/var/log/orava

Some small notes that don’t really merit a separate post…

• Good things about our house #N: having two showers means that if one should break (as one did, by starting to drip ceaselessly), you still have the other one and don’t need to fix the thing right now! (just “asap” will do).

• The Cat Containment System (tm) is not fully operational and functioning. In other words, we finally completed the extra fencing on top of our yard fence, so that we can now let the cats out into the yard without too much furry leakage. Seems catproof so far; there is one theoretical escape route but that should vanish Saturday when we get a certain tree cut down. Who knows, maybe the felines will start digging an escape tunnel next – stay tuned.

• I’m slowly dipping my toes into miniatures. Having been fascinated with Dream Pod 9’s Heavy Gear roleplaying game for a long time, I’m now getting into the miniatures wargame side of that game. The new tactical system (Blitz!) has been getting a ton of praise from various directions, and the new expanded Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded rulebook should be shipping in my direction next week. After I get that, I’ll decide what factions appeal to me most and get a few starter squads… and after that, I’ll actually need to learn how to assemble and paint the things. Scary. I’m not sure if there are many (or any) Heavy Gear tactical players in the Helsinki area, but if nothing else I can recruit some friends to help with playtesting. Don’t know exactly why, but even though “mechs” as a concept has always left me cold, the smaller power-armor style that Heavy Gear uses triggers all my “kewl!” buttons. The rpg rocks, and I’m hoping the miniatures game will too.

• The Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity ransom is now at $15750 (of $20k), so it needs 85 more pledges/pre-orders to be a “go!”. Still 12 days to go on that, no panic yet – but it’s hard to predict how this will go. So… if you’re on the fence on this, now would be a good time to throw in your $50. Even if you later decide you don’t need the book, it’s a limited printing of 1000 and the previous such (Eyes Only) sold out very fast. In other words, you can easily make a profit on eBay later, if needed (when available, Eyes Only has been eBay:ing for around $90-$100). Of course, the real reason to get this is to get some more great DG stuff. Not enough of that in the world.

Nice weekend. We managed to do some “useful” stuff (such as getting a newer dishwasher to replace our ancient one, and doing some garden stuff) in addition to just enjoying a nice, sunny weekend. First time this year we used the grill, too, whee!

The most brilliant bit was being able to sit outside on the patio, basking in the heat, and drink a gin&tonic. Felt like summer, even though it’s still a bit cold and the plants are still considering this “should we grow now?” thing. I guess that’s one of the reasons I’d really hate to go back to living in an apartment… sure, it can be convenient, but there’s just no replacement for having your own yard, some place where you can go lounge in the sun whenever you feel like it and listen to the wind in the trees.

We need to do a bit more work until the yard is really cat-proof (including felling one tree) – at the moment we do let the cats out into the yard now and then, but need to keep an eye on them.

In general it’s been life as normal, without too many serious hassles. We tried to buy a new fridge, but it turned out to be mislabeled at the store: claimed to be 175cm tall, when in fact it was 179, something that won’t fit in our kitchen. Not without renovation, at least. So we continue to hunt for a 175cm high model, in the 90cm wide form factor and preferrably with a brushed-steel look and an automatic icemaker. The models do exist, but of course we’d prefer to not pay ridiculous amounts of money. We’ll see.

Tempest the cat is now healed of his urinary infection, the antibiotics kicked in efficiently and did the trick. Just got a call from the vet to confirm that the check-up lab results now confirm he’s fine… so that’s one lesst thing to worry about. I’ve cut down on dry food in general for the cats, though, both to reduce risks of further infections and to maybe cut down on weight gain problems.

We just came back from the first concert of Värttinä’s 25th anniversary Finnish tour, at a concert hall in Matinkylä. It was excellent; I’ve seen them live a few times before but this was the best so far. Great use of visual imagery and choreography to add to the music, without either becoming a distraction. It was also a lot of fun, with high energy. If I have a complaint, it’s that it would have been even better at a rock club – having to sit down all the time was a bit of a downer, they played a lot of fast numbers.

As always, they combined Finnish folk music (with Russian and Hungarian tweaks) to great effect. To anyone who thinks folk music is boring: go see these guys.

In general it’s been pretty quiet over here. Lots of small things happening, but nothing too report-worthy. Tempest the cat got some sort of urinary infection and I’ve been feeding him antibiotics for some days now; I’m not sure he understands why he’s suddenly getting private meals, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s also getting over the infection, it seems, though I’ll have go have him checked again after a few weeks. As always, Felina was expensive but well worth the cost.

What’s our typical morning like? Glad you asked.

Watch this video, then multiply by four.

Sleep is for the weak or the stubborn.

While I guess I can thank my lucky… whatever that I’m generally pretty healthy and in ok shape (would be “good shape” if I did more regular exercise), but I do have one built-in health flaw: I attract flu germs like a magnet. Where other people get a slightly sore throat, I get a clogged-up one and some light fever to boot.

So yeah, guess what I’ve been hosting again this week. Sigh. Stayed home yesterday, today was at work but decided not to go to swords practice because I’m still feeling a bit shaky. Maybe tomorrow.

This week is once again bracketed by VTES games, it’s not hard to tell that the European Championships are approaching. Last Saturday we had a mini-qualifier at Fantsu; my Kiasyd deck did ok (2 VPs) but didn’t quite make it to the finals. It’s a pretty nice deck, though, I intend to tune it some more. The final victory went to Otso Turunen, playing a fairly stock Imbued deck which seemed to be tuned pretty well. Because this was a mini-qualifier, the only qualification of the day went to Otso.

This Saturday we’ll have the second “proper” ECQ in Finland, this time in Tampere. This will be my last chance to get a qualification before the EC’s “last chance” qualifier. We’ll see.

Other than game stuff, I’ve been reading a bit: the two first books of Charles Stross’ “Merchant” fantasy series (very good escapist adventure), Stross’ “Glasshouse” (excellent take on the posthumanist scifi genre), Greg Stolze’s “Reign” (wonderful new fantasy rpg engine and world) and “Manacle & Coin” (slavery, drug use and other fun stuff for Exalted). I currently seem to be reading half fiction, half rpg material. Works for me.

I also had to ugrade our Cat Alcatraz Feline Containment System (tm). Typhoon, the small fuzzy renegade, managed to find a hole under the fence and vanished for hours on end. I finally found him in the near-pitch-black woods nearby, after searching in the gathering dark for 1.5 hours. Not fun. So I added some more mink mesh… and what do you know, the little critter found out that he could climb a tree in our yard and jump to the top of the shed from there. Sigh. So next up is something to stop the cats climbing up the tree.

Cats. Never boring.

Last weekend we spent a sweaty couple of days cutting heavy wire mesh, digging trenches, pounding nails into all-too-hard planking, and generally doing things that were suspiciously close to this “physical labor” thingy people talk about.

Result: one Cat Alcatraz, version 1.0. Or actually v1.1, the first version (on Saturday) had the feline convicts confused for a while, but then Tempest got the bright idea of clambering on top of the fence at a low point. So on Sunday, it was a new trip to the hardware store to get 9 more meters of wire “mink cage” mesh and some more wood.

The new version has held so far, we’ve actually been able to keep the patio door open without the cats disappearing into the sunset. For now. I suspect this is a running battle, one of them has already begun what seems to be the beginnings of an escape tunnel.

Version 2.0 will involve covering the whole fence with extra mesh, and maybe some floodlights, razor wire and guard posts.

Version 3.0 will have a moat encircling the house, with sharks. Perhaps with fricking laser beams, too. Can’t hurt.

And yeah, I now have a new photo gallery up. Not much there yet and the layout is pretty simplified, one thing at a time.