blackjohn

Another question for you Mission ol' boy, did you ever do that Jaxxon cosplay?

8 minutes ago, Mission said:

Eight guys took down four aliens? C'mon, son. 
 

When they can use their pulse rifles, flamers, and smartguns, sure. Especially with unimpeded lines of sight down a long corridor. That was probably the most successful play-through of a mission that I have seen. The norm is for most players to be on a second, or even third character by the end.

Do you still have a DeLorean?

On 2/12/2023 at 7:22 PM, Duchess said:

One of the things I've become interested in over the last few years is fountain pens. I haven't followed a typical fountain pen enthusiast path preferring, as usual, to do things my own way. But I never completely abandoned sea related things, so there was no passing up this glorious pen by Ryan Krusac. Moose antler, ebony and mother of pearl. It's so finely crafted that the north star sits above the prow of the ship when the pen is capped.

 

What's new with you? What's old? What is both?

I always enjoy seeing you FB pen posts! It is neat to see new life breathed into old pens.

I stopped reenacting and jumped back in full time to tabletop gaming. You can buy a lot of games for the price of a musket. Sure, since I never throw anything away, I still have all my stuff, but I'm unlikely to use any of it ever again.

Games I've run lately included Star Trek Adventures, Alien, Vaesen, Old School Essentials, and some others.

But how much weaponry would a Pyrate really have carried when boarding another ship?

Is this a trick question... like how much wood would a woodchuck chuck???

My vague answer would be, "enough to be useful, but not so many as to get in the way of being useful."

My personal comfort level is a pistol, at most two, a sword, and a long arm that can be easily disposed of when no longer needed. I tried adding two additional pistols once, and that was three too many.

My guess is that this link has been posted at least four times now. That being said, it is a great site, and well worth a reminder.

Hmmm. I think we're on to something. I bet if there was a way we could connect all these on some web interface, and give 'em some fun little icon... like a smiley or something... and a catchy name like... like... LIKEbook!... would could make a fortune!!!

But when we can actually see him reach the huge crown of the same tree, still fairly secure in his ropes and then *pouf!* suddenly he's on top of it with the loosened rope in an unexplained jump cut... Well...I guess all we can do is apply a Bugs Bunny/ 'He's CJS' rule. I still prefer it to at least be possible. It's the engineer in me.

That pushed the envelope for me too. And I'm a simple country cartographer.

But, . . .

To Hollywood mentality, "EVERY" pirate boat has a wheel. That's from ship to schooner, to sloop, to anything above a rowboat.

That was just a "for instance." My point was that on more than one occasion I was surprised by the author's apparent lack of research.

Where's the stinkin' 'Like' button?!?! Oh well... I guess I'll just have to type it.

Blackjohn likes Duchess' comment.

Speaking of, "uh, that's not how that works", there were at least three times I asked Kate Bagley (who had the misfortune of sitting next to me in the theater), "How did Jack do that? It's impossible!" She promptly replied (three times), "He's Captain Jack Sparrow!" ...with just the right intonation.

Which, in my opinion, is the correct answer for any of those films. He's a madcap adventurer, and thus, like Bugs Bunny, not subject to the laws of physics.

In the book it was more mundane type stuff, e.g., mentioning a ship's wheel on a ship that would have had a tiller, something along those lines. It happened a couple times, enough to be a minor annoyance.

Finally finished reading The Hobbit to the kids as a bedtime story. It took about 1 1/2 years to do it, but I did it. I'm now reading 20000 Leagues Under the Sea to them. As for myself... I'm trying to catch up on scifi classics, so my eyes have turned toward finding a used hardback copy of Asimov's first Foundation book.

I wondered if my oversight was the result of having an English outlook, and sought to test it by asking my colonial friends, who turned up late for WWI, and thus might not think of 1916 in the same way.

Possibly, because the connection in my mind went 1916>Cranberries>U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday>1916=Irish Rebellion. And this from a guy who spent the first four months of 2011 doing nothing but painting 1:144th scale WWI airplanes and playing Wings of War.

Speaking of WWI reenactment, there is some land out west (US) that would make a fabulous No-Man's Land. Some in North Georgia too.

A bunch of my friends do WWI in a recreated battlefield on a farm in PA. I'd go, but a) dressing up in funny clothes isn't on my priorities list any more and I don't really want to sit around in a trench with a bunch of guys reenacting WWI 24/7 for a couple days in a row. Reenacting without carousing? Where's the fun in that?

Ok, there is no 'right' answer to this question, and I'm not doing a survey, it's just idle curiosity, as I said.

What does the year 1916 signify to you?

I'll explain why I'm asking later.

Off the top of my head, and without reading further down-thread... isn't that the year there was some sort of Irish thingy going on? Bloody Sunday? Something like that?

If that's the case, then I agree with Red Bess...why have him in there at all? Any pirate captain would have been just as good and then they wouldn't have to buy the rights to the book and confuse/upset everyone who liked it. (It was probably a nice boost for the book's sales though.) I'm still not inclined to read it, not because of the movie, but because I don't read much fiction. If the movie had been really good, I might have picked it up just to see how it compared.

Don't bother. I read the book some years ago, after a bunch of people I know in the gaming world went on and on about how good it was. It was ok, but not up to the level I expected. There were a few cases of "uh, that's not how that works, you should have done more research." That being said, it's a shame they didn't actually make the book into a film, because the book is better than PotC4.

Saw it last night in 3D. Last movie I'll ever watch in 3D. I need to go see it again without the 3D distractions.

I took off of work and went and saw it in 3d Friday during a morning show, then took the whole family to see it on Sunday, in 2d. I actually liked it better in 2d than in 3.

Overall... it was ok. I think I'll place it third, after 1 and 3, but before 2. I thought it had some great moments, and if I was going to run a pirate roleplaying game there's a ton of ideas to mine, but the film as a whole never really grabbed me. And Penelope Cruz, as nice as she is to look at, didn't wow me. McShane's Blackbeard... you know... if they told him to "act like an old Blackbeard who is tired and feels like his life has come to an end", he nailed it.

I dug the mermaids. In fact, for me it would have been a better film if they had concentrated on the love between the mermaid and the priest. That part of the story grabbed my interest more than the Depp/Cruz story did.

WHAT THE HELL DID THAT SCRIM/SCRUM(?) GUY HAVE ON HIS HEAD?!?!? Ugh.

Ships in bottles. Priceless!

Sparrow falling down as he exits the jungle and hacking away at the plants was also priceless!

Voodoo doll! Ha!

What do you think?

Having been prodded by Mission, and since piracy seems to be in the air at the moment, I'll add my tuppence. Three? Eh. Why not five? Why not all you can find? Either way, I'm not really sure there is proof or truth, no matter how many sources you pile on. Here's why...

I just finished writing an entry for The History of Cartography, Volume Six with the catchy title "The History of Marine Charting by the United Stated in the 20th Century." Everything was going just splivvy until I hit the 1970s. It was at that point that I decided to do some "fact checking," comparing the official written history of the Coast Survey to the recollections of my peers, a half-dozen or so who were around during the period. What did I find? The official history wasn't telling the whole truth. According to the written record, in 1973 the Coast Survey produced our first nautical chart through fully automated methods. According to the people who were here, that chart had so many hands massaging it along the way that it was by no means a fully automated process. My point? I dunno... other than I don't know that one can put a limit on the number of sources checked, and that even official documents are not to be trusted.

Frankly, thinking about this further and in relation to my day job, where we often have to dig through old chart histories to find why an item is where it is on a chart, if someone actually believes they can stop at three then in my opinion that person is being a lazy historian. A good historian is like a good detective. They'll check every lead and follow it, hopefully uncovering more along the way.

Thus ends my rambling post. Carry on. See you in another month or six.

Here's what I've been up to lately... painting WWI airplane miniatures and playing a game called Wings of War!

That's a Fokker Dr.I that I built for my wife to paint and use in the game. Hopefully she won't draw the explosion card the first time she uses it.

Cheerio!

Why? (Never mind, I know there's no answer.)

Exactly.

I'll take a ex-libris book with packing tape holding the cover on over one 20 times as expensive. (Yep, 20 times for some of the weird stuff I buy.)

That's funny, I'm the complete opposite. I'd be more than happy to pay 20 times the cost if they could guarantee a book was pristine. Note, however, this only applies to new books. I'll buy used books no matter what shape they are in, if it is a subject that interests me. For instance, I bought a two-volume set of some history of Virginia on ebay just because it seems to be the first book to use the term Golden Age of Piracy.

I saw the trailer on the big screen this weekend when I went to see Tron. The scene with Penelope Cruz shoving the sword through the door... ha! It didn't even dawn on me until I was sitting there with the 3d glasses on that that scene was just made for 3d! Sword... sproing!

You can still buy it on Amazon. I am not sure why anyone buys books in a bookstore anymore. Amazon used has saved me so much money over the years...

Oh oh! Pick me! Pick me!

Because it does avoid the hassle of buying a book sight unseen, getting a damaged book*, and then having to fret over returning it.

*I'm a book nazi. Not in the "burning books" sense, but in the "even the micro-est scratch constitutes damage" sense.

Has anyone noticed that Tim Powers' book On Stranger Tides has disappeared from book seller's shelves recently?

Jas. Hook

I should consider selling my first edition hardback just before the movie comes out.

Ah my friend, you missed the implied, "in time to act upon the knowledge", that was in my statement.

Crap, I wish I had known, it's all of like ten minutes from my house.