Scenes that make me go "man I should write a LARP"

A very Parliamentary (and apocryphal) Christ-tide to you all.

My Nana died this year, so this is my first Christmas with fewer than four grandparents. Estate matters are still being worked through, but we always knew she was leaving me the complete works of Charles Dickens, so I have those now. So, in memory of Nana Dee, I'm reading A Christmas Carol today.

Well, @realwizardmartin.bsky.social has outdone himself once again. His [terrible/amazing] Christmas gift to me was a selection of the most dire novels the Star Wars Legends EU has to offer. And Dark Empire, which rules.

Christmas Eve, in four pictures.

I was thinking about going to mass tonight, for the first time in... forever, really. I thought to myself "if I'm celebrating Christmas, is it not worth doing it properly?". I stewed on the idea. I checked whether the NZ Catholic Church's stance on Palestine is 1/3

Picked up a battered second hand copy of Hogfather from Arty Bee's the other day, so this year's annual seasonal re-read is happening in hard copy, which is nice. Though last year I went with the recent audiobook version, and that has its own charms.

A very Parliamentary (and apocryphal) Christ-tide to you all.

You can tell that O Holy Night is my favourite Christmas Carol is by the fact that there's about a thousand different versions of it on the playlist.

T I S T H E S E A S O N

"average jrgp needs millisecond reflexes" factoid actualy just statistical error. Baguettes Georg, who lives in une cave & parries over 10,000 times each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Dave, what are your plans for Liminal Spacemas and the majority of January? This screenshot, and a lot of wine.

My copy of Against Time and Death by @ickbat.bsky.social arrived! It's seasonal, y'know

Pouring one out for Chris Rea.

Though 2025 was a shit of a year, there was a lot of good music. So here's my 2025 top music from Aotearoa. Lake South - We lived our lives on top of this Pining Radiata - Pining Radiata Neive Strang - Find Me in the Rabbit Hole Hannah Davenport - Feeding Hand Marlon Williams - Te Whare Tīwekaweka

End of year lists are always a struggle, but I always like doing them. I like the sense of purpose it gives me - that I'm not JUST consuming media, I'm engaging with it, thinking about it, choosing it rather than having it served up to me by an algorithm.

So the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 having its IGA awards retracted for GenAI is huge, don't miss the other retraction of an Indie Vanguard recipient because the company (ModRetro) that made their game carts is making a real life weapon company themed handheld. Like what?? www.indiegameawards.gg/faq

Roads are "infrastructure" that you "invest" in because they generate a return in [getting to work faster], which makes them better than free [ignore what the BCR say]. Health/education are "spending" that you "waste" money on because they [who knows what they do].

Honestly this ridiculous photoshoot makes me want to get back into LARP... I don't have enough opportunities to dress up like a rake and/or dandy these days. Maybe I should use unemployment to start work on Wizard Parliament LARP again

Truly, new heights of Daveposting have been reached 🫡

Everyone in this book is insufferable, completely unrelatable and unpleasant to read about. I don't get the appeal. You'd never catch me acting like such a twit. On a completely different note, the Emile Boeckel Cremant d'Alsace Blanc de Blanc is delightful.

A metaphor so on the nose it's basically a septum piercing

Congratulations to everyone who won a Nebula award this year, the final time they were ever worth a damn.

And hey it's even on sale right now, so you can join me in feeling unfathomably deep emotion while perplexing those around you by saying "hekki" all the time. store.steampowered.com/app/1675830/...

I've decided my new December Tradition is replaying 1000xResist, a chapter per day so it lasts. Three days in, already cried twice. What a beautiful game. Hekki Allmo, hekki @sunsetvisitor.studio.

Leo pointing dot jpeg

you 🫵 should play Misericorde

One year from today is the latest possible date the next election can be held #nzpol

By amazing coincidence, this is also the title and first single off of my new album

Black Friday lasts all of November. Boxing day begins a week before Christmas. Celebrate the Māori New Year with our hot Matariki discounts. Consume, consume, consume, culture is just grist for the sales mill. Fuck all the way off.

Te-Whanganui-a-Tara turning out to support trans rights and stand up for our rangatahi takatāpui at the hand-over of the open letter urging Simeon Brown to reverse his evidence-free decision to restrict puberty blockers. #NZPOL

It's not Christmas til you see the "Tony Blair being held back from glassing you down t'pub" Christmas card.

Te-Whanganui-a-Tara turning out to support trans rights and stand up for our rangatahi takatāpui at the hand-over of the open letter urging Simeon Brown to reverse his evidence-free decision to restrict puberty blockers. #NZPOL

Train manager just made an announcement reminding all the children on the train that there's only 7 sleeps til "The Big Man in Red" comes to visit. I, of course, approve of our public transport staffers spreading the good word of Karl Marx to the children.

A characteristically thoughtful and insightful piece from The House / Phil Smith on Parliament's speeches this week regarding the Bondi Beach attack. A very worthy read, looking at text and subtext in the speeches from all our parties - particularly Luxon's choice to blame it on immigration. #NZPOL

My final two Zoom hui for the year are complete, I've got a job interview tomorrow, and my last commitments for the job I quit last month wrapped up this week with the publication of the final issue of my fortnightly pānui. And my cuffs are bone-dry!

A) great news. B) as I said earlier, not unexpected. Enough looks facially dodgy about process, and the consequences of the decision sounds severe, that I thought the court would hold things in place until it can deal substantively with the claims next year. That's what they've done.

BREAKING: The High Court of New Zealand has granted PATHA’s application for interim relief, declaring that the Crown should not take any steps to enforce the incoming ban on new prescriptions of puberty blockers to transgender children and young people. More to come:

Christmas beer, Christmas ghosts

The answer to this is _not_ "online voting". That's just the same problems with different tech. Sadly, it means going back to ballot boxes, like we use for general elections. And it means getting the Electoral Commission to run them, so they're run properly.

Great that the Papatoetoe election was overturned, but not great that it had to be. We're now a country which has fraudulent elections. And it does make you wonder how many other postal ballots have been stolen in this way without anyone noticing.

HYEFU? More like GOODBYEFU.

Lost opportunity of combining the Ministries for the Environment, Transport and Housing and calling it METH

Ah, of course. The Ministry of Roads and all the less important things that roads cut through. #nzpol

Today's the last day to pick up the Ban the Ban bundle! 27 TTRPGs for $20 that goes to helping fight for the rights of trans kids to access healthcare in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thank you everyone who's supported us so far, one last hurrah! Pick it up here: itch.io/b/3421/ban-t... #nzpol #ttrpg #dnd

My very legitimate copy of photoshop was worth every cent I paid for it.

You can buy one of these! You can also get one that says "extremist lefty loser". You could get both! Proceeds support PATHA's legal challenge to overturn this govt's illegal and unethical ban on puberty blockers for trans kids. cradlednz.digitees.co.nz/shop/categor...

Took this photo at Parliament earlier for a work thing (the final issue of the newsletter I'd been writing all year, which I committed to finishing even after I'd quit the job), but I think it's quite nice so I'm gonna share it on main as well. I love our Parliamentary Pōhutukawa.

a bunch of guys too young to remember vampire the masquerade are getting mad at women in rpgs all over again i guess