Tags: games
D00med
Some days it really isn't worth getting out of bed. Or maybe it's the not getting out of bed until after midday part that's the problem. Either way, by the time I'd got myself organised to head into town it was fairly clear that I wasn't going to manage to grab lunch and get to my originally planned showing of Seabiscuit, so I switched to Plan B (watch Finding Nemo again). This left me time to potter around the shops (ooh! shiny discs!) and scope out cocktail kit. I headed down to the cinema to pick up a ticket before getting lunch, only to find that the 3pm showing of Nemo was already sold out and there was a huge queue for the box office (so little chance of getting a ticket and lunch in time for the 3:30 showing), so I switched to plan A' (the later showing of Seabiscuit) and went for pizza. After lunch, the queue was gone, so I went to get my ticket, only to find that contrary to their listings (including the ones on the wall of the cinema), there was in fact no late afternoons showing, only an evening one.
At this point, I decided to cut my losses, finish the shopping and head for home. In the last charity shop I went into, I spotted a book I wanted, except oops: no cash. The first cashpoint I go to, one machine is dead, and the other happily dies whilst dealing with the woman in front of me - apparently debiting her account but not giving her any cash. So I go to another bank, get some money out and head back to the charity shop - only to find that in the mean time somebody has bought the book I wanted. Argh! Clearly I need to do more work on the whole "cutting losses and heading home" thing. Bath ballistics from Lush, comfort food from Sainsbury's and I really do head home. After repeated squeeing at the Prizoner of Azkaban trailer (GIP!) and some "shooting virtual bad guys with a light gun" therapy, I am feeling much better (thankyou, Time Crisis 3). Even so, tomorrow may be the day to try out that whole not-getting-out-of-bed thing. I have wireless internet, so...
Gacked from
huskyteer: Mac Eye for the Windows Guy (and there's more hilarity in the archives)
At this point, I decided to cut my losses, finish the shopping and head for home. In the last charity shop I went into, I spotted a book I wanted, except oops: no cash. The first cashpoint I go to, one machine is dead, and the other happily dies whilst dealing with the woman in front of me - apparently debiting her account but not giving her any cash. So I go to another bank, get some money out and head back to the charity shop - only to find that in the mean time somebody has bought the book I wanted. Argh! Clearly I need to do more work on the whole "cutting losses and heading home" thing. Bath ballistics from Lush, comfort food from Sainsbury's and I really do head home. After repeated squeeing at the Prizoner of Azkaban trailer (GIP!) and some "shooting virtual bad guys with a light gun" therapy, I am feeling much better (thankyou, Time Crisis 3). Even so, tomorrow may be the day to try out that whole not-getting-out-of-bed thing. I have wireless internet, so...
Gacked from
Strangling the witness? I'm going to allow it.
Further to this post, I have decided that my flat shall be henceforth known as The T00blerone - partially because I like that name best, but mostly because the walls of my lounge are in fact the colour of a Toblerone box. 
hanacandi wins a ( Collapse ) for her suggestion. Also, I'm pleased to report that no further trick-or-treaters dared to darken my door.
Saturday saw me making my usual foray into Oxford. This time, head of the agenda were some hair reduction measures, followed by lunch and a movie. I even managed to resist the temptation to spend money on CDs/Games/DVDs for once. The movie in question was the highly entertaining Intolerable Cruelty - we certainly seem to be doing well for rom-coms at the moment, with last month's Down With Love and the upcoming luvvie-fest Love Actually. Also went to Lush and must un-recommend the Xmas Pud ballistic on the grounds of it generating nasty scum and leaving a horrible ring around my bath.
Yesterday followed the usual stay-at-home Sunday formula. An unexpectedly large chunk of the day was taken up by an extended game of Warblade (see the second comment), so it was gone four before I even had lunch, and I have no idea what happened to the rest of the afternoon... After dinner I had a brief Y!M withmalachan regarding T00bage Revolutions, and a longer chat with hermorrine (although Y!M's webcam functionality seems to have become unreliable since I upgraded to Panther. Grr).
Oh, and just in case no-one on your friends list has pointed it out to you yet, you can now but more userpics. Unless you have a permanent account, in which case you've already had your limit increased for 15 to 20. No, I'm not gloating, why do you ask?
( Collapse )
hanacandi wins a ( Collapse ) for her suggestion. Also, I'm pleased to report that no further trick-or-treaters dared to darken my door.Saturday saw me making my usual foray into Oxford. This time, head of the agenda were some hair reduction measures, followed by lunch and a movie. I even managed to resist the temptation to spend money on CDs/Games/DVDs for once. The movie in question was the highly entertaining Intolerable Cruelty - we certainly seem to be doing well for rom-coms at the moment, with last month's Down With Love and the upcoming luvvie-fest Love Actually. Also went to Lush and must un-recommend the Xmas Pud ballistic on the grounds of it generating nasty scum and leaving a horrible ring around my bath.
Yesterday followed the usual stay-at-home Sunday formula. An unexpectedly large chunk of the day was taken up by an extended game of Warblade (see the second comment), so it was gone four before I even had lunch, and I have no idea what happened to the rest of the afternoon... After dinner I had a brief Y!M with
malachan regarding T00bage Revolutions, and a longer chat with hermorrine (although Y!M's webcam functionality seems to have become unreliable since I upgraded to Panther. Grr).Oh, and just in case no-one on your friends list has pointed it out to you yet, you can now but more userpics. Unless you have a permanent account, in which case you've already had your limit increased for 15 to 20. No, I'm not gloating, why do you ask?
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I'm just a little anxious to get up there and whup E.T.'s ass
Ah, the joys of classic gaming. Simple, yet addictive. Those of you who had an Amiga (or knew someone who had one) may very well remember Deluxe Galaga. It's your straightforward screen-at-a-time shoot-em-up - but with added bonuses, mini-games, weapons shop etc. I probably clocked up more playing hours on that than any other game. Now, the author is making a PC version called Warblade (due to copyright issues with the "Galaga" name). It's in beta at the moment, but very playable and strikingly similar to the Amiga version, just with upgraded eye candy. There are some new features as well, such as profiles that save your personal bests and allow you to earn start-up bonuses. And did I mention addictive? Go! Play! Now!
The Very Nimbus Diary of zorac, Day Nine
Sunday was the symposium's closing morning. The last event was the charity auction over brunch - we only caught the tail end of it, but a few of the items went for really quite impressive prices. We said a lot of goodbyes, and there was much hugging and taking of photos.
In the afternoon, we made our way over to DisneyQuest - home to neat interactive games. Among other things, we got to don VR helmets to fight comic-book villains with a lightsaber or fly a magic carpet, paddle a raft through a virtual jungle, pilot a multi-legged rescue vehicle on an alien planet and do battle with the Pirates of the Caribbean. I also got to play on a bunch of classic arcade machines - the original Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man etc.
In the evening, there was cheesecake - and packing.
In the afternoon, we made our way over to DisneyQuest - home to neat interactive games. Among other things, we got to don VR helmets to fight comic-book villains with a lightsaber or fly a magic carpet, paddle a raft through a virtual jungle, pilot a multi-legged rescue vehicle on an alien planet and do battle with the Pirates of the Caribbean. I also got to play on a bunch of classic arcade machines - the original Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man etc.
In the evening, there was cheesecake - and packing.
The Very Nimbus Diary of zorac, Day Seven
Friday was the first day of formal programming, so it was up bright and early to grab donuts for breakfast with the first talk. I caught a full morning of talks, all of them interesting, with the highlight being Dr. Roger Highfield's on The Science of Harry Potter (such that I was inspired to pick up a copy of his book). I also enjoyed talks on Fandom History (having missed most of it) and Fanwords (despite t00b only getting one tangential mention).
The lunch was rather disappointing (soup, plain salad and a cookie), but Judith Krug's Keynote was both interesting and informative (as well as being entertaining). I did know that the HP books had been the target of banning campaigns, but I wasn't previously aware that they were so overwhelmingly the most popular choice. I was pleased to hear, however, that most banning attempts ended in failure. It also reminded me of a TV advert/infomercial I saw earlier in the trip in which a guy asks about a book in a library only to find that it has been banned. The librarian demands his name, and when he refuses and tries to leave, he is approached by to serious-looking men. The tagline was along the lines of how it's great that America is Free (and not like that). Oh, the irony.
The afternoon programming was mostly taken up by the Slash Panel and the one on "Can Draco Malfoy Be Redeemed?" These had been moved to the Great Hall on the grounds of expected attendance - which must have numbered several hundred. Both panels were very interesting, with plenty of good points raised. Some of the audience participation was a touch irksome with people just spouting a long speech on Their Opinion - I kept wanting to say "And your question was..?", but all-in-all it was good.
Next up was the Quidditch. I was playing for the San Juan Seagulls (a.k.a. John's All Stars), along with Captainqueerasjohn, aegeus, sternel, thethrillisgone, ursamajr and vlamidala. The game was fast and frantic, but great fun. We eventually lost 60-160, owing to the entire randomness of catching the Snitch (and I've heard rumours that the other team's Seeker had inside information), but claimed a moral victory ;-)
In the evening, it was the FictionAlley birthday bash over at the Copa Banana in the not-a-Dolphin, so for variety's sake, we decided to have dinner at when of the restaurants over there. Big mistake. To start with, no one came to seat us so eventually we picked our own table - the only one that had actually been cleared. No menus were forthcoming so eventually I got up and snagged some from behind the cash register. After we'd been sitting there for the best part of a quarter hour, one of the waitresses deigned to come and take our order - but it was a good ten minutes before even our drinks came, and considerably longer before we got food.
To add to the evening's entertainment, the not-a-Dolphin Fountain decided to live up to its name - without warning, a waterspout appeared out of the floor (we heard someone at a nearby table suggest that the basilisk was attacking). Thankfully, it wasn't close to where we were seated, but other diners were less fortunate - water continued to bubble up for some time until maintenance turned up to fix it. There was no great surprise when the check also took a long time to arrive after we requested it.
The party itself was great fun -nmalfoy spinning the disks, queerasjohn single-mindedly trying to glitter the entire fandom and "mischief maker" drinks in FictionAlley cups. I indulged in much t00by dancing (including my popular Mact00bage number, the Time Warp), proving along the way that despite being male and straight (and thus in a tiny minority), I can still sing along to the entirety of It’s Raining Men and will shamelessly request Y.M.C.A. Thankyouverymuch...
The lunch was rather disappointing (soup, plain salad and a cookie), but Judith Krug's Keynote was both interesting and informative (as well as being entertaining). I did know that the HP books had been the target of banning campaigns, but I wasn't previously aware that they were so overwhelmingly the most popular choice. I was pleased to hear, however, that most banning attempts ended in failure. It also reminded me of a TV advert/infomercial I saw earlier in the trip in which a guy asks about a book in a library only to find that it has been banned. The librarian demands his name, and when he refuses and tries to leave, he is approached by to serious-looking men. The tagline was along the lines of how it's great that America is Free (and not like that). Oh, the irony.
The afternoon programming was mostly taken up by the Slash Panel and the one on "Can Draco Malfoy Be Redeemed?" These had been moved to the Great Hall on the grounds of expected attendance - which must have numbered several hundred. Both panels were very interesting, with plenty of good points raised. Some of the audience participation was a touch irksome with people just spouting a long speech on Their Opinion - I kept wanting to say "And your question was..?", but all-in-all it was good.
Next up was the Quidditch. I was playing for the San Juan Seagulls (a.k.a. John's All Stars), along with Captain
queerasjohn, aegeus, sternel, thethrillisgone, ursamajr and vlamidala. The game was fast and frantic, but great fun. We eventually lost 60-160, owing to the entire randomness of catching the Snitch (and I've heard rumours that the other team's Seeker had inside information), but claimed a moral victory ;-)In the evening, it was the FictionAlley birthday bash over at the Copa Banana in the not-a-Dolphin, so for variety's sake, we decided to have dinner at when of the restaurants over there. Big mistake. To start with, no one came to seat us so eventually we picked our own table - the only one that had actually been cleared. No menus were forthcoming so eventually I got up and snagged some from behind the cash register. After we'd been sitting there for the best part of a quarter hour, one of the waitresses deigned to come and take our order - but it was a good ten minutes before even our drinks came, and considerably longer before we got food.
To add to the evening's entertainment, the not-a-Dolphin Fountain decided to live up to its name - without warning, a waterspout appeared out of the floor (we heard someone at a nearby table suggest that the basilisk was attacking). Thankfully, it wasn't close to where we were seated, but other diners were less fortunate - water continued to bubble up for some time until maintenance turned up to fix it. There was no great surprise when the check also took a long time to arrive after we requested it.
The party itself was great fun -
nmalfoy spinning the disks, queerasjohn single-mindedly trying to glitter the entire fandom and "mischief maker" drinks in FictionAlley cups. I indulged in much t00by dancing (including my popular Mact00bage number, the Time Warp), proving along the way that despite being male and straight (and thus in a tiny minority), I can still sing along to the entirety of It’s Raining Men and will shamelessly request Y.M.C.A. Thankyouverymuch...