Bwa Ha. Ha. Um.

So, it's official, I'm now signed up to run a larp at Chimera, called But Nobody Loses An Eye! set at a 3 year old's birthday party. It'll be totally awesome! Now I just have to, er, do something about writing it.

Note to other Wellingtonian Chimera attendees:
Registration for the con is now open at http://nzlarps.org/chimera/2009/register.htm, I'm told that game selection will come a bit later.
If you're on the same flight home as me (7pm), you might want to arrange with Anna the Larp Goddess to trade in your hour of mandatory packing out of the site to an hour of helping in the kitchen or alternate cleanup.

Christmas Holiday Special

You know how when a soap opera is getting ready to close down for the holidays they put in a lot of big dramatic unpleasant events so the the audience will be raring to start watching when it starts up again?

I'm having one.

The restructure fairy has turned up at work and sprinkled her little fairy dust around. They're not reducing head count, but my particular job is one of the ones deemed unnecessary. At this point, I can make a submission about how I think they should do their restructure instead, apply for one of the new jobs being created (seeing some job descriptions would sure be handy for that), wangle a spot elsewhere in Council, or leave. Things could be a lot worse, but yet I'm still feeling very uncertain about the future.

48 Hours Update

Team got 90% of the footage in the can yesterday and I stayed up until about 2.30 doing the rough cut, while Svendelmaus, my fellow gnome, messed around with sounds and backing music.* Really liking what's coming through. (If anyone is interested, we managed to write a script that's valid for 3 of the 48 Hours Approved genres, plus one that isn't. And it works. Go team!) Looking forward to the screening on Thursday.

Am now in Sunday morning lounging in my pyjamas mode, trying to stay awake so I'll sleep alright tonight. Also, there's a builder coming in about 40 minutes to fix a window sill - should probably get dressed for that.

* Day not without frustrations, like working out to get the DOP to cough up the first tape so I could start downloading footage, then having a panic attack trying to work out how to get the camera I'd been given to work and remembering how to use the software and working out why the new import method we were trying to speed up data entry wasn't working. Ah. Good times. Happily, my fellow gnome watched me typing in the shot entries for the second tape, said "That's inefficient!" and whipped up a specialised data entry program that took the job from 30-40 minutes of fiddliness to done-before-someone-has-finished-making-me-tea. Go Svend!

48 Hours

I'm in Jenni's Angels again this year, this time as one of the writers, and assistant editor.

We got Revenge Movie, which we figured is easy to do cornily and hard to do well, and we wanted to do it well. The brainstorming with everyone took ages, and then the writing team: me, Morgue, JenniTalula and Amphigori repaired to my house and motored through into a script that we really liked, and got it finished about 2.30am, far earlier than expected. I've had about 6 hours sleep and am feeling a bit spacy, but not at all too bad - my work for the afternoon is to start downloading the first tape. I'm quite looking forward to it, as I'll get to see what they've created with my night's work. [rubs hands in anticpatory glee]

Oh, the movie? It's a Film Noir Revenge Flick in which FraserByProxy gets beaten up lots. It's sure to be a winner!

My weekend

I haven't updated in absolutely ages. Alas etc.

The main thing is that my Gran is dying. I don't mean that she's been diagnosed with something icky (that was about a year ago), I mean that people are now saying hours or days but not weeks. I spent time with her yesterday and in the few weeks since I last saw her at Easter she has declined rather a lot. One of the things they don't tell you about old people whose bodies are starting to shut down is that their faces get very smooth and lose their wrinkles because the muscles in their faces start relaxing. Anyway, there's not much anyone can do now but keep her warm and pain free and keep her company while she sleeps. There are very many relatives flocking around right now, along with a full time carer called Kelly who is lovely and thinks Gran is neat. And I'm feeling sad, but at the same time all the regular parts of my life are ticking along as well.

Good night all.

Xi Shi

I am now the proud owner of a splendiferously lustworthy doll of Xi Shi, one of the legendary Four Beatiful Women of China. According to the doll's creator, the amazingly talented Catherine, Xi Shi "was sent by the king of one small kingdom to [the king of] another small kingdom as a concubine, with the secret brief of destroying his kingdom through distraction and other secret agent tricks. Once this was accomplished, she ran away with her old handler, ... married him, and lived happily ever after. Moreover, history remembers her as 'that daring and beautiful lady who was very loyal to her country, which she helped greatly' as opposed to less complimentary epithets that [are] applied at times to beautiful women. A very successful lady. (Oh, and her father grew tea.)

Pictures, so that others can envy my good fortune, are below:

(There is a seriously huge amount of detail in this doll, which is fully undressable, with complete hand made jewellery and craft accessories, and several layers of precise and exact detail which the casual viewer wouldn't see but I know are there for added gloriousness.)






Fully assembled lady is here:


Bonus picture of me and Macca, pursuing one of her favourite hobbies:

Huzzah!

In the bookshop I found the new Temeraire book, Victory of Eagles, and I've been spending much of the past two days reading it. It's a good 'un, and includes the entrance of one Arthur Wellesley, known in the book as General Wellesley, and in the real world becomes the 1st Duke of Wellington, and he goes around being pragmatic, efficient, and extremely ruthless. It's a nice change, as in previous books the heroes have been stuck working for bumbling, close-minded and annoying people and get stuck trying to decide where their real duty lies - following incompetent and self-serving orders, or being recalcitrant and achieving something. Wellesley is also causing people to question where their duty lies, but at least by following his orders people know that they'll be looking after Britain. For the greater good?

With all historical novels, there's always a certain tension between one's knowledge of real world events and the alternate version presented by the author - in this case, by the inclusion of dragons as air force and the change in tactics and historical events that would mean. At this point, Novik has completely gone off the map, there is no history book that will tell you what's more or less supposed to happen, as there was in Black Powder War; from now on we get to find out how the Napoleonic Wars are going to turn out when she's ready to tell us and not before. It's very exciting.

My main negative point is this: the proof reading in the edition I read is just plain careless. The spelling is correct - automated spell checkers can give us that at least, but there are many places throughout where words are missing, or shouldn't be there, or the pronouns are messed up. It's annoying having to break out of immersion in order to work out what the writer meant, and I would have expected a professional publisher to do better.

The guns, they go boom.

This afternoon/evening, I took Repton out to be cultured. To be precise, we went to the Summer Symphony at the Basin Reserve, which had the Vector Wellington Orchestra doing their thing, together with a brass band, the Footloose dance company, and some soloists.

It was neat. John lay in the sun reading a book, and I sometimes read a book, sometimes sat and listened, and sometimes went up to the stage to dance. They were playing favourite orchestral tunes from the 19th and 20th C, so things like Nessun Dorma and William Tell and the drinking song from La Traviata, but also the themes from Harry Potter and Indiana Jones, and a famous tango. The conductor/MC was a hoot - in his introductions to each piece he'd be as lurid as possible about the lyrics, or list all the movies it had been used in the soundtrack of - "So this piece, the flower duet from Lakme, has been used in this movie and that movie, and also that really cool British Airways ad, but also most importantly a computer game called Kill Zone 2. Oh yeah, it's technically about two Indian girls picking flowers by a stream, but remember, Kill Zone 2.

And of course, they finished up with the 1812 overture, bringing the brass band back for extra trumpets, having a carillon going behind the orchestra, and a bunch of cannons behind the audience. Oh yeah.

(Sorry for missing your party Adrexia, I'm feeling a bit overstimulated to go and chat with people right now.)

Lo the Mighty Hunter

Macca caught a bird.

We got it out of her mouth and it flew away, hopefully nevermore to hang around our cat infested property. Cats think differently to people, though. We got the bird away from her while we were outside, but she spend a good long while investigating the top of the book case (a temporary resting place in her romp of glory) trying to work out where it had gone.

Today I was a Best Girl

Turned up as crew to Evinshir's Winding City project and spent the day helping out the Assistant Director/Gaffer/Guy Who Knows What He's Doing. He was very kind about explaining what he needed to me and my co-best boy - hopefully, next filming day I'll be able to be a bit more efficient.

Shoot went well - we wrapped over an hour earlier than expected, and fitted another scene in.

Huzzah!

I have finally finished reading The Canterbury Tales. It's only taken me four months (it felt longer.) Next up: The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fowls, both of which are considerably shorter, which is good, because I'm supposed to have them read by this Wednesday. (Honours course on Chaucer starts this week.)

But first, some goofing off. :-)

Internet Blackout

Things I did expect today...

Frogs underneath the waterfront. (They were wearing wetsuits and goggles.)

It was a production of Aristophanes' The Frogs (with, er, updated text) that took atmosphere really really seriously. When Dionysos (played by a guy who was channeling Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent) headed across the lake in Charon's boat, all the audience were loaded into a train of paddleboats and headed underneath the pier with him. It was very neat. :-)

Things I didn't expect today...

"On behalf of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand Inc. we write to advise that [cat-th-adage and] you have been nominated for the Sir Julius Vogel (SJV) Award for:

Best fan publication: The Girl Who Asked for Wisdom and Other Short Works"

Thank you to whoever made the nomination! :-)

(Cat did all the hard graft on this, my contribution was to let her make free of my hard drive.)

Clicky Boxes!

(This is a brief plug for work.)
The Wellington City Council is in the early engagement phase of a simply enormous document it has to produce called the Long Term Council Community Plan. It's a big deal, because it sets the high level budgets and levels of service for the next three years, and has a lot to do with what things are available and how much the rates next year are going to be. If you're going to talk to the Council anytime in the next three years, this is the best time to do it.

Fortunately, they're trying to make it easy for internet-bunnies, with the provision of a website with Genuine Clicky Boxes, Calculators, and Voting Buttons. (Plus there's Councillor-staffed phonelines, and documents available through the libraries and all that regular stuff.)

Mmm. Hot banana cake.

A couple of days ago, I realised that I was due and past due to give my cat a worming pill.

One towel, two attempts, a strapping young lad, butter, a pill popper, and a lot of hurt feelings all around (except, I think, for the strapping young lad) later, and the job is completed. And no-one's bleeding or has lost an eye or anything!

Have heard a rumour that it's possible to find topical dewormers, much like the defleaing liquid I already use. Really really must investigate.

Banana cake was Repton's first baking excursion that doesn't involve a bread machine. It's very yummy, and I'm sure he'll be keen to do this some more. :-)

Sitting Shiva

At KapCon I ran a live game called Sitting Shiva. Writeup is here.

Back From KapCon

Have just staggered back from KapCon, had a really good time, but Very Tired.

In brief:
- ran a game called Sitting Shiva which didn't suck. Actually, I got very positive comments from the players, along with helpful comments about things to tinker with on reruns. Am really glad that I got a strong set of roleplayers who threw themselves into the concept, even the new guy who had hardly any gaming experience. Will do a proper writeup in a bit, post to Gametime for them that are interested.
- had a jolly good time at the Mafia larp. Set dressing was awesome. Costuming was awesome. My character was awesome. Spent a lot of my time running around scheming on behalf of friends and/or faction members, with occasional business deals on my own account. Helped save my true love from self-inflicted death, and arranged appropriate revenge on the conniving former friend who'd told him I was dead, thus triggering the self-infliction bit. (It got very Romeo & Julietish for a bit, there.) Good times.
- Won something! I got one of the spot prizes at the prize giving. Some kind of miniatures game. I shall treasure it as the First Time I Won Something At Kapcon.
- General happiness of hanging out with people I hadn't seen in ages. Met some new people I like. Found out that a friend of mine has started going out with the cousin of another friend of mine, think this is excellent, everyone should look that happy.

Funny things to look at

One's cat crouching on a sloping bannister, facing downwards, realising that actually her claws are in the wrong direction to stop her inexorable downwards slide. The scrabbling noise was quite amusing, too.

Tonight I played in the first game of the new frisbee league, which is about four months since I last played a game of frisbee, and rather longer since I played outdoors. Asthma much less than feared, lovely sunny evening, friendly people to play with, and am now very stiff as I've done no running in a very long time.

Embarassing Things To Do On Buses

Have your laptop fall from the overhead luggage on to your head. Fortunately, my skull cushioned its fall and it doesn't seem to be damaged.

(No meaningful harm to me, either, just lots of swearing and meeping for sympathy at the time.)

Happy New Year!!!