Rant: My ongoing courier adventures.

Over the last couple of years, with various companies inexplicably ditching the flawed but mostly reliable Royal Mail in favour of the lethargic, self-satisfied, borderline retarded cowboys that call themselves 'Couriers' (I'm looking at you, Amazon Logistics), I have developed a hate-hate relationship with said remedial amateur postal workers.

Most of my war has been waged with Amazon, ranging from passive-aggressive tweets to outright pleas to just go back to Royal Mail, followed by a string of politicians' apologies until I get exasperated and stop replying to their messages.

Today, however, I was due two parcels from Amazon Logistics, and one from Yodel. Both had a window of 8am to 9pm for their deliveries, and I was at work and not expecting either. With Amazon Logistics you have to just clench your arse and hope for the best, and sometimes you catch them. Sometimes they take one look at your home and if you live in any kind of condo building they just blue screen of death and drive on, and sometimes they do a particularly sensible brain-fart and leave it with a neighbour. But Yodel texted me this morning, and gave me a number to text if I needed to contact their driver. So I did, and this is how it went.

Note the time difference between the bottom two messages there.

Now, I'm not being over-sensitive there am I? I'd made a request, they'd denied it, fair enough. But seriously, they could have said "Sorry pal, not in the area at that time, I'll take it back to the depot and we can try again tomorrow if you'd like?" to which I'd have replied "Sure thing G! I'll be in all morning, let's make a day of it, you can come in, have a beer and we'll play some Uncharted 2 multiplayer on the PS4 because Royal Mail FUCKING DELIVERED THAT TODAY.". I don't need to be sassed from somebody who hasn't adopted this new 'punctuation' fad yet, somebody who, in the connecting text between these two screenshots that read "who is this? wgat address?", managed to overpower their spell checker, Someone who's CV probably read: "I DUN BORT ME A VANN".

So I've written my passive-aggressive tweet, filled in Yodel's survey and vented on here. And once that parcel is in my sweaty little hands, those images are going on Twitter with all the hashtags and @ thingies that I can muster.

Amazon Logistics, however, rolled up at about 8:30 in the evening, and announced that one of my parcels was missing, presumed dead. I might get it tomorrow. Oh well, to paraphrase Meatloaf, one out of three ain't bad. It's not good, but, well, it's progress.

~TiD

Stories and Dice - Keith Baker

As my first year as a serious Tabletop Gamer goes by, since my love of Munchkin, Gloom and Cards Against Humanity made it finally click in my head that Tabletop Games aren't something to be ashamed about, and are in fact damn good fun, our small collection of Card Games has developed into a swiftly growing collection of Board Games too. And on a related note, our games room is slowly amassing a variety of dice.

There's a different colour D6 in each core Munchkin game, there were a couple of nice translucent red ones in the collector's edition of Duke Nukem Forever a few years back, a couple that came in a Christmas cracker last year, some tiny little ones from a glass game compendium and at least one from each Board Game we owned, and typically we just used the pink sparkly dice from Munchkin: Fairy Dice. Don't judge me, it was beyond my control.

Some of the Munchkin ones looked really nice, and although I have no need of them, I've coveted the more exotic dice I've seen in shops, the D4s, D8s, D10s and D20s. So I decided to have a quick Google at how people displayed theirs, and stumbled across something awesome and touching in equal measure.

Keith Baker is a writer and gamer. He's the guy behind games such as Gloom, mentioned above as one of the games that got me into the hobby, and the RPG Eberron. In 2009, he travelled the world gaming with people in exchange for a sofa to crash on. But more recently, his wife gave him a gift: a Gumball Machine half full of dice, which led us to this:

Stories and Dice - Keith Baker

He's only posted about it a further two times, here, but the story captivated me. Give it a read. It's also inspired me, I went out and bought a small candy jar, fitted it with LED lights and started my own little collection. I can't wait for it to grow.

~TiD

WWE Summerslam 2015 afterthoughts

Well, most of my predictions fell on their arse didn't they? Being as I'm still watching NXT Takeover: Brooklyn as I write, I'm gonna give my thoughts on Summerslam first.

Overall a decent show, Summerslam was decent enough but didn't really do much to excite me. But then again, the non-themed shows rarely do (by non-themed I mean shows with no gimmick, no Royal Rumble, no Elimination Chamber, no Tables, Ladders or Chairs (oh my)). The kick off match of Orton vs. Sheamus was kind of a non event; it's kind of hard to get invested in a rivalry when neither of the men involved seem to give a shit. I don't know what Sheamus was trying to look like he was doing when setting up the RKO, looked like he was just going to faceplant the floor anyway. I'll give him credit though, that second Brogue Kick for the win, was out of nowhere.

As per usual, the tag match was pretty dry without Kidd and Cesaro or the Usos to bring the talent up to scratch. I knew the Lucha Dragons weren't going to win, but one can dream. At least The New Day are more entertaining than the Prime Time Players. Following that, Rusev vs. Ziggler was a great match while it lasted, showing the new 80's look for Lana that I've been predicting for ages and showing two of the best guys of the mid-card at their best. Then it ended with an absolutely frustrating double count out, and I died a little inside.

Amell and Neville over Barrett and Stardust went predictably, with Neville carrying the match as far as the good guys went, and the heels doing a decent job of selling the rookie. Amell's top rope jump to the outside was a ballsy move and it looked good, until Neville went into orbit directly after and pissed all over it but hey. For a guy currently filming a major TV show with very little time to prepare, Amell did just fine. I'd have probably given him the pin though. The IC Championship match following it was comparatively lacklustre, and for me the star of it was the unusually mobile Big Show. Ryback looked hurt and pissed off early on in the match, after Show jumped on him, and his bad mood came through on his performance. I'm glad he retained though, I love the Big Guy. Reigns and Ambrose vs Wyatt and Harper that followed was the low point of the show for me. Reigns spent most of it having a lay down, and while the rest performed well enough, it wasn't any different to the last few weeks on Raw and Smackdown.

Cena vs. Rollins was fucking amazing, but totally disappointing at the same time. Seth's bizarre White-Ranger-meets-Saturday-Night-Fever costume actually drew an out-loud laugh from me at first, but both of these guys - two of the best on the roster - put on such a good show despite it being obvious that Cena still wasn't 100% after his broken nose the other week, and the unfair heckling he was receiving (like him or not, he really does not suck). Cena lifting Rollins Horizontally off the floor into an AA is impressive enough, but when Rollins landed on his feet, then did the same thing to Cena, it blew me away. But the ending, Jon Stewart attacking Cena with a chair while the ref was out, was typical WWE. Rollins deserved, and needed, a clean victory here.

The Divas were a bit by-the-book. Team BAD left so early that there was little point in them being there in the first place, and, although I like Becky Lynch, the match should have come to a climax between Nikki and Charlotte, as it's obvious that's where things are going. Cesaro and Owens was a great match and Owens' victory was so satisfying after the whole "walk Owens walk" thing that's going on at the minute. He's a remarkably athletic man for his size, doing a lot more in the way of aerial moves than tiny guys known for being high-fliers like Dolph Ziggler and Kofi Kingston, and Cesaro gives the impression that he could do anything he wanted. If he could get past the language barrier a little bit more he'll be the next Cena. It was a bit of a shame to see him without the Tyson Kidd gear.

Lesnar vs. Undertaker was as awesome as you'd expect, despite the half way through weird bell-ringing fiasco. I always worry when Brock gets his hands on 'Taker. Guy's an old man. But the Lesnar chucks him half way across the ring, and 'Taker gets back up and gives him double back and he's just awesome. Still. I still remember the day I stopped watching wrestling as a kid, it was when Yokozuna 'killed' Undertaker in a casket match at Royal Rumble in 1994, and after the match I just switched off the TV (didn't even finish watching the show), went to my room and broke out the Jurassic Park action figures - I was done with Wrestling. So seeing a 'Taker victory 21 years later sent shivers through me. Lesnar was terrifying as always too. The shot of the two, sitting looking at each other, Lesnar laughing mockingly and 'Taker just losing his shit will stick with me forever.

Image from IGN

After that, when Lesnar finally tapped out to a Hell's Gate, the defiant middle finger to The Undertaker as he slipped into unconsciousness is going to go down in history as one of those iconic scenes that constantly gets replayed. Or at least it will when WWE drops the PG rating again anyway.

~TiD

WWE Summerslam 2015 predictions

With less than a week until Summerslam, one of WWE's 'Big 3' yearly pay per views along with Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania, there's been a lot of buzz around my small cadre of wrestling fan friends about the possible results. Part of the fun of being a wrestling fan is definitely speculating on what's going to happen, and if the rather play-it-safe WWE creative team are going to shock us all and go for something a bit risque and surprising (like, let's be fair, they did at Wrestlemania with the whole Seth Rollins thing). So here's my take.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. RUSEV

This one's a no-brainer for me, Ziggler's got it in the bag. With Rusev being cleanly defeated by four people now (John Cena, Cesaro, Randy Orton and Roman Reigns, not to mention a post match submission from Jack Swagger of all people the other week on Smackdown), the unbeatable Bulgarian brute thing is long gone and forgotten. This, coupled with the hero's return Ziggler got on Raw last night following a brutal looking kayfabe injury at the hands of Rusev, all points to a typical underdog win from the plucky little guy, complete with USA chants from the crowd. Everyone loves an underdog. Prediction: Dolph Ziggler.

RANDY ORTON vs. SHEAMUS

Could go either way. Orton's been getting solid wins lately with his budding alliance with Cena and Cesaro, whereas Sheamus has been on the receiving end quite often. I'd like Orton to pull it off, simply because he's a great act with a great move-set and is super over right now, but also the match could be used to make Sheamus look strong before an imminent Money in the Bank cash-in. But then again, Randy beat Rollins at Wrestlemania, and he went on the cash-in and win on the same night. Prediction: Randy Orton.

CESARO vs. KEVIN OWENS

I love both of these guys at the minute, Cesaro's popularity is skyrocketing thanks to his rejuvenation in the Tag Team division and his two incredible matches against John Cena on Raw a couple of months back, and despite WWE not knowing how to write a heel character (more on that another time), when Owens does stop being a coward and actually fights, he's brutal, entertaining and does things a man of his size should not be able to do (Swanton Bombs for instance). I think the best thing to do would be to have Owens stop Cesaro in his tracks, put a halt to his recent meteoric rise and also gain Owens a much needed win, because after his initial streak he's been left to rot over the last few weeks, but I honestly think Cesaro will win and the fans will love it. Prediction: Cesaro.

BAD NEWS BARRETT and STARDUST vs. NEVILLE and STEPHEN AMELL

Let's be honest, they aren't going to get a celebrity involved, team him up with a heavily pushed new babyface sensation and not have them win. As much as I love Barrett (at least before he became a comedy pantomime villain) and Cody Rhodes, there's too much at stake for the WWE from a business standpoint for this to end any other way, unless they plan on bringing Amell back again at the next PPV. I just hope the other three guys can make him look good. Prediction: Neville and Stephen Amell.

THE WYATT FAMILY vs. THE SHIELD

Because that is essentially what this is. This is far too hard to call. On one hand, I love Dean Ambrose, and so does the crowd. His wacky, unpredictable (yet strangely predictable, off-the-ropes clothesline, punch-chop-punch-chop, suicide dive, Dirty Deeds, win) style of fighting is very entertaining and his attitude and look are awesome, but Roman Reigns is a massive, boring, plodding lump in an ill-fitting costume. On the other hand, I love Bray Wyatt. He's charismatic, there's nobody who can use a mic like him right now, and he's strangely athletic for such a big guy. But Luke Harper is pointless and dull. Ambrose and Reigns have been pretty dominant lately, so I think I'm siding towards Wyatt and Harper, a solid heel win for the only solid heel in WWE right now. Prediction: The Wyatt Family.

PCB vs. TEAM BELLA vs. TEAM B.A.D.

Here's one I couldn't care less about. In their efforts to revitalise the Divas' division and make it less about pretty costumes and bitchiness and more about actual talent, the WWE brought three of their best young Divas over from NXT, which was just what they needed. Then they made three groups of three with the current main Divas, and proceeded to have the three teams fight each other in different combinations, so instead of having nine decent picks to keep things interesting, they've essentially turned nine women into three entities. Plus, two of the teams are still all about looking pretty and cat fighting. I'd like for Paige, Charlotte and Becky Lynch to win, but I can see it going to Team Bella to reassert Nikki's dominance, and I'm pretty okay with that. Prediction: Team Bella.

TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. THE NEW DAY vs. THE LUCHA DRAGONS vs. LOS MATADORES

I would absolutely love The Lucha Dragons to take this. Kalisto and Sin Cara are by far my favourite guys in the Tag Team division right now. But in all honesty, the spotlight has been squarely on the champions PTP and former champs The New Day throughout the run up to this. I pretty much can't imagine any other outcome than the title being retained, but if it isn't, it's going to The New Day. Prediction: The Prime Time Players.

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: RYBACK vs. THE BIG SHOW vs. THE MIZ

I think, with Ryback not being made to vacate the title while absent with injury for the last few weeks, he's going to be in for keeping it. Plus, it's his first title win, and both the other guys are former World Champions. Of course, there's been a lot of talk about how The Miz can't possibly win, so maybe that's an assfull of smoke that WWE's been blowing at us. Prediction: Ryback

US TITLE/WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE WINNER TAKES ALL: JOHN CENA vs. SETH ROLLINS

When left to fight it out without interruptions, John Cena and Seth Rollins are two of, if not the two best wrestlers in the WWE right now. They consistently put on the best shows on the nights that they perform, and are probably have the best attendance records in the company. So I think this is going to go down one of two ways; Either Scenario A: Neither wrestler, in my eyes, is ready to drop their title, Rollins is just coming into his own as a fighting champion and Cena has rejuvenated a stagnating US title thanks to his weekly open challenge on Raw. So the fight rages on, Cena gets the upper hand, and then Kane and/or Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble make their return and make the save, attacking Cena and disqualifying Seth, but keeping both belts intact. Or, Scenario B: Seth Rollins wins cleanly, but is stopped by a cash-in attempt from Sheamus, who beats him preferably for the US title, as he's just not World Champion material if I'm honest. There's nothing to be gained from one guy having both titles in my opinion. Prediction: Cena wins by DQ

BROCK LESNAR vs. THE UNDERTAKER

At first I was sure of the outcome of this fight. The Undertaker wins, clawing back victory from the one man who managed to best him before his retirement in his home state at Wrestlemania next year, after defeating Kane one last time, or Sting for the first time. But then I got to thinking no, maybe they'll make Lesnar the man that 'Taker just can't beat, furthering his rampage and making him look even stronger before a younger talent can finally step up and take him down, making them look even stronger in the process: the ultimate job. Both outcomes intrigue me, but in all seriousness the kid inside me just wants to see old Mean Mark get one over on The Beast before hanging up his coffin and retiring. Prediction: Undertaker

~TiD

DIY high capacity card game cases

About a year ago, after developing an unhealthy love for the tabletop game Cards Against Humanity, I bought this case from a seller on Amazon:

The case was absolutely fantastic for my needs at the time, storing a thousand cards in each row, more than enough for my questions and answers. But as time went on, and unauthorised 3rd party expansions such as Crabs Adjust Humidity, Cords against Harmony and Cards and Punishment came to my attention, not to mention my own custom cards, I ended up with just shy of 2000 answer cards alone, forcing my question cards to be stored in the CAH game box. My card games travel with me a lot, and as such the box has taken a battering. "No problem!" I thought. That wasn't the only size available, the cases go as low as a 250 capacity and as high as a 3000. But when I checked Amazon again, most sizes were gone and the few that were left, all 250 to 1000, were of very short supply.

Also, on top of this, I had received a copy of Munchkin as a birthday present, and as I am a huge fan of crossover fiction, a massive collector fanboy, and like to maximise the size of my games to avoid repetition and increase replay value (See: nearly 3000 CAH cards), I quickly learnt that Munchkin's total card count across all of their themed sets is somewhere between 5,500 and 6000 cards.

But one day, while searching my home town for an automatic card shuffler, I stumbled across a set of three nesting flight cases in Maplin, for around £40 (which may sound a lot, but the card case alone set us back around £30).

The insides of the cases feature foam-lined walls with grooves in them, and include hardboard slats coated in a similar foam that slide into the grooves to form compartments. Also, the lid in each case has a sturdy pocket for storing what they call 'paperwork', but for me, instructions. The smallest of the cases was ideal in size and allowed spacing of the slats to house my current, fledgling Munchkin collection, as shown here:

But, having learned from the past, I knew that won't always be enough, so on to the largest box in the set. Now, by some miracle of spacing, each Munchkin card standing in portrait takes up four of the spaces allowed by the grooves, and there are a total of 28 going across the front and back walls of the case, allowing EXACTLY seven columns in total. The only slats provided for this case though, were one front-to-back slat to go dead in the centre and two smaller slats that stretched from the side walls to the centre slat. I needed six front-to-back slats.

Unfortunately, the foam around the slats changed their overall thickness from 3mm to around 9mm, and that would prevent the cards from sitting in the column either side of it, so I stripped the foam from the front-to-back slat, and cast aside the two smaller ones. I'd found and purchased a sheet of 3mm thick hardboard from my local B&Q, so I drew around the exposed slat onto the board five times.

Here's where things went a little awry. I originally tried using a coping saw to cut the pieces out, but the constant snagging of the blade on the board was driving me mad and taking forever. So I tried a jigsaw, but the board was far too pliable and the saw caused the board to wobble around like mad as I was cutting it. If you're a real handyman, unlike myself, you'll probably have a workbench with a gap down the middle for sawing and some clamps to hold it in place, but when all you have is a camping table and a rapidly diminishing can-do attitude, it's just not meant to be. So I ended up scoring the board with a sharp knife and snapping the pieces off by hand.

Not the tidiest of work, but trust me, it doesn't matter in the long run. I decided that the messiness and hard, coarse surfaces of the board called for some extra padding, so I ordered a few sheets of sticky-back felt from a seller on Amazon. By yet another sizing miracle, the boards were just under 3 inches wide and about 12.5 inches long, and the felt was sold in 12"x12" sheets. So I foolishly ordered three sheets leaving NO ROOM FOR ERROR.

I cut each sheet in half, then tightly folded them in half again along the longest side, to leave a crease. Then, after removing the backing paper (be warned, the felt is a hell of a lot stickier than I anticipated), placed the edge of a slat into the crease, before folding up either side and sticking it to the front and back of the slat. Narrowly avoiding disaster when I began to cut into the crease I made in the very last piece of felt, the end result was this:

The exposed edges are a must, to allow the slats to fit into the grooves in the case, like so:

My deck looks all alone, but I'm very pleased with the result. What's more, each card measures at around 0.33mm in thickness, and each column is a bit over 300mm. By my maths, that equates to about 900 cards in each column with a bit of breathing space, about 6300 cards in total. There's a bit of space between the tops of the cards and the lid, which would probably allow the cards to come loose in transit, so I'm planning on buying some foam padding to lay on top, thick enough to cut grooves out of to hold things like Dungeon cards, Seal cards, dice and level counters etc in future. One thing though, Munchkin cards are a bit slimmer than other card games, so to use this case for another game you'd probably have to sacrifice a column.

For the middle sized case, which had the same slat configuration as the smaller one, I made a couple of extra slats and it ended up like this:

The spacing wasn't quite as spot-on, but the extra breathing room let me keep the foam on the slats. I'd run out of felt thanks to my zero room for error, but plan on buying more for it. as you can see here, the case (on the bottom) isn't much bigger than the card case I originally bought (on the top), but the freedom to move around slats and have the cards stored in portrait rather than landscape allowed me to fit the whole lot into one case.

It's really heavy though, with all the cards in, which worries me for the biggest case in the future. But for now, I'm really pleased with this. On top of everything, the handles feel sturdier and the cases can be locked too, perfect for if you have a bunch of rare cards.

~TiD

Buy the cases on Amazon here, the felt on Amazon here, and the board from B&Q here.
For those buying stateside, there's an equivalent to the large case here, thanks to Donovan of the Official Munchkin Forums for pointing it out.

Pop in a Box Unboxing - August 2015

Over the last year, the popularity of Subscription Boxes has exploded, thanks to industry forerunners Loot Crate and Nerd Block. I've been a Looter for over a year now, and as such I haven't really been interested in subscribing to any more, despite being briefly interested in Nerd Block's themed boxes.

But when a colleague of mine introduced me to Pop in a Box, I was immediately intrigued. Unlike most Boxes, which are filled with an assortment of random items, some themed, some not, Pop in a Box provide you simply with Funko products, chiefly their awesome and charming Pop! Vinyl series, a collection of chibi-styled cutesy statues of pop-culture characters, but also including their other vinyl statues and bobbleheads, their Mystery Minis and ReAction Figures, 80's style action figures of contemporary franchises like Firefly and Aliens.

You simply choose however many you want to receive a month (We've gone with two), with the price adjusting accordingly, and they send you a selection, usually with a Pop themed freebie, such as popping candy and the like. And to sweeten the deal, their website holds a database of every Funko product, for you to check off the ones you have, want or don't want, ensuring they never send you anything you don't like.

The months aren't themed, but you'll often find that the ones you receive 'go together'. For instance, our first month, April's Pops were Data and Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation, May's were Marvel's Vision and DC's Bizarro, June's were Thor and Iron Man from the new Avengers: Age of Ultron set and July's were Thrillkiller Batman and a Harley Quinn variant previously exclusive to a USA only retailer. This month's?

A pair of matching Batm... mans... men... people... from the Batman 75th Anniversary range exclusively from EntertainmentEarth.com. I'm pretty over the moon with this, as I'm a huge Batman enthusiast and a firm fan of the blue-cape look in action figures.

For those interested in subscribing, please check out Pop in a Box. I've yet to be disappointed.

~TiD

So I've decided to start blogging again...

I feel like I've introduced myself so many times. Perhaps best known (albeit in very small circles) for my first blog '24 Hour Gamer', a ranty, salty videogames column, I'm also the previous owner of '24 Hour Vision'; a Movie-based companion to the former, 'The AC'; an Animal Crossing journal and 'Pro-Crastinator'; a themeless attempt that I just never got into writing for.

I've been considering writing again for a while. My nerdist tastes have broadened so much further beyond videogames and films now though, I've rekindled from youth my love for Professional Wrestling, avidly following both WWE and TNA and following other promotions from afar, particularly ICW and GFW. I'm taking my first baby steps into the world of tabletop gaming, discovering new games (new to me, anyway) every day. And on top of this, I've hit 30 now too. I've got two nephews aged 6 and 9 who are following in my geeky ways, and in some ways surpassing me. And aside from my gaming, I want to write about all of this too.

So, fuck it, I will. As always, this blog is intended to educate, inform, but most importantly entertain. And as always, I'm writing this for me primarily, but if others wish to join in, comment, message me, whatever, please do. I'd love to hear from you.

~TiD