Gary Gygax R.I.P

I blame today's sick day from work for me missing this news from yesterday until, well, just now.

Gary Gygax, father of dungeons and dragons and all things dice / geek related has passed away.

Pretty much most of the gaming and geekery I'm into is somehow tied to this man, so it felt wrong not to mark his passing away with a brief post, and a quote from the man himself:

"I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else."

Le Fat Bob est mort, vive le Titan !

Alas on my last holiday, my beloved Fat Bob passed away. Fat bob was, of course, the snowboard I picked up in 2002. Manufactured by K2, he had to endure my full bulk for six years, going from novice to advanced-intermediate, carving terrible turns to popping terrible jumps, and generally taking a nasty beating off several rocks and snow park features.

All of this finally cracked the metal edge around the edge of the board, which combined with a couple of gouges into the base caused water and air to get into the board-core. Being stored between seasons probably allowed this gap to expand, and so on the first day of boarding, Fat Bob broke down. Many drink were consumed in his honour, and I look forward to mounting him on the wall "trophy-style" in the future.

So as we say a collective goodbye to Fat Bob, we can now welcome the K2 Titan ! Having just waited long enough for the end of season sales, I can safely say I picked up this board for not a lot more than the original full price Fat Bob cost me. However, this is a higher level intermediate board, 2 cm shorter than Bob (166cm long), a little lighter but plenty more "pop and gnarlyness" integrated into it's honeycomb multi-core blah blah blah... actually I have no idea how good it is yet, but with snowboards, price is often the indicator, and this board is around the right price range for someone of my abilities. The slightly shorter length may cause me to curse it's lesser stability, but equally it may cause me to praise it's smaller form as I attempt to pull-off 180 jumps and ride switch.

Next week sees our group trip to Tignes, where I get to try the Titan out on hopefully some good conditions - well looks like it's sunny for the next few days, but on our first day of boarding, it's set to dump fresh sweet powder...