Orwar

Well, it's far from my favourite desert to begin with, but I doubt a bullion cube would do much to improve it. It is, surprisingly, quite light - which you absolutely need after having done five turns at the Yulebord already.

Well, there's both rice porridge and rice pudding, the latter is (at least here) occasionally sweetened, served cold, and either made with cream or mixed with whipped cream. Ris à la Malta is a traditional Yule-time desert, made by stirring together whipped cream and rice porridge with clementines or oranges.

I've pretty much always had some sort of indication of being a vampire in my profile, I never got banned just for being a vampire. ... Except that one time in Oxbridge, but that had less to do with me being a vampire, and more to do with backstabbing and drama and a zealously incompetent and paranoid staff.

There have been many peculiar events, and people, throughout history - some with hilarious consequences, sequenced in ways that you just couldn't invent. Like that one time the Austro-Hungarian Evidenzbureau hastily put a loaded gun in the hands of Colonel Alfred Redl when they discovered that he was working for the Russians, to avoid having any trial which would bring attention to the fact that the man responsible for gathering military intelligence on the Russian Empire was a traitor. After the deed was done, someone realized that it might have been prudent to at least question him, and maybe find out how much information he had leaked, and whether the information they had on the Russians were at all correct. It wasn't. Redl had been sent to Russia early in his career within the Evidenzbureau as a spy, but Russian agents had little trouble discovering the not-too-discreet Austrian, nor discovering the fact that Redl was a homosexual - which wasn't too welcome in the Imperial Habsburgian military's officer corps. Redl was presented with an offer he couldn't refuse; work for the Tsar's , or have his secret uncovered. They also offered him 'a bit' of money to help him make the right choice. He accepted. In 1902, Redl handed over the Austro-Hungarian war plan for the event of a war with Russia. In return, Redl was fed information both true and false by the Russian counter-intelligence, which made him appear an absolute cracker of an agent in the eyes of the Evidenzbureau, earning him his rank of Colonel, as well as responsibility over all the Austro-Hungarian agents working in Russia - whose identities he gave to the Russians, leading to their assassinations; but since their reports all came through Redl, there wasn't any need for any actual agents. False reports from the Russians, as well as reports of Redl's own invention, was all that was needed to keep the Evidenzbureau happy. Even as a colonel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the salary when working for the Evidenzbureau wasn't anything too spectacular. Despite this, Redl lived a lavish, opulent lifestyle, buying a large house in Vienna, and employing several servants - even bought himself a car and hired a personal driver. In 1913, Redl handed the Austro-Hungarian invasion plans of Serbia to the Russians. By this point, he had also painted a picture of a weak, disorganized, and outdated Russian army. But already in 1912, the Evidenzbureau had begun to investigate him after being tipped off by the Germans and, when it was discovered that he accepted bribes from the Russians, they sent two soldiers to his home with instructions to hand him a loaded pistol. Redl shot himself on May 25th 1913. May 25th 1913 was a Sunday. Soon after his suicide, it was realized that the 'Redl Mess' would need to be straightened out, and fast. But since they could no longer question him they would have to resort to rummaging through his stuff. But since the sturdy door to the study, where he had shot himself, was locked, they'd first have to find a locksmith. Finding a locksmith on a Sunday in 1913 wasn't easy - but they were the Evidenzbureau, so they did manage to track one down. The man was just outside of town, playing football, so they sent two soldiers in a car to pick him up. What they didn't know was that one of the locksmith's football teammates was a journalist, and said journalist became rather suspicious when the army sent a car to pick up a locksmith all willy nilly. The journalist was quick to discover what was going on, and the next day all of Vienna was in the know. The following year, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo. Serbia was under Russia's protection, but the Austro-Hungarians still had Redl's image of a weak and outdated enemy and barely hesitated to mobilize and invade. What they didn't know was that Russia had more than a hundred further military divisions than those they had been informed about, and that the Russians were quick to mobilize their armed forces in response, using a rather modern piece of infrastructure - railroads. The dominoes of militarized European superpowers and their complex treaties began to shift, and one of the bloodiest conflicts in history was about to begin. Obviously, Redl wasn't the cause of the war, but he was a large part of the Austro-Hungarian's view that Russia were totally incapable of defending Serbia. Perhaps if they had been better informed, they wouldn't quite so rashly throw themselves against, at the time, one of the strongest military nations in the world. He also wasn't completely incompetent. Redl innovated many modern techniques of espionage and intelligence within the Evidenzbureau, introducing the use of cameras and audio-recording devices, as well as beginning to build an extensive fingerprints catalogue from persons of interest. So. What historical event or person makes you think we live in a rather bizarre but certainly interesting world?

N'aw, I think you're quite sweet. Like candied orange peel! Bitter flavours are amazing though, coffee, chocolate, citrus, tea, liquorice, blackcurrants, brusselsprouts - so many good things in life are bitter!

Bitter orange marmalade on scones though . . .

Mm, certain things in life are just worth waiting for, you know. It may be black magic, but Satanism is all about indulging in decadence.

You could always make it. Just need some cream, an oven, and a whole lot of patience.

Well, we do like scones ...

Those are skorpor, though in Sweden we didn't make them out of necessity the same way most of Europe and the US made ship biscuits; we have something far superior to that end. Knäckebröd. This type of rye flatbread predate the vikings, and was an ingenious way of preserving grain throughout winter as well as being a near enough unspoilable food source to be brought along for raiding and exploring from Miklagard to Vinland. The hole in the middle was made to store the bread by threading them on poles that were hung in the ceiling, keeping them nice and dry. That reminds me to put down both skorpor and knäckebröd (along with crayfish cheese!) on my shopping list for tomorrow, as it's the perfect late night snack and breakfast food.

I have so much fun with teasing @momomoonusagi for her weird conception of what a 'biscuit' is. Bis coquere, which is the etymological root of the word, is Latin for 'twice baked/cooked', and was traditionally done to conserve the cooked grains and keep it from rotting or moulding, especially for military rations and seafarers. We still do this to produce the 'skorpa' ('crust'), which is a white, leavened, twice-baked bread - either sweetened or unsweetened, usually with cardamom.

... That's the one with the chickens, right?

"You've got that look on your face again . . . Who's in trouble?"

Winks cheekily. Rawr.

Neph is a chameleon. Orwar ... Hasn't had a change of hairstyle for something like 2 years.

Although that doesn't necessarily matter, I believe. Sure, if you want to use the UV maps used by the system avatars, yes you need to do it that way - but a skin is just a series of textures, there's nothing stopping you from UV mapping it whichever way you want, but doing so would mean that skins would be body/brand-specific (unless ALL the brands decided to go with the same UV layout); and doing so would also solve the one-arm tattoo 'thing'. It would be a lot of work to get that working, and even if there's a way right in front of us that could solve issues, people are lazy and afraid that their old stuff is going to be outdated.

That would severely restrict actual newcomers' ability to communicate with the community, so I don't know if that would be a good idea. I think that with SL's fairly steep learning curve at the beginning, it's important that newbies can ask for help through whichever channels they are able both on the forums and in-world.

As if they're attempting to speak with a scalding potato stuck at the back of their throat.

Scylla has a Norwegian-kink?! Gasps.

My first picture in ... Hours, actually, I updated my forum profile pic, too. But apart from that, 2 months?

How very dare you. Fact: Norwegians, to a Swede, sound like they're hiccuping their way through an orgasm when they speak.

You're getting such a bad rating on-- The uh. Rating thing that people apparently use. Whatever the heck that is.

I imagine you imagining my voice being all dark and sinister, hoarse and imposing.

I don't even know what half of those things are. Can I have some broiled marrow on toast instead?

Today I learned that you can put search words on the forums. As I told Beth, you're supposed to say my name three times!