On The Trail Of The Snow Topped Pine & The Annoying Habits Of The Modern Geektailers

 Gosh... I am 9 days into my holiday and I have not stopped working in one way or another.

I wobbled over to a local garden centre today, to get a young Nordman Spruce tree for the patio. With some tender care and feeding, it should be large enough by next Christmas to be lit, thereby shedding elfen lights upon the gaming room.

I did however find a rather nice bargain in the sahpe of Lemax winter pine trees.

Lemax are best known for the rather kitsch illuminated and animated Christmas models, which, when in the official store display, have the same draw as one of those toy shop window Hornby layouts which led to the bankruptcy of many a parent, and unnatural urgings involving locomotives in many a youth.

They do however make a bag of 21 snow covered fir trees:

 

 

  They are priced at a very attractive £12.99 for 21 assorted trees. The quality is great and the snow effect solid bases are great. You can unbag them and get them straight on the table in minutes.

I bought three bags, and the pics above show one bag opened and displayed next to a 28mm Citadel Lord Of The Rings miniatures. As you can see, they really do look the part.

Now, I need to grab 15x5 feet of white felt, and I am ready to go. 

And now the traditional bit of polemic...

Yesterday I ventured into the real world, and as we were parked adjacent to it, I wandered into Forbidden Planet, and spent ten minuted clamping my jaw lest an outburst issue forth therefrom.

I was listening (you couldn't miss it really) to the staff banter, which largely consisted of each of them playing a geek version of 'I am Spartacus', trying to prove - I presume for the benefit of we poor punters who don't work in that heady and elite industry - who was the geekiest.

And this got me thinking...

There appears to be no shame in being a geek these days - and rightly so - but these pillocks prancing and preening and cultivating iteresting stains on their T-shirts, don't seem to realise that 40 years ago, if you were a teenager who played games, hung about in comic book stores or even just looked a bit different, you could get a good fucking kicking.

You didn't openly express your hobby interests in the street or classroom.

I think that was one of the great things about game stores then, because they were the places that you met similarly troubled youths (youthesses were in short supply, but there were two bits of skirt who worked in Games Workshop Sheffield who cause discomfort in the stretch jeans of many a teenage lad, but who could an would shred you with a look, and atomise you with one sentence) and formed friendships which in many cases, have continued for decades beyond the friendships made in school.

My wife does not take kindly to me exercising the lessons learned in the red hot hell that was the Armstrong & Gilbride School Of Tact And Diplomacy. She has not forgiven me for the time that an annoying GW staffer went too far and asked 'What brings you here, this evening?'

I responded that I was cruising for a little hot cock action and maybe a copy of White Dwarf. The memsahib was not amused.

And so, these days, I just grind my teeth and imagine what I would like to say to these dwellers of parental basements. 

Perhaps it's time that we were driven underground again...

Well, if you will excuse me, I am of course still on holiday and I hear two litres of advocaat, calling to me from the fridge.

TTFN