That's gastric for you

Uh-oh - first missed appointment with the blog (should I be reclined on a couch, by the way?). My flu turned gastric - or better still, gastr-ick. Not at all terrible, in the end, but just enough to make me forget all about blogs and the finer things in life.
I'm currently setting up tutorial and exam questions for my MSc students in Integrated Product Design - a course organised by the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Malta, where I work. The topics I deliver lectures on in this course are Composites, Materials Selection, Ceramic Powder Processing and Laser Materials Processing. I've taught the former three before, albeit at undergraduate level; but I'm keen to get to grips with the latter, as it's the one that's closely related to my postgrad studies on laser material deposition. The only problem is how to comprehensively describe laser materials processing in a single 3-hour session. Oh well, if I'm confident I can cover composites in their entirity in the same length of time...

Had a bit of fun yesterday creating an army list for the Epic Armageddon game - for people in the know, it's for an Arbitrator (these would be cops) force - something not ttoo appropriate for an Epic scale force. Oh well, it's all in the name of fun. Which is what's important in wargaming.

I realise I still haven't covered 'Vanmullikanism'. I will. Eventually, or a little beyond then.
Cheers all (er - anyone?)

Captain's blog, stardate day 2

Well, I always wanted to use that phrase...
I'm finally getting to see Star Trek Voyager, and enjoying it - love the title music and scenes of the Voyager too - the cloud parting, the rings and reflection, and the eclipse. It's taken long for it to get here, but it was worth the wait.

I'm feeling a bit bashed by the flu, a bit like having an 18-tonne ship section fall on my head. At least good old Sopadeine put paid to the headache. Having tried to work on my postgrad and failed miserably, I picked up one of my multiple reread books - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in this case - and started it all over again. Good old MacMurphy is the ambiguous anti-hero par excellence. Terrible, and yet so just in many ways. I'd gotten to the point where the inmates play Monopoly - over 3 days - and the description of the rather mad version they enjoy reminded me of my favourite way of playing it - as bank, accepting bribes and handing out gratuities to whoever is underdog. And generally making a mess of the proceedings. If a game isn't fun to play and mess about with, it's not worth that much playing. Being, as you may have gathered from yesterday's pic, a bit of a wargamer, I started speculating on a mix of wargame rules with Monopoly. Anyone interested can find what may become a discussion at Epicomms, a terrific forum for the Games Workshop Epic game and lots more. Try here: http://www.epic40k.co.uk

cheers all.
PS - remind me to explain 'Vanmullikan'

Blog vacant

Well day one draws to a close here, and my flu-phase-three (dry cough) is getting at me. I've completed a bit of writing I'd been working at for ages, so the day wasn't wasted. One good thing about a blog is that it's a bit like the daily evaluation promoted by Jesuits - you can't let the day go by without reviewing what you were up to.
Work tomorrow, cutting specimens and mounting them in Bakelite for my postgrad in engineering, followed by the department Christmas/New Year culinary bash. Sigh. I wish I were better at food.

Meanwhile, in the background, a plan is forming for applying Game Theory to [classified] and for a new short story - or rather an old one, which has been waiting to be told. Very short - this one will go to the Fish shorts competition, maximum 250 words. It's all about a grave and a neighbour, and it's more or less autobiographical. The places we live in reflect what we are - or vice-versa. Or, more likely, both.

By the way, as Blogger persona I should introduce [censorship persona] [greetings and best wishes for 2006] who loves square brackets and avoids upper case - unless he gets real upset about something and goes to the other [EXTREME]. Along the way, you'll be meeting a few others.


Parting shot - the fewer siblings you have, the more personalities you end up carrying around. Or maybe they're just someone you can blame mistypes on.


Oh - just a pic-post test - here's something I completed today. I love old Epic Space Marine era models.

cheers all.

Notablog

Hi to all and sundry.
This is the first post, as opposed to a last post, or taps, in this blog, or backwards log. A blog is a time machine in the same way you can see a galaxy a couple of million light years away - and back in time. If you think about it.
Or maybe not.
At any rate, this is actually a not-quite-a-blog, or a notablog. Because I'll inevitably delay in posting. Which means that the blog will be gappy. Or incomplete. And so, to begin, an incomplete history of thirty days.

Day 1.
Today I started a blog.
I called it Vanmullikan. I don't know who or what a Vanmullikan could be, but it fits. Better than Mulikan too. We'll see how it goes.

Shostakovitch. Dresden.