Unintelligent Design

Ombudsmen

Spoilers for the comic/film. Very amused by some of the casting...

This might be of interest to a few people -

"To promote the latest release from The Tallis Scholars, Gimell is delighted to offer the Gloria from Josquin's Missa Fortuna desperata as a free MP3 download. The same track is also available free of charge in a variety of lossless WMA and FLAC formats in both Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound.

To 'order' your free download please click on the following link, select your preferred download format and then select the 'Buy Now' button for Track 7. You will not be charged for the download."

http://www.gimell.com/news-free-download-josquin-missa-fortuna-desperata-tallis-scholars.aspx

Much to my surprise, the herbs seem to have survived the winter.

In some cases, this may have been a fairly close thing - until this weekend saw the first shoots from the lovage and the horseradish, I had been wondering. And there's still scope for something horrible to happen to the sweet marjoram or french tarragon, both of which look a little wobbly at the moment...

...but, basically, I still have a herb garden. And I'm still  not sure what to do with it. Until the outbuildings are knocked down and the kitchen extension's done, it's going to be awkward to find a place for them in the garden. Putting them next to the tool shed risks trampling by builders... or would look a bit odd once the tool shed' s knocked down.

I've also got a second batch of herbs to plant soon - annuals and a few perennials I didn't pick up last year. Oh, and some lemon-scented catnip... :)

Hmm. This needs some planning.

I also need to think about just what I'm planting this year. A selection of bulbs have gone into the front garden - but the back garden was always intended to have some vegetables, and I've not really got my act together on that yet...

Since someone's added a few of Saturday's highlights to YouTube...

( Read more... )

This weekend was ijw's stag do. Relatively civilised. Not that much alcohol - at least not for me - and nothing exruciatingly painful. Not even the paintball. Although some of the 70s disco music came close...
( Stag night stuff, comedy club stuff and odd ramblings about Oxford goth club venues... )

So, I'm spending a certain amount of time playing a Japanese small-squad battle game, Valkyria Chronicles, on the PS3. It's set in an alternate history, with Europe divided between two major powers and caught up in a war in 1935.

Our heroes and heroines are part of the militia raised to defend the country of Gallia (an area better known to Asterix fans as 'Gaul' - Gallia's the latin name, apparently).

Four or five of the soldiers have crucial roles in the story. There are a few dozen more characters who fill the rest of your squad, though - you can have a maximum of twenty but, unike our heroes, they can be killed and replaced. They have well defined personalities, though - each one has their own look and their own voice actor / dialogue, as well as some unique traits.

Much to my surprise, a couple of them aren't straight. One of the anti-tank team, Jann, has the 'fancies men' trait (i.e. gets a confidence boost in combat when trying to show off for nearby male colleagues) - and the voiceover is, well, a little flamboyant to say the least. And the one female engineer I've recruited, Dallas, is (perhaps unsurprisingly) a lesbian (with the 'fancies women' trait and accompanying dialogue).

The trait logic does, unfortunately, mean that they each work poorly with the opposite gender - they actively don't like MOTOS. *sigh*

But, still... it's not a major plot point. It's not treated as a joke (although some of Jann's lines are a little corny) - and Jann just happens to be the most efficient soldier in his role (except for the major characters), so players are likely to use him as part of their squad.

Google finds a couple of sites that accuses the game of sneaking homosexuality into our children's lives yadda yadda yadda... but that's all. It's not exactly attracted media attention, despite some good reviews for the game..