robert.admin – Page 65 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 25, 2020

Blessed Creativity (DOG EAR)

howed up a little early for a dentist checkup the other morning. Was the only one in the waiting room and the TV was on mute (and I wasn’t going to disturb it). They were running a little late so I sat quietly for twenty/thirty minutes while they got to where they could see me. When the nurse came out, she said she hadn’t thought I was even there, I was so quiet. And on top of things, I’d forgotten my book. I was thinking. Unlike that kid the other day at the hair cutters (the one who stood and […]

June 21, 2020

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/20/2020

went back and checked – my last operations entry was back in March 1st of this year, three and a half months ago. Yes, it’s been that long since I ran in an organized session. With the possible premature opening of the state under the danger of CORVID-19, and at our club (observing strict mask and sanitizer rules) the club as started to meet again. I was thinking towards a session but I didn’t want to pack a bunch of operators in for one (we’ve run up to thirty people before). Also, I didn’t want to have our just-reopened club […]

June 21, 2020

Treasure Island (Review)

y opening shot from the fo’c’sle: this is a great book! I’ve read it years back and loved it. Watched the pretty-close 1990’s version and loved that too. And now, after watching the show Black Sails (which serves as a prequel , but I’ve my own issues with it), I pulled this one out of the public library and had another go on it. Did I already tell you to get it and read it? So the story opens with young Jim Hawkins (who works in his parent’s inn) taking on a new boarder, an old salt of the sea […]

June 18, 2020

RPG (DOG EAR)

t’s probably a bad idea. I’m going to start role playing again (after 30 years or so). Role playing (if you live in a cave and don’t know) is where one person acts as an impartial (or so they say) referee, setting up everything from the nature of the world to the price of a beer. Players describe what they want to do, and the ref determines (using tables and rules as guides) the outcome. Back in the day, I hosted a very successful StarWars campaign (which ran pretty much weekly for fifteen years). I can figure that a lot […]

June 14, 2020

Escape from Heaven (Review)

uj Pepperman is a talk radio host working the LA market. He’s dealing with his usual wide range of crazy callers when, suddenly, God’s on the line. This comes as a shock to Duj, of course. He blows off the call but later he’s abducted by two beautiful angels, goes for a nice drive, and ends the evening duct taped in his car, abandoned by the angels, and sailing off a pier. And he dies. And reawakens in Heaven. Turns out God wants a word. It turns out Lucifer wants to turn the end of the world into a populist […]

June 11, 2020

Insomnia (DOG EAR)

don’t know if this is the classic definition of insomnia. I just know it’s before 6am and I’m up. I’d planned to post something else out of my prep-stash but looking out the windows into the dark morning, I thought I’d cover this topic instead. Are you a writer? Do you find yourself up way too early in the morning, tired yet active? I think I know where my case came from. For the last twenty years of working, I’d have to get up and pretty much hit the ground running. Commuting in by bike, I didn’t have time to […]

June 7, 2020

The End of the Empire (Review)

ith the CORVID-19 virus raging, I’ve been moving though my old stacks, pulling books out that look interesting for a read four decades after purchase. And while the last one I noted was The Somme on old Earth, this one looks at the end of the “Holy Human Empire” in future-space. Colonel Saloman Karff is in deep shit. The rebels are pushing into the capital and he’s an officer in what is technically the Gestapo (i.e. the internal intelligence service). But he’s got a heart under that grim exterior – we open with him burning the files of all his […]

June 4, 2020

Old Fiction (DOG EAR)

he library has reopened for book delivery. Coming off a Black Sails binge, I decided to reread Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. What did I notice as I finished that first chapter? I noticed how lame some of the other books I’ve recently read are. I just finished a Libertarian fiction that was, frankly, pretty damn dumb (if you now have literal heaven on earth, if the dead can return and you can visit, then why are we talking about the second amendment (with the author putting words in Jefferson’s mouth))? And then there was that yellowing space opera I […]

May 31, 2020

OpsMemories – 5/31/2020

ith the CORVID-19 essentially ending all model railroading at clubs and home layouts, I figured I’d post up images from some of my more memorable moments…

May 31, 2020

The Somme (Review)

ent Military History this week, all the way back to World War One and the deadlocking, dead-making trench warfare that took place. Now, the Somme took place in summer of 1916, up northern-France-ish. It was a joint attempt by the British and French forces in the Somme valley to break through the three lines of heavy German defenses, to distract them from their own efforts currently underway in Verdun. Now, I held the opinion (before reading this) that an offensive as conducted by generals was largely them pointing at a map and saying “take this spot”, and the PBI (poor […]