I just recorded over half an hour of steamy ghey lovin’ twixt an American fox and a semi-Aussie wolf and fucking Garageband crashes on me and it’s all gone, irretrievable.
I still love Mac, but grrr!
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Friday, December 30, 2005
Emancipate the analogue!
So, I was recording Chapter 4 of the audiobook of kyellgold’s novel ‘Volle’ (why yes, I am a sensationally multi-talented Renaissance Wuff, how nice of you to say so) and I was shuffling some of the pages of the script I’d prepared. Kyell had sent me the text version of the novel and after a good bit of experiemntation I’d settled on the optimal reading format -- 13-points sans-serif font (Trebuchet, cute and legible, thick and spacious), left-justified, indented paragraphs, 1.1 line distance, 8-points paragraph distance, landscape format A4 for maximum line length, thus minimizing problems arising from mistaken predictions about the grammatical structure of a sentence -- when two of the pages slipped out of the pile and I had to hunt through the pile to slip the numbered pages in their proper spot.
I seem to be struck by things quite a bit lately; first music and now this. I was struck by how marvelous the idea is that mere paper suddenly becomes valuable simply by dint of what’s printed on it. Specifically, without those particular sheets of paper, I wouldn’t be able to narrate those sections of the story.
I know it seems trite and obvious, but run with it. I’ve often professed jealousy at the compactness of visual art. When I joined jotun_neko to an evening class at his art school I saw people sharing drawings from teir portfolios and I felt a pang of envy at the ease with which artists can share their work. “Here, take this piece of paper and look at it, tell me what you think.” While proper appraisal of a complicated work of art can take some time, you can form an opinion of most ordinary works of art in a single glance. You like the colours or you don’t, the style appeals to you or it doesn’t, and the obvious faults leap into view.
Not so for writers. Poets, musicians, actors, even filmmakers practice crafts whose products take very little time to consume and appraise, at least a first glance. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in its splendid Extended Edition Glory may be a twelve-hour marathon, but there are few regular readers out there that could read the latest Harry Potter cover to cover in that time -- despite the fact that that bitch Rowling used double line spacing to make the book seem thicker! For God’s sake, ‘Volle’ is longer than that, and so’s Maranatha and it isn’t even finished yet!
, from Family Guy>
The point is, while making a film surely taes more time and more money and a lot more calories than writing a book (not counting research, such as for travel books), the product is more compact, taking less time to consume. Artists can come together for a night and show each other their work and talk about it, and everyone can show a few pieces and get a few opinions. Long-form writers can’t do that. Reading a longer story takes hours, days, weeks, depending on how you pace yourself and the material takes time to settle.
This is sad, but also fantastic. While I’m a big geek and as an itinerant New Mediast deeply enamoured with all things digitial (I want one of these, if not to own it, then at least for the thing to exist) I’m also a big promoter of the analogue. The voice versus the iPod, as in the earlier post.
Now, take books. Like this fat pile of paper in my lap, which I’m slowly chewing through, intoning into my (digital) microphone, reading Kyell’s excellent story for mass consumption. it’ll be somewhere between ten and fifteen hours of audio material and will take easily three times as long to actually record and put together, but look, I can hold it in my hand. Sure, you may say that millions of books fit on a DVD, but before you can read them you need A) a computer, B) a DVD drive, C) a screen and D) a nationwide electricity network powered by dams, windmills, nuclear and fossil fuel reactors -- whereas to read the beautiful story I now hold in my grubby little paws, you need only your eyes and your education.
Sure, you may argue, the time it took you to learn to read (and in some of your cases, to also learn English aside from your native tongue) could be translated monetarily into a fortune far greater than the cost of a computer (though not perhaps that of the electricity network) but honestly, what were you going to do with those years anyway? Besides, you’ve had use of those skills so often since then that the cost has been amortized to nearly nothing.
Suddenly it’s not such a pity that it takes so long to read a story or a book; it’s quite special. No other medium can contain such a huge amount of information or entertainment in such a small object, which takes so very little to be consumed. As mentioned, eyes and knowledge of the written form of the book’s language are sufficient. It’s almost magical. The Lord of the Rings films may be spectacular, but the books can carry you away wherever you may read them. Beach, bus stop, hospital...
I know I sound lik the Magic Of Reading dude from that Chickenf*cker episode of South Park, but go with it.
I seem to be struck by things quite a bit lately; first music and now this. I was struck by how marvelous the idea is that mere paper suddenly becomes valuable simply by dint of what’s printed on it. Specifically, without those particular sheets of paper, I wouldn’t be able to narrate those sections of the story.
I know it seems trite and obvious, but run with it. I’ve often professed jealousy at the compactness of visual art. When I joined jotun_neko to an evening class at his art school I saw people sharing drawings from teir portfolios and I felt a pang of envy at the ease with which artists can share their work. “Here, take this piece of paper and look at it, tell me what you think.” While proper appraisal of a complicated work of art can take some time, you can form an opinion of most ordinary works of art in a single glance. You like the colours or you don’t, the style appeals to you or it doesn’t, and the obvious faults leap into view.
Not so for writers. Poets, musicians, actors, even filmmakers practice crafts whose products take very little time to consume and appraise, at least a first glance. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in its splendid Extended Edition Glory may be a twelve-hour marathon, but there are few regular readers out there that could read the latest Harry Potter cover to cover in that time -- despite the fact that that bitch Rowling used double line spacing to make the book seem thicker! For God’s sake, ‘Volle’ is longer than that, and so’s Maranatha and it isn’t even finished yet!
, from Family Guy>
The point is, while making a film surely taes more time and more money and a lot more calories than writing a book (not counting research, such as for travel books), the product is more compact, taking less time to consume. Artists can come together for a night and show each other their work and talk about it, and everyone can show a few pieces and get a few opinions. Long-form writers can’t do that. Reading a longer story takes hours, days, weeks, depending on how you pace yourself and the material takes time to settle.
This is sad, but also fantastic. While I’m a big geek and as an itinerant New Mediast deeply enamoured with all things digitial (I want one of these, if not to own it, then at least for the thing to exist) I’m also a big promoter of the analogue. The voice versus the iPod, as in the earlier post.
Now, take books. Like this fat pile of paper in my lap, which I’m slowly chewing through, intoning into my (digital) microphone, reading Kyell’s excellent story for mass consumption. it’ll be somewhere between ten and fifteen hours of audio material and will take easily three times as long to actually record and put together, but look, I can hold it in my hand. Sure, you may say that millions of books fit on a DVD, but before you can read them you need A) a computer, B) a DVD drive, C) a screen and D) a nationwide electricity network powered by dams, windmills, nuclear and fossil fuel reactors -- whereas to read the beautiful story I now hold in my grubby little paws, you need only your eyes and your education.
Sure, you may argue, the time it took you to learn to read (and in some of your cases, to also learn English aside from your native tongue) could be translated monetarily into a fortune far greater than the cost of a computer (though not perhaps that of the electricity network) but honestly, what were you going to do with those years anyway? Besides, you’ve had use of those skills so often since then that the cost has been amortized to nearly nothing.
Suddenly it’s not such a pity that it takes so long to read a story or a book; it’s quite special. No other medium can contain such a huge amount of information or entertainment in such a small object, which takes so very little to be consumed. As mentioned, eyes and knowledge of the written form of the book’s language are sufficient. It’s almost magical. The Lord of the Rings films may be spectacular, but the books can carry you away wherever you may read them. Beach, bus stop, hospital...
I know I sound lik the Magic Of Reading dude from that Chickenf*cker episode of South Park, but go with it.
Take on me...
So, at Ches & Wolfie's Annual Interfestum Gastroblast (dinner), much superrlative food and excellent company was to be had. Oh, and remember my rancid musing about singing and the public shame surrounding same? Ches broke out two mics and plugged them into the new PS2 the off-key but highly impassioned voices of our Gang howling along to A-Ha, Ricky Martin and others.
Serendipity!
Serendipity!
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Hilversum III bestond nog niet...
Video killed the radio show, but you know what radio killed? Singing, whistling, and quality buskers. Much that once was was lost, for none now live who remember it -- a time when construction yards rang with crude, poorly-sung ditties, when butchers wheezed entire arias with all the skill of a practiced lip-flautist and when a fiddler on a street corner didn't just make good money on account of being a novelty, but actually improved the lives of people that passed him.
People are quiet on the streets, because there's always noise coming from somewhere. People are ashamed to sing--how perverse! What a terrible waste! It doesn't matter if you don't have the world's finest voice or if you can't quite hold the tune; if you know the words and follow the melody and sing with conviction, you're golden.
Several years ago I had an experience that solidified my opinion in this regard. I was walking down a high street, empty since all the shops had already shut, and from not too far away I heard someone raise Gilbert & Sullivan -- Sighing Softly to the River or some such, one of the G&Ses I happen to know, anyway. My first instinct was to join in, but I felt myself shrinking, looking around to see if nobody was looking. While it was a shame I felt that need, fortunately there wasn't anyone to be seen so I joined in, close harmony to begin with and then, when the other voice picked up confidence, I struck out in another voice or counterpoint or whatever the crap it's called.
It lasted only a minute or two; I never saw who it was that was singing, probably someone living above a shop, or sitting outside a cafe in some side street, and I passed out of hearing shortly after the song was over. But that was cracking good fun.
I want more of this. I want to live in a world where people crack open their putrid maws, rattle their phlegmatic vocal chords and belch out vile tunes without heed of the opinion or aural comfort of others. Sure, it's annoying when somebody misses a note -- so join in and let your own voice guide his.
Down with radio!
Down with digital recording!
Vive la chanson!
People are quiet on the streets, because there's always noise coming from somewhere. People are ashamed to sing--how perverse! What a terrible waste! It doesn't matter if you don't have the world's finest voice or if you can't quite hold the tune; if you know the words and follow the melody and sing with conviction, you're golden.
Several years ago I had an experience that solidified my opinion in this regard. I was walking down a high street, empty since all the shops had already shut, and from not too far away I heard someone raise Gilbert & Sullivan -- Sighing Softly to the River or some such, one of the G&Ses I happen to know, anyway. My first instinct was to join in, but I felt myself shrinking, looking around to see if nobody was looking. While it was a shame I felt that need, fortunately there wasn't anyone to be seen so I joined in, close harmony to begin with and then, when the other voice picked up confidence, I struck out in another voice or counterpoint or whatever the crap it's called.
It lasted only a minute or two; I never saw who it was that was singing, probably someone living above a shop, or sitting outside a cafe in some side street, and I passed out of hearing shortly after the song was over. But that was cracking good fun.
I want more of this. I want to live in a world where people crack open their putrid maws, rattle their phlegmatic vocal chords and belch out vile tunes without heed of the opinion or aural comfort of others. Sure, it's annoying when somebody misses a note -- so join in and let your own voice guide his.
Down with radio!
Down with digital recording!
Vive la chanson!
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Dirt Herding.
Of late, my goal's been to make money and I've really been putting my education and my writerly sensibilities to work, breaking my back in factories and raking leaves and such. The latter got me a cold--yay cold!--and the former got my hands covered in bruises and wounds. When I came home at night the skin on my fingertips was so marred by the dirt and the heavy-duty soap at the paper factory that everything I touched felt coarse, and now I can't see my fingerprints--but that's not important now.
What's important is that I learned a new activity. In sweeping the floor while coughing my lungs out, red-eyed from all the paper sawdust in the air, I noticed while I was climbing across the gaping, chomping blades of The Shredder (guess what what does) that there was a hose dangling from the ceiling, with a gun-style handle at the nozzle. Some of you may recognize this as a compressed air hose.
A world of Newtonian play opened up for me. Blasting the floor with the proper intensity, from the proper height, causes the dust to be blown away in a circular fashion, so to guide the dirt into the proper corner for later sweeping took some skill, which I slowly developed. Blast to get the dirt moving, then shoot past the rim to get the excess back, then step around...
Sweeping would indeed have been easier, but much less fun that this: dirt herdin'. Git alawng, li'l dawgies!
This mode of speech reminds me of the White Wolf Western Omnibus by Hal Dunning -- which has nothing to do with the role-playing games manufacturer, but rather a tawdry Western fiction writer. I picked the book up for two pounds at a thrift shop in Belfast and the style of it is a constant marvel to me.
I write long, you see, detailing the look and feel of things. People, places, motions, intentions, interior dialogue, all that post-bicameral stuff, but not Hal. For Hal, it's perfectly possible for a man to ride into town, round up a posse, head over to Hacksaw Johnson's farm to bring the varmint to justice, hang him in the village square and then go to the Lone Star Saloon to drink to their victory, all in one single page.
The amount of plot in his stories is astonishing to me.
While I was giving the NaNoWriMo workshops at the local American Book Centre, I brought two books to illustrate writing 'short' (Good old Hal!) and writing 'long', for which I had brought my Oscar Wilde collection in hardcover where I had a three-page sentence bookmarked.
Merry christmas, everyone!
What's important is that I learned a new activity. In sweeping the floor while coughing my lungs out, red-eyed from all the paper sawdust in the air, I noticed while I was climbing across the gaping, chomping blades of The Shredder (guess what what does) that there was a hose dangling from the ceiling, with a gun-style handle at the nozzle. Some of you may recognize this as a compressed air hose.
A world of Newtonian play opened up for me. Blasting the floor with the proper intensity, from the proper height, causes the dust to be blown away in a circular fashion, so to guide the dirt into the proper corner for later sweeping took some skill, which I slowly developed. Blast to get the dirt moving, then shoot past the rim to get the excess back, then step around...
Sweeping would indeed have been easier, but much less fun that this: dirt herdin'. Git alawng, li'l dawgies!
This mode of speech reminds me of the White Wolf Western Omnibus by Hal Dunning -- which has nothing to do with the role-playing games manufacturer, but rather a tawdry Western fiction writer. I picked the book up for two pounds at a thrift shop in Belfast and the style of it is a constant marvel to me.
I write long, you see, detailing the look and feel of things. People, places, motions, intentions, interior dialogue, all that post-bicameral stuff, but not Hal. For Hal, it's perfectly possible for a man to ride into town, round up a posse, head over to Hacksaw Johnson's farm to bring the varmint to justice, hang him in the village square and then go to the Lone Star Saloon to drink to their victory, all in one single page.
The amount of plot in his stories is astonishing to me.
While I was giving the NaNoWriMo workshops at the local American Book Centre, I brought two books to illustrate writing 'short' (Good old Hal!) and writing 'long', for which I had brought my Oscar Wilde collection in hardcover where I had a three-page sentence bookmarked.
Merry christmas, everyone!
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Updatism
So, I went to a wedding confirmation ceremony where the bride's relatives turned out to be the Von Trapps, only, you know, without the morally suspect Third Reich connotations. I've been negotiating various thoroughly exciting things with the good people of Sofawolf Press, which is one of the reasons why progress has been slow on FANG 2FG -- the other reason being the sheer, staggering volume of submissions, and of those that I've read almost all have been nothing short of excellent.
In the event that there's enough interest, will be hiring me to record a book-on-CD version of his excellent novel Volle, which I'm very excited about. It's a return to the theatre which I so loved but simply haven't made time for in recent years. I've recorded some samples, which Kyell will be putting up shortly to gauge interest and if there's enough of a response (responses being pre-orders with which he'd pay me -- 'tis the season for commercialism!), and, just for the lark of it, I've engaged in that most atrocious of musical traditions:
Karaoke.
For your enjoyment, The Fairy Tale of New York, originally by The Pogues, now performed by the cast of "Volle" :)
The above was recorded in a single take, no less! Lyrics and singing characters below the cut.
Helfer
It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
Volle
And then he sang a song The Rare Old Mountain Dew I turned my face away And dreamed about you
Helfer
Got on a lucky one Came in eighteen to one I've got a feeling This year's for me and you
Volle
So happy Christmas
I love you baby I can see a better time When all our dreams come true
Dereath
They've got cars big as bars They've got rivers of gold But the wind goes right through you It's no place for the old
Arrin
When you first took my hand On a cold Christmas Eve You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
You were handsome
Tally
You were pretty Queen of New York City When the band finished playing They howled out for more
Tish
Sinatra was swinging, All the drunks they were singing We kissed on a corner Then danced through the night
Xiller
The boys of the NYPD choir Were singing "Galway Bay" And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day
Ilyana
You're a bum You're a punk
Welcis
You're an old slut on junk Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
Ilyana
You scumbag, you maggot You cheap lousy faggot Happy Christmas your arse I pray God it's our last
Richy
The boys of the NYPD choir Were singing "Galway Bay" And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day
Dereath
I could have been someone
Volle
Well so could anyone
Dereath
You took my dreams from me When I first found you
Volle I kept them with me babe I put them with my own Can't make it all alone I've built my dreams around you
Helfer
The boys of the NYPD choir Were singing "Galway Bay" And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day
In the event that there's enough interest, will be hiring me to record a book-on-CD version of his excellent novel Volle, which I'm very excited about. It's a return to the theatre which I so loved but simply haven't made time for in recent years. I've recorded some samples, which Kyell will be putting up shortly to gauge interest and if there's enough of a response (responses being pre-orders with which he'd pay me -- 'tis the season for commercialism!), and, just for the lark of it, I've engaged in that most atrocious of musical traditions:
Karaoke.
For your enjoyment, The Fairy Tale of New York, originally by The Pogues, now performed by the cast of "Volle" :)
The above was recorded in a single take, no less! Lyrics and singing characters below the cut.
<!--more-->
Helfer
It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
Volle
And then he sang a song The Rare Old Mountain Dew I turned my face away And dreamed about you
Helfer
Got on a lucky one Came in eighteen to one I've got a feeling This year's for me and you
Volle
So happy Christmas
I love you baby I can see a better time When all our dreams come true
Dereath
They've got cars big as bars They've got rivers of gold But the wind goes right through you It's no place for the old
Arrin
When you first took my hand On a cold Christmas Eve You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
You were handsome
Tally
You were pretty Queen of New York City When the band finished playing They howled out for more
Tish
Sinatra was swinging, All the drunks they were singing We kissed on a corner Then danced through the night
Xiller
The boys of the NYPD choir Were singing "Galway Bay" And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day
Ilyana
You're a bum You're a punk
Welcis
You're an old slut on junk Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
Ilyana
You scumbag, you maggot You cheap lousy faggot Happy Christmas your arse I pray God it's our last
Richy
The boys of the NYPD choir Were singing "Galway Bay" And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day
Dereath
I could have been someone
Volle
Well so could anyone
Dereath
You took my dreams from me When I first found you
Volle I kept them with me babe I put them with my own Can't make it all alone I've built my dreams around you
Helfer
The boys of the NYPD choir Were singing "Galway Bay" And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day
Monday, December 5, 2005
Cerebral cinema.
I had a dream related to the action-adventure genre of Hollywood cinema. It began very cinematically, following a number of events whose significance now escapes me, but at the time was crucial to the dream's plot. Someone committed suicide, which turned out to be the first symptom of a vast supernatural plot. Much of this section took place in a housing estate full of black people where, after a very sweet girl was kidnapped by supernatural forces, one charismatic young man gathered himself a posse, saying that if he went after her alone, he'd absolutely, most certainly die, but if they went together, they might just take 'that bastard' with them.
I went to a cathedral-like university building in the middle of Manhattan to meet my friend Peter Parker, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who wasn't Spider-Man, I was. Not that I ever got to use my powers. I interrupted our conversation to run up to some semi-cute waiter and ask for his number, and got shot down. No harm, no foul.
There was some more plot with the black folks which now sadly has already begun to fade, but the long and short of it is that I was standing in a large circular space, which had a big pit in the middle traversed by a single walkway, surrounded by a balcony. On one end Captain Mal Reynolds and I stood shoulder to shoulder, on the other end, The Operative from Serenity and that creepy corrupt Fed in the turtleneck from the Firefly episode The Message on the other. I found a Luger on the floor (a reference, no doubt, to my playing Call of Duty last weekend).
There was some banter, posturing, mutual threats. Some insults in regards to my marksmanship, which were totally grounded until I shot the Creepy Fed in the heart, after which I explained both to the captain and The Operative that of the two, the Fed had been the more unpredictable with his firearm.
I am unsure whether Mal shot The Operative, but time slowed down and Mal ran across the dividing walkway, followed by the ghostly image of beautifully sloshing water, after which a small, proud Japanese man addressed a group of Japanese people and told them that what they had seen ( the ghostly water ) was a cinematic simulation of what was apparently a natural Japanese phenomenon, ghostly zero-G water coursing through spaces. He also informed them that his cruise liner had a simulation that was not only lifelike, but also interactive, and would they all please follow him.
I love having a brain. I love it so much. This stuff's gold!
I went to a cathedral-like university building in the middle of Manhattan to meet my friend Peter Parker, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who wasn't Spider-Man, I was. Not that I ever got to use my powers. I interrupted our conversation to run up to some semi-cute waiter and ask for his number, and got shot down. No harm, no foul.
There was some more plot with the black folks which now sadly has already begun to fade, but the long and short of it is that I was standing in a large circular space, which had a big pit in the middle traversed by a single walkway, surrounded by a balcony. On one end Captain Mal Reynolds and I stood shoulder to shoulder, on the other end, The Operative from Serenity and that creepy corrupt Fed in the turtleneck from the Firefly episode The Message on the other. I found a Luger on the floor (a reference, no doubt, to my playing Call of Duty last weekend).
There was some banter, posturing, mutual threats. Some insults in regards to my marksmanship, which were totally grounded until I shot the Creepy Fed in the heart, after which I explained both to the captain and The Operative that of the two, the Fed had been the more unpredictable with his firearm.
I am unsure whether Mal shot The Operative, but time slowed down and Mal ran across the dividing walkway, followed by the ghostly image of beautifully sloshing water, after which a small, proud Japanese man addressed a group of Japanese people and told them that what they had seen ( the ghostly water ) was a cinematic simulation of what was apparently a natural Japanese phenomenon, ghostly zero-G water coursing through spaces. He also informed them that his cruise liner had a simulation that was not only lifelike, but also interactive, and would they all please follow him.
I love having a brain. I love it so much. This stuff's gold!
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Thursday, November 3, 2005
Me for the win!
 | You scored as Captain Jack Sparrow. Roguish,quick-witted, and incredibly lucky, Jack Sparrow is a pirate who sometimes ends up being a hero, against his better judgement. Captain Jack looks out for #1, but he can be counted on (usually) to do the right thing. He has an incredibly persuasive tongue, a mind that borders on genius or insanity, and an incredible talent for getting into trouble and getting out of it. Maybe its brains, maybe its genius, or maybe its just plain luck. Or maybe a mixture of all three.
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com |
Wednesday, November 2, 2005
FurRag - beta.
"Hey Osfer, have you been a big dirty slacker lately? I haven't seen you post anything--no stories, no LJ posts... have you turned lazy and unambitious?"
Haha, no. Aside from the fact that I'm courting two prospective employers in the real world and that I've been offered a job as editor of a fairly well-known furry publication, aside from the fact that I've started the first of a series of five NaNoWriMo writing workshops I'm giving, aside from the fact that I'm participating in this madness with the full intention of getting the result published--I've been working on a project.
Yes, yes, I know, "you and your fucking projects", but listen, this is a doozy. A sweet and talented coder friend sacrificed way too much of his free time to make some of my more frivolous dreams come true, while the fabulously talented Kamui contributed reams of artwork and the result is this:
FurRag, the definitive furry fiction archive (beta).
Even at 15% of its planned functionality it's already on a par with the functions of just about every other fiction archive out there and there's tons more to come. Despite the fact that it isn't finished it's now been opened to help furry participants in the National Novel Writing Month through the nifty integrated per-chapter and full-story word count and forum integration functions.
Zawesomes, now?
Haha, no. Aside from the fact that I'm courting two prospective employers in the real world and that I've been offered a job as editor of a fairly well-known furry publication, aside from the fact that I've started the first of a series of five NaNoWriMo writing workshops I'm giving, aside from the fact that I'm participating in this madness with the full intention of getting the result published--I've been working on a project.
Yes, yes, I know, "you and your fucking projects", but listen, this is a doozy. A sweet and talented coder friend sacrificed way too much of his free time to make some of my more frivolous dreams come true, while the fabulously talented Kamui contributed reams of artwork and the result is this:
FurRag, the definitive furry fiction archive (beta).
Even at 15% of its planned functionality it's already on a par with the functions of just about every other fiction archive out there and there's tons more to come. Despite the fact that it isn't finished it's now been opened to help furry participants in the National Novel Writing Month through the nifty integrated per-chapter and full-story word count and forum integration functions.
Zawesomes, now?
Friday, October 21, 2005
October to November
After the Day of the Dead comes All Hallow's, or Hallowmas or Sammy
Haine or whatever poncy name is given to good old Halloween. For those
three mice and two squirrels that didn't get spammed by me yet, FANG's Halloween edition is out and an early bird who orders now can still have it in time for the Dread Eve.
Yeah, I know. Months with no updates, and then spam? Just wait. There's more.
These past months, together with an old friend and brilliant coder whom
I won't name unless he says it's okay I've been developing a new story
archive, a rather ambitious undertaking that will take quite some time
to fully develop. However, since it offers some functionality eminently
suited to NaNoWriMo a beta version will be made available to the public specifically for use during NaNo.
Should be good fun!
Haine or whatever poncy name is given to good old Halloween. For those
three mice and two squirrels that didn't get spammed by me yet, FANG's Halloween edition is out and an early bird who orders now can still have it in time for the Dread Eve.
Yeah, I know. Months with no updates, and then spam? Just wait. There's more.
These past months, together with an old friend and brilliant coder whom
I won't name unless he says it's okay I've been developing a new story
archive, a rather ambitious undertaking that will take quite some time
to fully develop. However, since it offers some functionality eminently
suited to NaNoWriMo a beta version will be made available to the public specifically for use during NaNo.
Should be good fun!
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Black and blue teeth.
Dark stains on my fingers and my front teeth, illegible, light grey scribblings on a blank sheet of paper, a wad of tissue paper in the waste basket. A sense of humble achievement.
I pick up a box of cartridges and discard it--wrong kind. I pick up another, nod approvingly and, flicking it open with a thumb, empty it into my hand. Ammunition spills over my fingers, cartridges clattering to the floor, but I pay them no mind. I only need one. I slide it into the mechanism--a solid click--and seal my weapon, ready to fire.
Or I would be, were the situation quite so urgent. As it is, I've no adversary in need of smiting. nor am I in danger of being smote myself. But it's important to be ready, and it's plain that I am not. This must immediately be remedied.
I gather my tools and spread them out on the desk and carefully, I dismantle my armaments. I set the pieces apart, on a cloth so they won't roll or slip or otherwise vanish, as small things are wont to do when no-one's looking. I check the cartridges, toss them away and exchange them for new ones. I try again--and again, nothing.
At this point I should make it clear that I'm talking about pens, not guns. The metaphor was nice, so far, but I really can't keep it up. So, pens. Fountain pens, to be precise, implements d'ecriture which I haven't used in a while, having favoured such scribbling tools as the extremely pocketable Lamy Pico, which, for all its portability, is still just an average ball point pen, and a very nice and super-cheap home-brand 0.7 mm rollerball in a luscious dark blue that looks simply sublime on cream paper. Or, in cases where I'm feeling particularly unsure, a mechanical pencil which is styles after a scalpel, to look really clever.
I am, you may observe, something of an enthusiast of old-school longhand. It's a craft I haven't practiced much, a fact which has a chicken-and-egg relationship with the very low legibility of my chickenscratch. As a wee lad I spent my modest pocket-money on pens and markers of different qualities, none of which I ever managed to use to depletion, but which I kept organised in my overstuffed pen box at school, systematically employing different tools for different tasks. Of course, it may also be that I was a spendthrift child with hamstering tendencies, which isn't abnormal, who was so geeky as to be unable to think of anything better to hamster than pens.
In gasps and hiccups, my delight in handwriting has resurged in the last few years. The grudging admission that a PDA simply can't function properly as a data entry device for text, even when equipped with a cute little keyboard led to my stomping off to buy a fucking notebook, and the urge to find the very awesomest notebook available.
This led me, of course, to the moleskine. Which of course needed a suitable writing implement to complement it.
Trial and error in shops (the great advantage with having an obsession with stationery rather than, say, vintage cars is that it's a far less costly love-affair) and on-line research showed that, curiously, it was the cheap home-brand rollerball that was most suited to the moleskine's creamy paper, which brought out the radiant gold in the dark blue ink to make the text truly shine, giving the permanent illusion of wet ink--despite the fact that the ink could withstand even a thorough scrubbing with a licked finger, once dry.
I nevertheless kept an arsenal of alternatives at hand, none of which, I'm now ashamed to say, were fountain pens. This was due to the fact that I selected the moleskine particularly for its ruggedness, to serve as a notebook-on-the-road, which could withstand the rigors of being jangled about in a loosely-packed bag all day and still offer the sturdiness to comfortably write in it even without a flat surface to lay it down on. And fountain pens simply aren't the implements you want to use when being jostled side to side on a train or bus or tram, as I so frequently am.
Still, those precious fountain pens beckoned me. Some two or three years old, the both of them, by no means ancient and priceless only in that they cost next to nothing at the time. Plain and nicely weighted, red and silver, and both, it turned out, thoroughly clogged.
Daunted I was not. Off to the bathroom I went with them, with a stash of tissue paper, a glass and (wisely) rolled-up sleeves. What followed was an hour of careful rinsing, patient dripping, a gradual raising of the temperature, drying, soaking... Not of the whole pens, of course, only of the nib, made, as most fountain pens are, of iridium.
A Platinum Group Metal, iridium is hard and brittle, tough to machine, and the most corrosion-resistant metal known. Given that it's also fairly cheap, this makes it an excellent metal for making pen nibs, which (ideally) are permanently exposed to some fluids. This marvelous metal is fairly rare, having come to our lonely little planet either as a sediment from the cosmic dust that constantly drizzles onto our little globe or, more cataclysmically, as a major constituent of some meteorites, such as that found by the Alvarezes in the late '70s in clay around the K-T Boundary, which became one of the major proofs for the theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite.
Ah, but I digress somewhat.
Not that the above isn't interesting--more interesting, at the very very least, than sucking warm water through a fountain pen nib and spitting out the blackened result into the sink. The staying power of that dried, cloying ink, utterly perplexes me.
Of the two nibs, one could be saved; the other, despite my efforts remains uncooperative. The rescued pen is quite weak, still, the presence of minuscule amounts of water in the capillaries causing the ink to be quite pale on paper, but in time, she will heal (the pen is called Martha and is among the few women I have ever loved). Black ink had clogged her veins and I've put her on a diet of blue, so the faded ink is turning slowly from grey to lilac, with blue to follow some time later.
There is something inherently magical and terribly dangerous about writing by hand. There is a finality to what you write that engenders claustrophobia and performance anxiety, for while a well-written page is a work of art, the smallest blemish, the slightest falter can ruin its splendour. Not to mention that it's terribly hard to go back and make corrections. It's only ink on paper, but it might as well be chisel on marble, it's so final and to write anything longer than an essay on a topic you've already worked out, brain-wise, is terribly daunting.
Still. I think I'll give it a go. Just to get my handwriting in shape, and just to train my hand. Should the RSI (or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) I occasionally suffer from in my right index and middle fingers flare to unbearable degrees, rendering me unfit to type for a year or more, I may have to turn to longhand ad my only alternative.
I shudder at the prospect, of course. But perhaps a year of the musty scent of paper and the satisfaction of black ink-stains on my fingertips is not so bleak a future.
I pick up a box of cartridges and discard it--wrong kind. I pick up another, nod approvingly and, flicking it open with a thumb, empty it into my hand. Ammunition spills over my fingers, cartridges clattering to the floor, but I pay them no mind. I only need one. I slide it into the mechanism--a solid click--and seal my weapon, ready to fire.
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The spare, then, my holdout. Quickly I whip it out, this second, no different from the first but for its colour. It, too, fails me, and I am lost.Or I would be, were the situation quite so urgent. As it is, I've no adversary in need of smiting. nor am I in danger of being smote myself. But it's important to be ready, and it's plain that I am not. This must immediately be remedied.
I gather my tools and spread them out on the desk and carefully, I dismantle my armaments. I set the pieces apart, on a cloth so they won't roll or slip or otherwise vanish, as small things are wont to do when no-one's looking. I check the cartridges, toss them away and exchange them for new ones. I try again--and again, nothing.
At this point I should make it clear that I'm talking about pens, not guns. The metaphor was nice, so far, but I really can't keep it up. So, pens. Fountain pens, to be precise, implements d'ecriture which I haven't used in a while, having favoured such scribbling tools as the extremely pocketable Lamy Pico, which, for all its portability, is still just an average ball point pen, and a very nice and super-cheap home-brand 0.7 mm rollerball in a luscious dark blue that looks simply sublime on cream paper. Or, in cases where I'm feeling particularly unsure, a mechanical pencil which is styles after a scalpel, to look really clever.
I am, you may observe, something of an enthusiast of old-school longhand. It's a craft I haven't practiced much, a fact which has a chicken-and-egg relationship with the very low legibility of my chickenscratch. As a wee lad I spent my modest pocket-money on pens and markers of different qualities, none of which I ever managed to use to depletion, but which I kept organised in my overstuffed pen box at school, systematically employing different tools for different tasks. Of course, it may also be that I was a spendthrift child with hamstering tendencies, which isn't abnormal, who was so geeky as to be unable to think of anything better to hamster than pens.
In gasps and hiccups, my delight in handwriting has resurged in the last few years. The grudging admission that a PDA simply can't function properly as a data entry device for text, even when equipped with a cute little keyboard led to my stomping off to buy a fucking notebook, and the urge to find the very awesomest notebook available.
This led me, of course, to the moleskine. Which of course needed a suitable writing implement to complement it.
Trial and error in shops (the great advantage with having an obsession with stationery rather than, say, vintage cars is that it's a far less costly love-affair) and on-line research showed that, curiously, it was the cheap home-brand rollerball that was most suited to the moleskine's creamy paper, which brought out the radiant gold in the dark blue ink to make the text truly shine, giving the permanent illusion of wet ink--despite the fact that the ink could withstand even a thorough scrubbing with a licked finger, once dry.
I nevertheless kept an arsenal of alternatives at hand, none of which, I'm now ashamed to say, were fountain pens. This was due to the fact that I selected the moleskine particularly for its ruggedness, to serve as a notebook-on-the-road, which could withstand the rigors of being jangled about in a loosely-packed bag all day and still offer the sturdiness to comfortably write in it even without a flat surface to lay it down on. And fountain pens simply aren't the implements you want to use when being jostled side to side on a train or bus or tram, as I so frequently am.
Still, those precious fountain pens beckoned me. Some two or three years old, the both of them, by no means ancient and priceless only in that they cost next to nothing at the time. Plain and nicely weighted, red and silver, and both, it turned out, thoroughly clogged.
Daunted I was not. Off to the bathroom I went with them, with a stash of tissue paper, a glass and (wisely) rolled-up sleeves. What followed was an hour of careful rinsing, patient dripping, a gradual raising of the temperature, drying, soaking... Not of the whole pens, of course, only of the nib, made, as most fountain pens are, of iridium.
A Platinum Group Metal, iridium is hard and brittle, tough to machine, and the most corrosion-resistant metal known. Given that it's also fairly cheap, this makes it an excellent metal for making pen nibs, which (ideally) are permanently exposed to some fluids. This marvelous metal is fairly rare, having come to our lonely little planet either as a sediment from the cosmic dust that constantly drizzles onto our little globe or, more cataclysmically, as a major constituent of some meteorites, such as that found by the Alvarezes in the late '70s in clay around the K-T Boundary, which became one of the major proofs for the theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite.
Ah, but I digress somewhat.
Not that the above isn't interesting--more interesting, at the very very least, than sucking warm water through a fountain pen nib and spitting out the blackened result into the sink. The staying power of that dried, cloying ink, utterly perplexes me.
Of the two nibs, one could be saved; the other, despite my efforts remains uncooperative. The rescued pen is quite weak, still, the presence of minuscule amounts of water in the capillaries causing the ink to be quite pale on paper, but in time, she will heal (the pen is called Martha and is among the few women I have ever loved). Black ink had clogged her veins and I've put her on a diet of blue, so the faded ink is turning slowly from grey to lilac, with blue to follow some time later.
There is something inherently magical and terribly dangerous about writing by hand. There is a finality to what you write that engenders claustrophobia and performance anxiety, for while a well-written page is a work of art, the smallest blemish, the slightest falter can ruin its splendour. Not to mention that it's terribly hard to go back and make corrections. It's only ink on paper, but it might as well be chisel on marble, it's so final and to write anything longer than an essay on a topic you've already worked out, brain-wise, is terribly daunting.
Still. I think I'll give it a go. Just to get my handwriting in shape, and just to train my hand. Should the RSI (or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) I occasionally suffer from in my right index and middle fingers flare to unbearable degrees, rendering me unfit to type for a year or more, I may have to turn to longhand ad my only alternative.
I shudder at the prospect, of course. But perhaps a year of the musty scent of paper and the satisfaction of black ink-stains on my fingertips is not so bleak a future.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Untitled
Being a modest geek, my friends and I occasionally indulge in a night of role-playing. Nothing kinky, mind, just pen-and-paper stuff. Despite my long-ago-failed efforts to the contrary, no costumes or props are involved, only mirth and beverages.
One session, some years ago now, took place in the darkest of dark ages, the Middle Ages. I played a werewolf and so did my friends and together we wandered through a zombie-infested castle, dispatching dread beasts left and right. Ingvar, my werewolf, was nominally the leader of the group, but due to cursed dice he spent most of his time disabled. During the first round of combat against a horde of ROUSes he was trapped under a door, for example. Later he set a vampire free. He wasn't exactly the brains of the operation.
At one crucial point, a battle took place with, I believe, a mage of some sort. Ingvar rose to the occasion, brandishing whatever weapon he wielded with a great deal of vim, and was struck on the leg with a fireball, which the game master at the time informed me was 'bale fire'. Bale Fire, it turns out, is a type of fire straight from the Pit of Hell that takes its fuel from the Blooded Netherworld and therefore can burn underwater or in space.
Shit, thought Ingvar, I'm in a tight spot!
He batted at his leg and, of course, his hands caught fire. His comrades were busy fighting the mage, so he had to take care of himself. Spotting a bed with linen sheets he ran for it, to use the sheets to douse the flames, to snuff them and deny them the oxygen they'd need to resurface. Against all odds, this failed and the bed turned into a Blazing Inferno. Again, thanks to cursed dice, Ingvar was subsequently unable to manage the monumental athletic feat of jumping off the bed, either.
All this very neatly becomes a metaphor for last night, when I finally got tired of the unwieldy forum system I'd implemented on www.osfer.com. I know, I thought, I'll just install a phpBB module for Mambo, my CMS. If you don't understand what that means, don't worry. I scarcely understand myself sometimes.
Off I toddled, wrestling with a very inconvenient yet still highly rated FTP client to get the module uploaded. Subsequently, it didn't do what I wanted and I found there was another module which would do what I wanted. I know, I thought, I'll just restore the backup I made before I started fiddling with the site.
I tried uploading the original files. I tried various ways of reloading the mysql database. I tried using my hosting provider's automatic backup restoration function, and with everything I tried the site became less and less functional and now, well, the bed is on fire and I can't jump off it.
So for the time being I'm just going to sit here and wait for competent help. I've sent a very polite and pleading mail to the good boys at my hosting service, asking them to magically and manually restore my site to the way it was yesterday. I feel like a cat stuck in a tree with the moon high overhead, meowing softly in hopes that keen firemen will bring me safely down.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Halloweeeeen stories deadline approaches!
Mount ye your flaming carriages, ride ye screeching across rooftops, delighting one and all with the wake of your blood-dimmed tide! The lowliest of holy nights draws nigh, with many a pumpkin deserving a gutting and many a child's tooth plotting its next cavity.
To quote that epic piece of serious, insightful and deeply moving dramatic cinema, "Starship Troopers": Are you doing your part?
Ten days remain until the deadline's close - September 30 - after which date, new submissions will not be considered for the upcoming FANG Halloween '05 issue which, considering the printer's slowness, should be available around October 20, leaving young and old ample time to obtain a copy in time for the around-the-fire-sitting and the sharing of scaaary tales.
Should you consider yourself lacking the skills needed for such a venture, surely you know of authors whose works you'd like to see printed. Mmm, in clear, carefully balanced print on crisp, off-white paper, properly weighted lettering and a cover whose gloss rivals that of many a lacquered death-mask... If you know or know of someone of such talents, you can do them a great service by dropping them a quick e-mail to inform them that FANG, the Little Black Book of Furry Fiction, is accepting Halloween- and horror-themed submissions of any rating and comfort level until September 30!
So polish up whatever you might have lying around until it gleams like the hook on the serial murderer's ragged arm-stump, or dip your quill in the blood of innocents and set it to parchment, and be swift as the raven while you're at it!
To quote that epic piece of serious, insightful and deeply moving dramatic cinema, "Starship Troopers": Are you doing your part?
Ten days remain until the deadline's close - September 30 - after which date, new submissions will not be considered for the upcoming FANG Halloween '05 issue which, considering the printer's slowness, should be available around October 20, leaving young and old ample time to obtain a copy in time for the around-the-fire-sitting and the sharing of scaaary tales.
Should you consider yourself lacking the skills needed for such a venture, surely you know of authors whose works you'd like to see printed. Mmm, in clear, carefully balanced print on crisp, off-white paper, properly weighted lettering and a cover whose gloss rivals that of many a lacquered death-mask... If you know or know of someone of such talents, you can do them a great service by dropping them a quick e-mail to inform them that FANG, the Little Black Book of Furry Fiction, is accepting Halloween- and horror-themed submissions of any rating and comfort level until September 30!
So polish up whatever you might have lying around until it gleams like the hook on the serial murderer's ragged arm-stump, or dip your quill in the blood of innocents and set it to parchment, and be swift as the raven while you're at it!
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Scary!
I was just asked for a desktop-sized version of my avatar.
Slowly but surely, my message will spread.
Did I mention? FANG's accepting horror/scary/camp horror submissions for the Halloween issue till the end of September. Chop chop.
Slowly but surely, my message will spread.
Did I mention? FANG's accepting horror/scary/camp horror submissions for the Halloween issue till the end of September. Chop chop.
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Osfer bares his FANGs.
 | FANG Volume 1G Cover |
Ladies and Gentlemen,
FANG Volume 1G has been published and is available for $19.99. Thank you.
Friday, September 2, 2005
All right, all right...
Fine, fine, here's the lyrics, for those who can't hear. Sheesh.
"I am the very model of a fursuiting enthuisiast
I stitch and knit and glue and sew and weld and staple very fast
The animals I imitate I very thoroughly inspect
So all the fursuits I devise are anatomic’ly correct
And when the suits at last are done I may indulge in my reward
And put them on and run and jump and skip and toddle off toward
Another person who my fursuiting enthusiasm shares
And manufactures suits of wolves and foxes dogs and cats and bears
I stitch and knit and glue and sew and weld and staple very fast
I am the very model of a fursuiting enthusiast!"
"I am the very model of a fursuiting enthuisiast
I stitch and knit and glue and sew and weld and staple very fast
The animals I imitate I very thoroughly inspect
So all the fursuits I devise are anatomic’ly correct
And when the suits at last are done I may indulge in my reward
And put them on and run and jump and skip and toddle off toward
Another person who my fursuiting enthusiasm shares
And manufactures suits of wolves and foxes dogs and cats and bears
I stitch and knit and glue and sew and weld and staple very fast
I am the very model of a fursuiting enthusiast!"
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Zut!
| Your Inner European is French! |
 Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. |
Monday, August 29, 2005
Heat!
Such warmth, of a sudden. From where? Sure, balmy days have been had of late but this stifling, stickysweaty heat? Any activity incurring perspiration on a day like this ought to be if not criminal, then at least wholly optional. Sex included. Maybe breathing, too.
Caliente! Porque!
Caliente! Porque!
Work and weddings
An English wedding, ten siblings for the bride and groom -- each -- and attendant grandfolk and nephews and nieces. A very good church service, modern and old-fashioned in equal measure, emphasizing that love is more than just the warm fuzzy feelings, that it is the dedication to another person even when the fuzzy feelings subside, the decision to care for them and make them happy even when you don't feel like it. The bride and groom exchanged not "I do", but "I will". Marvelous.Church had a retro feel, as the bride's family was seated in the left pews and the groom's on the right making for thoroughly un-modern white-black separation, which was quickly remedied when, outside the church, the alcohol started flowing and bonds were forged in the fires of rum and whiskey.
Good party afterward. I admit to, perhaps, a stray thought in the direction of a nephew I hadn't seen since he was eleven and has turned into a very handsome and rather camp and very very obviously queer young man.
Only my third wedding ever, and it was a doozy. Good weather, the rain waited till we were all seated for dinner and stopped after the speeches, leaving the lawn outside the hotel reception fresh and sweet-smelling. No fights, loud conversations, and not too much singing.
Good dancing, too, though the respective families tastes were very different and the white and the black side took turns to the dance floor as upbeat britpop for the billion or so twelve to twenty-four year olds on the white side of the family was alternated with smooth reggae for the black. So smooth, those Jamaicans, even the elderly and rheumatic.
Returned to the homestead today and as I crawled, bleary-eyed after a flight that was less flying and more standing in un-airconditioned queues like cattle, I was ready to start working on FANG some more. I fired up the mental processes, trying to realize what I had to do and suddenly remembered -- nothing. It's all done. I'm just waiting now, waiting for the (hopefully) last proof copy to turn out to work right.
It was rather alienating. I wracked my brain for anything I'd forgotten, but no. With gladness in my heart I started browsing for Maranatha, to put up a fresh chapter for the eager readers who've had to go without for over a month, now, and realized that tonight, I didn't feel like it. Not in the slightest.
Weeks and weeks of reading, reviewing and editing erotica of various bents has rather dulled my delight in it. Imagine!
Not one to mope, me. If not Maranatha, then something else. Something else entirely.
http://www.osfer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=83&... <= Listen Now to hear me crooning the story.
The result is what one might call a beginning. It isn't much, but it's something new regardless.
In defense of my timbre, it was very late and i couldn't raise my voice for fear of incurring the wrath of neighbors. Perhaps I'll retry this when I have my full volume at my disposal!
Good party afterward. I admit to, perhaps, a stray thought in the direction of a nephew I hadn't seen since he was eleven and has turned into a very handsome and rather camp and very very obviously queer young man.
Only my third wedding ever, and it was a doozy. Good weather, the rain waited till we were all seated for dinner and stopped after the speeches, leaving the lawn outside the hotel reception fresh and sweet-smelling. No fights, loud conversations, and not too much singing.
Good dancing, too, though the respective families tastes were very different and the white and the black side took turns to the dance floor as upbeat britpop for the billion or so twelve to twenty-four year olds on the white side of the family was alternated with smooth reggae for the black. So smooth, those Jamaicans, even the elderly and rheumatic.
Returned to the homestead today and as I crawled, bleary-eyed after a flight that was less flying and more standing in un-airconditioned queues like cattle, I was ready to start working on FANG some more. I fired up the mental processes, trying to realize what I had to do and suddenly remembered -- nothing. It's all done. I'm just waiting now, waiting for the (hopefully) last proof copy to turn out to work right.
It was rather alienating. I wracked my brain for anything I'd forgotten, but no. With gladness in my heart I started browsing for Maranatha, to put up a fresh chapter for the eager readers who've had to go without for over a month, now, and realized that tonight, I didn't feel like it. Not in the slightest.
Weeks and weeks of reading, reviewing and editing erotica of various bents has rather dulled my delight in it. Imagine!
Not one to mope, me. If not Maranatha, then something else. Something else entirely.
http://www.osfer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=83&... <= Listen Now to hear me crooning the story.
The result is what one might call a beginning. It isn't much, but it's something new regardless.
In defense of my timbre, it was very late and i couldn't raise my voice for fear of incurring the wrath of neighbors. Perhaps I'll retry this when I have my full volume at my disposal!
Sunday, August 21, 2005
It's just... boats.
Three days in a row, eight hours a day, boats, boats, boats. Remote-controlling seven cameras in a poncy VIP lounge with the same choirs, clowns and organist/whistlists playing four times a day for different groups of VIP's. Never leaving your chair except for quick rushes to the bathroom or stuffing a banana in your face to quench the dread gnaw of hunger. Trying to keep the feed intereesting, even though it's just boats seen from seven different cameras.
A very interesting experience.
A very interesting experience.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Back in the groove.
So, what have I been up to that’s dragged me away from my LiveJournalling duties? Fuck all, is the answer.
Every three weeks or so I play Werewolf: The Apocalypse (soon to be The Forsaken) with the gang, which is an exercise in snack-munching coke-swigging comically violent geekery and always good fun. Intrigue, danger and romance! I shoot crime on a regular basis. I’m far less crap than I used to be. Speaking of geekery, I helped out a friend by volunteering to play an NPC in a Vampire LARP session he organised (if you don’t know what those acronyms mean — you’re way cooler than me) and, while I felt silly, it was a surprising amount of fun once all the players got into the same celestial groove. I yearn for theatre.
Writing, writing, writing. That is, I should be and today I am. Somebody wrote to me in response to my pennings and gave me the best compliment ever — and I quote:
“I fanboy at you.”
The fact that Google lists no occurrences of those four words in thar order makes this compliment extra special to me and anyone who dashes that illusion I will repay by dashing his (or her, one never knows) skull in.
————
Johnny and Jotun visited this evening so I didn’t get a whole lot of writing done. Nor did I get a chance to play World of Warcraft. Curious thing, my mum has recently lectured me on my addiction to that game because she happened to see me playing it on four or five separate instances. Fact is, I can barely scrape together the time to play it at all, between work, school, friends and — here’s a word Orrin hates, kiss kiss — hobbies I just can’t find the time. I’m lagging behind my fellow gaming chums by a substantial degree and that’s demotivating. Plus, lately I’ve rarely had the opportunity to play for more than half an hour without at least a five-minute interruption, which is hamering my progress as well. Also, I’m really crap at this game.
Hopping on the bandwagon.
1. As a child, got burned by hot tea — but for reasons as yet unexplained, the tea spilled over my side formed a steam bubble under my skin which exploded so instead of becoming a second or third degree burn it ecame simply a patch of bare muscle where the skin could regrow, rather than a dirty scar. Score.
2. Wrote and directed a play for twenty 12 to 18–year-olds using no sets and hardly any props, with a technical manual that turned out to be twice as thick as the already hefty script.
3. Co-scripted, co-directed and co-wrangled a shor film in Belgium located on a small abandoned trainyard owned by a supposed former Nazi war criminal (this is pure speculation).
4. Spent twenty-two and a half hours editing and colour timing said film in order to meet self-imposed deadline, only to realise, when watching the results after ten hours of not working on it, that it isn’t funn and doesn’t make sense.
5. Taught an insightful and popular writing workshop to people who uniformly had far more writing experience than I did and yet ended up worshipping me as a god.
6. Lived in Holland for twenty-four minus one half year without ever, ever smoking weed or trying any drugs of any kind. Not even aspirin, till I was twentyish.
7. Made no spelling mistakes in English or Dutch at all, whatsoever during exams until puberty.
8. Upon waking up and being handed the phone by my mother, I managed to tell my friend Bart that, no, he can’t come around because I’m not at my mother’s place, I’m at Dad’s, so convinced of this that I convinced him. I noticed that I wa s in my own bed, my mother was talking to me and Bart didn’t have my dad’s number, but by the time this information eased into my brain I didn’t connect it with what I said to Bart and I didn’t call him back to tell him I was at mum’s place after all.
9. During school camp, on the last night, when everybody had decided to party through the night and not sleep, left the dormitory where everybody was screaming and talking and laughing for thre minutes and roughly twenty seconds, only to return to find everyone asleep. All other dorm rooms were filled with people asleep in attitudes of misbehaviour. I went around the farmstead where the camp was organised, turning off lights and alarm clocks and spent three hours doing dishes and making breakfast so the morning crew wouldn’t have to get up so early.
10. Screamed so loud when Wolfie, who is a shit-fucker, sent me a link to a truly heart-stoppingly scary Flash movie in the middle of the night that I woke not only everybody in my house, but also set four dogs in the neighbourhood to barking — while I know for a fact that nobody in half a mile of my house owns a dog.
Monday, February 7, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
Me and David in Hello
Two tests, one a simple pic of me and David, the other an actual little videoclip of same, with a little of our friend Antonio thrown in during our holiday in Center Parcs last year!
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