Thoughts On - Hobby Shopping - Updated

 Hi Everybody,

                      I have been pondering spending in the hobby at the moment, as I have been earning a wage for the last 6 months, after a two-year gap of employment. There are some great products out there, but I have a problem justifying the expense of it.

 Hardback rule sets have come in at £20 - £30 pounds, with fantastic artwork. But the problem is, we have a major crisis coming down the road at us all, with food and energy bills going up and that's just what we know about at the moment.

 There is usually .pdf files of games and rules available, which is great, but without a tablet, you are usually looking at a large outlay of ink to do it justice, which does not come cheap. (I don't think I have turned my printer on this year, as I was on my last cartridge.)

                      So the question is, "Do I spend on the hobby, now or later, go down the PDF route (with or without printing the files out), or use what I have until things calm down if they ever do."

In case you are wondering what my shopping list might be, Edition three of Five Parsecs from Home in hardback (Modiphious Press) .D100 Solo Adventures, Ironsworn Starforged, not to mention some sort of upgrade for my 12-year-old, long-suffering PC.

Do let me know if you have a similar situation in the comments and what your goody list is at the moment.

Regards all,

Ivor Cogdell

P.S. I do have the second edition of Five Parsecs From Home, which I have had for a while. I have been waiting to get some more figures and terrain, thanks to the generosity of the author, Ivan Sorensen.

P.P.S. 15 October 2022 - I have upgraded to a SATA 2 SSD, it was delayed by the postal strike, plus the events described in the post "Disaster" (3 Nov 2022"), so it has not been fitted yet. I plan to do a clean install of Windows 10 on it. 

3rd November 2022 - I was made redundant at the end of last month, so that pretty much limits me to free stuff on Drive through RPG until my fortunes do an upturn. Please do comment though if you see something I should add to my wish list.

7th November - I spotted a 10" Samsung Tablet in a second-hand shop. "Not too expensive", I thought, "at £38 GBP. Once home, I found out why. I could not get a secure connection to the net. The "Play Store" was out of date and would not load. Edge, Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers would not load. I could not download any PDF reader/editors, which is what I had planned to use it for mainly. Needless to say, it went back to the shop the next day.

 A sales assistant asked, "Were you not told it was sub-standard when you bought it ?" 

"No", I replied, thinking "Otherwise I would not have bought it, you idiot".

I am proud to say, I gave better service to my customers when I worked in retail. But, at least I did get my money back.

Ivor Cogdell

Thoughts on - Shows 1

 Hi Everyone,

       I was looking forward to going to a couple of the wargame shows this year, Alumwell in Wolverhampton and Barrage in Stafford. Both, i see are now cancelled, unfortunately. Are there any shows going ahead that I can get to by public transport from Birmingham UK ? (Salute- London, I would imagine, would be one, but not sure what travel times involved on the tube.)

         I saw one in the Walsall area, but it was to far away from the bus lanes. The Birmingham games expo is still on as far as I know, but I don't  think there is any wargaming apart from board games. Please correct me if I am wrong on that point, as I have never been to one, yet.

Regards all,

Ivor Cogdell

Thoughts On - Eco Warriors 2

 Hi Everyone,

                     I have my Green hat on again. I was chatting with one of my mates regarding the Pro's and Con's of protesting, leaving the legal argument aside. This had been prompted by a protest group demonstrating outside oil terminals recently. My friend stated that most of the protestors would be only there for the sake of protesting and causing disruption, regardless of what the actual issue was. As he put it, they belonged to "Rent-A-Mob".

                     I agreed that the "Any protest will do" attitude was not a good basis for protesting, but stated that some may be there for that reason, but that there would still be the vast majority of people who did care about the actual issues involved and whose voices should be heard and their views considered, none the less. He did give way on the vague possibility, but I don't think my argument gave him any misgivings.

         Another friend mentioned the problems that we face going along this route. I reminded him that these green activists are fighting for HIS future along with everybody else’s. I asked him "What would you prefer in your senior moments, to be relaxing in the back garden on a nice summer’s day, sipping a cool drink in hand, or coughing and spilling the warm drink all over your trousers, peering through smog and heat haze".

    There is a very good Podcast authored by The Guardian newspaper in the UK, entitled "Carbon Bombs". This gives an insight into what the energy companies are planning, against what they say they are doing. Have a listen. Then start worrying and do something to help the situation.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/may/18/the-carbon-bombs-set-to-blow-up-the-worlds-climate-pledges

To our Green Warriors out there, please keep plugging away, don't give up heart. Your voices and actions DO COUNT FOR A GEAT DEAL. You will prove to history that at least some of us had heard the alarm bells ringing and were trying to do something about it before it was too late. I personally think it is already too late, but we have got to mitigate the problems as much as we can.

Have you been on a protest march ? Would you go on another one ? How were you treated ?

I would like to read your comments below.

Regards to all,

Ivor Cogdell.