Big, Fun, Scary Things

Received an email in my inbox from Nanowrimo and Chris Baty about making 2007 The Year We Do Big Fun Scary Things Together.

This has finally prompted me to get off my ass and do a blog update and discuss my life in general and Janowrimo going down the toilet of procrastination in specific. :)

Yep, I admit it. It’s just not working out for me this time around. I’m gonna be brave, come clean and say it. I’m going to throw in the towel on Janowrimo.

Mostly because I find myself discovering many many other things on the “have more priority” list this month.

A focused intense burst in November exorcised a number of ghosts (but not all) where writing and certain characters were concerned. I find that there’s no impetus to generate a new story and explore a different road/path/ theme just yet, though I have come up with a number of possibly intriguing directions down the road later on.

I’m also feeling like I’m not totally finished with this particular Nano story and want to do more with it before I leave them and this world. Which kinda implies some set up for a March Nanoeditmo.

Meanwhile, this January, I have been using Janowrimo as an effective excuse to procrastinate on and get –other- things done. Weird, but true.

The last piece of news from me was that I had installed Neverwinter Nights. (1, not 2.) I rolled up an interesting new character lifted from RoD (Zenorial the thief) and went with it. It sparked a number of ideas, got me creating her more concretely, and as I played through the game, I was tickled to discover that I was veering from true neutral alignment to neutral good. Took some effort to veer it back with some profit-driven money-minded acts.

I got bits and pieces of ‘journalistic’ reflection done, by making use of the journal notes feature to scribble several hundred words of commentary on certain incidents in game.

NWN is quite a dungeon crawl though, so it takes a bunch of time, and it falls a bit short by having a pretty interesting story and characters that are not –central- to the protagonist that you’re playing, leaving you feeling a bit railroaded through a narrative the DM wants you to experience and react to.

Still, it seems to have benefited from the many years of lying fallow. Bugs and stuff are patched and well-documented, the game seems to play more smoothly (a moderately good computer system = top of the line specs for a game that’s six years old), camera control appears less aggravating (though whether it has been patched or I’ve just intuitively adapted to a CoX style camera system, I don’t know). It’s worth a play-through, and I’m midway through Chapter 2 and more or less enjoying it.

I’m also quite eager to try out the many mods that exist. Though I’m also fairly anal and want to finish the two expansions first, before I try the user-created ones that are free, and think of picking up the commercial ones (they look purty good, but I’m hoping it’ll become even cheaper as time goes by.)

I’ve also gotten distracted by a number of other single player games I’ve picked up. Having completed the Necron campaign for WH40K: Dark Crusade, the urgency has lessened, but it’s still a durn fun game, imo.

Company of Heroes, by the same company Relic, is my new RTS craze. It is BEAUTIFUL. The game engine is wonderful. In its graphics, in its elegance, in the AI of the squads you control. I can’t help but keep thinking about the next iteration and sequel (hopefully a WH40K game with the intelligence of Company of Heroes.) Its presentation is cinematic in quality. Very nice game. Have to take more time to play it through too.

Another beautiful and awesome graphics game is Darkstar One. A space flight / trading / adventure game in the vein of Nomad (still one of my favorite space games), it’s rather enjoyable if getting a bit repetitive. The linearity, however, suggests it’ll be the easiest to complete game of the lot.

I also intend to try out Space Rangers 2: Revenge of the Dominators, which is apparently an offbeat space trader/adventure game with a bunch of weird minigames that mix genres, and plan to re-install Oblivion plus mods. All in good time though.

This season is also the concluding weeks of NFL, which of course, takes time to watch. I had a great three-day weekend last week. My favorite Colts team beat the Ravens with a strategic struggle, putting them further ahead into the playoffs than they’ve ever gotten. And as predicted by me, the Patriots won (if only by the skin of their teeth) against the Chargers…

Which makes next week’s game the old eternal “beat forehead on wall” struggle with a twist. Indianapolis Colts vs New England Patriots… Always defeated, thrown out twice in two years by them in the divisional playoffs, but this time…it’s on Indy home ground, their own stadium, indoors, Astroturf = fast game with no excuses about footing or weather getting the better of the Colts.

I’m kinda pessimistic, actually, about their chances. But there’s always a smidgen of hope. Gonna be an interesting game to watch, at any rate. Either agony or joyous excitement.

I’ve also found the perfect activity to accompany football watching. While I really ought to and should paint miniatures, I’m currently in a cardstock making craze.

I cobbled together a little virus bacteriophage model, and Leo Hartas’ Guard Tower. The tower is one tricksy monstrousity which ended up looking very impressive indeed. I’m not sure if he’s fixed the errors by now, but I was working from an old initial pdf and discovered a number of mistakes of labeling and slots and so on. Made it rather challenging to put it together, but rewarding in the end.

I plan to print out more and get more cardstock models done.

Which then segues into the question of actually tidying up my room and hobby room and leftover boxes from the move. *gulp* Hopefully before Chinese New Year. That’s officially a month from now and a big home project the scale of Janowrimo a tide more urgent in priority.

Work projects have effectively quadrupled this new year. I’m juggling the revision of three classes, the creation of a new one, an upcoming article to co-write or give input on, and an impending large group activity in which I hope to get some thinking done and change the style of presentation or end up doing something I loathe as the deadline draws nearer. To top it off, my email inbox is out of control, my desk is…well, you’ve seen the mess it’s in, and there’s the general routine to get by as well.

On the bright side, it actually feels rather enjoyable to have all this stuff on my plate. Just needs some organization and time to think things through.

I’ve got a large amount of reading to do as well. Some is for research for the classes, some are general interest about active learning, inquiry, activities, museum education and small/large group instruction. I visited San bookshop too and picked up a whole bunch of novels – Terry Prachett, some WH40K books, some FR favorites (Ed Greenwood and Elaine Cunningham collaborated a novel about Waterdeep! *squeal, swoon* The lack of Laeral in it is made up for by Steven Schend (good guy, he did the Waterdeep modules, I believe) and his book about Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunsun. I peeked through it and the characterization of the famous FR characters didn’t immediately inspire puking like certain other travesties I can think of. Presentable enough in my book.)

I cooked too. If there’s one thing I really enjoy, it’s being able to take the initiative and do my own experimental cooking without being prohibited or banned from the kitchen area. My main combat was versus Tako Yaki. Without the tako, cos I hate octopus. Heh. Got the cast iron tray from Liang Court’s Medi-ya, tried it, and learnt an important life lesson about seasoning and the non-nonstickiness of cast iron.

Hem. :/ Round 1: Miserable failure. Batter stuck like cement to black surface. Not even scrubbing could remove it very well. Had to soak for ages. Tako Yaki 1, Me 0.

Round 2 was better. A draw. After a half hour desperately trying to season the pan and finding an appropriate tool (toothpicks are too short, chopsticks too rounded, satay skewers wind up sucked into a black hole in my kitchen and are unfindable when needed), I ended up with impending failure…then a serendipitious comment from my dad yielded a workable tako yaki flipping implement (a thin serrated knife).

Unwilling to give up with enough batter for 80 balls staring me in the face, I persevered with much experimentation and finally hit upon the holy trinity, the Tao of Tako Yaki making. Correct heat, correct tool and correct oiling.

This yields a surface which quickly cooks the batter on the outside to form a skin, the correct implement used as a lever can flip the entire thing over without it sticking if sufficient oil was applied.

I’m still working on the roundness and closing and size of said balls, but at least it was 3/4 of the way rounded at worst.

And yea, that’s why I find myself unable to generate 1600 words, or even 400 words every day this month.

I know I could do it if I put it as a primary priority. I’ve proven it’s possible. And I intend to make sure November is a month dedicated to it. But doing it in January is just not as important in my life right now.

So.

A random list of some Big Fun Scary Things to Do/Achieve in 2007:

1) An organized home. Yep, filing system, books in order, hobby stuff in order. Perhaps even computer filing system in order (but that’s more than over ambitious.)

2) Learn Ancient Greek. Really, I have this book and everything. I can at least finish the goddamn book.

3) Consider shaving head. I’m a wuss who hates attention, yah, so that’s why the word “consider” is in there. I know it’s going to be…hrm, what’s the word, conspicious.

But the thought occurred to me this morning while I was showering (my hair is actually long right now, it looks nicer on me than short hair but is such an offensive menace to take care of and keeps curling), and then I find this email on big, fun, scary things to do a couple hours later, and well…it seems like a sign.

I feel like I should try it at least once in my life or forever regret not doing it. And it might even cure my scalp dandruff problems if I let it get some sunlight once in a while.

Of course, there’s a lot of prep work like reading up more about it, potential problems – sunburn? Any itching? And making people in my vincinity not faint with shock. Too bad I’m not in California.

One possible way to get around this is to time it in conjunction with that cancer charity awareness thing. Hair for hope, they called it. I wonder if they’ll do it again this year? :P I see on the website that it’s sometime in July. I probably wouldn’t mind doing it for a socially acceptable, as well as personal, reason. *snicker*

Anyhow, think on this. And work up guts. Har.

4) Lose weight. Somehow.

I didn’t want to write this at first and make it sound like a crappy New Year’s resolution list. But what the heck. I really really need to lose some poundage. 67 kilos is beyond ridiculous. I wasn’t worried at 64-65 kg when my ideal weight should be considerably less than 59. But I’m honestly starting to freak out about heart and health problems when I’m topping 66-67.

The challenge is how to phrase it in a way that will actually be achieved and how to change a lifestyle which is partially dictated by family (helpless anger here) and partial preferential binging (to make the most of and enjoy what I can control).

Very tricky problem. I guess the first step is to do some research and draft out a plan that might actually be followable for my lifestyle. *sighs* Without making myself totally miserable to boot.

5) Finish a number of single player games. Getting vague, I know. I need to quantify these things more.

6) Complete a bunch of cardstock and miniature painting projects. Even more vague. Not sure what exactly. I just like the process, to be honest. The finished product tends to be left somewhere for display.