Random Raves νγ: Pizza!

[Takhisis]

@Valka D'Ur I've started doing SCA armored combat, and we had our first melee practice today. A lot of fun and a exhilarating experience even when it is only 5 fighters a side. Two lines charging and shouting at each other, needing to maintain awareness of who you are matched against, where the spear fighters are, and keeping a count of the enemy so you know if one of their fighters detach to flank your line.
The plates I ordered to make my lamellar shirt for fighting arrived yesterday, so there is a project!

What do you use to make the armour?

 

[Ajidica]

What do you use to make the armour?

A variety of things. The helmet is 14 gauge steel so it can take some knocks. Beyond that, the requirements are pretty loose. You need rigid protection on kidneys, joints, and neck, and that's about it. Of course, because most fighters aren't stupid they use rigid protection over most the body. Some have actual armor, but for those on the cheap or are planning to put garb over it (like me), hockey and lacrosse protection are common.
My lamellar armor is aluminum plates held together with paracord.

Spoiler size :

I have about 700 plates, which will be used on torso, thigh, and shoulder/arm protection.

 

[Takhisis]

*registers Ajidica's photographed fingerprints for impersonation purposes*

So you're doing lamellar armour! That's an interesting shape for the lamellæ: they seem to bond almost like the rings in a mail hauberk.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Valka D'Ur I've started doing SCA armored combat, and we had our first melee practice today. A lot of fun and a exhilarating experience even when it is only 5 fighters a side. Two lines charging and shouting at each other, needing to maintain awareness of who you are matched against, where the spear fighters are, and keeping a count of the enemy so you know if one of their fighters detach to flank your line.
The plates I ordered to make my lamellar shirt for fighting arrived yesterday, so there is a project!

Since you've committed to making your armor, have you started on the rest of the basics, as in creating a persona and heraldic device?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Funniest line of the morning:"[Kenny Loggins'] 'Playing With The Boys' was not released as a single [in 1986], but it did come out to its parents later that year."

From Esquire, 27 May 2022 - "The Top Gun Volleyball Scene Is Not Homoerotic. It Is Homosexual."

 

[Arakhor]

That is indeed a great line.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Second-funniest line of the day, from Leviathan Wakes: "We made it" Miller said. His voice sounded like it had been dragged down an alley by its ankles.

I can't stop laughing. People in my office are going to think I've finally lost it.

 

[Ajidica]

*registers Ajidica's photographed fingerprints for impersonation purposes*

So you're doing lamellar armour! That's an interesting shape for the lamellæ: they seem to bond almost like the rings in a mail hauberk.

Not really. They lay flat and overlap each other slightly and the cord is woven through the holes. Unlike mail where the rings actually go through each other.
Lamellar plates are most common in the A or 'tombstone' shape, I but prefer the look of the D plates and because of their smaller width they tend to be a bit more flexible when going around curves. Plus, if I remember right, our evidence of early Nordic lamellar is almost exclusively the D plates coming from the Swedish trading post of Birka. Incidentally, Birka has become notorious is archaeology because if there is a random one-off object found in Scandinavia that doesn't fit established styles, 9 times out of 10 it comes from Birka.

Since you've committed to making your armor, have you started on the rest of the basics, as in creating a persona and heraldic device?

Persona yes, heraldry no.
Persona is Anglo-Saxon by name of Aelfwine (Elf-Friend*) in south east England around 990. I chose that in part because the Battle of Maldon (of which the famous poem is about) is given the date of August 11, 991, which is two years off from being 100 years to the date I was born; so nice numerological alignment there. Plus later south east England opens up a lot of written sources not available in earlier periods, along with greater levels of contact and knowledge with the continent. While there had long been Frankish influence in south east England (there is some speculation that Kent was actually a subject kingdom of the Franks early on), we see greater evidence of non-luxury trade with the Franks. East Anglia had also been under Norse influence for a while so we get Norse visual influence without the stronger Norse influence following the overthrow of Athelraed Unraed and Cnut. Makes it easier to do research and opens up more opportunities to design and decorate the garb.
Heraldry isn't a big thing in my region, as most people just use the Barony/Kingdom heraldry when it is needed (such as hoods for court or war shields). Most people in my area have interests and personas from periods or cultures that weren't super big on heraldry; such as late Italian, late Polish, high Rus, or Viking Norse. The only people I know that make heavy use of personal heraldry are some of the old timers.

*I chose the name in part because so much of my interest in the middle ages came from Lord of the Rings, and a big inspiration for how Lord of the Rings / Silmarillion came about was Tolkien looking to reconcile and explain the differing ideas of elves in northern Europe society. On one hand we have the line in Beowulf referring to "giants and elves and demon-corpses [orcneas, which became orcs]", along with other stories about elves putting them in a firmly negative light, but we also have people being named "elf-friend", "elf-riches", "elf-counseled" (Aelf-raed, Alfred), etc. The name crops up all across germanic cultures in the early middle ages, but the aelf- root seems particularly common in England.

 

[Takhisis]

^If you're interested in the Battle of Maldon (I have the poem on my desk beside me as I type) I also recommend Frans Bengtsson's The Longships, in which one episode is the battle as told from the invaders' side.

Not really. They lay flat and overlap each other slightly and the cord is woven through the holes. Unlike mail where the rings actually go through each other.
Lamellar plates are most common in the A or 'tombstone' shape, I but prefer the look of the D plates and because of their smaller width they tend to be a bit more flexible when going around curves. Plus, if I remember right, our evidence of early Nordic lamellar is almost exclusively the D plates coming from the Swedish trading post of Birka. Incidentally, Birka has become notorious is archaeology because if there is a random one-off object found in Scandinavia that doesn't fit established styles, 9 times out of 10 it comes from Birka.

I didn't know about the Birka oddity, that's nice to know.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Not really. They lay flat and overlap each other slightly and the cord is woven through the holes. Unlike mail where the rings actually go through each other.
Lamellar plates are most common in the A or 'tombstone' shape, I but prefer the look of the D plates and because of their smaller width they tend to be a bit more flexible when going around curves. Plus, if I remember right, our evidence of early Nordic lamellar is almost exclusively the D plates coming from the Swedish trading post of Birka. Incidentally, Birka has become notorious is archaeology because if there is a random one-off object found in Scandinavia that doesn't fit established styles, 9 times out of 10 it comes from Birka.


Persona yes, heraldry no.
Persona is Anglo-Saxon by name of Aelfwine (Elf-Friend*) in south east England around 990. I chose that in part because the Battle of Maldon (of which the famous poem is about) is given the date of August 11, 991, which is two years off from being 100 years to the date I was born; so nice numerological alignment there. Plus later south east England opens up a lot of written sources not available in earlier periods, along with greater levels of contact and knowledge with the continent. While there had long been Frankish influence in south east England (there is some speculation that Kent was actually a subject kingdom of the Franks early on), we see greater evidence of non-luxury trade with the Franks. East Anglia had also been under Norse influence for a while so we get Norse visual influence without the stronger Norse influence following the overthrow of Athelraed Unraed and Cnut. Makes it easier to do research and opens up more opportunities to design and decorate the garb.
Heraldry isn't a big thing in my region, as most people just use the Barony/Kingdom heraldry when it is needed (such as hoods for court or war shields). Most people in my area have interests and personas from periods or cultures that weren't super big on heraldry; such as late Italian, late Polish, high Rus, or Viking Norse. The only people I know that make heavy use of personal heraldry are some of the old timers.

*I chose the name in part because so much of my interest in the middle ages came from Lord of the Rings, and a big inspiration for how Lord of the Rings / Silmarillion came about was Tolkien looking to reconcile and explain the differing ideas of elves in northern Europe society. On one hand we have the line in Beowulf referring to "giants and elves and demon-corpses [orcneas, which became orcs]", along with other stories about elves putting them in a firmly negative light, but we also have people being named "elf-friend", "elf-riches", "elf-counseled" (Aelf-raed, Alfred), etc. The name crops up all across germanic cultures in the early middle ages, but the aelf- root seems particularly common in England.

"Aelf" is part of my formal SCA name (I only ever used it in official documents when getting my name and device approved; "Aelfhilde" is a name used in my paternal grandmother's family, and the last to have it was my great-aunt; since the rules allow use of a name that comes from one's mundane family, I decided to include it to honor her memory). The name I normally went by is Freydis of Gloppenfjord (try to get a court herald to pronounce that correctly... he mangled it).

Heraldry isn't something everyone's into though if you stay around, at some point it'll come up. It's usually considered more efficient to register both name and device at the same time, although a device can be tricky if you want something that's too close to what's already been registered either in the mundane world or in the Society.

I took the basic Ithra course in heraldry, but it's been so many years since then, I consider myself lucky to remember the proper names for the heraldic colors and the rules of tincture. I'd have to look up the blazon for my device (it's archived online). Basically, it's black and gold, and the charges are two gold panflutes on a black background and two black five-pointed stars on a gold background. I told the herald in the Shire that I wanted those to express my interests in music and astronomy.

Birka is fascinating. I read up on it when trying to put together my persona's life story. Lady Freydis passed through there at one point.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I just got a "Fifteener" badge from LibraryThing. Apparently I've been a member there for 15 years.

In all that time, you'd think I'd have catalogued more of my collection...

 

[Birdjaguar]

Syn got AC!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

According to the doom & gloom climate-related news articles that have come out recently, he'll need it. Things were really hard here last summer; I can't fathom how the people in BC managed.

 

[Synobun]

According to the doom & gloom climate-related news articles that have come out recently, he'll need it. Things were really hard here last summer; I can't fathom how the people in BC managed.

We didn't. Our death count was 595.

We just passed legislation that all new construction after 2025 will need to have heat pumps installed, which do both heating and cooling. Nothing about incentives to install in old builds.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We didn't. Our death count was 595.

We just passed legislation that all new construction after 2025 will need to have heat pumps installed, which do both heating and cooling. Nothing about incentives to install in old builds.

I read about the death count, and of course that number doesn't include the animals.

Last July 1 I woke up with symptoms of heat exhaustion, and it was a struggle to even think, let alone do anything. Fortunately I have Amazon Prime so only had a 2-day wait for the fan. The driver turned up that morning, and that's the fastest I ever grabbed a parcel, shut the door in the driver's face, and got something plugged in. I wouldn't have lasted the rest of the day without it. And with Maddy being elderly now, you can bet I paid attention to her eating and drinking and litter box habits and watched her to see that there weren't any breathing issues.

July 1 is also the beginning of the July session of Camp NaNoWriMo. That heat dome sapped my energy to the point that I severely toned down my word count goal. A normal Camp session for me is at least 15-20,000 words. Last July I calculated that I might have the energy to do 5000. That might seem really low even in 40C+ weather, but I'm doing NaNo by hand these days (too many incidents where problems have happened with files to rely on the computer; my handwritten looseleaf version might take 4 times longer and it hurts more, but at least they won't turn into hashtags for no reason I could ever figure out).

 

[Synobun]

There were some articles about wildlife back then. We had a huge die-off of marine life off the coast, at the very least.

I don't remember the heat dome. My mind's taken to erasing particularly bad health moments. But the friend who bought the AC wouldn't take no for an answer and said they weren't going to go through that again, so I'm guessing I had a tough time during it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There were some articles about wildlife back then. We had a huge die-off of marine life off the coast, at the very least.

I don't remember the heat dome. My mind's taken to erasing particularly bad health moments. But the friend who bought the AC wouldn't take no for an answer and said they weren't going to go through that again, so I'm guessing I had a tough time during it.

I was honestly worried about how you were coping with all that. Southern BC summers are brutal enough with the fires (it's bad here when the smoke comes over the mountains, and of course we had fires in our own mountain forests). I can't fathom coping with that insane heat as well. I wouldn't have lasted in Lytton (before it burned to the ground). The heat dome lasted about 6 weeks here, or at least that's how long I had the fans running. It got to the point where I'd douse myself with ice water every 2-3 hours, especially before trying to sleep.

Of course I had to keep the window open for circulation (won't call it "fresh" air since it wasn't particularly fresh due to smoke and because my suite faces east and I'm 5 floors above an asphalt parkade; it might have been 40C on the ground but it was hotter up here). The screens don't fit properly, and there are some rips in it (that's a maintenance thing that never got fixed due to covid; they're still only doing emergencies like plumbing so they don't have to enter suites any more than necessary). I killed more moths last summer than I've ever killed in my life. Insect-killing isn't something Maddy is any good at. She prefers to play with them. Thankfully the rips were too small to let the bees in, and it was too hot for the mosquitoes (not enough rain to let the eggs hatch).

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I achieved the trophy Addicted!

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

And a new title of Emperor!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Did you decide not to have a custom title?