Das Tagebuch Murnaus

Last CB of the year - it was fun.
Coming up on the second anniversary!

My setlist:

Cabaret Voltaire - 24-24
Severed Heads - Oscar's Grind
CTI - Funky
Nash the Slash - Fever Dream
Sleep Chamber - Fetish
Klaus Nomi - Silent Night
Greater Than One - Dubkiller
400 Blows - Fundamental Islam
The Normal - Warm Leatherette (HIV rmx)
Skinny Puppy - Deadlines
Blutengel - Der Spiegel
A Split Second - On Command
Front 242 - Kampfbereit
Legend - Devil in Me (Steed Lord remix)
Aircrash Bureau - Exhibition
Orange Sector - Fuer Immer
Glis - Nightvision
AD:Key - Gruene Augen Luegen
Ayria - Hunger
Front Line Assembly - Oblivion

Setlist for DJ Murnau last night:

Kraftwerk - Elektrokardiogramm
Greater Than One - We are the People with the Human Fist
Chris and Cosey - Confession
Laibach - Die Liebe
Skinny Puppy - Ice Breaker
Nash the Slash - Dance After Curfew
Severed Heads - 20 Deadly Diseases
Portion Control - Divided
Pro-tech - Erotic Anthology
Apoptygma Berzerk - Near
Front Line Assembly - Bliss
All the Ashes - Schwarz Macht Schlank
Informatik - Things to Come
Wumpscut - Krieg
AD:Key - Hoch die Haemmer
Noise Unit - Kick to Kill
Frontal - Du
Aural Vampire - V. Madonna Schizoiod
Icon of Coil - Shelter*
Patenbrigade Wolff - Gefahrstoffe
Straftanz - Straftanz
Miss Construction - Kunstprodukt
Orange Sector - - Fur Immer
Eisenfunk - Skudrinka
Heimaterde - Deus Lo Vult
Activehate - Starstruck
Otto Dix - Atomnaja Zima
Hocico - Fed Up*
Assemblage 23 - Awake
VNV Nation - Chrome
Covenant - Feedback
Rational Youth - Saturdays in Silesia

I understand we had some German or Dutch guests in the audience, I didn't play all this German stuff for them! (though they could have asked) Lots of fun and people seemed to enjoy themselves.

Another month, another Circuit Breaker... shadesofwinter came over from Vancouver (where he has moved) for this one. We played two one-hour sets each. Fun!

First set:

Greater Than One - Exorcising Julie
Chris & Cosey - Confession
Umo Detic - Fahrenheit
Diamanda Galas and Digitalize - I Put a Spell on Your Ideals
Neon - Voices
Nash the Slash - Dance After Curfew
Portion Control - Divided
A Split Second - Flesh
Cabaret Voltaire - Ove rand Over
Front 242 - Neurodancer
Severed Heads - Petrol

Second set:

Laibach - Tanz mit Laibach
Skinny Puppy - Hexonxon
Front Line Assembly - Provision
AD:Key - Lass Mich Los
Straftanz - Straftanz
SiTD - Lebensborn
Nachtmahr - WEir Schreiben Geschichte
Feindflug - Blutorgel
Icon of Coil - Shelter
Qntal - Ecce Gratum*
Miss Construction - Kunstprodukt
Dismantled - Insecthead*
Blutengel - Children of the Night*
And One - Dancing in the Factory
Amnesia - Hysteria
Nash the Slash - Womble
SPOCK - Dr. McCoy
Rational Youth - Saturday in Silesia
CCCP - American Soviets

(* = request)

Ooooff, what a month it's been. I was looking forward to a good ten days off during the Xmas-New Years bit but halfway through it Body thought it should get even for all the stress Brain had been placing on it all fall and I fell ill from a terrible cold that's going around. That was over two weeks ago and I'm still an exhausted, brain-dead snot factory, at least for the first couple of hours until the night's accumulation of phlegm has dispersed.

I hate being ill, I mean there are a few perks like sitting in bed most of the day watching crappy movies, preferably on VHS (Saturday I saw Back to the Beach, Master of the World, Tunnelvision, and two Andy Kaufman TV specials - gave up on After the Fall of New York because of a headache). But there are always obligations, even when sick, and that's not much fun. Worst is the tiredness, of not feeling up to doing all the things you want to do, or starting something and tiring after just a little while.

Anyway blah blah poor poor pitiful me... otherwise December wasn't bad, I made progress on a couple of projects including the Naval Postgraduate School-related project, and finished the year with the information that one of my new(ish) games, Third Lebanon War, will be included in a new game magazine to be launched this August (but "my" issue probably won't be out until 2013 or maybe even 2014), and two other games, Greek Civil War 1947-49 and Balkan Gambit, will finally come out in the first half of 2012, four years after handing them in to the publisher. At least, that's the plan.

I cooked and baked a lot last month, my mom was sick (with that same terrible cold, don't think I got it from her but she has COPD so it's not good) so we took her turkey and I roasted it and it came out pretty well... and I made ten fruitcakes, a kilogram each, that's an awful lotta fruitcake but they made nice gifts (mostly fruit bits stuck together with buttery cake batter), and I made "Ginger Dead Men" - I found a 10 cent metal cookie cutter in the shape of a playing-card spade at the thrift store, and a moment's work with a pair of pliers turned it into a skull outline - couple of dents for eyes and teeth, and you have ginger cookies that will stare back at you, along with all the other people staring at you for bringing a box of these weird atrocities into the office!

Lianne went all-out for Christmas, she wanted a tree (we got an artificial one, I don't see the point of killing a tree, or rather buying an already-killed one, just to have it inside for two weeks while it drops needles on the carpet) and put up all kinds of lights and decorations. Her Mom died near last Christmas so this is the first time we'd all been together for the entire holidays. She gave me a nice little Toshiba netbook for Christmas, the one thing I would find quite useful but would never buy for myself. It's nice to carry around and I think I will brave the DHS goons and take it on trips, it also uses Skype so I can call folks on it for free - Akito calls his mother every week on Skype, and often talks to his friends that way. Wonder how much longer it will be before that little bit of convenience gets shut down or overrun by ads - yeah, you can talk as much as you want for free, but your call is interrupted by a 15-second ad every 45 seconds.

Akito is 17 now. Yikes, once there was this little baby I could hold in both hands and now there's this man living in my house who calls me Dad. He went to a school semi-formal dinner and dance, so we got him some nice clothes - he does clean up well, and he had fun, so that's all to the good. He has been accepted into the Mechanical Engineering Technology program at Camosun, it's a good two-year program that offers a bridging semester right into 3rd year Mechanical Engineering at the University. It's an intense program and the bridging semester is tough but the classes are small and the instructors seem to care about the students, so I hope he will be all right.

Uh, what else - last night was another Circuit Breaker, the one-year anniversary. Here's my setlist:

Nash the Slash - Reactor #2
Cabaret Voltaire - Spies in the Wires
Severed Heads - Dead Eyes Opened (spooky remix)
Skinny Puppy - Far Too Frail
Chris and Cosey - Lost
Hilary - Kinetic (remix)
Numb - Theme to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
Encephalon - Rise
Die Sekto - Accelerant
Laibach - Alle Gegen Alle
AD:Key - Lass Mich Los
And One - Wet Spot
Digital Poodle - Head of Lenin
Soviet Radio - Love is a War
Covenant - Leviathan
Eco - Hass und Liebe

So that's that for now!

You know, Livejournal has not collpased as I thought it would four months ago - I'll be here for a bit yet, but will still maintain my game-design related blog on Wordpress: http://brtrain.wordpress.com/

So, Happy New Year to you - not going to bother with year-end memes this time. Heck, I did not even observe the 13th anniversary of my accident, save for riding over the spot I got hit in the bus home, but I do that half the time anyway....

Another month, another Circuit Breaker and this one was a lot of fun! (not that they aren't all fun, it's nice to play music for people)

Started with a listening party for the new Collide CD, then I played:

Chris and Cosey - Take Control
Severed Heads - Propellor
Cabaret Voltaire - Do Right
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Skinny Puppy - Ice Breaker
Laibach - Du Bist Unser
A:Grumh - Ha People
Frontline Assembly - Iceolate
Die Krupps - Germania
Panzer Disco - Tanzmarsch
Nachtmahr - Madchen in Uniform (Faderhead remix)
Schramm - Asbest
Miss Construction - Kunstprodukt
Decoded Feedback - Prophecy

A bit shorter set than normal, but people liked it, especially the newer stuff at the end.

http://www.circuitbreakerclub.com/main.html

Spent much of the long weekend figuring out a new abstract game, tentatively called "Uprising". Well, it beats "Guerrilla Checkers".

Remembrance Day - a cold and intermittently rainy Friday. My first proper Remembrance Day parade was a full thirty years ago now, I had just joined the reserves but didn't even have a uniform yet. This day is the only day of the year that I actually feel I'm getting older; birthdays are just another day (albeit with good eats) but this day reminds me more of passing time. Akito went with me, good lad, and after the main ceremony we went to look quickly at the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion memorial a block away from the Legislature, a bronze statue and a plaque put up to remember the "premature anti-Fascists".

Another month, another Circuit Breaker... this time it was a Doctor Who Tribute Night.

Here's my set list:

Severed Heads - We Have Come To Bless This House
Kraftwerk - The Robots
Pyrodrifter - Exterminate
Soviet Radio - Dark Days
Greater Than One - We Are The People With The Human Fist (Gray thought it was a version of the March of the Cybermen)
Front Line Assembly - Final Impact
Chris and Cosey - Love Cuts
Nash the Slash - Wolf
Orbital - Dr. ?
Culture Kultur - The Anlayst (Desert Storm remix)
400 Blows - Fundamental Islam
And One - Amerika Brennt
Test Department - 51st State of America
DHI - Climbing
Martyr Complex - Extermination Mix
Takkyu Ishino - Warm Leatherette
Wumpscut - Bleed
Ad:Key - Hoch Die Haemmer (Space Mix)

It was lots of fun! Quite a few new faces who may have come for the Whoness only, but I hope they'll return.

Now there's a nice website too:

http://www.circuitbreakerclub.com/

Yes, been a while, hasn't it... Among other things:

I didn't write about the outcome of the convention in Tempe. I think I found homes for ALL of these designs, except Virtualia, which nevertheless was the predecessor for Kandahar and EOKA, both of which attracted interest. But hoo boy, I never talked so much in all my life - and I owe a great debt to Todd Davis, He of the Blue Hair, who made sure that I got a chance to talk to people who mattered.

I observed and kibitzed some folks playing Summer Lightning, and at least one copy was given away as a door prize. I helped to playtest Andean Abyss, (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/91080/andean-abyss)a new game on counterinsurgency in the 1990s in Colombia that was quite clever, and showed Guerrilla Checkers (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71035/guerrilla-checkers) to quite a few people. Got a couple of small games and picked up two items in the game auction, normally the high point of the convention.

It was up to 105 degrees in the daytime, and would cool to about 80 around 4 in the morning. My good intentions of getting exercise by walking up the butte behind the hotel in the relative cool of the morning soon evaporated, and we never did get into downtown Phoenix (it would have been easy as there is a new light rail station a couple of blocks away) to look around. But we did walk around in the general area, and I got some cheap CDs at the record exchange down the street we always visit - Lianne got some nice antique glassware at the little store down the street from there, that we also always visit.

We went out to the club (it was called Sanctum) twice that week, Wednesday and Saturday. Wednesday the music wasn't so great, and not many people there, but Saturday was a lot better. Lianne came along the second time and had a good time, I think.

I hadn't been to this convention in three years, and it appears my reputation has grown slightly in the meantime - getting published in Strategy & Tactics and World at War magazine certainly helped. Joe Miranda and I also made a presentation at a rather sparsely-attended panel discussion on simulating modern warfare.

We left on Sunday, and getting home, while it took a while, was less unpleasant than getting there. On the way down I got the full TSA style pat-down three times, including having my hands swabbed for explosives/gunpowder residues in the Victoria airport, before I'd even left the damn country! It's the metal rod in my leg that does it - the metal detector trips, and then I get the business... the TSA drone knows I haven't done anything wrong, I know I haven't done anything wrong, but we both have to go through this non-consensual Security Theatre piece - he'll lose his job if he doesn't do it, all it takes is one smart crack from me and then I get on a watch list forevermore, and both of us, it has been decided, must demonstrate to everyone watching that You Must Submit, It's For Your Own Good, Really....

Anyway, in Phoenix airport they had a full body scanner, so all you do is stand with you hands in a triangle above your forehead while they probe your innards. It was easier that time. Then we flew to San Francisco and sat there for a few hours, thankfully did not have to go through Security again, and then a flight straight home to Victoria. But we arrived late, and took a while to get through Customs, so did not get home until almost midnight, too late for me to go and do a set at Circuit Breaker - sigh.

Monday the 13 I had a cleaning appointment at the dentist - tired as I was it was still only all right to sit in the chair while he poked and scraped at my teeth, until *SPUNG* an inlay popped off. Well, if you are going to have your dental work wrecked, a good place to do it is in the dentist's office - so they cemented it back on until I could get it seen to that Wednesday. Oh how I love these dental follies - but it beats having to whittle a new set of choppers every month.

The following week was Aki's final exams, he did OK on the things that counted - A in Math, A in Social Studies (he got extra credit for volunteering in the federal election and that made the difference), B in Auto Mech, C+ in English - could have been better but the exam was sooner than he thought it was - bad planning on the school's part, and I was certainly less than impressed with his teacher. Anyway, it's good enough and after English 12, he'll never analyze another novel in his life. This week he is on the Trades Awareness Program, something Camosun College puts on in the summer - each day they go to a different shop in the Trades area of the campus to see what's involved in being an electrician, plumber etc. and they go to a construction site to see how it all comes together.

By the end of the week my boss was back from her vacation, so that was the end of my nearly-one-month-long Reign of Error acting in her position. I really don't care for being Boss. But I like the job a lot. Oh, and because of the dental stuff I missed the ceremony for getting my 15-year service pin too(actually I've been in the Public Service since 1993, but better late than never).

Canada Day I stayed well away from downtown! We finally got a big and good-quality barbecue, so I have been grilling dinners lately - so that's what I did, and later stood on a chair on the deck to see the fireworks going off over downtown, six miles away from drunken vomiting teenagers. The following night we went out to a gallery opening, and had dinner at San Remo, a place I have been meaning to go to for over ten years. It was pretty good. And Sunday the 3rd was the annual "Gothnic" in Beacon Hill Park: Lianne came along and I made up a big batch of sandwiches. I don't think my priest getup fooled anyone, but it does look rather like a demented church picnic.

And that night was Circuit Breaker again (a week earlier than usual because of Pride Week)! Here's my setlist:

Severed Heads - Come Visit the Big Bigot
Nash the Slash - Wolf
Epsilon Minus - Antigravity (to test the outpout from a laptop)
Yello - Bostich
Residents - Diskomo 2000
Einsturzende Neubauten - Abfackeln
Laibach - Now You Will Pay
Ad:Key - Seelenstrip
Front Line Assembly - Provision
Blutengel - Bloody Pleasures
Mythos - Robot Secret Agents
A;Grumh - New Fashion
Penal Colony - Third Life
Die Bunker - Gewalt
Die Krupps - Machineries of Joy
And One - Panzermensch
DAF - Der Mussolini
Apoptygma Berserk - Electronic Warfare
Einsturzende Neubauten - Yu-Gung

That about brings things up to date. This summer I am spacing out some vacation days to go to a four-day work week, and there's lots to do to fill in the time.

In the first week of August I am going to the Connections conference at the National Defense University in Washington DC to speak on a panel, and demonstrate some of my games. Again, I am not looking forward to getting there (Continental Airlines, which I understand is one notch above the way Aeroflot used to be, and a long period of cooling my heels in Houston TX of all places). I am taking just carry-on luggage so at least none of that can go wrong. And DC in August is a steambath, I hear, and there are no clubs for Joe and I to go to on the nights we are there (without travelling 90 miles to Richmond or Norfolk VA!).

Note to anyone who might be wondering: my ex is about 700 miles away from the happenings in northern Japan, and about 250 miles away from the volcano that erupted the other day, so she's in probably the safest part of Japan right now, at least until Godzilla emerges from the waves...
(cue: http://www.godzilla.stopklatka.pl/dzwieki/godz1.wav)
Uh oh....

There's so much more ignorance than usual on TV and the Net these days in connection with the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan. Yesterday I saw Elliot Spitzer on CNN tell another reporter that he did not understand how wind could spread radiation, since he thought it went in all directions at once! Plainly he did not pay attention in Grade 10 science class, he was probably peeking down his neighbour's blouse. (The reporter said he didn't understand it either, until he asked a physicist.)

Anyway, the son of a friend of mine is a maintenance supervisor at a nuclear power plant in Ontario, and he posted this very clear explanation of how the Fukushima reactors work, what has happened there, and that there is a lot less danger than people think. He posted these.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/15/fukushima-15-march-summary/

Quote from the last entry, from a nuclear researcher:

"The lesson so far: Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of
unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every
part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of
people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant
which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won’t know for
sure, of course, until the last measure to assure cooling is put in
place, but that’s the likely outcome. You’d never know it from the
parade of interested anti-nuclear activists identified as “nuclear
experts” on TV.

From the early morning Saturday nuclear activists were on TV labelling
this ‘the third worst nuclear accident ever’. This was no accident,
this was damage caused by truly one of the worst of earthquakes and
tsunamis ever. (The reported sweeping away of four entire trains,
including a bullet train which apparently disappeared without a trace,
was not labelled “the third worst train accident ever.”) An example of
the reporting: A fellow from one of the universities, and I didn’t
note which one, obviously an engineer and a knowledgeable one, was
asked a question and began to explain quite sensibly what was likely.
He was cut off after about a minute, maybe less, and an anti-nuke,
very glib, and very poorly informed, was brought on. With ponderous
solemnity, he then made one outrageous and incorrect statement after
another. He was so good at it they held him over for another segment

The second lesson is to the engineers: We all know that the water
reactor has one principal characteristic when it shuts down that has
to be looked after. It must have water to flow around the fuel rods
and be able to inject it into the reactor if some is lost by a
sticking relief valve or from any other cause – for this, it must have
backup power to power the pumps and injection systems.

The designers apparently could not imagine a tsunami of these
proportions and the backup power — remember, the plants themselves
produce power, power is brought in by multiple outside power lines,
there are banks of diesels to produce backup power, and finally, banks
of batteries to back that up, all were disabled. There’s still a lot
the operators can do, did and are doing. But reactors were damaged and
may not have needed to be even by this unthinkable earthquake if they
had designed the backup power systems to be impregnable, not an
impossible thing for an engineer to do. So we have damage that
probably could have been avoided, and reporting of almost stunning
inaccuracy and ignorance. Still, the odds are that no one will be hurt
from radioactivity — a few workers from falling or in the hydrogen
explosions, but tiny on the scale of the damage and killing around it.”


Last Sunday night was Circuit Breaker again, and I had fun! Here's my set list:

Einsturzende Neubauten - NNNAAAAMMMM
DHI - Machine Altar Transmission
Chris and Cosey - Arcade (Extended Mix)
Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons - Filmen
Dead Musician - Nightmare (Leather Strip mix)
Pankow - Warm Leatherette
Master Program - Central Europe
Laibach - Achtung!
Einsturzende Neubauten - Fleisch "Blut/Hauth" Knochen
Front Line Assembly - Mindphaser (single remix)
Test Department - 51st State of America
Numb - Blood

Mostly suitably stompy, I thought. Though as usual I took the first shift so no one was dancing until the very end.

Got a new dishwasher and boy is it quiet. But I'm still paranoid about water and the house. Plumbing and electricity are my two least favourite things to deal with and they come together in a dishwasher. I wasn't too proud to let someone who knew what he was doing install it.

Poland 1939 game will be coming out at the end of March. Yahoo!

Aiee, six weeks passes like nothing. So, more updates:

My article on the 1942 Dieppe raid appeared in the latest issue of Strategy and Tactics. Got a couple of positive comments but no one really seems to have noticed. Thought I would ruffle some feathers but I guess not. - the only discussion so far has centred around what kind of Churchill tank was portrayed on the cover. The issue also contained my short review of Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla, which someone else liked enough to go out and buy the book, which is praise I suppose.

Thanksgiving weekend we went out to a mail art show, Dale Roberts' Mailmania, at the Vancouver Island School of Art. It was good fun and my friend Anna Banana came over from Sechelt and stayed with us. Then we went to Pender Island for some turkey! It was a quick visit.

Last weekend was my birthday. I have almost outlived George Orwell. We had pizza and a big DQ ice cream cake. Lianne got me a Tempurpedic pillow which is good for my back, and a couple of bits for my Dremel tool (I am going to try using it on lino blocks to see how well it can cut and shape 'em) and I got myself The Gun, a newly written history of the AK-47.

Locals will know (or perhaps you've forgotten already) that the day after my birthday the government was reorganized. My old work unit has ceased to exist - still have a job, will probably be just like my job was, only in a different (and completely new) ministry and perhaps in a different building after a while (I will definitely miss working in this beautiful old building, if the move comes to pass I will work in a cube in the sky looking down on a desolate building site and an icky arena).

Halloween weekend was fun! shadesofwinter organized a party for the [Unknown site tag] people on Saturday night at the Ledge. Lianne came too and we both dressed as Maoist Red Guards - we looked cute together but photo not available as it shows me to distinct disadvantage! I got to DJ for the first hour, it was fun and I only screwed up once, hitting the wrong button. No one seemed to notice; nobody dances in the first hour or so anyway. Set list (s'pose I could have chosen better, it sounded like I did a lot of butting one beat into the back of another):

Joy Division - Exercise One
Klaus Nomi - The Twist
Wire - Follow the Locust
Nash the Slash - Swing Shift
Gary Numan - Telekon
Blutengel - I'm Dying Alone
Manufacture - As The End Draws Near
Kraftwerk - Showroom Dummies
Skinny Puppy - Smothered Hope
Xmal Deutschland - Mondlicht
Numb - Blood
Killing Joke - Chop Chop
Pere Ubu - The Final Solution

Halloween night we didn't even bother putting the light on or making candy available - last year only TWO kids showed up all night, and I didn't even hear any passing by on the road outside this year. Lots of firecrackers and rockets though. I made a big pot of ham and pea soup and watched Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (TCM has been running a lot of these movies in the last month or two, and I find them pretty funny, with Leo Gorcey's malapropisms and Huntz Hall's goofy jokes.)

Hope all is well with you, Deah Readuhs... and for my American friends, I am so very very sorry.