And can I have it back?
Had to check with a colleague to make sure I had done some work today. Did small bits here and there, which kinda balanced out yesterday were a large chunk of a project was finished off.
Must stick head down on major project tomorrow.
Well the XMAS decorations finally came down last Friday and I’m now back at work after just over two weeks off.
Last year ended the usual tired grind at work. While it was not as grim as previous years, indicating an increase in happiness baseline, it was the usual game of ‘hunt the motivation’ was played in the last week. Had a good work’s do, even though it was only three of us going out for curry and beer, the highlight being the giant inflatable snow globe with Santa and snowman in the curry house. I wanted a picture but my colleagues have too much dignity and class to posse grinning like loons infront of it like I wanted them too.
Then had a couple of days to prepare the house for the incoming of parents. I’ve finally tampered with my psychology so that I get as big a buzz cleaning up the house that I used to going out on a friday night getting wasted. Which is a good thing seeing as we have a big house these days. It was worth it though because I got to enjoy the clean house especially our living room which had a seven foot tall xmas tree in it!!!
Xmas itself was a vast improvement on last year since Rach was only working an early, so after a morning of films (watched the excellent The Departed ) we went round the in-laws for our traditional xmas lunch and present giving. I got mainly ‘grown – up -man’ presents this year, including a nice pair of slippers. Fortunately I had bought my self Delta Green Countdown (a huge background supplement for Modern day Call of Cthulhu) to keep my inner nerd happy.
Boxing day my ‘family’ xmas started with my dad arriving around lunch time. Had a walkout and ended up in the ‘Pleasant Inn’ across the road, and finally found out that it is indeed very pleasant and cheap (being a Sam Smith’s pub). XMAS Tuesday went to the Blue Tiffin with Dad for a curry tea which was most nice.
With Dad going home wednesday, this left Thursday to refresh stocks and prepare the house for mums arrival (my parents are seperated), which as nice as Dad’s visit was it was much needed time alone.
Mum arrived Friday lunch time for four days of fun and frolics. Saturday saw us go into Manchester to visit the Art Museum, which I was pleasantly impressed by although mum, being a trained fine artist, was more critical. Sunday I had a couple of hours to myself as Rachel’s mum took my mum shopping. Monday we got together with the inlaws for lunch at the Spring Inn. Tuesday morning mum went home. Overall the visit was a success, but I think four days was a bit too much for everyone.
Wednesday was a big slob day we’re I did the sum total of F-all.
Thursday was a big day for me and Rach since we went for the twenty week scan. This is the biggie since it tells you if the baby is what they coldly term ‘viable’. Which I’m pleased to say that the Newtlet is!! Its happily snug in the womb and I spent twenty minutes watching it wiggle and suck its thumb. Afterwards I got whisked away to Mothercare to make the first of our baby and mother purchases.
Friday was us and the in-laws went to buy the pram/buggy/car-seat combo that can only be described as an Assault Vehicle for the Newtlet. Its not a pram its meccano !! Then mid afternoon escaped to met up with Steve and Stu for Stabcon.
A fine time was had at Stabcon indeed. Caught up with my new/old manchester friends, saw Mr Cruet and Rosie for the first time in yonks, and meet some new people as well. Played far too many good board games, eat well (although the curry on Friday was stronger than I usually have and had me in pain for a couple of hours after), ran a five hour game of HeroQuest (thus kicking off Living Pavis campaign yay!) and ended by playing six hours of Arkham Horror!!!
Sunday sneaked off home, sorted out the house and prepared for work.
Proper update about my fab family XMAS (if you think decorating your house is grown up try that for size) later, but tommorrow I’m off to Stabcon for a weekend of gaming goodness.
Unknown Armies All the Primeminister’s men or Burning Wheel “Enemy at the Burning Gates” (soviet sniper xbow dwarfs vs nazi elves in Balingrad)- Saturday evening
HeroQuest “Living City of Pavis” – Saturday afternoon , a test run for a Living City style HQ campaign that I’ll be running at cons from now on.
I’ll stick sign up sheets on Friday night, but if you are interested in signing up before hand make a comment below.
Beer n gaming, yar!!!
HELL That’s what yesterday was. Not because of any particular reason, just because I was in a weird broken mood. Nearly napalmed one particular bridge, but it seems to be saved since person standing at the otherside of bridge doesn’t read their emails often. phew. Went home and had a nice quiet evening in, playing far too much Doom (don’t install Zdoom on your pc, yes it will allow you to play Doom on WinXp, but it will also suck your life away!!), while Rach was at her works do.
HEAVEN is today. My head is sorted and positive. Got the office to my self, beavering away at coding and will probably have a reasonably early finish.
So I’m writing a report of the meeting I held last Friday, and I nearly include the weaselword phrase “this was used as a springboard for further discussion”, but I stopped my self in time.
I half seriously mentioned that I need a weasel word/bullshit detector to catch this sort of nonsense in the future to Lee our IT support guy.
He immediately sent me this link
http://www.fightthebull.com/bullfighter.asp
Today I finish off New Beginings, finally. Its way over deadline, but not that matters much since it was more a self imposed deadline. Not even 100% sure that the publisher is comitted to publishing (long story that I won’t go into her…shh the internets have ears and loose lips sink ships).
However today I finish and send it off to my trusty band of nitpickers for comments, and well err nit picking.
Today is the last chunk of writing, as well as general clean up and checking for spulling mistooks and typos, and I get to write about pirates….Gloranthan pirates, which already is a bunch of fun. I was initially abit worried that the Men of the Sea section was less wordy and descriptive that the Lunar and Dragon Pass sections, but upon re-reading it last night realised thats the way it should be. Light and fun.
Yarrr…
Each section has a scenario and a community that that begining players can be a member, or at least gives a starting point for their adventures. Here’s the intro for the Men of Sea setting.
Just off the merchant trade routes is the black lump of rock, chucked upwards by Magasta in a fit of anger at a Yelm during the Godswar. The mermen know it as “Magasta’s Spear” but for the sea farers who call it home it’s merely “Black Dog isle”. The town that sits beneath the spire of rock that points skydomewards is home to pirates and their families. Some are hardworking sea farers whose families have always raided the shipping lanes, others are new hands at this game either seeking adventure and excitement or escaping the chaos that the Hero Wars has caused in their homelands.
First impressions as the heroes sail into port
‘Land ahoy!’ the look out calls. Everyone rushes to the aft deck to look and the more keen eyed men point out the thin black needle that points upwards alone in the sea. As the sea dogs start preparing for land fall, you watch the needle get bigger and bigger against the sky, and start seeing the buildings that make up the port that huddles round the base of the rock. Jeffran, an old hand too infirm to help out below, sees you gazing that the island. “So this be yer first visit to Black Dog Isle? I thought so.” He flashes you a toothless smile, mocking your naiveté in a friendly manner. He gazes towards the island that is now looming on the horizon and continues”Quite a sight that there black rock pointing up in defiance of the Sky. They say Old Magasta threw it up from the ocean bed in anger at Yelm one day”
‘Ar see that spire there?” he says pointing towards a tall white building with a tower “That be Bad Man’s Temple. Capt White who runs Black Isle owns it and hires it out to who ever wants to use it. Usually ends in trouble. Far too many friends of mine have been buried in the grave yard behind it. Not right for a sea dog >Jeffran suddenly starts grabs your arm and points to a large squat white building with a red dome above the Temple. “That there be Capt White’s palace. It’s a place fit for a king, and old Capt Ravage, who owned the isle before he lost it playing cards to White, used to live like one there. I went to many of his wild parties. Capt White is a strange sort. Has the occasional ‘Dinner’ for visitin’ lord, but otherwise the doors are shut to the likes of me and ye”
You can now see the individual winding streets made up of tall rickety buildings. “See that there Lad that’s the street of a hundred temples. Not a religious man myself, but Capt White has encouraged all sorts of priest to set up shop, as long as they pay some ‘rent’ to him.”
The docks are getting near, a large dock that takes up the entire sea front of the town that perches under the shadow of the spire. Many large ocean going ships are moored proudly along the front, their masts proudly showing pirate colours. The docks even have a shipwright. You can see the shell of a large black ship in its dry docks.
Finally your ship is brought in, and as the gang plank goes down Old Jeffran jumps up with more vigour than you expected of a man his age. “Well I’ll be begging your leave good sirs.” He points to a large bustling building across the docks. “Me old lady and couple of the finest pints of ale are waiting there at the Paltry Parrot, the best pub this side of the Middle Sea”. With that he hobbles down the gang plank, past the sailors unloading cargo, and rapidly disappears into the busy Inn.”
Dead chuffed about finally getting the website for the Masters of Luck and Death (MoLaD) up and going.
http://molad.org/
Its a tad plain, since i’m no artist, but I like the simple layout.
The most difficult thing about setting this site up wasn’t the cms or the css but getting the content right. Vigorous use of
‘s ‘if its over a page stick it in a pdf’ rule was applied . And yes now its done I can spot typos all over the shop. I’ll calmly sort them out at the weekend. I particularly like the forum software I used, Simple Machines Forum. Its a very classy, very intuitive and very adult piece of work.
Very nice to get this done, and I’m currently basking in the afterglow.
Hark today is a victorious day here in IT Land.
We’ve locked down the send/reply to ‘all staff’ functionality in our email system.
And now we’ve got the users on the run, since our central IT team moved their personal data to a new file server, and any one who didn’t get migrated because they had giga bytes of data (ie entire mp3 collections that they can access were ever they are in the university) on the old server will now be under investigation so they can get moved.
Hee hee
I love my job.
I’m so almost there it hurts.
New Beginnings is almost done. Tomorrow and another weekend I reckon and all the text will be done, and then off to friendly nit pickers for comments. Amendments the weekend after that (touch wood) and finally off to the publisher in the first couple of weeks of December. Scary thing is mentally I’m begining to get into this. Already have the next couple of writing projects lined up (thankfully the next codenamed the Xmas Project is much shorter).
The Molad website is almost done. The framework of the site is in place, all I have to do is knock up a quick template and fill in the basic introductory content. I’ve also pleasantly found that I’ve got alot of articles hanging around, so the site will be quite content rich to start with. Then I sit back, get the nitpickers to do a quick review and release it into the wild. I’ve got ideas so I can update it at least once a month, but I’ve made the absolute commitment that in no whay am I going to get emotionally attached to this site, like I have with others in the past. No this is the age of wham-bang-thank-you-mam website design…
House, pretty clean. Just need to tidy away the orphaned books and cds in the middle bedroom then way its done (as far as these things are ever done).
Work…screaming to the end of a three projects, with at least two of the project’s customers screaming for the products. Lets hope I can deliever otherwise deadlines will have to be reneogiated yet again….
Which is just as well since today wins the dullest day of the year award.
Fed up of feeling run down so started eating healthy and exercising again with a spot of Taichi/Dao Jin (Taoist breathing exercises) this morning. Back to the gym later this week when the last of the leg nastyness has finally cleared up (antibotics doing the work but leaving me with a jippy stomach).
Work going great guns with serveral deadlines looming and yet looking very acheviable…hoorah!!!
Final push on molad.org this week, hoping to have it up and going this weekend for user testing (ok nit picking from interested mates!). Decided on CMS Made Simple instead of Drupal as the CMS of choice, because it is much easier to work with and adapt. Don’t get me wrong Drupal is very good, and if I wanted to set up a self regulating community were every one is an content author of some sort, with its own rather simple forum, blog system and book creation section I would use it . However I’ve had to make to many comprimises to my set of requirements with Drupal, after a very promising start, so I’m dropping it. The crunch is that im using CMS Simple at work, I understand it theres a very active community that support it, and it actually does what it says out of the box. My only qibble is that I wasn’t so up on my php/css and Smarty (which I’ve had to learn for this) it would be a tad confusing to extend it. But the out of the box is good and there are scads of extensions, so this is only a very minor quibble.
Off home to do some writing on New Beginnings as Rach (aka PregZilla) is at work till 9.
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Maximum Newt 