholic who could reasonably be expected to be a bit traditional, it's no a bad thing to be traditional, but if he didn't have trust in his children Rosa wouldn't be who she is. Contrast this with the lassies in my workplace who were all dying to know about me asking for my girls hand in marriage and what the father said. This is quite a wide mixture of age and education that all thought that decades of feminist thought should be thrown aside because it's 'romantic' for somebody to ask for their ownership. The question of course is what would happen if their fathers said no? Would they actually cast aside the love of their life because their dad wasnae keen? This sort of shite permeates peeps ideas about what weddings should be and it is really worrying. People are really fucked up!

Suffice to say it was important for both Rosa and I to speak to the respective parents and both her Mum and Dad were absolutely lovely when we dropped the bombshell, as were my auld dears, and whilst I'm quietly crapping myself about it I'm sure they'll be great when they come across.

Anyway it's now 5 weeks till the day so I promise to blog at least once a week til then.