Merry Xmas

Antenna for AT-43. Final Version

Some time ago I posted about a small project for AT-43, a communication antenna for satellite broad casting.

The original idea was to use the antenna for civilian use, mainly the Ava Frontline News Network (AFNN), a News Agency of the Frontline conceived by me, but I was (I am) having problems with the logo.

In the other post, there were two antennas, one was for me, as Red Block player and the second one was for a friend of me which usually plays UNA and who upon seeing the antenna suggested to use a camouflage pattern to paint it.

This Final Version of my antenna is based on his idea.

Hope you like it :D

 

  

 

UNA wiped out

Today we play the mission 5 of the Rule Book of AT-43, called Landing !

This picture is not from our game, but from the net. I put it here only to be able to show you the sep up of the game.

The defender gets to deploy in the blue indicated zone and the attacker arrives to the battlefield by the opposite side which constitutes the access zone.

The Victory Points for the attacker are 2 VPs for every AFV unit which cross the battlefield and 5 VPs for every infantry unit.

The defender gets 1 VP for controlling the points A, B, D, E and 2 VPs by controlling the points C, F, G.

There are also two neutral access zones on the side of the defender, just on the border of the battlefield behind points F and G. Also two drop points are present, one between the points A and B and the other one between the points D and E, both of them on the deployment zone of the defender.

The attacker gets 1500 APs as assault force and 500 APs as reinforcement and the defender 1000 APs assault and 1000 APs reinforcement.

The reinforcement points are given by controlling the containers and nano generators (both players) and to the attacker also for capturing them.

This mission can be played in the context of the Damocles campaign as secondary mission for the Phase 1 of the operation. In that case, the Karmans and the Red Block are the attacker and the UNA and the Therians are the defender.

It was our first contact with Damocles and the results were a bit disappointing as my UNA opponent was not really able to prepare the game in advance due to professional obligations and his army list was not suited for the battle.

The Red Block Army List was Frontline:

Assault (1500 APs)

8 RPG Soldaty (Colonel, Medic, Engineer, MGauss) [225 APS]

3 RPG Kolossus (Sergeant) [435 APs]

1 Molot (Sergeant) [240 APS]

1 Molot (Sergeant) [240 APS]

1 Sierp [200 APS]

Propaganda

Reinforcement (500 RPs)

6 Spetsnatz Kommandos (2 Medics, Rocket launcher) [175 RPs]

3 Dragonov Groupa A (3 ATGauss Gun) [125 RPS]

1 Sierp [200 APS]

I do not have the UNA list but it was M.Ind, with Stark as Colonel in an infantry unit of Steel Troopers, a Lancelot, a Defender Kobra, 2 Snippers and a support unit with 2 Volcano MG in the assault force.

Red Block authority was 7, UNA authority was 5.

Before we determined anything, we rolled a dice for cosmic hazards but neither Magnetic Disturbances nor Meteor Shower. Damocles started without Special Effects :D

UNA decides to use 6 LPs to increase his roll for initiative, but gets twice a 1, wherein Red Block gets a 5, and therefore it is a tie. As far as we know the situation is not defined in the rules, but we always ruled that the higher authority wins, in this case the Red Block which decides to let UNA move first.

Round 1

1.- The 8 Steel Troopers with Colonel Stark leading them deploy close to the central nanogenerator, controlling it, together with the container and the victory point C, taking cover and over watching the movements of the enemy.

1.- A Red Block Molot enters the battlefield and fires its flamers on Stark and his boys. The quick intervention of the Medics is not enough to avoid the dead of one soldier. Its presence contests the control of victory point C.

2.- A UNA Lancelot deploys and moves between points B and C to try to avoid the future movement of the Red Block AFVs into the UNA controlled area and over watch the Red Block further movements.

2.- Another Molot enters the fight and moving close to its brother calls dead on the Steel Troopers, only 3 of the original imperialist fighters survive; one of them, Colonel Stark.

3.- UNA decides to mobilise its biggest AFV of the evening and a Kobra Defender try to block the other access to the UNA side of the battle and fires its missiles on the Molots, without any effect.

3.- The RPG Kolossus blitz into the action and the Lancelot decides to fire its grenade launchers on them. Their thick armour protects them from the salvo but the lack of gyroscopes send them to the ground. However the two salvos of their RPGs manage to destroy the Defender in a big explosion of fire and molten metal.

4.- Two snipers take position on the victory point G and shoot the Sergeant of the RPG Kolossus dead !

4.- The Molot Sergeant calls an Artillery Strike over the Lancelot which does not seems to do any damage to the enemy AFV. Upon arrival, a Sierp opens fire and kills the two snipers. Together with the two Molots, they deny the defender the control of the victory point C.

5.- The two Star Troopers of the Volcano MG support team are deployed on victory point F.

5.- The Red Block Propaganda helps the RPG Kolossus to come back to their feet.

6.- The RPG Soldaty move behind the container, on the further side of the battlefield.

UNA concedes the game and we spent the next half hour discussing the game ;D

My opponent was of the opinion that the scenario is a bit unfair for the defender, specially as the UNA is not able to control objectives with its AFVs and therefore they need infantry, a lot of infantry, which on the other side is expensive and quite weak. 1000 APs as assault force for the defender is maybe not enough for the UNA to have anything really good on the board.

The true is that the Red Block was having the supremacy directly since the beginning of the battle, maybe due to a good Army List (I hope so) and the lack of preparation of the UNA, but also maybe to those 500 APs point difference as after the destruction of the Defender, there was nothing on the board able to stop my RPG Kolossus and my AFVs.

Next time I would like to play the defender, I think the Red Block cloud probably do better than the UNA as Frontline allows the AFVs to control objectives and even if some Red Block infantry units are not so expensive but also very week, the Kolossus have a very good armour and are still affordable.

Note on Artillery Strike: before the battle we got the impression that Artillery Strikes in Damocles were quite powerful, but as it was called only once and targeted not into an infantry unit but into a AFV, I can not give a honest opinion about the particular. Maybe next time.

Easy tokens for AT-43

For AT-43 there are some tokens needed to indicate either the special status of your units (disorganised) or the fact that they are performing a "combat drill" (for example, take cover). Also the Leadership Points (LPs), Victory Points (VPs) and Reinforcement Points (RPs) are represented by tokens.

As far as I know the only company which produces tokens with the "official" symbols of the game to represent this situations is GF9.
However, the list of tokens provided with one box is quite limited as some tokens are barely present and others can be over expressed:

AT-43 Token Set
1 – “Knee to the ground!” drill marker
2 – “Take cover!” drill markers
2 - “Overwatch!” drill markers
2 - “Split fire!” drill markers
1 - “Disorganized” status marker
10 - Leadership point markers
1 - Reinforcement points marker “25”
1 - Reinforcement points marker “50”
1 - Reinforcement points marker “100”
1 - Victory point marker “1”
1 - Victory points marker “3”
1 - Victory points marker “5”

For this reason, a lot of people are producing their own tokens.

This is the way I did it.

First I printed the official tokens on white paper with a colour printer.

Then I cut 2.1 cm squares of hard plastic sheet, the one which is used as first hard cover in office bounded reports or memoranda.

Then I glued the squares on the white paper sheet on the printed tokens with normal transparent glue (on the centre of the picture).

Then I just cut the circles with scissors and for the base I used this self adhesive black protectors for the bottom part of the legs of chairs and sofas (on the right side of the picture). They are 2 cm big, soft in one side and adhesive on the other.

The tricky part was to cut the circles with the scissor as any deviation is very easy to spot and ruins the effect.

The final tokens are on the left side of the picture.

They look great, oder?

Communication Antenna for AT-43

My first experiment of creating some element for our AT-43 games :D

The idea came to my thinking about the civil engineers introduced with the Frostbite Campaign. I was thinking that those guys needed for sure a way to transmit information to the base station when they were there, outside, exploring that frozen planet.

The materials I used are very simple:

A bottle of Evian water (will the surface of the antenna), a pair of plastic spoons for coffee, and an office clip.

The clip will become the supporting legs of the antenna, the coffee spoons the tip of the antenna and that is pretty much everything.

From the lower part of the plastic bottle and with the help of a cutter, we remove the oval shape. The ergonomic profile looks very nice once you take it out of context as antenna shape.

We also cut the lower part of the two coffee spoons to make out the tip of the antenna.

Now we glue the two white plastic pieces together and to the oval shape and the antenna is becoming more evident.

After removing the black metallic piece of the office clip, we glue the two silver pieces together with a bunch of liquid hot glue, the kind you easily burn your fingers with ;D

And finally, we glue the antenna on top of the supporting legs with more liquid hot glue.

In the picture you can see one example without black primer and another one already with it.

The final painting is not yet available as I still did not decide how to do it ;)
Mi actual options are some Red Block emblems, or just military camouflage pattern.

Blitz !

Just a few lines to let you know about the Segway (wiki) as I have tried this great invention last weekend in Paris.
There is company in Paris which offers several tours, one of those is with a Segway. The tour is around four hours and you get to see the more relevant parts of the city (Eiffel tower, Les invalides, Louvre on so on).
Obviously, the city itself is worth the visit but the Segway is just amazing :D
The machine is really easy to drive. After a short explanation and a few minutes of practice, you can start "riding" the city :D
To speed up you just need to bend forwards, to break or go backwards just bend that way and to turn around just move or best say, push the handle to the right or to the left. This will make that one wheel will move slower than the other an the machine will turn around that wheel.
Only drawback is that every one is looking (or even making pictures) in your direction as you pass by ;D

Planet of Appes

Big blue monkeys with laser guns ?

Not a joke :D

There are the Karmans and they try to probe that they are also a force to take into account in the AT-43 universe.

They just arrived last week from their home world and joined the UNA first and then the Red Block in a "King of the Hill" scenario.

First impression, they are hard, really hard, but not indestructible. In both fights, the faction which with the Karmans were allied lost.

However, the last report from the front states that the UNA just got beaten up by those blue hairy guys :D

We will keep you posted...

The Time Traveler's Wife

Based on a book which was recommended to me some time ago by a friend, I must say that I did not get the time to read the book, however I just saw the movie and it is great.

Very well done, nice dialogues, good actors, incredible situations and a lot of time traveling :D

As usual no spoilers here, so nothing about how it ends or something like that.

Go to the cinema and enjoy it !

As soon as I read the book, I will tell you about ;D

Federations

Federations is a great anthology of short SciFi stories edited by John Joseph Adams. The same editor of some other anthologies, like the one which first called my attention upon its books, The Living Dead, an anthology of zombie short stories.

I have been fan of SciFi stories since quite a long time. This gender is one of my recurrent topics of interests. I must say, I have the tendency to read a lot of about a subject for a while and then changing to a sometimes very different subject for some time and so on. I can not recall when was the last time that I really enjoyed reading SciFi before getting this book as lately I was quite fix with Fantasy books and more recently with zombie stories.

The book has very good short stories from some of the best SciFi author of the moment. After reading some of them, I searched their names on the web for further reference as some of the stories were part of a more vast universe created by the corresponding. For example, the opening story is "Maze in prison" from Orson Scott Card and takes place in the universe of Ender, the main character of the book, Ender's game, also a great story on its own.

Take a look to the table of contents and try to get a copy :D

Sirens in the Aegean

Sirens in the Aegean is a film by Nico Perakis from 2005 which was projected last week during the Greek Film Festival in Delft (Wiki).
The plot is quite simple, a bunch of soldiers decide to scene a joke for one of the members of the platoon who was supposed to have three free days to meet his new girlfriend. Instead of that, his "friends" (including his sergeant) make him believe that they have be mobilized and send in status of maximal alert to the island of Pitta (a piece of stone barely visible above the sea level just in front of Turkey).
The situation gives place to weird situations and escalates when a turkish boat approach the island and some of the crew members try to disembark on the little island.
A lot of funny dialogues and remarks about the rivality between Greek and Turkey are present and will manage to get you into the mood even if you can not speak Greek or turkish and need to rely on the English subtitles.
If you have the chance, watch it and hope you enjoy it.

First Blood

The Red block Army Box.

A nice way to get an army for the Red block of 2000 army points (AP) for not so much money. The box contains a lot of things, but the interesting is the army itself:

• 1 unit of 12 Krasnye Soldaty: regular infantry containing three grenade launchers, two medics and an officer

• 1 unit of 8 Krasnye Soldaty: regular infantry containing one grenade launcher, two mechanics and an officer

• 6 Dragonov Kommandos: elite infantry with one sniper rifle, an electronic warfare specialist, a medic and an officer

• Odin O-1 and Manon O-2: the Red Blok’s two greatest heroes

• 1 Urod: Odin O-1’s and Manon O-2’s combat strider

• 1 Dotch Yaga: the most heavily armored combat strider to ever grace the battlefield

Before getting this box I was already having some Krasnye and some Spetsnatz Kommandos but I wanted to try the army box so I decided not to use any other unit for my very first game of AT-43.

My opponent was also a 2000 points army form the U.N.A. Mind (actually only 1990 AP)

1 Copperhead (470)

1 Fire Toad + Bad Dog (450)

3 Death Dealer Tac Arms + Lieutenant G. Epstone (440)

2 Wing Sniper Team (95)

2 Wing Laser Team (120)

1 Cobra M8 with a sergeant (415)

We used a quite big table, around 2 x 2 meters (7' x 7') and we decided to run a "King of the Hill" scenario. The hill was actually a system of trenches slightly above the general level of the table. There were some containers and other scenography maybe no so much as it would have be needed, but taking into account that it was also the first game of my opponent, we were (we are) still trying out things :D

The trenches system was open, without any roof and turned out to be a deadly trap for my infantry as the U.N.A. army was having several indirect fire arms which fired unopposed on my Krasnye, massacring them.

For the starting positions of deployment we rolled a dice but we considered also the corners of the table for the roll and sure enough we got that outcome. So we started the game on opposite corners of a big table without so much cover and a lot of AFVs around. The heavy vehicles dominated the field and the infantry was a mere spectator of the battle.

Impress by the heavy armour of the Dotch Yaga I decided to deploy it on my right flank with a unit of Krasnye to try to go for the souther side of the hill, whereas the Urod was deployed on the left flank with the other Krasnye unit and the Dragonovs.

The Urod managed to get cover behind a container and open fire on the AFVs of the imperialists. At the same time, the Dotch Yaga was able to see them over the low elevation of the trenches and also opened fire on them. Unluckily for my side, the U.N.A. AFVs were all of them having the ability of mechanic and therefore able to repair themselves. Obviously this made the destruction or serious damage of these units very difficult even for the Dotch Yaga. Some attempts of concentrating the fire on one unit were also not so fruitful.

However, the Tac Arms tried to approach the trenches from the East side and were deadly close to the heavy mortar of the Dotch Yaga, only the hero (Lt. Epstone) managed to survive the round :D

Nevertheless, she managed to manoeuvre and outflank the Krasnye on cover behind the Dotch Yaga and to shoot them on a very short range, killing the last mechanic. A lucky salvo from the imperialist AFVs landed on the frame of the Dotch Yaga and destroyed it !!!.

In the mean time, the Urod was shooting the U.N.A. forces from behind the trenches, but without too much success. The Wing Sniper Team was behind a fortified wall and able to target almost any point of the battle field. Something not very good for the survival chances of the Krasnye Soldaty.

The Urod charged against the U.N.A. forces on an attempt to short the range and destroy the leading AFV, but the destruction of the Dotch Yaga focused all the fire on it.

The second unit of Krasny had managed to reach the trenches but the position was so exposed that the mortars of the U.N.A. and the snipers were able to almost wipe them out.

The destruction of the Dotch Yaga was also the end of the game. The time we were having for the whole game was over and the final outcome was more or less clear. A sounded defeat for the Red Block :(

Our posterior analysis of the battle in the light of the forums and related webs pointed out to an excessive size of the table and a lack of cover for the battle. The tactical error of letting the Dotch Yaga alone on one flank with only one mechanic was also something to learn for the future.

But, the game was incredible funny, fast paced (more or less, we are still mastering the rules after all) and with glorious moments.

After this first battle we decided to go on with the game and order some more miniatures and plan the second round, but with more cover and a better hill; a bit higher, so that no unit should be able to see over it ;D (the first one was very low and allowed the AFVs to see the other side, which kind of hill does it?)

Even having being defeated, I really enjoyed the battle as well as my opponent did.

We were both of us looking forward for a second go !

Not Funny

Not funny at all !

According to my DVD magazine review this movie was supposed to be very funny but actually Paul Blart*Mall Cop is not a funny movie.

The plot seemed fine. A guy with some problems due to hypoglycemia tries to be a cop but due this issue does not manage to pass the physical test and just goes on with his job as mall cop. There is daughter for a previous marriage and a nice girl on the mall which the main character finds very attractive and you learn almost at the beginning that she also likes him. There is also a bunch of bad guys who try to take over the mall to steal all the money from the shop just before they close thanks to some computer thing.

At first approach, the movie has a bit of everything: romance, not so common disease, action, bad guys, and so on; but the movie just falls into common easy jokes.

The guy is quite fat due to his problem and a lot of situations arise where this issue is used to try to make fun by the easy method of ridiculing him or best to say to try to make fun but the jokes are so bad that you almost have to cry.

The secondary characters are also very easy and the plot just does not add. The bad guys are bad, very bad but just as characters not as opponent. They are a useless bunch of idiots without any substance. They are just there because they are needed for the plot but they are so bad portrait that no one can believe on the characters.

The romantic part of the movie is more or less fine, but that is not so difficult, isn't it?

Conclusion: A movie that maybe you should avoid wasting your time with.

By the power of Grayskull !

Last night we watched the film Hot Fuzz (Wiki) and we really enjoyed it.

The film is about a kind of fantastic good police officer in the UK which is transferred to a little nothing in the middle of nowhere and how he (not)connect with the new surroundings.
The film is from the same team as the fabulous "Shaun of the dead" and very hilarious.

Plenty of great moments and ironic dialogues together with excellent actors, habitual from English movies. Two of the secondary characters, for example, were part of the team of "Love Actually", namely the old rock star and the guy making the poses for the porno movies.

But no spoilers and no more words here.

Just Watch It !!

AT-43

AT-43 is a miniature sci-fi wargame from the company Rackham in which several factions fight for their lives.

Actually there are six factions: U.N.A., Red Block, Therians, Karman and the new factions Cogs and O.N.I.

As usual in this kind of games, each faction has its own "philosophy", that means, each faction follows a different approach to war and to technology (better accuracy but lower damage, slow fire-rate but high armour, and so on).

U.N.A. and Red Block are human-like, Therians are a kind of hybrid between humans and machines, Karmans are big intelligent apes, Cogs are giant high evolved creatures and O.N.I. is a human corporation with access to a kind of "zombie" virus. Those two (Cogs and O.N.I.) are new additions to the game universe, so there is no so much information about them, however, there are initiation army boxes for both of them (the one for Cogs is already on the market since some months and the one for O.N.I. was presented last month and will be released this November).

I discovered the game some time ago, in 2007, in the GenCon in Paris and it was probably the only good thing about that GenCon (how can you call it "the European GenCon" with barely 20 stands in a ridiculously small hall which was still half empty and no parking possibility??? go to SpielMesse in Essen to see what a REAL games convention looks like).

But coming back to the game, at last year SpielMesse in Essen we found some of the miniatures at a very reasonable price (actually it was a very low price) and we decided to buy a few. The offer was not so big, basically some U.N.A. soldiers, some Red Block Kommandos and some Therians. Biassed by the bizarre look of the Therians we decided to buy the U.N.A. and Red block guys but afterwards we never found the time to try the game, until last month...

After the initial adquisition of troups, we got some more U.N.A. and then the Red Block army box (great deal, really) and we try our first battle with this army box of Red Block against a U.N.A. army of also 2000 AP (more on that on further post).

The outcome is that we are waiting now for not one, but two quite big deliveries of more miniatures, including Therians and Karmans and that we are trying (with quite a success) to mutate more people into players :D

Inglourious Basterd

No spoilers here.


Just go to the cinema and watch it if you didn't yet.

Great movie, sometimes a bit too slow, but clearly a Tarantino's film.

The Gourdiaan Route

This route (http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=yduwhezfehzivcva) is a walking route which should start on the little town of Gourdiaan and be a round trip of 23 km around some beautiful Dutch landscape (channels, windmills and similar).

However, the indications are almost missing, the road is sometimes just disappearing right in front of your nose and there is no place to eat anything along the planned route.

Once you arrive to Gourdiaan you will find a place called Het Raadhuis cafe. The place looks fine and the parking area is empty early in the morning, at least it was empty this morning around 1140 local time.

Directly there you will see one of the markers of the route, look carefully to it because is one of the few you will be able to see :(

To begin with the walking you should go over the bridge and to the left, there you will see one marker. After a few meters you will see another marker like the one in the picture. The direction of the arrows is supposed to be followed. We didn't and skip around 3 km going directly to Ottoland.

This little place has nothing except some very nice houses and a church with a nest. Even if you miss this marker and follow straight ahead to Ottoland as we did, you will eventually connect again with the route way, but you will be at the wrong side of the channel without a bridge to cross it...

One you manage to arrive again to the N214 you will be back in business.

The road will take you to Giesen. A nothing in the middle of nowhere, without any place to buy food or water, at least as far as we were concerned today, maybe you have more luck...

The surroundings are very quiet and not so crowded. Around only fields with cows, sheep, and horses. A lot of cows.

After Giesen the planned route will lead you into a dead end or best said to the garden of a private property. A huge garden, that is true, but still a private and closed property.

The shortest way that we found to come back to Gourdiaan was heading to Hoornaar and then turning direction Noordeloos.

Good news are in Hoornaar there is a kind of cafe, bad news the food is not so good even if you are already quite hungry.

The way to Noordeloos is very pleasant and full with channels and shadows.

From Noordeloos to Gourdiaan there are still some kilometers. This is not really the route indicated in the book or on the internet, but as the markers where more or less never there and the road was not really following this, we didn't care too much at all.

It was anyway a nice trip, even the weather was great, sunny but not too hot.

If you try this route, good luck with the indications ;)

Today

Today I wake up quite late, around 1100 and I found warm chocolate waiting for me for breakfast. A fantastic way to start a day.

Sadly today was bye-bye day. After several months in duty at the tower, keeping my tachyonic transmitter in position only with the help of his special genetic markers and adhesive tape, Gato was leaving.

His trainer, an agent of the FPF needed him back for different duties. From today Gato will be protecting the life of a new born, a future agent of the FDF maybe. If we are lucky maybe even an author. We don't get so many those days...

Today was also cleaning day. The hideout in the city center needed some material and some repairs. After the activity of the last months on the docks, some ammo was too short and more explosive traps is always a good idea.

The new agent will arrive in time minus 13 days and will probably fancy some extra toys.

Afterwards beach-duty. I like beach-duty. Usually there is nothing wrong going there. People are used to the presence of FPF forces patrolling the area. They know what happens to other worlds when the Tedio took them. No papal agent will survive here if detected.

In some ways this planet remembers me from my home one, little bit less mountains, but you can not have everything.

Now I just re-invented a kind of liquor. The recipe is not too difficult, some milk (better cold), some (quite a lot) spoons of chocolate powder and a bit of cachaca rum. I think we deserved it, well only I am actually drinking it, but was a team work. After beach-duty it was obvious that it was a moment as good as any other one to fix minor problems at the light house. Basically the tachyonic antenna needed a new disguise and some bullet holes in the walls are now not visible anymore. My base looks again as unremarcable as it should look.

Alpha is now running a total check up of hers systems and will be down for a while.

The sun is setting course to the other side of the planet and the sea is about to explode in red.

End of a nice weekend.

But, Tomorrow Will Be Another Day

The Game

Last night was again a night without sleep. My excuse was the dinner, too much cheese I said to them. But the true is different, worse. The kids are partially guilty, but actually I am the only one to blame. Looks like a game, but it is not funny, not for me at least, not anymore since I was eight.

But it is becoming too complicated. I will try to put it much more simple.

Yesterday we were at the school. The kids are in a baseball team and there was a match against another school. A lot of people were there. Maybe forty to fifty families. Well, I must say, there were sixty seven cars in the parking lot. I know. I counted them. Only seven were red, but all of them were even.

We were going to the school. As usual at the highway there were more cars than space, the same nice traffic jam of every day.

The kids don't like the jams. To be fair, no one likes them.

They were busy looking to the other cars and talking about the people inside. I thought they were searching for some other kids, some of their friends. They caught me by surprise. They were playing the game, that silly game. I was not able to believe it. They didn't play it in years.

I was able to hear them. First, they started looking for any one, then they were going more to the specific ones. I was afraid, I mean, really afraid. I don't want for them to know. Not now at least. Better, they should never know. Actually no one should know. I don't know why I am writing it down here...

But again, I am becoming too complicated. They, the kids, they were playing "just a game". I am sure everyone knows the game. I used to liked it when I was a boy, so long ago. Rules are very easy. You just suggest a plate number detail, like for example that the last cipher is 8 and the first one who sees a car with the corresponding plate number wins and choose the next victory condition.

As I said, I really liked the game until one day. We were back from the zoo. There was an accident on the highway, it was the worst traffic jump I have seen in my life. At the beginning everything was fine. I won a few rounds, my little sister and my mother the others.

That was the last time I played...

Well to be honest, it is not totally true.

I am still playing and that is the reason of my fears, of my sleepless nights.

That last game as I was eight, I won the previous round and I chose the victory condition.

It seemed as normal as any other one.

Red car with odd plate number.

That was more than forty years ago.

I am still searching for it...

iPhone battery vs. Tiwtter

The battery life of an iPhone which uses applications for the management of twitter accounts such as Twitterrific (http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific) or TwitterFon (http://twitterfon.net/) can get exhausted much sooner as expected.
Personal experience says that the battery will allow only for about 8 to 10 hours in Stand By, in comparison with the more than 30 hours in Stand By which can be achieved on the same iPhone after the removal of those applications.
The reasons for such a high energy consume by those applications I don't know, but let's hope that the next versions of those twitter clients solve this problem.
More about iPhone battery life, applications and settings of the iPhone can be found at How to Change the World.

Origin

In few words: Great Movie.

For those of you who have already read the comics (Wolverine Origin), tell you that the movie summarised the comics in more or less 2 minutes and then goes on with its own argument and plot.
But there is nothing wrong with this. The first X-Men movie was already not following the comics 100%, a trend which was continued by the second and also the last part.
The characters in those movies were already known by every Marvel fan, but the story behind was a bit different.
With Wolverine Origin is again the case. The main characters are already known, namely Logan and Striker and for everyone who has watched the second movie, it is clear that there has to be a connecting point between both of them and the adamantium.
A lot of questions are solved by this film, but of course, a lot more arise.

The best part is to try to recognize all the mutants who are in the movie, some are obvious (no names, no spoilers here), other maybe not.

Also a good deal of special effects and some plot twists which maybe are not the taste of everyone, but which make the film version of the Marvel universe astonishing also for comic readers.

My advise: go to the cinema and enjoy it !