I have serious doubts about this sort of product‘s appeal. Yes, I realise there’s a humorous slant here; but, this woman looks like she’s been dug up or defrosted. Like ‘Macho Women with Guns‘, ‘Hot Chicks‘ approaches action gaming with tongue planted firmly in cheek – so firmly, one would suspect, that to the wrong person it might look like a dirty come on attempt.

If you thumb through the catalogue of gaming products at DriveThru / RPGNow, you find a worrisome collection of softcore glamour product feature computer-generated big-breasted fantasy women with a general disregard for reasonable protective clothing. The manufacturers of these products obviously have a market, but who buys them and why? Are they purely window-dressing for gamers playing ‘Hot Chicks’ and their ilk, a possibility with supplements and miniatures, but what about calendars and some of the more dubious art books?

Possibly I’m missing something – but, seeing the ‘zombie’ chick had me worrying. I’m not going to go down the road of D&D and religion; but, if an innocent bystander chanced across this product, you could easily envisage it all going badly in the wrong hands. The all too common equation that fantasy plus woman must mean big breasts also likely won’t go down to well with those keen on equality and fair treatment of women – and I wouldn’t blame them for a moment.

I have a doubt. I have a doubt that inhabits a dream. I have every reason to believe that this doubt haunts my dreams out of some kind of guilt.

To build a tad of context for this doubt, I got a 2.2 degree in History and Political Studies at university. I have no regrets in this regard. Well, no – that isn’t true. I do have regrets, because a 1st Class degree would look far more impressive framed and hung from my wall. When I explained what a 2.2 was to my wife, she questioned why I would ever want to reveal such a qualification to anyone, never mind have it framed and hung on any visible wall within the house. Perhaps this certificate might better be displayed next to the planning permission for the demolition of Arthur Dent’s house.

Anyway, I have a recurring dream about not attending History lessons at school. In these dreams, I do all sorts of other things, but end up looking at a timetable and realising whatever it is I’ve been doing it has meant I’ve utterly failed to attend a History lesson. In most instances, I have missed history lessons at school rather than university.

However, I also have a recurring dream that I have failed to pay the rent on my digs at university – and left one or more personal items behind. Last night, this fact managed to slip into a dream that didn’t even seem to have anything to do with school or university – and involved all manner of other people and places ranging from my wife through current work colleagues to rooms in old places of work.

Anyone with theories about why either of these doubts should haunt me so can freely comment!

Sometimes you have to wonder how the heck life gets quite as strange as it does. On Saturday, we had a tapas party with friends. Everyone brings round something appropriately nibbly (and some beer), and by early evening we have a table growning with goodies. Simple. Very little organisation or cooking involved, but enough to feed people and have spares for a week or three.

Anyway, with a couple of dozen people in and outside the house, conversation was the evening’s primary pursuit. We’d eaten and drank, the warm, relatively sunny, day fading into an equally pleasant evening. As we stood in the garden chatting, somewhere in the distance we heard sirens. Several of them. Living on the outskirts of Manchester in 2008, this isn’t so out of the usual. However, as we continued chatting there was a sound like something hitting a fence, or possibly someone being hit with a fence, rather closer to home. Curiousity rose somewhat, especially as the sirens continued to persist and get just a little louder and clearer. Falling back into conversation, a russle at the back of the garden drew attention to someone making an entrance. Staggering from the rear, amidst the trees and bushes, came a guy in dark trousers and a green top, with blood streaming down the side of his face. He muttered something along the lines of ‘Sorry… I’ve been in a fight.’, before heading off along the garden path, round the side of the house, and off up the street.

The evening rapidly descended into some bizarre co-mingling of ‘The Bill’ and ‘Scooby Doo’, as various members of the party went off to find the guy or see what that crash was, while others recounted the tale of ‘the man in the garden’. Police with dogs and police in helicopters followed, the latter particularly noisy, with searching beams flashing in the night sky. We were told later that the police caught the guy. He’d hit another driver, at considerable speed, and one or more of the cars had gone off the road – tearing up fences. ‘The man in the garden’ had exited his vehicle, leaving the other driver for dead, to make his escape across the back gardens – and the police had tried to follow him that way, explaining some more fence banging rather reminiscent of ‘Hot Fuzz’.

So… from simple tapas and friends, the evening turned into something very different. By the end of the evening, enough had happened to ensure the whole event would be discussed for weeks and months to come. Good food, however tasty, might not have made the event so memorable!

Relevant viewing:

Having gone through the newest batch of trailers and seen the likes of ‘Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer‘, I have to say even the campest bloodfest of a horror has nothing on this disturbing guide to turning your kids into a Halloween pirate over at YouTube:

Relevant reading: