Winter blooz completely banished after a long weekend with the family.  Had an especially nice day with Evie on Saturday doing lots of activities, drawing, gardening and washing up as well as the usual playing with toys and watching TV.

On the Sunday got to play Wordplay with the Black Horse County Troop and playtest my Infinite War theme. Wordplay is officially my new favourite RPG. Its a narrative game and in some senses is a continuation of the D6 dicepool mated with HeroQuest. But its very much its own man and a hell of alot of fun throwing piles of dice across the table! Check it out, lastest playtesting document is available for free (and there will always be a free version) over at gspearing ‘s Wordplay Development blog. 

Rach is begining to feel better after nearly a month of back pain. 

My big news for the week is that I’ve got the green light to self-publish about six years worth of HeroQuest scenarios that I’ve had sat on my hard drive by the big man himself, Greg Stafford 🙂

Also going out for the first time in ages on FRIDAY, if you can get down to the Lass O’Gowrie in Manchester I’ll be there haveing a pint with my mate Rob from about 4:30 to 7ish.

Links

• Wordplay development blog
• ‘Offical’ annoucement about ‘Gloranthan adventures’

Overall the family are suffering a bout of the winter blues at the moment. Rach has a back that’s been giving her agony for a week and a half now. Evie is has just recovered from a cold. I’ve had the best of both worlds, a mild cold and a pain in my right lower back. Joy.

But us Newport’s solider on and we’ve had a nice restful weekend keeping nice and warm in the house.

Its not all been seasonal depression though. I managed to sneak out Issue 2 of Hearts in Glorantha. A milestone in a couple of ways, not least that it means that HiG is a sustainable venture, since about 75% of the submissions we’re made in two weeks of the last issue coming out!! Also its got my head in ‘finishing’ mode. SimpleQuest is next on the release schedule and I’ve actually finished off writing it this week 🙂 Now all I have to do is work with my long suffering editor gspearing to get it finished and all user-friendly ready for release, Feb/Mar? Also to break up the monotony of D100 rules, did a bit of writing for my Wordplay theme Infinite War again with the aim of getting that finished before the end of the month.

Today I take down Christmas, in the form of the humongous tree that we have in the livng room, pack it up and ship it up to the attic. While I procrastinate doing this, I shall reflect on what an AWESOME festive season I’ve had. This was due to the fact I’ve focused on my family, which is something I’ve got increasingly into over the last six months.

Center Parcs
Was the start of my christmas. We went to Whinfell Forest in the Lake District, and the drive was much easier on Rach that the one to Sherwood. I also got to see the mountains covered by snow (we went just after the snowy spell in the second week of Dec) which was the win. We had a nice relaxing time, despite all coming down with a vomiting stomach bug for a couple of days at the start of the holiday.  The session at the Aqua Sana with Rach takign in every type of steam bath/sauna known to man was a highlight of the week,as it was at Sherwood back in Jan but also letting Eve lose in big badminiton court that had been given over to the tots to play in with various soft toys and wheeled contraptions was way cool. The whole Santa’s Grotto thing they had going struck me as a bit naff, but it wasn’t aimed at me. Although saying this Eve cried when she met Santa! Apparently all the under 3s do this. We had such a good time that we are booked in again same time next year.

Works do
After CP had a week at work, and since it was the last week before the University closed it was very slow and laid back. On the Wednesday we took the afternoon off and went to Shimla Pinks for a great curry. I got stuck at the end of the table with the Team Leaders and our Uber Boss which was actually quite groovy. Quick pint at a city centre pub and then to home.

Xmas day
Our Christmas was delayed since Rach was working a late (1-9pm) the big day itself, so we had it on Boxing Day. Much more laid back than last year, which was the first time we did the big family Xmas, since everyone, both kitchen and front of house, knew what they were doing. Still monsterous amounts of presents, which is what you get when you have six adults and one very small child 🙂 My favourite present was the Monkey cup my brother bought me 🙂

New years
Another quiet one and I must admit my wild rock and roll antics are now behind me. I’ve not bothered to make any resolutions, since i’ve got an ongoing set of goals I made back in November some of which have already been achived, but I took time out to reflect on how much I enjoy my family life these days, and don’t need other distractions to feel fullfiled. A clean house and gardening is the new going out 😉

TV
Not been much on TV this Chrimbo that’s rocked me (although Tikiabilla and In the Night Garden remain complusive viewing for Evie). Enjoyed catching bis of World’s Strongest Man and seeing Mariusz Pudzianowski win his fifth title in a row by  a stone in the last event.
Also the Jonathan Creek one off special was a spendid return to form (I found the last series a bit ropey). A geniunely creepy tale, with some appropraite comedy moments to break up the tension.  I also realised in this time of people going on about the new Dr Who is that Jonathan Creek fills that niche for me (obviously without Cybermen/Darleks) and throws a bit of Miss Marple/Tales of the Unexpected into the mix.

PC games
Fallout 3 has been the win this Christmas, especially when Rach was on nights. Somebody hit the nail on the head when they said that a game like this only comes around once in a while and you’ld be a fool not to grab a copy. Best computer rpg since Deus Ex, with an enormous sandbox of a game world. I’m usually a FPS twitch gamer, but this game catters to me as well as bringing out my fiddly RPG tendencies. I blasted my way through the main story line in about 14 hours, with four of those hours being spent on one of the sidequests. Initially a bit let down by the ending, which on reflection makes narrative sense but I like to Win when I complete a game. Sidequests are were the game really shines, so I’ve reverted to a much earlier save to play the game again taking in the various sidequests, which are quite meaty in themselves. Without doing these interspersed with progressed on the main quest , you miss out so much of the game environment. Karma system is cool too. If you act good , good npcs will react positively while evil characters either blank you (I had one NPC mercenary refuse to be my follower since I was too much of a goody two shoes) or try to kill you (damn those sexless Talon Mercs!). Act bad and you lose Karma and the balance swings the other way.  Again this ramps up the replay value. Overall an ace game well worth getting and losing many hours of your life.

RPG
Took a break from doing pretty much all RPG stuff. Spending time with the family and chilling out was more important. HiG is done however and I’ve started putting the final draft of SimpleQuest together. More action on this front when my ‘work head’ is back on. In the future I’ll never say that I’ll complete anything over Xmas.

Have a cool Yule ya wigglers!

After some initial resistance to signing up to anything that has the word ‘Twit’ in its name, I created a Twitter account. Mainly because I realised I was being a sad man and logging onto Farcebook to update my one line Status, which is basically what Twitter is.

So you can follow me on Twitter as ‘Newtus’, if you want that upto the minitue commentary on my life.

So Winter is truely upon us here in Sunny Oldham. Not just a ‘oh doesn’t it get dark early’ sort of winter, but proper ‘brrrr put the heating on love’ sort of winter. Outside I see some snow on the ground and lots of freezing fog – which inspires me to thing ‘eldrich’ for no particular good reason.

In personal news I’m settling into hibernating during these cold days whilst keeping my mood sunny and light. I’ve got over the recent bout of woe is me and emoness that seemed to blight me in recent months. I put it partially down to tiredness, but also down to resistance to some personality changes I have to make to get on with the game of life.

Working on Hearts in Glorantha issue 2, which should be available mid December, certainly before XMAS.  SimpleQuest while athough temporarily on hold also should be out just after XMAS. Other projects ferment in my brain and collaborators are being contacted to hammer out the details.

Workwise I’m settling back into a nice day to day rythm after the big anti-climax which was the Intranet release. Off doing an ITIL course next week, which will look good on the old CV and allow me to understand the strange language Greg (our Helpdesk Manager) talks these days.

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So there was a US Presidential Election, a black dude with a funny name won it. The whole shebang nearly passed me by and registered almost zero interest. I have become so cynical and disinterested in politics I barely care about the system (which erks a few folk I know).

Other news its Manchester and Its still raining outside.

Got a classic case of the Blahs.  Probably brought on by working hard on getting the Faculty Intranet done at work and yet still not finishing off. Its been an eternity of cutting and pasting and extracting blood from a stone content wise. Not really what I signed up to do when I did my MSc and changed my career, but hopefully this is the last time I will have to do something like this.

In other news Rach is over the cold that has brought her low over the last week. Its nice to see her happy again. Shame that it means that she has to go to work today 😦  But she’s only got seven shifts left and then she goes down to two shifts aweek 🙂  Also she’s applied to be Research Midwife at Manchester Uni which should mean more regular hours and less working at the weekend 🙂

Probably the biggest news this week is that Rach’s mum Elaine is moveing to a bungalow across the road from us. Which is good for her in her advancing years and good for us for various reasons. Its happened bloody quickly though. She looked at the house on Thursday and put an offer in , which was accepted, on Friday!!!

So here it is folks I’m 37 today. Not a stella b’day and by all accounts one of the quiet ones for me. I’m spending it with the family, which involves looking after small child and a flu ridden Rachel, tidying up the house to look for a misplaced baby monitor, with the Black Horse County troop coming round this afternoon for the lastest ‘episode’ of our Battlestar Gallatica game (which rocks on toast!).

I’ve been slightly up and down of late and I came to the conclusion early on that I’m going through my own personal apocalyse (in the occult sense of my own world is changing dramatically). This has brought on the Fear big time. Worries over health, my job and even my core friendships and relationships. The most fearful moments was when I started thinking I was going to lose my marriage and my life due to a heart attack!! Both were more or less all in my head, as a quick heart to heart with Rach on the former confirmed, but might manifest in the long term if I don’t sort myself out now.

I kinda realised that some sort of sort was in order but being in the thick of it couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

Until this morning when Amazon.co.uk sent me an ad for a version of Journey to the West, that I haven’t got.

"China’s most popular traditional novel, "Journey to the West" is the thrilling story of the Monkey King and his epic quest, with his trusted companions, to redeem himself. They face fantastic foes, demons and monsters during their amazing adventures traveling to the Western paradise. No matter what obstacle was put before him, the clever, wily Monkey King always got what he wanted – unimaginable strength, eternal life, even his own position in the Celestial Realm with the gods. More than anything else, though, the Monkey King loved mischief and rule-breaking, and was sure he was the most powerful creature in the world. But after defeat and punishment for his tricks, the Monkey King found himself wanting some things he never expected: to be disciplined and good enough to help the monk Hsuan Zhang on his mission to bring Buddhist Scriptures – and enlightenment – to China."

It struck me my life has paralells with Monkey, when he is just about to be kicked out of heaven. I’ve pretty much got all I want materially and can with a bit of imagination and work get things outside of my current reach. Most of my current ‘problems’ are caused by having an abundance (my weight and having a house stuffed with things are the two most obvious things). What I need to do quite badly is grow up in a ‘spiritual’ sense of the word, else I’m forever going to be burdened and hindered by arrogance, greed and most destressingly Anger. I say ‘Anger’ with a big A, to distiguish the big emotionally draining fits of agression I have which are completly pointless from the more every day irritations that I can easily process and are useful to have to see what is wrong.

Its with this great revelation, and birthday present I move foward into a new Era of Newtness.  I have a few resolutions coming out of this, but I’m not going to blog about them. Some of them might be obvious next time you meet me in the flesh. Some might be more subtle. Either way I’m making a consious effort to do what my subconsious has known all along from now on.