This morning whilst working on boring ticket after boring ticket I thought I would take one of my 15 minute breaks by doing something interesting.  I found this OK Cupid Quiz which in 42 questions tries to pigeon hole you into where you fit in American politics.

You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an… Economic Liberal (21% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat

The results were interesting… But handy to know if I ever get asked about my political views (not that I’m at all political).

2 weeks ago I decided that I was going to listen to the wise words of a laurel that I had pestered for advice and been given.  She had informed me that I should purchase a book called: “Viking Clothing” by Thor Ewing. So, taking this advice I dutily (well…  after about 8 months of procrastination that is..), off I went to search for this book on Ebay and find it I did….  and I added it to my cart and as you do when you are searching for books on Amazon, I thought I would have a look at all of the other suggestions…  And there was this magnificent book I had seen before, and it was affordable…  and it was well…  Available…  So Lo, I did loose myself to the intelligent marketing of those Amazon geeks, and added that to the cart too.

The second book was on my doorstep when I got home from work this morning, just sitting there tempting me to waste the morning reading it and not actually getting anything else done.  Yes…  I know, you are all wanting to know what this wonderful book is.  This book that I was drooling over it when a dear friend showed it to me…  This book that I was expecting to pay a small fortune for…   This book is “Woven into the Earth: Textile finds in Norse Greenland” by Else Ostergaard,  and it’s full af an amazing amount of detail on Norse Textile finds.  Thanks to my Norse friend for suggesting this one, it was worth the money, just looking through it in the last 30 minutes I have dispelled a large number of Myth’s about Norse/Viking clothing that kept meaning I was reluctant to do certain thins with making my garb.  Now I have a book that has wonderful pictures showing me the finds and I can see how things should be done. :)  Now I’m looking forward to finding the time to experiment more.

So my nice 45Lb Longbow has been loosing some of it’s kick lately and it’s kinda leading to me not enjoying shooting it as much and opting for the Recurve.  It’s time that I either did something about it or retired the bow and saved up for a new one.  So on the weekend I took the plung and took to the bow with a woodworkers scraper, taking off all of the previous varnish and taking it back to just pure wood.

From there I cut and layered on 2 layers of a nice heavy linen backing with outdoor aquadhere, this was then stretched along each of the upper and lower limbs and left for 4 days to harden.  on the 4th day I cut off the excess, strung the bow and ensure that it was still the same, then I left it until Yesterday before attempting to shoot it.

It’s well…  Smoother…  Seems to have taken out alot of the kick, but unfortunately it also seems to not really increased it’s poundage at all, which was the hope.  Further testing shall continue, as will actually testing the draw weight, but so far it doesn’t really seem to have made a huge improvement.  Might be time to make my own bow like Lorccan and Mercurio have.

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So I have just found out that the Barony of Storm Hold is holding the next College war, and I’m kinda interested in going, but does it make me a big old lecherouss pervert?  Maybe if I offer to teach Pewter Casting or something?  I mean…  it’s not like I’m going down there to perv on all the young collegians, thats just an added benefit. ;)

Anyway, Some Basic details are below, but head over to the baronys website to check out all of the details.

College War

It’s hard to believe that I have been blogging for over three years now, me…  someone who actually thought that blogging was well…  a waste of time.  I mean who ever would have thought that spilling dribble about an every day life could actually provide people with entertainment…  Not me.  Three years ago last month after being told of all the thereputic qualities of Blogging by a friend, I finally gave in and well…  realsed some tention.  I have included a link to the Official Welcome post for what started it all, including a few insane months of plotting to take over the world (yes, and of course telling an insane public about every detail), and some pretty weird rants about silly things that annoyed me at the time.

Welcome, to Bleep Dots and Nonsense

Of course there’s also poetry, stupidity, and lots of other time wasting drivel as well as some pretty OK Posts on learning about Pewter casting and some theories on the Medieval way of doing it.Anyway, just thought I would ponder the good old days, and celebrate my new blog theme, which may evolve over the next few weeks as it’s always fun tinkering.

Come one come all to the Tuggeranong Archery Club for June’s Town Archer IKAC shoot.

10 am at the Club, $5 for non-club members.

Oh my! I have just found a wonderful new site and will be pestering our Kingdom Deputy Archery Marshal and a few other people for us to take advantage of it. The site is a Known World wide Archer score database, something which I was attempting to convince a friend to help me get going on a small basis for Politarchopolis. Whilst this site isn’t as extravagant as what we were planning, it will certainly do what I want it to do which is provide a number of leader board type score tables for a populace.

As such I have already contacted the powers that be, to convince them of the benefits of this site and offered my help in getting it running. We’ll see how this goes, as my last web project for Archery in Lochac failed dismally when the dodgy forum software that was the only software I could find that would allow integration with a mailing list failed, slowly corrupting the database over a few days, which then would not restore from generic backups as it required to be backed up utilising a special script provided. Stupidly I hadn’t gotten to that part of the software yet. When the site was rebuilt, it seemed that there was a lack of interest in getting it going again, so it fell into disuse.

Hopefully I can convince them to go ahead with this one based on the fact that someone else is cuurenly doing the job as scorekeeper and probably wants to keep that job. :)

Yay for Field archery.

Join us at the Tuggeranong Archery club from 10am if you feel like bringing your Bow along for a walk through the Field course.  Should be a fun morning.

Ok, so I have now watched all of Battlestar Galactica as well as the Pilot of the new prequel series Caprica.  I’m guessing that there is something missing in my memory of the first series of Battlestar…  Going to talk about it all in more detail below, so if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know what’s going on, please don’t click more.

Ok, so where my memory starts to fade out is where the connection is between the Cylons that are Built on Caprica and then come back to destroy it 40 years later, and the Human and Centurian Cylons are… Continue Reading…

Syridian.com has existed for quite some time and will continue to do so, but in celebration of Australia and the fact that Syridian.com is actually an Aussie site, syridian.com will now redirect to syridian.id.au.  Whilst I’m going to try and remember to start giving people the .id.au address from now on, I know I’ll forget to unless I redirect the website to always remind me.

Yay, a friend of mine has decided that he will come along to the feast on the weekend.  This will be great as it will give me a chance to introduce him to a few friends who I have been meaning to introduce him to for ages.

Oh!  And I’m looking forward to getting off these damn evening shifts, as a mate of mine has finally moved down to Canberra and I can’t visit him cause I’m working when he’s not and visa versa.  Thats just damn annoying.  Though I do look forward to more normal shifts in the coming weeks.  I may even start a page off this blog that lets people know when I’m working.

King Salamander Camping
Event – Torlyon
Where: Crossroads Medieval Village Site, Sheldricks Lane, Yass.
Help us say goodbye to Autumn and prepare for winter.
Feast will be based on wild game.
Tourneys – Rapier and Heavy (dependent on numbers)
Siege Weapon challenge
Archery
Collegia – Hand sewing leather
Tent making
How to dress a bird and cook it campfire style
Pottery
Competitions: Campfire cooked medieval recipe
Fire theme – Garb, Armour or “Thing”
There will also be an Iron Chef style competition between 3 of
Torlyons best cooks.
It will be cold so bring plenty of warm clothing and bedding if camping.

Cost: $30 for day only ($35 non-member)set price
$70 for weekend; Friday night to Sunday afternoon -includes
camping fee ($75 non-member)
Pre-book and pay for whole weekend by May 15th- discount of $10. After
15th til 28th- discount $5.
Stewards: Tosti Vikarrovitch Bogolyubski and Gaigin
Bookings: Baron Bastian der Grosse
For more information or booking contact Lady Isabella de Bordeaux
Site is dog-friendly BUT owners must be responsible!

The Politarchopolin Captain of Archers has announced that by Baronial Request there is to be an IKAC Archjery shoot run from 10am on Sunday the 10th of May 2009.

Come along and enjoy a morning of Archery in Garb.

Politarchopolis – Saturday 9 May 2009 – Corroboree Park, Ainslie, ACT

Their Excellencies Alessandro and Isobel of Politarchopolis invite one
and all to join them welcoming in the new year with the Baronial Rapier
Championship and a superb Mediterranean-style Feast prepared by
Aelfthrythe of Saxony.

Schedule:
3pm: Rapier Inspections
3.30pm: Rapier Tourney
6pm: Feast
11pm: Feast closes

Prices:
Members: $20
Non-members: $22
If not booked by 3rd of May: $3 extra
Children 6 to 15: Half price

Bookings:
Crispin Sexi, (Contact me for contact details)

Baronial Booking Policy: if you book, forget to cancel and then don’t show up, we may still ask you to pay to cover our costs. If you don’t book, it’s possible you may not be fed or even allowed in. Regardless of stated policy, the stewards may decide to be nice. Just ask!

There’s a forge?

Yes, there is a forge.  At the moment it exists in my backyard and it’s actually borrowed…  and well…  not mine.  But there are plans for a bigger and better one.  One that will be medieval in both look and technology, one that will enhance a medieval gathering and provide space to teach and experiment.    Hopefully if I build it, they will come.