photo saturday: fantasy figs

So, the last seven days were... mostly typical, slightly atypical.

We'll start with last Saturday when I went out to drink alcohol, eat BBQ and play DnD. Thankfully I didn't get messy, there were puppy cuddles and some actual DnD was played... plus I got to freak everyone out with my entrance, so that was awesome.

And just meeting a couple of new people and doing something different was fun.

Speaking of DnD, Monday and Wednesday were typical days... although my first ever character made it to Level 11 (also known as Tier 3) on Wednesday, which is my first character to get that far.

Thursday was a mix of typical and atypical... DnD was played, but not at the game shop as usual... instead we went to the house of one of the group... and one of the boys came and picked me up and drove me over there, so that was nice.

It's also kind of weird when that particular group starts new characters... doubly so because it was a whole new location (both in and out of game to be honest), and this is a character I've had bubbling away for a little while now, so actually getting him out in the world was interesting. They're never 100% who you create them to be, you know.

Otherwise the rest of the week was m'eh. Recurring theme, I know.

Oh, and the tomato soup I made wasn't bad... although I kind of lost interest in it about halfway through the week. There wasn't anything wrong with it, I just found myself craving things other than tomato soup.

Today wasn't bad... although we're in that "no plans or destination of any kind" portion of the year, universe, whatever. At least I had my shit together enough to actually be ready by the time Ma arrived this week.

Anyway... supermarket stuff was... typical. I decided that beef stew was the go-to for this week... it'll mean I need to get a little more organised earlier and stick it in the oven for a few hours, but that should be fine, we'll see what happens.

Then, after some general time wasting, we ended up heading down to Marion. No specific reason, but it was something to do. We entertained the idea of a movie for about 12 seconds, but you know what, I'm not completely sure how much I care about these interim Star Wars movies.

We did the usual thing... a lap of the shopping centre, with various and sundry detours along the way whenever we saw anything that caught our eye.

To be honest, the main thing we saw were the most recent series of Lego minifigures... so that turned into a period of time with me feeling up little foil baggies... it's been a hot minute since that happened, and I feel like they've started inflating some of the baggies, so it's hard to work some of those minifigs out.

I didn't do too badly to be honest, although there were two I was certain I'd found that I had not.

After that we went and had some food and then called it a day.

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movies: avengers - infinity war

It's both impressive and a little frightening that with only a couple of stumbles along the way *cough* theincrediblehulk *cough*, Marvel has been doing this shared movie universe thing for 10 whole years now.

And Avengers: Infinity War really shows that they know what they're doing.

For the record THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW. They won't be until later, and I'll try not to include too many, but I want to get my thoughts down about the end of the movie, and that, my friends, requires some degree of spoilers.

You have been warned.

Given that this movie's cast list is extensive to say the least (there are 24 characters on the poster for goodness sake... at least I think it's 24, I lost count several times), they did handle that many characters in probably the best way possible, splitting characters off into small groups, which leads to some really great pairings... Stark and Strange, Thor and Rocket... anybody who spends any screentime with Starlord. There were a few that I would definitely like to see together more... most notably Black Widow and Okoye, but hopefully that will happen in the second movie.

And they have also finally put together an adversary for the Avengers who has more than a single character trait (with the exception of Loki, but then he hasn't really been a formidable threat since the first Avengers movie)... Thanos is... complex. Don't get me wrong, he's an insane creature with a scrotum for a chin, but he's complicated. And Josh Brolin actually brings a lot to the character.

I will say that there are more than a few moments where I was already way ahead of the story... I'm not sure if that's a shared experience and intentional by the film makers, but especially towards the end there were a couple of times where I already knew what was about to happen (specifically with the soul and mind stones).

Thinking about it, it feels like the real keystones of this movie (pun entirely at your discretion) were Thor, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Dr Strange. Yes, Iron Man was in there too, but a lot of the time he felt secondary to Strange and Spiderman and eventually the Guardians. Also, I was basically over Tony about three movies ago (don't get me wrong, RDJ does a great job, I'm just essentially over the character himself).

And Captain America doesn't necessarily take a back seat, there's just not a whole heap for him to do. Thinking about the way the movie ended though, I think that essentially sidelining the entire original Avengers team in various ways was somewhat intentional, because they're clearly going to have to kick butt and take names in the sequel.

The movie also looks amazing (unsurprisingly)... from New York, to Wakanda, to maybe half a dozen alien planets... it looks great. Yes, there were times when I looked at the screen and thought "well, everything I'm looking at right now was created in a computer somewhere". None of it was bad, though... even though Thanos's whole gang were at least augmented in the computer.

Now, about that ending...

Remember, spoilers.

I'm not going to lie... I teared up a little bit twice during the ending and once before... the before part was Groot helping Thor with his new weapon, the end parts were Tom Holland's performance of his final lines as well as the scene between Groot and Rocket.

But does anyone ACTUALLY believe all of those people are gone for good. I mean, Black Panther... after the metric fuckton of money that movie just made, he's definitely coming back... and Spiderman has a solo movie coming out just after the Avengers sequel, so it all just lacked teeth.

Doubly so when you realise that of the 24 characters (and it is 24, I recounted) on the poster, the half that remain alive at the end of the movie are either side characters, the villain or the six original characters from the first Avengers movie.

Plus, keeping in mind Dr Strange's comment about how many possibly outcomes there are where the Avengers win basically brings us to a "Morpheus Matrix moment".

Yes, there is at least one character who probably won't be coming back... but even that I'm not sure about, because comic books and the things they inspire are weird that way.

But it was good... it was a great ride, they finally fixed the villain problem that has been part of almost every Marvel movie, and it was a hell of a cliffhanger to go out on.

yani's rating: 4 infinity stones out of 5

photo saturday: elementals

This week started with a "m'eh" and ended with a "hey, that's outside the norm".

My back is improved, although I have been spending more time in the horizontal position, just to give it a break from lugging my dumb ass around. But for reasons that I cannot under any circumstances explain, a muscle in my left calf had a moment on the way to DnD on Monday night. I wasn't doing anything strange, I'd worn a different pair of sneakers much earlier in the day, but yeah, it just locked up on me.

And it was also on the improve until today when it did it again. That shit can all just fuck right off to be honest. I'm not here for it at all.

I also made a pretty awesome chicken noodle soup. I mean, touch wood, and let's not jinx myself and all that, but I've been pretty impressed with myself so far this soup season.

Speaking of DnD... I experienced a TPK (total party kill) on Wednesday for the first time. Turns out that it was written by the guy who managed to kill the only other one of my characters... so that's a fun time. I mean, it's DnD, so death is very rarely terminal... but it is inconvenient. And none of us got any rewards from the adventure, because that's what happens when you die in the middle of the jungle.

Yeah, not real happy about it.

I also ran what may have been the best game I've run... possibly ever. I don't know if everyone necessarily had the best time, but it was with a couple of the Thursday boys, and, oddly enough, the first person to ever DM for us as a group, and also the first person who DM'd for us as the group of characters we most regularly play. So that was fun. But the fact that my boys REALLY went to town on the roleplay was the best part of it... and for purely story related reasons, I got to really mess with one of them... and he absolutely came along for the ride with me.

It was pretty damn awesome. There is absolutely nothing better than when you throw out a roleplay hook, either as a player or as the DM, and one of the other players picks it up and elevates it beyond what you expected. And that's when it gets really, really good.

Otherwise, the week was... m'eh. As my weeks tend to be right at the moment.

Today started off with me scrambling around once again, since I overslept. Less fun to be honest.

It felt pretty damn good to be back at the "correct" supermarket too... and it's so weird that I never realised how much bigger Norwood was compared with Northpark... even when we first switched over. And I have no idea why.

This week I'm attempting tomato soup... entirely made up out of my own head... which is probably going to be fine, but we'll see if I can make it just right.

When we got back, the singular neighbour that I keep running into over and over and over was trying to push his car out of his carpark and asked me to help... which was fine, but ended up taking a while because after we tried the pushing thing, we also tried the jumper cables from my boot, but his battery was pretty fucking dead. If it hadn't been for last week and me really wanting there to be someone magically appear out of nowhere to help me get my car started, I may not have bothered... but you know... sometimes you have to.

It does fly in the face of my entire "never get to know your neighbours if you can avoid it" life philosophy though.

After that we decided to head into town to finally go and see the new Avengers movie, but we had a bit of time for a wander up the mall beforehand... so we did that too. We stopped in at Crumpler and the girl walked me through their new "convertible" briefcase/backpack bags, the Credential and the Logician... which are essentially the same (although one of them doesn't actually convert). If I had, you know, actual disposable income or whatever, one of them might make a nice replacement for my DnD bag... but I'll cope for now.

Then we headed for the movies.

And you know how sometimes when there's assigned seating, you think "well, why can't we just have those seats instead" (to be honest, I think assigned seating is the plague and should 100% be done away with, with the possibility of something like Gold Class)... so this time I went and got our seats changed over, and it wasn't an issue at all. I mean it's not something I'd like to do every time, but I'm glad I did it.

After the movie, we stopped off at Max Brenner for a bite to eat... well, you know, mostly chocolate things. And now I'm having either a sugar high or a sugar crash, I'm not entirely sure which, because I don't normally have either.

Then in a couple of hours, I'm getting picked up to go and play DnD with the Thursday boys and their girlfriends. I'm just guest starring on this one, but the DM and I have been vaguely scheming for the last week or so, so if nothing else, my entrance should be good.

What's going to happen after that will be interesting.

Also, there will be drinking, and I've never mixed drinking and DnD before... so that'll be a whole new experience.

Otherwise that's really about it for the week.

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photo saturday: lowrizon

You know what they say... you can never go home again. I just didn't really realise it applied to supermarkets too.

But I'm ahead of myself.

I'm really killing it with soup right at the moment... I made ham, potato and leek this week, and partly because I put a whole pack of shredded ham as well as a chorizo and some bacon in it, it was pretty damn good.

DnD was pretty standard/average this week... although I did end up standing around with one of the other DMs afterwards... well, first it was helping him sort some stuff out, then after they kicked us out of the store there was a fair amount of standing around, and I think I left at around 12:30... so that was a thing that happened.

We also played with a trio of actual young people on Thursday... like between 12 and 14 yos maybe... it was an experience, but weirdly not that different from playing with some of the 20-somethings. There was one who was very much into his character and interacting with everything, one who was perennially distracted and one who was a bit of a blank slate.

Also, because this week is the 6th anniversary of this, my back did have a bit of a spasm this week. Because of course it did. While putting on a pair of socks of all things. Fortunately I recognised the signs, and while I was mostly okay on Thursday, walking to DnD wasn't my finest moment... also I probably shouldn't have sat down for the whole four hour period, but you know... I did go and see my chiro on Friday morning, and then came home and spent the majority of Friday day just laying down in bed.

Which is basically what I'm planning to do after I finish writing this.

Today was... challenging.

After putting it off for about a year I'd finally gotten around to organising another service for my car, part of the problem being that the mechanic we go and see is way over next to the shops we used to go to, and not quite as convenient. But I arranged with Ma to meet her there, and scheduled the service for 8am this morning.

At 7:35 this morning I discovered that when I parked my car on Thursday the door somehow hadn't completely closed, which meant that the inside light was on. For roughly 32 and a half hours.

I had no remaining battery.

Not really how this morning was supposed to go. What followed was a phonecall to Ma, then one to the RAA to come and jumpstart the car, then one to the mechanic telling him I'd be late. The RAA man took about half an hour to arrive, which wasn't horrible considering, but when it takes all of about 12 seconds for him to actually make the car work again, it's a little... irritating.

So then I headed down to our old supermarket, dropped the car in across the road and went over to meet up with Ma.

I absolutely had one of those "has this place always look quite so scruffy and tiny?" moments... and while I think the answer is decidedly yes, I also feel like it's gotten worse in the last year and a half since we were last there.

But just trying to do a shop at the supermarket we used to go to was an adventure. I swear that the supermarket never used to feel that tiny and undersupplied. And yet, there it was. Given the fact that they didn't even have the milk I buy or the strong Iced Coffee, I couldn't really deny the fact. Yeah, seriously never want to have to go back there again. Plus the Baker's Delight that used to be there has gone "off brand", so that was pretty much the nail in the coffin.

Also, we bought hardly anything... I mean that sometimes happens, especially when I'm making soup and not much else, and the fact I couldn't buy milk, but even so it was all a bit blah.

We did what we've done a million other times in the past and wandered around in the half of the shopping centre on the other side of the road (and found milk over there with no drama), then called it quits and came back here.

We really hadn't decided what to do, and were kind of wasting a little bit of time when the mechanic called to say that he was all done. So then there was essentially a montage of Ma and I driving all the way back there, then finding our own ways back.

And because I hadn't punished myself enough already, I decided to drive back through the city. Yeah, I realised it was pretty much a stupid idea around the time it was impractical to change my mind and go a different way. But we still got back to my place around the same time, Ma did get there first though.

Then we just headed into the city... for no real reason, mostly because we were a little too late for going to the movies and we really didn't have any ideas, and it was around noon by the time we got back to my place.

So we basically just wandered from one end of the mall to the other, poked around the bookstore (where I found these, which have the most amazing feeling covers... plus I love a good word cloud), then headed down to Burger Theory for lunch.

And then we called it a day.

Not much of day, to be honest, but still a day.

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photo saturday: shrine

It was a busy week that honestly didn't feel like it. It was also a very, very wet week.

And the week wasn't that different from every other week, really.

I made what is probably the best minestrone soup I have ever made in my whole life this week... partly through the application of both chorizo sausages and, oddly, cabbage.

As usual there were three games of DnD... I ran Monday's game and played on Wednesday and Thursday. Monday's game was fun, if only because I did more prep than usual (because it was the aftermath of the epic I didn't go to last Saturday), and I had a group of players I don't generally have (which was nice).

Also, a lesson I have learned well as a player is that if a DM introduces physical props to the adventure, players cannot resist putting their grubby little hands on them, which meant that I was able to whisper in the ear of one of the players with the unspeakable things he was hearing in his head from the villain. He could not have reacted better.

Part of me is a little annoyed with my Wednesday and Thursday DM's, not because they weren't good... they were... but because of "reasons" they both said that they'd send the XP and loot from the adventure to us... That was Wednesday and Thursday, and I'm still waiting. Yeah, sure, you might have jobs and partners and children and whatnot, but it would take all of about 2 minutes to do.

What was interesting (okay, interesting to me but probably nobody else at all ever) about Wednesday and Thursday was that I got to play the same character in the two different sides of her personality. When she's not with the Thursday chuckleheads where she actually cares about them or ends up being the calm voice of reason, or at least stops them from poking their own eyes out with a sharp stick... she can revert to how I originally designed her... as a bit of a bitch. Which is fun to play.

Although I just can't be that complete asshole character that other people seem to be able to play... I just don't have it in me.

Anyway...

Thursday was Haircut Day... it was also Many Much Rain Day... which made life interesting. Fortunately it wasn't raining heavily when I needed to drive up into the hills, but everybody did seem to be being a little bit more careful, which was nice. The biggest difference was on the way back down the hill, since instead of the usual 90kph speed limit, it fluctuated anywhere from 80kph to 40kph... and there was a brief instance of fog.

As far as the actual Haircut was concerned... same old same old. It was an actual colour session this time though, so my hair is all pale and whatnot. Tink and I did the usual prattle on for however long it takes for all the stuff in my hair to do what the stuff in my hair needs to do, then we called it a day so I could get down the hill again before rain happened.

Friday was Chiro Day (much less exciting, but slightly more necessary than Haircut Day). Which meant that I headed into town in the afternoon, had the chiro appointment and then did a bit of wandering around afterwards.

Today just kind of did it's own thing, to be honest.

We started with the usual shopping excursion... I'm planning on making potato and leek soup this week, but I'm throwing in a couple of other similarly hued vegetables, to see if I can add to the interest factor at all. I mean, I'm guessing now... but we'll see.

When we got back here, we both said that we really didn't need to go anywhere or do much of anything, so we really didn't know what the hell to do.

In the end we decided to take a little trip down to Harbortown, mostly so I could look in the Bonds outlet and the Typo outlet. As if often the case, we came back with a number of items, none of which were the two things we went looking for.

In fairness, they didn't have my size at one, or a style I liked at the other. But what they did have were more Bonds hoodies and trackpants on sale... and I do love a Bonds hoodie.

I also found a cute mug with my initial on it, Ma discovered the Pop Electric Harajuku Lovers perfume finally got released somewhere other than Japan... which is awesome, and we filled a half priced box at the Lindt store.

So much goodness was done and, technically, money was saved (I mean, a bunch was spent, but we saved more overall, if that makes any sense).

After we had a Lindt milkshake at the Lindt store... because why wouldn't you... we headed over to Glenelg to grab some lunch at the Orange Spot cafe (quick review, I wasn't overly impressed with their cheese kransky compared with the one at the North Adelaide Bakery, but their pepper steak pie was a knockout), then went and traumatised the seagulls with the pastry crumbs by the beach before heading back here.

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