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July 14th, 2008

10:44 am - Still a little ill. Okay... this made me laugh. You may not laugh as much if you're not a big mad Pokefan. SFW. The illness is still lurking around the edges of the fire I built to keep it out, but is on the way out. I'm not sure that illness is *all* bad, though. It certainly seems to fuel the creative fires. When cat_rant woke me with the phone from fevered sleep once upon a time I claimed that River Tam was my sister. Now I can go one better - she woke me from fevered sleep last week and I claimed that I went to school with Lex Luthor. Wow - I had the *best* early years. Maelstrom looms. My kitchen looks like a medieval snake oil salesman's den, with physreps for scrolls, ointments, crystals, packages etc. knocking around where we've left them handy for packing. I think I need to stop playing WoW now until after Maelstrom as well - Of my three projects, one is now complete (Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive.) Ran through Mechanar for the first time with guildmates from way back when last night as well - I'd really have liked to make it to the last boss 'cos I have this quest y'see. Never mind... girlfriend comes before game. Saw "Hancock" yesterday. It was pretty good if not stunning. Watched the first few episodes of "Ben 10: Alien Force" with Elliot. We're agreed that it's pretty damned good and will be watching more. Want to watch "Wanted."

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July 10th, 2008

11:31 am - Plz Gief Health Insurance... I have been stricken with "Upper Respiratory Tract Infection." My sinuses are red raw with pain and my throat is swollen. I am mainling codeine and antibiotics. In other news, I'm beginning to think that "Pushing Daisies" is the best show I've seen in the past five years. Anyone agree with me? Current Mood: sick Current Music: The Beach Boys - Cotton Fields

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July 7th, 2008

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July 4th, 2008

09:31 am - It's not so much that I wish I'd looked after my teeth... My teeth aren't *bad*. But by the same token they're not good. As a child I sucked my thumb. Until I was about ten. Which when you think of it was probably unwise and indicates something about me psychologically. But y'know. As a result I had buck teeth for a number of years. I wore braces, but before I left primary school I had my first teeth-related accident, smacking my protruding teeth off the head of another kid. As a result my teeth had to be reinforced. Over the next five years I lost bits of my front teeth a grand total of eleven times - I walked into a wall and smacked my teeth. I dived into a pool and smacked my teeth. I pulled open a Mister Freeze ice-pop with my teeth and pulled out the cap that was on my front teeth. As a result, my front two teeth are both capped. One has had the nerve removed and is noticably darker than my other teeth. In adult life I've had some fillings - Y'know, I think a lot of us have a fair few fillings. But my big bugbear has been my wisdom teeth. I had the top two removed by a student dentist who I happened to work with - They were getting in the way and not being cleaned properly because they were too far back. My lower wisdom teeth were the same, and were also partially erupted - They hadn't come up enough to be properly extracted by a dentist, so I went twice to the dental hospital to have one removed at a time. The second one I had removed got infected badly enough that I couldn't fully close my jaw about three weeks before I went to have it pulled, necessitating another trip to the dentist for, like, horse antibiotics. So it was with considerable joy that I felt a snap and a hard piece in my mouth where there shouldn't be one while eating a sandwich last Friday. Poking around in my mouth I discovered a small lump of tooth which had broken free from one of my back teeth - Seems it's been decaying under a filling without me knowing - which sucks. No pain there, but the break has left a sharp edge that's poking my tongue in an uncomfotable manner. So I've a dentists appointment at about midday today. Which *really* sucks. I don't like the dentist. As I said to an American friend, I guess I have "English teeth." Current Mood: nervous

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July 3rd, 2008

11:27 am - A little bit of Salvation... Today it is bucketing down in Dublin. Seems to me like we have a new seasonal pattern of a scorching May, a soaking wet July and a reasonable August. Which doesn't bode well for Maelstrom, two weeks from today. It's not blatting rain, nor drizzle, but a constant and inexorable downpour that's been going on all morning. The sky is that kind of gray that isn't ominous or threatening - It just is. Like the world has been swallowed into Limbo. The office decided to have breakfast sandwiches, and I volunteered to go out to get them in the car. In the sandwich place (small greasy-spoon place here in Sandyford - very "mom & pop" unlike the chain stores around here. They do the best breakfast sandwiches) I got chatting with the guy behind the counter about the weather. And he said "On a day like today, everyone's looking for a little bit of Salvation." And it occurred to me that that's pretty much what breakfast sandwiches taste like. Salvation between two slices of bread. Current Mood: happy

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June 24th, 2008

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June 23rd, 2008

09:05 am - Quick media recommendation... If you're a fan of "Sapphire & Steel" (and there's no reason why anyone reading this shouldn't be) then you'll be interested in the Big Finish audio plays based on the series. While I've previously reported these as fairly good (there's peaks and troughs - Some of them are stormingly good while others are a little lacklustre) I listened to "The Mystery Of The Missing Hour" last night. And it was dynamite. Absolutely bloody dynamite. So if you're a fan (and there's no reason why anyone reading this shouldn't be) then go find it and listen to it. If you haven't listened to any of the audio plays before, I recommend you listenh to "Daisy Chain" and "The Passenger" first. Current Mood: happy

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June 20th, 2008

09:19 am - Yay for miniLARP! Meg's miniLARP idea started off as a way of getting more LARPing in, outside of a con environment. It's sort of been hijacked into a nice way of practicing the craft of LARP writing in a "safe" environment and a good way for new LARP writers to find their feet before moving on to something bigger. Last night I played "Damn Trekkies" - Aoife's first LARP. And really really enjoyed myself. Being given a character one can personally relate to is always cool. Playing in a game which is, by turns, funny and tragic is rarer and cooler. But the star f the show was the Prop - The gelatinous alien life form in a cake box, made from lemon jelly and a bicycle warning light and clingfilm and tinfoil. Fantastic stuff that I think is going to stay in my mind for a while. And this brings me to my point for the day. In theater-style LARP, and particularly in the miniLARP form where the preconditions require that the people around the bar not know that these people around the table are playing a game, we tend not to see as many props as we do in other forms of LARP. So when small props are used they tend to have a major impact. I'll never forget kindermord's horde of papier mache natives (and not because they shouted and chanted and got in the way of my own game - they looked fantastic.) kindermord's story about the severed tongue made from strawberry flavoured Starburst is hilarious. Even going as far as sticking a fake elevator control panel to a wall can provide for a connection to the world of the game that boosts the imagination. We'e agreed that the miniLARP group will continue for a while longer, and that I'm up next. I'm not sure whether to go with the slightly more conventional "Project: Therianthrope", the "Doubt"-inspired "Project: Sliding Doors" or the left-field entry of "Project: Pervasive", all of which are named here so that I don't forget what I was thinking of running. More news as and when I decide what I'm doing, dear Reader! Current Mood: still blecch

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June 19th, 2008

10:25 am - I am full of fug... Caught a cold from cat_rant and it's all ew. Didn't sleep so well - possibly because I shoved a ton of tissue into one nostril so I wasn't leaking blecch into my moustache. Instead I slept with my nose closed and my mouth open and drooled into my beard. Waking up with one side of your beard damp and matted is rank. There's an image for ye all for the day :D I went to the Street Performer's thing at the weekend avec le boyo and le Cat. We had a stupendous time - It was generally fantastic. And the sun and fresh air and exercise I'm sure did me the world of good. We ran very briefly into broin and his missus, which was nice. The msot disturbing part of the whole thing was the 30ft inflatable pig with a show to be seen inside it. The show was for kids, who were made to wear pig tails and look in through portholes on the side of the inflatable. This would be less disturbing if the portholes weren't covered with ersatz nipples while the show wasn't in progress. That whole image is going to stay with me for a *long* time. WoW is ongoing. I'm researching the viability of replacing my "mostly quest rewards" hodge-podge of gear with a very rudimentary rep-reward set for my Warlock. I dunno... I'm loath to lose all that Spirit and a fair wodge of Intellect as a trade-off for Resilience, Stamina and a small upgrade in +spell damage. But the Internet seems to think Spirit's less than important. Non-patronising, non-bitchy comments welcome. I'm definitely interested in getting the equivalent set for my priest, when she gets that high. Mini-LARP this evening, which will be amusing, I think. My character nicely fits an aspect of my personality that I don't let out a lot. Not sure whether our host for the evening (Aoife) is going for laughs or not. I've ideas for two LARPs - one sort of pervasive and one about otherkin - that I want to run in that environment. So I'm guessing I'll be volunteering to be next up. Did I mention I'm confirmed for Leprecon and Warpcon next year, now? So that's another two big LARPs and maybe two small ones. One of the things that prevents me from doing the whole LARP-writing thing all year round is Ireland's lack of Summer cons (Conmel notwithstanding.) Someone needs to get with the big con in the Summer. And I'm terrified that the fickle finger of fate is pointing my way. New Portishead album. Hmmm. scintilla_tales and I have been talking Maelstrom again, hoping to get ourselves going to the July event. Maelstrom and WoW share a characteristic for me - The dearth of Things To Do. I find myself involved in both and at times lost in all the different activities I could be taking part in. My games design brain thinks this might be the mark of a good game. I'll have to remember that. Current Mood: leaking blecch

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June 12th, 2008

09:06 am - I have been remiss in my journalling... Sometimes I go through these periods of being quiet, y'know... Can't say as how there's any particular reason, but I seem to have gotten out of the habit. Need to sort that out, methinks - LJ is for me. So I can go back in time and read about what I was thinking and doing during periods of my life. If I don't keep it up then I can't do that. So what's been happening? Well... there's stuff I can't talk about because of policy - There's some stuff I don't talk about on LJ. There's personal stuff (did I actually mention here that cat_rant moved in?) I seem to have given Taps the shake again, motivated largely by the fact that emergencyfriend has walked away and without that special friend to play with it seems less of a place to frequent. The Taps void has been being filled by other stuff. I'm playing WoW a lot more now than I was a month ago. Also getting involved with a few other projects. Which I'll talk about in more detail in a few weeks ('cos I hate it when people talk on their LJs about secret projects.) Also Rock Band. Which I am still hugely enjoying. "Highway Star" on Hard Guitar is where I'm paused. Both it and "Enter Sandman" have crazy-assed solos that aren't easy. Once I'm done with Hard Guitar I'm going to hit the drums solo campaigns. I'm already playing drums in Ghostwritten (featuring ocultado on lead guitar, and we added cat_rant on vocals for our US tour) but I haven't gone too far in my solo career. In gaming news, it seems I managed not to submit anything to Gaelcon this year - I had some ideas, but I didn't think they'd let me run any of them so I kept them to myself. I *am* signed up for Warpcon and Leprecon next year, though. And I have a fairly strong idea of what I want to do with each one. The weekend looms large, and I was handed a leaflet this morning about a festival on in Merrion Square park - Apparently there's going to be a championship of street performers, and the leaflet gives details on each one. I have decided to bring cat_rant and the Huffer to it. Lastly - The car. I've had an oil leak for a while now, and had it looked at. The garage say it's a head gasket issue, so the engine needs removing to fix it. Which will be expensive. I've been procrastinating on it for ages but the NCT is due, so really it's a case of get a new car or pony up the cash. I'm still trying to decide what to do. Current Mood: satisfied Current Music: Deep Purple - Highway Star

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May 28th, 2008

09:52 am - Argh. Rock Band. New videogame late night syndrome. Oh how well we know thee. I am very tired today. Last night the lovely paperfl0wers and the equally lovely uomouniversale dropped over to say hi and chat and eat Chinese food. And we played Rock Band. Only three player - Being as how we don't have a second Rock Band-compatible guitar, but it was fantastic. We played Quickplay (as opposed to Campaign) and let whatever poor soul was doing vocals choose the track we'd play each time (on the grounds that it's bloody hard to sing a song you don't know.) For each song one person stepped back while the other three played some combination of drums/guitar/vocals. None of us can sing. To paraphrase an advert from the 80s - "You can't sing. You can't play. You look *awful*. You'll go a long way." (and "awful" here refers to uomouniversale's "My Name Is Earl"-esque character. If I was in a band with him for real I'd leave. No matter how famous we were.) Current Mood: pleased

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May 26th, 2008

09:56 am - Post Eurovision recommendation... Go find music by Sebastien Tellier. "Divine" (which he sang for France in the Eurovision) is a lovely track, and he seems pretty completely insane to me. Think... uhm... Takako Minekawa meets The Moog Cookbook. By way of Stereolab. Hmmm... The more I hear, the more I think I'm a really big fan of French electronica. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: Sebastien Tellier - Divine

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May 24th, 2008

10:24 pm - Mid-Eurovision Post - LIVE Some points... France's entry is my favourite. Combination of the women wearing beards and shades, and the frontman coming on in a space buggy in shades and a beard. I think it's pretty good this year, actually... Good entries. Elliot's becoming something of a hard rocker. His favourite is the Finnish topless crazies in the tight leather trousers. cat_rant votes for Norway. Craziest entry this year IMHO is Azerbaijan (sp?) - The devil and the castrato angel with the white contact lenses. Or possibly Bosnia/Herzegovina. Current Mood: happy

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May 21st, 2008

10:36 am - Two notes... Firstly - We're out of the Eurovision. This is by no means a bad thing. Looking forward to Saturday now. Secondly - As confirmed here, Russel T Davies is to be replaced as Executive Producer and Chief Scriptwriter of Doctor Who by Steven Moffat. On the one hand, Mr. Moffat has written some of the most memorable episodes of New Who so far ("Blink" is the standout.) And Mr. Davies is responsible for some of the less-cool stuff. Like the hamfisted "New Earth." But on the other hand, RTD is the guy responsible for bringing Who back from the dead. And for casting Christopher Eccleston. And for "Love & Monsters." So while the fandom is squeeing over how RTD is gone, I'm mourning the passing of one titan as much as I'm looking forward to the reign of the new one. Current Mood: pleased

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May 20th, 2008

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May 15th, 2008

04:28 pm - LARP stuff... So... mini-LARP this evening, courtesy of niamhybeag. Also... Is anyone aware of this movie (passed to me by the always-fantastic Silveno)? With a tagline like "Slay normalcy" I can't say I'm shivering in anticipation... Thoughts?

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12:22 pm - Prez Omg. John Tyler Hammons = Prez Rickard. Current Mood: amused

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May 2nd, 2008

10:22 am - Mini-LARP, chapter 2 and LARP report So last night was the second mini-LARP with me writing, and Meg, Aoife and niamhybeag playing. I'm going to write a long involved deconstruction of the game so that the LARP people amongst ye can get an idea of how I went about it and what I wanted to put across. Picture this as the "making of" documentary on the DVD :) ( Cut for the pleasure of non-LARP people ) Current Mood: pleased (still)

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09:26 am - Bookcrossing squee... Yes I know I'm only a baby bookcrosser, but I just had a little squee over a mail that I got as someone posted a journal on a book I left in a geocache a while ago. It's in the Czech Republic right now, being read. I'm totally going to go and drop some more books off over the bank holiday weekend. And I know a couple of good caches for doing it in. Geocaching rocks. Bookcrossing rocks. Current Mood: pleased

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April 22nd, 2008

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