I have a very serious, very strange question for all of you. Do any of you own, or know someone who owns a full Storm Trooper's uniform (complete with tights and all) who would be willing to pretend to clean a swimming pool while wearing said uniform, with someone lounging in the background, wearing a swimming suit and drinking a cocktail? I need a picture of that for my scavenger hunt, and it needs to be original never posted anywhere else, unaltered etc. After the hunt is over it can be posted elsewhere but not before.

Uhm, lol.

<eyebrows>

GISHWHES

Lusting after AU Ford Falcon parts,lol.

If I had more frequent internet access I'd contact a few of my friends from the 501st, Twi. I'll see what I can do otherwise.

Your semi-periodic Kickstarter update:

They are making a doco of the story of Fighting Fantasy

I've got a huge store of childhood memories tied up in the lime green spined books, so I really hope this gets funded.

For those that celebrate today- Happy Halloween and Merry Samhain!!

Merry Samhain, indeed!

Thanks, love.

Merry Samhain/Happy Halloween everyone!

@DMZ: I am back. Any Idea how Johenric should be re-join the group activity?

OOOOH yeah, he has stacks of work to do...

*Check up on Necromantic Plague-Curses.

*Investigate the lineage of the Countess and see what claim her now undead relative may have.

*Investigate what methods might kill 'normal' Vampires, and whether Sunlight kills 'magical' ones.

Thats just the first things.

No one needs killing right now though, but I suspect we will be riding out to the Goblins or even the Ridge pretty soon.

there you go - Shifty has the master plan :)

I always thought the plan was:

• 1. Underpants
• 2. ???
• 3. Profit

I always thought the plan was:

• 1. Underpants
• 2. ???
• 3. Profit

Cairn, this man knows too much. He needs to go on 'vacation'...

^ What?! There's a rat in our house!

Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Uh, I think so, Brain, but we'll never get a monkey to use dental floss.

That sort of rat?

^ What?! There's a rat in our house!

You feeling more Harvey or Michael about it?.

Vic and Cairn seem to be playing nicely, I'm sure there will be a lot more nastiness they do... nasty nasty deeds :p

What's wrong with rats? They taste great with a little paprica.

Cairn Stern wrote:

^ What?! There's a rat in our house!

You feeling more Harvey or Michael about it?.

Vic and Cairn seem to be playing nicely, I'm sure there will be a lot more nastiness they do... nasty nasty deeds :p

one of the greatest movies ever!

Mr Blonde can cut up rats for me Familia anytime.

Happy Halloween everybody! This is an album of my costume this year, hope you enjoy.

Those are great pictures T-Ron! I love the ones where you are hanging out like spider man on top of buildings. Did any police come by and ask what you were doing?

I was asked to get down once, yes, but that was all. After all, I was just sitting peacefully up there, so there was no real issue!

Seconding what a great costume that is T-Ron. Does the hidden blade function?

Of course...

^ Awesome

Altair is alive!

Air New Zealand in-flight safety video... .

Next stop, Middle Earth.

Air New Zealand in-flight safety video... .

Next stop, Middle Earth.

Only problem is that this "instructional video" is so long that the flight is likely over before it is. I love the d20 on the tray table though.

Hey at least this way the passengers will watch. The D20 was pretty classic :)

That was awesome Shifty!

Will you all do me a super huge favor that takes like a minute of your time? My scavenger hunt is trying to get pledges from people promising to do one random act of kindness before the year is out. It can be as extravagant or as simple as you'd like, even something simple like donating your old clothes to a thrift store. What you do isn't so important, and you don't have to say right now, all you'd have to do is sing the pledge using your email (and my email mosaiccreme@gmail.com as the referrer). If you do know what you want to do, there is a place to say so, but it's optional. Please?

Pledge here!

Oh and I nearly forgot, we're trying to break the world record for these pledges. The scavenger hunt, GISHWHES, is associated with Random Acts and it is Random Acts who will have credit as holding the record if we're able to achieve this! But, everyone who uses my email or one of my teammates emails as the person who refereed them will be helping my team to earn points!

That was actually an easy pledge, as I try to help where I can and where I see that help is needed and there is rarely a week where there isn't some opportunity for kindness. This doesn't have to be about big commitments, but about living as a social being.

Helping someone in a wheelchair into the bus (or back on the sidewalk), reaching to the top shelf so someone doesn't have to step on his shopping cart to get what he wants, holding a shopping cart when a mother tries to open the trunk while managing her small child, carrying a frightened hedgehog across the street, taking a bag for trash with you when you take a walk through the woods - sometimes even just stepping aside wearing a sincere smile.

I think this makes society better - also sometimes the surprised looks I get when I do this make me a bit sad.

That was actually an easy pledge, as I try to help where I can and where I see that help is needed and there is rarely a week where there isn't some opportunity for kindness. This doesn't have to be about big commitments, but about living as a social being.

Helping someone in a wheelchair into the bus (or back on the sidewalk), reaching to the top shelf so someone doesn't have to step on his shopping cart to get what he wants, holding a shopping cart when a mother tries to open the trunk while managing her small child, carrying a frightened hedgehog across the street, taking a bag for trash with you when you take a walk through the woods - sometimes even just stepping aside wearing a sincere smile.

I think this makes society better - also sometimes the surprised looks I get when I do this make me a bit sad.

Epic, feytharn, just epic. All the little hedgehogs love you to pieces, and you are absolutely right it's the little things that we incorporate into our lives everyday that make the real impact! Thanks so much!

just don't touch baby hedgehogs, the smell of humans makes their mothers not feed them anymore.

Only with a towel, only if they are on the street (and a lonely young on the street would go straight to a 'hedgehog station' or to a friend with a more room and possibly a garden (I am lucky to have friends who I know would take care of a young hedgehog)!

It is good to have a place to check in for all my hedgehog related needs :)

I dislike all roadkill, but of all animals in danger of becoming one, the hedgehogs defense strategy is particularly unsuited to car attacks - thus I think it deserves a little help.

Not as much as Armadillos.

Armadillos have a defensive strategy of either a. jump straight up into the air or b. roll up into a ball.

Hedgehogs do the latter, plus, there are pretty few armadillos in Germany...

Would you like some? They are like the plague in Georgia.

Particulalry since they are known to carry Leprosy.

Ahh well there was a baby Rainbow Lorikeet that had fallen from its nest last week, and although I was supposed to be doing assignments all day I ended up spending the day getting it fed and recovered.

Eventually got it over to the animal hospital after a long time checking with our native species rescue service and was pretty sad to hand the poor bugger over.

Unfortunately its legs were paralysed and it wouldn't have survived in the wild so it was put off to sleep. A bit of an unhappy ending and I was a bit bummed, but sometimes thats just how it goes.

Next community fundraiser I end up stuck with I will make sure the animal rescue guys get the $'s, doing it for little Timmy-who-never-made it. I end up involved in a lot of fundraisers.... but thats because I'm a random acts of kindness good-guy who believes in karma, so will sign up to Bree's deal so that the good Karma can work double time and even more people do good deeds etc.

The animal rescue guys (WIRES) on the other hand seemed pretty keen on getting me to sign up to their animal handling and rescue course next year. I'll see whats happening when the time comes, but my volunteering hours are already pretty heaily spoken for!

Thank you so much, Shifty :) XOXO

@ Ruin folks,

I just looked over the party sheets and if we go Oathbound only those with the focus talents will be able to contribute the slots if I am reading correctly. I saw that a couple offer slots for 1 focus and 1 reputation. These might be a better way to go. Thoughts?

We have broken the world record for pledges for random acts of kindness.

Any of you anywhere near an active volcano or lava run off? If so can you get an original, never before posted picture of this: "Drop a school bus (may be a toy bus) into red, molten lava from an active volcano."

OK so today I had one of those moments... twilight zone bit at the end, stay tuned.

So I'm on the city train this morning, and hear a thud, turn around and this woman has faceplanted the door. It's pretty crowded (packed like sardines) and I wasn't sure what happened, but there's a guy trying to help her get back on her feet properly. I go back to checking emails and the thud happens again. The woman is still sort of on her feet but only just conscious. So I step over because I can see the guy is just another passenger and doesn't know what to do or what is going on, and now all the passengers are looking.

I back the chick up a bit and its clear she needs to sit down, and rather than stand up, the seated passengers are all just looking on like its no big deal. So having already reverted to Army mentality I sort of forget I am dealing with civvies and simply order them out of the way, regrettably this is with a few 'colourful and fruity words' as I prompted them to a little bit of urgency. Now people are looking at me like I am some strange angry man.

The woman gets a bit better, still, people are back to studiously ignoring her, and I establish she is getting off at my stop. No worries, I escort her off the train, she says she is now 'much better' and I can see she is just totally spaced out. The exit of the station involves a massive escalator, so I think I'll just stand behind her and see what happens... sure enough, she does the Bambi leg thing and then just falls. So I hold her upright to the top of the ride and then she just loses all ability to stand and slips off to sleep again.

Seeing its a busy metro train station with a bajillion people around, and the Rail staff office is nearby - but too far for them to notice us, I just pick the chick up, throw over the shoulder like a caveman and take her to the office.

Now it occurs to me that here's a guy walking along in broad daylight with an unconscious woman over his shoulder and no one says a word or makes a peep about it. In retrospect I find that kind of alarming.

Anyhow I finally see there's three Rail staffers hanging out and they see me with said encumberance, and I start waving for them to come to me as I approach... they just look at me odd and it takes them a while ot move over, with some hangdog expression.

So the gormless twit looks me in the eye and says, I kid you not, "Is she alright?". I felt like saying "Yeah mate, just ran out of batteries for it".

Once I had passed her over I left, but really the whole situation was kinda odd for all the wrong reasons.

So whats the kicker.
For the last three years I have injured the right side of my body in mid to end Winter - Torn shoulder tendon, gallbladder went cactus, and now a torn calf tendon; and for the last three years I have tended a semi to outright unconscious person not long after at the beginning of Spring.

Now If I was a chicken spanking voodoo Hippy I'd reckin the universe is sending me a message. I am not sure whatthe broken bird from a week ago signifies though.

Alcheringa, out.

It's telling you to not kill defenseless people after they surrender or Berry will "fix" you.

No, not over it, just trying to figure out the best way to play that out without getting my head ripped off. Berry's a scientist not a wild dire tiger.

In other news that's kind of how inner cities work. In certain neighborhoods around here a dude will get stabbed ten or twelve times while screaming for his mother by 5 dudes in broad daylight and people will have sudden attacks of blindness/deafness when the cops show up.

Now If I was a chicken spanking voodoo Hippy I'd reckin the universe is sending me a message. I am not sure whatthe broken bird from a week ago signifies though.

you rang? signifies that compassion seems to be a rare commodity in our overstimulated, overburdened old world, but good on you for caring.

As for the right side injuries, just bum luck?

I'd choose to wilfully interpret the signs as a reason that you need to turn into a superhero of some kind. You've already got your superpower (Spaced out person assistance) and your weakness (Injuries on the right side). Perhaps the broken bird was meant to be your Batman moment.

Picks up the broken bird "That's it... I will become Broken Bird-o! Assisting those that are semi-conscious on public transport everywhere!"

You know... or not...

Yeah I suppose thats the City for you.

I'm sure its all co-incidence, just being the child of Hippies you always end up trying to tune into the signals from the cosmos.

Whilst jogging this afternoon and reflecting on the incident, I realise that my bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired; monosylables barked as orders are probably not very endearing :p Its funny how your training really DOES come through in times of trouble. Unfortunately the Army didn't issue any fluffy pilows with our two teaspoons of 'harden the flap up' and social niceties when dealing with a first aid incident weren't really articulated to us in our combat first aider course. Then again I blame the nurses from basic training... a bunch of tough old battleaxes who seemingly took delight in stabbing the hell out of young guys with a myriad of ridiculously oversized needles.