cdave | Entries tagged with diary

I managed to score some tickets to a recording of "Comedy Store" at "The Comedy Store" for "Comedy Central". The site proclaims:

On its grimy stage some of the greatest acts in the business have perfected their act

Which clearly isn't true. They was a two man team with a mist-er and a stiff broom giving it quick scrub when we arrived. Owing to my leaving the office later than intended, we were one of the last groups let in. We wound up with a choice between left wing front row, left wing a few rows back, or right at the back.

We decided to sit at the front. I thought that this meant there was a good chance I'd get picked on. As I mentioned I'd come straight from the office, and was in a suit. I've been at the comedy store before where the stand ups picked on the suits.

As this was a TV recording though, and they generally wanted to try and keep to a tight set, ( I almost got away with it. )

Current Mood: amused

My plans for last night were as complex as my plans ever are. Finish work. Head down to the 'ton, since I'd not made a first Thursday for ages. Then head out to the Tacheback party, in order to claim a cocktail and join the parade. And finally head back to the Cock to drink with the Joinees.

I never made it to the Cock. ( I had way too much fun at the Tacheback party. )

Current Mood: pleased

On Friday night I hosted a girly night in Mamma Mia PJ party.

Then chilled out on Saturday before eating far too much free Ice Cream at the Ben and Jerry Sundae in the Park.

Both were great fun but, I'm not feeling very inspired to write today.

Current Mood: apathetic

Or I am teh l33t.
Or What I did at the Weekend.

This weekend I( played a lot of games, most of them new to me, and won the more complicated ones )

What? It was raining, and there's only so many times you can climb Glastonbury Tor.

Joking aside, thanks for inviting me

ool272. I had a great time.

( Aren't you supposed to start a report with the journey there? )

Current Mood: chipper

( 5th June )

( 7th June )

Current Mood: happy

May be elaborated on this evening.

Reading Beer Festival.
Sci-Fi London: Anime All Nighter.
London Zine Symposium. Speaking of which mental note.
~~Slow Down London walk: Bentley Priory & deer park~~ I'd dressed for warm weather, so gave up when it was tiping down and windy at Stanmore station. Instead:
London Aquarium.

Last night I went to sandpit #10 for some unusual games.

Aside: Hmm, I'll need some new nicknames here.

Aside2: Just realised I never wrote up Sandpit 8.

hawkida,

stefzilla, Ladybird, and Chef went then.

We signed up for Mexican Thumb Westling, which took all night, so we didn't get to do any of the other big / outdoor games.

Instead we played some of the pick up and play games. First of we played Exquisite Corpse story. Write a line and word or two, fold over and pass on. One of these was brilliant. Two were funny, and one made no sense at all.

Then we got into a fairly large round of werewolf (about 20 people), in which Chef accused me of having hairy hands, and that I must be a wolf. I wasn't but Ladybird was, and IIRC won!

stefzilla made it to the final of Mexican Thumb Westling.

Floo, StarShirt and Ladybird were there for sandpit 10. This time they had ticketed it, and set each game to last an hour, so you could get three in. However they had sold out.

So back to the pick up and play games.

Dadaist Trivial Pursuit was surprisingly good. One person reads out a random question from a Trivial pursuit card, and the others then read out the most surreal answer on their cards.
"What colour are all snakes eyes?"
"German"
"A Cow"
"Michael Flatly"

Next I rounded a few random people who were waiting 20 minutes for their game to start and tried to host a quick game of Werewolf (which I ought to explain here, but don't have time. Read more if you want). No one there had ever played before, and I'd never hosted. It went okay, but not great. StarShirt was lynched straight off as the Villagers thought he was smiling too much, so must have just killed. He was innocent.

Then we tried to play a simplified version of Mao, a hidden rules card game, but that didn't go so well.

At this point we were thinking about leaving when the game of "Super Secret Robot Werewolf" descended on our table, so we snuck onto that. It was a Werewolf variation set on ~~Battlesta~~ a space ship, with crew, ~~cylo~~ super secret robots, a security officer, and a science officer with a ~~cylo~~ robot detector. StarShirt was lynched early on as the Crew thought he was smiling too much, so must have just killed. He was innocent.

I was not. For the first time ever I was a ~~werewolf~~ ~~cylo~~ robot. I think the highlight of the game was when someone announced that they were the science officer, and they knew who a robot was. The certainly convinced us, so the secret robots all backed up each others arguments, and convinced the crew to lynch him. At the end of the game it turned out he'd been lying anyway!

Oh and we won. 3 ~~cylo~~ super secret robots took out the crew of 13.

Current Mood: happy

Last night I went to sandpit #10 for some unusual games.

Aside: Hmm, I'll need some new nicknames here.

Aside2: Just realised I never wrote up Sandpit 8. {redacted}.

We signed up for Mexican Thumb Westling, which took all night, so we didn't get to do any of the other big / outdoor games.

Instead we played some of the pick up and play games. First of we played Exquisite Corpse story. Write a line and word or two, fold over and pass on. One of these was brilliant. Two were funny, and one made no sense at all.

Then we got into a fairly large round of werewolf (about 20 people), in which {redacted} accused me of having hairy hands, and that I must be a wolf. I wasn't but {redacted} was, and IIRC won!

{redacted} made it to the final of Mexican Thumb Westling.

{redacted} were there for sandpit 10. This time they had ticketed it, and set each game to last an hour, so you could get three in. However they had sold out.

So back to the pick up and play games.

Dadaist Trivial Pursuit was surprisingly good. One person reads out a random question from a Trivial pursuit card, and the others then read out the most surreal answer on their cards.
"What colour are all snakes eyes?"
"German"
"A Cow"
"Michael Flatly"

Next I rounded a few random people who were waiting 20 minutes for their game to start and tried to host a quick game of Werewolf (which I ought to explain here, but don't have time. Read more if you want). No one there had ever played before, and I'd never hosted. It went okay, but not great. {redacted} was lynched straight off as the Villagers thought he was smiling too much, so must have just killed. He was innocent.

Then we tried to play a simplified version of Mao, a hidden rules card game, but that didn't go so well.

At this point we were thinking about leaving when the game of "Super Secret Robot Werewolf" descended on our table, so we snuck onto that. It was a Werewolf variation set on ~~Battlesta~~ a space ship, with crew, ~~cylo~~ super secret robots, a security officer, and a science officer with a ~~cylo~~ robot detector. {redacted} was lynched early on as the Crew thought he was smiling too much, so must have just killed. He was innocent.

I was not. For the first time ever I was a ~~werewolf~~ ~~cylo~~ robot. I think the highlight of the game was when someone announced that they were the science officer, and they knew who a robot was. The certainly convinced us, so the secret robots all backed up each others arguments, and convinced the crew to lynch him. At the end of the game it turned out he'd been lying anyway!

Oh and we won. 3 ~~cylo~~ super secret robots took out the crew of 13.

Current Mood: happy

or more stuff what I've done that I've not written about yet.

Friday before last went The Russian Linesman curated by Wallinger and also got entry to Annette Messager's The Messengers at the Southbank Centre. Oh, and there was a bunch of hoovers and drills and stuff upstairs pretending to be an orchestra.

Saturday went to see England People Very Nice at the National with Dad. First it makes you laugh, then it makes you think.

Went home to see Mum for Mothering Sunday, pootled about the Gunwarf, and saw a massive plume of smoke.

Current Mood: busy

Owing to being really busy at work, and (when I get out on time) in the evenings, I've not posted much recently. So here's my current list of things I don't have time to do justice to:

Dating

Having seen a couple of people point to a flawed article on dating amongst other things has made me want to try and write an Introspection post on the topic, so I can get my own head around my own thoughts on it.

RaceFail '09

I've spent many hours I don't have to spare reading up on the past three of months this fandom wide argument, and come to the conclusion that I don't have anything useful I could say.
I may or may not keep reading, but given that you would find it hard it hard to tell if I had, lets not worry.

Avenue Q

Went to go see this at the weekend with Dad. Very good.
Particularity enjoyed the song "Everyone's a little bit racist".
For some reason I got tunes from The Little Mermaid stuck in my head afterwards.

What is the correct way to include A Title in a sentence about "a title"?

Images

New Shelves (from Islington Council's version of freecycle)

How do I get in my room now?

I just put these up, how are they full already?

"Northern Irish" flag

Remember that artsy new flag for Northern Ireland?

Well over the weekend it got caught in the string, and today seems to have been torn in half. Nature causing art to imitate life?

My Mad war with chiller
A repost from my Facebook wall explaining why I was explaining maths to Jehovah's Witnesses

Gödel's incompleteness theorem is a mathematical proof that in any sufficiently complex system of arithmetic, there will statements that you cannot prove as true or false.

E.g. Tell me if the sentence on the next line is true or false:
This sentence is false.

You can assume the statement is true and develop a whole branch of maths off of that. Or you can assume it is false and develop a whole different branch of maths.

This is what I personally believe about God. The question is undecidable. You can form a coherent set of beliefs starting from the assumption that there is a deity/pantheon of some sort. You can form a coherent set of beliefs starting from the assumption that there is no God. But since it's not provable either way this seems like a waste of time.

This is why my religion on Facebook is Evangelical (I like telling people this) Strong Agnostic (I believe you cannot disprove a god).

Meta post

Given how little time I seem to have to blog I wanted to take a look at why I do again. Culminating in a poll asking you to pick one of my tags: Diary, Link, Introspection, Reveiws.

Ironically, I don't have time for this.

Current Mood: busy

( 8) Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland )
( Busy, but probably not that interesting to read. )
( 9) Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi )

Current Mood: busy

All of these deserve more space, but time is fleeting.

Why I dislike spoilers. At the end of the 2006 series of Dr Who, I thought it had a week more to run, so the ending was a real surprise. I watched it on DVD box set recently, and didn't realise the last disk was all extras, so the same thing happened again.

Response to a tlanti post, on how I MacGyvered my way into my house once.

Seeing how few of chiller's friends sleep well, post a poll asking how often people know that they have dreamed.

Impressions of last week's work travel. Business class to Karachi.

Next reading list:
Finished reading JPod.
Nighthawks spotted Good Dog, Bad Dog in the DFC. And Dead Like Me. Wish I could remember the first time I was aware of this painting. It was in the last few months I'm sure.
Finished reading Perdido Street Station.

When I caught a bus coming the other day, as I was walking past the bus stop I said "bonus" out loud. I think that's a nice phrase, and wanted to blog about why. Not sure I've ever heard anyone say it as an exclamation if happiness though.
Chatted to lady waiting at stop on Northern line cursing me.

Blog about the Alternative Press Fair.

Been tagged to do a 16 things about me meme.

Been a while since I re-did a Myres Briggs test and that one looks good as it shows you relative strengths of them (I was borderline on the last two iirc).

Current Mood: busy

Monday: Found out I'd be leaving on jet plane next week.
Tuesday: Bender likes Rikku, because doesn't realise she's an Al'Bhed.
Wednesday: Failed to play darts, but did hear a dog outsmart the Lord of Evil.
Thursday: Unexpectedly found some Golden Sprouts in a basement, but had to leave them to play "wind up 118118" with some Unusual Weasels on a first floor.
Friday: Watched some bubble wrapped Astronauts fight on trapezes, some mechanical Russian's act out an Italian book, and got blessed in a garden of dead roses.
Saturday: Traveled for 7 hours to spend 2 hours looking at somewhere I will soon spend 4 days, and sit in a room for 4 hours.

Current Mood: busy

I'm fully aware of the fact that coherent reasonably well thought entries look better than yet another list of things I did't find time to write about in the last 2 weeks.

Been on an SF reading splurge.

Nation by Terry Pratchett
The Last Theorem by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl
Teranesia by Greg Egan
The Atrocity Archives by Charlie Stross
Necessary Evil by Joshua Williamson (artist Marcus L Harris)

agaj-d reminded me of applying Bechdel's law to literature. These books all have strong female characters but, off the top of my head, I think only Nation passes. I'm not even completely sure about that.

Saw Marine Express by Osamu Tezuka. An odd mainstrean 80's kids anime film.

Occasional gorgeous things, like a fishing machine, that chews.
Weird sequences, like some viscous looking sharks that get out of breath, and collapse into cartoons.
And huge plot twists which just completely change the nature of the story.

Knitted a tiny hat. Don't click. I look daft.
Farah Mendlesohn talks at the BSFA. She's always worth listening to. Any panel I've ever seen her on has been a great one. All quotes are paraphrased.

"History as a mode of seeing the world"

or, history teaches you how tools on how to learn using what other people have written about.
There a post in there about why I took History GSCE rather than Geography

"People who write about how to get kids to read don't write about the pleasure of simply reading. The act of allowing text to flow past your eyes. Even reading something like the back of a tin of beans."

My default "if there's nothing else I read the the back of" is "a shampoo bottle."
iBon thought "cigarette packet"
Hmm, I should do a poll.

"People say kids hate being preached at. They're wrong. Teenagers hate being preached at. Kids love it."

This links to the second to last paragraph in Farah's fanish origin story.
It's the old thing of scientists being kids who never grew out of asking questions. I ought to get my thoughts together on this and try write something coherent.

Went to a lecture on the first treaty between Japan and Britain

It was given by a retired British ambassador to Japan, Sir Hugh Cortazzi
He started by saying he suggested opening the 150 year anniversary with a lecture on the original treaty. Somehow he'd wound up having to do it, despite his lack of powerpoint skills. And as a punishment for attending we'd all have to take a copy of the 90 page book he'd written on it, trying to put this speech togther

He was ace.

Given that we understood so little of their culture, and the whole negotiation was translated from English, to Dutch, to Japanese and back (as neither nation spoke each others language), and a there was opposition from factions in Japan, it was amazing it happened at all, let alone how quick it all happened.

Speaking of razor blades, I need more shaving gel. So I'm off to Boots in Lower Marsh Street in a mo'.

I'll probably head down via Leake Street and see what's changed there. In the last couple of weeks a few cars have a appeared, and got slowly more colourful (with paint), and better ventilated (by smashed windows)
I'll probably stick my head in iKnit, I think I need to start on a new project, as my enthusiasm for finishing the fiddly bit of my hat waned, but simpler knitting is fun and relaxing. Maybe I'll make a little octopus or something weird and fun.

Finaly I think I'll go for a coffee, having run across this glowing review of Scooterworks and read the latest Plokta, which I managed to grab at the weekend.

{edit}
Looks like it was a busy weekend. Most of Leake Street is completely different. There was a couple of men with brooms clearing up what looked like the remnants of a bonfire party. There's a lot less stencil art, and lot more of the "classic" tags (huge multicouloured ones, but they're already starting to be covered with the crap sharpie ones). Most of the cars have gone. There was only one bumper left.

Current Mood: happy

<stream o'consciousness>
Bah, I'm so not going to have time to write up a ZombieCon report this week.

Hmm, maybe I should take time next week and do a proper one and offer it to some fanzines. Or finish up my write up of True Names and G.E.B., and the Cthulhu hat knitting pattern (including lessons learned, rather than the actual one), and the Fan Art for

purplecthulhu's story, and print my own' zine. Hmm. Probably wouldn't happen.

Some other LJ posts on ZombieCon 1, 2, 3, and 4. Am I missing any?

I've got about 180 photos and 10 videos to sort through!

Still too busy to write detailed, what I've been up to things. ZombieCon last weekend. Last minute trip to south coast on Monday. A forgotten will-fix-PC-for-food / catch-up on Tuesday. Curry last night. Bosses birthday drinks tonight, probably followed by a trip to the Cock. A Pratchett signing on Saturday (I've given up on the idea of of going to Brighton). Games afternoon on Sunday.

( Detailed ZombieCon timeline )

{Edit}
And another report
{Edit 2}
Forgot to add that the fire alarm sounded once each day, driving all us zombies out into the daylight.
Friday = Smoke machine
Saturday = Very steamy shower
Sunday's cause, unknown.
{Edit 3}
Con report from an infrequent conventioneer.

Current Mood: busy

Headline: Something appears to have gone wrong with my mobile, so I can't send or receive text messages, or receive phone calls. After trying everything they can think of (and spotting that my voicemail box had been de-activated) T-Mobile have decided to post me a knew SIM card. So I'll be without phone for a few days.

When I'm busy, I don't make time to blog about the things that interest me, as I'm too busy doing them! ~~When it's quiet there's nothing worth blogging~~ Actually, It's never quiet. Far too many interesting things to do, and people to see.

Things I've been up to in the last fortnight

Played 1000bwc

Failed to convince anyone to play Pokemon Monopoly
...which appears to be universally reviled on boardgamegeek. I think this enhances my geek credentials.

Went for a post work wander around the V&A museum

...as I'd spotted it was open 'till 10, and dragged a few mates along to pretend to be cultured
Lots of shiny items

The pope had massive rings!
Tiny medeusa heads
Magic rings, all of which cure headaches, some do more
Several grails, none of which were suitable for a carpenter's son
It's surprising how late Britain got into sculpting

Bonus points for looking up a decent pub on beerintheevening beforehand, there's loads of pants ones round there

Surprise party for Mum

Climb a tree.

Joinee picnic

Climb a tree.

Force EvilJ to watch My Neighbour Totoro in Japaneese

Shout "Satsuki!" repeatedly.

Play in fountain by Southbank Centre

The balcony there is great if you pretend to be getting interval drinks. Not crowded and faces Somerset house.
Cue much reminiscing about trip to Somerset ... a decade ago. Wah!

Spend the bank holiday pootling about the Solent

Despite forecasts, no rain while under sail.
I still find it amazing that two boats can sail in exactly opposite directions, using the same wind, just by altering their rigging and rudder

Although the one sailing into the wind will lean over at silly angles.
... and adjusting the rudder, to stay at that angle, through gusty winds, gave my palm muscles a real work out

I didn't know I had palm muscles

Despite being on strike (and so not reading out the local shipping forcast) the coast guard still answered a French lady's request for a forecast, and signed off "Au revoir!"

Get lost on way too, and from IKEA

Eat meatballs, of course
Refuse to pay £36 for a pillow, even if it is shaped to fit my neck
Lug much flat pack about, and get to tills dead on 10pm closing time

Posts todo: several linkdump posts, and a review of "True Names".

Current Mood: busy

Things that deserve a longer post, so I may come back to:

Great British Beer Festival

Hilarious failure of cueing system
Fullers serving chilled HSB. Gits.
Yummy gluten free ale
Much pig fat (pork scratchings) and burny jerky (chilly biltong)
Stone jug bought as walked past the stage, where there was an auction on.
Infamously rude waiters at Won Kei, brilliantly living up to reputation

Flinging cups around
Brining us food we didn't order

Shunt

Fantastic club in the vaults under London Bridge
Part art gallery, part skate park, part disco, part live gig, part kids craft workshop
Seats galore, pool table and pinball machines, late licence
£10 entry, £3 cans of beer. Not bad.
Simply amazing. Must go again.

Fandom Origin Stories

I've found a few, and have them bookmarked to blog on when I get a second.
but much praise to the fishlifter who found a 7 year old fanzine in the archive with a multitude of them. I'm looking forward to reading it a lot.

As we tell others about us.

A book reviewed on Saturday's Loose Ends
Bob Fischer: Wiffle Lever To Full!
Tales from a few years in media fandom
Why is nobody on LJ talking about this?

I've also fallen behind a bit on my LJ reading. I'll catch up eventually.

Current Mood: busy

Went to see WALL·E last week. It's brilliant. The best thing I can say about is: that about 3 hours after seeing it, I suddenly remembered that it's supposed to be a kids film (I've been watching a lot of Ghost in the Shell recently, so animation does not equate with kids film in my head)

Went to a treetop adventure place over the weekend. Part of a chain called Go Ape. Seriously good fun. A couple of hours of Rope ladders, treetop bridges, zip lines, and Tarzan swings into cargo netting. It really deserves a better write up, but I don't have time right now.

Icon love! Seen here, based on these T-shirts.
I hate the cost of transatlantic shipping.

Science is like a good friend: sometimes it tells you things you don't want to hear.

From Charlie Brooker's TV rants seen at

andrewducker's

Current Mood: amused

On Sunday morning, I'd arranged to meet up with a few friends in London.

( Waited for a bit )

( Got told off for wearing an XKCD t-shirt )

( Went to the Imperial War Museum's main hall )

( ... then went into the basement )

( Beer, Batman (no spoilers), Beer )

Woah. That's around a thousand words. I never write that much.

[1]If I ever have a weekend without any plans (not had one free since before Easter) I ought to go down to the Science Museum, and have a go at drawing some of their sketching steam engines.

Current Mood: happy

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Entries tagged with diary

Asking for trouble

The tacheback party

WIDATW: Abba and Ice Cream

Natural born gamer

Sail blog: First 10 days

Bank Holiday comes with 6 pack of beer, days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers

The Super Secret Robots will destroy you from within!

The Super Secret Robots will destroy you from within!

What I did at the weekend.

Current half written posts

What I did last weekend, and what I read.

Current list of half written posts.

My week as a cryptic series of Bullet points.(tm)

Current batch of unwritten posts

Lunch break plans.

ZombieCon timeline, and other waffle.

Catch up post

Bit busy at the mo

Robot Brooker's treetop science.

War I did on Sunday