grahamrobinson.com

Pub Night

Claire and I will be in Edinburgh tomorrow evening (Friday) with the dogs. So we're thinking that maybe this would be a good chance to meet up with a few people down the pub. We should be at the Caley Sample Rooms around nine. Hope to see lots of you there!

A Quantum Party?

Seems I only post to this thing to invite people to parties. Possibly not the worst thing in the world...

Anyway, we've been looking at the garden, and the lack of time, and wondering what to do. We could invite some people over for a gardening party (do some gardening, eat pizza or whatever, drink wine, and chat) but that means picking a day, and what if it rains? Well, then we'll have a house party, which is basically the same, but the "gardening" bit gets replaced by "maybe play some games, or whatever we feel like at the time". The eating, drinking, and chatting stays the same.

Anyone up for it next Saturday (30th June)? Turn up roughly lunchtime? We're open to suggestions for the kind of food you want to be bribed with. Let me know...

***

I was going to make this a jokey post, with references to the parallel between this and Schrodinger's cat, what with you not knowing what kind of party you've been invited to until you turn up, but I didn't. I suspect you're glad.

Party!

I should really have got round to posting this before now...

Next Saturday (12th May) is my birthday, so there will be the by now traditional BBQ at our house. Everyone(*) is welcome. The party will start around 7pm, but if anyone wants to turn up in the afternoon and help with the last minute tidying and gardening, feel free. Lifts from/to Linlithgow station will be available. Please bring booze and something nice to cook - we'll have some stuff, but probably not enough...

If anyone needs directions, crash space, or whatever, please drop me an e-mail. Or leave a comment, or whatever.

Word of warning - we will have two large dogs (and one fat cat) wandering around. So, please keep the garden gate shut, and guard your food!

* - Everyone I know is invited. Everyone I know is also welcome to bring anyone they know. As are those people. Really - the more the merrier.

Can you see the real me?

I couldn't resist...

The Seat with the Clearest View?

As it happens, this post is more confused than cheerful. Did anyone watch Life on Mars? Especially the final episode? I've seen quite a lot of comments from people that were happy with how it ended, but I was more bemused than anything. Every episode has started with "Am I Mad? In a Coma? Travelled back in time?" (quote probably mangled horribly...) yet the final episode didn't answer that question. (Unless I've missed something...)

Anyone care to explain this to me? Or did the writer(s) just go for the horrible "let's leave it so vague that everyone thinks their theory was right..."?

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3

It begins with a laptop. A laptop that dies in a horrible, final, irrepairable manner. And since the laptop is necessary for my very sanity, a new laptop needed to be bought...

In other words, my computer died last week, and I have had only limited Internet access since. It might be next week before the new laptop arrives, so expect little from me in the meantime.

The other downside to this is that since money is very tight at the moment, the cash to pay for the new computer is the same cash that was supposed to pay for our flights to Tentacles. We've had to pull out, and all the stuff I was hoping to run will now not happen, or be run by someone else. Apologies to anyone that I've let down.

I'll try to make the next post a bit more cheerful, for my sake as much as anything.

Tentacled Plans

My Tentacles (25th May to 28th May, in Germany) is starting to look busy. Currently I'm planning to run :

The Curse of the Crimson Sail
30 player pirate freeform

Sir Gerald Fernley-Hamilton, governor of the small Carribean island of San Julianna, looked out from his palace window, and sighed. The ship tacking into the port was the Black Pig, a run-down privateer, crewed by villains. As if he didn't have enough trouble with the pirates already in town. Sir Gerald turned away, reluctantly returning to his desk, and its piles of paper. He glanced swiftly over the latest rumours and reports gathered from the town. Buried treasure, oaths of vengence, assaults, arrests. Nothing new there, then. Sir Gerald pushed the reports aside, and turned his attention to the most horrifying sheet of paper - the seating plan for his only daughter's wedding banquet...

Crimson Sail is the game I was going to run at the Student Nationals, running at Tentacles in its full, 30-player version. Assuming enough people want to play, that is...

Pub Quiz

The Blank Sheet
4-6 Players
Improvised Tabletop RPG.

Players take it in turns to ask the GM a yes/no question, and to make an in-character comment. By this means they create their characters, the scenario, and indeed the world setting.

The Grouse
approx. 1 hour

You have five minutes to convince the audience that your wildest theory is correct. Think Glorantha is round? That the Egyptian Gods were Cthulhoid entities? That Gregging is a good thing? Here's your chance to prove it to the world!

I ran this at Scotscon, and I think it worked pretty well, so we're giving it another try.

Timetables for all this are a little vague at the moment - Crimson Sail at some point on Saturday, not clashing with other freeforms, Blank Sheet Sunday morning, and the other two some evening...