incandescens | (no subject)

Can't say I'm totally enamoured of the new lj posting screen. Oh well, as long as there's a box to put my type in, I suppose . . .

Day was useful in that I got stuff cleared, and grey outside, and I picked up two secondhand Asterix books on a charity stall: Asterix and the Great Divide, and The Mansions of the Gods. Two books that will give me pleasure for years to come.

Have just noted an amusing fact about the GBA game Tactics Ogre which I've got ordered and am currently waiting for. While you can't change the name of the main plotline characters, I believe you do get to name your subsidiary troops before training them up and sending them off to fight. Hm. Possibilities there, I think.

Sacred (the computer game) is much improved by the .7 patch, not least because it puts cool names on all the magical items and provides sets and uniques (cough Diablo cough cough). Still being fun. Am playing the Gladiator and being very uncivilised in my "run in and attack things" mode of operations.

---

The Man In The Golden Mask

[...]

"What purpose, sir, in killing what is dead?
Your reputation's bleeding by the minute,
Your honor seeks a hole to hide its head,
'Twould be too kind to slip the dagger in it.
You planned by tricks to crush a better man
But other better men were not asleep;
These fell upon their watch. I bid you then
Begone, or join the merry midden-heap.
My sword is keen to bring into the light
Your liver's color -- though I know it's white.
Draw, scoundrel, if you would survive the night!"
Throat gurgling like a bunghole, Josserand drew
And stood there, but the masked man's rapier flew
Like ravens in the flock; and with his play
The golden mask made verse extempore:
"You have no plumes, and now you have no hat;
The epaulette whose honor you abuse
Is gone -- but 'twas ungloried, what of that?
And now the damp will penetrate your shoes.
What, corsets sundered? How your guts explode!
You must to Belgium, sir, to buy new lace;
One half a beard? But that is not the mode:
A moment -- there, that balances your face.
This cloak will turn the north wind nevermore;
This coat would bring a tailor to despair;
Alas, it seems your pants are on the floor
And now you are as well. You must take care,
'Tis cold to be turned out disastrously
Turned out as now you are -- yet shall it be."
And with a dozen slaps of sword on bum
The knave fled to the darkness whence he'd come.

[...]

-- John M Ford