Instead of working on Mezzacotta World, I’ve been using my hobby time [1] to play computer games: Arkham City, Bastion, and Deathspank. Oddly, I’ve logged the most hours on the last one (from the Psychonauts/Costume Quest crowd) though objectively speaking it isn’t as good as the others. Still, it’s fun.
[1] Hobby time is the subset of time that is not playing with Von & Jade, sleep, work, or chores. It occurs mostly at the expense of sleep, and is about an hour a day.
The director’s cut of emmy-award winning web project “Star Wars Uncut” has been released (that’s the cut where the organiser chose which footage to use, instead of a voting system). Our scene 307 is still in there, hooray!
So, I’m a bit of a Magic: The Gathering enthusiast. The previews for the latest expansion (Dark Ascension) start next week with a card that we know is called “Jar of Eyeballs”, a “top-down” designed card – i.e. they came up with the name, then designed a card to fit.
My guess for what it’s going to be:
Jar of Eyeballs
Artifact
Mana Cost: 2
2, exile a creature card from your graveyard: put two Eyeball counters on Jar of Eyeballs.
1, Remove an Eyeball counter from Jar of Eyeballs, T: Gain 2 life.
The weather turned up a bit on New Year’s Day, so I cleaned out the pool (it’s copping about a half kilo of leaves every day) and we took Jade for her first swim. She was giggling, and then looking confused, and then back to giggling, and so on. I think she’s in favour.
We’re at the last day of our three week holiday. We seem to have settled into nine hour sleeps with naps during the day, so it, um, might be a bit of an adjustment tomorrow. It’s been a busy holiday. Mum & Dad came over for xmas, and a merry time was had by all, except that I caught yet another cold and was out on the 25th and 26th.
Then we took off for Canberra for three days and caught up with Sydney (!) friends who were also visiting Canberra: Iain & Llyn, and PJ and Lisa. Von’s BFF Nandi lives in Canberra now, so Jade and I gave them some quality GF time while we caught up with Simon & Jimbo (sadly missing Dave & Fi). More excellent restaurants and a resolution to come to Canberra at least once a year.
Last week we spent pottering around at home doing long-neglected chores: unpacking boxes of books, making up extra posts for the balcony to stop Jade falling through, upgrading our TV. Quite a few more restaurants, a lovely extravagance prompted by our five year anniversary (since our first date). Then, the inevitable weigh-in and oh dear it appears I have put on about six kilos since I last weighed myself, so no sweets for about three months.
Of course, I had projects running. I didn’t manage any work on the game at all, but I did play a decent amount of guitar, including the beginning of Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre, by Rodrigo. I got an xmas present of the piece – which is a concerto for guitar and orchestra – containing a “minus one” CD with the orchestra playing the piece minus the solo guitar. And another version with them playing 20% slower. Very exciting for me; I’ve loved this piece since I was in primary school. Dad played Julian Bream and John Williams cassettes on loop.
Anyway, back to the Rodrigo – I’ve worked out the fingering for the 28 bars, which I estimate is 8% or so of the whole concerto… tricky but doable; a great “stretch” piece.
We met up with PJ and Lisa yesterday for a games day, but only really got a bit of Red November in. Actually, we barely got started, because we were just enjoying chatting for the majority of the time. PJ is doing some artwork for the game, so I was explaining some of my ambitions for the game engine, and I got all excited about it again.
Hooray, a three week break! We’re hanging around Sydney, mostly, but also getting out to Canberra for a few days to see Nandi. Just beginning to relax now… although, my version of relaxing does include guitar practice and working on the game.
So, Von has finally gotten over her hand, foot and mouth disease, and went back to work today. It’s been a rough week.
Also, I’ve finally finished my Magic: The Gathering expansion based on Darths & Droids (my entry in the “nerdiest activity of all time” competition I hold in my head), printed out and cut out all the cards, and packaged them into home-made boosters (well, envelopes). We’re drafting it tonight.
Yeah, I had a day off work today, looking after Jade who has hand, foot and mouth disease. Oddly enough, the blisters mostly appeared on her bum (which made us initially suspect food allergy), but then spread to her hands and legs, and now she has some blisters on her mouth as well.
She’s been pretty cheery, considering!