Next Week For Sure.

Thursday night multisport started with a game of indoor soccer. We (Alastair "Schmeichel", Christine "Neville", Dave "Ronaldo", Ian "Ronaldino", Kate "Beckham", Sue "Hamm" and I) won 3-1 much to our delight; Sue scored twice and Kate once, and Kate missed a penalty too. The rules were very much the referee's interpretation of the rules and the tone was set by the kick off which, according to Rule 11 provided by the Canberra International Sports & Aquatics Centre website, has to travel backwards (contrary to field soccer rules) but which was instead blasted straight at Christine in the goal area. Our opponents seemed to rely on their guys kicking the shit out of the ball as soon as they were in a space. We muddled into a pattern with someone backing up the player with the ball (so if they were tackled we often regained possession), and someone else covering the other side of the court (so if a shot went wide we often regained possession). After half time with the score at 2-0 the other team tried the direct route kicking the ball straight up the court and hoping someone could retrieve it at the other end to shoot. It did earn them a goal but we continued to dominate possession and maintained out lead. Lesson One: They can't score if they haven't got the ball. Next week: netball, and possibly uniforms.

Snowcon I

Charmed Pages hosted a game convention over the weekend starting on Friday night with a twelve hundred point build Heroclix game. Nine players started and the game continued on Saturday morning with two players eliminated, two others teaming up and three new players. I played poorly: forgetting to use powers, misconstruing the rules and making assumptions about the terrain. I ended the game with Johnny Alpha stranded on top of a building he couldn't get down from after I drove the Batmobile into a sailing ship in the penultimate action of the game. I scored two hundred and nine points which were doubled because I made the four hundred point Axis & Allies casting call and finished last out of those left standing.

On Saturday afternoon I missed the Piracy game to attend a Doctor Who Club of Australia - Canberra meeting. Dr Teeth had bravely invited anyone who read the DWCA Yahoo group into his living room and I met Animal, who brought his full scale K-9 model but left the full scale dalek model at home; Floyd Pepper, who insisted the episode of "The Crusade" we were watching was an episode of "Marco Polo"; and Janice, who preferred to read than watch and hadn't seen many episodes since the seventies. Dr Teeth had a vast collection (which he describes as "complete") of episodes and related material which he had transferred to DVD, including the DVDs. Nobody wanted to impose so Dr Teeth played some of his favourite bits and pieces. I got to see Dimensions in Time and The Web of Caves, which was nice. Then Dr Teeth put on an American fan video and everyone left promptly at six. I went back to Snowcon to create my character for the RPGA sanctioned D&D module on Sunday afternoon and wonder if I might have had more fun being a pirate.

The Magic: The Gathering tournament was on Sunday morning. I had hauled up my cards from the garage on Wednesday and Jimbo looked up the rules for Type II tournaments. When we discovered my cards were five years out of date we opted to use a couple of decks provided by Matt. I was defeated two-nil in the first round by the eventual winner but defeated Jimbo two-nil in the second round. Matt played me with Jimbo's deck to test it and I beat him two-nil. Bad luck Jimbo.

Sunday afternoon I spent running a halfling cleric through Trudi's RPGA sanctioned module called Epidemic with Ashley, Glenn, Greg, Jimbo, Luke, two Matts and Little Simon . We fought some orcs and explored a cave and defeated a dwarven druid to discover the cure for an oozy, explosive disease. It was pretty straight forward fun and the only actual roleplaying I did all weekend.

Snowcon finished with Jonathan's trivia quiz. Hilarity ensued. With a system of bonuses and penalties for wrong answers demonstrating deep insight or astounding ignorance there were sufficient points for the trivially gifted to literally win the overall convention prize. I lost the Doctor Who round to Jimbo and he lost the Futurama round to Matt. Everybody laughed a lot. In the end Jimbo won the trivia (I came second) and the overall convention (I came second last).

Vincibles

Last week we had only five players for indoor cricket so we forfeited the game, but not soon enough to avoid owing the game fee. This week, when the captain didn't seem interested, Dave rallied the troops but we managed only five players again. Another forfeit, probably another eighty-eight dollar game fee, no captain; I think Vincibles has finally fallen apart, which is a pity.

Girlball

Another pity was Australia failing to get a win in the three test series in New Zealand. I think tactics to subdue Irene van Dyk's awesome scoring ability were frustrated by the international umpires' interpretation of an "advantage". At least the players could see the funny side. Also, I think the coaching staff were unable to reconcile giving new players international experience and addressing New Zealand's advantage on the court, to the detriment of both.

Jim 30

Tuesday was possibly the weakest birthday in Jimbo's thirty years. It involved a full day of work ("Just like a grown up", said Fiona) followed by a movie he'd already seen, pizza, and early to bed. At least the movie was Spider-Man 2. I believe Saturday will be significantly more celebratory.

Sad news

Condolences to Jonathan and Trudi who went to Adelaide on Monday for Jonathan's father's funeral.  ¶ 08:04