jayseven

Joke from teh BBC comments section; "With Maggie dead and Fergie in retirement, somewhere out there is a scouser with a lamp and one wish left"

Yes - only board games, not video games.

I keep meaning to read Alistair Reynolds, but I tend to delve in just after an Iain M. Banks book and the hard sci-fi is trying to exercise my brain too much. I do need to stick with it because I do hear Chasm City is a good read (Pushing Ice being the most referred to novel, I'm sure it's great too). Let me know how you fare! I'm currently reading a zombie anthology (short stories), having just finished The Blindness by José Saramago. Quite a depressing vision of the degredation of mankind into little more than animals, with lots of god jism subtext. Read it in 4 sittings before bed, and each night I had such dire and depressing dreams. Quite a cruel book.

^what shorty said! Imagine it was going to open near you - how far would you be willing to travel? They are looking at guest fees, i.e. a member brings guests and either has a limit of free guests per day or they pay a nominal fee. If you don't come with a guest then there'd be a nominal fee, but as suggested it'd be a few quid cheaper than getting a membership and the perks that will come with it. The perks don't necessarily come with a monthly membership or not (one model is to have that month membership be the nominal one-off fee anyway, to encourage return), but with the massively reduced cost of getting a yearly membership i.e. £3 for one-off, £5 for a month and £25-30 for a year membership (but don't quote me on those figures). Income would be from memberships, food and booze, from commission of selling games/peripherals and stuff like that. The guys are looking at how to make it feasible. They've also said I've got the job behind the bar :P That may be a dissuading feature...

I'm afraid I don't know yet. There's really a lot of ways to go, and much depends on where teh starting point for the whole venture lies. Many things will have to be introduced or improved as time passes just simply down to hedging start-up costs. Personally I'd not know where to begin, but one of the guys is an accountant and the other is a programmer/physicist who already has a business so they know what comes first and what comes later.

p.s. I'm fairly sure there will be dozens of games available. It is definitely not intended to just be gaming space for one, two, or three large-scale games alone. Working in combination with local stores that, between them, offer hundreds of games. It is in their favour to have these games available to play because that's how people end up purchasing a set of their own. I have been promised a table with a chess set built into it. I'm sure there'll be a few built-in tables on offer for the more familiar games

My mate wants to stay away from elitism but still have a sense of class. He's not given out any outline of the atmosphere in this survey as that all comes later. "gateway" games are plentiful, catan itself is considered an introductory level game. There will no doubt be stock games available but the space will be welcome to people bringing whatever games they want, to game with their friends or with strangers. You can turn up with monopoly and four mates if you want - the matter of membership and allowance of guests is still up in teh air. The problem many (brighton-based) gamers are finding is that the available gaming spaces are taken up with very elitist, pompous gamers who snort if you bring along a game that they're not into. There are many magic players who detest warhammer gamers, many warhammer gamers who dislike d&d players, and many d&ders who look down on magic. Similarly there are hoards of people who are open about playing all of the above -- there are two gaming shops that I know where everyone is cool about everything, but the issue is primarily space as they are limited to 10-15 people in the available space at one time. If all these gamers want to eat and drink then space is shrunk further. There are several people who act as ambassadors for upcoming games of all difficulties and types that struggle to arrange introductory sessions for eager people simply because they cannot find the space. The issue with taking games into pubs is partly a space issue, partly a matter of needing a fair bit of organisation and notice and also a hesitation or worry for some people about gaming in a pub, where you can't ensure that some lout won't come and interrupt/disrupt your game. Loud music or football on TV can be disruptive and lighting may alter too much. This d20 idea (I think the club name is a mistake but hey :P) is to offer a safe, welcoming atmosphere with space and snacks and drinks at hand. Membership ideas are meant to be low entry of barrier that can offer members rewards for return visits (discounts in the club, discounts at various shops) as well as personalisation potential (one idea is to rig up cards so when you come in, you get a personalised avatar or tune appear on a screen or play on speakers to 'announce' your entry - optional, of course). Membership also allows the club to fine-tune what they offer i.e. if they have a lot of members come in playing x game on y day they can look into arranging tournaments, blah blah blah.

@Iun yeah licences are being worked on, no worries. @Jonnas the survey is to get an idea of a few different things that can apply to any gamer anywhere i.e. what sort of food would you like available if you went to a gaming pub/club, what games would you want to play, how much would you be willing to pay for membership, would you purchase gaming-related items, what sort of food would you like available, how far would you be willing to travel, how often would you game a week. The main 'local' question is "which shops do you frequent?" where you can ignore it or just leave it as "other: my local" or whatever. The survey is supposed to provide data to help my mate shape the services he could offer that would appeal to any gamer. The pricing research is being done in other ways but a rough idea of membership fees can be helpful for when they get on with a kickstarter and other means to raise start-up capital, through banks and whatnot. So yeah - a survey response stating what games you play can, for instance, help him figure out rough ideas of the space required.

My mate's putting serious work into a dream of his - combining two of his favourite things... pub and board/card/tabletop games. While you can play in a regular pub, space might be an issue or other clientele may be drunken louts, so he is looking at getting a large space for tables and offering food/drinks for people to play. He's hoping to set up a cheap membership fee and work in conjunction with gaming supply shops to offer goods at shop prices... As part of his research step he needs to get some idea of what people want from this sort of idea. This questionnaire takes 3 mins to do and is at http://d20club.co.uk/ edit: If you have any further questions, ask me in this thread or leave them in teh comments section on the survey and they will get back to you. There's a Q&A session planned later this month, apparently.

Today I realised that I've left all my summer clothes (shorts and loads of tees) in Oz, thinking I'd not need them here :/ Friends all forgot to put suncream on, so they all got burnt except for me, the palest one. Hurrah! Definitely prefer sunny weather. Just provides ample opportunities to socialise cheaply or for free. Food festival on Hove lawns today, followed by a nice walk then a sit on the beach. BBQ tomorrow! Glorious.

I choose to use the self-service tills wherever possible. If I have coins I'll just pour them all in and let the machine give me the correct change. I've found that slow people in front of me don't align under just one banner - you can have someone with a bucket of coins and a fistful of invalid vouchers, or you can just have someone who puts the card in the wrong way 3 times, forgets their pin twice and then asks if they can split the cost of the mars bar over two different forms of payment.

Kindle and suncream! I forgot those.

I've recently realised I feel a little less... secure when I've not got my backpack. I like to pretend it's just the difference in weight that throws me... but I dunno. But basically my bag means at all times I have spare hearing aids, antihistamines, plasters, notebook, pens, scarf, gloves, scissors, paperclips, rizlas, tobacco, mp3 player, torch and deck of cards. Usually there's a pair of socks and a light hoodie in there too - some deodorant and (possibly) a can of cider. It's usually just wallet, watch, spectacles and testicles, innit?

My step-mother has a lot of anxiety issues and me being there was really hard for her last time, impacted her work and life and all that gubbings. I got the wonderful "no visa, bitch!" email yesterday which is a bit galling. Been sofa-surfing for about 3 months, and will continue for at least another week. Not going to Oz = time to refocus and get on the campaign trail. I can get deposit for a place from my dad and I'm going to guilt the fuck out of my uncle about my situation to see if he will help, otherwise it's a case of find a place, pay deposit, housing benefit allthewhile applying for ALL OF THE JOBS.

- offer of a lift to sheff may be infeasible -- medium-length-story.

Had an upwards week so far and it's only monday! My visa has finally, finally, finally been lodged so I can look forward to a max of 6 weeks of waiting, then either way I'll know what's what. Friend is going on holiday and has arranged for me to fill in for her -- so I've got 3-4 hours of work a day for 3 weeks! A sheffield pal who resides in london came to brighton on the weekend, and another ex-sheff londoner has just said he'll drive me up north for a beer festival this weekend!

Went to the pub after a bad week, and a friend told me of a job - 3-4 hours a day for 3 weeks. PERFECT. It can give me £180+ per week... combined with knowing my visa app has gone in means I can do more with myself besides computer games before I go woop woop

It's an emotional retrospect, not a logical one!

^my situation has gotten irksome - lots of visa issues re: my return to oz, which has meant I've perpetually been thinking "i'll be gone in 6 weeks" for about 4 months now, thus no job. I've also got no stable place to live; couch surfing from friend to friend. This has been stressful for me (and I've always been unable to deal with more than one problem at a time), and in combination with her living issues/family issues/health issues it's been difficult to simply chill together. The crazy I unearthed months ago has also progressed... to the extent where she's unfairly being melodramatic and paranoid and all that. I can't deal with it, basically. I just need something not-stressful. If we were a few years down the line then fair enough but it wasn't even 3 months in and it was getting to me. Plus, y'know, thinkingabouttheexabittoomuch...

Just to return balance to the universe; I broke up with my girlfriend yesterday. She didn't see it coming and I was going to try to do 'The Talk' with her tomorrow, but we managed to bump into each other in town so it had to happen there and then. I feel like such a douchebag dickoff for doing it. But better to do it in teh first 3 months than let it roll on, eh? Unfortunately she's now blocked me and several of my innocent friends on facebook. Thrown a spanner in teh works when it comes to my social circle, and potentially fucked up a place for me to live for a while too.

Everyone famous has lived in brighton. Honest. Chris eubanks used to drive around town in his lorry thing, as seen here when he 'famously' blocked downing street with it. Strangely enough, it's not been seen 'round here since.

Nope! Nothing major at all. Sorry. No juicy gossip.

Excession is a great book - the Minds play a more central role, with the Interesting Times Gang leading the charge. It was revealed today that Iain M. Banks has gall bladder cancer, and isn't likely to even see 2014. There will be no more culture novels. Someone said that it's like losing two great authors at once. Such a shame. Algebraist (non-culture) and Matter are two recent and very strong sci-fi novels he's written, which you may want to look at after Excession, but I would still say Use of Weapons is a must-read (Player of Games is the best introductory book). Hydrogen Sonata is the latest (and thus last) Culture novel and it is very Mind-driven, but Bank's disgusting, distorted visions are pared down in this book compared to Matter and Surface Detail (hell, perhaps that's my favourite one? Hell dimension!), but I'm only 70% through.

Awww whaaat :'(

All elements of my argument I countered his horrible preposition by saying "well who's a better role model; hitler or gary glitter?" I mean there's no wholesome answer.