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NEW INTERVIEW WITH KAT BLASBAND

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 8:09 PM
Hello Livejournal folks! I have a new interview up, this one with Kat Blasband who is the Director of Development at Tapestry Films (WEDDING CRASHERS, SERENDIPITY). Read and learn: http://www.dontforgettovalidateyourparking.com/Interviews/KatBlasband.html

Token reminder

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 5:44 PM
Oath...that is all.







































Actually, yeah, how are you all doing on this? I've seen a few completions, a few in-progress...I'm wrapping up one troop choice and getting ready to do another this weekend.

Nov. 11th, 2009

  • 12:04 AM
Yesterdays Tweets:


  • 02:46 Sitting in the lounge @SFO waiting for my plane to board. Can't believe the wonderful holiday's over, thanks to everyone who made it so Fab! #

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Tweets Of The Day

  • Nov. 11th, 2009 at 12:50 AM
  • 09:33 Attention #nanowrimo-ers! Get support & sympathy from 2 top lit agents at London Writers' Club, TONIGHT! tinyurl.com/nz9nh7 #
  • 13:41 #londonwritersclub tonight has *changed* venue. It's now at Tibbets (bit.ly/1PCicZ), same time, 7pm start, talk 7:30. #
  • 13:45 Ran 4k on treadmill at gym today. Have 10k race on tarmac on Sunday. 10 - 4 = 6. 6 is a worryingly big number. Currently considering panic. #
  • 17:02 BBCs "Have Your Say" is debating GB's letter writing. I find it amusing that the people attacking him appear to be largely semi-literate. #
  • 22:29 Quite sobering. RT @gmskarka: Publishing numbers--"The Reality of a Times Bestseller": bit.ly/14FkwB. #
  • 22:48 On train, heading home from #londonwritersclub. @BlueBirdTail very informative and entertaining. And met some nice people. #
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Twittericous

  • Nov. 11th, 2009 at 12:05 AM

  • 01:19 just got back from Das Weisse Band by Michael Haneke. Not for people who like to think for themselves. #

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Morbid curiosity

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 1:03 PM
Since I'm cooped up at home sick, I was thinking to myself (always a dangerous proposition, even without meds in my system) and inspired by snot, thought I'd see if there was any interest out there in a fully painted Chaos/Nurgle army? I've got one I did up for an oath a while back that's fully painted and comes with a pair of Sabol Platoon cases. It occurred to me that I have over 35 armies around here between Hordes, WarMachine, 40K and WFB and I could probably stand to part with one or two if it'll help fund the future ones. So I've put up some pictures for reference - mostly just putting out feelers as I've not yet really settled on a price (includes Forge World stuff and some one-off conversions). Figure if there's interest, I'll actually get the list together and come up with a price. I'd rather work through fellow gamers here than chance eBay if I can help it (got massively burned on the Orks :( Good deals for buyers, but not so much for me). If anyone's interested, or knows of someone who might be (hey, why not give the gift of Nurgle for Christmas?), let me know and I'll get the whole shebang together.

Pics )

Blood & Tears November 15th!

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 12:32 PM


Location:

Imperial Outpost Games
4920 W Thunderbird Rd #121
Glendale, AZ 85306-4907
(602) 978-0467

When:

November 15th
6:00 PM Dinner Time
5:00 PM Prep (if you need a character)

What You Get:

Full Dinner!
4+ Hours of Live Action Roleplaying!
Costumes Provided (Limited: First Come, First Served)

Door Cover:

$15 Per Person

DISCOUNTS!
(Choose One Only)
$5 off if you wear a costume
$5 off if you bring a new player
$5 off if you bring food and/or drinks


The Blood & Tears Live Action Event is unlike any LARP you've ever attended.

If you'd like a peek at the rules we'll be using, click on this link!
(You'll also find a 40 page "HotB Primer" full of information on the ven and their world.)

Join us on Facebook!
You can RSVP here or at the Facebook page or by e-mailing me or dropping me a PM here at LJ.

Random Fantasy Casting Thought

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 1:53 PM
Humphrey Bogart as Rorschach.

His accent and sense of irony would be a problem, but otherwise . . .

Sources and Methods

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 9:20 AM
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In a late-breaking comment it took me a while to spot, Sergio M asks:

What are the sources for your model of story analysis? Is it your personal creation? Where you inspired by any books or whatever? Which?

None of the major concepts are original to me, although I find myself wanting to change their frame of reference as I look further into these issues. It’s an evolving process.

Provenance of story terminology is tough to pin down sometimes.This is particularly an issue with procedural/adventure/serial/adventure fiction, which we are mostly emulating in RPGs. Most writing texts and workshops skew toward the standalone and literary side of things.Terms and concepts of use to working creators percolate out from writer’s rooms into DVD commentaries and out into the blogosphere. Perhaps someday an intrepid scholar will track the origins of such bedrock terms as “laying pipe” for exposition or “backstory” for a character’s past. Like roleplaying practice, it is in large degree an oral tradition which is codified haphazardly and in retrospect, and is subject to ongoing innovation and revision. The movie and TV industries have a several generation head start on us in the generation of useful story-making techniques and the jargon to go with them.

The pass/fail cycle is a well established term for adventure plotting, and not unique to me. I’m now leaning toward hope/fear as more useful for RPG-focused story analysis; that is my variation. Inconveniently, it’s used in other fields as well, and if you Google the term, you get one of my blog posts.

For scene analysis, I draw on a work written for actors, Michael Shurtleff’s Audition. Its analytical techniques were then broken out by acting teachers to be more broadly applicable than its original remit suggested. The book itself focuses on how you break a scene for a dynamic, killer audition. A mutated Shurtleff approach was all the rage in the York University (Toronto) theater department when I was taking a Fine Arts Studies degree there in the mid-80s.

The terms petitioner and granter, for the participants in a dramatic scene, are used by the legendary film editor Walter Murch, as interviewed by Michael Ondaatje in The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. He doesn’t claim them as unique to himself, but for all I know they're his variation on a familiar concept.

Mo: Launch quantum torpedos!
Erin: Don't you dare!
Both: ...Forward thrusters!
Mo: ...
Erin: ...
Both: [burst into giggles]
Mo: I'm trying to think of something to say about your docking clamps.

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Nov. 10th, 2009

  • 1:18 PM
In the UK we have a newspaper called "The Daily Mail". Most of us are pretty sure it's a long-running joke, and that someday soon the owner will stand up and go "HA! I WAS KIDDING! FOOLED YOU!" and we can all have a good laugh while beating him around the head with the nearest available heavy objects.

Recently it has crossed into territory more suited for The Onion spoof newspaper. One particularly bigoted piece caused over 22,000 complaints.

But today, oh. So special.

Basically, women should learn to be sweetly pretty, and get back in the kitchen.

We're used to stories from the Mail saying "gays are icky", "it's all immigrants' fault" and "everything gives you cancer". But this is quality stuff today from Quentin Letts. It starts with "why can't everyone stop being so common and be posh instead?"

I've linked the page above, but just to deny them some clicks, here's a summary:


- "(Women) have lost the centuries-old idea of being demure in public. The sort of slender-lipped, self-questioning, hesitant lover played by Celia Johnson in David Lean's 1945 film Brief Encounter is now found only in recently arrived immigrant families."

Given the Daily Mail's attitude to Muslims, perhaps he shouldn't be championing "centuries-old ideas of women being demure in public"? Citing a woman who would rather go through one of the most famous tragedies on film rather than speak out loud to the man she loves is presumably not meant as irony here.


- "a grottiness not seen on this crowded island since the early 1800s before Sir Robert Peel formed his police force to tame the grottier purlieux of London."

That's right, the police were formed to tidy up the common folk.


- "One consequence of (Germaine Greer's) convention-shattering ways was a destruction of modesty and decency."

If "modesty and decency" were broken by feminism, you may want to double-check that women wanted them in the first place.


- "The very notion of being a gent became redundant if men and women were the same."

Only if your idea of women is that they are delicate passive flowers who need to be especially looked after because they mustn't do anything for themselves. Otherwise human beings should be treated well regardless, unless you're an arse. Edit: In fact, this quote directly says he'd like women to not be treated equally to men in society. Nice.


- "And so the institution of marriage, which has done more than anything over the centuries to glue society together, is weakened."

Utter bullshit. It's not weakened, and society hasn't relied on it. It didn't even exist in the present form if you go back a few "centuries".


- "This suits the equality freaks. They hate marriage. All that 'love, honour and obey' stuff shivers their timbers."

Yes, why is 'obey' in there on only one side? You arguing FOR it?


- "Yet married couples stay together longer, produce stabler children and generally have a kinder, happier time than their cohabiting counterparts."

Not true. How do you measure a 'kinder, happier time'? And "married people stay together" is hardly surprising, that doesn't mean they SHOULD. Parents staying trapped in a marriage 'for the kids' have children who do worse in school and life than single mothers or anyone else.


- "How different things might have been if Germaine Greer had become a happily married mother."

Yes, he actually typed this.


Then Quentin finishes off having a go at people with short haircuts, because shaved heads on men suggest "oikishness" and no "sophistication".

This wasn't written 40 years ago (or 60). It's a (depressingly) well-read tabloid, and it's allowed to produce the kind of bile that used to be in comedy shows:



Fuck you, Quentin Letts. The Daily Mail's prejudice against the poor, immigrants and liberals is well-known, now they apparently hate women too. Well, any who do anything beyond blushing prettily and talking about kittens.

Panic Attack!

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Giant robots invades Montevideo! A 5min short movie directed and animated by Fede Alvarez.

Affair of the Diamond Necklace - video!

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 9:59 PM
The Affair is back for one show on December 12! Yep I'm still the writer. It's still on at Wellington's super-prestigious St James Theatre. It's still super cool, interactive theatre good times.

Check out this amazing 2-minute video - it's a trailer, with heaps of footage from last time!



Heaps more info at the main site.

Thanks Steve Leon for the video! Steve is a gent.

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Nov. 10th, 2009

  • 3:14 PM
It's days like this I miss being a carnie. I'm looking out the window at the blue sky, and wishing I was in the dry inland outback where the warm breezes blow eucalyptus oil through the air and the car throws up red dust in your wake. No air-con, no airfreshener, just an open window and rock and roll on the radio, on the way to the next gig. Sleeping under the stars in a swag, up at dawn and brown from working outside all day.

So, anyone reckon that there’s a book in a girl quitting her job and deciding to travel all around and inland Australia on a motor bike?

*paws at window and pines*

Where would you rather be today?

Master-crafted Thunderhammer problem

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 10:25 PM
My boy Vulkan (Also known as Nemoy) makes all TH count as master-crafted meaning that you get one reroll to hit. If I were to take 5 Termies with THs, how would I roll this? Rolling for each termie one at a time would be too damned slow. Gettin 5 rerolls aint exactly fair.

Oath complete!

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 6:34 PM
Disclaimer: I am no great painter. I play horde armies, and I go for speed. Prime, basecoat, ink, drybrush highlight, then a few details. I think my main strength is as a converter. So, I'm not claiming that these look great or anything, merely that they're about as done as I'm going to make them. I'm open to suggestion, especially easy one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44488911@N02/

The above is a link to my Flickr. The 20 horms, 16 spinegaunts, hive tyrant, 2 winged fexes and 2 regular fexes were all painted since the oath began. I've included my hierodule (which I'll use as a Trygon if it's in the new book), my harridan, my mech stompa, my fateweaver, and my WIP bloodcrushers.

I'm probably going to work on some more tyranids since the book is due out soon, but this should cover me as far as the oath is concerned.

Peace out

Twitter:

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 1:02 AM

  • 13:27 I love looking through old XKCD comics. You find old gems like this: xkcd.com/386/ #

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Tweets Of The Day

  • Nov. 10th, 2009 at 12:50 AM
  • 07:15 RT @ditlev: @jonnynexus your mail will return, being copied over right now. status.uk2.net // Thanks! 1st question had me LOLing! #
  • 07:20 Apparently, losing every customer's email for a weekend and not bothering to tell them was actually a planned event: status.uk2.net/ #
  • 13:06 Today is T-7 and counting. Seven days until my baby, Game Night, is released into the wild. bit.ly/3RD7D1 #
  • 13:10 Finally remembered to pay in advance for London Writers' Club and save myself £5. Anyone else coming? bit.ly/n8OPu #
  • 17:45 At least Gordon Brown handwrites his own condolence letters. That's probably more than any other national leader does. And he is part blind. #
  • 17:46 Donald Rumsfeld didn't even sign his. He had a machine. I'm no fan of Brown, but I think this round of critism is really unfair. #
  • 19:00 Just noticed that the *dog* owned by some new friends of ours has more followers than me. I am a social networking failure. #
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Elopement

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 11:07 AM
To elope, most literally, merely means to run away.[1] More specifically, elopement is often used to refer to a marriage conducted in sudden and secretive fashion, usually involving hurried flight away from one's place of residence together with one's beloved with the intention of getting married.

-- Wikipedia

“You, that are going to be married, think things can never be done too fast: but we that are old, and know what we are about, must elope methodically, madam.”

-- Oliver Goldsmith

----



More news about Neoncon later, but for now, the important stuff.

On Saturday night, driving through Vegas, while looking for a liquor store with American Honey, [info]mnight  and I drove by a neon sign that said, "Wedding Licenses." The hour was late but the sign was still on and across the street--directly across the street--was a chapel with drive thru service.

Twenty minutes later, we were married.

No photographers, no rings, no guests. We had Jimmy Buffett on the radio singing "Brown Eyed Girl" as a bit of coincidence. 

And so, ladies and gentlemen, Ro is now, officially, my ex-girlfriend.

More pics

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 12:02 PM
Below the cut are pics of a termie Chaplain that I did long ago but had no pics of, my Vulkan conversion, a SM Captain with LC and removable JP, the second termie sergeant from the last post and Chaplain Cassius that has been converted for my Blood Angels. The codex says that I have to rename him to use him in a non UM army so I was thinking "Chaplain Fuckass" like outta Boondock Saints.

Read more... )

Italy!

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Italy!

Sue I returned from our trip to Italy last Wednesday night. Neither the flight there nor the flight back was particularly pleasant (nine hours is a long time to be crammed into a small seat surrounded by crying babies), we both caught nasty colds there, and I couldn't ever seem to get onto a regular sleep schedule while there (and still can't). And the trip was still 100% worth it.

We had an amazing time. The weather, first of all, was really nice, with sun and temperatures in the 60s and 70s. The first three days we toured around Florence, seeing all the sites in the central part of the city, like the massive cathedral there (a Renaissance church so grand you would say it wasn't even built to human scale), the Palazzo Vecchio and its numerous statues, the Santa Croce Basilica, the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge covered with shops that have been in operation for hundreds of years, and a lot more. We saw a number of Michelangelo works, including the David, of course. It was a great trip for history and art.

After Florence we went to the walled city of Lucca. Lucca was a city of Medieval importance, but because it (thankfully, I'd say) decreased in strategic value by World War II, it suffered little damage, unlike the surrounding region. This means that much of Lucca looks just as it had long ago, making it picturesque--and challenging to get around. Lucca was where the Lucca Comics and Games show was held, a 140,000 person convention at which I was a guest of honor. But I'll write about that tomorrow.

Toward the end of the trip we went to Pisa and saw the infamous leaning tower. (As the folks from Lucca like to say, "Pisa's only claim to fame is a mistake.") The tower had just been renovated, so its white stone glistened--practically glowed--in the sun. The nearby cathedral, while not as large as its counterpart in Florence, was very impressive and very beautiful on the inside.

It's been difficult for me to write even those three paragraphs about Tuscany without mentioning the food. I'm no foodie, but even a pedestrian like me was blown away by each and every meal we had in Italy. I'd often find myself saying things like, "This is just a potato. How can a potato be this good?"

Thankfully, my tour director, Sue, likes to maintain an aggressive schedule on vacations, and so we did a lot of walking and stairclimbing to work off all the fabulous meals. (And to be fair, our schedule was likely not as aggressive as she would have liked.)

I'd love to go back someday. I hope to see Rome and Venice someday, and more.



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This weekend we will be having our next event; ASSAULT III: THE AGE OF HERESY at Brother's Grim Games and Collectibles in Selden, NY. This event will feature 4 Heresy themed scenarios, our forth annual painting competition, a coloring competition for children under 10 years old and lunch will be supplied. We hope to see you all there!

Assault III Flyer )


The hardback limited edition of Hot War is now available to buy exclusively from our shop for the price of £22. This limited edition pack includes the following: One clothbound hardback copy of Hot War with black stamping on the front and spine, plus a full colour soft-laminated slip case. The book also comes with two regular and two oversized colour art cards.

Click here to see a preview of the pack

Click here to download a free 15 page preview of Hot War

Click here to buy a copy from the CGS shop

Cheers

Paul

Images of the pack behind this cut )

The Birds

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 9:20 AM
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View series to date here. Updated archive soon.

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Last week I went to a workshop on Formal Methods for Aerospace in Eindhoven.

The first (invited talk) was from Klaus Havelund of NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory. During the course of discussing the verification of log files, he showed us the start of the following video showing the planned landing of the Mars Science Laboratory.



There is, he noted, a lot that can go wrong.

I was also amused by the second invited speaker's (Henk Blom) discussion of applying probabilistic modeling methods to look at a propose new European Air Traffic Control system in which flight path conflicts would be resolved locally, by pilots with assistance from instruments, rather than ground stations. Basically, if the pilots saw a plane ahead they would take action to avoid that plane without considering where other planes in the airspace might be in order to take a path that would also avoid them. He had managed to show that even with only 8 planes over an area the size of the Netherlands the probability of in flight collisions (given certain assumptions about the probability of various types of pilot error and equipment malfunction) was unacceptably high. As presented this looked a bit as though the designers simply hadn't taken airports into account, but a quick skim of the relevant documentation suggests that they were always proposing that ground control would continue to orchestrate things around airports. Even so, I can imagine he didn't make himself popular when he reported this back to people who had been working on the system for years, building expensives simulators and training pilots to use them.

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First Irish Discworld Convention

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 10:41 AM
So I'm back a day early from the Irish Discworld Convention, but there's still plenty to comment on. The short version, for those of you only reading this far is that it was a very fun event with much to recommend it.

The longer version isn't much longer. However I shall go into a little more detail. The final number on the website was around 240, but there were a number of no-shows and a few day memberships, although the con never really felt like it had more than about 150 people there. And those people were definitely having fun. An awful lot of them had never been to a previous DWcon or a con of any sort, so there was plenty of fresh-faced enthusiasm, which is great. They threw themselves into events and were incredibly eager for anything the con had to offer.

In regards to that, the programme was a little light in places, but that, along with a lot of other parts that were a little rough around the edges, can be easily explained by the lack of experience amongst the committee. But once that is taken into account, they did a very good job. They took advice (such as moving the auction from the Monday back to the Sunday), dealt with guest schedules and maintained a bright and cheery atmosphere all the time. They weren't perfect (which committee ever is?), but they were vastly better than most first time committees and there is lots of hope for the future.

The hotel was great, slightly strange architecture and occasionally understaffed bar, but generally great, even if the location in Ennistimon is still very far away from most things.

But mostly the con was a success because it has introduced a whole bunch of people to a fandom they never knew existed. They know now that they are not alone and even if they never go to another con, they'll know that there are others and they aren't the only person in the world who reads Discworld novels.

So congrats to the committee and I look forward to another event in 2011!

(And maybe next time people will actually believe I've nothing to do with the organisation of the event and stop asking me questions!)

whiiiiiiine

  • Nov. 8th, 2009 at 11:13 PM
On the upside, since getting sick, I've lost two pounds, and my abs are going to be ripped from all the coughing. It hurts.

OPTIMISMMMM.

Nov. 9th, 2009

  • 7:31 AM
I deployed again, this time with 4 other players in my unit.

And I end up at a seperate base from the rest.

So, I'm working on WH40K through email, via power point. It's scary, cause it just might work.

Tweets Of The Day

  • Nov. 9th, 2009 at 12:50 AM
  • 15:40 [blog] My Writer's Confidence t-Shirt explained: bit.ly/G2qaK #
  • 17:03 Damn. Adding things to my website, but the narrow column design means I can't fit in any of my banner ads, like: bit.ly/4zsRoe #
  • 17:04 Added a load of pictures and questions to my website's FAQ section: bit.ly/PbYHT #
  • 18:03 The geniuses at UK2.net appear to have nuked all my imap email. Nice. #totalsenseofhumourfailure #
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Cthulhu - It's for kids

  • Nov. 8th, 2009 at 10:32 PM
Great deviantart of some children's drawings of Cthuhlu, click and click again for a larger version.

1 or 2 Elite choices and 1 HQ choice done

  • Nov. 8th, 2009 at 1:52 PM
I started these guys a few days before the Oath started. There are 10 termies with 2 special weapon guys that are magnetized for HF/AC,CML, a sergeant, and 1 or 2 guys that have chainfists magnetized. The plastic transport case is also housing all the termie bits for my 1st company. They are a mix of AOBR, regular and Space Hulk terminators.

Also finished but not pictured are my Vulkan conversion and an magnetized terminator sergeant.

Photobucket

Lots of pics under cut. )
I woke up early, as I have been doing all holiday - I think I'm unconsciously trying to get some early-morning computer time while [info]luciddestiny's asleep! However, this morning I just slipped on my hoodie and my Crocs (which are exactly as ugly as I always thought they were, but also so, so, so comfy) and went outside to explore the Out'n'About treesort. There was lots of mist and almost noone awake, so it was twice as magical as normal. The embers in the firepit had cooled down, and the trees dripped morning dew periodically on the soft pine-needle and leafy carpet. There's about 15 treehouses in the treesort, of varying heights. We were in a middling-high one, maybe the equivalent of two floor up, with a view over the firepit, from its wooden balcony. Some of the treehouses require traversing long tree-to-tree walkways, and there's one that's accessible by zipline. From our balcony, you could also see the horses, who were waking up for breakfast. There's a main house which houses some bedrooms and the kitchen - the autumn colour in full display against the mossy green of the roof and the white smoke from the chimney was beautiful. Walking around, there were swings, viewing platforms, rope ladders, rough wooden benches and the occasional enormous dog. Big sighs of contentment from me!

After my little pyjama-clad wander, I went back to snoozing hubby and our snuggly bed to check out that our thousands of photos were downloading to the laptop. On a whim, I checked the internet - and found that our nest had wifi. We had several happy hours of email checking and web browsing, while exclaiming to each other "we're in a tree". Admittedly, [info]luciddestiny was perhaps slightly less charmed by our lofty position, but the internet access took the edge off! Our late breakfast was delicious - eggs and bagels and toast and muffins - and all was good in the world as we took off for more driving.

The mist burned away as we drove back towards the coast, through Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We started stopping for photos again, and also at a tourist information point, which was one of our best decisions yet. They sent us back a few miles up the road, to cross the bridge so we could drive very slowly down the Howland Hill Road, a dirt road through the park. My jaw literally dropped when we started to see the bigger redwoods, although [info]luciddestiny was quick to point out that these were just baby ones initially. We got out of the car lots to wander into the woods a little, take a whole bunch of photos and generally marvel at the trees. As someone later said to me, the word "tree" doesn't really do them justice - they're like a different breed altogether. Since the canopy is so high up, and because they're evergreens, there's very little leaves or branches for about... oh, 100 feet up? It's very much that cathedral feel, great columns almost evenly spaced for as far as the eye can see. Some of the ones we saw were easily 6 or 7 feet wide - some were bigger. The bark was warm and slightly spongy to the touch. The ground seemed to rise up a good 3-4 feet to meet each tree - a result of hundreds of years of dropped needles. With little other growth on the ground - other than mushrooms and swathes of whispy moss and lichen on the occasional deciduous trees, it was easy to walk around and the ground was springy and soft. There was the occasional fallen tree, the height of a minivan and as long as you can see through the forest. We were so lucky with the weather - being warm and sunny in the open, and just slightly fresh in the forest. It was absolutely magic - and completely indescribable in its awe-inspiring, calm-inducing, humblingness!

We eventually got through, without getting stuck behind the people in the RV, who had decided against advice to try to get through (I wonder whether they are still stuck in that final last sharp turn over the bridge) and drove into Crescent City. We did stop to look for whales - who had been spotted that morning, but we suspect that the swelling, roughening seas probably drove them out to calmer waters. Suddenly hungry, we followed some signs that said "Crabs - eat one or be one!" towards the marina and inadvertantly found the restaurant that a guide at Out'n'About had been recommending, but wasn't able to remember the name. Chart Room is a diner right at the end of a pier, where we could eat and watch the sealions do their thing on a floating doc, while munching fish'n'chips (scallops - nyom) and chowder. Afterwards, we went for a little climb on the rocks, but still no whales. Very sad.

Afterwards, we drove further on the Redwood Highway, down towards Eureka, our chosen spot to sleep. On the way, we got sidetracked and ended up going to a casino, purely because I'd never been. Cher-ae Casino in Trinidad was small (apparently) and full of the elderly, but apparently the old people are a common factor of casinos. We played on the slots (which made no sense to me - I just pressed some buttons and lost some money), the poker machines (where we made back our stake after about 30 minutes of playing) and then on to the black-jack tables. Unfortunately, the tables were $10 dollar, rather than $5, which would have suited me better, but I still held on for a few hands before bottoming out. [info]luciddestiny did much better and actually won some money, so when we left an hour later, we were at least even for the whole evening (which, by [info]luciddestiny's more sensible ethos, meant we were actually considerably up - he says that you should consider all money you change to chips as irrevocably gone from the moment you change it....). We decided to blow it on dinner and head on to Eureka.

For once, we arrived pretty early, checked into our hotel, had dinner (Denny's - don't judge us - our winnings weren't that huge!) and retired to our room for jacuzzi and Mythbusters.....
We went for our morning walk, about 10,500 steps round-trip to grab breakfast at Starbucks in Kyle. The Starbucks breakfast sandwiches are actually pretty good, and when you have a long walk as part of the process you don't have to feel guilty drinking hot chocolate (with non-fat milk, of course). I skipped the hot chocolate this morning, but only because I decided I wanted a Diet Dr. Pepper. And that didn't work out so I found myself drinking a Coke Zero. Not as good, but it did the job.

Now to unwind. I'm trying to get next week's battlegrip.com reviews finished. Two down, one to go, plus I managed to stock the site with posts for the next week and even finished another round of correspondence with a couple of printers. Yesterday turned out to be a great day; I hope today goes just as well.

If I could read Russian

  • Nov. 8th, 2009 at 11:50 AM
I'd probably get more out of this.



It's a little story and there are loads of them on the LJ (click image for link) including one set in London.

Any Russophones prepared to tell me what it's all about?

Twittericous

  • Nov. 8th, 2009 at 12:04 AM
  • 12:17 i dont have the time or the money to get into WFRP3. but it just looks so fantastic. ARGH! #
  • 20:21 chaos in the old world cards have been successfully sleeved. am now ready to corrupt and ruin the old world with 3 other chaos gods again. #
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re-sickening

  • Nov. 7th, 2009 at 2:31 PM
I thought I was just taking a long time to kick the trailing end of the cold I had, but it looks like the flu after all. My skin hurts. My bone marrow hurts. My cerebrospinal fluid hurts. My hair hurts.

Saturday

  • Nov. 7th, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Well, I've accomplished one thing this morning: Found and sent friend requests to both of my sisters-in-law (or just "sisters," as they insist) on FaceBook. Although I'm not sure either of them have an internet connection right now (or even a computer) so it's a bit puzzling how they got there or if I'll hear from them.

Not that I found this out from FB, but they're both pregnant. Dear god, my husband's family reproduces like whoa. (I've mentioned his other sister with the four kids?) Hopefully all that comes from K's step-dad's side, because I'm not sure even my tubal AND hysterectomy are enough to save me from that. (Then again, what's a little surgery to the Antichrist anyway?)

Also found and sent a request to my, um... K's uncle's son. Ok, cousin-in-law, I guess that would be. Super genius guy, I wish we'd get to see him more. He picks up human languages like I do programming ones. Last time I saw him (at our wedding), he was learning one of the African "click" languages...

(HE would have no problem helping me with that stupid French translation. *LOL* (But like I said, I think that's covered now.))

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Another week in the life of GURPS

  • Nov. 6th, 2009 at 8:33 PM

Time for the first update of November 2009. Wow, November. GURPS goings-on this week included:

• We released a freebie that I hinted at ages ago: GURPS Infinite Worlds: I.S.T, by Steve Kenson and Kenneth Hite ([info]princeofcairo). Are you a fan of Bob Schroeck's GURPS International Super Teams? Would you like to use it with Ken Hite's GURPS Infinite Worlds campaign frame? This item should help you out!

• Actually, we released two freebies. The second was GURPS Range Ruler, by T Bone. This is a cool little tool for gamers who use tactical combat. It's just about all you need to go mapless with your figures, if that's your thing.

• We reviewed the rough PDF of Pyramid #3/13: Thaumatology. I think that the title, which hints at GURPS Thaumatology, explains itself. That should be out later this month.

• And . . . my GURPS Low-Tech edit is at the 92% mark by page count. This week, I mainly tackled vehicles: carts, dugout canoes, reed rafts, sleds, wagons, even surfboards. If you need a small vehicle for your adventuring party, chances are good that it's here. (Big ships will be in the GURPS Low-Tech Companion volumes.)

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Twitter:

  • Nov. 7th, 2009 at 1:02 AM

  • 19:09 Hmm... 3 Scotch Bonnets made a surprisingly mild chilli. Have my tastebuds just fossilised, or did stewing them 4 an hour kill the heat? #

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Tweets Of The Day

  • Nov. 7th, 2009 at 12:50 AM
  • 09:29 Yeh! My new Writer's Confidence T-Shirt just arrived! Pics to follow. #
  • 13:21 My Writer's Confidence t-shirt: twitpic.com/oh1vb #
  • 13:28 Might make more sense if I show it to you upside down: bit.ly/2Yi2sk #
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Alice in Chains' New Album

  • Nov. 6th, 2009 at 4:59 PM
I grabbed the new Alice in Chains album, Black Gives Way To Blue, this afternoon and it's not exactly what I expected. To be honest, I was afraid it would be more like Jerry Cantrell's solo efforts (see Wikipedia), both of which did nothing for me.



Well, this new album may not sound like classic Alice in Chains, but there are enough similarities that it's more like Alice in Chains than it is Cantrell's solo albums. This is a very good thing.

It's definitely no "Jar of Flies" or "Dirt," but so far it's a fun album. We'll see how it handles repeat plays.

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Lemony Peas

  • Nov. 6th, 2009 at 9:15 PM
This week I made Easy Springtime Vegetables ).

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After a peaceful night's sleep in the B&B, we had this fantastic - fresh fruit and homemade warm muffins and scones, followed by a crazy omlette and (surprisingly) little boiled and salted potatoes. Gazing out at the sea and sipping coffee is the best way to start the day!

We tried to leave early, because we had a lot of driving to do, but stopped almost immediately at Ona Beach itself to take some photos and walk along by the sea. The weather was perfect, sunny but with a little sea breeze to remind you where you are. We were the only ones on the beach, most of the time, and it was very romantic :)

We then stopped about 2 minutes down the road at another great photo point over the sea. And again 5 minutes later. And again, and again. Basically, we barely made 10 miles in the first hour or so of the trip, which was very bad and so vowed to do 50 miles without stopping. At this point, we turned another corner on the road to see yet more beautiful views, and more stopping and whipping out the cameras, to take another 100 photos of the skyline, the nearby cliffs and the beach we were overlooking. It was only when we actually got out of the car that the distinctive sound (and smell) of sealions hit us in waves! on the beach below us were literally hundreds of sealions - lolling on the beach, swimming nearby in the shallows, generally foolacting. Very cool.

Just around the corner was Sea Lion Cave (a tourist attraction boasting the biggest sealion cave in the world - or something like that). Apettite whetted by our at-a-distance sealion meeting, we were ok to stump up the $12 to get in, but then the lady said, "Today, we're just charging $10 since the sealions are all out. But you can still go down and look around the cave, which is really the main attraction". We managed to leave without laughing directly at her, but seriously - it's called Sealion Cave - with the emphasis on the first word...

We kept driving for a bit, stopping in a town whose name escapes me, for lunch and a bit of a wander (our first trip into an American pawn shop - a lot of guitars, which is sad, and a lot more guns, which is just scary). We drove on for a while longer, and stopped for myrtlewood (which is very common in the area and for which there are a million little shops) and icecream, before some more driving by the coast, sunset and a very long drive back inland to get to the treesort. [info]luciddestiny was an absolute star - driving onwards in the dark while I passed out. We got there late, and so had quite a bit of wandering about looking for our treehouse in the dark. We eventually ensconced ourselves in Peacock Perch, which was surprisingly cosy, before getting into bed to watch the tree branches against the night sky.

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