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My old Plustek Optibook Scanner appears to have died, it powers up but keeps dropping in and out, replacing the cable hasn't helped. The last four or five attempts were incomplete, and give it's upteen years old I think I'd sooner buy a new one than carry on trying to get it to work. I basically need a no-frills A4 USB scanner (don't have room for anything bigger), doesn't need to do anything fancy but if it doesn't add hugely to the price the ability to scan 35mm slides and film would be useful.

Anyone got any recommendations? I'm seeing Canon LIDE scanners around the £50 mark but I don't think I've owned anything they've made since the eighties.

A few days ago I was reminded of the "How David Weber Orders a Pizza" parody, In Ovens Baked by Roger M. Wilcox. Since it's now 25 years old I thought it might be fun to introduce it to anyone who has somehow missed it:

In Ovens Baked

Enjoy...

This is a new bundle of material for Heavy Gear 4th Edition from Dream Pod 9, an RPG with a focus on mecha combat.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Heavy4E

I might as well be honest - I'm not a huge fan of combat-centred RPGs and I personally think that the whole mecha genre is a bit silly. While this is being marketed as an RPG, I think it's fair to say that it's basically a mecha wargame with some RPG elements grafted on - the recommended time frame for this appears to be 15 minutes per game session. I'd imagine that most players do put in a little effort into role-playing as mecha pilots etc. as well as fighting, by e.g. trash-talking the enemy or a heart-rending dying speech, but it's definitely not where the emphasis lies.

I'm not really sure how this differs from early versions, but if you like the genre it looks like you get a fair amount for your money, including more than fifty pages of background before the rules begin, and it's reasonably priced. It's not something that interests me much, but tastes differ.

This is an offer of material for Pirate Borg, an offshoot of the Mork Borg rules focusing on pirates. The main Pirate Borg rulebook was in a 2025 offer, the rest is new.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/PirateBorg

In 2025 I said "It's a popular system, but my eyes and brain have a lot of trouble coping with the typography and layout this company prefers, to the point of getting a headache if I look at some pages too long, and I don't think it's for me. Those of you with less tired eyes ought to find a reasonably comprehensive system with a fair amount of potential." Unfortunately this still applies - my sight is not improving and the combination of garish colours and weird layout makes a lot of this material physically painful for me to read.

I went on to say "The price seems reasonable, but as always check what you actually want - if you already have some of this material it may be cheaper to get anything else you want as you need it, rather than buying the whole bundle." Again, this may still apply.

This is another bundle for the Trinity system, Trinity Aeon, which adds superpowers, psionics, etc.:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ContinuumAeon

Aeon was originally the first part of this system I saw back in the nineties, and it takes superpowers and turns them up way past 11 - most powers can be existential threats (to the human race, to the entire planet, or even the universe) in the wrong idiot's hands. What could possibly go wrong...? As this was developed originally as a White Wolf system there are lots of opportunities for "Oh no, I have literally godlike powers and I'm so unhappy..." moments, it seems to go with the territory. I remember finding it a little difficult to relate to when I bought the printed version in the nineties, but it's my understanding that this was improved considerably in the current edition and it's now reasonably playable.

This is a new bundle, the 2019 edition of the Trinity Continuum action/adventure RPG from Onyx Path Publishing core material. A 2019 bundle had the 1997 edition of the game (then published by White Wolf) but a lot has changed.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ContinuumCore

In 2019 I said "It's a long time since I've looked at this game setting; my impression of it was that it used a lot of White Wolf's general tropes such as multiple competing cliques, and looked like it would be fun but difficult to get into. Having looked briefly at the PDFs I still think that's still the case. But I know that a lot of readers out there will want to add to their White Wolf collections, and this seems a cheap way to do it. Recommended, but as usual I have to emphasise that I get these games free if I want them - if you don't your mileage may differ."

At a fairly quick look this looks a little more accessible than the original, though still probably a steep learning curve.

More for this system coming soon!

This is a bundle of material for Shadowrun Anarchy, a "rules light" version of the venerable Cyberpunk / Magic RPG from Catalyst Game Labs that emphasizes narrative over detailed task resolution.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/SRAnarchy1E

This is definitely something that Shadowrun needed, and although it's ten years old now I'd somehow missed it. I'm still not a huge fan of the setting, largely because it seems to try to pull in too many genres, but this looks like it might help to make the game more playable. Potential buyers should be aware that it's on offer now to promote a new second edition which is fully compatible but adds more rules etc., but given that this sells on the basis of being a rules-light version of a fairly chunky game adding more rules may not necessarily be the way to go. Given the price you're not risking a lot by trying this version first.

Due to the moon being behind a very large tree for most of the time I wasn't able to see much until 5AM or so, I then got a few pictures before it went behind more trees. This is probably the best of them

The rest of the photos are here, all much the same

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150868539@N02/albums/72177720335360349/

This should have been up yesterday, apologies for the delay - for some reason details of this bundle ended up in my spam folder rather than my inbox.

This is another bundle offer, not a game for a change - Kage Baker's "Company" series of time travel SF novels, thirteen books in all.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/KageBaker

I read this series a LONG time ago and enjoyed it a lot - several threads were left dangling when the author died, most notably what happens after time catches up with itself, but it works well anyway. I recommend it if you want some time travel fiction that avoids a lot of the usual cliches.

A fun feature of this series is that most of the characters are seriously addicted to theobromine aka the active ingredient of chocolate due to being genetically edited immortals with this quirk. When I hosted a book club meeting about the series I think I had seven or eight different forms of chocolate on the snack table...

Just a reminder that there's a partial Lunar eclipse on Friday morning, visible in Britain from 2.23 AM to 6.51 AM

Penumbral lunar eclipse begins	2.23am
Partial lunar eclipse begins	3.33am
Partial lunar eclipse maximum	5.12am
End of visible eclipse (due to the Moon setting below the horizon)	Moonset is at 6.15am from London, but moonset timings vary for different locations

This is going to be very near the horizon for the more noticeable parts, and I suspect not very visible from London, but if it's a clear night I might stay up for it.

Details at the Greenwich observatory web site

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/partial-lunar-eclipse-on-28-august-2026-how-see-it

This is a bundle of support material from several publishers in a variety of genres for the Daggerheart RPG system from Darrington Press. It doesn't include the game rules, and I don't think they've been in a previous bundle (or if they have I don't seem to have downloaded the files).

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DHCompatible

This is a difficult one to rate since I don't know the system at all. I understand it's pretty popular, it simply hasn't come my way. It looks like you're getting a lot of material in a lot of genres in this bundle, and if you like the game it's probably worth taking a look.

This is a new offer: the Blue Planet Recontact Bundle, featuring the 2025 (third) edition of the the popular SF RPG about colonisation and ecology on a distant water world.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Recontact

The new edition seems to have improved layout and art and draws on various new sources such as Avatar. The combat rules seem to be a lot less prominent - in the first edition they were a huge chunk of the book and seemed to be trying to have rules for every possible sort of injury - and in general it feels a lot more accessible. One thing that's still missing is an introductory adventure, something simple to get people started. There are a few guidelines on running one, but a little more would definitely help players and moderators who don't have much experience of the setting. That said, it's a classic game and one that has a lot of fans, and it's pretty cheap. If you like SFRPGs, especially with an ecological theme, it's definitely worth a look.

Has anyone visited my web site since Cloudflare was added last month? If so, did you notice any problems? For me it seems to be completely seamless so far, apart from one glitch with FTP which only affected me uploading files and was fixed in about four minutes, but I'm not trying to stress test it or anything - it ought to be a fairly quiet corner of the web with low traffic, which is why the repeated bandwidth problems were so surprising.

What I would like to know is if anyone has run into one of those annoying "prove you're human" things or anything of that sort while accessing pages, or anything of that sort. I _hope_ that that sort of thing only starts if there's heavy traffic.

Had an interesting time in Santander including my first visit to a lighthouse (not a good site for eclipse watching if you use public transport since the last bus back was before totality), the A&E of a hospital (pro tip - don't trip over granite sphere bollards in the dark and smash your face), and an eventual fun evening of eclipse watching at another site which was interrupted by cloud covering the sun about five minutes after the eclipse started - after that I stayed for a couple of hours of crowd watching, the fun moment when everything suddenly went dark, and a not so fun walk of about 3 KM to get the bus, since it turned out that the temporary bus route that got me there wasn't taking people back unless you went to the previous stop...

More when I've gone through the photos etc., might take a day or two since I have to sort out travel insurance etc.

Update - apparently the place I should have gone is Zaragoza in Aragon...

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260813.html

Update - My photos from the eclipse are here, for what they're worth. If you can identify plants or anything please add to the notes on the photos.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150868539@N02/albums/72177720335123940/

Sorry this is a bit late, I couldn't look at this properly while I was in Spain due to bandwidth etc.

This is a big bundle of 700 print and cut out portraits of NPCs (including monsters) with "system agnostic" information. The art isn't AI generated.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NPCDecks

You get a lot of art for your money, but a lot of it looks fairly run of the mill - if an AI was churning it out I'd describe it as extruded art product. Nearly all of it is intended for fantasy games, so not much use to me. The art for the exception, the SF pack, looks VERY derivative.

I think I have to pass on this, it isn't really of much use to me.

Another RPG bundle offer: the Frontier Scum Bundle, featuring the rules-lite Acid Western RPG from Games Omnivorous about guttermucked gunfights and bad decisions:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FrontierScum

I’m currently in Spain for the eclipse and have iffy bandwidth and no keyboard etc so haven’t been able to take a close look, so can’t really comment on it.

This is an all-new bundle for the Dungeon Age setting - the earlier bundle isn't needed to play it.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DungeonAge2

When the first Dungeon Age bundle was on offer in 2023 I said "I'm not a huge fan of the "old school" approach to RPGs but this looks to have some interesting ideas, and the price is pretty good. If you're running fantasy games it may be worth a look." I think that applies here too.

The last bundle of this week of GURPS is a repeat of the GURPS Horror bundle from October 2022

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Horror2026

Last time I said "It's GURPS, which means a very well-supported rules set with a ton of material out there. I wouldn't personally say that it's necessarily the best horror system out there, that's still probably Call of Cthulhu and derivatives, but it's got a lot going for it if you want to have horror as just one element of your gaming while sticking to a single rules set." I think that still applies - I still prefer Call of Cthulhu for most horror games and there's probably more innovative work being done for that system, but GURPS is one of its better contenders.

Another repeat GURPS bundle, last offered in March 2023

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Supers2026

Last time this was offered I said "There's a lot of material here - none of it has been in bundles before, and a lot of it is a bit specialized. But 4E has been around for a good while and may may already own the material in one form or another, so as usual the best advice I can give is to check what you need and what else is included, and decide if it's worth spending the money rather than buying individual PDFs." I don't see any reason to change that.

This is a crossover between the Harry Potter books, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series, and the film Bedazzled (1967, not the 2000 remake), with some other crossovers and Easter eggs, so far including Dogma (1999) and Time Bandits (1981). All characters belong to their respective creators / owners / megacorporations of doom and not to me, please don't sue...

( VIII - Bank Heist )

Comments please before I post to archives. Previous chapters are posted on these sites:

On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34251/MarcusRowland+Harry+Potter+Undazzled.htm
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14336114/1/Harry-Potter-Undazzled
On Archive of Our Own - https://archiveofourown.org/works/54407350

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Meme-Free Zone

And other lies by Marcus L. Rowland

Recent Entries

Flatbed scanner for Windows 11?

David Weber orders a pizza

Another SF RPG Offer - Heavy Gear 4E

Another RPG Offer - Pirate Borg

Another Trinity Offer - Trinity Aeon

Another Bundle Offer - Trinity Continuum Core

Another Games Bundle - Shadowrun Anarchy 1E

Lunar Eclipse Update

Another Bundle Offer - Kage Baker's "Company" Series

Reminder - Lunar Eclipse Friday!

Another RPG Bundle - Daggerheart Compatible

Another SF Bundle - Blue Planet Recontact

Any web site problems?

Eclipse update - Cloud stopped play

Another RPG bundle - Inkwell NPC Portrait Decks

Another RPG bundle: Frontier Scum

Another Fantasy Bundle - Dungeon Age 2

This Week's Last GURPS Bundle - GURPS Horror

Another GURPS Repeat Bundle - Supers

Fanfic - Harry Potter / Buffy / Bedazzled - Harry Potter: Undazzled - VIII