My name’s Rob Farquhar. I’m a game master. And the guy running this web log and writing the posts.
What else can I tell you about me? Well, to get a moment-to-moment idea, you can always check the “Personal” category of my web log, but here’s a broader summary:
Things I’m Digging
I owe this one to a conversation that Joel Zaslowsky had with Sarah Peck on Joel’s podcast, Smart and Simple Matters. They talked about the idea of asking someone you’ve met, instead of what they’re doing (i.e. how are they earning money) but what’s exciting them right now; what makes them keen to get up out of bed and face the day.
So what about me, then? What do I dig? What puts a smile on my face right now?
- My lovely dog Sookie.
- Star Wars: Force and Destiny, the tabletop RPG that I’m introducing some good friends to the hobby through.
- Stjepan Sejic’s incredible Death Vigil comic series, an action-packed tale of a group of immortal monster hunters. Great characters, lovely art awesome creature design and the kind of bad jokes only family can tell each other!
- Burnout: Paradise, a ten-year old car racing game just remastered for modern consoles. I loved it ten years ago and still do now.
- Things with cool machines and / or sleek futures in them. A dash of Star Trek, a pinch of Star Wars, a spoonful each of Macross and Homeworld, a cup of Doctor Who, another of Guardians of the Galaxy and another of Transformers, two cups of Iron Man and – oh, heck, just pour all three bowls of Pacific Rim, The War of the Worlds and Tron in there, won’t you? Yeah, the whole bowl of each.
Things I’ve Done
This includes some stuff that isn’t “done” done – in the sense of “finished” – but that I’ve set aside for now and may come back to.
- Built vegetable beds out of concrete rail sleepers and tractor tyres.
- Created and hosted two podcasts:
- The Paid to Play Podcast, an interview show where I chat with folks who earn income from what they love doing.
- Only In Death: The Secret Mission Logs of Kill-team Atromitos, a roleplaying game actual play podcast set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe and using the Deathwatch game rules.
- Spent a grossly disproportionate amount time reading rulebooks and sourcebooks for tabletop roleplaying games when compared to actual playing time.
- Co-hosted the Business Web Integrations podcast with Sydney web services consultant, Marcus Herstik.
- Worked on a science fiction action adventure novel.
- Painted miniature figures for the Infinity, Starship Troopers, WarMachine and Warhammer 40,000 game lines.
- Hosted a live-to-air radio programme for a Cairns community radio station.
- Got involved with a couple of clans to play Halo 3 across Xbox Live. (Ahh, the good old days…)
- Took Latin dance lessons.
- Acted on stage with an amateur theatre group.
Vickie
If you’ve seen earlier versions of this “about” page, you would have seen that, at the top of my “Things I’m Digging” list, I had “My lovely wife Vickie and our dog, Sookie.”I also described Sookie as “my second-biggest fan” in the picture of us at the top of the page.
While I still love Vickie, she is no longer here for me to dig, nor to be my biggest fan.
Vickie Farquhar passed away on April 10th, 2019. She was seventy-six. She left behind five kids (all of whom are older than I), eleven grandkids and a great-grandchild, as well as one husband.
I miss her every day.
