Now you might be thinking upon seeing that title, “Hey isn’t this about three months late?”, maybe you should instead be thinking “It sure would be a shame if asking all these questions forced Mick to mess up my pretty face”. Just a friendly suggestion. Indeed it is a little late, due in part to laziness but also due to an inevitability outlined below. Continue reading…
Month: April 2015
I hate your finger oils
I’d hate your dirty hands as well but obviously anyone reading this is too refined to have filthy mitts. I like boardgames. I can’t really afford to buy them these days but due to the fact I don’t get them to the table as often as I’d like I have a backlog that makes that a non-issue (and even though the industry is doing well new ones I’m interested in don’t really come out that fast). But there is a hidden price to boardgames. To quote the cinematic masterpiece that was Highlander III, “No Glove, No Love”. Not to overstate it but the vast majority of modern boardgames use cards. Cards which the filthies that play them pick up with the muck laden meat hooks they call hands. Which means that at the very least before playing a game, if not at the same moment as I buy it, I find myself required to buy card sleeves to protect these cards. I’d love to play these games enough for wear and tear to be a real issue or play games with more miniatures (but then you have to pain them and apply a protective coat to keep the paint safe, varnish – natures card sleeves). Continue reading…
Organisational imperatives
Just spent about two hours searching every online repository I use, every writing program I use, every text file (all of which have bizarrely cryptic names) that might contain it, five different notebooks and even random scraps of paper. All to try to find an overly complete biography for a character I decided I didn’t want to use but have now changed my mind about. Of course I can’t find it. I did find a four line biography which now makes me suspect whether I actually wrote this thing in the first place. The real problem of course is that I probably shouldnt be checking around fifteen different places for material related to one project. So I bit the bullet and finally bought a copy of Scrivener. I’ve been half using demo versions on and off for the last three or four years but it feels like time I use something, anything, to keep everything related to individual projects in one place (of course I’m saving my files in my Dropbox folder, have to keep the glorious work safe for future generations). I’ll probably still use WriteMonkey for the actual writing as I really love its super minimalist approach. But at least now I know that organisational nirvana is only a quick copy and paste away. Continue reading…
Slammin’
I forgot to mention it in my last post but I read my first American comic in literally years. The recent IDW re-issue of the classic Star Slammers. I first came across Star Slammers in one of those compilation magazines Marvel UK used to put out, I don’t think it was Overkill which means it was the earlier one who’s name escapes me. Anyway, the relevant part of that memory is that I only ever read the first issue, which I really enjoyed but completely forgot about it until I came across the IDW re-issue last week (despite not reading American comics these days I like to keep up to date with the larger publishers, but I’d a year of unsorted shit to get through).
This desert life
My faux-Lenten retreat from the insidious snares of the online world has run into a few snags. Nothing apocalyptic but enough to besmirch the pure wall of restraint I was hoping to build. At least my few small indulgences were so replete with vestigial Catholic guilt that they didn’t absorb too much time. Which was the main thing I wanted to avoid. Continue reading…
Pillars of Eternity – Brief thoughts (Early AM ashcan edition)
Just finished it, all sidequests and whatnot wrapped up, played on hard, clocked in around forty five hours. Enjoyed my time with it but ultimately it feels like a good not great game. It’s early in the morning so this is a bit stream of consciousness (some of these I wrote as they occurred in play so some may be more strident due to that) There are less pros than cons. That’s because it’s generally easier to critique something than praise it. Don’t get me wrong. Pillars of Eternity is a good game. If you’re pining for an “old school” western computer RPG then spend your money freely secure in the knowledge you’re in for a good time. I enjoyed my time with it; after all I wouldn’t have put in nearly fifty hours (so far) if I didn’t. I’ll come back and tidy this up tomorrow when I’ve had some sleep. I dont think theres any real spoilers but youve been warned. Continue reading…
The trials and tribulations of book buying
Nearly two months ago I decided to complete my collection of Excel Saga which I’d been buying random volumes off every now and then as I’d heard very good things about it but never really fancied giving it a serious read. So I hunted down the volumes I was missing and ordered them. Eventually over the next month or so all of them arrived. I was only missing volume two and thirteen. I emailed the seller who said they couldnt/wouldnt do anything until forty-five business days had elapsed. Volume two eventually arrived but volume thirteen never did. I gave it an extra day or two to arrive and a full fifty days after I ordered it I got a refund for it. I waited before ordering a replacement copy. Till this bank holiday Monday evening in fact. So of course volume thirteen arrived in the post the next morning. Fair enough, it happens, it was an inconvenience but it just meant I had to send back the replacement. Continue reading…
The desert is full of sand
I presumed that once I had given up my main source of idle distraction that I would become some kind of creative powerhouse, pumping out dem phat words yo! Despite my obvious mastery of street patois that has yet to happen. I’m not sure I know how to live my life without making snide comments on it across various social media websites. I find myself constructing tweets in my head, tweets the world will never see, surely the saddest of tweets. Then again, what was really going to change over a long weekend? Continue reading…
Into the desert
Recently the amount of time I spend browsing the web has reached a level where its actively pissing me off. I’d put up with it if I was actually enjoying the time spent. But I dont think I am, it seems lately most of the time is spent in “vigorous” discussion about everything from water rates to (insert whatever stupid inane shit you correctly think of here). So I generally end up irritated because the two standard modes of internet discussion seem to be to simply scream your opinion at one another endlessley or engage in a giant circle-jerk (or echo chamber if you want a classier phrase) where even the mildest criticism is verboten. Both of them redolent with the implicit underlying sensation that no-one is treating anyone else in the discussion as a person as opposed to simply an anonymous source of distraction. Continue reading…