Just as we were getting ready to go to bed, I went to switch off the laptop. It was then that I noticed that Mr Ross had replied! Feeling slightly stunned and abashed, I responded, to which he graciously replied again. This gave me pause for thought, so I posted once more. I was about to call it quits for the night when, yet again, I got a response. Well I couldn’t leave it be by this point, so I thought hard and tried to sum up my position and then went to bed.

The following morning, with a clearer head, I saw there was a further response. I made a final response and that was that.

So, a somewhat surreal experience but perhaps one that illustrates the power of Twitter.

Now if Moore’s law holds, this means our grandchildren will get computers with 16 terabytes of RAM. That’s something like 2000 DVDs loaded in memory. Err…!

My main concern was that Ben was going to do nothing but play on it, so we set him a daily limit. This can be confiscated for bad behaviour, increased for good behaviour and all those other parent-style tricks. I’ve been pleasantly surprised, however, that he’s got a very balanced approach and he’s yet to challenge over having extra time.

His favourite game is Lego Star Wars and now I have a whole new set of problems to face as a father, such as how to trip up an AT-AT with a tow-rope on the Empire Strikes Back level. It’s a hard life…

With the Lego sets, the Lego Star Wars game and a trip to Legoland, it was a “very Lego-ey birthday” in Ben’s words. I won’t go into how we lost Ben for half an hour in Legoland, suffice as to say losing your child at any time is one of the scariest experiences you can have.

All in all I thought it went very well. I had a brief chat with Tim about it at the Wokingham May Fayre yesterday. He said he found it very hectic, with very little time to enjoy the event. That sounds similar to experiences I’ve had hosting large family get-togethers, where you spend the whole time worrying about all your guests and no time enjoying the occassion itself. As a festival goer rather than organiser, though, I thought it was great.

I thought I’d use my internet pulpit to make a couple of suggestions. Firstly, a simplified first-past-the-post voting scheme would reduce the paperwork and headaches, especially around the 15th beer when it all gets a bit hazy. Secondly, I was wondering about reducing the number of beers somehow as the schedule was pretty punishing — 19 beers to try in 5 hours! Tim was suggesting that perhaps letting people sample the beers in any order. I’m not sure, perhaps. Everyone trying each beer simultaneously certainly prompted a lot of conversation!

Anyway, those were small criticisms. I hope the Bacchus Ale Festival returns in years to come. You can see some of the pictures I took on Flickr, although you’ll have to be logged in and set up as my friend to see all those featuring real people… unless you badger me and I send you a guest pass.

This post is brought to you, again, by the D&D podcast. Today I went back to the first Penny Arcade / PvP podcast. This is a really good introduction to the world of D&D as it features some new players learning to play the game for the first time, having never rolled a D20 in their lives. For veteran players this also has some commentary by the DM on the changes present in 4E.

Now, if anyone out there is interested in giving this D&D lark a go, please let me know!

When I was younger and actually playing these games, I always preferred to run them, be the GM. I guess that way I could never suffer the lows of losing but the flip side was I never got the highs of winning. So, part of me would love to be just a player now, but if I have to run things myself to make it happen, that’s fine too. I dreamed of becoming a proper DM. Maybe I’ll get there, albeit 20 years late.

I also think this would be something awesome to get Ben and Jessica into, something fun for us to share. Clearly they’re years away from it currently but the years tick past quickly enough, so perhaps I should start preparing now.

I know the critics don’t like it but both Louise and I did. I was surprised to see it currently rates 8 out of 10 on IMDb. It’s certainly long, perhaps too long. It is the most faithful adaptation of a book I’ve ever witnessed. I kind of agree with those critics who say perhaps it’s too reverent. Just like the book, though, if you like it you’ll want to go back and see what you missed and immerse yourself in the world.

Speaking of which, I finished my re-read of the book on the same day I saw the film and my admiration has only gone up. It’s not without its faults — some of which I think they tried to address in the film — but it is an amazingly intricate piece of storytelling.

I was all set to upload a fresh new theme for the blog to give it a facelift but my ISP has seen fit to lock me out of my server-side access. I guess that will necessitate an acceleration of my plans to move to a new ISP. Any recommendations for web hosting providers very welcome.

So — and incidentally I don’t think I’ve started enough clauses in this post with the word “so” so far — now you can follow me and also Louise in (potentially) tedious detail. Actually, the more I think about it the more I like the concept of micro-blogging. There are so many small, ephemeral thoughts I’d like to inflict on share with friends and family that never get as far as this blog.

Now my only issues are whether I should actually be publishing on indenti.ca and what picture to use on my profile.

So what’s all the fuss about Watchmen for anyway? Well, if you’ve ever wondered what the fuss about comics was or what makes one turn into a graphic novel, then this is the place to start. Read it and you’ll realise how much you know and love in modern “super hero” films is owed to it.

And that’s not all. It’s not like looking at pictures, it’s not like reading a book. Your brain has to operate on two tracks simultaneously. As you read the words you have to independently absorb what’s going on in the pictures and not let the narrative carry you away. This is because there’s so much important detail going on in the background that isn’t related to the words but is part of the story. Not infrequently the narrative will be accompanied by a different picture story but one that parallels the words.

When I first read it late last year it was unlike anything I’d read/seen before. If I have one piece of advice on Watchmen, it would be to take your time and digest every frame. On which note, I’m off to start re-reading it right now…