What gaming and geekery I have been up to lately

I hope to get some real content posts going again soon, but here's a rundown of what's keeping me busy/distracted...

Computer games - I am still playing a lot of War Thunder online as Argg on both planes and tanks.  I am looking for a mature squadron of semi-serious players with people on in Pacific Time primetime. By semi-serious, I mean people who are interested in squadding up and using voice chat for teamwork, but not super hardcore with lots of pressure to be there for matches and such.

Miniatures - I am reading the skirmish rules "A Fistful of Kung Fu"from Osprey. So far, they seem worth giving a  couple plays to decide how I like them.

Miniatures - Finishing up the rebasing of my Confederates for a 6mm Longstreet campaign starting this weekend at Gamescape North. Did a bunch of repainting on the weirdly painted horses in my cavalry unit and some finish painting on details the guy I bought them from hadn't finished. Have about half the bases painted and need to decide if I am going to flock or not. Still have a few more infantry singles to glue on the ends of ranks on the bigger bases. Thinking about hacking some infantry into standard bearers and doing some flags. Cavalry had them, these infantry don't.

Miniatures - Backburnered mulling of the Samurai rules concepts I posted about a few months ago. Started hearing ads for moo.com on the radio, and their card printing service might be an reasonable way to prototype a nice deck for the rules concepts I was knocking about. Would have to work up some art to print.

Board games - Played three games of the first scenario in the Austrian expansion of Command and Colors Napoleonics with Henry about tens days ago. We did one from each side and then found one error in our rules understanding re Austrian card use and dropped Battalion Masse for the scenario, as it is early and historically they were surprised and had issues with getting organized. Concluded the scenario needs another layer of Austrian hamstringing in the early turns to give the French a chance at historical success.

Board games - Bought the bashed box copy of Wallenstein at Black Diamond and skimmed the rules. Look forward to playing it, since Shogun with mostly the same rules is pretty good.

Board games - dragged Twilight Struggle out and re-read it with intent to play, but that fizzled.  Need to line up somebody to play it with.

Books - I'm reading Daniel Abraham's "The King's Blood", an interesting fantasy, second in a series and  Peter Turchin's "War and Peace and War", which makes a good case for his theory of history as it applies to the rise and fall of empires. Recently finished Nicola Griffith's "Hild" about Saxon England, Abraham's "The Dragon's Path", first in that series, and A. Lee Martinez's "In the Company of Ogres" a light romp of D&D-ish fantasy humor. Starting Wolfgang Jeschke's "The Cusanus Game" in English translation. Yes, I juggle multiple books at once. My son thinks I'm weird that way, but then he reads faster.

RPGs - I'm playing a half orc rogue in a new Pathfinder campaign at Henry's lately on Friday nights, a dwarf in Billy's Labyrinth Lord and a mutant in Eric H's Mutant Future games on Google chat.

RPGs - I have been re-reading Empire of the Petal Throne and considering running it again. Haven't decided between a typical Jakalla start or setting up on the less explored west map. If I go with this, I'll cull through the maps I made last winter and start populating some of them for EPT, and I expect, draw up some more with EPT in mind. If I don't pursue this, I'll probably try a reboot on Barbarians of Lemuria, that got a couple games in online before a mix of schedule issues and me getting sick for a few weeks killed it off.

Video - Did a binge on the holiday weekend of season 1 and half of season 2 of Game of Thrones. Still need to go through the discs for the rest of season 2 and season 3.

Hobby programming - started reading the language guide to Swift, but not too far in. Have to decide if I want to try some of that and target my phone, or set up an Android environment and target my tablet. I don't have a specific project in mind, probably something RPG-ish, but need to keep it very small, as my bigger project concepts never get done with all the other irons in the fire. Maybe pick the Barbarians of Lemuria character generator and database back up?

 Conventions - The Labor Day cons are coming up.  I need to settle on what event I want to run and which to go to.