Remember December...

You know those days you have...
days where you're hooking up a new tailgate for your unfixed abode.
A day where you've been parked under a tree for nine hours, the sound of munched droewors inside your face, reading the long awaited last issue of Baltimore: The Curse Bells and Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, generally testing out the long-term livability of your van.
Smelling like the panelbeater's in-season dog, and trying t' feed crows baby clams near the bus stop.
It's good to be passing thru...

Those days you have...
when it's the last day of 2011, you're dressed in your best Zelda shirt, drinking litres o' Crystal Spring water and testing various features of the vehicle, last minute touch-ups, fingers black and masculine with tar and grease as you unscrew an inside panel, changing your tailgate lock in an awkward, fiddly position.
The whole time reminded of your last similar labour of love - the arcade machine.

You know those days, where every two hours some passerby wishes you "Happy New Year", or every four hours some 13yr old kid asks you for a cigarette...
One o' those days where, when tinkering with aforementioned van, you can't help but overhear some 8yr old ask his Mum, "Are we gonna' have a smoke?".
To have her slur out at you, "Schlappy Nhew Eyeahr, DoOOooOOd!'', suddenly realizing it's weed the kids talking about as you look up to see Mum - suddenly two metres away from you, wobbling like a weevil and - oh ho! - now vomiting in a bush having given you a decidedly scary grin.
Charm.

One a' them days where, because you're not bastard enough, you offer an irresponsible Mum some water because you cannot grant her barely comprehensive request for a tissue, making a vivid mental note to keep that cup in van quarantine until you can cleanse it by fire back at the flat... simultaneously declining an offer from Drunk Mum's Friend of poorly rolled, crumby pocket joints, thrust in your face by a bandaged hand..., "We'ah arr gowin' to thah beEech, yooo shilld come, DooOod!"

Really? Really? Two 'pyjama-clad' Mothers with a pocket full of cannabis and a mouth full of throw-up, barely capable of standing or speaking coherent English, are taking two children near a huge body of water and bustling crowds of strangers... at 7:30pm ... to celebrate past midnight. Good luck.


- 10 Hardest Things About December 2011 -

* Getting out of bed.
* Getting sufficient sleep despite that.
* Doin' stuff... theoretically.
* Successfully completing the doin' of stuff, for stuff your doin'.
* Being awake when you need to sleep.
* Being asleep when you need to wake.
* Convincing your partner nocturnal people have rights too.
* Being 'conventionally' good, while being 'actually' good at same time.
* Oh yeah.. that whole Christmas thing.
* Keeping secrets.

Shut up, you're random!

"A fear of the dark and a fear of not seeing are quite different.'' - Rihia2k

SAnimals...

I gotta' laugh... or just smirk perhaps.

Remember things read online, and I probably just shouldn't.
People spew from the brain to an unpredictable audience like never before on earth, every line so profound, every opinion so well thought through... right?

Ahh, forget it. Just kids, with little life experience, yet so much technical dexterity.
Little practical wisdom yet so much social pseudo-knowledge.

How far we've come...
Some kid posts video-blogs of her father David Chapman, who suffered a stroke and spends the duration of these amateur clips silent with a bewildered expression.
People instantly take Dave here for Mark David Chapman (John Lennon's killer) and start venting their rage and disgust impulsively -
"this is less than you deserve''.
''Hope you rot in hell, you *#!%!'', etc, etc.
So end result? I'm watching bad, silent, shaky footage of a very unhappy (exploited?) looking stroke victim. This is playing atop a string of misguided, ignorant, foul-mouthed death-wish abusive comments.
I can't help thinking,
''Is this what humans can show off to visiting extra-terrestrials as a milestone of our achievement?'',
"Is this why folks forefathers died in the wars?''.

Other trash that flows over my retinas online are comments like,
"I've tried every type of magic in the world and none of it worked, so I know magic isn't real''.
Deep, man.
I mean, I can obviously forgive this junk when it's coming out of kids heads, but it's scary to see what politicians sometimes post online, to think there won't be consequences.

Ones that have me grin every time are the comments made regarding James Cameron's Avatar, specifically, 
''After watching Avatar, real life is just so depressing, I don't want to live anymore''.
Holy Nanna-spaz! That was a pretty easy defeat! Forget nukes or biological weapons, we'll just fracture everyone's morale with special effects better than Mother Nature's and graphics better than God's! Then people can just start offing themselves.
It ain't music like Deicide or Cannibal Corpse that's screwin' da kids, it's mainstream animated films 'bout respecting nature.

Well, I'll be away from the mind-numbing bollocks for a while, (even more than I have been) getting the hands dirty again, always happiest when I'm on the road, camping out and getting stuck in on a farm or property.

List of Patronizing Hints for Avatar Victims -
(Okay, I fancied Melina from Total Recall, she's fictional, but it didn't get me down)
-ahem-
a) Next time look out of a window instead of into a screen, you'll save $$, and if you jiggle your head round you'll notice it's 3D!
b) Keep looking for the duration of three hours, you can chew n' heckle as loud as you want! And it won't affect your vision!
c) Right click and save an animal picture from this blog, colour it pink in photoshop, yay it's like a Pokemon now and you have the added knowledge it really exists.

Note: you could take it a step further by colouring in an actual live Australian marsupial with food colouring, but it's not my aim to get you arrested.

''The best thing about Facebook? I'm not on it'' - Rihia2k

Bugs & Kisses...

Standing outside taking in the still night air, overlooking silent, slumbering Adelaide a minute ago, I turned to come inside and paused to watch some interaction between a black millipede and grey slater.
Each seperately questing across the bricks, the slater stopped and the millipede doubled back to return after they'd passed one another.
The millipede clambered over the slater's dome and coiled around so they could spend some moments inter-wobbling their antennae face to face, sit still for a bit, then bugger off on their seperate lives again.

Being human I get to watch this two ways;

- one, where the two discuss both the weather and their work days of millipeding and slatering, ask how the others wife and kids're doing, and perform a wee musical duet.

-two, where the relatively similar bugs (who don't have cute first names), neither blatantly predator or prey to the other, atempt bouncin' some antennae energy/information off the other and having ascertained they cannot a) eat, b) mate with the other, unromantically piddle off into the wee hours.

I like bugs.
When I leave South Australia in the near future, apart from the random memories - Simpsons marathon in a hotel in Robe as rain persists down for three days - Being warned by a local against eating the 'sixteen' day old crayfish sandwiches proudly advertised at the Keith petrol station - Being ferally growled at by a one-eyed chinese man because his wife mistakenly offered me his beer while passing the bar in a Naracoorte pub - or gettin' an 'I'M A BASTARD', Bastardfest wristband at The Squatters Arms Adelaide -
I'll remember SA as that place where you inevitably have three black millipedes curled up on any given wall like lonely bold pubic hairs.
Also the huntsman spider that I didn't have the heart to put outside for three days, cos it looked so cosy on the wall by the head of the bed. (no really, looked quite comfy there)

SA has had a great deal of non-bug, animal related experiences for myself but that belongs in another post.

I don't know why but the millipede and slater was a reminder of bein' parked at the mall earlier, calling to some guy, "Hey, buddy. You left your lights on", just before he was out of earshot.
Sauntering past, back to his car, I add, "I dunno if yer parked there for fer ten minutes or ten hours, but they're on (shrug)".
He replied something along the lines of, "Thanks, I'm waiting for my sister, so don't know how long she'll be".
...Why? I mean, we coulda just completed that whole scenario with a series of grunts and gestures.
Five seconds later, neither of us cares anymore. Why'd I get reminded of that interaction by a pair 'f insects?
Maybe because of the brief, trivial nature.
Not because either of us contemplated mating with, or eating each other in a mall carpark... then again... it's Adelaide.

-assorted, unrelated bug pictures taken recently-

"I prefer an intelligent moron to a moronic intellectual" - Rihia2k

The What Unicorn...?

Oh. White. Right.

The Dream like adventure Game in the Kingdom of the White Unicorn.


C'mon... at least it's not called The Pink Unicorn.



These princesses have gone bananas, this may just be the best board game eva! 

  It looked as though board-games had gone as far as they possibly could, nothing short of incorporating shoulder pads or piano key neckties into the gameplay could possibly improve on their appeal.
Then it swoops in, the phase of board games with plastic fantastic kinetic features.

Battery operated games such as Operation, Bed Bugs, & Electronic Battleship went down smoothly with consumers, but electronics weren't always essential.
Incredibly popular were Mouse Trap (still popular I recently discovered), Hungry Hungry Hippos, I Vant To Bite Your Finger (a personal favourite), Tipsy Tower and so on...
...hmm, wonder if that patient guy from Operation will appear in The Expendables sequel?

The White Unicorn got me thinking when did I last encounter Unicorns in my pop culture diet? and upon reflection the results were grim...


Sucks to be Unicorn right now.

  I read issue no.9 of Savage Tales (1985) featuring The Warlord, in which he encounters a Unicorn, witnesses it's death, slays a load of brigands & has a brief mental breakdown as a result...

Alakazam Alakaprunes...

...and acquired Kelek, an old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons character who apart from appearing dangerously senile, seeks to harvest Unicorn horns so as to master the art of levitation.
Unicorn horns = levitation?... go figure.

So in the name of innocence, Princesses, Unicorns and pastel colours, I'll attempt to strike the match of glory for the epic board-game which is The White Unicorn.

Firstly, your board looks a lil' something like this -

All a board.

Object of the game?
Hailing as a representative from one of the four elements, your goal is to free The White Unicorn from the Wicked/Evil Wizard. Employing the use of four treasures, you must also avoid little old men brandishing shillelaghs, and although this is a brave liberation effort for a rare magical beast, be competetive about it.

Paper or plastic?

Aah, D10 in 3D.
The instruction sheet initially came across as a little vague, ie. Place the Toll Troll in his respective place. Put the stuff where it goes basically, and the odd unexplained rule, which really isn't too difficult to figure out, though possibly challenging if you're a party kid all hyped up on ice-cream, new kittens and toy tiaras.


No princess is complete without armoured abs.




  At the risk of sounding mindlessly pedantic, I'll add that the instruction sheet refers to each Princess' ride as a Unicorn although it's clearly a Pegasus. I apologize in advance for making you lose sleep there...

The four treasures required to beat the game are a coin, gem, crystal fireball, and a pair of wings.
Depending on which start point you select, you begin play with a treasure belonging to that element.

It's required that you spin a dial or drop a coin/fireball when you have the opportunity, in order to try n' purloin a treasure. (there's a 50/50 chance of success)
However, if you get lucky (and nasty), the only true requirement is the fireball.

Left: Box shot. Gnome frowning at a die.
Right: That guy!

While I'm nitpicking, here's a comparison from the box and the contents.

This features the 'magical place' where Princesses go spinning for gems.

The box: shows a gnomey okay seeming guy, who knows? maybe you'll get a gem outta' him on a good day.

The contents: contain a seedy ne'er-do-well with unkempt sideburns and a happy stick.

Playing card to get.

Aagh! There he is again! As the new face of the Troll-card business.

Unsuprisingly, having to draw a Troll-card is a negative thing. "You lose a treasure" type material.

Whereas drawing a Unicorn-card is good... for you.

Hmm, I don't know if it's promoting good princess-like behaviour, the benefits gained from a Unicorn-card are generally detrimental to another player, providing ill-gotten gains and shortcuts.

No "spend time with the less fortunate" Princess Diana card.

No "defend the weak, do a flip" Xena card.

Uh uh, it's a little more like "Go to your sister's bedroom and eat all of her chocolate" cards.

How do we get a Unicorn-card?

Land on a Unicorn space. Which is ridiculously easy considering it's a D10 being rolled, and theres a lot of paths to choose from.

How do we get a Troll-card...?



Trol-ol-oll. Left to right: Wandering Troll, Wandering Troll, Toll Troll.



... have a Shillelagh Wielding Wandering Sideburn Troll land on a player's space.

Which doesn't happen too often at all. Wandering Trolls may be moved by any player that rolls a 0.

The player may then move one Troll 10 spaces, or both Trolls 5 spaces each.

Theres also the optional rule that a player may not pass a space on which a Wandering Troll is resting, a good rule to incorporate, otherwise the Wandering Trolls do little to nothing in any given game.

They may also move only on the paths matching their colour.

The Toll Troll doesn't move at all (making the playing piece rather unecessary), it's base may be rotated left or right allowing access to the Wizard's island.

At the generous price of one coin. (Only one player ever need pay this toll, though other players may reset the Toll Troll if desired for an additional coin)

Island, you ask?

Island is the new purple.

Yeah, that place! Wicked/Evil Wizard's juicy snazzy island lair, in purple to boot.

Having paid the Toll Troll's coin fee, wings are the next necessary treasure to possess in order to pass the broken bridge. Then it's gem time...

A gem? Truly, outrageous.

Labelled as The Greedy Dragon. It's hard not to like this guy. I mean, it only wants a gem. Heck, it doesn't even have shoes, it can't be that greedy.

It does require each player to pay however, but once done, it's so kind it'll let you back n' forth as much as y' like. I've met greedier.

Wait! Isn't that...? O dear, the climax finale to the grand adventure of The White Unicorn, and this is the Evil Wizard? I don't know about you but I'm having trouble differentiating between the Gem Keeper, Wandering Troll and Evil/Wicked Wizard here. How many jobs does this guy hold down?

Well, at least he ditched the stick in favour of a menacing shadow.

At this stage if you've not acquired a coin, wings, or a gem, and are situated somewhere on the far end of the playing board, there's hope yet.

A certain Unicorn-card (easy to get) allows you to switch places with another player, and the fireball is all you need to bring it to the man. Princess-style.

Whoomf! "Oof!" Krrsshh! "Whinny!"

Aah, the undeniable sounds of success. Ouch, that has to hurt, finding out you're actually a door. Sorry, Sideburn, no room for mercy in the name of Unicorn Freedomery-ness.

Go gentle regent thou art free.

Though you really only move about as much as that Toll Troll joker.

I guess your destiny of freedom could involve being picked up and covered in custard pie by young birthday princesses admiring your golden hoove work.

"Freeee, whinny! Free."

"Look up, the world is miniscule. Look down, it goes on forever" - Rihia2k

Beach True To Yourself...

Staring directly into the Sunday.



How much does this resemble traditional tribal artwork? Love it!



Er... anybody lose one of these at the beach? Ow.

"If you can't be born tomorrow, you can still die yesterday" - Rihia2k