Unitarians, Gaming, Cancer, Sociability, LJ dying?

[tcpip]

My presentation to the Melbourne Unitarian Church on The Future of Planet Earth. On the wider scale, it seems that there is a strong emergence of religious humanism among Unitarian Universalists. The former president of Meadville Lombard Theological School, is the author of a new book, Reason and Reverence: Religious Humanism for the Twenty-first Century. All this comes as I'm reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". It will be nice to make comparison.

In gaming news, my review of Fantasy Imperium is up at RPG.net. I have several others coming up very soon. Will be attending Arcanacon this week. HeroQuest Glorantha pbem has had over 120 posts in the first two weeks and is now into the third scene. Everyway Aesheba game successfully wrapped up last Friday. Before one adopts online roleplaying first get a real life, merci, baralier. For designers and swordfighters, this magnificant (if bloody) article on real swordfights. To his credit, Mitchell Toy engaged in correspondence with me over his concerns of "video game violence" (personally I think "fake realism" is a problem).

anthanum alerted me to Cure for Cancer. Further research reveals that it is having trouble getting funding.

Caught recently up with darklion and SO whilst in Melbourne. Turned 39 on Saturday, and, as for the past three years, completely forgot the day and ended up dining with Paula the MCF, Craig and caseopaya who provided a very fine french cuisine dinner for me - and some very Australian cookies ;-) Had a visit from the mad and dangerous to know, dukeofmelbourne today.

Is Livejournal Dying? since introducing ads? For Firefox users there is a neat login tool and adblocker.

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

All my experience in dark age re-enacting and some limited fencing has always suggested that the last thing that any sane man would want to do is enter into a fair, one on one duel.

Corps-a-corp dagger fighting (one hand has a dagger, the other holds a strip of cloth, drop the cloth and you surrender/lose) is the style I think is for the truly insane. Especially those who would tie the cloth to their wrist.

Apparently duelling is legal in Paraguay if both parties are registered blood donors...

[hawk-eye.livejournal.com]

That was one of the methods we used to use in dagger training (we trained to be quite competent, as well as safe), and yes, it's absolutely bloody. Guaranteed incapacition for both duelists.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Good lord. Now I can say I know someone whose actually tried it.

[hawk-eye.livejournal.com]

It was harrowing enough with metal gauntlets and blunted daggers, trust me. More than once it was possible to loop an opponent with the strip of connecting cloth/rope so that they actually cut themselves... Talk about a great way to train up body awareness!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I can imagine. It'd be like a wrestling with daggers and a blindfold/garrote in contested ownership. Absolutely terrifying.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Have you read Harlan Ellison's Memos from Purgatory? Pretty much the same rules used for a 1950s knife-fight.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

No, I don't know that one at all. Nasty results I presume.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Both of them survived, but I think that was against the odds.

Worth reading if you can track it down. It's non-fiction*; Ellison, then in his early twenties, wanted to write a novel about juvenile gangs so he joined one to find out what gang life was like. One of the morals of the story was that this was not one of his smarter decisions, but the results are interesting.

The one I have includes a later incident, some years later, where Ellison was arrested for weapons possession and spent a night in the Tombs; both sections have a lot to say about how to turn people into criminals.

*There are a couple of bits that make me feel it may have been slightly embellished, but no more so than most 'non-fiction'.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Heh. Just spotted a signed edition on Ebay. Oh, day of good fortune!