| Engagement |
[20 Feb 2007|10:30pm] |
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Okay so some of you may already know, but I wanted to post something about it anyway because I feel really good. Apart from the lurgy I'm currently recovering from, but that's by the by.
On Saturday night in a small garden in a hotel in York I got down on one knee and asked my girlfriend of 3 years, 360 days and twenty one and a half hours to marry me.
She said yes.
Which is very good! :-)
Before anyone asks we haven't set a date yet, I'm currently enjoying walking around being engaged. Nikki once asked me what difference being engaged would make seeing as we've been living together for over a year, and I told her that something would be different. Well I was right, I can feel that unknown something and it feels really good.
Currently we're walking around looking at engagement rings together, trying to come up with the design we like for the sapphire I bought her. If anyone knows any good ring designers in the uk, drop me a link or an address. It would be appreciated.
One of the more amusing parts is that we announced it to all the re-enactors at York. In many ways those re-enactors are like a big family and so like a big family they've started plotting our wedding for us. In this case though its the authenitic wedding we'll have as re-enactors. Already two splinter factions have been set up, one in favour of a wedding at the chester cathedral show, the other in favour of a wedding at our big permanent site in Kent in the longhall we've built down there. We're keeping out of this as they both sound great.
Anyhoo a comic on the subject will appear shortly as I have finally heard from the insurers and a new lap top should shortly be forthcoming.
TTFN
Ben
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[11 Dec 2006|01:41am] |
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Coming soon to a website near you... the return of www.thezenofben.com !!!
My aim is to update once a week at first, since I'm pretty sure I can do that regularly. Then once I've proven to myself I can do that, I'll try for twice a week.
Submissions for story ideas are always welcome, though I have a few to work through for now. The first is based on the saga of my night in hospital which occured just after the comic last stopped, then I have a few gags I've been waiting to use for a while.
What can people expect?
The return of a few favourites, the introduction of a few new ones, and the first appearance of the infamous Eric and Brian.
More soon...
Ben
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[22 Jun 2006|11:33pm] |
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My pirate name is:
Bloody Tom Rackham
Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!
Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.
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[19 Sep 2005|10:50pm] |
Hmmmm... Love the picture...
You are the brave leader of your pack.You are
strong,fierce,and proud.You are fair to your
pack and are very protective of them.You trust
them with your life.Be careful,there ar always
some wolves who will wish to strike you down
when you are weak and steal your position as
Alpha.
What position are u in your wolf pack?
brought to you by Quizilla
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| New Game |
[19 Sep 2005|04:15pm] |
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Hi all! Haven't posted in yonks I know.
Posting today because I have come up with a great idea for a new online game for people to play.
You may have heard of games such as fantasy football, well I've come up with the idea of Fantasy Film!
HOW TO PLAY
First pick a film idea.
Then pick what stars you want to be in your film.
Look on www.imdb.com for the last major film they were in and look up what the current highest gross for that film is.
Total up the gross.
Pick another major film of the same type/genre and make a note of that's highest gross.
Divide your total by the number oy stars you picked plus one for the film genre.
That gives you the total gross for your film.
EXAMPLE
I've been talking for ages about how they should make an A-Team movie just like they've remade Starsky and Hutch and the Dukes of Hazzard.
Here's my fantasy cast -
Hannibal Smith - George Clooney - £12,030,148
Mr T - Ving Rhames - £5,434,023
Howling Mad Murdock - Jim Carrey - £13,114,720
Face - Josh Holloway (Sawyer from lost) - No major film so no gross - I'm not counting anyone with no gross towards the total.
Star total - £30,578,891
Genre - Starsky and Hutch - £12,470,331
Total - £43,049,222/4 = £10,762,305
Which means my movie total is £10,762,305! More than Dukes is grossing at the moment and that was a great film.
So there we go, give it a go yourself, try and beat my total, and spread the word. Who knows, this could be the next internet craze!
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| Games Masterbation and student politics |
[07 Mar 2005|02:51pm] |
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Okay so I haven't posted in ages, and I'm sorry that the first post I do after so long is a complaining one but I need to vent.
Just came over from the student election Husting, puytting aside how monumentally depressing it is to watch students playing political games - some what akin to watching three year olds pretend to be mummies and daddies - I got really steamed at the women's officer candidates. Swansea University has a higher proportion of female students to male students, for some reason unknown to me this means their is a requirement that one of the Sabbatical Officers be there to represent women on campus. I have long felt that this is an unfair bias representative of society today, where there are many cases of prefered treatment of women in liberal institutions. I'm not saying that it is wrong that there be a women's officer to help women face problems like discrimination, in fact any problem they are facing. I believe representation to be a good thing! What steams me up is that there is no comparable officer for men. The conventional wisdom has been that the men on campus can go to the President (who is always a man) with theirproblems, but that women need someone who understands their problems they can talk to. I can tell you from personal experience that the President is often too busy to see people, and that since one of the prime candidates for President this year is my friend Becky, the conventional wisdom is wrong. The usual answer to this is that a man can always go see the women's officer, that she's there to help everyone. There are problems that a man may not feel comfortable discussing with a woman, for example back in first year I had friends in law who were failing in their grades because one of the proffessor's was trying to hit on them and when they rejected him he graded them down. I found out about this purely through a personal connection and approached one of the individuals on the matter. he was too embarrassed to go and see anybody about it, especially not the woman's officer. To cut a long ramble short I have long held the belief that for complete equality a men's officer would be a good thing, and he and the women's officer could work together to create a close campus.
Cue the question and answer session today. The question comes up, "what would the candidates say to suggestions that there be a men's officer to balance out the women's officer?"
Women's officer candidate 1 - "Oh this always makes me laugh...." Ben's fists clench under the table.
Women's officer candidate 2 - "I don't think the men who say that understand the problems women face."
Women's officer candidate 3 - "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."
As you can tell it fairly insensed me.
Second point... so I'm a glutton for punishment. I'm slowly being corrupted to the ways of the d20, no matter how much I may bitch that it isn't a patch on d10 and d6 systems. I enjoy roleplay and want to encourage people to have a go at making their own unique roleplays based on existing systems. Two cases in point come from the same individual who severely pissed me off last night.
The first game this guy tried was an x-men roleplay based on the marvel system crossed with the d&d system. Sounds fair enough, I'd been corrupted to this by another friend who had invented a Firefly roleplay based on D&D. I came away seething from that game because the gm gave the characters very little scope for movement, trod heavily on any attempts to show personal initiative, and placed my character at least in situations where I had to face vastly superior adversaries and got my ass handed to me.
Last night I agreed to give him another try with a similar game set during the D-Day landings with myself and the other players as special commandos, again based off of D&D.
To cut a long story short I have since coined a new term for what he engaged in - Games Masterbation. The game seemed more important to him as a way for him to play his vastly powerful npcs against the bad guys, leaving most of us with the very little to do, and treading heavily on us if we tried to do anything that interfered with his plan. He guided us into drawing up specialised characters who never got to use their specialisations and who were totally unprepared for much else because they were so specialised. He ignored all attempts at character play, all the while cautioning us to behave in a manner appropriate to soldiers such as to follow orders strictly (a doctrine that apparently didn't apply to his npcs) and he showed very little regard to attempts to question his actions when he went on an npc run, actually shouting me down at one point. I think the worst bit for me was when my character was ordered to fix a bayonet to a gun which couldn't shoot when bayonetted, approach a gun nest of nazis and get horrendously shot, while his npc medic staged a have a go hero and dashed round behind them to massacre most of them. I was then informed as to how cool his medic was. At length. This is the same medic who, when he was wounded by machine gun fire while dashing out of cover without waiting for orders (to collect another character who had gone after a bangalore) I made a sprint out to collect, then returned for the second man - this whole action was quickly glossed over so we could focus on the cool npc medic fixing up the other character I had brought back.
To cut a long story short - and I don't know if the term already exists but if not please use it freely -
Games masterbation: verb, when a GM is more interested in having his cool npcs do the work and his players be the grunts fullfilling the npc role, or when a GM is more interested in trashing his players with uber hard adversaries and crushing all attempts at free will and actual role play
There, rant over, I feel a little better for getting that out. Needless to say I will not be returning for part 2 of the adventure...
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[14 Feb 2005|12:32am] |
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http://thezenofben.com/
Quite possibly the most wonderful present I've ever recieved.
Now I actually have to start writing the damn thing...
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[10 Feb 2005|04:26pm] |
This is actually based on a rather fun game by Steve Jackson, the same guy who made Munchkin, Games Workshop (an evil conspiracy all by itself), and those great fighting fantasy books. Check him out at http://www.sjgames.com/
Servants of Cthulhu:
Victory is Destruction.
Fnord.
Which Illuminati are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
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[18 Jan 2005|05:20pm] |
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Choose a band/artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band:
I think it's gonna have to be Queen
Are you male or female:
Princes of the Universe
Describe yourself:
The Great Pretender
How do some people feel about you:
Friends will be friends
How do you feel about yourself:
Show must go on
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend:
Fat Bottomed Girls
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend (or ideal):
Killer Queen
Describe where you want to be:
I want to break free
Describe what you want to be:
Made in heaven
Describe how you live:
Don't stop me now
Describe how you love:
Good old fashioned lover boy
Share a few words of wisdom
Who wants to live forever
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[23 Dec 2004|12:13am] |
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I just finished my christmas shopping! Insert chorus of angels all going nuts. Finally, the endless spending has been sated. I love giving gifts, and I love watching people's expressions when they open said gifts but when you hold down only a part time job it gets a little tough some times. But its done!
In other news last night someone - not mentioning any small blonde female names - thoughtlessly exposed me to a web comic after midnight. I think this is something that should come with a warning, like the gremlins. Do not give this man sea food or expose him to web comics after mid night. On the down side I didn't get to bed till near four. On the plus side it meant I was awake when Nikki came down with the same bug that I just got over and I was awake and able to take care of her when she started being ill.
For those of you who don't suffer my problem - http://www.somethingpositive.net
Start at the begining folks, and watch out for choo choo bear...
Merry christmas!
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[22 Dec 2004|05:42pm] |
Okay so I wrote to the Scottish Justice section as I suggested in an earlier post, and this was the reply they sent me. Please note the disclaimer at the top and do not quote from it or otherwise use it yourselves since I want to keep my correspondence with them above board. I'm going to write to them again making further points and asking further questions. Will keep you all informed as to what else I hear.
*******************************************************************************************************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
Please see attached reply to your e-mails to First Minister, cathy Jamieson and Dr Richard Scott on above topic
Justice Department
Criminal Justice Division
22 December 2004
Dear Mr May
Thank you for recent e-mails to the First Minister, Cathy Jamieson MSP, Minister for Justice, and Dr Richard Scott, Head of Criminal Justice Division, about the proposed ban on the sale of swords. These have been passed to me with a request to reply direct to you.
Scots law has always regarded an attack with an offensive weapon as a serious aggravation of assault. Successive legislation has introduced tighter and more specific controls to tackle the carrying of knives and therefore help the prevention of crime. A wide range of powers is now in force.
Nevertheless, the Executive remains deeply concerned about the continuing high incidence of knife crime and its contribution to violent crime. In the recently published homicide figures for Scotland for 2003, as in previous years, the use of a sharp instrument, e.g. knives swords, was the most common method of killing, accounting for 55 victims (51 per cent of the total). The role of knives and other sharp instruments in homicides and assaults needs urgent and effective action. Accordingly the Executive is drawing up a strategy on violence which will include a review of knife crime law and enforcement, as promised in the Partnership Agreement. This concern was reinforced by the First Minister on 22 November when he set out a programme of measures to address the unacceptably high level of knife crime in Scotland
These measures include a possible licensing system to restrict the sale of non-domestic knives: discussions are taking place with Local Authorities and ACPOS on the detail and feasibility of such a scheme. We are looking at how police powers might be strengthened, for example by giving the police an ‘unconditional’ power of arrest where they suspect a person is carrying a knife. We are also considering proposals to ban the general sale of swords and at increasing the penalties for carrying knives.
The Executive will be consulting on these various proposals in the New Year and will bring forward legislation as appropriate at the earliest opportunity. You may wish to keep a watch in the media or on the Executive website for an announcement on the launch of this consultation. We have, however, noted your interest in this issue and we will try to alert you to this event.
We recognise that, in strengthening the law on the sale, ownership and use of non-domestic knives and sharp implements, exceptions may have to be built into the legislation to cover legitimate aspects on knife/sword sale and ownership, for example for sporting purposes. The shape of these exceptions will be finalised in the light of comments received during the consultation.
I hope that find this helpful.
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[19 Dec 2004|07:46pm] |
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Bah!
You are a Maine Coon! You are larger than life, a
gentle giant. You are independent, but very
affectionate with your friends and family.
What breed of cat are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Hope it works this time.
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[19 Dec 2004|07:24pm] |
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School of Rock |
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So, finally he updates!
Before I forget, please sign this.
http://www.petitiononline.com/Swords/petition.html
You can also send personal e-mails to the three following individuals (scottish first minister,
justice minister, and criminal justice sherrif) if you choose -
jack.mcconnell.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
cathy.jamieson.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
Richard.Scott@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Anyhoo, now that's out of the way allow me to say that Thai food and I
just don't get along. Curry, chilli, these are spicy foods that I can
handle. Thai spice is like getting hit around the head with a sock full
of wet sand. Half way through the meal I began to feel woozy! Now to be
fair I had eaten a tiny amount of prawn be accident before hand, but my
throat wasn't swollen, its just that my tounge and lips were almost
painfully on fire, and my head began to feel all hazy, and the begining
of tunnel vision began around the edges of my eyes. Like I said, I like
spicy food but Thai food would seem not to like me. I'm also not fond
of the way they treat their cuts of meat. A small amount of fat is
needed for cooking, and the meat should be chewy - thats why its meat!
But when it needs to be choked down after 3 minutes solid chewing where
its still as tough as before, and the meat is as much fat as meat -
then I begin to wonder who exactly is eating the good cuts? Tex-Mex on
the other hand? Yum! That's all I can say.
Filled in this fun little quiz, going to post it now so that I can close the window its in -
<img
src="http://images.quizilla.com/K/KatherynS/1055819065_CArtmainecoon.jpg"
border="0" alt="Maine Coon"><br>You are a Maine Coon!
You are larger than life, a<br>gentle giant. You are
independent, but very<br>affectionate with your friends and
family.
<br><br><a
href="http://quizilla.com/users/KatherynS/quizzes/What%20breed%20of%20cat%20are%20you%3F/">
<font size="-1">What breed of cat are
you?</font></a><BR> <font size="-3">brought to
you by <a
href="http://quizilla.com">Quizilla</a></font>
Okay, a lot has happened since getting back to Reading. Kari came to
stay which was very cool - as her journal showed we had a great time
plowing around southern England taking in Tolkeins grave one moment and
Stone Henge the next. These two were interesting, allthough stone henge
I had seen before, but more interesting for me was Old Sarum. This
ancient hill fort I had read about but never actually visited. It was
much more complete than previous hill forts I had visited and standing
atop of it I got a real chill. For me there was a real Minas Tirth feel
to so ancient a place that had been the seat of ancient kings and had
been the first stronghold of William the Conquerer. Thinking of the
wide open courtyard which must have held the barracks for the kings
soldiers, the small personal chappel of the king, the high towered
entrance that was part of the very first castle, and the raised
courtyard where only the select followers of the king could go, a high
platform with a view of all the surrounding countryside for many miles,
I could imagine in my mind that wonderful vista of the fountain court
which steve jackson so perfectly captured in Return of the King and
which has always been a favourite bit of the lord of the rings books
for me.
Searching out Tolkeins grave was also good fun though - allthough I am
grateful for it being an easy trip - it was so easy to find that it
lacked that quest element for me. Still seeking him out and pouring a
libation of Nikki's home brewed mead felt right (hope he wasn't tee
total Kari!). Having Kari down here to share fun parts of my country
with was great, and I hope to show her other parts of it when she gets
back after christmas. Would be great to show the rest of the
dearnehealde crew some of the things we showed Kari (you're always
welcome guys!).
I've been working for games workshop again this weekend (just got in
from work in fact) and that was a bit manic what with 66 boxes of stock
to unpack in a tiny shop. In the end we began labelling the storage
boxes with strange labels such as "Arc of the Covenant", "Lord Lucan's
Bones", and "Caution, Hobbit Inside!" and "Do not feed the Ewok". We
also renamed the Space MArines the Spice Marines and began creating a
made up chapter such as Ginger Squad, Sporty Squad, etc.
The big news from this week is that I'm gonna be on tv! Yep you read
that right, I spent one day this week as one of four vikings for a
special program by the discovery channel on mummies. Apparently they
found these 4 mummified bodies in a peat bog, and were trying to figure
out their story. They reckon all 4 were young warriors, early twenties,
and may have been on the equivalent of a lads week away raiding when
something untoward happened. We got to kill a priest, run through
endless marshlands till we had all fallen down, lost our boots, near
impaled ourselves on our own swords, and gotten soaked to the skin. We
all caught the lague at one point (a possible death for the 4
warriors), were murdered by an irish hoard (all played by the same guy
in true hollywood fashion) and simply died in a mysterious manner which
left us flopped and in zombie makeup around our encampment. Filming was
hindered by a daft black labrador which wouldn't stop running into shot
(and whose owner could not be found) and which insisted on having a
large black rock thrown for it as though it were a ball (we were all
terrified of accidentally killing the daft creature!). We staged fight
sequences, got knifed while having a piss, and ate large amounts of
roast chicken which was pretending to be rabbit. One of the real fun
bits was that because we were not recording sound we were able to say
whatever we wanted. If anyone can lip read then watch this for classic
lines such as "This is the last time we let him book the holiday.",
"I'm going to Ibiza next year." and when I returned with my 'freshly
caught' rabbits " We sent you out for pizza five hours ago!". The other
three guys were actors but soon got into the spirit of things and were
well into the viking re-enactor mind set in no time "I'd kill for dry
shoes!", "I want the biggest sword,", and while wittling a tree banch
"We'll have a new boat in no time lads!".
I will let you all know when its going to be on TV, for now it was nice
to pick up £100 towards christmas presents doing something I enjoyed.
And I made some great contacts with a re-enactor who does this
proffessionally, and met a man who makes some excellent dane axes which
I came damn close to buying!
Anway that's all for now, Nikki's in the kitchen making a wonderful
dinner, including my all time favourite dessert! If you're reading this
- Love you Lady.
Regards and Merry Chistmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, Diwali, Yule... and for the atheists... Have a Nice Day!
Ben
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[16 Dec 2004|01:14pm] |
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Well I was hardly surprised...
Werewolves of folklore differ greatly from modern
renditions seen in movies and shows. People
believed there were many ways to become
werewolves, such as drinking rainwater
collected in a wolf's pawprint, eating meat
gnawed on by a wolf, or being born with a full
set of teeth or covered in a caul. And unlike
movie werewolves, werewolves of old were
oftentimes harmless and highly honorable!
As a werewolf, you are loyal, strong and honorable,
and you will protect all you hold dear with
your very life. Although you are not a violent
individual at heart, you will fight for what
you believe in. You are a good friend and truly
are a wonderful person to be around.
Who is your inner Shapeshifter?
brought to you by Quizilla
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[26 Nov 2004|05:34pm] |
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Okay so I still don't have e-mail at my house, but I managed to steal some decent time on the Uni computers and thought I might send you all an update.
First of all apologies for the long silence in communication.
Second of all (except its not really all is it, but enough of the semantics) Since getting my job back at GW I've started an army of bretonian knights (gaudy colourful heraldlic knights, thought you SCA types might approve. I'm thinking of doing one as Awful Von Rottenburg, Adam ;-)
I reckon it will knock the socks off (or at the very least untie your shoe laces... and there's another.. the very least what? Damn semantics... This is what I get for taking a class in the language of law...) any army I face with it. (for those unelightened out there I'm talking about paying lots of money for small pieces of plastic and metal not worth a tenth of what I'm paying) but then, this is my sickness.
For those non model based people out there, you can at least rejoice that I have a steady income at the moment. Money muchly needed if I'm to return to the states and visit friends there any time in the next couple of years, or for that matter for travelling to re-enactment events for hitting people.
For those currently based in the South, I will be living in Reading from 10th December till near christmas, then will be journeying up to Manchester to stay till around the 3rd or 4th of January. We must meet up! Also what plans are people harbouring for New years... Speak up before I confiscate your knees!
As to my actions up till now - well mostly been busy being Vice Pres of Rag. -Our first event went extremely well. The beer race, our second event, went even better. Its a little organised riot we run with drunk students racing in costumes around Swansea. At the final count down (duddle oo doo, duddle oo doo doo) we raised £18,000 from ticket sales, a complete sell out night! I was in charge of the last pub on route, the big bad as we think of it, where I had to keep some 5000 drunk students under control before unleashing them upon the local night club. Needless to say I employed some large men with stout sticks to aid me in this. Even so the night featured at least one major fight in my pub and one medical emergency inside, another one outside. It was strangely surreal, we had code words to use on our radios (yes we had radios and it was a lot of fun playing with them) for major problems such as fire or overcrowding. The fire code was Aladdin, the I am evacuating my pub code was Snow White, the medical emergency code was Cinderella.
We had a local (not a student) high on cocaine pass out from the vertical to the horizontal and break his face on a table on route. While my friend Kiaran held his head and checked his breathing I left the pub radioing for an ambulance going "We have a Cinderella, Cinderella at the Orange House." It was so surreal it also made me chuckle, but the situation was very serious. As I was leaving a passing pea was bumped by a car and so I had to call an ambulance for her too. Then I had to try and explain that there were two seperate incidents which confused central control so they sent me a third ambulance just to be sure. When i got back in the pub I found three drunk locals verbally abusing my friend because they seemed in their drunken conviction to believe that she was responsible for his condition as opposed to trying to save him. I had to back them off, and direct the ambulance crews while keeping bystanders back as well. All very dramatic. Then I had to calm Kiaran down because she was really upset that these guys were abusive to her when she was trying to be helpful. It was an extremely long night.... I think I was on station for 8 hours, this on top of a full working day. But at the end the President and I were able to relax in the VIP section of the nightclub and sip champagne, congratulating ourselves on a job well done. All in all (there, a semantic again... *draws cross bow and shoots the blighter* that stopped it...) I'm feeling good about the way our fund raising is going, though we still have a long way to go before we have that £25,000 I'm dreaming of.
In other news I was this week elected the Group Co-ordinator (leader, seneschal, whatever)for my local re-enactment group, ah bliss, more unpaid work. Still its good cv fodder and I can do long suffering impressions.
I'm also drafting a Buffy/Angel role play to run with my friends next year, if you haven't looked at the rules systems, take a peek at the books, they're very cool.
And finally I managed to have a meeting with the local rep of the CPS and it all sounds promising so I may one day end up working for the govt as a prosecution lawyer. Most intriguing, all it will cost is a year's post grad work here at Swansea at £7000 for the year. Yeah, I thought it was a big number too.... bank loan here I come....
Anyway, regards to all, this is Ben May, Space Cadet, signing off.
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dreamdayz's journal
