Ha, psyche.  No more work moaning: I'm off the clock.  This is one of those "stuff that I'm doing that you may be bored enough to click on" rambles.  We'll get back to $NEPOCORP (I'm liking that $NAME) soon enough.

Reading

Iron Coffins: A U-boat Commander's War, 1939-45

In which a wily Hun describes how he spent the war skulking in the depths and making sneaky attacks from ambuscade on defenceless freighters in the dark.  A decent chap would have got himself slaughtered in a fair fight against overwhelming odds, needless to say.

Notable points: it makes all the blubbering about poor conditions in Three Corvettes seem like a little girly whinge-fest in comparison.  Monsarrat wouldn't have lasted five minutes in subs.  Iron Coffins is a nice tactical counterpoint to the Tommy Atkins surface war described in Corvettes and Destroyer: An Anthology of First-hand Accounts of the War at Sea 1939-1945.

The cultural differences are also readily apparent.  Corvettes and Destroyers abound with underplayed but overt descriptions of the Best of British fair play and stoutness under fire.  Iron Coffins makes its point by describing the actions in passionless Germanic detail, and letting the author's survival stand testament to the efficiency of his companions.  Monserrat might declaim that "We had a hairy time of it for a while".  Werner simply lists with chilling Teutonic accuracy every depth charge dropped on him, to the minute, over a 36 hour period.  Who is being more laconic?  I don't know.  Why am I asking you?  It's a mystery.  Read the books and find out.

---

Secretly wanking over

Girl Genius.  Genre: Gaslamp fantasy, which is like steampunk without the punk.  Or the steam.  Bursts rudely into TECHNICOLOR in book 2.

Contains:

• Suspiciously manga-esque inspired artwork.
  
• Mildly and occasionally annoyingly erratic tone.
  
• An initially opaque milieu...
  
• ...that it becomes increasingly apparent is actually very densely and richly imagined.
  
• Librarian-hot protagonist...
  
• ... sporting Victorian underwear.
  
• Jägermonster philosophy.
  

---

Watching

No time for passive entertainment.  Write in cursive now. Must have 30 hours of Xebusmass content still to get through.  Will try to bubble Nochnoy dozor to top of list, get my emowank on.

---

ZOMG OPAN SORES????! LAWL U LOOSAR!!!1!!

Currently contributing to Irrlicht "a free open source 3d engine".  I can't remember why now.  It's not that great, and don't even use it for anything.  I mostly hang out in the noob forums answering easy questions, for much the same reason that it's an ego boost to screw a pygmy.

Bizarrely, I've only just discovered via discussing a Wizards and Hobbits related project announcement that one of the Irrlicht devs - in an international forum for an engine created by a German - used to be in the same UKian horny helmets society as me, and indeed in the very group that mentored our fledgling startup cadre of cross-dressers.  It truly is a 6 Degrees of Kevin Baconesque world.

----- Seek your say ----->