Conflagration

Well Conflagration, the annual Glasgow Gaming Convention, was great fun. Granted, it wasn't on much bigger a scale than the Gugathons and other periodic big gaming nights. Well, maybe three times as big as one of those. Great fun though. We took over most of the QM union. The card and board gamers took over the ground floor, RPGs and wargaming took the massive Food Factory that spans the whole of the second floor, and the LARPers used the various committee rooms up on the third floor. I meant to try LARPing at some point, but I pretty much lived on the second floor. I volunteered the first morning, helping to set up and then matching people to games (and prodding GMs into writing out their synopses for prospective players to read).

Then there was a great game in which I got to play an 18^th century French farm girl turned whore turned aristocrat who decides to steal this new invention: it's called a hot air balloon. And did I mention that I and everyone else who independently stowed away on the balloon could all do magic? Ah, the adventures you can get up to despite hooped skirts and a white beehive wig!

Later that night we went out for drinks with friends who had moving away from Glasgow but had come back for the Con, mainly Cat and Graeme and a friend of theirs who I had met before but hadn't really had a chance to talk with at length. We had one drink in a pub, but Saturday nights in pubs are clearly designed for something other than conversation. Alas. We cast around for ideas of where to go where we could have another drink but actually talk (since they were visiting, and our tiny one room bedsit is a wreck right now, going “home” wasn't an option). The answer? Head back to the QM of course! There's often a cover charge that late at night, and indeed Bedlam was in full swing by then, having displaced the card games of the ground floor. But our Conflagration passes got us back in! So up we went to Jim's bar where we could actually hear ourselves think and, even better, hear each other talk. We finished off that night by going back up to the 2^nd floor to point and laugh at (and say goodnight to) the last die-hards still gaming upstairs.

And then the next day it all started again. For the morning game I got to try out the Cortex gaming system with Battlestar Galactica (and they only gave away one major spoiler; I still haven't gotten to see season 3). The Cortex system is the same system as the Serenity RPG uses, and I plan to run a Serenity game one of these days. BSG was great fun. This time I was playing a guy, a computer programmer working on the computer systems for a prototype ship that could replace the raptors. But the code was buggy. Luckily that guidance system networking I was supposed to install...well, there was just something strange about it, and I couldn't get it integrated with the other systems in time...which meant our ship *wasn't* crashed by the Cylons! We made it to the fleet after various adventures. I'd love to have continued that one into a campaign!

And then, in dramatic contrast, I finished off my weekend of gaming with a My Small Horsey game. Think about the title a moment. Well, using ponies that were little could be copywrite infringement. But playing Bounty, a pirate pony in the newly updated My Small Horsey land was great fun. I did fall into hysterical laughter (and I do mean hysterical; I couldn't stop at all) when a giant squid nearly attacked the sea-ponies we had called for help...and then I laughed even harder when the pluckiest sea pony solved the problem by giving the giant squid a hug!

Then I got online for a few updates to my online role playing. Then it was back down to Jim's Bar downstairs where I joined the joint IO-GUGS pub quiz team. There was flagrant answer sharing going on between our team and the pure-IO team. But nevertheless, the pure-IO team came in 3rd while our team came in 2nd. It just goes to show you that the Ponies were right--cooperation and team work does make all the difference!

Continued Glasgow Weather Reports

I have to say, coming out to the internet today has be a sign of either dedication or insanity. Or a bit of both. In addition to continuing winds--sometimes gale force, sometimes dying down to merely gusty--this morning we got hail. The pieces weren't that big--pea sized mostly, or a little bigger. But there were hundreds hitting my window all at once, on and on, with all the force of that wind. Crazy.

Well, the wind dyed down to gusty and the hail storm blew over (or took a break) a little after noon and I saw my chance. I stuck anything non-waterproof into plastic bags before packing it away in the laptop bag and made my dash to the QM...only to find that the union's WiFi is on the fritz again! So after a half hour of troubleshooting it was out into the wind again (by this time there was actual blue sky!) and now I'm in one of my favorite coffee shops right off Ashton Lane. I love their coffee, but their WiFi deal is not as good as others (coffee gets you a voucher for 58min and counting...) so I'll have to make yet another dash in a little while and hope I can get a good seat in the Hillhead library...but there's only one set of wallplugs so I'll likely be limited by battery power...

Umbrella Graveyard

Today, and to a lesser extent yesterday, have reminded me afresh why I rarely bother with umbrellas in chronically rainy Glasgow. The wind is gusting all over the place, shot through with cold rain. The wind was strong enough today that I took a longer route to the QM simply because it had less trees to walk under. I haven't actually seen fallen branches today, but a storm like this could easily and rapidly escalate and I wouldn't want to happen to be under a tree branch when it did!

I spent the first hour of internet time up on the top floor where all the heating rises to. I was glad that I was wearing a simple T-shirt for my bottom layer because I had to peal all the way down to it. But now, one floor lower, I'm back in a jacket. It's nice to have a decent source of internet again that doesn't require me to buy coffee every hour or so. I think I'm every bit as caffeine-addicted now as I was at the hight of writing my masters. But now that the union's WiFi is up and working again, I've come here the last two days—today makes three. I also had a headache the last two days...And since I'm feeling borderline today, I'd best get at least one coffee. It's best to ease these things back. Sigh. Well, I'm off to get a latte!

Valentine's Day

In honor of Valentine's Day, the Gugs' forum (usually a dark and gothy web page for gamer geeks). The gug (one of Lovecraft's inventions...you know, like Cthulu?) appeared with flowers and a box of chocolates and the whole page has become pink and frilly. Some of the geeks were horrified but I think it's great. The news report included that "The Gug has found true happiness with a ghoul called Tracy. The Gug has renovated his domain to reflect his mood." Good for the gug!

The Witchfire forum I play on is sadly half-down and has been for nearly a week. Parts of it are still limping along, but I hope it is fully operational soon.

Since I have choir practice tonight, Ron and I are postponing most of Valentines Day type activities till tomorrow.

Blue Skies and Music

Blue sky three days running way. We had fog last night though. It made everything look mysterious *waggles fingers and uses "mysterious" voice*. It also meant it was really cold. It's still cold today but at least it's clear and blue and cold.

The Madrigirls performed again this weekend. It was a somewhat bazaar performance as part of "LentFest". I think someone forgot to inform them about the whole fest = feast and feasting is what you're not supposed to do during Lent thing. The performance was "multimedia" with a slide show going on while people played and sang and there was even the obligatory liturgical dance. One of the best performers disappeared half way through. "Ah well, you know these tempermental concert pianists" was the announcer's comment. "Hopefully he'll show up again; we have his piano!" It turned out he had gone home ill, however. He was a Polish concert pianist who had been "discovered" as a cleaner working in the Glasgow University Chapel. And he was really good. One of those ones who doesn't even bring sheet music up and makes it look like he's just fiddling around a bit with the piano while producing amazing music. So it was really a shame he didn't do his second piece.

Our stuff went well. Not all medievaly this time. We had an American shapenote hymn (funny I had to come to the UK to find out about the American shapenote tradition). We also sang backup for "The Border Band" which was more fun than I thought it would be. When we first looked at the music I couldn't stop giggling, it was all so cheesy. But it was really rather fun to sing. I've got to say, for a professional concert in a real professional venue with a £10 a ticket entry price...that was one of the most low-key performances I've ever given. I couldn't manage to be the slightest bit nervous.

Our next concert sounds fantastic though, and I really hope I'll be in the UK to be in it! We're splitting the concert with some monks singing Gregorian chants etc. We're singing two songs with them and the rest of the concert is split between us. It sounds great. And we're learning some really cool medievaly music for it too. ("Erthe unto Erthe" for one, for anyone who listens to Medieval Babes). The director said it would be fine if I missed a couple rehearsals as long as I took away the music and learned it, so if I can just get back in the UK for the 9th than I can sing. Oh, it would be so awesome. (Goes away to continue plotting and scheming).

Latte!

I've become a latte drinker. How did that happen? And we're not talking froofy caramel lattes and cinnamon lattes cause I've drunk those for years. That's the thing, my "coffee" drinks are usually rather extravagant affairs with milk and espresso as just the beginning before adding all sorts of sugars and flavorings. But coffee is even more expensive in the UK than the US and while it is almost necessary for using the internet, it's been necessary to cut back on extravagance. So I've been learning the joys of a simple latte. I've even weaned my way down from two sugars to one.

Now to any of those of you with a practical streak down to the marrow who are tempted to point out that it would be cheaper still to get plain coffee, I will point out an odd fact about most Scottish cafes. They don't have drip coffee. Yes, you heard me. They don't have it. If you ask for a coffee, you're either going to get an Americano or a latte. So yes, I could order tea for about 20 pence less than my lattes; but I can't make lattes this good at home (warming milk in a pan and stirring in some instant coffee just doesn't come close) and I can make a good cup of tea for about 4 pence total; 8 pence if it's chai. And really; do you know how much tea they serve around here?

Mouse or Lion?

Medieval Mickey Mouse; amazing what you'll find while looking through archaeology sites for entirely different things. http://www.thelocal.se/7544/

To balance my past ranting about the difficulties of researching without the benefits of an institution backing you, I'd like to mention how glorious it is to research whatever I feel like. And talk about inter-disciplinary! I've been all over the map (including back to long-neglected astronomy; side note: Celestia is the coolest freeware ever).

I've added the main public library to my list of resources, though I've not mastered using their system yet. They only have a few things on the shelves; you have to find things in the (rather antiquated) catalog and then send a member of staff to go fetch it for you. I'd rather browse. And it seems a great waste of paper; I hope they at least recycle the request slips.

I spent a whole day in there and didn't answer any of the questions I'd come in with but learned lots about tangential matters. If I was working on a paper with a deadline this would a distressing lack of progress. As it is, the stuff I learned was cool and so it's only mildly annoying that I've made no progress on my main topic.

Immigration Update

We've gotten yet more mail from US Immigration (two things in one week? Must be some kind of record.) This one's just a bill; I think the fee for Ron's interview. Hopefully that means they'll schedule it soon. Ron's off getting the money order now. Exciting.

messenger

Ok, so I'm beginning to use MSN messenger. Don't expect me on often or anything, but it's possible. It all started mostly because people needed to chat about gaming faster than email would allow. It is fun getting to know them as people--one of my big defenses of role playing is how social it is, an aspect that at first was lacking from online role playing. But off it goes. And now I know people in Canada and those big empty states in the middle of America and others that I know are in my time zone somewhere...

Just use my hotmail address to find me on messenger.

Small World

So yesterday was Ron's birthday and we went out for a few drinks as Uisge Beatha (If you simply called it "whiskey bar" your pronunciation would be better than most). We only managed to invite six other people but surprisingly they all made it. Four were fellow role-players and then there was one of Ron's ex-co-workers from the call center and his girlfriend. Now, one of the other role-players also works in a different call center as a team leader. So Ron's call center friend walks in and stares, surprised (and somewhat dismayed) at Kane. It turns out that he had been on Kane's team and had quite without notice last week! I guess the call center world is a small one. Hehe.

Ron's present this year was also funny. A couple of weeks ago our GM came to our game with a shiny new sourcebook: Dark Heresy, the first in the new Warhammer 40K RPG. He'd gotten it in pre-release somehow. Now Warhammer is no way my game, but I had to admit the book was pretty (in a dark and bloody kind of way). Ron was enamored. But then, he loves Warhammer 40K. So, I thought, here is a potential birthday present.

Well, the next week our GM came with some bad news. Dark Heresy had sold out in pre-order and amazon and all the game stores had not even gotten as many as they'd wanted...but there was not going to be a reprint. The company had decided to discontinue its entire RPG book publishing line (having apparently lost money on some LotR RPG stuff). Well, Ron was now determined to get a copy before they sold out never to be seen again except on eBay for ten thousand pounds. He decided to go on Saturday. His birthday was Saturday. Cunningly I looked up the location of the gaming store (they've moved) and went on my own on Wednesday. Then I could give it to him Saturday morning, surprising him and saving him the trip.

Unfortunately, his shifts fell out this week so that he would have to work today (Sunday) but had Friday off. He was impatient to go get the book--what if it sold out? I tried everything I could think of to delay him, to put him off to Saturday. Usually this would be an easy task, but he was quite infuriatingly motivated. So I finally asked him pointedly if it had occurred to him that someone might get it for him for his birthday. That stopped him speechless for a moment and he took my meaning. Finally he said, "Uh, no. It hadn't." Then there was a lot of laughing. Oh well, I did surprise him, just a day early. At least he likes his present!

Immigration Update

We've gotten the go-ahead for the next stage of paperwork. It's a fair heap of it, but it's progress. Ron's working on getting all his immunizations up to snuff as well since his medical stuff is next after my support paperwork. His arm thus hurts now from the tetanus shot. Poor thing. He was overdue for that one anyway though.