Well, I got my 14th century German longsword/ Kunst des Fechtens school started. I'm now officially an instructor of western martial arts, and I'm in the military, so if you're interested I could talk about that.
Why I study it. Why it died out. How it relates to modern military practice, and the similarities over the ages. How just about every film depicting western swordsmanship is wrong. How modern fencing differs from swordsmanship. How to research, train, and start a group if there isn't one around you. The process of teaching a physical skill.
Lol, not exactly. German longsword primarily, Langes Messer is kind of my special interest, but I train in it far less since longsword is the baseline for training.
It's more like what knights would use on the battlefield... think kenjutsu vs kendo. I have a couple videos of myself and a guy from the local rapier club playing around with messers. Although it's not the best example of the style since we were both exhausted, I hadn't been practicing it in a long time, and he isn't properly trained with the weapon.
Since Scott recently said that they were running out of show ideas, I should remind him of something which he said more than three years ago now but which never materialized:
we had already decided next Thursday show is Ninja Turtles.
Rym and Scott are not qualified for this show topic.
Scott maybe. ;^) I travel quite a bit on my own.
True, but business travel is a different experience and uses different skills compared to general travel and not sucking at it. You're doing okay, but pretty much everything you said in the Australia podcasts makes me think you've still got a lot to learn.
Like going to the south of Australia in the winter. And if you were going anyway, your mistake was staying longer than needed.
I knew exactly what the weather was going to be like. The only thing I didn't anticipate was that the venue for PAX itself would be so exposed and cold.
We only stayed a week after the event. It was downtime in a normal big city, plus a bunch of nice hiking, after a convention we were attending anyway. There was also a decent chance I was going to pop up to Sydney for work while I was there (though that ended up not happening). Phillip Island was quite lovely, and the penguin thing was definitely worth seeing.
Most of the rest of what we did was explore Melbourne the same way we would St. Louis or Brooklyn.
The next PAX AUS will probably be in the summer. My plan if I return is to fly straight from the con to Tasmania for several days, and then to New Zealand for some climb hiking.
The next PAX AUS will probably be in the summer. My plan if I return is to fly straight from the con to Tasmania for several days, and then to New Zealand for some climb hiking.
I don't know about summer, that'd be a bit fucking brutal. Probably more like Spring or Autumn, where the temperatures are more tolerable, if they're going to move it. But who knows?
So here's the thing, you probably did okay for city you were visiting anyway, but you didn't pick the time you went, nor the city you visited. You have experience with work trips, a convention trip, plus one or two trips to an abroad place taken for your own time and reasons (Japan).
This might sound unkind, but the reason you stayed in Melbourne for a week isn't because Melbourne is a good city to visit, but because Australia is fucking huge and it would take up too much time, money and effort to visit other cities or places down under. You say you stayed there like you would have in Brooklyn or St. Louis, but who would visit New York for a week and not leave Brooklyn and visit Manhattan? And in the winter, when all the rides at Coney Island are closed (or that outdoor pyrotechnics wouldn't work)? And who would go spend a week in St. Louis, rather than Chicago?
If you cared about travel abroad for the sake of traveling abroad, instead of for your love of PAX, you would already have way more experience and knowledge. You would have gone to Spiel in Essen, and from there you are within a few hours drive of huge swathes of Germany, plus four other countries. It is in October/autumn, but travel in Europe is still perfectly fine there, unlike going to hot/cold places off season.
I think it might be too much but seeing Rym and Scott do a "Tabletop" (like Wil Wheaton) style show for board games in a video format would be more insightful for board game review or first look shows.
e.g. Listening to you both describe Glory to Rome gave me a feeling of what the game was about but when I actually played it it was completely different.
I think it might be too much but seeing Rym and Scott do a "Tabletop" (like Wil Wheaton) style show for board games in a video format would be more insightful for board game review or first look shows.
e.g. Listening to you both describe Glory to Rome gave me a feeling of what the game was about but when I actually played it it was completely different.
Might be too much video work though.
A "Game Theory in Practice" video series? They could show a series of moves, then explain their thinking behind those moves. That would be interesting, buy yes, a lot of work.
I'm going to Germany later this year anyway most likely. Spiel didn't invite us to speak, and we gathered a non-trivial fandom and set of new listeners by actually being in Melbourne for the convention.
If I were to plan a trip right now unrelated to GeekNights or work, it would be centered on taking a mail boat around Scandanavia for several weeks.
I really need to do a dedicated re-listen to some of the older GeekNights episodes. I've been casually re-listening to some lately and there are a ton where a show idea will get mentioned, followed by "we'll totally do a show on that someday" -- and it never happened. I just keep forgetting to note those down when I hear them.
Also winning bids go to companies that know how to navigate the bidding process extremely well, not necessarily know what they are doing once they get a bid.
Protip: Actually a lot of companies will under bid a contract and then try and hire the people from the old contract to do the work for less money.....(In the case I am thinking of the military actually shut the program down after that happened because the new company was sooo bad)
Comments
Why I study it.
Why it died out.
How it relates to modern military practice, and the similarities over the ages.
How just about every film depicting western swordsmanship is wrong.
How modern fencing differs from swordsmanship.
How to research, train, and start a group if there isn't one around you.
The process of teaching a physical skill.
Things like that.
Let me know if you're interested.
It's more like what knights would use on the battlefield... think kenjutsu vs kendo. I have a couple videos of myself and a guy from the local rapier club playing around with messers. Although it's not the best example of the style since we were both exhausted, I hadn't been practicing it in a long time, and he isn't properly trained with the weapon.
We only stayed a week after the event. It was downtime in a normal big city, plus a bunch of nice hiking, after a convention we were attending anyway. There was also a decent chance I was going to pop up to Sydney for work while I was there (though that ended up not happening). Phillip Island was quite lovely, and the penguin thing was definitely worth seeing.
Most of the rest of what we did was explore Melbourne the same way we would St. Louis or Brooklyn.
The next PAX AUS will probably be in the summer. My plan if I return is to fly straight from the con to Tasmania for several days, and then to New Zealand for some climb hiking.
This might sound unkind, but the reason you stayed in Melbourne for a week isn't because Melbourne is a good city to visit, but because Australia is fucking huge and it would take up too much time, money and effort to visit other cities or places down under. You say you stayed there like you would have in Brooklyn or St. Louis, but who would visit New York for a week and not leave Brooklyn and visit Manhattan? And in the winter, when all the rides at Coney Island are closed (or that outdoor pyrotechnics wouldn't work)? And who would go spend a week in St. Louis, rather than Chicago?
If you cared about travel abroad for the sake of traveling abroad, instead of for your love of PAX, you would already have way more experience and knowledge. You would have gone to Spiel in Essen, and from there you are within a few hours drive of huge swathes of Germany, plus four other countries. It is in October/autumn, but travel in Europe is still perfectly fine there, unlike going to hot/cold places off season.
e.g. Listening to you both describe Glory to Rome gave me a feeling of what the game was about but when I actually played it it was completely different.
Might be too much video work though.
If I were to plan a trip right now unrelated to GeekNights or work, it would be centered on taking a mail boat around Scandanavia for several weeks.
Government contracts go to lowest bidders, and winning bids are selected by people who don't know anything about the subject matter.
Also, half of our government has a vested interest in the web site failing, for what it's worth.
Protip: Actually a lot of companies will under bid a contract and then try and hire the people from the old contract to do the work for less money.....(In the case I am thinking of the military actually shut the program down after that happened because the new company was sooo bad)