There goes the weekend...

This Thanksgiving Holiday weekend I planned to try and get ahead a bit on my various study readings and the papers I need to write. That just went out the window with this release today.  Hurry up and download will you!!!

https://www.civilization.com/en/games/civilization-beyond-earth/

Books

Early last year I started using Goodreads, which is an online book catalogue allowing me to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.  It also allows you to make up your own shelves to file them on, and recommend books to your friends.  Pretty neat.  So far I have rated about 570 books and have another 280 on my 'to read' shelf.  Here is the cloud tag the site has generated to show where my interests lie- rather unsurprising results actually!

One of the best features of the site is that it then delves into what you have read and recommends new books for you to consider.  Not everyone is a winner of course, but I have discovered a few authors I might not have otherwise encountered.

If you haven't seen Goodreads before, I highly recommend you check it out at https://www.goodreads.com
If you are super interested you can check out my book shelves and lists here:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/18908226-paul

Volkstrauertag

Today I participated in the Volkstrauertag ceremony, which is a German form of Rememberance Day. As you can probably appreciate, this has a different focus to typical Commonwealth and US ceremonies.  It was held at the local cemetery which holds two German U-Boat sailors from WW2.
The first was from U-550, sunk off the US coast in May 1944.

The second grave is for an unknown sailor from U-853, sunk close by on 6 May 45 - ironically one day after the cessation of hostilities, which the U-boat likely did not receive.

It was clearly a very emotional day for our German friends, in the spirit of remembering the victims of war and the appreciation of freedoms enjoyed by many since 1945.  I was very pleased to be a part of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkstrauertag

Lest We Forget

From the mouths of Lads

I asked Right Stuff about his History homework recently and he went into a spiel about The Absolute Right of Kings, Parliamentary measures to try and control absolute Monarchs,  the English Civil War and its subsequent restoration.  He completed his informative monologue by saying (unprompted) – "actually that would be a pretty cool period to play wargames in”   I shall shall move swifty but not overzealously…

But my favourite quote of the conversation was him saying “Monarchial disputes are just so stupid.  Why are the people so surprised when the new one is a d*ck like the last one?"

Rhode Island Comic Con

The 'other' Captain isn't bad either!

Saturday saw the Man Cave denizens venture forth to Providence, Rhode Island, to attend the annual Comic Con.  Very modest in comparison to other similar events in the US, we were impressed by the quality of guests who attended - then again, I guess it is much easier to show up that going all the way to Australia!  The highlight was indeed meeting the man behind James Tiberius Kirk who was very pleasant indeed.  The usual menagerie of costumes were seen, and the 20k people or so who attended all seemed to enjoy the day - we certainly did!

George Takei - aka Mr Sulu

Remember these guys? Visitors from the original "V"series

Warehouse 13

Colin Baker, the 6th Doctor Who

Nerdgasm complete for another year!

All Hallow's Eve

Being the day of cultists, witches, and dark magics I thought it appropriate to remind everyone that the Strange Aeons Kickstarter finishes this weekend.  Its a really fun game that I highly recommend.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/443527920/strange-aeons-2nd-edition

In the meantime, if you are into the Halloween thing have a fun day - I am!