| Nice stuff |
[Jul. 20th, 2009|10:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relaxed | ] |
I've had some lovely times with my family this weekend.
We all went to Largs to see the Viking exhibition on Saturday and ended up joining in the RNLI fun-day. The highlight (apart from the big bouncy castle that Duncan spent silly amounts of time in) was the arrival of the Sea King. We weren't allowed into it, but it was cool to see it up close. They did some rescue training with the lifeboats too which was great to watch.
On Sunday we had a stay-at-home day. Duncan and I made banana bread to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) purple_witch's recipe, and later Dessie brought down his old bag of lego. Now, Duncan won't sit still for more than a few minutes usually. He was utterly engrosed in the lego for 2 1/2 hours. I've never seen him like it. He demanded it again today and was most upset when I asked him to put it away for bedtime. I think the age-old winner, wins again.
Dessie and I have been lamenting the lack of 2player games for the PS3, but today he managed to find one that's essentially Dead-Or-Alive, but with Darth Vadar! It's great. We played that for a bit tonight, followed by a few rounds of Anagram. Best game ever.
I've also been having fun swapping IC letters with Karnak. Who says Helena's a manipulative besom? Oh, yeah. Everyone. |
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| T minus nine months or so |
[Jul. 20th, 2009|08:00 pm] |
 So, what do you do if you have a very young actor playing a very old part? You stick him in fogyish clothes to simultaneously highlight and slight defuse the contrast.
You know what? I think the people that make TV's Doctor Who might just know what they're doing.
And I'm sure the hyper-violent shade of blue that the TARDIS has turned is something to with HD. And the St John's ambulance badge is back... because...
Anyway - if you look at the video on the BBC article- Why are the Beeb filming the people who're trying to take pictures of the Beeb filming? And who photos the filmers of filmer photgraphers?
- Is that opening shot a Leisure Hive homage or what?
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| Suddenly... |
[Jul. 19th, 2009|07:05 pm] |
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Hang on a minute - shouldn't it technically be 'ballfooters'? |
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| Interlewds |
[Jul. 19th, 2009|03:17 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | La Roux - Going in For The Kill. | ] |
Actually, that title has no meaning, but it's definitely a spellfecker candidate. Anyway, just randomly catching up - had lots of nice weekend stuff again, though the productivity counter is broken. Eh, I'll get caught up. Thursday saw Singstar and fun, Friday is a bit of a blank but saw plans for Wendyhouse firmed up and some clothes shopping where I got an awesome outfit I like, then we went to Leeds for Wendyhouse. I like it a lot and will probably want to come again as long as there are a couple of people there I know, as I really like the bar layout. Serve tea and it'd be perfection. Even had sensible parking nearby (ish).
Stayed with fuzzygoth who is an awesome host, thankyou :D
Fairly epic drive back due to the four seasons in one day nature of the weather. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 19th, 2009|04:27 am] |
It is very close to ten years since my mother died.
I still cry just at writing that.
I'm stuck, somehow. I spent a few years in denial and I'm still in anger; maybe it's just that I know how ridiculous bargaining is and can't actually get there. Then there's depression and then acceptance, which at this rate I might reach by the time I'm fifty, an age which Mum didn't quite reach. And I'm not going to intellectualise into models of grieving because I know that's one of my avoidance mechanisms.
I miss her. I feel like I don't remember her well and didn't know her as a person, and feel guilty because of that. I think she'd be disappointed in me. I think she expected more from me than what I've done. I think if I could talk to her now she'd tell me that was ridiculous and she just wants me to be happy. But I can't even do that.
I'm probably going to the cemetery with Dad. I should check trains because I would like to spend some time by myself as well.
I have checked trains and will not wind up stranded, which is good.
Dad said yesterday afternoon that he thinks of the date as the 18th. I think of it as the 19th, because I was woken early in the morning and given the news. I guess he was awake most of the night.
It took seven years to get her name on the stone. I'm still pissed off about that. Dad says... something about it seeming so final. Which, given that by then he had already remarried...
I am still. So. Angry. And of course I'm all kinds of twisted up over that, some of which is actually Mum's fault; because she wasn't perfect, but I don't care because she was mine.
Her dad died when she was a teenager. She was seeing Dad, maybe even engaged, when she was my age; married with two kids by the time she was my sisters' age (they're both married but don't plan on kids).
I'm a mess. And I miss her.
And now it's nearly five, which is roughly the time on her death certificate, so I'm going to lie down and pretend to try to sleep. |
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| Cityscape |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|06:34 pm] |
I went into town with Molly today for an amble and some comics purchases. I went to Static and saw that, over a year after D&D 4th Ed came out, they've finally started discounting large chunks of D&D 3.5 books - they had a few in before, but this time they had racks of them and I went a bit wild. I bought five hardcovers and a softback for £26 - including Races of the Dragon, Complete Psionic & Scoundrel, and Monster Manual III and IV.
Speaking of cheapo D&D books, I'd better review the last one I read before I move on to reading these ones, eh?
Cityscape: This book for 3.5 is much less crunch-heavy than some of the other environment books for 3.5, like Frostburn or Stormwrack - they seem to be full of spells, prestige classes and monsters, whereas this one has those in far smaller numbers and much more space set aside for the actual assembly of cities and the running of adventures within them. This makes it less useful as a PC tool (although there is still PC material) and more useful as a GM kit - some of which is useful in any fantasy game with urban environs. |
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| Ow. sodding typical. |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|05:42 pm] |
so there I am, working away on wasters.
razor-sharp chisels, planes, brace drill bits, saws, and so on...
so what do I cut myself on?
my own thumb.
yes, my own thumb.
turning the drill (hand drill) holding it with one hand, I manage to gouge the skin off my knuckle, with my other thumb.
Arse.
5 min break and back to a waster. |
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| Cat 1, humans 0. |
[Jul. 17th, 2009|08:25 pm] |
After three days of valiant battle to give a cat a pill, the cat has managed one final, definitive act of telling the Food Apes who is boss, and defeating their plans.
As we attempted for a new day, in case she would comply, and the Nth try to get a pill in the cat short of using a blowpipe, and she managed a swerve, and spat it out....
where it bounced once off the kitchen top and, in a perfect hole-in-one, rolled over the edge and down the drain with a perfect "plink" noise.
Homo Sapiens, opposable thumbs and all, defeated by Felis Belligerens. |
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| Damp thespians |
[Jul. 17th, 2009|06:22 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
We're off to see MacBeth in the Botanic Gardens tonight.
So, of course it'll been raining heavily since lunchtime. :) |
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| "It's Not Heroic": Or, Media Tropes Vs RPG Tropes |
[Jul. 17th, 2009|04:25 pm] |
Monday night was our first Traveller session at the Anime Nerds. More time was spent prepping our characters for the final steps and setting up the scenario than actually playing - it was fun enough, though, and I look forward to next week's session. But a particular line by Robert was interesting enough that I thought it was worth repeating and discussing.
When discussing PC histories, Robert was asked to reconcile a random roll which gave him a memory blank in the same year he met our team telepath. Our original group suggestion was that Mike's telepath character, a policeman for a fascist state, had blanked his memory of some secret he discovered - we went with something else because Robert's responce was that he didn't like the idea of being captured. "It's not heroic", he said.
( RPG Theory Nonsense Cut )
Thoughts are, as ever, appreciated on this ramble. |
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| OOTS |
[Jul. 17th, 2009|08:56 am] |
A lot of you already read the Order of the Stick.
If you don't then I recommend you do.
How and ever ..
today's strip has some interesting things to say about the nature of faith, religion and the human psyche.
I recommend it.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0669.html |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|11:45 pm] |
Apparently I have really strong feelings about Automatic For the People. Really, I'm as surprised as you are. I learned about these feelings this week while listening to Stereogum's Drive XV , in which various current indie acts cover the songs. I now have about four or five different versions of "Everybody Hurts" (Amanda Palmer's is my favorite) and have rediscovered my love of "Try Not To Breathe."
The reason all of this is kind of hilarious is I never bought the record when it was new. I liked R.E.M. well enough, and I probably picked the tape (CD? did we have CDs by then?) up and looked at it a time or two in Tower Records, but I always put it back. Though in 1992, it has to be said, I did not buy very many records of any kind, even of bands I loved. I was 17, I didn't have a regular job (outside of babysitting and mowing the lawn) and I think I mostly bought books, actually. Or hippie clothes. Possibly also embroidery floss. I think I may also have spent a lot of money on getting pictures developed.
It's kind of weird finding out what songs you get protective about. Karma Police is another one, though that is less surprising. (Stereogum has a similar cover/tribute for OK Computer .) Also Born to Run. I will tolerate a lot of messing about with, say, Metallica, but trifle with Springsteen and feel my wrath.
On a vaguely related note, do you know what grunge is good for? Drowning out assholes on the train, that's what. Particularly loud jackasses inexplicably taking pictures of each other. They weren't tourists. It was just Let's Turn the A Train Into A PhotoBooth! Day. And they kept playing musical chairs. I wanted to tell them all to sit down and stop it, please, for the love of god. And to shut up. Failing that, get the hell off my lawn. Instead I buried my head in my bag and turned up the Stone Temple Pilots. They were always a guilty pleasure.
That is also puzzling, on reflection, since I was unabashed in my affection for Nirvana and Soundgarden and anyone else with a fuzz pedal, really. Primitive Radio Gods floated up from my iTunes recently and I suddenly found myself appreciating those guitars all over again. Yeah, that phonebooth song was their hit, but overall Rocket, as a record, is superb. (And, Wikipedia tells me, now out of print. This is terrible shame.)
All of this just reminds me I need to get my boxes of CDs out of storage so I can find other hidden gems. Hmm. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|10:06 am] |
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An interview with Elizabeth Pesani who published The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS. Interesting stuff, and definitely a book I want to read. |
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