» Being told off as an adult

Stood up
Many years ago I used to get the train out of Waterloo to good old 'commuterland' after a hard day earning my pittance. Thanks to too many years abusing my body with martial arts, my knees are somewhat knackered, and if I had to stand all the way home I would hobble off the train in agony. I therefore made sure I got to the station in time for the train arriving at the platform, so I could nab a seat.

One day a woman on the train had to stand and was letting everyone around her know, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn't happy about having to do so. Staements such as "and there was a time when a gentleman would let a lady have his seat" were uttered in our general direction. After about 10 minutes of this I decided that I'd had enough of her inane wittering and said "madam, your half of the species wanted equality, now live with the consequences."

I got a round of applause from those within earshot and she shut up.
(Tue 25th Sep 2007, 13:34, More)

» Conned

scrap metal
Many many years ago I was a public school oik. Yes, Okay, throw things now, but blame my parents. I was too young to know any better.

One of the many facilities at our disposal was an indoor rifle range. I discovered:

1) That I had real talent for rifle shooting
2) It involved lying down for half an hour twice in the course of the afternoon, then standing up and having a cup of tea.
3) It beat the crap out of being outside in the cold and rain, being stomped all over, and into, the rugby pitch by the bigger lads.

So I chose rifle shooting as my sports option. The rifle range was getting rather dilapidated and tatty. I lived close to the school and volunteered to renovate it over the summer holiday - repaint it, repair the woodwork, tidy up, etc. The fools took me up on the offer.

I knew the sand in the bullet traps was packed with lead. The first thing I did was spend about a week sieving all the sand and recovering a huge pile of the stuff. Guess where that went ? Yep, straight to the local scrap metal merchants (4 trips in my dads Cortina estate car - he was in on it) and I put over £300 in my pocket. Not bad for 15 years of age in the 1970s. Kept me in beer for ages.

I topped the sand up so that it looked the same and completed the work. At the start of the next term the whole place was spick and span, like new. I was given a 'service to the school' award at the next prize day, something like £50 of books of my choice. Double result.

Please don't waste my time or yours asking if I ever lost a second of sleep over it.
(Mon 22nd Oct 2007, 9:42, More)

» Abusing freebies

never leave the stand unattended
I went to a seminar in Birmingham last week, held by a major software company. In one of the halls were stands for other vendors pushing their related products.

The IBM stand was unmanned, but covered in freebies. I accidentally bumped into one corner of the stand and all the little FM Radio thingies fell into my bag, and the stress balls, and the pot full of nice pens too.

It's amazing what you can sell on e-bay :)
(Fri 9th Nov 2007, 9:39, More)

» How nerdy are you?

Still nerdy after all these years
I started playing D&D about 1978, not long after it came out. I'm still playing now, every week, with a group of '40-somethings'. It's such wonderful escapism.

I can also admit to truly great nerd-ness. There used to be a UK office for TSR, which was based in Cambridge and represented TSR throughout Europe. We had a warehouse full of stock. I worked there for 2 years. I wasn't one of the designers, I worked in Sales Admin and IT. We did all get to muck in and test stuff, review things and even write some bits. Afternoons or very long lunches spent gaming were not unusual - and normally instigated by Don Turnbull, the UK MD. I had articles published in Imagine magazine and my name even appears in the design credits in some of the old AD&D books and modules. We even got one of every product free. I still have boxes full of the stuff.

I got to meet Gary Gygax, and several of the other 'big names' from the 80s too. He was a nice guy, but there were strong rumours in the company that a lot of the profits ended up going up his nostrils in the form of Columbian marching powder. I have no evidence or opinion of my own on this, I'm merely reporting hearsay from other staff.

I saw him DM and play on several times (yes, we did have an 'in-house' group that played) and he got the rules wrong on occasion - no big deal but nice to know he was a fallible as the next man with his own creation.

My recollection is that he lost control of TSR in the late 80's when the money ran out (the head office once had to fax the MD who was in New York for permission to buy more toilet rolls, money was that tight) and the control ended up with the daughter of the man who created Flash Gordon.

I loved working there, but the money wasn't very good and I had to change job to afford to buy a house, otherwise I would have worked there until they closed the place.
(Fri 7th Mar 2008, 10:32, More)