Heavy Metal Sunday curls up with a nice glass of Irish single malt.

Covers month continues with a song, that in its modern form, exists as nothing but covers. Whiskey in the Jar is a traditional Irish folk tune about a highwayman betrayed by love. It dates to at least 1728, and enjoyed a modern renaissance during the Folk Music Scare of the 50s and 60s. The song became an international hit when the Irish rockers Thin Lizzy recorded a sped-up, hard version of the song. This version has been covered by, well, everyone. Including Metallica, who won a Grammy for their version.

This multiple covers song is a natural for the cold month, but it gets better. Not only do we have Metallica playing Whiskey in the Jar live, we have them playing live in Dublin, Ireland.

Watch James screw up the lyrics.

Next week, a tribute album cut that some people consider better than the original! Plus a bonus track! Woo!

Alpha Lima Papa Hotel Alpha Bravo Echo Tango (break) Mike Echo Mike Echo

Ganked from benkenobigal Note: I've modified this so each letter has three questions.

( Zulu, Yankee, X-Ray... )

Crashlanding. Ask about our new low mortgage rates!

Current needs bolded

Increase population http://crashlanding.myminicity.com

Increase industry http://crashlanding.myminicity.com/ind

Improve the transport network http://crashlanding.myminicity.com/tra

Increase security http://crashlanding.myminicity.com/sec

Improve environment http://crashlanding.myminicity.com/env

Increase business http://crashlanding.myminicity.com/com

Interview meme

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on...

Since I got this from Niece Prime, the interview questions come from madelineusher

1. Do you have any games currently running or currently being planned? No. Since I'm trying to get focused on my fiction writing, I've put aside gaming for the moment. I do have ideas for a Traveller game based around a group of starship repo men. The problem of course is time.

2. What's your favorite comic? Traditional strip format, Pearls Before Swine. Web comics, either Sluggy Freelance (is it not nifty?) or xkcd. I don't read comic books anymore. This is mainly because I got sick of there being no significant character development or advancement. This tendency was actually covered in one of the GURPS Infinite Worlds articles in the old Pyramid magazine. A time line where superheroes exist, but ever forty years or so they all reset with slightly different names and origins.

3. What book(s) are you currently reading? Plot & Structure by James Bell.  Also reading The Space Opera Renaissance ed. by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

4. Are they any good? Yes for both. The Plots book is an excellent set of lessons and exercises in creating good plots and how to pace them. It already has improved my stories. The Space Opera tome (over 900 pages) is a magnificent overview of the genre, starting in the late 20s and moving up to the present day.

5. What game system do you hate most? For sheer unplayability, Twilight: 2000 (1st Ed). Clunky character design, unplayable combat, and a lack of non-combat roles made this a one trick pony. Worst combat rules ever? Phoenix Command. Not dozens, but hundreds of charts and an equal number of die rolls to handle every combat action. Way too much detail. When I was writing At Close Quarters one of the things foremost in my mind was to avoid doing the next version of Phoenix Command.