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Monday, October 17th, 2005
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10:01 pm - Powerless
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Thanks to Scottish Power pissing around, we ran out of electricity on Friday. Completely. I know that happens every time there's a power cut, but when you can't say for certain if the power will come back on in the next few days it becomes a bit more unnerving.
There's always a risk with prepayment meters: that you'll forget to put any money on the damn thing and everything falls over without warning. But I don't even have the opportunity to forget to recharge mine, as due to some conflict between the information of the suppliers, they still haven't got a new charging 'key' to me. As the guy who reset the meter had to take the old one we were left keyless, expecting Scottish Power to send a new one. Down to a few pounds worth of juice in the tank, I phoned them up, and they said they'd push through the problem. They could also arrange for a guy to come around to put some more credit on to tide us over. Unfortunately the guy can only be summoned if the credit is already below 50p (which, as anyone who has had a prepayment meter will attest, might last half a day, if you go easy on cups of tea) and if you can guarantee that you can be in all day. Not useful if you, y'know, work. Needles to say these conditions make it quite difficult to get any credit put on your meter this may; Unless you run out of credit on Saurday, you're pretty fucked, and if you happen to be out on Saturday you're similarly shafted. The latter eventuality could well be realised if they don't get it sorted pretty bloody soon, as we've got a wedding to go to on this Saturday.
This could get complicated.
current mood: okay
current music: Alphaville - Big In Japan
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| Sunday, October 9th, 2005
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12:52 pm
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Got to see Serenity yesterday. I won't give a review or a rundown as I am entirely incapable of objective analysis, loving Firefly as I do. Suffice to say it didn't disapoint. I ended up going to see it by myself, something I haven't done in ages, but that wasn't so bad; it was just me, and the film , without having to worry that whoever I was seeing it with did not share my extreme glee.
I hear Freshers' Fair was a bit of a letdown. I saw photos of the hall and I could see floor. Shocking. Can't say it wasn't entirely surprising, given that there is now not enough union leadership for societies to organise its way out of a paper bag, but I just hope there's not going to be a year of first years socialising with, god help us, people in their colleges... ;)
Oh, and that's right: No, I can't let go. As I have no actual community to be a part of here, I still feel very attached to society goings on in Lancs. In exchange for me loitering, I will still contribute -  almighty_weasel has asked me to send material for OtherSide (the high fantsy LARP system I was writing) to add to Lurps' array of systems it can run. In order that I have something creative to do to prevent my job turning my brain to jam I have accepted, and have actually got myself inspired to write material for it again. This does, of course, have to share processing space with flashes of inspiration I get for yet another LARP system I'm planning (a very low fantasy dark-ages affair provisionally called Scaedu) and plot for the NaNo I'm planning. I'm not a writer, I just keep having ideas for worlds. I'm concerned that these inspirons (inspiration particles) could be made better use of by someone who actually is a writer, for which I am sorry. ;)
Work continues to be Not Bad, with spells of extreme tedium when I've done all the data entry stuff I need to do and I am forced to check over statements to keep busy. I grow concerned I may just be working myself out of the job...
___
Also, I did that Allignment test with the horrensously extensive pastable segment that's doing the rounds. I can't be arsed with the lengthy pasted section, but it put me slap bang in Lawful-Neutral territory. Truly the Alignement of champions. Shiftless, cold-hearted champions, but champions all the same ;). (Incidentally, do any rp types who read this know whether the bits of background were from the Planescape setting? The tone of the descriptions didn't feel much like the D+D I know and loathe - Could this be a D+D I could get on with?)
current mood: busy
current music: Audioslave - Show How To Live
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| Friday, September 23rd, 2005
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8:52 pm - Now with added employment (must remember to X-post!)
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Somehow, I appear to have acquired a job. Don't know entirely how it happened (so quickly), but I was phoned this morning by Reed, on whose website I had recently registered to aid the search for a job. Now, I was under the impression that I was using their service to the full, but one of their people phones me up first thing this morning and asked if I wanted to come down the office and see about registering for their actual temping service. Or something, I'm a little hazy on the details.
Anyhoo, I say I can come down to the office today, and so I do, not knowing exactly what to expect. They gave me a data entry test (which I sucked at) and a test on use of Word, which was really arbitrary and not friendly to people who can learn by experimentation. The results of these tests they proceded to ignore and offered me a job place as a data entry monkey at a hospital in Gosforth. Okay then...
It's not wonderfully paid, but the hours are decent, and it's only for a few months. I've been trying to work out exactly how much money the government are going to take, but National Insurance contribution is stumping me, so I think I'll let someone else worry about it.
Was away down south last weekend, sadly not under the most happy of circumstances, as we had the funeral of Calephetos' granny. Nonetheless, we made something of a short break from it. I got to see bits of London I've not seen before, including ol' Camden Town, the Globe and the London Eye. Only one of the above locales featured gentlemen standing around on street corners going "Gange. Gange." Can you guess which? I had hoped to spend a bunch of money I don't have in Camden's music shops, but it was horrendously busy, and I really could have done with being shown some good places by someone in the know. In the end, however, it's a good thing I kept my money, as it turns out that Guildford itself has a really fine second hand vinyl place, which I cleared out of a large armful of records, including Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan and The Smiths' first album. Marvelous.
The funeral itself went off okay, although the day involved about 6 hours of travel and half an hour of some surprisingly current Christian preaching. By that I mean the modern Alpha course-esque stuff that encourages the listener not to trust in their own strength of mind, or wisdom of how the world works, and trust only in Jesus to get you through. I may be not grasping the subtleties, but I find the whole "Trust in The Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding" (Matthew, or Proverbs, I forget) to be entirely at odds with my view of the world. Each to their own, etc.
Now, to go do something constructive with my free time before it is cruelly taken from me.
current mood: good
current music: Nirvana - Lake of Fire
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| Sunday, August 28th, 2005
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10:09 pm - "Ice-cream boy, bowl for me"
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Never liking to do something just because everyone else is doing it, I'm pained to admit that I, like so many up and down the country, have been converted to the civilised joys of cricket. It might be just because we appear to be winning for once, or maybe because it's everywhere you go at the moment - all of which cheapens this change of heart terribly - but I have gone from not caring at all for the game to loving it in the course of a few weeks.
(Sadly, although I can (and will) talk on my discovery, either you'll appreciate cricket already and this will all be old news to you, or you won't give a monkey's about the sport and nothing I say could probably sway you. Never mind.)
A few aspects in particular have peaked my interest. Firstly, there's a lot to be said for a sport in which a player feels the need to issue a press statement apologising for looking outwardly peeved after he was dimissed. That's one of the things that won me over: how bally civilised everything is. This aspect of true sportsmanship sets the tone for pretty much everything else that I've discovered about the game.
Another point of interest is the the characters of the players come into play a great deal. The way that the game's played means that a lot depends on how these personalities play off against each other. What's more, you really feel that, as the match developes, a story is developing with it. It's late, so I'm probably not expressing this as well as I'd like, but you get where I'm coming from.
Also, there's a break in the afternoon for tea, and ocaisionally crumpets are brought onto the field for between-over snacks.
I stand by some of the things that I've always maintained about the sport: It's rules are opaque, and five days is a very long time for a match of any sport to last for. I can now, however, see the counter arguments for these - the rules, although less than elegantly constructed, are all there for reasons that become clear; and the match length allows for fantastic, well, character development.
In these days of Yob Culture, with football as it's undoubted sporting face, I think it's high time cricket climbed to the fore as our nation's game. It presents to the world a vision of English activity very far removed from the yobbishness and thuggery that people in other countries increasingly think of whenever someone mentions the English.
Tea and crumpets, anyone?
current mood: calm
current music: Placebo - Swallow
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| Sunday, August 14th, 2005
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12:06 am - And so it came to pass...
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The scene: A plush put functional Roman military tent. CAESAR HADRIANUS stands over a map. Enter TRIBUNUS TENENS.
TENENS: Ave Imperator. I seek to offer counsel on the construction of The Wall.
HADRIAN: Speak, Tribune.
TENENS: Well, It's like this, o Caesar. You know how it has been planned that The Wall be built in pretty much a straight line, through some rather hilly terrain.
HADRIAN: Of course. Straight lines are admirable.
TENENS: Maybe so, but building the wall in this way gives rise to some steep ascents.
HADRIAN: Get to the point.
TENENS: Well, I speculate that one day, millenia from now, people will try to ride along its length on wheeled contraptions that they operate by pushing on pedals, and that by making The Wall curve with the contours of the hills more [indicates to map] it will be a lot less effort to ride along, instead of dragging themselves up and down hills for miles. Thus they will praise your name.
[pauses]
Oh, and also it will be easier for manuevers and easier to build.
HADRIAN: No! Straight lines, I say! Besides, I'm not sure I like the sound of these wheeled riders... Better that they curse my name and us have a nice straight wall, I say.
___
So, yeah. Fuck you Hadrian.
And it rained. At least my front wheel hasn't fallen off yet, though it will.
Also Note Bene my new "Link of the Day", inspired by a link so fantastic it needs to be shared with the world.
Link of the Day: Hillbillies! (needs sound)
current mood: tired
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| Saturday, August 13th, 2005
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9:45 pm - On recent events
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Okay, I feel The Internet and it's denizens probably deserve to know what's been going on lately. Just a little late Xposting to blurty, who I refuse to abandon.
In short (and that's all you're getting, as I am lazy) Newcastle have told me, after what seems like months of emailing around, that they aren't going to fund me. Oh poo.
All is not lost however, as the scrabbling around for studentship places continues apace. There is one particularly sexy post in Durham that I'm pursuing concerning the physics of ultracold molecules (Bose-Einstein condensates and the like) that I'm way more qualified for than the other potential candidate. What? Unless sie's already done a project on how to do operator formalism on the things, I am.
It's technically done in the chemistry department, which doesn't really bother me so much. It's quite entertaining to see just how many of the chemistry PhDs you can get onto with a good degree in physics, compared to the number of physics PhDs you can get onto with a good degree in chemistry... Smirk.
current mood: okay
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| Friday, July 15th, 2005
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11:14 pm - Addendum:
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Oh yeah: I graduated on Monday as well!
Oops. Forgot. I know it's quite significant and all, but I've had a lot to think about recently, 'kay?
The day itself was very warm. So warm I had to forgo my jacket underneath the robe, on the logic that, while it wouldn't look so good, it would still look a lot better than collapsing of hyperthermia. I was slightly disappointed that my degree was not confered by Archchancellor Bonnington, recieving it as I did from the rather limper and less memorable Pro-chancellor. Oh well.
current mood: happy
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1:34 pm
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I should probably update this damn thing then...
As with most updates I do after a haitus, I'll use point form:
* Got a house: It's a Tyneside flat in Fenham, to the West of Newcastle centre. It's not wildly handy for town, but it's doable by bus or train, and it is nearer to more pleasant greener bits. The flat is unfurnished, which is what we wanted, and has enough rooms that myself and H can have a study each, which is an unexpected bonus. Christ, in one weeks's time we'll have actually moved in, for better or for worse. Sorry, but it keeps dawning on my every so often.
We're slowly getting our act together though. I've even found lots of postcards that I can use to cover up the Disney Princesses Looking Coquettish border that is on display in my study. I'll either have to get used to the rest of the decoration (pink!) or cover as much of the walls up as possible in posters. It'll make the room look studenty, but I might as well live the lifestyle for as long as I can.
* Getting things organised: Got a moving date set in next Wednesday. On which, the letting agents here will come around, tut over the house, and possibly charge us money; the removal men will take all our boxes to the other side of the country, and charge us money; and the letting agents at the other end will give us the keys and, that's right, charge us money. If you heard a scream near the beginning of that paragraph, that was my bank account having some of its last moneys ripped from it. This process is costing more money than I thought was possible. The removal men alone are going to cost more than I 'make' in a month.
* Finally, I'd like to belatedly congratulate the people and administration of London. Firstly, for winning the olympics, and secondly, for proving that the British stiff upper lip is the best weapon against terrorism. Relative to, say 9-11 or Madrid, the attack caused little disruption, little fear and, without wanting to belittle the plight of families, small numbers of dead (compare with hundreds in Madrid and thousands in Manhatten). Mutterings about "Well, this is fallout from Iraq, yadda yadda" were also kept to a minimum. In short, none of the possible aims of your attack were really achieved. Now piss off.
current mood: anxious
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| Tuesday, June 21st, 2005
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9:35 pm - Jump-snap heels in, right leg round back, spin 180...
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Being, of course, the first few steps of my unique Dance of Joy. Justified, for I have been informed that I have attained the grade of 2:1, perhaps the noblest of degree classifications.
Things are starting to look a little clearer already.
current mood: Got dancing feet
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| Monday, June 20th, 2005
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9:26 pm - Heated
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Been meaning to update for a few days now, but apathy and lethargy have been making too many demands. Also gnawing fear over my results never helps matters. I'm trying my best to live in a state of not giving a damn. I can work on caring about a PhD all over again in the intervening time between getting successful grades and actually starting it.
Cooling down now from the heat(and humidity)wave we had over the weekend, which resulted in sleepless nights, clammy skin, and me stepping outside to take part in Execémon and thinking "Fantastic! I'm going to spend all day running around in a sauna!". And when the sun shone it was even worse. Regardless, I managed to scrape a win, tying with Holly with two columns completed but winning on points (bonus 3pts for 3/5 Exec first finds). I congratulate her on giving me a run for my money. I fear, however, that my prize may in fact be a choice between vhs copies of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. That's okay, I'd prefer to have my face eaten off.
Talking of face-eating, Mike was disturbing me the other day with his new house, specifically it's basement (the link will become apparent). On Saturday, after weighing me down with sausages left over from the bbq that he would have optherwise chucked, he showed me how he was getting along with cleaning up his basement. Apart from the darkened entrance to a chamber full of dirt and junk (which was clearly a ghoul-hole, which, if one were to stick one's head into to investigate, would clearly lead to having one's face eaten off) the rest of it seemed pretty servicable, and not at all creepy. As it is an old Victorian town house, the basement was probably some sort of work area or something for servants. Yeah, that sounds right. Looking at it in this frame of mind you can speculate about some of the fixtures: the ghoul-hole could sleep several people comfortably, or make a good larder, the stone table was probably used for food preparation, or, without it's top, as a base for a spit, and the hooks in the ceiling for hanging foodstuffs. The other bit of the basement has what looks like a kiln, which I'm sure had some kind of use.
It doesn't take much to see the same things in an entirely different light, however. Mike drew my attention to the strange holes that surround the room: bore-holes of some kind, 1-1.5cm in diametre, of indeterminate depth, every few centimetres along the line of the floorboards above, and 10-30cm below it, positions almost entirely without pattern. What could have caused them? They are surely to small to have acted as holes for any sort of floor-support, also far too random for even the most incapable house builder. Mike jokingly suggested that they would be the right size to allow the ingress of wasps, or some unfamiliar dangerous insect held captive inside the wall cavity until the time was right. Clearly, both Mike and myself have been playing in too many occult horror games, Kult, Unknown Armies and the like, but it does start the mind off looking at the rest of the room with a different perspective: the floor of the ghoul-hole is dirt, not stone. Things can be buried in dirt. The base of the stone table could not have been used as the base for a spit, as there is no 'fire pit' structure, or any sort of chimney. From the plinth, we look up and see the hooks. We now note that these are not open, as food hooks would be, but mostly closed, in a way that suggests that anything they hooked onto could only be easily taken off deliberately, ie. not knocked off by accident or by struggling. Further suspicions are arroused by their number and position - five of them, arranged so that, if one were to lie on the slab, legs and arms akimbo, there would be a hook over each leg, each arm, and one's neck. Even a perfectly innocent explanation for this arrangement will not explain the four sturdy loop-bolt things sticking out of the nearby wall, at approximately arm and leg positions. There is also the kiln. Why would such a household need a kiln? And why would it be hidden away in the cellar? It does not seem a sensible location for it, unless it's use required immediate and protected access to the activities of the other chamber...
Sorry to go all Lovecraft on people, but the upshot of all this is that I suggested that Mike not use the room as some kind of stoner den - the horrors the mind could produce if the room were hotboxed, as was his plan:
"Anyone want a drag of seeping paranioa?", asked Aki.
"Me please", says the face-eating ghoul.
Anyway, it's getting late, the upstairs is feeling uncomfortably warm again, my fridge is full of embezzled sausages, and I'm getting tired.
Night all,
Sweet dreams.
PS. Go see Batman Begins. It will rock your ass off. If it doesn't, I suggest you get yourself a new ass, as yours may well be defective.
current mood: contemplative
current music: Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
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| Thursday, June 16th, 2005
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10:15 am - I am the Meat Fairy, and I bring you... *MEAT!*
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By whatever form of deliverance, the weather for the LURPS barbeque actually turned out half decent. Good turn out too, with people, meat, music and booze aplenty. Actually drunk enough to become 'merry' for the first time in a while, and my head spent a short while this morning reminding me that I'm not used to that kind of thing any more.
A good time, I feel, was had by all, and did feel a great pride in the society, and it's willingness to brave uncertain weather.
Anyway, yes: me man. me make of the fire and eat of the meat. and clean up of the rubbish by the light of a flaming torch. Now I need to go have of the shower and shave of the face.
Glingle glingle glingle
current mood: thirsty
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| Wednesday, June 15th, 2005
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9:51 am - Bad Dream
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For the first time in ages last night, I had what I would consider to be a Bad Dream, ie. one that I do not feel in control of on some level. Actually, it was 2 bad dreams, with a break in the middle.
In the first, I was sitting this strange freeform exam, on some branch of physics that I didn't recognise. Communication appeared to be permissable in this exam, so long as you kept reasonably quiet. The first part of the exam was, bizarrely, some kind of creative piece, so I hoped to try for most of my marks on that.
In the second dream, I was called for a viva in the room that was used for our presentations. For some reason, all of the department's research and lecturing staff had turned up to grill me. Some guy I didn't recognise asked me a question about a law I didn't know existed named after a guy I hadn't heard of. I guessed it was something to do with optics (or thermodynamics - for some reason my brain fused the two) but then ran away to the physics library to look the law up, presumably leaving the staff waiting for me to get back and explain where I had run off to.
It was really a standard, out-of-the-box, unpreparedness dream, but it unnerved me all the same.
I can, however, steady my nerves by watching several hours worth of pay-per-view while I tape up boxes - watching greased muscle-men hit each other for hours can set anyone straight.
...erm, yes.
Oh yeah, the lyrics not successfully identified from the previous lyrics quiz were:
#5 Smashing Pumpkins - Bodies
#6 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Venice Queen
#9 Queens of the Stone Age - Mosquito Song
#10 Flogging Molly - Screaming at the Wailing Wall
current mood: anxious
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| Sunday, June 12th, 2005
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4:40 pm - What the guî? *
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The next door neighbours (taking a break from shouting at each other), appear to have knocked down most of the connecting wall between our yards. Oh. I wonder what our landlord will have to say about that? They did say that they'd be doing some work and may need to get into our yard, and that there'd be some banging, but I didn't exactly expect this. Bèn bùtîtiede' hóuzi'. **
Oh, yeah. Also in my new-found ample free time, I have been teaching myself select obscenities in Mandarin, a la Firefly. Sad, I know, but I ran out of episodes a couple of days ago and I'm getting withdrawl. Hence the practice here.
What I should probably do nowis get back to the write-up I'm making of the setting and plots for the Unknown Armies games I've been running. Trouble is, as anyone who's seen my notes will atest, I rarely put thoughts down in any ordered fashion; random npcs' names are jotted down on the nearest bit of paper to hand, important information is scribbled down in work-books next to the odd bit of physics, and the whole setting is spread out like a spider-diagram that extends through space and time.
On that note, I better get back to it.
* What the hell?
** Stupid inconsiderate monkeys
current mood: surprised
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| Friday, June 3rd, 2005
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3:23 pm
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Don't worry Blurty, I still love you. Even though everyone (including me) has jumped ship to lj and my friends list has only one or two people on it I'll still keep cross-posting to you as well...
A few items of note:
* Was my 23rd birthday last Saturday. Didn't really impinge on me much, and I was entirely happy for it to be Dodge's day, who's surprise birthday party went off well. My birthdays of late have felt a lot less significant than they used to be. I suppose this could be because I don't feel like another year has really made much difference to me. As Glorgana said, I'm pretty much just as she left me. Should I be worried that my personality is not evolving, or should I be grateful that my sense of self is stable? The me that is now and the me that once was both agree on the latter.
Also, considering that perceptions of the passage of time decrease when you get older, this it probably another reason that birthdays, and christmas, etc, feel less significant as time goes on. There must be some way of working out meaningful markings of how much life you've lived... I'll work it out and get back to y'all.
* Had to present then defend my project this week. That was a pile of fun. On Tuesday we had the fun of the fourth year mini-conference, where I talked through the latter half (more like latter quarter) of the project. Even then, there wasn't time for anything other than an overview, and I even managed to slightly overrun just with that. I felt my slides where a little slapdash (there is no easy way of turning a latex-typeset document into a decent-looking presentation) and I was a little flustered in my performance, but the grades I caught sight of over the markers shoulder (accidentaly!) were pretty good.
The next day was my project viva day. This, I must point out, is not the grade boundary deciding viva that may or may not happen in June, but the equivalent of a proper PhD viva, where the supervisor and the second examiner sit back and watch you fudge and fumble your way through your reasoning. The whole process is the accademic equivalent of being ganged up apon and jabbed with cattle prods. Having said that, I don't think it went all that badly. I did however, end up goading Falko into continuing the questioning, something like
Him: "Okay, I think you've been tortured enough now"
Me: "Oh, don't let me stop you, if you're having fun"
They obviously were.
* Went to Preston yesterday to spend some birthday money. Shopping trips are so much more fun when you actually have money to spend on things...
Walked away with a big bagful of presents for myself (including a new bag, as the one I was using decided to stop working), including various cds and dvd sets. Sadly the market was dissapointing; none of the stalls I was particularly looking for were there, and I was unable to pick up a power cable for the gamecube I picked up off Adam. Turns out a gamecude power lead is not an easy item to come by, as they are not shipped as components, so the only way one might become free is when a camecube breaks down. Which happens never. Stupid reliable console.
current mood: good
current music: Nine Inch Nails - No, You Don't
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| Thursday, May 26th, 2005
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10:43 am - Lyrics Quiz
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Because everyone else appears to be doing it, which is as good a mob-mentality reason as any. So, ten sets of lyrics, possibly arranged, not necessarily in order of difficulty, more vaguely in the order of how impressed I'll be if you get them right. As usual, no googling, and I'll edit when correct guesses are made.
First one's dead easy, and you only have to say where it comes from:
Take me out, into the black,
Tell them I ain't coming back.
Burn the land, boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me.
- Firefly theme, guessed by Erfalaswen and Weasel
Next one's a dead give-away as well:
legt sich schmerzend auf die Brust
das Gleichgewicht wird zum Verlust
lasst dich hart zu Boden gehen
und die Welt zahlt laut bis zehn!
- Sonne, by Rammstein, guessed by blue_eyed_son (lj)
Who's gonna teach you how to dance?
Who's gonna show you how to fly?
Who's gonna call you on the lame-dope-smoking,
Slackin' little sucker you are?
- Powertrip, by Monster Magnet, guessed by blue_eyed_son (lj)
Yeah, all the stars drip down like butter,
Promises are sweet.
We hold out our pans, lift our hands to catch them.
We eat them up, drink them up, up, up, up.
- Let Me In, by REM, guessed by blue_eyed_son (lj)
Cast the pearls aside,
Of a simple life of need.
Come into my life forever
I know you said you don't believe
In God; we used to disagree.
Now that it's time for you to leave,
G-L-O-R-I-A
Nothing on the top
But a bucket and a mop
And an illustrated book about birds.
- Plateau, by The Meat Puppets (covered by Nirvana), guessed by blue_eyed_son (lj)
Are you hungry? Are you sick?
Are you begging for a break?
Are you sweet? Are you fresh?
Are you strung up by the wrists?
- We Suck Young Blood, by Radiohead, guessed by blue_eyed_son (lj)
And in a similar theme:
Cutting boards and hangin hooks,
Bloody knives, cooking books
Promising
You won't feel a thing
At all.
With the bombed out cars
Come the falling stars
From a heaven we'll never know,
And the nameless names
On the misspelled graves grow tall...
Good luck.
Proper update at some point.
current mood: chipper
current music: Now wouldn't that be a giveaway
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| Monday, May 23rd, 2005
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10:31 am
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Curses. Just got myself psyched up to pick up my coursework marks, which I believed would include the marks for the project report (a large chunk of grade). They did not, however, containing as they did only the marks for the homeworks, and I've known those for ages!
Anyway, I got to see Revenge of the Sith yesterday, which was nice.
( My thoughts )
During the trailers, H was shocked and horrified that Batman now features mystic kung fu training on a mountain, but I think she's just put out that they've not got Tim Burton back to do this one.
;)
current mood: okay
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| Saturday, May 21st, 2005
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8:01 pm - Kill or Cure methods
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I decided this morning to push through the cold that's been loitering around my head and throat and go to the live at the ashton, for the first time in ages. My legs are politely informing me that they do not appreciate this gesture. My own silly fault I guess; instead of the set encounter list style of play, today we pretty much just had to harrass the party as appropriate monsters all day, while they attended to other problems. During the afternoon, I decided that what the party really needed was to be stalked by a scout with through-from-behind and a kean survival instinct. This meant that I didn't stop moving all afternoon. I did embarrass myself a couple of times (or I would have if anyone else was around) by entirely loosing the party... Er... The worst example was when I was lying in wait for the party to move out from behind a copse and move onto the next plot point. After about twenty minutes I got suspicious, and realised that they'd vanished off without me noticing. Um. They're going to take away my Scout License for sure...
The event was slightly marred by the unexpected return of a certain person, who's name went before him. Regardless of what anyone may say, he is not better than he used to be and I did still want to bludgeon him on average every half an hour. But we will not go there, as Weasel would say, for it was a fun adventure all the same. Let's just hope it had the affect of helping me shake of the cold, instead of making it, say, move to my chest.
On another note, Doctor Who tonight was most fine. Definitely the best so far this series. It was Who as you like to remember it, ie. unnerving and genuinely creepy at times, lightly flavoured with a bit of the postmodern seasoning that they're fond of now.
*shudder*
Gasmasks...
current mood: Slightly sore
current music: The Smiths - This Charming Man
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| Friday, May 13th, 2005
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9:47 am
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I love my players.
They've got such a good repartee going that I barely have to do any prep for my Thursday game (although it's helped by the fact that I've had the background ready for months now); I can just turn up, set them going, sit back and eat my dinner, as they argue, plot, and foil each others' plans. I occaisionally interject with "the phone rings", or I throw some plot at them. Plot, I must point out, that they are working very hard to ignore. They're all very concerned with the apocalypse that Craig's been working on, and ignoring any other apocalypseis that may or may not be in progress.
I would also like to extend my esteem to El, for bringing the wonders of Firefly into my life. I would then like to shake my fist in her direction for withdrawing my supply just when I'd got hooked... Still, her perrogative, and I'll have birthday money soon, which may well get spent on excellent sci-fi.
current mood: content
current music: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Walkabout
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| Monday, May 9th, 2005
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9:58 pm - Factors
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When making big decisions, one should open oneself up to all facts. So here's quite an significant one:
Newcastle just gave me a PhD offer.
It's not the be all and end all. I still need to decide if I want (/deserve/can cut) a PhD, and if I'd want to do it in Newcastle. There's also the matter of not flunking the entire degree, which is far from certain. A good paper tomorrow would put my mind at ease somewhat.
current mood: thoughtful
current music: VAST - Touched
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| Saturday, May 7th, 2005
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5:30 pm - Uncertainty
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I have not updated in a long time, even by my standards. There are reasons.
Unrelated to them, Mish was back for a bit this last week, which was nice. I feel it was all too brief, however, as she had a rather tight schedual, too tight to spend any real non-rushed time with anyone, and she's off again, not to return for another 16 months.
This seemed like a long time, until I considered that years aren't as long as they used to be, and that I can remember events around 16 months ago as if they were nearer than a year and a half in the past. Trouble is, this time I don't know where I'll be in 16 month's time. Shit, I don't even know where I'll be in four.
It's this uncertainty that's doing it for me. For the first time in a long time I'm not entirely certain of the direction I'm heading in, or how well equipt I am to carry straight on to where I intended to be. Uncertainty leads to an awful lack of focus (not useful, as my exams have not yet finished). Uncertainty stops me consolidating my thoughts into blog entries. Uncertainty sucks.
This deadlock can be broken, but only by a short period of answering some Big Questions I have asked of myself. We shall see.
...
current mood: okay
current music: Gomez - Las Vegas Dealer
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