Monthly Archives: April 2015

Poetry

Me, Musings

Today I have had a poem running around my head. A new one, not an old one.

I used to do a lot of poetry in school – I won competitions, and I think I was even published at one point. Of course, that was in primary school, so I’m not going to say they were brilliant by any standards. Did less in secondary school, and even less since. But occasionally the poet’s grace touches me and I compose something. I don’t usually do anything with it, but sometimes it’s for a purpose, and I put it to use.

The poem that had been forming itself in my head today got written down and emailed to the person it was for, and they appreciated it which was in itself the goal. I’ve previously written poetry to express my depression, or just to get something out of my head in an ordered fashion – using the structure of a poem to unravel my thoughts.

My early poetry, along with my propensity for reading is probably why I had a larger than average vocabulary for a kid in my area (though not higher than average for my year as I’d say most of the kids in my year were also in the smart kid crowd even if they also fit in the popular crowd where I didn’t).

But still, prose has its purpose, and I do like to write poetry occasionally – putting effort into a single piece and rearranging it until it works. Of course, since I do that with just about anything I put in the public eye, I’m not sure how much extra effort I can claim to put into the more poetic pieces.

Bad experiences

Depression, Me, Musings

So I’m kind of reblogging a reblog while I wait for my hair dye to activate. I originally wrote this in 2010, reblogged it in 2013.

Since then, I’ve had a varied “love life” with a few people passing through my life in various ways. Some I’ve screwed up, some just haven’t worked out (I’m pretty sold on the idea that I’m straight, but playing with gay guys can be fun too).

The reason I’m thinking about this right now is that I was talking to someone and realised that they didn’t know these stories – didn’t know the things I’d been through – and I couldn’t quite decide if I should tell them or not. But I made these things public for a reason – hiding it isn’t going to change things – and I know that they will read this, and can choose whether or not to follow the links above for themselves.

I was in a different place when I wrote both the original post and the comments on the reblog, but this still affects me. Today was the first time I’d thought about it in a long time, and I can now say that I’ve conquered a lot of the issues that came of it – but that doesn’t mean that they’ve gone away, or that they don’t linger – the moments that define who you are don’t just go away, they make you who you are; losing them would be losing part of who you are and I’m pretty happy with where I am at the moment.

 

[Lost] Character drabble

Isles of Darkness, LRP, Musings,

“Alright then, alright then. What can I get for ya? Everything you could want, I got – or I can get it. Well… everything available with a modicum amount of effort – I don’t got no one-of-a-kind Holy Grails or nuttin’ and I don’t do quest work in the main – that’s not my bag.

Ain’t no Imitation Brand items here: either it’s the real deal, a Gen-U-Ine product, or it’s not on my stall. I only make honest trades, and I don’t sell shoddy goods. Sure, it might have fallen off a truck or four, but that don’t make it shoddy. I take barter and favours mostly – cash if you’re hard up but there’s a premium on that.”

A bit of a drabble about my Lost concept for the new Isles of Darkness chronicle. I’m currently thinking of calling him Honest Denzo (or Uncle Denzo) but I don’t really know where that name is coming from.

Spent the trip to collect my phone last night building up the character and exploring the concept and what he does, who he is, and what sort of person he is. All in all, he’s not a nice person, but he’s not a bad person – he’s in it for his own gain and he doesn’t really mind if that hurts other people, or if their desires backfire.

Thinking Spring Court with some Autumn Contracts. All about the desire, with the ability to tell what magic items do/are.

Seeming/Kith is where I’m a little more stuck. I’m thinking of using inspiration from the Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth – pale skin and blind in face with eyes in his hands which I intend to phys-rep with a mask and make-up[1]. To go with the mask, I’m thinking a creepy pale blond wig á la Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Taking this all into account, I’m either thinking Darkling or Ogre. Darkling has the pale creepy vibe down pat (especially Tunnelgrub and Palewraith), but Ogre has Cyclopean and I quite like that as a means of subverting the blindness. Wizened would also work, but I’m less convinced about wanting to play one.

The character is a bit of a mish-mash of Riff Raff from Rocky Horror, Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses, Badger from Firefly, CMOT Dibbler from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and other similar characters. Bit of an attitude, thinks he’s better than he is, proclaims himself an honest gentleman while trying to swindle every customer for all they’re worth.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. ↑ I’m actually not sold on the eyes on hands thing, but some kind of pseudo-blindness appeals to me

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Counting the minutes

Me, Musings

Left my phone on the bus this morning, and now I’m counting the minutes until I can get out of here and get it back. I can’t do chat programs or Google+ in the office, and not knowing if people are trying to get in touch with me that might need me for some reason is getting to me a bit.

I could probably use the occasional internet deprivation stint, really. The honest truth is I feel like something’s missing – and I only felt this way since I noticed I didn’t have my phone around midday. Even subconsciously knowing it’s there is an ease on my mind even if I don’t know exactly where it is. There was palpable relief when I finally tracked it down to the Longstone depot and got in contact with Lost Property.

Why are we so addicted to our tech? I was getting positively twitchy as I tried to track my phone down – and not just because it isn’t insured. It’s an interesting question, and I don’t really have an answer – I’m just waiting for the moment I can go and get my precious back…

Summarising World of Darkness

Isles of Darkness, LRP, Roleplaying, , ,

A friend of mine was looking for summaries of the core new World of Darkness games that he could share with someone he was persuading to play in the Isles of Darkness. There was a dearth of responses, so I wrote something for him to use. They’re not brilliant – they’re written from one person’s perspective and my memory for exactly how everything works isn’t best when I have the books in front of me, but they do the job I think. Continue reading Summarising World of Darkness →

Godus

Computer Games

All the way back in 2012, I backed a game on Kickstarter called Godus. Coming from people who made games like Black & White, I was pretty sure I’d get an addictive god game. I feel I was right.

I’ve been playing it on and off since I got access to the beta, but this weekend was the first time I’ve played it for a long stint. I finally got my civ producing and got out of the tutorial area and into the next world.

Damn, it’s exhausting being a god. I tend to find that you’re either in a position of running around desperately collecting resources, or you’re practically running on unlimited resources until the next crisis hits. The latter part is when you can engage in proper world-sculpting (literally) as you can afford to spend 100,000 Belief destroying a mountain to get at the ancient temples buried beneath it.

Not that I did that. Twice.

My annoyances with the game mostly come from the fact that it’s still in beta, so it’s buggy. The game would just freeze and crash on me occasionally, but the in-built auto-save (the only way to save) is fairly good at meaning you don’t lose much. The other big thing that was annoying is actually your followers. Being stupid at heart, they would continually follow wrong routes or get stuck in places they shouldn’t be – often because the path was a micron too small so they couldn’t get through – but if it looks wide enough, how are you supposed to tell that?

Overall though, it’s an engaging game that does require some elements of strategy and planning (who knew you had to plan out your community set-up? I’d recommend it to people interested in that type of game – though you might want to wait until it’s out of beta…

[[This post originally intended to be posted on March 30, but it got stuck in drafts and is being posted two weeks on. I’ve managed to stay away from it over the last two weeks – mostly because of LARPing]]

Music from when I was a teenage dirtbag

Empire, Music, Musings,

I appear to be appreciating the music of my teens quite a lot at the moment. I’m blaming the drive to and from Empire last weekend. The CD I pulled out of the glove-box to listen to was CD3 of Now That’s What I Call Running 2014 (which I may have to get a copy of). The reason I picked that one (other than it being one of the only non-folk CDs in the collection) was that it had quite a bit of nostalgia on it for me.

The drives to and from Spernall were augmented by songs I’d last really heard in the early noughties when I was a teenager – guilty pleasures and open alike – as well as tracks from the eighties. A selection of the “best” tracks are below:

  • Britney Spears – Toxic
  • Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal
  • Avril Lavigne – Sk8er Boi
  • Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag
  • Elvis Presley vs. JXL – A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Edit Remix)
  • Blink 182 – All the Small Things
  • Sum 41 – In Too Deep
  • Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’
  • Soft Cell – Tainted love
  • Blondie – Call Me
  • Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Relax
  • The Knack – My Sharona
  • Snap – The Power

This, amongst other things, has inspired me to listen predominantly to tracks from my teen years this week. I’ve listened to a lot of Avril Lavigne, which has led into listening to a lot of Pink. Thinking Sum 41 may have to be on the list somewhere.

What’s actually surprised me is the number of these groups who are still performing and putting out music today. I stopped paying any attention to them after I went to university, and they’ve continued to write and produce. I like a lot of Avril’s new stuff, and I want to see how Sum 41 was evolved in the last decade (I own their first three CDs, one in two different versions[1] so knowing whether they’re still someone I’d like to listen to would be interesting.

I’m already thinking I might need to buy Avril’s latest album just based on the main singles from it. Something to consider when I have more money.

So that’s what I’ve been listening to recently. Have any suggestions for other things I might enjoy?

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. ↑ All Killer, No Filler. I have both the UK and US versions because one had a bonus song

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Work rants

Depression, Me, Work

The last two days I’ve worked ten hour days. I’m currently 6 hours into what could be another. As far as I know, I’m not getting compensated for the extra time, and I’m certainly not being thanked for it by the people bitching at me about every slight “problem” they find. I rebuilt their website to work on a new data source in two hours and they’re complaining at me either because it’s doing what it did before and they expected it to somehow change or because the data is different and they haven’t cottoned on to the fact that it’s their data that’s wrong and they have to fix it before it will display right.

I am stressed, tense, and sick of dealing with this crap. I’ve had two different companies whining at me over trivial bullshit this week, and even though this week has only been three days long for me, it’s been a longer harder week than most five-day-weeks. I have come very close to taking my balls and going home the last couple of days- just walking out of the office.

It’s easy to tell when things are really getting to me – my noise tolerance goes down. When I need to plug in and blast music in my ears just to override what I’m hearing and cope, then I’m having a bad day. When I lash out at someone for touching my shoulder to try and get my attention while I’m doing this, I’m having a terrible fucking day and I recommend you leave me the fuck alone. Especially when all my attention was wanted for was to show me something I already knew about, had dug up the means to access the data I needed to verify testing and was working on fixing it. When I say “I know about that, I’ve got it on my screen and I’m working on it right now” I don’t mean “show me more of this because I haven’t seen it”.

This week is especially hard because I’m still rubbing myself raw over something that happened at the weekend. The one sour point of my weekend left me feeling physically ill for hours from my reaction to it, and I’m still considering how to address it. One of the problems is that I can’t openly discuss it, and it is affecting my moods in general, as well as potentially my continued attendance at and enjoyment of PD events. I’ve been contemplating how to put it in words, and the answer so far is that I don’t know how to, but it may be something I need to bring to PD’s attention.

Anyway, back to work. I have some side projects to work on, and music to distract me.

Soundtrack: Avril Lavigne – Rock n Roll[1]

Footnotes   [ + ]

The Winter Solstice

Costume, Empire, LRP, Me, Musings,

This weekend I’m off to Empire. First Empire event of 2015, first of the Winter events I’ll have been to. It’s also my first field LARP event as a player this year.

Currently I’m fretting a little over the things I don’t have. I can’t find my scaled brow prosthetic, so I might be reduced back to just make-up, which I’d really prefer not to do. I can’t find my rune bag – but that’s an accessory I can live without. I don’t have as much in the way of Demijohn liqueurs as I normally do as I’m a little skint right now. I also don’t have the final piece of my mage armour[1], so I’ll be throwing something together in a hurry – possibly just by wearing my big coat on the battlefield.

The idea of using some of Jeremy’s cast-off skin for my Naga scales has just occurred to me, but I think that might not work as well as the idea suggested. Might be worth an experiment though – I can see if it’ll take make-up to colour it. My worry is that it would tear easily, but Naga probably shed scales as well, so I can find an IC reason for it.

I’m not as revved up for the event as I’d like to be. My keen is low, and I’m not sure what I’ll be doing on the field as Sólsetur. I have a letter to deliver, some people to see, and some rituals to do, but I don’t really know what I’m doing as a whole. I may angle towards taking over as Thane for something to do besides sit around and occasionally do a ritual.

I don’t know. Playing events can be odd for me – I feel more comfortable in a ref/crew role in the main, and while I can write my own characters and play them, finding goals and things for them to do can be tricky for me. I don’t know why I find it easier to do that for an NPC I write than for my own characters, but I do.

Tonight we’re packing the car, and tomorrow morning we’re off to the new Empire site. Hopefully without getting mired in traffic. We’ll see.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. ↑ I didn’t think I’d be coming to this event, so I didn’t commission it and by the time I knew I wasn’t coming, it was too late