Saturday, May 26, 2018

This Scale is Broken Challenge Week #10

I have put my foot in it this time.  I've put the weight on, but still under 100kg.

Starting Weight: 231.49lb
Previous Weeks Weight: 214.95lb
This Weeks Weight: 218.26lb
Total weight lost: 13.23lb
Percentage: 5.7

GAINED:  3.31lb

What happened?  I had stopped taking some of my medication.  I find that at times I need to be able to be free of the constraints that medication place on me, and of course I just can't afford to fill the scripts (which is the primary reason in most cases).  I'm back on the tablets, so I'm hoping that I'll shed the souls I've consumed and return to a lower weight by next weigh in... here's hoping.

WEEKLY VIDEO REPORT is here for those that wish to view it.

Till next time.

The Hon. John

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

My Top 5 Games as of May 2018

I recently (yes it was today) looked at BGG and reviewed their list against the games I owned.  Here are the top 20 games I own and the ranking that BGG gave them (at the time).

01. Gloomhaven (BGG-R#1)
02. Twilight Struggle (BGG-R#4)
03. Terraforming Mars (BGG-R#5)
04. Star Wars: Rebellion (BGG-R#6)
05: Scythe (BGG-R#7)
06: Viticulture (BGG-R#19)
07: Arkham Horror: The Card Game (BGG-R#20)
08: Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition (BGG-R#21)*
09: Blood Rage (BGG-R#23)
10: A Feast for Odin (BGG-R#30)
11: Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island (BGG-R#36)
12: Eldritch Horror (BGG-R#46)
13: Race for the Galaxy (BGG-R#50)
14: Lords of Waterdeep (BGG-R#51)
15: El Grande (BGG-R#55)
16: Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure (BGG-R#61)
17: Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game (BGG-R#62)
18: Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game (BGG-R#6)
19: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murder & Other Cases (BGG-R#66)**
20: Santorini (BGG-R#74)

Notes: BGG-R#x = Board Game Geek - Rating Number
* I own only the first edition of Mansions of Madness but have included it as owned anyway.
** I own the other editions (including the original releases), so have included this as one owned.

My top five games however do not reflect the top 20 games as ranked by BGG.  My tastes and preferences are different and what I want to play first and foremost will reflect me as a person.  Here is my top five games of choice.

01: Lords of Waterdeep
02: Twilight Struggle
03: Viticulture
04: Eldritch Horror
05: A Feast for Odin

So there you have it.

I've included a link to my YouTube video HERE, it may explain why I have chosen these as my top five.

Till next time.

The Hon. John

Saturday, May 19, 2018

This Scale is Broken Challenge Week #9

Well it has been a week of to many appointments and to many stops at shopping centres and the temptation of chocolate coated peanuts.  My visit to the Necromancer was good and my corpse continues to shuffle along a while longer, my status of advancing to Liche must not be to far off!

Starting Weight: 231.49lb
Previous Weeks Weight: 213.84lb
This Weeks Weight: 214.95lb
Total weight lost: 16.54lb
Percentage: 7.1

GAINED:  1.1lb

My weekly video for This Scale is Broken Challenge Week #9 can be found HERE

Till next time.

The Hon. John

Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Fabricated Tales of Alpha Capharius Part One


The Fabricated Tales 
of 
Alpha Capharius DC-12-9/5/9/ZT5F412A0

Yes dear reader I am thankfully able to retain my fully humanised portion of my brain and am able to communicate with the wit and charm that is custom to many holo-novels that grace the cubicle receptacles of any good waste recycling repository.  These are my memoirs that have not been redacted or censored by my superiors or the Inquisition as I have buried them deep within my core memory inside a heavily coded and protected sectioned processor.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-78G/76HH56++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject in unaware that his neural network has been compromised at this point.  
Worm implanted.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What can I say about Core Theta, if there was a Forge World that was most likely to be awarded the best and brightest, then – Core Theta won... ten millennia ago.  Today it is a creaking machine that punishes any creativity, any thought that is not the same as the thought that was before is erased and censured. I - and this was my problem, I viewed myself always as an individual, not part of the great machine and this made me enemies and made me in turn come to despise and ultimately dislike the great undertaking. I could not waste anything, I constantly hoarded everything, and as such I was seen as someone that many would come to for items that might be viewed as contraband.  Yet if it was discarded in the first place and forgotten in the past, how can it be contraband, which is how I argued it to my superiors.  It was while I was being examined yet again for such an incident that the Inquisition came for me. 

I had heard of them, read about them, but was not really prepared for them.  Curiosity was what drove me, and I saw the potential of leaving this dreary world of insects and emerging into a universe of greater knowledge.  This excited me more than any potential of being executed as a heretic.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-78G/7U7YS2++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject needs neural bomb implanted with mnemonic trigger.  
Careful monitoring needs to be made, vigilance at all times.  
Equipment and person to be regularly searched at random intervals.  
Suspect heresy, but expect great potential as an operative.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So began my new life in the employ of the Inquisition, my past life was nothing now, filed away in a locked partition, in a disused portion of my memory with a sign saying “beware of the leopard squirrel”.  ++EMMA++ I should describe myself at this stage.  I am of optimal height, being 1.8 metres in height, my weight is variable depending on my augmetics so I shall not list it.  I have not body hair, that having been lost due to radiation exposure, what flesh I have remaining is pale, Caucasian tone and with the implants gives off a metallic smell.  My eyes were replaced with lenses which is such a convenience over soft flesh.  I keep the mummified remains along with my testicles as good luck totems.  I am though, which I am proud to announce, a fully functioning male, which many a partner has testified to.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-3/D34/448Y+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject to be tested at maximum pain threshold plus fifty percent initial, then increase in increments of ten.  To be determined at a time of convenience and ship board rotation.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was escorted to the shuttle which left the planet of Core Theta and docked with a ship class of which I am still to this moment unable to classify.  My companions (whom I shall eventually introduce) called it “big”, which was an understatement.  It was clearly as large as an Emperor designated class ship, though I suspect otherwise, I could not find anything within my data files that could classify it.  The ship was curiously new, unlike most Imperial ships, which I confess I have had little interaction with.  Standard Imperial ships tend to show their age, like much of the Imperium, rust, constant repair, malfunction sections, pooling water, and vapours.  These things were not evident on this ship.  Clearly whoever I was now in the employ of had power, power to control manufactories which produced recent material, more likely more reliable systems than those millennia in operation.  This was clearly going to be a fascinating time, if I lived long enough.

My quarters were spacious compared to my last; there was an excellent and well equipped machine shop and fabricating area in which I could create to my greatest wish as I was informed.  All my requests though had to be routed though through the Inquisitor or Mistress as she was to be addressed as when in her presence.  Not long after being settled I was taking into the primary medicae/fabricate and given a number of medications and upgrades, some obvious, some I am only now becoming aware of.  The unwelcome ones I will have to do something about to circumvent in time.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-3-4G8/7HJK++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject to be memory wipe of this awareness.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Where was I?  Eventually I discovered I had been given some marvellous upgrades, my optics improved, a servo harness attached and my personal hand gun upgraded (and warned not to lose it, a lot of these warning were to be given over the lifetime of our association).  My flesh may be diminishing, but my machine is fully operational.  Every time I see the electrical catalogue now some part of machine spirit comes erect with pleasure.

Time passes on the ship and I find that there are other operatives with whom I will have to interact with from time to time.  I am restricted to certain sections of the ship; generally a bully boy brain dead naval guard shoves a boarding gun in my face and demands I go back the other way.  How rude is my response, how rude.  My quarters have another door which leads to a central chamber, where I meet the Mistress and two other operatives.  One is a female, dressed in what she assumes is fine fashion, the other a male hillbilly huntsman with enough hair to make a sheep blush in envy.  We all eye each other suspiciously, yet a word of command from the Mistress and we lose all immediate animosity towards each other.

Mistress explains to us that we have journey some time to a find another star ship which has a tie with the noble house of the girl she identifies as Belle.  I have pointed out to me the noble looking woman that seems almost borderline mutant by Imperial codification, but who am I to judge, I’m not strictly human anymore either.  Mistress hands Belle a device which I know as a Field Generator or Power Field, a very rare and valuable piece of technology.  This device she tells Belle is a copy, and the original has been returned to her father (for some reason I feel this may not be the full truth, to me the device looks like it’s the original and daddy has the copy). 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-3-4G8/7SRT++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject to be memory wipe of this awareness.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What’s wrong with my memory at the moment I’m losing my train of thought? Right, Belle has been given her device, which will apparently allow her to access areas of the ship.  Well it’s theorised it will.  We have been informed that the first to shuttles that approached were destroyed by the ships defence platforms.  Not comforting words to hear.  A third shuttle did however get through but no further communication has been received.  We are now being sent over to investigate. 

Supplemental Data: The ship was a pre-Heresy colony ship.  The ship has four sectored areas, each seeming to align to the realms of the primitive planet the two other operatives have come from.  There is scoring on the outer hull of the ship which I have identifies as being consistent with an attack from a possible Tyranid bio-organism of type unknown.

Our primary mission is to investigate the ship and why it is still powered and functioning.  Secondly we are to find and locate any materials or the person of Lord Thalaneus Delmarus (though I may not have decoded the phonetic spelling correctly from Mistresses vocal patterns).  Mistress also gave the two members accompanying me additional orders that my head was to be brought back at all costs.  I had internal diagnostic alarms from several systems go off at once alerting me to potential danger and I made the Mistress aware of her poor choice of wording to this command.  She smiled a particularly wicked grin as she corrected he instructions with minimal intent.  This did not on the whole leave me with a lot of confidence in my companions who were already sizing my head up.  Being bald does have its advantages!

Hang on; something is wrong with my cogitator.  The other member of the team!  That male gothic rocker with the long hair and bad halitosis which would kill a tyranid at twenty paces.  Yes well he is called Christopher Robins, no... Chris Rock... definitely something wrong with my cogitators. Well I shall call him – Edna... something definitely wrong with my

>run diagnostics

> error corruption

> error corruption – root diagnostics

[background singing “he’s a lumberjack and he’s OK... dresses in women’s clothing... wears high heels... just like his mother”]

>reboot successful

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-22/PO/WE4+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject susceptible to too many surveillance incursions, 
reduce level to category tertiary and monitor.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Christopher is the other member of the team and identified himself as a lonely hunter, but appears to be a lumberjack.  Spotted a number of women’s apparel tucked away in his backpack, clearly living alone in the woods has produced an interesting behaviour pattern.

Both team members while they have been mem-implanted with imperial scholastic basic knowledge and some training are still primitives.  I am finding it very hard not to have fun at their expense in the coming months if not years at their ignorance.

Mistress provides us with a tracked servitor to assist me (yes me) in carrying any items that may be acquired in our investigation.  I should point out that I created this marvellous device in my workshop, it is an exceptional piece of equipment and only stopped working when Lumberjack Chris (hereafter referred to as LC or Elsie) touched it, not through any shoddy work on my behalf.  My work is par excellence, and always will be.  I donned a fine Mechanicus style robe which I had armoured up for body protection.  I travel light, so to speak, while the natives went packed to the teeth with more weapons than a porcupine.

As a group we entered the shuttle that would ferry us to the mystery ship.  Space travel is still new to us and I for one regurgitated my last meal, which I then re-consumed – waste not is my motto.  This act seemed to distress some on board, I can’t understand why, the paste nutrient is perfectly edible not matter it state.  The pilot proved to be an utter bastard though and clearly pulled a few more manoeuvres to get a few more vomits from the passengers – some wager was being made.  Elsie made note of the pilots name, I don’t think he will enjoy his ministrations when we get back.

We approached the target.  Sweat trickled down the pilots face, and his body tensed – finally he relaxed as we passed some line in the sand which was the previous danger zone.  So we weren’t part of the previously destroyed two shuttles now.  We just had to make sure we did not become the non-communicative third shuttle. 

Slowly we approached and the pilot found us a docking port, which slowly activated.  The pilot indicated that it appeared to be malfunctioning to some degree as certain ship activities had not been automatically activated.  For instance when the airlock opened to the vacuum, much of the contents inside the area not secured was sucked into space.  Eventually the bay doors open allowing the shuttle to enter and activate the seals.

Once the seal was in place, the pilot told us that a shuttle would come back for us, when the Mistress decided a shuttle would be sent back.  I guess we should have asked for more explicit questions before leaving.  We were then also told we had to bring the tracked servitor back as well – or else.  The or else had me a bit worried.  This whole mission was starting to have my diagnostics send alarm warnings to many of my hyper alert systems and many of my mechadentrites were twitching in agitation.

Supplemental Data: During our travel inbound to target to icon which Lady B was wearing heated up at one point in the journey then went stone cold.  My diagnostics noted that were was a signal broadcast from the item, but I was unable to adequately locate the frequency or replay the data to any satisfaction.

The pilot gave us a very short period of time to clear the landing bay before he exited, so we had to scramble to the “relative” safety of the loading area.  Thankfully the area was empty with the exception of shipping containers, fuel drums and storage boxes.  Nothing was moving, I could make out no immediate threat in the vicinity, not that my sensors were primed at that stage to do so.  A debate ensued as to what our course of action should be?  Looting became the primary focus.  I won’t bore you with the details suffice it to say we found riches beyond a richest mans dreams and lost it at the sound of the Mistress’ voice coming from the tracked servitor.  Before I come to that; there was just a little bit of excitement.

I was tasked with opening one of the sealed shipping containers while the others were about the environment.  One of them, not me mind you, must have triggered an alarm.  It certainly was not me and my unfamiliarity of ten thousand year old technology that cause the alarm to go off – certainly not.  I pointed my finger at Elsie and accused him of have tripped some security mechanism.  Elsie ran to the only door he could see leading in, that we had not entered into and waited to for whatever was going to come in. 

The door hissed opened and in clanked a desiccated looking servitor of a model I was certainly not familiar with.  It thankfully blurted in binary as well as a form of gothic the primitives could understand, it was demanding authorisation and clearance to be in this area, failure to do so would result in the summoning of security and lethal force.  We failed to convince it that we should be in this area and panicked. Well, the primitives panicked, I remained calm, thought logically and deduced that the icon Lady B had needed to recharge.  I was a walking battery, I could easily recharge this device.  Well that was easily said than done, AC to DC is all I can say, nearly fried us both but we or I got it to work and as the gun servitor arrived to mow everyone down in a hail of large calibre bullets Lady B commanded them to stand name.  Disaster averted, for the moment.

A small reprieve was granted and it was back to looting.  Inside one of the shipping containers was a sectors worth of riches in rejuve drugs, not the risky stuff produced today but the pure pre-Heresy stuff.  It was at this time I became aware that I was wired for sight back to the mother ship.  A crackling vox contact was heard advising that a shuttle was inbound and that the goods found would be immediately collected, we had proven our worth to the Inquisition.  We were told well done.  We decided to continue to open the remaining containers and boxes.  A huge surprise was the stasis stored concubine, she was bound to serve the lord of the house, which was in this case Lady B.  This did not bother the concubine at all as to the sex of her master or mistress.  Elsie was getting rather hot under the collar and a bit stiff at the sight of an extremely scantily clad courtesan of the time.  Didn’t bother me in the least, though my pict recorder was working overtime.

It happened at this time that the servitor advised Lady B that a mass of Xenos were approaching this room at great speed and would be inside the room in moments.  Another gun servitor had appeared, which gave us three servitors to block the narrow corridor, hopefully giving us enough time to prepare ourselves of the alien onslaught.  It was at this time a debate ensued of the word Xenos, the primitives did not know the word.  Combat ensued, during which I was sent to see if the containers could be opened from the inside – they could.  I advised Elsie that hiding behind promethium drums would be detrimental to one’s health if they exploded.  Again had to explain the concept of explosions to the primitive mind!  The gun servitors died horribly, then the concubine (a trained bodyguard) and the servitor (unknown configuration) ripped the other Xenos to pieces.  Battle over it was back to looting, which everyone was more than happy to do over killing things.  Combat is such a risky thing; you might actually get hurt or worse die!

The search found the first clue to Lord Thalaneus Delmarus, in a trunk of books.  I was looking elsewhere at the time, which is how I found out that there was an audio pickup in the feed link to the Inquisitor.  I am really going to have to do something about this imposition on my freedom, or earn enough trust that she will remove them in time.  I hope.  Lady B got greedy and stuffed two random books away hoping that the Mistress would not know about the theft.  We also found some grenades which we found with some lovely colours on them.  No idea what the pattern means, my sensors are showing warning signals, so I’ll leave them alone for the moment.  My whole creed of waste not came to the fore as I secured a crate load of old data slates of porn.  The concubine showed Lady B one of the slates and said she would be more than happy to teach if she so desired, it just required a very supple body.  I found the jackpot animated tentacle masterpiece Debbie Does the Ommnisiah which is often whispered about, everyone has claimed to have seen but no one has ever actual produced an actual copy.  I now had one! Oh what I could make in prestige in finding this piece of lost data would be priceless!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1H4T-F/34/56ZXR ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject is the greatest threat to the Mechanicus I have come across to date.  
The lost animated data slate alone would do such irreparable damage to the collective systems of the Mechanicus it is best that the slate remain in my personal archive sealed for my own research purposes.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

While we were heaping the goodies together for the Mistress, we heard the shuttle arrive in another docking port, and by the sounds of it a much large one from the one we entered.  Not long after that the goon squad of happy’s arrived in advance of a power armoured female.  The armoured warrior revealed themself to be the Mistress, who again congratulated us on securing the previous items.  A heavy loading servitor came in and collected all the items in the area, everything, including my collection of special data slates. The Mistress was giving me very strange when I asked that the crate load of data slates be given over to me and she gave me a very serious warning look not to press my luck.  She looked at Lady B and demanded the two books she had hidden and an explanation why she had decided to keep them from her.  Satisfied with her answer, she did not kill Lady B, which surprised me almost as much as it did Lady B for the trickle of urine running down her leg must have been just from her urgency to use the facility than through any fear of death.

Our instructions were to continue our investigations. Clear this section and await extraction upon her clearance.  Again I heard the words her clearance and instructions, sounded like we could ask for extraction and it could be denied. Not very comforting.

It was back to what we were good at, exploring, missing clues, interpreting data incorrectly and of course me messing with Elsie!  We discovered a workshop with bits and scrap, clearly an assembly and maintenance area for servitors.  Elsie did a search, didn’t know any of the items he picked up.  He found a screw driver and asked me what it was, I decided to have some fun with him.  I said it was a swizzle stick.  He asked what a swizzle stick was?  I said that they next time the Mistress asked him to her quarter he should use the swizzle stick, and I made suggestive movements with it.  It was again at this point I realised that all of this was being transmitted back through the link to the Mistress.  I’m screwed I thought, well and truly screwed when we get back on board.  I managed to get a data terminal working a pulled up the layout of the immediate area.  The security area was where we decided to go and have a look.  That proved to be a big mistake!

The security area, well, it turned out to be a locker room.  I used my cutting tools to open the first locker and activated a knock out grenade taking out Lady B and myself.  Elsie seeing this happen beat a hasty retreat from a gas of unknown origin and went investigating.  He found a treasure trove of items which quite frankly should have come into the hands of a person of the Mechanicus.  However fate had chosen him to be the bearer of the items, so perhaps the items comes with some curse that is best left to those who deserve them.  Quite a booty he collected, an Omnissiah Axe, Laslock pistol, Security ring and wand, the list goes on.  The one thing he did get that is the most galling is an Artificial Intelligent Automation in the form of a squirrel.  Once Lady B and I were back on our feet and met this beast, it took an immediate dislike to me, and I to it – but only due to it hostility to me.  At one stage it gave me the finger, Elsie asked what that gesture meant.  I told him it was a universal gesture of greeting and that when he gets back on board ship he should smile and give the finger to everyone he meets as a greeting.  It was again at this point I remembered the link, and thought of my impending doom.  But I was having so much fun teasing the primitives, I could not help myself.

Thankfully the rest of the looting went without too much risk.  Found a body with another swizzle stick in it, couldn’t convince Elsie to take it.  The damn squirrel learnt to speak to a degree, and finally Elsie grew wise enough not to trust a word I said.  I just grinned at him and said, why do you think I got tossed off my Forge World, I’m a prick, no one likes me.

We found the masters armoury, discovered a container labelled fishing gear, and were surprised to find it filled with grenades.  Again we got the message, stand by for pick up, do not use grenades under any circumstances, danger to self and environment.  There were crates with weapons and antique power armour, again priceless beyond the richest mans dreams.  Yet the my greatest dream was the automation discovered in the last room we found just before extraction.  Inside was device I so desperately wanted, and what made me even more frustrated was that the AI Squirrel could link with the machine, it powered it up and it was activating its weaponry.  I exited the room at speed before it could obliterate me in a peak of displeasure.

It was an uneventful return flight.  The pilot didn’t do anything silly considering who was on board.  We were all taken to the central briefing room where we were dressed down.  Our faults were all laid bare, yet in the end the Mistress was happy with the results despite what our faults were.  Mind you when she got to me her words were (and I shall leave the narrative here) “Alpha Capharius as a individual you have displayed arrogance, pettiness, manipulative cunning, deviancy, abnormal depravity, greed, and excess.”  I looked at her and said, not able to help myself, “so your quarters 10:30 tonight?” to which she replied with an evil grin “no – make it 5:30 and bring the swizzle stick!”

Well I hoped you enjoyed the first instalment of the Dark Heresy Role Play Adventures I am part off.  Yes it is adult in content, yes a little perverted, but I am trying to milk every line from every movie and TV series I have seen over 50+ years.  I quoted Black Adder, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Benny Hill.  I decided that with the link to the ship the crew would be watching the antics live and that the show would be called Carry on Adeptus Mechanicus.  My one liners and my ability to make people laugh, especially poor Simon the Game Master made my day, as I laughed as well.


Saturday, May 12, 2018

This Scale is Broken Challenge Week #8

It has been a week of no loss or gain. Well I guess that has not strictly been correct, I have seen the scale increase, but I have also seen it drop as well.  When I weighed myself today I was 100g below my 97kg recorded weight, but I rounded up just for simplicity.

Things on the home front look like they will move into or towards more caretaker mode in the coming months or years if I cannot get my wife to change her habits.  Her latest test results on Friday were not promising and it would appear that her kidney(s) are now being added to her health woes.  Oh well, I've had practice, so it won't be anything new.


Starting Weight: 231.49lb
Previous Weeks Weight: 213.84lb
This Weeks Weight: 213.84lb
Total weight lost: 17.65lb
Percentage: 7.6

GAINED:  0

Here is the LINK for this week YouTube video for the weekly report for those that may be interested in watching it.

Till next time.

The Hon. John

Saturday, May 5, 2018

This Scale is Broken Challenge Week #7

Hello everyone!

It's not been a good week for me, I've been very ill and sorry for my self and this has reflected in some up and down weight results.  I had expected an equal result to last week, but am happy with just a modest gain on .5kg or 1.73lb.

Starting Weight: 231.49lb
Previous Weeks Weight: 212.11lb
This Weeks Weight: 213.84lb
Total weight lost: 17.65lb
Percentage: 7.6

GAINED: 1.73lb

This is the week round up video LINK, enjoy!

Till next time.

The Hon. John