[14:12] Whir: When the going gets hot, the hot get ice cream-cicles.

Because living here has its slight compensations from time to time.

A slightly out of context transcript from tonight's D&D game, because playing Anglaspark the dragon was quite amusing for me.

Extraneous bits trimmed.

Wherein previously, Our Heroes have charmed an orc, questioned it, and sent it to summon the huge blue dragon Anglaspark to a parley...

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*Anglaspark lands*
GM: So he's a huge-sized dragon, bigger than a lot of buildings you've seen. Curious sort of look on his face. Little tarnished brass crown on his head.

Dinendal: Greetings Great Anglaspark!
Anglaspark: Why, adventurers! And you've charmed my orc! How CUTE!

*Anglaspark claps his forelegs together.*
joesf (Tanner): does he leap into the air to do it?
Erik: He kinda does, yeah.

Anglaspark: Now, who might you chaps be, and what the hell do you want?
Dinendal: I'm glad you find my parlor tricks amusing High One.
Dinendal: Well, we've been asked by the druids to investigate the rumors of a rampaging dragon.
Dinendal: And we've encountered a Blue recently that was...rude.

*Colbar Drukanen laces his fingers together and sways slightly*

Anglaspark: Rude blue dragons? Why, how...rude. Am I rude, orc?
Orc: Er, no master.
Dinendal: And your orc was telling us that you have been temporarily inconvenienced by the cult of the Dragon.

*Anglaspark snarls*
*Anglaspark roars*

Dinendal: Well, the Druid speaks rather highly of you and we'ld like to help you reclaim your original cave faster.
Chad (Dinendal): I'm trying to word it so that I never imply he's not capable of doing this himself.
Dinendal: Yes, the rude one.
Anglaspark: Little bastard drove me out of my lair! I got that lair from daddy! And he took it!

*Colbar Drukanen lets out a yelp and falls to his knees*

Anglaspark: Him and his little snake toys!
Dinendal: Eactly, and that kind of behavior cannot be tolerated.
Anglaspark: I WANT HIM DEAD, DO YOU HEAR ME? DEAD!
Dinendal: We are in agreement there.

*Anglaspark stomps the ground*
*Colbar Drukanen jumps back to his feet*

Dinendal: We'd lke to help. Is there any information about your lair that might be beneficial to our assault on him?
Anglaspark: YOU, HUMAN THINGS. GO KILL VIRANALAGASTHOS. _KILL HIM._
Anglaspark: KILL! KILL KILL KILL!

*Dinendal takes a step back. Looks around nervously*
*Anglaspark is hopping up and down in anger*
*Orc is looking really worried as he's getting slightly crushed in the dragon's paw*

Anglaspark: ...what? Sorry. I get a bit angry, you know?
Anglaspark: It's just that that lair meant a lot to me. Got it from daddy, you know.
Dinendal: No worries, Lord Anglaspark.
Dinendal: I would be angry too.
Anglaspark: Very nice lair. Soft dirt on the floor. Lots of room for my orcs to frolic. Grass for the cows.
Anglaspark: Scenic mountain vistas.
Anglaspark: AND THAT BASTARD STOLE IT FROM ME.
Dinendal: Would there be a way in that would allow us a greater chance of surprise?
Anglaspark: I WANT HIS HEART.
Anglaspark: ...sorry, just...I get really worked up about it.
Anglaspark: ...you were...saying something?
Dinendal: Yes, your lordship. We'd be in your debt if you had any information regarding the lair and perhaps a way for us to sneak in

*Orc squirms out of the dragon's paw*

Dinendal: Or any information about the usurper.
Anglaspark: Oh, it's...over there...a little ways. Just fly on ov...wait, humans. Forgot. You don't have wings, do you.

*Anglaspark peers closely at Dinendal*

Dinendal: Not often, no
Dinendal smiles brightly at the dragon
Anglaspark: No, no wings. But maybe you have a map?

GM: Eclaire pulls out the map.

*Anglaspark peers really closely at the map*
*Orc saves the map after it blows off when the dragon breathes*
*Anglaspark pokes a talon into the map, leaving a hole*

Anglaspark: It's about there.
Anglaspark: Can't miss it. Lots of pillars and columns and things.
Anglaspark: Daddy was big on that sort of thing. Used to be king of Turmish, you know.
Anglaspark: Then I guess the humans all got mad at him or something.
Anglaspark: And then the humans killed daddy. I've always been sort of miffed about that.

*Anglaspark sticks his snout in Dinendal's face*

Anglaspark: You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you?
Dinendal: Never been to Turmish, Lord Anglaspark.
Anglaspark: ...no, I guess not. That was a couple years before you.
Anglaspark: You're not a hundred yet, are you?
Dinendal: Just 80 years shy of it myself.
Anglaspark: ...I'm sending babies. Oh well.
Anglaspark: As long as you can toddle back with Viranalagasthos' heart for me.
Dinendal: It would be our pleasure.
Anglaspark: ...was there anything else? I'm really sort of hungry.

*Anglaspark thinks for a second*
*Dinendal fidgets a bit*

Anglaspark: ...Would you like me to rip you off a hunk of ribs or a haunch or something? I don't need the WHOLE cow, I guess.
Anglaspark: Wouldn't want you to go off unfed, or anything.
Dinendal: A generous offer, but no, we should be going.
Anglaspark: And you've been awfully polite.
Anglaspark: Don't often get humans who can speak properly.
Dinendal: That is a shame.
Anglaspark: It's been a while, you know?
Anglaspark: Fellow gets lonesome for some good conversation.
Anglaspark: Ever tried talking to orcs for seventy years?
Dinendal: We should probably be on our way.
Anglaspark: Really tiresome. Really, really tiresome.

*Dinendal backs away at a respectable pace*

Anglaspark: ...well, ok. If you insist.
Anglaspark: His heart, remember. I WANT HIS HEART.
Dinendal: Thank you for your time.

*Colbar Drukanen looks a litthe frightened and scurries off behind Dinendal*

Anglaspark: HEART.

*Anglaspark grabs the orc and flies off*

Because I was reading about random panzers this morning for no real reason, got captivated by this thing and the concept, and ran with it in CBT support vehicles rules. The old ones, mind you, as I haven't the new ones.

Type: Wiesel
Mass: 1,100 kg
Speed: 5/8 ICE (tracked, amphibious)
Range: 200 km
Armor: 6 points BAR7 (2 front, 1 L/R, 1 rear, 1 turret)
Weapons: See below (all have basic fire control)

Primary: 1x Support MG w/900 rounds, 1x Semi-Portable MG w/960 rounds
Cost 7,417

Alt A: 1x Support MG w/1200 rounds, 1x Light TAG w/Military Power Pack (40 shots)
Cost 48,802

Alt B: 1x Heavy Recoilless Rifle w/14 rounds
Cost 8,693

Alt C: 2x SRM Launchers w/24 rounds
Cost 17,074

Alt D: 1x Light Mortar w/26 rounds
Cost 6,120

Alt E: 1x Magshot Gauss w/High Capacity Military Power Pack + 100 rounds, 1x Heavy Grenade Launcher w/380 rounds
Cost 21,538

Alt F: 2 Corean Far-Shot LRM Launchers w/24 rounds
Cost 37,640

Everything but the E/F models is buildable with 3025 tech, and the other two are available come the late 3050s. It's not an omni-vehicle, but may as well be - you could concievably keep some spare turrets around and just swap them out as needed. Come the 3050s, you COULD make it an omni, if you cared to, but.

The idea behind this is a cheap as hell infantry support tank/recon tank. 2 crew, 1 driver/1 gunner. The primary version has all kinds of concievable roles, being cheap and utterly destructive to any infantry it runs across. The A model swaps out the light MG for a light TAG unit for spotting, though the utility of that is perhaps minimal, considering fragility and cost. Considering that this is likely to go to planetary militias without huge arms budgets for Copperhead rounds, LGBs, and homing Arrow IV, well.

The B model is my favorite low-tech model, a good light tank that packs a hefty punch, versatile against both infantry and vehicles. A perhaps scarier version swaps out the underpowered heavy RR for the uber medium RR and adds another machine gun. The C model is what would be an anti-air version if such a thing existed in BT (which it sadly does not), but a pair of SRM-2s is still a hefty punch for something this size. The D model is very light artillery (read: VERY light), and given the crappy range of BT mortars, you're probably better off going with the more effective B instead.

The E model is the Federated Suns special, built using FS-only tech, and is enormously ugly, considering. The Magshot Gauss rifle is the 800 lb gorilla of support weapons, utterly effective against vehicles, and the heavy grenade launcher is an automatic weapon that will deal with all of your infantry issues forever. Expensive, limited availability due to the scarcity of Magshots, but scary.

The F model is the Free Worlds League special, with a pair of Corean LRMs, which makes it the artillery platform the D model wants to be. Unfortunately, it's really expensive.

Other Wiesel variants go unexplored here, as the various missiles don't exist in BT, BT autocannons are much too large for a 1.1 ton vehicle (shrunk more than in half from the Wiesel's 2.75 tons), and the radar versions are unworkable in BT (though a version with a radar sensor controller and up to 7 radar sensors (or 2 and a semi-portable MG and 200 rounds) could be done). The APC version is actually quite doable (albeit with the riders on the outside) with a single turreted MG, though why you would make it is beyond me. Ambulance and CP versions are impossible in effective BT rules, and while the cargo version is doable, at 135 kg it's a little impractical.

Yes, you could probably invent the Humvee for even cheaper, but who cares, at the cheap costs for the 2 best low-tech versions.

You could also concievably make either a totally kick-ass fusion version or a totally kick-ass Clan version, but neither of these are likely.

Too, if I were actually building vehicles for my hypothetical IS infantry regiment, I'd likely double (or triple) the weight, give it actual military grade armor, and upgun the engine some, and maybe make it a 7 man APC all day every day. Said infantry regiment would also need a few other things, like an actual MBT, MASH vehicles, and some sort of organic air transport, probably VTOL or VSTOL fixed-wing aircraft able to carry however many of these vehicles or a 28 man infantry platoon (or two).

Yes, I've actually spent a fair amount of time on this particular subject. Don't ask me why, because it's never going to matter.

First, on that blog technical note, you will find that the archives are slightly reworked (that whole iframe presentation was seriously pissing me off), the comment window now behaves like it did in Days of Yore, and entries dating back to the beginning of 2005 are now categorized. Each step on the categorization front gets harder - 2005 had more entries than 2006, 2004 has more than 2005, and 2003 even more than that. But we're getting there.

That's not actually what I wanted to talk about, though. I actually want to talk about my 4th of July, which is a useful springboard for a number of topics.

Here's what I did. I checked out the Ken Burns PBS documentary The Civil War (most of you will have seen chunks in school), watched about 2 fireworks go off, and pretty much sat down and watched it for three days straight - literally, as the feature itself is something like 11.5 hours, nevermind the commentary, etc. And of course I did the commentary thing, too.

I'm not generally given to displays of patriotism, flag-waving and the like. Nor am I often prone to deep reflections on it. I'm an American, and for all its faults, it's my country and I love it. That having been said, I felt it appropriate to spend my 4th watching a film on our most apocalyptic struggle as a people. I'm like that sometimes.

It was also a great chance to reconnect with my childhood, as I hadn't seen the whole series since some time in the early 1990s. Oh, I saw bits and pieces in history classes in school, as all students of my generation did, but I hadn't seen the whole in something approaching 15 years.

It's been in the back of my mind, I suppose, and I may have hinted at it here and there, but on the list of Great Formative Media Experiences, The Civil War ranks pretty highly. It came out when I was 9, and one of those rituals of going to my grandparents' house in the summers for about five years was to sit and watch PBS, which (rightly), featured it promenantly. So it's in there pretty deep. I can effortlessly recall David McCullough's narration, and there are parts of the soundtrack (and this film is, bar none, the single best-scored film EVER) that have been burned into my mind forever. I can whistle for you When Johnny Comes Marching Home or Ashokan Farewell or Battle Cry Of Freedom effortlessly, sing for you Battle Hymn of the Republic (and have, actually, in a spontaneous rendition that moved my 5th grade teacher to tears).

There's a review somewhere on the net that essentially says that everyone, everywhere should watch the whole series, and they're right. It's pretty rare that you find something on the sort of scale The Civil War has, yet so deeply engaging and interesting. It says something that it enabled my 9 year old self to understand something so complex as the war, and can yet move my infinitely more jaded, stoic 26 year old self almost to tears in places (the assassination of Abraham Lincoln may be the most tragic single event in our history). And it's a documentary that did all that. Better than most fiction, 'tis.

Where am I going with all that? Probably nowhere, but to note that, while it didn't precisely kindle my interest in history (thanks Shogun, thanks Roots), or the period (thanks again, Roots), it certainly inspired it in me, and in others - I used to sit around in 6th, 7th, 8th grade talking about it and the period, I certainly wasn't the only one moved by it - and I owe it a huge debt for that. And for introducing to me, and giving me definitive versions of, so much good music.

And maybe, you know, sometimes it's just nice to come back to something you haven't seen in a long time, and find that it is, if anything, better than you remembered, and for a time recapture something you haven't had for that long time, and maybe get something new out of it.

Like this soundtrack CD. Hi soundtrack CD. I sure wish I'd had you 15 years ago. I got things like you. And they were good. But they weren't you. But that's a story for another day.

I did not, as was my plan, spend Saturday in the DMV taking care of business. This came as a surprise to me, as I'm sure it does to you, who in like fashion had no idea I was going to DMV, let alone anywhere else.

But let us quote a late Friday night conversation between Sarah and myself:

[23:33] TontoMarius: That having been said, I am frightfully bored off my rocker right now.
[23:34] serenadingwords: Well I think we can fix that.
[23:34] serenadingwords: You doing anything tomorrow?
[23:34] TontoMarius: I might be going to DMV, but probably not.
[23:34] TontoMarius: As I have no actual desire to wake up at 8am.
[23:34] serenadingwords: No, I think you want to wake up at 8 am.
[23:34] TontoMarius: Why might that be?
[23:35] serenadingwords: So you can come to NYC and we'll go see the new Greece and Rome exhibit at the Met.
[23:35] serenadingwords: Howzat sound for a day plan?

The decision between a day in NYC with Sarah and a day of frustrating bureaucratical boredom in the DMV is, I can assure you, not at all hard, which is why after, let us be generous and call it 6 hours of sleep, I found myself on a train for Grand Central.

There comes a time in the life of everyone slightly new to a place, wherein watching people entirely new to the place react to it, the now-jaded semi-neophyte disparages them as being rank amateurs - n00bs, in the parlance of the age. And so it was that I, veteran New Yorker, looked upon those tourists who were snapping pictures everywhere. And then I looked around, and was pleased with my scenery. But didn't take pictures, because, you know, I'm way too cool for that.

Yeah.

In the event, Sarah showed up, and she took me took me for lunch to Katz's Delicatessen, which was described to me variously as "somewhere I had to go" and "they serve cow there! Warm cow!" Being, as I am, not one to turn down warm cooked cow, we went, we ate, and it was good. And I have a picture:

The signs:

- "Where Harry met Sally. Hope you have what she had!"

- "Send a salami to your boy in the Army!"

Following this, we went towards our stated goal of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And away from it, paralell to it, diagonal to it, and other assorted directions involving bus stops, subway stops, and my almost being killed in traffic, as is custom. And while Sarah actually saved me from this car, I am convinced that it was all an evil plot to lure me into her confidence for some unknown scheme. To get me killed by other, different traffic, no doubt.

In any event, we witness many sights on this journey, including:

An antiques store, which had a truly ludicrous number of lamps, and of course prompted that line from Roberto, "Oh, that? That's just a shitty lamp." But it was of course so much more, given such things as the radio in the background talking about reincarnation and how threatened we are by the end of the world in 40,000 years. Among other things.

Also this, which I guess was part of a larger message selling us tickets.

After an epic trek through the streets of Manhattan, which involved, variously, hostile Indians, the Quest For Water, more natives who I believe were attempting to trade for Sarah's admittedly excellent shirt, the NYPD, and vendors of Chinese art, we arrived at the Met, which appears to be a large museum. As I witnessed only a small part of it in my hours there, I cannot honestly tell you, but it appears large. We took, oh, three odd hours to make it through the new Greek and Roman galleries, which I guess tells us something.

As always, I have many pictures, though I promise not as many as the 257 I apparently took in the British Museum, though the two are in many ways spitting images of each other, which I found slightly jarring at times in that "Didn't I JUST see this?" sense.

This is part of the main hallway in the collection, along which is displayed much statuary and neat objects. See that column waaaaaaay in the back there?

Here it is, with Sarah in front. Part of it, anyway. It's a tall column.

On the other side of that is a fairly large court, which I believe is done up to resemble one from where much of this stuff came, but I may be wrong. Also with assorted excellent statuary and the like.

Off to the side are assorted rooms, with a great multitude of Neat Objects, the like of which I have previously catalogued in my British Museum photography and won't trouble you with again, except for the odd fresco and the like.

Such as these, which are cool.

And in slightly greater detail.

The benches on which we frequently relaxed to rest our aching muscles greatly fatigued by the epic journey previously were not so nice as this:

The collection has quite a lot of Greek vases, of which this is one, and caught my eye for the excellent detailing.

Also these jars, which are cool.

I gloss over much, here, including the many many jokes which are the outcome of putting a classicist and a historian with way too many pop culture references in the same place as a lot of ancient artifacts. There will be more evidence of this anon, but let me note a couple:

- There is, no shit, an ancient Greek vase with a drawing of Frodo on it. Halfling-sized, curly-haired, right down to the face. It was uncanny.

- In a moment of weakness, I noted that you could probably buy a particular Roman glass bowl for fairly cheap these days at Wal-Mart. No, I'm not proud of that.

- Both of us are more than a little large for hoplite armor, of which more evidence shall be presented to you anon.

Too, no photobloggery of the event would be complete without pictures of the Room Of Bad Photography, which existed to plague us at all opportunities and make us look awful. Sarah MAY have come away with an ok picture. I am skeptical.

In which I tell you, for the first and perhaps only time, to look at the art, not the girl.

And if you object, check this out:

I mean, where do we start? The bizzare expression on my face? My freakishly and inexplicably reddish hair? The awesome way in which the picture seems to blur EXCEPT on me, rendering my utter anti-photogenic nature perfectly? Truly, this is one of the better awful photos taken of me, made excellent by my spectacular aversion to cameras.

Fortunately, Sarah took other, better pictures of me. I also have hopes that I am not rendered permenantly damaging to human sight by the fact that Sarah DID spend all day with me. But since you all may not trust her judgement, I further note that much of my train trip back was spent playing peek-a-boo with a baby who seemed utterly fascinated by me. So we can hope.

As a postscript to our day, we found picnic-esque food ("Hey random apartment-dweller. Where's a grocery store?") and sat in Central Park enjoying the really perfect weather, an awesome park, and at least in my case, an ice-cold Coca-Cola.

But here, see for yourself:

The pool by which we spent our time, and:

The actual view from where we were sitting. Believe me when I tell you that the full-size image is even cooler.

And we went back to Grand Central, Sarah destined for other adventures today, and myself destined for a trip full of being amusement for a very small human.

[edit]

Speaking of art, allow me to show off my aquisition, which I am told depicts here:

Sarah also has two smaller pieces, which I shall allow her to show off on her own, should she desire.

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