Still applying for jobs. Still not getting any. I get the odd interview, but so far none have been successful. I’ve got one interview outstanding since March – they interviewed me in March and I still don’t have the outcome. But then one of my FB friends applied for a Civil Service job last June and started a week ago, so I’m not quite losing hope on that one.

In other news, there is no real other news.

Smokey is very well, full of beans and cat food. She’s currently asleep on the sofa – we had a lovely cuddle this morning, but then I had to get up from my recumbent position and start doing some work on the computer. So she stretched out into my spot, perhaps thinking it would stay warm.

Oh, I know what I’m doing – I bought the AD&D 5e (Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition for those who aren’t geeks) and have been writing a basic scenario so we can see how it runs. In this I’ve been assisted by my friend Patrick who is such a geek he even out-geeks me, and he calculated everything on his character sheet out by hand to ensure that I wasn’t cheating him out of any advantages his character should have.

What between him and me, we managed to spot a bug in the computer program I’m using to roll up characters, which made us both very happy. We’re strange like that.

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I’m safely back from redemption_con; the journeys were totally straightforward and the trains were on time there and back.

I enjoyed the convention. Numbers seemed down (if you like a fan-run convention do go along to Redemption in 2019, it runs better with more people) and the convention over-organised for the numbers (at times there were nine streams of events), but that didn’t bother me. I just went along to what appealed to me and dodged anything that didn’t.

I spent a lot of time with legionseagle and julesjones over the weekend, and with various other people whose LJ and DW names I have forgotten. Much gossip was gossed.

Guests were Dr Lynette Nusbacher, Steve Lycett , Miranda Gower-Qian, Thalia Evans and David Wake. Probably you’ve never heard of any of them, I had only heard of Dr Lynette who is one of the presenters of the wargame TV show “Time Commanders”. She was lovely, though I didn’t go to any of her talks she was very nice and approachable when out and about and she always wears lovely clothes, which she told me mostly come from TK Maxx.

The only complaint I heard about the food offerings in the restaurant was from the two people I know who can’t cope with spices. All the cheap restaurant meals (Chinese, Indian and Mexican) were not suitable for them. But they had the option of pizzas in the bar, though one person did mention that it was a bit same-y to have a plain pizza two nights running. I liked the desserts on the cheap restaurant meals, the fudge cake was yummy, and they were quite happy to supply cream if asked.

One night I had the New York hot dog pizza and that was very nice, though I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so physically hot for some reason, and hot cheese is a really hot thing when you bite into it.

The carvery baps were very good, decent portions, as were the sandwich bar options.

Breakfasts were adequate mass catering, though I liked the fact that they were frying eggs practically on demand.

Other things: yes, some of the panels were under attended, but I put that down to the convention being somewhat under attended overall and the sometimes nine streams meaning that people were spread a bit thin. The panels I attended went off well, even if there weren’t that many there. I thought six streams would be fine for the number we had attending, with room to expand it if more sign up.

I forgot about slash Pictionary. I’d have been there if I’d remembered.

One thing I would like to see for Redemption 19 is a slash/adult stream as there’s no general slash con (that I know of) being run in the UK currently.

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It’s 5am and I have given up any pretence of sleeping. I have no idea why I have insomnia tonight. As has the cat, who is meowing round me as if I might have a clue what she wants. It’s probably food, but Smokey is not a cat who fusses for her food usually. I have put food out, but she’s not eating it. Maybe she’s just worried about me.

It doesn’t help that I have in some way banjaxed my back and hip. They are ouchy. And I’ve had a couple of goes of cramp in my right calf, leaving that sore. I found some painkillers in the back of a cupboard and they’re about cutting in now.

In other news I’m playing a couple of computer games. Skyrim retains its interest, not least because you don’t have to rush around beating creatures up to get anywhere. Building your own house can take up hours of innocent fun. Not so Shadow of Mordor. Oh, what a dull game that is if you’re not very quick with your button recognition. I frequently mix up square and circle, and thus end up dead more often than alive. Plus, the baddies level up if you don’t kill them quickly and I’ve ended up with a couple of bosses at 20th level that appear whenever I do and I can’t kill them because they’ve about 25 supporters who appear likewise. Largest number of orcs I can do away with is about six. More than that and I’m outnumbered. So it gets a bit boring.

My brother bought me Arcania for my birthday, and that’s a bit more interesting. Doesn’t require me to learn any button combinations to hit things, and that’s always good. Not as pretty as Shadow of Mordor though, or rather, not as well drawn because I wouldn’t call Mordor pretty but they’ve really put a lot of work into how it looks.

There’s another game a friend bought me for my birthday, a game set in modern times, but I’ve put it somewhere and don’t remember where it is or what it was called. Maybe it’s in a box I still haven’t unpacked from the decorating.

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I bought some map designing software because I've always wanted it since I saw it advertised a few years ago when I was poor. I couldn't buy it then, and it disappeared of the site of the company that was selling it.

The other day, I found it again and couldn't resist it. Since then, I've been playing with it - the learning curve is practically vertical with it, I've never used computer aided design before, and it's complicated.

Today I produced a map of a village. It's a rough old village, but here it is:



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I used my iPad as phone, today. My first use of Skype. What a weird thing that is.

Anybody wishing to Skype me will need to know my real name (and there are many people with my name, including three also living in London) and also let me know so that I can have the iPad or the laptop on. My desktop, which is my workhorse computer has no microphone or camera, and is staying that way. I have enough trouble with the bloke who contacts me through FB chat if he happens to catch me - I keep it mostly switched off to discourage him.

On the plus side, though, I have managed to finally find an app which allows one to use an iPad as an extended screen. The odd thing about it is that it's wired, not wireless. Good thing is that there's no lag, but it is strange. I've invested in a six foot fire cable for the iPad for my trip to Wales.

Knowing my luck, they (that is Lone Wolf Development) will announce their browser version at Gen Con, and I'll have bought it all for nothing. We will see.

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Well, I’m back from Wales, unharmed and unmelted from the rain. I actually only got rained on twice, and as the college had helpfully put us next to the coffee bar where we play our games, not for long on either occasion. So that was good.

I had a wonderful time on Friday and Saturday, and a slightly boring one on Sunday.

Friday we played TSR Battle System, a very strange system which involves moving bits of card about and rolling dice. The bits of card do represent something, but it’s hard to explain. For once, I was on the winning side as the ‘good’ side, played by G, decided to quit the field of battle partway through, discretion being the better part of valour and all that.

That didn’t take as long as it might have done – or has done in the past – so we moved on then to P’s AD&D campaign where we’re all “Saxons”. It’s a world he’s written himself, with approximately Saxon technology and attitudes. I think we haven’t yet got to grips properly with this as the background is very detailed, and we’ve all begged P for a ‘who’s who’ of the participants as it’s hard to keep track of when they’re all called things like Leofgar and Tirweald, Aethelred and Egwin.

Saturday I ran a Call of Cthulhu game. Not my campaign which I’m running for them outwith the Heromeet, but a second one for Heromeet alone. It’s a bought campaign, Fungi From Yuggoth. They didn’t get through as much of it as I’d hoped, but that does mean that I’m prepared for Heromeet CofC for the next two years at least.

Sunday was a bit dull as I couldn’t get into a game. All I did all day was play one round of a board game called Trans Europa, which was loosely about trains. That was enjoyable, but it should be easier to get in on something than it is. Asking about just didn’t work and it doesn’t help that I confuse people and ask the same person several times.

In future, I shall take along a second, probably AD&D, scenario and see if I can't scare up players of my own.

Travel was fine – trains up and back were on time and not to crowded. Pendolinos don’t smell any better, though.

Still looking

I’m still looking for a couple of players for my Call of Cthulhu games that I play at my place. Any takers welcome – must be willing to get to east London.

And now for some photos…( click here for photos of Beaumaris castle and a duckCollapse )

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It's one of the settings on my PS3 that's got my totally confused. In the 'display settings' I'm supposed to see my games in 1080i (or is it p? or both?) but whenever I start a game, DA, Oblivion and now Skyrim, the view sets to 720.

It is a pest, because in Skyrim the monitors for your health, magicka and so on are so near the edge of the screen that they don't show up in 720. I'm doing OK so far, I suppose, with guessing how much health and so on that I've got, but randomly dying while in combat because I can't see what's what is becoming very old, very fast.

As I said, in the 'display settings', I'm correctly set at 1080i and I've double and triple checked this. But when the game starts, the setting rejigs itself and goes to the wrong one. And I don't know why.

I vaguely remember being able to reset this inside one of my games, but I've checked them all and none show signs of being able to make such a setting alteration so I could be imagining that. Could it be in the TV settings? I've fiddled about, and that seems correct, too, but it could be something in there that I've missed – I'll try again.

Google has shown up nothing but the 'display settings' alteration I already know about, and that does nothing to correct it.

Help? I'm becoming really annoyed by this.

ETA: I've solved it. It was the TV settings all along. I must have fiddled with them at some stage and never reset them. D'oh!

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I've been playing Dragon Age 2 pretty much over the last few days, and even got poor clare_nce to play when she came over on Tuesday. I was wondering what she'd do, but as I told her, her character made more or less the same decisions as mine did: choose the polite and sympathetic option where possible. Maybe it's to do with being women, I don't know. ( Possible spoilersCollapse )

At the same time, I'm also trying to read Sherlock stories, but I'm being quite picky. 'Not Brit picked, not beta'd' doesn't cut it, I'm afraid, unless heavily recommended by trustworthy parties.

ETA: * I've found out why this is.

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So the general election has been called. Yippee. At work we have gone into what is called 'purdah', meaning we can't do a lot of the stuff we would normally do and therefore try to sort out the things which have needed sorting out for the last five years. Like the filing.

Easter is a time for Easter eggs and computer games

I had no Easter eggs. I had to buy some crème eggs on arrival at work this morning and I've secreted them in my bag for later.

As you will have read I spent the Easter weekend in Ferelden, a place which doesn't exist, combating evil. ( Cut for those of you not at all interested in my video game related amusementsCollapse )

In the meantime I've started a new character, this time a warrior – something with a bit more going for him than an elven mage. The origins story for a human warrior is quite sad, I thought, and has to colour the character's behaviour for the rest of the game. That could be, of course, because I'm used to playing tabletop RPGs, which are more like acting. Even so, it's going to be hard to persuade me to slaughter Zevren out of hand on encountering him, which is my preference as a player having been backstabbed once; I simply don't think the character would do that.

There lies my feeling about PRGs; the point is to do what the character would do, not what you would do in that situation. What I would do in most of those situations is to run away and hide until the bad nasty thing has disappeared, or I've been killed and eaten. I'm definitely one of the natural NPC's of life.

Further question: Does anyone know if "Awakenings" is coming out on the PS3? I'm not buying a whole new, different, console for one game. Just not going to happen.

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Today was an excellent day; I spent most of it playing "Dragon Age: Origins" (I'm afraid in 'casual' mode as I'm no great shakes as a game player on the PS3), and otherwise watching bits of the 2nd series of Criminal Minds.

This last showed up my prosopagnosia: I'd never before noticed that both the character and the actress changed mid season from one person whose name began with E to another one. I must have just never seen the two episodes either side of the change, but much that was opaque about the series now makes a bit more sense.

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