It's the last Sunday in September, it must be ASLOK time...

Or NOT!

Sadly my attendance at this year's ASLOK has had to be cancelled due to a combination of three events:

1. The failure of my PC in February and the accompanying expenses involved in rebuilding.
2. At the same time, I lost access to my primary Gmail account until last week, owing to password issues.
3. The main one, and the primary financial reason I could not make it: Multiple root canals, wisdom teeth extraction (surgery required) and some dental reconstruction. Cost so far? In the thousands, even with private health insurance.

I have pretty much given away 2013 in terms of ASL for now. There are big things planned from November onwards, but 2014 is looking like a bumper year for a return to ASL with the prospect of attending CanCon, JunoBear, ASLOK (finally) and what could be a new regular event for me to attend even after I attend my final ASLOK in 2016: The inaugural Asia-Pacific ASL tourney to be held in Singapore around the end of February.

More on that anon, for now I'm just glad to have recovered access to my email and blogger account, even if it is still via Tablet/iPad hell.

Goodbye Pre-orders

So that's it for pre-orders from MMP: the USPS rates and MMP shipping charges were always treading a fine line between what was justifiable and what could no longer be justified.

With pre-orders it was a necessity to pool orders in order to keep the shipping cost per item reasonable...but that option has been stymied for the future as the postage for more than say 3 or 4 scenario packs from MMP was seriously obscene.

Withe the 50% increase, it's no longer worth my while (especially once you factor in the overseas transaction charges, etc for making an order). So I've cancelled all my Pre-orders from MMP: particularly for the non-ASL boxed games where the postal charges were already ruinous at $50+ for the 2 Storm over.... games, the new postage will be more than the combined price of the games.

Rivers to the Reich and Best of  Friends will have to wait for another day...probably ASLOK. Festung Budapest will be ordered from Milsims. I am very glad I went on the pre Xmas splurge that I did.

Milsims will be seeing a lot more of my money, and I will probably increase the proportion I buy at ASLOK over the next three years.

The real spinner in this is that the new postal rates are almost certainly the death knell for the purchase of miniatures and other games from my usual suppliers like Fine Games, Noble Knight and Gamer's Armory, let alone picking anything up via eBay from the IUS. It will be interesting to see how Amazon's charges go up.