My God, It's Raining

This was a conversation I found myself having Friday afternoon after being asked to draw a graph of my week on a sheet of paper, days being the independent variable (time-limited) along the x-axis and my mood being dependent, indicated on the y-axis. Interestingly, on being asked that question, I had to instantly go back and amend my graph because in all honesty it was the best thing that had happened to me all week.

We agreed that “walruses” is boring and shame was poured on one contributor’s head for adding a superfluous apostrophe to make it “walruse’s” on the whiteboard (also prompting the question, “what’s a walruse and what stuff would it possess?“).

Walrice didn’t survive the screening process but walri? That felt closer to the mark.

What if we added an extra vowel? What if we doubled that shit right up?

Walrii. yes, my friends, that feels so much more comfortable on the tongue.

Being Scottish, I staunchly defended the possibility of an ancient, Caledonian flavour – hundreds of walrae, their sleek, heavy-set bodies crowding the rocky shores – but it was summarily rejected by the harsh, Southern tones of my English companions.
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I can’t remember where I read it, but I did read something recently that said the Victorians had incredible powers of concentration – that by adulthood, they could sit and listen to a lecture for ten hours straight. I think it was an article comparing the Kindle to the iPad as an e-reader, but it perhaps says something about my powers of concentration that I gave up on trying to find the original article or even a reference to back it up after three Google searches.

The follow-on from that potential factoid (in the correct sense of the word) was that we – a collective “we” that doesn’t so much include humanity as it does geeks that follow links to tech ‘blogs via Twitter – are a skittish, slapdash lot by comparison. Our machines can run multiple information streams simultaneously, or have the potential to access other streams, so we use that versatility to flick back and forth between things, dip in and out.

Whether that’s for the better or for the worse, I’m not going to argue either side of it. I like Victorian themes in my fiction (I particularly love the desperate, staggering arrogance of the British Empire) but I’m also quite glad I don’t live then. Plus I like having the internet to Google randomly about history. It’s just like being genuinely intelligent!

Still, I do have issues finding time for things. I get distracted very easily, and end up dithering about taking forever to do the thing I actually wanted to get on and do.

So, Lisa suggested I start compartmentalising actions into 15 minute chunks. “Everyone has at least 15 minutes in their day,” she said, vastly underestimating my ability to flick between Twitter and various news sites hitting F5 for three hours at a time.

And this is the result – a blog post written in 15 minutes (well, 9 and counting). I’m not sure if it’s up to much cop, but it’s a start. Breaking the tendency that I had to spend a good hour farting about putting a couple of lines together is good for me.

And I could do with a few more good for me things. I’m pretty tired at the moment, more than a little stressed, and it feels like I haven’t got a second for any form of outlet to ease off on either. I could go for a run, but that’s not something I can package up into a 15 minute chunk – any longer and I’d start to feel guilty about the stuff I’m concurrently not doing for work while out running.

Three minutes left. Just enough time to revise the awful title, add tags and mention that I’ll be attending Platform Expos on Sunday for a few hours with my camera and hopefully I’ll be able to put together a nice little post about Hull’s gaming scene.

New post up on Wordpunk from yours truly.

The link is here.

I DEMAND YOU ENJOY IT

Today, we drove down to Outgate Poultry and bought ourselves some chickens. It had to happen, really. We had already spent almost £400 on an Eglu, and God only knows how much else on bedding, feed, grit, diatomaceous earth and other chicken-keeping necessities and sundries that would have made not buying chickens a financial disaster.

The smallholding we bought them from was a little bit far away, but it was really worth making the trip down there because the guy running the place was very experienced and very helpful. We arrived nice and early, and he was able to give us lots of advice on settling the chickens in and looking after them – much of it both of us had read already, but it was nice to hear it confirmed and to get the chance to ask questions.

What I wasn’t aware of when we bought our three birds is that they are self-packing:

The Blue on the right is called Kerrigan, Queen of Blades. The Black, below and on the left is Commander Shepard. The youngest bird, the Ranger at the top, is Alexstrasza the Life-Binder.

Yes, we are that sad.

When we got home we gave them a quick chance to run around a little (an hour in a cardboard box can’t be good for anyone’s nerves) and then picked them up (took one or two goes to get hold of Alexstrasza) and put them in the run. They need to stay in there for a few days at first so that they become habituated to living in the coop and run. Eventually they’ll get command of the whole garden but this first bit of captivity is essential, apparently.

I might let them out for a little bit later on, though.

Kerrigan and Alexstrasza check out their new house. I went out to check on them a few minutes ago and discovered Shepard squatting obstinately in the nesting box, Kerrigan trying to take all of the bedding out one piece at a time and Alexstrasza trying to devour the same leaf she had been picking at three-quarters of an hour earlier.

Shepard staring intently at a piece of completely featureless land trying to find something of worth. Kind of like the mining in Mass Effect 2, really.

Lisa and I went to see a concert of harp and flute music tonight, performed by Sally Pryce (harp…as in, she plays it, not a harp called Sally) and Adam Walker (flute).

They were both very talented players, although I thought the acoustics of the church were a little against them; it seemed to project the sound of the flute much more clearly towards the back of the room and as a result he seemed to smother his partner a little.  With different seats I’m guessing the experience would have been a lot more balanced.

Also they didn’t play any AC/DC or Slipknot covers.  Boo.

Joking aside, I thought the format of harp and flute would work well for most of the Nobuo Uematsu stuff as used in pretty much every Final Fantasy soundtrack, ever.  One of the tangoes they played sounded surprisingly close to a battle theme at one point…

…I’m such a geek.

Watched The Hurt Locker last night.  For the most part, it’s very, very good.  Kathryn Bigelow overcomes the majority of her urges to slip back into genre conventions, and the tight focus, both in shooting and script, on the three-man Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad is a decision that pays off consistently throughout the film.

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The Valve blog is still hilarious.

Here is yesterday’s post, written by the Soldier.

I don’t have to know what the hell twitters and texting and body sprays are to understand that they’re not the sort of thing men should be engaged in. Like conversations, or painting things that aren’t a house.

Genius.

If you’re not sure who the Soldier is, this should help (NSFW warning for cartoon violence and hilarity).

Lisa decided she wanted to play some HoMM 3 again, which resulted in the following response from the installer.  The game worked, however, and she came to bed at 3 AM after a monster session on the bloody thing.

Oh yes, life and stuff.  I’ve been taking a little break from the gym as my joints were starting to protest frequently, and along with a change of sleeping habits (I was lying with one arm under my head and it has been making my elbow very sore) the rest has been really good.  I still feel quite fit and there’s no niggling pains.  Back to the gym it is, then.

When Lips (see the last post for a link) came out, reviewers seemed to rave about the microphones being really professional and sturdy and whatnot.  They feel very plasticky and light to me, like really cheap pepper grinders.  maybe I’m just a clumsy, thick-fingered oaf?

In any case, the game really falls flat when you come to look at the track listings and the available downloads.  It is so full of fail that it actually makes me wonder what drooling idiot authorised the release list.  By far the worst (or best, if you like really bad things) to download is I Saw The Sign by Ace of Base.

For those of you using Spotify still, my latest reccomendation is Incredibad, by The Lonely Island.  It’s a comedy album made by writers off of Saturday Night Live (or so I gather), and although some of the songs wear a little thin rapidly, the whole thing is redeemed by On A Boat (feat. T-Pain).  Such a good song.

Tonight I was planning to work on the story a bit more but I just realised that we’re going to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Snikt: Also Has Deadpool: But Does He Know He’s In A Movie: The Movie tonight and obscenely muscular grumpy men with metal claws in their hands override any other tasks including but not limited to writing, eating, or catching Coughing Pig Death.

Chapter 7 is up now at the Work In Progress page.  I was going to post it yesterday but I had far more important things to do, such as set up Lips for the Xbox and rack up some points singing Depeche Mode.

Looking at the downloads I still have at least 3 regular readers: nice to know I haven’t scared any of them off yet…

Chapter 7 goes a bit off to one side, basically introducing a 3rd faction into play very briefly, as I want to use the characters later on and just plonking them on the table in the 3rd act seems a little gauche.  Also Belar has to pack up his valise and get ready for a trip, and that’s just boring to write about.

Working on chapter 10 and we finally get back to some drama.  About time, too.