RPG Updates, Social Visits, Invasion Day, Knighting A Prince, Social Events

[tcpip]

Thursday night was the dramatic ending of The Great Pendragon Campaign. The group has played Pendragon for pretty much four years, with The Great Campaign taking over two. Next up Andrew will be running The Laundry Files. Sunday played the fourth session of 7th Sea Freiburg, which involved romance, violence, and demons. I've taken the opportunity to complete notes for the four sessions run so far.

Australia is a country sufficiently broken that we "celebrate" the beginning of the invasion by the British as "Australia Day". Local aboriginal people are unimpressed, and with the resultant health record from dispossession and endemic racism, it's no wonder that the protests will never end. Meanwhile, just to illustrate how much the current government still clings to Mother Britain's apron strings, the Prime Minister has awarded a knighthood to Prince Phillip, a rather vile individual. Even other coalition MPs can't fathom this decision. A positive upshot is the benefits it provides Australian republicanism.

Other social events for the week for caseopaya and I included having Clinton and his partner Deb over for dinner and a tour of the asylum on Saturday night. Deb was the main organiser of East Timor Women Australia and Clinton is a quietly brilliant political scientist and intelligence analyst and it had been several years (far too long!) since we had spent good time in each other's company. Somewhat related, caseopaya and I went to see The Imitation Game and the delightfully deco Balwyn Cinema today. It was a good film, a popular and somewhat fictionalised story of a one of the great contributions to ending Nazism and the invention of computing. Edit Neglected to mention that earlier this week went in to get my eyes checked, for the first time in eleven years (I'm lazy about some things). They've barely changed; if I were to get new glasses it would be pure vanity, and I wasn't vain enough to accept the $790 pair that were on offer.

Comments

[helvetica]

Wow I feel very obtuse for not knowing that there was such discord surrounding Australia day. As a Canadian I have watched similar events in my country my whole life, but there are general agreements between our aboriginals and the government. We have disputes over specific things, but none as big as this (though I guess we don't celebrate an armed invasion!). It saddens me to read this, I would be upset too!

Also that guy seems so slimy! How can people praise such as him? How can he sleep at night?!

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

I figure when Abbott is reminding his nervous backbench of the dangers of changing leadership, he's not just being abstract. Abbott is the avatar of vindictiveness; if he gets taken down he'll make Rudd look like a choir boy in comparison.

This leaves the Libs in rather a quandary. Do they go the whole term with someone so out of touch he could leave them unelectable for a generation? Or do they replace him, creating a worm in their guts to eat them from the inside?