DEFEND THE KEEP!!!

Every Friday night we have a family games night. The 4 of us turn off the electronic distractions and sit around the table to play whatever game is currently in favour.
With a soon to be 5 year old and a just turned 7 year old the list of games that everyone will be happy to play is kind of restricted but we still make it work.

For a long time the games of choice were Ludo (or Sorry), Uno and sometimes a random game the kids had. My son is mental about Ludo and plays it every chance he can get (mainly because he always manages to roll 6's and gets multiple pieces home before anyone else even manages to start!) however after listening to a back episode of The Incomparable Podcast about favourite games I decided to go ahead and purchase Castle Panic.

It's a bit different to most games we play as it is co-operative. Everyone plays the game together, you either all win or all lose! Basically you have a ring of towers in the middle surrounded by walls and a series of monsters that try to destroy your towers. The game ends when all the monsters are defeated or all of your towers are destroyed.

The kids love it and it has become our go to game! There is a strategy element where you can plan your turn to set up the next players turn in the process. There is also an expansion pack available which I think we will be picking up in the future :)

Current Win/Lose score  4 - 2

BAHAHAHHAHAHA *sigh*

Hmm so far this blog seems to be motorsport heavy doesn't it? I'll fix that next time, because I have something to say and you can't tell me what to do!

The first showing of the V8 Supercars "Highlights" package was on last night. Ok before I explain about it here's a little back story.
The V8 Supercars used to be $25 to go to or free on TV to watch. Then the gate prices started rising so now its around $75 to get in. So we started watching the races on TV instead. Last year a new 'deal' was signed which made the coverage also available on Pay TV in HD. Every race would be shown on both systems. However it ended up being that only a few races will be shown in full on Free to air and the rest will be shown as 1 hour "highlights" packages.

So the first one was on last night, they took 2 races, condensed them into 1 hour of broadcast, including 22 minutes of ads and called it a night. Well that's what I assume happened because I turned it off after the first ad break. They went to the ads on lap 4 and returned at lap 11.... in a 25 lap race.

People say "Just get Foxtel you tight arse" but lets look at some numbers. The MINIMUM package you need to get to be able to watch the V8's (in SD) is $750 a year. That's $750 increase from the $0 last year. Oh sure I'll get the fashion network and pig juggling channel so maybe it is worth it?

So what is the end result to V8 Supercars for the change? Probably very little, I don't follow their Facebook page any more as they post race results before it has been shown on Free to air TV, and I'll start watching one of the rebroadcast streams online instead. If that becomes too awkward I'll just stop following and tell them to shove it, like lots of people are.

Stupid people in your stupid houses!

Once a month I take an hour drive with my daughter to our Herpetology meeting and on the way we go past a place called Oran Park Town.
Each time, with out fail, I explain to her that it makes me sad to see the place. You see many years ago it looked like this....

It was Oran Park raceway. A great little track 30 minutes or so from home that we went to religiously. We would be there for every Super Truck round, every V8 Supercar visit and even some random club events. You could see just about the entire track from just about anywhere you could sit, it had a bridge and a tunnel, a windy bit at the back and a straight coming off an uphill tight corner. It was awesome. We would pack up an esky with rolls and snacks and head off early to get there as the gates opened, it was located in a bit of a hollow so it was always really cold in the morning.

I remember getting there one morning and it belting down rain, so hard that the place pretty much flooded and everyone else took off home. After 10 or 15 minutes it stopped, the sun came out and the racing began. The place was pretty much deserted and it was almost like the whole thing was for us.

Then one day they decided they could make a shed load of money by selling the land off to build a housing estate, in the middle of cow paddocks.

The argument was that we had Eastern Creek (Now Sydney Motorsport Park) about half an hour in the other direction so Oran park wouldn't be missed, but Eastern Creek sucks. As a spectator you can see almost nothing, the Super Trucks can't race there as the straight it too long (They would hit the 160km/h speed limiter 1/3 of the way down it) and it's a bazillion dollars to enter.

Even before I had kids, even before I was married, I thought that Oran Park would always be there and that I'd take my kids there one day. It stopped operating as a full race track in 2008, the year my daughter was born, and now when we drive past it is just an ocean of tile roofs on nondescript houses packed as close together as they can be built. It makes me sad every time....

I'm over that show.....

So it has been brought to my attention that I seem to go off a lot of TV shows.
I start watching them and then for some reason I lose interest. My wife and I will have a list of shows we watch together and then suddenly they become 'her' shows and I find something else to do.

I still watch some shows, Walking Dead, Game of thrones, Top Gear (Well I used to, who knows whats going to happen now) but so many I gave up on long ago (Defiance, Grimm, Helix and so forth). I have a theory... I watch a new series and follow along, sometimes they aren't great but if they are interesting enough I stay with it, and then they go on a mid season break, then come back and air sporadically before having another extended break. If it was just ok then I lose momentum and can't get back into it.

Anyway there is always a lack of good Sci-Fi going on, I guess I'm looking forward to 'The Expanse' because the book series was great, however the trailer looks urgh, I don't know what to think.
Ascension was interesting, hopefully it comes back as a full series it could go anywhere after the way it ended!

Shirts!

Woohoo I ordered some new shirts from Threadless a little while back and they have all arrived yay!

So what did I get?
"Dunk Gizmo", "My Grandma Likes Dinosaurs", "Some People Shouldn't Hi 5", "Ride The Springfield Monorail!" and "Something Strange, In Your Beverage..."

People wonder why I get so many "funny" shirts, I tend to wear them whenever I go somewhere (unless I have to dress 'properly' pffft) because I like them. Why should I wear a serious shirt? There is enough serious stuff always going on and we all need a break from it.

I did warn you that I'm a nerd.. :D

V8's at the F1

Congrats to Ford for their clean sweep of all 4 races at the Melbourne GP this weekend! In typical style they have won the only non points races this year and I look forward to seeing them lingering around the back end of the top 10 in all races to come.....

Ok that's not fair, I've been a long suffering Ford fan and it was good to see them up the front even if the entire event is a hopeless waste of time. Make the damn thing a championship round to make it worthwhile! Stop doing stupid crap like giving them 3 sets of tyres to complete 4 races, yes it adds some minor degree of strategy but people would rather watch them racing flat out. Making them do a rolling start is also kind of pointless as they don't do them any other time of the year. Sure it means that Winterbottom doesn't bog it down on the line and get swamped every start, but it also turns it into a shit fight.

Anyway hopefully the FGX development helps this year and it doesn't turn into another back rubbing session between the Holden team, Officials and commentators.

So on the same topic the channel 10 coverage is god awful, I can't wait to see what they dish up for the next round as it will be the first race to only be shown as a delayed 'Highlights' package urgh!


UPDATE!!

So breaking news this afternoon is that Marcus Ambrose is stepping aside for now!? What the?! After all the carry on about his leaving NASCAR and coming back to kick some bumpers he has raced in 1 championship round and has said it's all too hard.... something odd is going on.

Why am I here?

Why am I here? That's a deep question isn't it! Alas I don't mean it in a deep spiritual 'meaning of life' context but more of a 'Why am I making a blog?' type affair. Basically I'm doing this because I can, I want a place to put down a glimpse of things I've been doing and somewhere I can express (vent) my thoughts even though I know no one will ever see them :)

So who am I?
I'm married with 2 kids and run a small business from home. As I am the only person who will ever read this I can also be open and reveal my biggest secret, It's probably something I should have admitted before getting married and having kids but here it is....

I am a nerd.

Now I don't mean I'm a typical Star Trek/Comic book nerd (Star Wars is better anyway *BOOM*!) but I do enjoy many nerdy things :) Sci-Fi and Sci-Fi podcasts, fantasy novels and animated movies are all a part of my balanced diet.
I also like motorsport and reptiles :)

So that's probably enough about me for the time being, my plan is to post small amounts of myself often (like some kind of twisted character from one of my wifes criminal tv shows).

Live long and prosper... (I can't think of a good Star Wars sign off for this post dammit!)