The Vortex

Nerd musings

2010-12-24T08:59:08Z

A couple of days ago my geek plot/character comparison module (the same part of my brain that many years ago figured out which LotR character each of the Babylon 5 characters equated to) realised that the Winchester brothers share a lot with the brothers 'Mir.

Spoiler warnings for Supernatural s1-4 below. And LotR.

The first similarity is simply that they're both four years apart in age, but that's nothing. Both brothers lost their mothers at a young age (Tolkien never specified when Finduilas died, but in my head canon it was when her sons were probably about six and ten). Following their mothers' deaths, both pairs were raised by fathers who became increasing crazed, never recovering from their wives' deaths. In both families, there's a rather complicated dynamic between the father and the younger son: their fathers outwardly seem to view their younger sons as inferior to their elder siblings and to love them less, though in truth, in both cases, they may actually love Faramir and Sam more. Eventually, both fathers sacrifice themselves for their sons, leaving the boys parentless.

In both pairs the elder brother is a tough and experienced fighter while the younger is more of a scholar, though Faramir and Sam are both skilled fighters when they have to be. Boromir and Dean will both do whatever it takes to protect what they love (Gondor/Minas Tirith for the former and Sam/family for the latter) and nothing in the world is more important to them. Both would and have died for their cause, leaving their little brothers to carry on the fight for them.

Ultimately, the younger brothers are both woobies while the elder are very easy to paint as villains but actually tick all of the hero boxes.

Yes, I'm reading too much into stuff, but I find the similarities interesting.

Boromir and Dean are my boys.

< /geek>

Who am I kidding? The geek never ends...

Xmas food porn

2010-12-24T08:18:20Z

So, last night I made a christmas dinner for moose_biscuit and me (after depositing the Chad at the kitty hotel).

Roast duck with crispy skin (just leg portions, so there'd be no leftovers), Nigella's roast potatoes cooked in goose fat (but without the semolina), Nigella's maple roasted parsnips, Delia's spiced, apply braised red cabbage and her corriander roasted carrots and some brussels drizzled with sesame oil (my dad's recipe, and I recommend it. If I'd had some sesame seeds in the cupboard I'd I've used some of those, too). Oh, and a sweet spiced sherry gravy made from the duck dripping, which I made up on the spot when I realised a sauce was needed, and which was very tasty.

It was all very tasty and very filling. So much so that the christmas pud we'd bought will have to sit in the cupboard until we return from our families next week.

A meal made entirely of sweetness (the sherry sauce and maple persnips particularly) and waterfowl fat. Om nom nom.

I called my dad just to check that I was doing the right thing with the duck, and it turns out that what I made is almost identical to his menu for christmas day (there are only going to be five of us, se he's doing a duck) so now he feels like he's got competition - he has to make his better than mine!

Writer's Block: That's good eats

2010-12-01T15:59:50Z

Green tagliatelle with lamb chops (lollipop chops!) smothered in my Mum's home made bbq sauce. I've not had it in years. I may have to get the sauce recipe off my Mum, so I can try to recreate it.

NaNoWriMo is over again!

2010-12-01T12:11:59Z

So, you may have noticed that I've not been here for a month, and you might have realised that that was because it was November and therefore NaNoWriMo. I have been writing. It was my sixth year in a row (2005 to present) and I'm pleased to say that I won (for the sixth time).

Woohoo!

I wasn't as motivated as I've been in the past, and I think I've worn myself out with it, so I'll not be taking part next year.

I like the concept of what I've written, so I will probably try to do something with it (though it is very very unfinished), but my most immediate writing prioject is completing and editing 'The Mobster and the Mermaid', my noir NaNo novel from 2008, which is by far my favourite of the five novels I've written for NaNo.

So, I'm back. If anything important has happened in November please let me know, because I've been out of the loop and won't be able to catch up on a month's-worth of LJ.

My brain is a bit odd.

2010-10-22T12:13:58Z

Ok, so as weird celebrity-filled dreams go, that one was pretty frakking weird.

Last night I dreamed that I was a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, only my partner, rather than being the rather dishy James Jordan, as I might have hoped, was in fact my mother. Granted, she's a very good dancer, but not quite their standard! Fortunately the only dancing in the dream was the two of us in the practice studio trying to choreograph some sort of rock and roll routine. It was pretty dire.

The weird celebrity-ness happened when the dream jumped to directly before the show. I was eating dinner in a restaurant with my mum and someone else, and Russel Brand and Omid Djalili were on the table next to us - they were going to be in the audience.

For some reason, my role in the dance routine was that of an aloof diva, so I'd decided to get into character early to prepare, and practice on the waitor. It was ok, because he was a fiend (and may well have been Greg Wallace, from Masterchef), so I knew he'd understand and play along. However, the comedians on the next table weren't in on it, obviously, and after I'd been rude to the waitor (gesticulating rather than deigning to speak to him) I heard Brand telling Omid how disgusting my behaviour was.

I was devastated that the two men would now have a terrible opinion of me, so I set out to track them down in the studio after dinner. I couldn't find Omid, but I caught up with Brand, who didn't really want to talk to me (understandable, considering the behaviour he'd witnessed), but I got him to stay long enough to hear me out. Once he knew that I wasn't really a diva bitch, Brand was very sweet and friendly and I got a hug.

Fortunately I woke before having to dance in public. Thank God.

Well, I say 'woke up': I somehow managed to either not set my alarm last night, or turn it off while asleep, and moose_biscuit woke me at 7.20 - I have to leave the house not much after 7.25 to catch my 7.33 bus to work. By some miracle I got out of the house at 7.30 and the bus was running a couple of minutes late, so I was at the bus stop in time to catch it at 7.35 - and I hadn't even run, because I was sure I'd missed it and would have to get the next one.

Anyway, very odd dream. I'm sure it means something. My deep-seated need for others' approval, or something. I have no idea why the others in the dream were Russel Brand and Omid Djalili, though.

Hobbits and Dwarves and dragons oh my!

2010-10-22T10:30:50Z

So, Ain't it Cool News has released some supposedly confirmed Hobbit casting.

Martin Freeman will make a brilliant Bilbo, but I'm not so sure about the lovely Richard Armitage as Thorin. Mind you, John Rhys Davies is huge, so it's sort of a tradition for Dwarves to be played by massively tall actors. Still, I'm having trouble seeing a skinny 6'5" bloke as a Dwarven lord.

Mobile tech - I've just reached c2002.

2010-10-08T09:04:23Z

So, how long has the internet on mobile phones been around? Forever? I finally changed my P&G tarif to Text&Web, so last night I surfed the interwebs on my phone for the first time ever.

Of course, my phone is a proper phone, and therefore only has a small (non-touch) screen, so it's not really designed with surfing in mind, and it's not 3G so it's a little slow, but I can check facebook (and post and comment) while on the bus, which is novel. I've not tried checking emails yet. Also, I suspect it eats power, though I was looking at fbook while waiting for my bus for 10mins this morning and that doesn't seem to have used much battery at all.

I had thought that the tarif would give me 500mb a month (which would give me a fair amount of simple browsing), but the text I got through from O2 when I topped it up said that my 300 free texts and unlimited web had been uploaded. Nice. My old tarif, which I'd been on for a few years, just gave me the 300 texts for the same price, so I should have changed to this one ages ago.

Of course, now that I've unleashed the monster of mobile web, I sort of want to upgrade to a handset with a nice big touchscreen for web use, rather than the Nokia 6700 I've been eying up. Touchscreens are far pricier, though.

moose_biscuit is making noises about wanting to get rid of the landline phone in the house (and the Virgin cable tv :() to save on the bills. She doesn't really use the landline, because she gets free minutes on her mobile contract, but because I'm P&G I don't. So, if we lose the landline I might have to finally get a mobile contract (after a decade of prepay), so that I can affordably use my mobile for calls. However, O2 contracts with web seem to start at about £25 (I currently top up a tenner every two months, though I may start doing it monthly to get my free web).

Of course, getting a contract would get me a discount on a phone, and a wider choice - I quite like the Nokia X6, which O2 only do on contract, and I'd kill for an Android device (likely an HTC).

However, a tenner a month on P&G might be enough for using it for call, too - I could always start spending £15 if necessary, and it would still be cheaper than their cheapest web tarif. But I'd have to spend more on the handset, especially if I want a nicer phone.

Indecision: I has it.

Fringes and cocktails and sushi, oh my!

2010-09-27T10:46:16Z

Fun weekend. And quite busy.

Went into town on saturday afternoon to get a haircut. I'd been toying with the idea of having a bit of a change and getting a fringe, and I'm glad I went through with it. It's a short fringe, very retro, and everyone thinks it looks quite cute. The hairdresser even stopped cutting to say that she was really glad I'd opted for a fringe, because she thought it really suited me.

I then popped into my favourite fabric shop, as I was passing, to see if they had anything suitable for my proposed new Maelstrom kit. I discovered thay have a whole upstairs room which I never realised was there, in which they had pure silk satins in some lovely colours (for £8.50/m), but there is also a fabulously soft silk/cotton mix which I rather like.

I also discovered upstairs in the shop a few designer leftover bolts, including some Armani suiting and an absolutely gorgeous Hugo Boss striped cotton - shot burgundy with stripes of gold and some pinkish tones. It was so pretty (and reasonably priced)that I couldn't resist buying enough for a skirt (and an invisible zip). I also bought enough calico to make a toile for my Maelstrom costume so that I know how much silk I'll need.

It was a friend's birthday, so we went out to Lola-Lo with her on saturday night. It's a Hawai'ian-themed club, and therefore had many rum-based cocktails, which were half price until 10pm, so we filled the table with half price cocktails just before ten and those lasted us until we left around midnight. Mmm, many rums.

We then gave the birthday girl her present on sunday night, in the form of a sushi making evening at Moshi Moshi - and special even put on as part of the 'Brighton Food and Drink Festival'. We were slightly concerned that they'd be both stingy and disorganised, and that we've have a a chatic evening and very little to eat (having paid rather a lot for our places at the event). Turns out our fears were unfounded.

The sushi lesson was good - we knew how to make maki, having done it several times at home, but we also learned the proper techniques for tamaki handrolls, gunkan and nigiri. We also learned lots of interesting bits of trivia, like the origins of sushi (raw fish was pressed onto vinegared rice as a means of preserving it) and how to prepare mackerel (never eat it raw, as it contains nasty bacteria - marinate it with salt and then vinegar to kill off the nasties).

We'd been drinking plenty sake while making the sushi - unlimited sake, beer and tea was included in the price. Also, once the class was over, and we were already reasonably full from our self-made treats, we were told we could help ourselves to anything from the conveyor belt. And more sake.

Needless to say, I ate too much sushi and drank too much sake. I feel a little blurgh today. Delicate stomach is delicate.

All in all, a very fun weekend.

six weeks? seriously?

2010-09-17T11:14:07Z

So, NaNoWriMo is suddenly only about six weeks away, which rather caught me by surprise.

We'd hoped to hand over the mantle and responsibility of Municipal Liaison to someone else this year, because moose_biscuit and I have run the region for two years now, but no one seems willing, so it looks like we either do it again or let the region fall apart. We'll make a concerted effort during November to recruit replacements for 2011, because we sure as hell aren't going to do it for a fourth year.

So, with only six weeks to go, aside from the realisation that we're going to have to sort out all the weekly meets and stuff again (and the weekly quizes, which aren't un-time-consuming to create), I'm in the sticky situation of not actually knowing what I'm going to write this year.

I did have a fun idea for a thoroughly English murder mystery, slightly inspired by MB's mother, but I did murder mystery last year, so I want to step away from that this time.

One option that's been on the back burner for... gosh... apparently six long years would be based on the linked fics here and here. I have a loose premise, and interesting lead, and like the idea of being able to write lots of places and times, but I have no plot and am now concerned that anything I write would now be coloured by Supernatural, what with it being about fallen angels.

Option number 2 is a premise I came up with a couple of months ago and have brainstormed a little with apiphile. In a multiverse of parrallel Earths, some people have the ability to look through thin patches in the veil between the worlds; fewer have the ability to actually traverse these gaps in the veil. It's an oportunity to write a sort of urban fantasy where a regular 21stC girl finds that she has this gift and has to use it to... stop some evil or something. Regular quest type stuff, but with dimension hopping.

Option 3, which I came up with this week and may need talking out of, because it's appealing but rather silly, sees a disparate group of larpers discover that the whole game was just a ruse to find a suitable party of 'heroes' to go on a real quest. It would be a full on fantasy quest tale, but with a rather post-modern and silly twist. What would the big scary larper do if faced with an actual scary evil thing? Is Matt Pennington really a fantasy Charlie looking for his Angels?

So, three premises, zero actual plots. Fun times.

Opinions?

Sewing/crafing projects

2010-09-16T10:21:24Z

Ok, this is what I plan to make in the next few months:

New summer weight Chinese hanfu robes for Maelstrom - current kit is polyester satin and is ridiculously warm in the summer, so I plan to make a new set in silk and/or cotton. moose_biscuit also wants a new summer outfit, but I think she wants to do it herself, so I shouldn't be needed.
First attempt at a justaucorps/pirate coat - I have a miniature pattern which I need to scale up and then fit to my tricky proportions. The first try will probably be imperfect and therefore suitable only for random larp kit, but I will eventually make a nicer one for a planned poncy character.
Regency short stays x 2 - moose_biscuit's should be relatively easy, I think, but manufacturing a period bra to support my ample assets will be more challenging.
Late Regency gowns x2 made from sarees - a dress I saw at the Medieval Fair put the thought in my head that sarees imported from East India would have been perfect posh cloth for regency ladies, so I plan to make us each one for the next 'Masquerades & Massacres' event, whenever that is.
Leather corset armour - for Odyssey and any other time that I might need some armour, as I have none.

Maelstrom - Retaliation, AKA The Picnic

2010-09-16T09:57:03Z

Have you accepted the Lady Sky as your personal saviour?

So, that's another year of Maelstrom over with, then.

'Retaliation' was enjoyable. Like aquarionical, I'd been having something of an OC crisis of faith earlier in the year: the lack of feedback from my god was starting to make playing a priest not fun. However, I decided to take the same tack as Aqua and choose to just get on with it, regardless of the apparent results. Religion is all about faith, after all, so I'm now getting on with just talking to the faithful and prosyletising. When Lady Sky is ready to talk to us again, I'll be there to listen, but I'm not going to keep shouting to the abbyss if she's not listening at the moment.

At the end of Event 3 we renegotiated our working hours at the Jade Lotus, because working so long at the restaurant was hindering our religious duties. I was getting a little tired of being asked so often by punters "So, what's it like just being a waitress?". Xian is a sodding high priest, and pretty much the most powerful priest to her goddess (in all Her forms) in all the New World. Not a waitress.

So, at Event 4 moose_biscuit and I were excused from the JL on friday night and the saturday lunchtime noodle bar, which gave us the first night and all of saturday until 5pm to talk to people about religious things. On friday the House of Whispering Reeds invited us into their tent and we had a good talk with them, which we'd never managed before, despite them being part of the People's Republic. They're a bunch odf scientists and engineers, so we were discussing the similarities between religion and science, and they're very interested in taking part in one of our drug-fuelled vision quests, approaching it from a scientific standpoint.

We spent a fair amount of the saturday in the company of Troubador, a Weaver eidelon who's very interested in us and keen to help in any way he can. He did cause some confusion though, by mentioning several times that he served Lady Moon, so we took him to be a (surprisingly calm and friendly) Huntress eidelon, Lady Moon being the Kamakuran name for the Huntress. It turned out that he'd simply got his names wrong, and thought that Lady Moon was the Weaver. We had lots of discussions with him in our shrine (and he brought several other kami to see the place, including Mardocai, when we weren't about). He also took us out and about to meet lots of other Weaver followers and see their shrines, and I gave him the two People's Temple prayer books I'd made him, which he was very pleased with and plans to show to lots of people. I do have prayer book envy, though, because a Mil-enese prieste showed me her Weaver prayer book which contained about a hundred benisons and prayers, while mine only has about 20. I plan to write a lot more in the next six months, so that I start the next Maelstrom year with a much-expanded version.

Sunday was cut rather short because we chose to flee at 11am, shortly before the mass Wasp attack. It's the first time we've not held a sunday morning Weaverite meeting in about two years, which felt a little odd, but the majority of the Weaverites were preparing to defend their camps against the Wasps, anyway, so turnout would likely have been low if we did go ahead with it.

The Wasp attack was the first major player v crew battle PD have thrown at us, and they swear it won't be a common thing - player actions over the past year or so simply forced them into doing it. As a very ocassional thing, I'm not opposed to this sort of crew attack, when player actions demand it.

There was lots of paranoia flying about, and the People's Republic are very susceptable to scaremongering - we love to throw around tin hat theories. There were stories of system resets floating about, where everyone would be killed by the bug attack, but considering the backlash PD would get over something that extreme I doubted those rumours. The more sensible rumour was that the bugs were only coming to swat those that had actually been making trouble, rather than attacking unilaterally. That would mean they shouldn't bother us, a bunch of peaceful little farmers, but we were slightly concerned that the bushi Kamakurans had been annoying the bugs and we might get mistaken for them, what with being camped right opposite them and, you know, looking Kamakuran.

So, rather than put ourselves in danger's way, we heard that there was a way out (apparently the rumours that all of the paths out of the festival had been blocked were actually false, but we didn't know that at the time), and Sacuza were willing to guide us out (with Troubador tagging along to make sure we got out safe), so with ten minutes' notice I grabbed our religious icon and we all got the hell out of dodge.

Also, apparently next year Xian is going to be wooed. By Nagimo-san, our Minister for Law and Lore. This should make for some entertaining RP.

So, quite an eventful year over. My plans for next year are to keep on keeping on. I do have two character concepts planned should Xian die or I just decide to give her up, so I might work on some kit for one or both of those over the winter - it will always work as secondary kit until I'm ready to roll out a new character.

May Lady Sky walk with you.

Comfy pyjamas or slightly itchy ones with flashing lights on?

2010-08-25T13:28:07Z

My mobile has been trudging towards a slow death for a few months now, and has recently started to accelerate its tumble off this mortal coil, to the point where I'm going to have to replace it in the next month or so, before it gets even worse.

I don't appreciate my phone sending calls through to voicemail without even ringing and then not bothering to tell me about the call or message - on monday I picked up a fairly important message my dad had left a couple of weeks ago, which the phone had neglected to tell me about.

The phone is nearly 3 years old, though, and these days they're only built to last about 18 months, so it's had a reasonable innings. Sometimes it'll work beautifully for a fortnight, and then it'll crap out on me and freeze up, divert calls rather than ringing and on monday it repeatedly terminated a phone call.

So, the time has come to wade into the world of choosing a new handset. I'm sticking with my sim and switching to a new P&G tarif which will give me free internets on top of the free texts I get on my old tarif.

While O2 may well be bastards, I've had my sim (and therefore my number) with them since they were Celnet - very close to ten years now. With my phone usage, a contract or paymonthly just isn't worth the extra money, so while it means that every couple of years I have to pay out for a new handset rather than getting a free upgrade, I'm not bound to nasty payments every month - at the moment I top up a tenner every two months and that does me fine. With the new web tarrif I might choose to top up a tenner a month to guarantee my free web allowance, but I can always skip a month if I don't feel the need for web access.

After browsing O2's selection of P&G handsets, and reading reviews on all of the ones that interested me, I think I've got my shortlist down to two possibilities - less of a shortlist and more of an either/or situation.

While touchscreens are sweet, to get a decent one you have to pay bigger money than I like to spend on a mobile (my cuttent one, the lovely Nokia 6300, set me back about £70), and I'm something of a clacicist, so I like buttons and monoblocks - I've never owned a slide or clamshell.

So my two options are the Nokia 6700, which is the upgraded successor to my 6300, or a Sony Ericcson Elm.

The Nokia has the huge advantage that I like Nokias and would be able to just pick it up and use it as if I'd had it for months, while I'd have to figure out how to use the Elm. My one foray away from Nokias was about a year with a hand-me-down Sony Ericcson and I was so happy to return to Nokia when I bought the 6300.

There has been much reading of reviews, and both come out pretty well - TechRadar has very comprehensive reviews and gave the Elm 4 stars, but the 6700 pipped it with 4.5 stars.

In terms of comparitive specs, they are very similar, except that the Elm has WiFi, while the 6700 only has 3G. Both obviously have web browsers (and my new tarif will give me 500MB free usage), and the Elm has the nice touch of an accelerometer so that it flips the browser to landscape when you turn the phone on its side, like an iPhone. The Nokia lacks this.

They both have 5MP cameras with LED flash and autofocus, and the Elm has a macro mode - the photos I've seen weren't half bad. Both have GPS and Nokia or Google Maps, which will be useful.

In terms of music, both take MicroSD cards (I'll be slotting in the 2GB one from my 6300 for now, but they can take much higher capacity ones, so I can upgrade later and have as much as 8 or even 16GB of music n my phone) but annoyingly neither has a 3.5mm jack port (which some cheaper ones do, but they don't have other features that these two do). Adapters are avalable for both, so that you can replace the crappy handsfree kit ear buds with decent headfones, but apparently the side-mounted port on the Elm makes this a bit of a pain, whereas the port on the bottom of the Nokia is quite convenient.

Also of note is that a review chose to comment that the Nokia's loudspeaker is particularly good, which is a bonus. I'm not one of those annoying children who blares out their crappy, tinny music on the bus, but I have recently started to use my phone for atmospheric soundeffects while larping, so a nice speaker on it would be useful (of course, if I get the 3.5mm adapter I could also presumably hook it up to concealed speakers...)

Price-wise, the Elm is £100 and the Nokia is slightly more. I can't find a price on O2s online shop, but it was advertised in their meatspace shop when I popped in - as far as I recall it was about £120.

So the Nokia is pricier despite lacking the wifi. With the wifi and landscape browser viewing the Elm would be more web-usable, and it would be nice to hook it into our home wifi so I could check things online for free from home, but at the end of the day I could just grab moose_biscuit's Touch or iPad (the Mac whore! Jealous? Me?) which are usually lying about the lounge and browse on a much bigger screen.

It comes down to this question, really: do I want to pay slightly more for a phone that feels (and pretty much looks) like my trusty old phone, but with many more features, or slightly less for a phone that might well take some getting used to but which is probably better for web-usability?

Seeing as I don't really need it for surfing - I need it mostly for texting and a few calls - I am edging towards sticking with Nokia.

I plan to go into the shop to try to play with working versions of both phones - the Elm might surprise me in person and actually be very easy to use.

Does anyone have experience with either phone? If so, any advice or opinions would be greatfully accepted.

What happens when a vampire and a Replicant love each other very much...

2010-08-24T09:58:32Z

As weird and very vivid dreams go, my celebrity dream on sunday night was pretty weird and vivid enough that much of it is still very clear in my head a day later, when often I've forgotten a lot within an hour of waking up.

And I don't know where my subconcious found its selections of celebrities to star in this one. I very seldom dream about celebrities; there was a slightly odd one with James Marsters a few weeks ago, and further back I was on a boat with Johnny Depp. And I think there was an adventure with Antonio Banderas once. Sadly, despite my brain's choice of not unattractive male leads, such dreams are almost always entirely clean and innocent. Pah!

Anyway, in this dream Daryl Hannah and Jason Patrick got married. No, I really have no idea why I was dreaming about those two actors. The likes of Depp and Marsters aren't unexpected, because I watch things starring them quite often, but Daryl Hannah and Jason Patrick? Really?

They were getting married and for some reason selected a wedding party off the street, and I happened to be on holiday whereever they were (a nameless but large US city) and Ms Hannah chose me as a bridesmaid. I don't recall what I was wearing - unusually for me the dream was all in first person (I often see myself from outside my body for at least brief portions of my dreams) and there were no mirrors, so I never saw myself. The bride and groom were in matching suits - his black and hers ivory (an entirely masculine suit).

I was with faceless friends, who were also part of the wedding, and after the ceremony we parted company from the blushing bride on friendly terms - she was very sweet and surprisingly butch. Less Maddison and more Pris.

The dream then proceeded to skip from scene to scene without linking scenes, as dreams tend to do (as Inception told us). First I was with the friends on a rooftop in the vast city, with a fantastic view, throwing sort of squishy, inflatable cans at each other (it was a game, no violence). It seemed like it should have been a rooftop pool, but I don't recall any water.

There was also an extended scene driving through the city. It was in a valley, or perhaps at the foot of some mountains, and the outskirts were seemingly cut into the living rock of the high cliffs at the edge - huge buildings looming out of the rock face. The centre of the city was your usual glass and neon skyscraper jungle - very pretty at night. There was a broad river through the middle, crossed by some pretty bridges. Out the other side was open desert with long straight roads (just like we saw driving through Arizona this spring). We were roaring through in an open-top - very Fear and Loathing...

Cut to another scene where I was still on holiday in the US, but now with my father at some sort of roadside services where I'd been before and told my dad that there used to be a really nice kosher baker there (fairly sure that the bakery programme I watched on Sunday night where the presenter visited such a place in Salford and learned to make cholla inspired that, along with my current craving for the stuff), but now it had been replaced by a Sbarro (what on earth is a Sbarro?).

That's about all I remember. Brain, you are very odd.

Also, a vampire and a mermaid? Think of the children! Or perhaps a vampire and a Replicant - think of humanity!

Happy birthday, meanie.

2010-08-03T13:58:55Z

Last night I dreamed that I fell out with moose_biscuit. I can't remember the circumstances, but she was horrible to me and the end result was that I was moving out of the house (or she was throwing me out).

It was very distressing and I woke up rather shaken.

It appears that MB's birthday causes me to have dreams in which she's a complete cow.

Happy birthday Moose Biscuit!

Maelstrom: Remuneration

2010-07-28T13:11:51Z

So, Maelstrom happened last weekend.

The Good:
- I had a vision in haiku. Fantastic! Also it was the most useful vision I've had in three years of play (where I vision quest at every event). Unfortunately it involved the use of much more powerful (and potentially addictive) IC drugs than my character is used to, so I'll have to use them sparingly.
- Orev got dead.
- We had a bit of excitement when someone tried to rob us (IC, not OC, thankfully). They snuck into my tent, but took nothing because I startled them in there. It looks like he was just a decoy anyway, because we later found that the strongbox in the restaurant's kitchen had been opened, but the thieves didn't get any cash.
- There's a new Weaver Kami, who actually seems like he might be quite useful and also seems to like us - he was very impressed with our shrine and complimented me on my haiku prayers.
- Orev got dead. So funny it was worth repeating.
- We've agreed a compromise on the hours we work in the Jade Lotus, because we were spending so long waitressing that we didn't have time to do the priesty things we need to do. So, from next event, they'll manage the friday night table service and the saturday lunch noodle bar without moose_biscuit and me, so we'll be entirely free to do our own thing until about 5pm on the saturday, when we'll show up to help prepare for dinner and then be the front of house staff for the 4 or 5 hour dinner service. This is a result.
- There was interesting RP with two opposing sides who have an interest in the doings of a character who's 'gone missing'. He was almost tried in absentia for treason, but this has been postponed, and I'm now going to spend my downtime trying to find him (though not to deliver him for trial, as the verdict is a forgone conclusion!)
- We discovered a Weaverite who actually sees things the way we do! We'll have to talk to Ishtarfar more in the future.
- I got to play Xian being rather high, after taking all of those drugs. While that heady cocktail would have made most people too much too handle, my Xian is so calm and sedate that they actually just made her a bit more perky and bouncy than a 'normal' person. She may have made some slightly ill-advised comments about a certain Eidelon, though.

The Bad:
- My joy at Orev's character death may have been premature, as it seems that he engineered the whole thing to make himself the centre of attention (as always) and may not be as dead as we'd hoped. Poop.
- Oh joy: yet another year spent researching a skill which, now that I've used it, seems fairly pointless. Ho-hum. I'm determined to find a way to make it useful, but it might involve more of the above mentioned hard drugs.
- It's tricky when plot happens involving a character (or those close to them) when the player isn't around for RL reasons. It's not his fault he's not around, but he may come back to find thay there's a warrant for his execution. Similarly, a character has been cursed for not putting down his pet zombie, but he can't do anything about it because the zombie's player hasn't made it to an event in over a year.
- There should maybe be some sort of audition process before someone can play an Eidelon. They're meant to be angelic messengers of the gods, and some just... fail.
- There was a lot of stuff I'm sure we were meant to be doing, but we were too busy running a restaurant. This should now be fixed thanks to our reduced hours from next event.

The Miscellaneous:
-We've convinced the rest of the Jade Lotus gang that we need to do some OC recruiting, because our numbers have really dwindled - our group is now about a third the size it was when MB and I joined three (four?) years ago. Well, that might be an exaggeration - but there were at least twice as many as our current number. So, we're going to make up an advertising poster to go in the group advertising book, and will be actively seeking new players. If you or anyone you know is interested in joining the People's Republic/Jade Lotus then let us know and we'll happily answer questions.

Writingness

2010-07-21T11:35:33Z

So, I'm about half way through the first proofing edit of my murder mystery/noir novel. Though that's not quite true - I've done the whole thing in red pen scribbled over printouts, but I'm half way through typing up those edits and doing research to fix the anachronisms.

I'm doing quite well with anachronisms so far - I'd highlighted lots of items as possible anachronisms, and research has proven them perfectly acceptable, so no alterations to be made. It was a pain when I found that the actress I'd mentioned was far too late for the period and had to find a suitable alternative (the same with a fashion designer), so I was very pleased that Agatha Christie and Cole Porter can stay - they both made it big in the 20s, so my 1932 'tec can mention them as much as he likes.

I've been drip feeding the (edited/proofed) story to my writing group a chapter at a time, and the response has been generally very positive ("more, please" is always nice to hear), but it's difficult to comment on the whole sweep of a story when you only see a chapter each month. This is why, when I'm finished with the first edit, I'll be giving the whole thing to moose_biscuit to read and be brutally honest about it. While compliments from the writing group are good ego-strokers, I do actually want to edit this beast into something that works.

The story is only about half-written, but I want to fix anything that needs fixing before carrying on, to save time in the long run. Of course, when I got through my first read through I discovered that I'd stopped writing (back in November 2008 - this was my NaNo novel for that year) not only mid-chapter, but mid-conversation. My detective admits to the love interest that he killed someone once, and then it just ends - I have no idea where I was going with that conversation, and I don't even remember if I'd figured out who he'd killed or if I was just making up the conversation as I went along (during NaNoWriMo, the latter is far more likely. Hell, I only figured out who the murderer was when I was already a few thousand words in).

Should I finish that chapter before handing the story to anyone?

Also, as is common in my NaNo writing, on November 30th I dropped the chapter I was writing (hence the conversation left hanging) and skipped forward to a love scene - I'm not even sure where in the story it will happen, but I thought my leads deserved a release after a month of flirting. Still, it has no place in the narrativas it stands, so I'll have to take it out of the version I giv to MB and any other potential beta readers (hint hint).

A little bird said...

2010-07-15T16:03:59Z

13:30 Well, that was noisy. A pair of gunships just flew over my office, low and leisurely. Shiny. #
15:04 Squeezing extra Yiddish into my novel while editing for the win! #yiddish #

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A little bird said...

2010-07-14T16:05:24Z

12:44 @AlabasterC it says a lot that your 'weirdest evening ever' was a normal night for me. Am I weirder than I thought? #
13:40 @apiphile is that more or less useful than no suspender belts and three stockings? #

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Still the prettiest!

2010-07-14T10:02:24Z

Look how cute!

They only appear to do Legolas, Gandalf, Frodo and an orc - no plush Aragorn :(

I write like...

2010-07-14T09:28:45Z

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

This was from the first chapter of my noir novel. When I only put in the first few paragraphs I got James Joyce, but that may have been because it was all setup and no dialogue. I've not read any Palahniuk, but his wiki page says 'In what the author refers to as a minimalistic approach, his writings use a limited vocabulary and short sentences to mimic the way that an average person telling a story would talk', which would make my novel match his style as it's in first person - it really is the narrator telling a story.

Wiki also says: Repetitions of certain lines in the stories' narratives (what Palahniuk refers to as "choruses") are one of the most common aspects of his writing style, found dispersed within most chapters of his novels.[citation needed] Palahniuk has said that there are also some choruses between novels; the color cornflower blue and the city of Missoula, Montana, are said to appear in all of his books. The characters in Palahniuk's stories often break into philosophical asides (either by the narrator to the reader, or spoken to the narrator through dialogue), offering numerous odd theories and opinions, often misanthropic or darkly absurdist in nature, on complex issues of death, morality, childhood, parenthood, sexuality, and God.

Yep, that describes my style, especially in this novel, pretty acurately.

I tried inputting a couple of other pieces written in different styles, and am slightly upset that it says one of my Tolkien fics matches Dan Brown. Bugger off.

I'm more pleased with this Ianto vs Zombies fic being compared to Stephen King.

A LotR drabble was matched with Dickens. I was hoping that one of my Tolkien fics might be matched with, you know, Tolkien, but it's possible he's not actually included in the algorithm.

A little bird said...

2010-07-13T16:04:03Z

09:50 And I'm back. Stupid ICT. It says something that we went into meltdown without the internets for a day #

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A little bird said...

2010-07-12T16:03:49Z

11:00 Well, that's shitty. We now have no internet access at work. Useful. #

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A little bird said...

2010-07-09T16:03:06Z

10:50 Are you questioning the manliness of my kitteh,@The_Ladylark? To answer @magslhalliday 's question, my money would be on the cat. Maybe #
10:52 @AlabasterC TMI, dude! Also, don't leave us! #
11:21 @AlabasterC can we help? Not with the shaving, I hasten to add ;) #
14:00 Gosh, isn't it warm? #
16:51 @AlabasterC Why were you in a pet shop? #

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A little bird said...

2010-07-08T16:03:21Z

11:29 @AlabasterC What's up? Delayed food poisoning from our bbq? #
11:30 @dhorizon well done #
11:31 Blurgh. New insides, please. #
11:39 @katsudonburi but you did it the cheating, quick way. We drove all the way from your place to Vegas! #
12:08 @DML74 likewise. #
14:14 Testing. #

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A little bird said...

2010-07-01T16:06:43Z

11:56 @The_Ladylark I might do it intentionally. #
12:01 @AlabasterC I already had @justinpickard from my first abortive attempt at twittering. I set up this account last year. #
16:07 @dhorizon was the car at least blue? #
16:09 @apiphile oh dear god: Lobstrocities! Didachik? #

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