ma's presents 2018

So, I know I've said variations on this a lot of late, but we've reached Christmas Eve Eve... and my mood is still essentially "Christmas, m'eh".

But I also had to put Ma's somewhat small group of presents together this evening, since I'll be out all day tomorrow. And as with a number of instances of wrapping Ma's presents, I was competing in the space between the heat of the afternoon and not wanting a fan to blow everything everywhere.

This also isn't the BIG shiny red box... this is it's younger sibling, the not-quite-as-big shiny red box.

The tissue paper and red and white ribbon remain the same (and recycled from year to year to year to year... because the environment, but also it makes more sense).

Again, not a huge list...

• Harajuku Lovers Pop Electric G and Lil' Angel
• Dick Francis novels (Risk, Bolt and Whip Hand... which all sound weird unless you know they're about horse racing)
• Jax and Co wood and resin earrings
• Hallmark 2018 snowman ornament
• Chessex Frosted white dice set (yeah, these will probably end up in my dice bag, but I'm running a little mini DnD adventure for Ma on Christmas day)
• Minifig-her 2019 calendar and wallpapers

So, yeah... that's about it.

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photo saturday: minifig-hers

The theme of this year's holiday celebrations is "last minute".

I don't like last minute.

For example, I only got around to making Ma's 2019 calendar a couple of weeks ago, and only printed it and got it appropriately bound this week.

And the printer didn't want to play nicely, which meant that they all printed a little weirdly. Which is on top of the fact that the focus is off enough on the individual minifig faces that I want to entirely remake the calendar.

But anyway...

Oh, because I never got around to posting anything about last Sunday's trip to Ma's place for the annual making of the goodies, here's an image of the end result, followed by the shortest possible synopsis.

• I didn't go down there super early
• we got distracted by more interesting but less productive things
• I managed to completely forget how to make the candy cane truffles (although they worked out fine in the end)
• this year's Turkish Delight was the best for cutting up we've had in a good long time
• I always need to remember to add a little Copha to the chocolate for Rocky Road
• Ma's marble cutting board makes the best photo background
• I came home later than I would have liked, but it didn't really matter that much

I also took some along to two of the three DnD games this week. They were well received, as always. 

This week's DnD was about average. Although on Monday I finally got to fun for the guy who ran for me on Thursday last week, so that was nice. And for the first time in a while, they actually managed to stretch a two hour module out to around 4 hours.

Wednesday's game was less intense than the previous one, a little more annoying at time, and as characters we said goodbye to one of the group who has been around for a while now, but I think the last couple of modules have been a little too much for both character and, to a lesser extent, player.

But we did come up with several of the stupidest plans ever at the end of the game, while resulted in two somewhat competing plans that saw us Looney Tuning it, "cutting" a hole in the floor under the villain, then she and one of the characters plummeted 1000 feet down the side of a mountain (he survived, she didn't). It was supposed to be a big fight that should have taken about an hour... because of ridiculousness we managed to wrap it all up in under 20 minutes even though we were mostly out of health, spells and fucks to give.

Thursday's game my S/M cleric made a friend and found a protege... but also had to both actually heal someone AND do damage to an enemy (I'd made a bet with myself on how long it would take... answer, two and a half games). Granted it was the same person more than once, and he only ever did it when they got knocked out... because of course.

The protege thing snuck up on me... I didn't realise until the player told me at the end of the game... my character would have known... he's more insightful than my dumbass. So we'll see where that goes. Also, as a general rule, never start a staring contest with me.

Thursday was also both Haircut Day and the day I went to get the calendar bound.

Not at the same time though.

It's always good when your friend/hairdresser has tradesmen working in their yard and one of them is very cute and definitely worth perving on.

As far as the haircut is concerned... the same, and also the same silvery dye job we've done a couple of times now.

Tink's older daughter appeared half-way through (not like a magic trick or anything, the older one was on errands with dad, the younger one was at childcare) and made me a very pretty rainbow loomband bracelet (like, it's legitimately really nice looking), then I just hung around with Tink for a while, and ended up discovering how to make a perfect paper aeroplane (by accident... I did what I would normally have done up to a certain point and then accidentally did something different and shazam, perfect plane), drew a drawing and then took myself home (followed by going straight back out to Officeworks to get the calendar done).

I then needed to go and pick up the calendar on Friday afternoon, since it was better if I left it there overnight so that they didn't have to rush it. And the final version looks good, all things considered (focus issues notwithstanding).

Then today wasn't much of anything really.

Ma was getting her hair did this morning, so I did the supermarket run on my own... And I know I say this any time there's a holiday or whatnot, but why do all of you people appear out of the woodwork only at these times? And why does everyone lose their mind buying food at Christmas. I mean, I get it... but even so, fucking calm down and go away.

Anyway... I did my thing, and managed to get home relatively quickly (granted I got there earlier than I might otherwise do when I'm shopping alone). Then hung out and waited for Ma to arrive.

The plan had been to go to the movies. But everything was either not that interesting, on too late (relatively speaking) or too far away.

So we didn't do anything. We sat around and chatted for about quarter of an hour and then she toddled off home.

But a better plan than battling through all of the stupid unorganised Christmas shoppers, even just to go to the movies.

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photo saturday: yellow climb

It's ten days until Christmas and my mood can still be best described as "m'eh".

This week's DnD was pretty good... Monday's game I had a new player who was in town for work from Perth, so that was different. And he may be back again since he commutes back and forth, which is cool.

Wednesday was only one game again (more on that in a sec), but it's also the second time I've teared up at the DnD table... because of the same NPC, but yeah... it was a bit of an intense session, by design, but yeah.

The Wednesday evening sessions are... on hiatus. That makes it sound more sinister than it actually is, I'm just kind of pissed off about it. I got a message from the DM saying that he was "stopping til after Christmas"... and I'm sure there's a reason for it, or maybe not, fucked if I know, but since all that conversation happens over on Facebook where I'm never going to be, I don't know. I was just a little pissed off that it seemingly came out of the blue.

Also, small DnD based rant (feel free to skip this if you really don't give a shit), but when you choose to DM for a group of people, you enter into an unspoken social contract... they agree to show up and play, you agree to run games for them. But while it's important that they show up, you can do without all of them all the time, whereas without you as the DM, they can't play in your world. They can still play, especially in Adventurer's League, because that's the point, but it's not the version of the world you have in your head. And I understand that people get busy and have lives and all that shit... but playing DnD is like any other commitment or relationship in your life, if you don't make time for it, it's not going to be the same when you come back to it.

But as I said, I'm sure there's a reason, or maybe it was that everybody was all doing their own thing that meant they wouldn't be showing up, I don't know. I'm just a little bit pissed off about it.

On the up side, it has meant that I haven't had to run from one game to another on Wednesdays, and a couple of us had an interesting chat after the day game, so that was nice.

Anyway... Thursday I got to be there for a new DM's first session. He's someone I've played with for a few weeks now, and he was definitely good DM material, that was pretty fucking obvious right from the start. And, yeah, his first session proved it. He still needs a little more confidence (which will come as he runs more games), but he definitely has the right stuff to be a great DM.

Friday was my chiro appointment, which was pretty average.

Today was effective but not really much of anything.

The supermarket thing this morning was padded out by some additional Christmas/pre Christmas supplies... and clearly other people were having the same idea, because the supermarket seemed to have a lot more people in it... there were definitely more people working the checkouts.

Afterwards Ma needed to pick a couple of things up for her Secret Santa at work, as well as some random crap for people she'll be seeing after Christmas, so, with some slight trepidation on my part, we headed into the city.

And we managed to find everything she wanted... even if all of the random crap was just us walking into the "Christmas gift food" section of Target and basically throwing a range of stuff in the $10-12 range into a basket. Problem solved.

I think I've said this before, but as much as I love picking out exactly the right gifts for people, there are people where a) that's too much work, because you only see them once a year, if that, and really have no idea what they're interested in or b) that effort is never reciprocated and people use the "you're just too hard to buy for", to which the answer is generally "no, you're just not paying enough attention or don't give enough of a shit". Sometimes both. Especially when it's both. In those instances, I say cut your losses and go for something easy... if it's something that will also get a smile from them when they open it, even if they forget about it by New Years, you've done okay.

Wow, I'm in a fucking preachy mood today aren't I.

Actually I'm just in a mood.

Anyway... we picked up all the crap we needed, dumped it back in the car, had lunch at Burger Theory and then called it a day.

Tomorrow is Christmas Goodie Making Day... and I'm really not that bothered. I mean, I'm gunna do it, but I think we're going with minimum effort for maximum return to be honest.

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my adelaide fringe picks 2019

Well, we got there in the end...

It's going to be a lean Fringe year this year... I can never tell whether it's lean because there aren't that many shows I'm interested or if I become less interested in shows when I know I'm on a budget. Maybe it's both at the same time.

And there's only one show I'm going off to by myself. Which feels a little weird.

We are going back to see a number of old favourites in new shows however... A Night at the Musicals, Box and Cox, Head First Acrobats, Improv Adelaide and Casus Circus. And a good selection of Shakespeare this year... including the requisite weird version of Macbeth.

The full list for this year is...

• Box and Cox: Married and Settled!: All the flavour and fun of the original farce, with new characters and new antics sure draw a smile on any face.
• Quest Time!: Watch as the performers hilariously fumble their way through levelling-up, saving throws, and spell casting; all while exposing dark and sinister plots.
• Another Night at the Musicals: Adelaide's most beloved ridiculous and beloved assholes are back with a brand new party; a melting pot of musical theatre karaoke, vaudeville, variety, sing-along and dress up madness.
• The Measure of a Man: A perfect balance of comedy and drama - from light-hearted and uproariously funny moments to gut-wrenching, dark moments that expose the scars and open wounds that still remain, hidden underneath the glitter.
• Macbeth in space! (and two other locations....): So, we had a seance, and William Shakespeare made contact. In fact he wouldn't shut up, until he'd dictated this updated version of Macbeth.
• The Works of William Shakespeare by Chicks: The ladies of Humpty Bong TAFE Applied Theatre Level 4 have made a discovery that will change the course of history.
• You and I: This unashamedly authentic journey reveals a fresh narrative where gay stories are not consumed by tragedy but filled with conviction and acceptance.
• Railed: Welcome to Railed, a western themed circus spectacular, combining the trademark physical talents, finely chiselled bodies and hilarious comic timing of the Head First Acrobats.
• The HandleBards - Twelfth Night: The world's first cycling theatre company pedal from venue to venue with all the set, props and costume necessary to perform environmentally sustainable Shakespeare across the globe.

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photo saturday: tannenbaumding

Yep... Christmas tree is up at Ma's... hell, neon Christmas tree is up at mine... and I'm still not feeling it.

Hence why there wasn't a separate post for the Christmas tree decorating.

But we're here now.

It wasn't especially different from any other edition of the decorating... Except I didn't go down to Ma's quite so early. Still pretty early, but not super stupid early.

And the whole thing was fairly low key.

I read the weird messages I'd left on various boxes for myself last Christmas and replied where appropriate, including the one that said we needed to revisit the Rainbow Christmas tree from 2014... especially since we have additional shades now we didn't have then. And it worked pretty damn well.

I will say that it's much easier and takes less brainpower to just put all the same colour on a single row of the tree, although because we had both shiny, matt and clear for some of the colours, making sure there weren't too much overlap in texture/finish took a hot minute.

We also kind of need either some brighter purple ones and/or some pink ones to go at the top of the tree. Well, I say "need"... it'd be nice to have them.

There wasn't a huge amount else that we needed to do... there were a few other bits and pieces we always put up at Ma's place, so those went up, but she's in the middle of packing up for the move, so her place is a bit all over everywhere just at the moment.

And we only wrapped a handful of things... so I was on the road back to my place by about 4 I think.

When I got home, I put up my little neon Christmas tree... which took all of about 37 seconds... take items out of box, plug item A into item B, plug item B into wall socket, enjoy Christmas merriment.

Did I mention both humbug and m'eh?

Anyway...

DnD was somewhat average, somewhat weird this week... Monday was pretty usual, although my Canadian player wasn't able to come to what would have been his final game before he goes to Canada... I mean he's coming back, but not until midway through January I think.

And after the game a number of the DMs wandered down to the Pancake Kitchen to sit around and talk shit, which was pleasant, even if I didn't get home until after 1am.

Wednesday was slightly odd for a couple of reasons, firstly the Wednesday night game (which used to be the Thursday night game) got cancelled due to lack of people giving a fuck (okay, actually due to people being sick and associated December bullshit, but still), but one of the guys who only intermittently comes for that game actually showed up after we'd finished the day game because he was in the neighbourhood and had finished work early.

Also, when your DM says to you a couple of days before a session that he has an idea to freak out the other players if you're game, and you go with it and it does freak out the others and it's weird that it's not weird because you've done way weirder stuff outside of DnD... yeah, that...

Anyway, because we haven't been playing on Wednesday nights for long enough that it felt weird NOT to play, Wednesday night was just a regular Wednesday.

Thursday was a good session, even if I knew the adventure and had to try very hard not to second guess myself (and I think that I second guessed myself so hard a couple of times that I didn't do what I probably would have naturally done because I couldn't remember if I was remembering that that was what was supposed to happen... you know?). But I continue to love this new character I mentioned last week who has still yet to do a single point of damage (his first game notwithstanding, but that was a whole different thing) and who I just reworked his character to be a little more in line with the way I'm playing him.

Also, this is the very first character I've ever had where someone has said to me "oh, I HATE him"... which is kind of awesome... I mean he's not a massive asshole or anything, but he's definitely not the usual type of characters that I play. And it's a lot of fun.

Otherwise this week wasn't much of anything really.

I do need to get my shit together and buy Fringe tickets though... by Tuesday at the latest.

Today was a little bit more of a run around, because I finally got around to booking my car in for a service. I think I mentioned last week that there had been smoke appearing from under the bonnet from time to time, but there's enough oil and enough coolant in the car, so I had no clue what the hell was going on.

So first thing this morning, I drove down to my mechanic, who is opposite our old supermarket, met Ma there, and we headed from there back to Norwood to do the shopping, then back to my place.

Ma needed to pick something up from IKEA for a Christmas present, so we headed down that way, just did the bottom floor (which they've finally opened up from the front of the store, so you can just go straight in that way, which is nice) and grabbed the things we needed. I got a call from my mechanic towards the end saying that the car was ready to be picked up, so we finished up and headed that way.

With a brief stop off in North Adelaide at Perryman's Bakery, because why not.

Turns out the car had a cracked gasket and was leeching a little bit of oil onto the engine block... so potentially not cataclysmic, but better to get it fixed than not. Plus it was due for a service anyway.

We came back here (in separate cars, obviously), had some lunch (the aforementioned Perryman's) and then Ma wanted to take a quick look around Burnside Village, so that killed about half an hour. And she got a fairly nice present for one of her friends, which pretty much finishes off her shopping I think.

And next week we have the Christmas goodies... which I am also not especially excited about, but we'll see what happens.

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photo friday: deux-some

It's the first of December... it's officially the start of the Christmas season... tomorrow I'm heading up to Ma's to put the Christmas tree up. And I don't give a shit.

No, that's not entirely true... it's more that I have no fucks to give. My fuck drawer is fresh out of fucks. I don't know if it's because of where I'm at monetarily, or emotionally or the fact that with one thing and another, Christmas kind of snuck up on us, but yeah, it all seems to have happened suddenly and I'm not real interested.

Don't get me wrong, I'll go through as many of the motions as I have to, but my heart isn't in any of it.

But no so much "bah humbug" as it is "m'eh".

Anyway...

I managed four games of DnD again this week... which made Wednesday essentially one long DnD game, which is kind of great, but also kind of awful because it's the whole day gone.

Anyway, Monday's game was good... although one of the players, who isn't a regular, but has been on my table a number of times is occasionally flirty... but I don't know if it's "i see you as safe, so I can flirt with you without it getting weird" flirting or "I'm so comfortable in my indeterminate sexuality, that I don't really think this is flirting" flirting. Which would be neither here nor there if it wasn't somewhat my physical type.

I mean it's nothing, and it's not extreme, and it's 90% likely he's straight and/or not interested, and he's too damn young... but, you know... it's a thing that happens.

Also, I don't know if it's my DMing style or if it's my players, but I think I need to double down on the opening/quest giving... I have a plan for trying to make it clearer for them for the next game, but if that doesn't work, I may run a game for them where if they can't remember why they're supposed to be going to do something, they just don't go and do it. See if that makes them pay a little bit more attention.

Wednesday's games were interesting... partially because the day game meant I got to both play my character and pretend to be a completely different character (possession by the ghost of a dead wizard will do that). And then we followed the day game up with a few rounds of Dungeon Mayhem, which is a really cool game, especially for someone who may be interested in the idea of DnD, but not want to commit to playing... it's basically DnD PvP lite.

The Wednesday night game... that's much more interesting. And we're still in the space created by the fallout from my character's confession about his past a couple of weeks back. But this week we got to have both a shopping episode AND a bathhouse episode in the same session.

And on top of that my character almost said too much to the father of the NPC he'd been sleeping with before the revelation... that was a hot second of awkwardness. I also managed to accidentally set myself up as a suspect in a murder. So next week should be interesting. It's not exactly what I expected to be doing in that particular dwarven city... but such is DnD.

Also, I need to get better at not hanging around after the day game until there's only time to catch my bus home, change character sheets and set off again.

Thursday's game was an interesting one... someone I know well but have never had DM for me, the party were mostly people I know and have either played with or run games for, or just seen around the place. Sometimes, a group of people sit down at the table and their characters just instantly gel... they work together as a team, it all just works. And then there was this group.

Don't get me wrong, none of it was bad, but it was all a bit all over the shop. And I'm playing my cleric who is basically a rich kid S/M enthusiast who doesn't have a lot of time for anyone. Which was super easy to play at that table. And while it was an adventure that could be pretty much entirely played via roleplay without any combat (and I knew it, having played half the module once before), I didn't do a single point of damage (or heal a single point for that matter) to anyone, and didn't use a single offensive spell.

I'm kind of curious how long I can keep that up for... possibly for a while in adventures from the newest season, since they're perhaps a little TOO heavy tilted towards the roleplay (vs the other types of play). And also how long I can go without healing damage to anyone but myself.

I mean his goddess DOES preside over pain, hurt and torture...

Yeah... DnD!

Friday I had the tradie out to take a better look at my stove than the last tradie did... and it seems that he's gotten it working properly, which is good... we'll see how long it lasts.

So that was about it for the week really.

Oh, the Fringe guide dropped on Thursday also.

I'll dive into this a little more in my actual Fringe picks post, but I can never tell if my economic situation colours my judgement on what's available, but there were relatively few shows I was excited about this year... sure I didn't go through the listings 406 times like I've done the last few years, and I probably need to do a secondary run through, just in case, but there were less than a dozen shows I was interested in this year. I know that I'm much less likely to take chances on super weird stuff of questionable quality when times are lean, but even so...

Anyway, on to today.

Normally, I think, I really don't remember since it only happens once a year, on the Saturday before the Christmas tree, either Ma doesn't come down at all or she comes down, we do the food shopping and maybe the odd thing and then she buggers off home. But usually we've finished Christmas shopping beyond a few outliers well before the start of December.

So we had a relatively normal Saturday... although to be honest, because we bought a few additional things at the supermarket, it did end up being a bit of a mega shop. Partially that was us buying bits and pieces for goodie making, partially it was me realising that I actually need to buy enough of the right stuff to actually be able to make meals during the whole week (specially given that I'm out of the house now on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights).

Then we came back here, Ma went through the Fringe shows I'd picked out, they all met with her approval (so it's mostly going to be a Ma and me year this year also, since there was only one show I picked just for me).

She needed a couple of final-ish things for a couple of people, so we decided on the Big W to Target to Kmart circle (with a trip to Officeworks thrown in because I wanted a couple of bits and pieces from there)... only missing out the Kmart part because we didn't need anything there once we were done with the other places.

So, some Dr Suess, Roald Dahl, basketry and various paper and sticky tape later, we were pretty much done.

And now I remember why it is we usually have all (or at least most of) the shopping finished by mid November... people... urgh.

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photo saturday: sky kites

Well, it's been a weird old fucking week...

And I know I said that last week, but this week really did put last week in the dust.

To start off with we went from shorts weather to torrential rain and wind strong enough to bring down a tree down the road from my house. So that did my head in a little. Partially because I didn't sleep that well for the first couple of days.

DnD this week was... let's say "extra", and not least of all because there was an extra session of it. I love being able to work either character building or additional world building in when I'm running a game, and I got to do both on Monday... partially because two of my players had given me additional information about their characters, which meant I had to make up some "off the books" roleplay mechanics for one of them (which was fine, I basically just stole the idea from a game called Honey Heist and modified it as necessary).

But I am losing one of my players for a couple of months when he heads back home to Canada for Christmas... so that's a bit of a bummer. But he will be back. I just need to snag a couple of extra people for my table in the interim though.

Tuesday I got laid... I wasn't expecting to get laid, but then suddenly the offer was right there and, really, what else did I have happening... so it was a couple of pleasant hours. It also meant that parts of my body that don't usually get a workout were sore for several days. Not that I'm complaining.

Wednesday was basically a full day of DnD... I mean not FULL, but I went to the day game, hung around for a while afterwards, got home around 4:30 and then turned around and left again just before 5:30 for the night game.

Unfortunately my long standing character from the day game finally met her end this week... at the eye stalk of a zombie beholder... disintegrated into a fine powder along with all her belongings that weren't magical. So that was a thing. I'm actually not traumatised about it or anything... I have a backup character I've been playing more often recently than her, so I can switch over to him. And there are two possible plans for bringing her back... but I'm going to hold onto both of them for now, if only to allow the DM to traumatise the other players a little.

I'm also probably okay with either leaving her dead or bringing her back and essentially retiring her. But I'm not making any decisions just yet. It's still a little too soon.

As far as the evening session went, it was a fairly light on session, mostly dealing with the fallout from the revelation about my character in the previous session. Sadly, the player I really wanted/needed to be there for that wasn't... so that will have to play out on another occasion. I will say that I made the exact right choice about which of the other players to get to read out my letter... I was sitting over on the couch instead of being at the table and I will admit that I got a little choked up hearing it... even though I was the one who wrote it and I've read it through myself about half a billion times.

I think both the character and I felt some relief in the secret being out, but having everyone not like the character (because that's basically who all of my characters are/have been and basically who I am... please like me, I'm needy) is so weird and I keep wanting to fix it, but I also know that it needs some time, which I'm also not good at. But we'll see how things come together... especially when the missing character comes back.

Weirdly, the first character to come and speak to me/him turned out to be significant, even though I didn't realise it at the time... because sometimes you just need a signal from your fictional god to let you know you're on the right path.

Anyway...

Thursday I ended up going to DnD... I wasn't sure if I could be bothered, but decided I'd rather go and discover it had been a bad idea than not go.

And it still may be bad... there was only a couple of tables worth of people, but fortunately I managed to talk my way onto the "slot zero" table, of DMs who are running the epic adventure this weekend, which I wasn't particularly interested in going to... but I was happy to help out, and we had a really good time, mostly because of the collection of people who were playing/test running the adventures (including the woman I chatted with at AVCon and her wife, which was unexpected).

But it was a pleasant evening. Not sure if it's always going to be worth going, but I might give it a try while we're playing the other game on Wednesday nights.

Friday wasn't much of anything, beyond cleaning up the apartment, because it was a bit of a trainwreck, as much as it's ever a trainwreck (and if it is, it's usually just to do with dirty dishes).

Today ending up being a pretty good day...

Because today was the Norwood Christmas Pageant, we went shopping super early... so early in fact that we were finished by the time that we would normally have been getting there. And other than all the old people who probably normally go that early, it wasn't super busy.

Afterwards we headed to the newly refurbished Haighs factory/head office/store on Greenhill Road. It's very fancy. Although weirdly it feels like there's less stuff in there, even though I'm pretty sure that there's actually more. That's visual design for you.

From there we headed down to Unley Road to go to the Alliance Française French Market... but when we got there we discovered that the Etsy Made Local market was on essentially across the road, so we spent most of our time there.

It was a damn good market too... it went a good way down the side road and there were a ton of stalls. So instead of going to into the city for Christmas shopping, we got a bunch of stuff done there.

Have I mentioned how incredibly disorganised we are this year... it's the end of fucking November and we've barely done anything Christmas shopping related. Not really our finest hour... or season... or whatever.

But after the Etsy stuff, we headed over to the French Market, which was... French, I guess. It wasn't really much of anything to be honest. We did get some nice lunch at Frencheese... because potato with melted cheese on it is never a bad idea. There wasn't really much else there of interest though, so I'm glad we found the Etsy market.

And we pretty much called it a day there.

Also, in case you haven't been paying attention, it's a month until Christmas.

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photo saturday: go with the flow

It's been a weird old week.

Monday I started the new "campaign" for my DnD regulars. I say campaign, but honestly I'm just running the modules from a previous season in order. But it does allow for some story shenanigans, especially as they're starting from scratch with completely new characters.

And as players they've seen some interesting characters created by other people, so they're really stepping up the character weirdness... which I totally encourage, especially in a group that plays together regularly. So that's fun.

Wednesday was not normal at all... I didn't have my normal daytime DnD game... instead I went and picked Ma up from the airport from her Perth trip, and the plane got in right in the middle of the day, so I couldn't do DnD and a shuttle run.

So no vampire laden adventures for me.

However, we have moved the usual Thursday came to Wednesday for the time being, and making this week the first instance of that was good because I didn't end up doing back to back DnD. I haven't decided yet if I want to go back to the store on Thursdays while this is going on... maybe, it would give me a chance to actually play different characters, since I'm mostly locked into the same couple of characters on my play days.

We'll see.

We also had (almost) the full original group back together... which, look, I'll be honest, I'm not 100% ecstatic about having the full 7 person table back together... it's a little too much to be honest. We'll see if it lasts at all, or at least for how long.

However, during the session it was revealed that my character has been lying to everyone else about his past since about May/June in the real world, probably about two or three months in-game time. For the character it went spectacularly badly... for me, I was somewhere between feeling very attacked and delighted that I get to play out this aspect of the character. I then proceeded to work on a letter for the other characters to read next session until about 2am...

Yeah, like the character, I need to craft the perfect in game artefact that is both completely sincere and emotionally manipulative. And I have a plan for if things go south. Not sure how good a plan it is, but it's a plan.

Have I mentioned how fucking much I love creating in game artefacts?

So, no third game this week... which I'll admit was fucking weird.

Or at least it was until I got distracted by finishing Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which only took me two sessions. I kind of wish it has been longer to be honest, although it did it's job and wrapped everything up before wearing out it's welcome.

Friday I had my chiro appointment, so I headed into the city in the afternoon, got my adjustment and wandered around a bit before calling it a day.

Today I was again shopping on my own as Ma had to go get her hair did. So I did the thing, and came back here to unpack.

From there, when Ma arrived we headed into the city for the Gathered market at the Queen's Theatre in Adelaide.

Partially because of the location, but it very much reminded me of the original Bowerbird Bazaars that we went to there. Except for the fact that Gathered is all local South Australian artists and crafts people. But I absolutely preferred the smaller, more intimate setting to the giant unwieldy behemoth that Bowerbird has ended up being.

It also meant that we could chat with some of the stall holders about their stuff, including the nice lady on the Cooling Neck Tie stall, the woman on the Abode Wares stall selling wardrobe/car fragrance diffusers and anyone on one of the stalls where we bought greeting cards.

Afterwards we wandered down to Leigh Street because they're supposed to be having Christmas markets every Saturday between now and Christmas, but we should have learned our lesson last year (I think) when it was a bit of a non-event... I mean it may have been fine, but we arrived just after 12 and the market didn't actually start until 1pm, so a bit pointless.

We didn't hang around. But it's nice to know that it's a potential option at some point in the next month or so.

And that's basically it for the day.

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movies: venom

It's been a while since I've been to the movies (since June to be exact), mostly because there hasn't been a lot of that has been inspiring me to go see it.

But I had a chance to see Venom before it disappeared out of the cinemas, and I'd heard good things, so I decided why not.

And it's not bad.

I'm fairly confident in saying that it wouldn't have been the movie it was without Tom Hardy... I can't think of anyone else who could have played both the confident and the falling apart versions of Eddie Brock so well. Like Hardy goes for it. And he's someone you can buy as a pain in the ass investigative journalist who just turns into a broken man who is still a pain in the ass.

And his interactions with Venom are perfect... the dialogue is sharper than I was expecting it to be, and the fact that Hardy was reacting to the lines being fed to him in real time (even though he recorded them earlier) over an earpiece was definitely the right way to go.

As with 90% of superhero movies the villain is somewhat underwhelming... but managed to be underwhelming on two fronts because one villain is just a (rich and evil) guy, and the other one doesn't interact with the hero until the last 15 minutes of the movie. But you also know that both of them are going to disappear before the end of the movie, because they always do in this kind of movie.

I also wasn't hugely impressed with the climactic battle scene either... when you have two dark monsters (even if one is dark silver grey and the other is basically black) who look functionally identical fighting each other against a night time sky with a bunch of metal walkways and there's a lot of quick cuts and the like, it's hard to tell what the hell is going on and why you should care.

I'm going to steal a line from my favourite online review site... Movie Bitches... can we talk about Michelle Williams's wig? What the hell was up with that? And is there any reason at all in 2018 that her characters can't have a short pixie cut like she does? Sure it might not "match" the character, but who gives a crap, it's better than the shitty, single style, plastic looking piece of shit they put her in.

I mean she's not bad in the movie... to be honest slightly surplus to requirements for the majority of the time, but she's okay... the wig is hideous though.

Also, secondly question regarding her... with slight spoilers... and I already kind of know the answer to this, and it's going to be "because that's what it looked like in the comics", but that answer is generally bullshit... so here goes...

Why does the symbiote feel that making a sexy lady shape while piggybacking on Williams character makes sense... wouldn't it just have kept the larger, bulkier shape it used when inhabiting Brock? And I don't even buy the "maybe she didn't have as good a bond with it" argument. I think it was only so that when the Brock/She Venom kiss happened the teenage boys in the audience didn't freak out. Which is a shame, because it would have been a more interesting scene.

Anyway, spoilers over.

For the most part though, those are my only major complaints... well, that and the fact that surely they could have done more during the day? Maybe it's just harder to actually film action scenes in the day time, but it would have been more interesting to see Venom contrasted with the daylight.

But the real appeal of this movie is Hardy and the Brock/Venom interactions.

yani's rating: 3 parasites out of 5

photo saturday: on a string

So... last Sunday was a whole world of me cleaning the apartment for the inspection on Monday, although I will admit because I started nice and early I managed to wrap things up earlier than I have in the past, so that was pleasant.

Then Monday I hauled ass to the library for a couple of hours and did some DnD related crafts (because of course I did). Fortunately, for unexplained reasons the window for inspections is now only two hours instead of the four it has always been every other place and time I've had one, so at least I didn't need to stay out of the house for all that long.

Monday was also the last DnD game in the current arc for my players, they'll essentially be going back to the beginning with new characters this coming Monday. So we'll see how that goes.

Wednesday was an interesting game... but also ended up with four of us hanging around afterwards and playing a game of Unstable Unicorns, which was all kinds of awesome, even if I didn't win.

Thursday I played taxi again for the DnD crew... although it seems as though we're moving the game to Wednesday this coming week, which is good in that it lets one of our players come back and good that I won't have to play taxi... but playing two games in a week might be problematic, we'll see.

Friday was Haircut Day... which was much the same as usual, although I did kind of hang out a little longer than usual and we went a bit more silvery with my hair. Which looks pretty good I think.

I also finally finished Horizon Zero Dawn on Friday... I need to ponder it for a while before I'm ready to talk about it I think tho.

Today wasn't a usual Saturday... Ma is currently in Perth visiting with her besties who moved over there (long story, mostly uninteresting), so I was footloose and fancy free all day. However the payback for that is picking her up from the airport on Wednesday at lunchtime.

I left here a little earlier than normal, did my shopping with earphones firmly in place, bought way too much stuff, came back here and unpacked it all. Then I kind of cleaned up a bit, dicked around here for a while and took myself off to Tea Tree Plaza to see Venom on the big screen before a) it disappears and b) the gift card Ma had runs out at the end of the week.

It's been a while since I've been to TTP to be honest... and I will say that I wasn't especially happy about the car parking situation as I both couldn't really find my way around and had trouble finding a park... but eventually a nice lady left her spot just as I got there, and I got a park under cover, so that was nice.

But the complete and total lack of signage from the food court to the cinema made me all kinds of crazy. I mean, seriously, they have signs at all kinds of appropriate points upstairs, pointing you towards the food court, then a sign pointing you through the inside food court to the new outdoor food court, which is really lovely. But there isn't a single fucking sign outside. And I had no clue where the fuck I was actually going beyond the vague direction.

Not happy Jan.

I had to come back in and use one of the touchscreen boards to work out what the hell I was supposed to be doing... and then the cinema had those stupid self serve ticket screens... which would have been fine, except for the fact that I was trying to use a gift card and you can't use a gift card with those dumb things. GRRRRRR!

Yeah... not the best experience ever. Especially when you add in that there were a bunch of kids who I'm pretty sure probably snuck into the movie after their movie finished and who kept messing with their mobile phones and taking selfies with the flash on and other bullshit. Had it been more prevalent I probably would have gone and dobbed them in, but I was in the middle of a row, and I think they disappeared at a certain point. But, yeah... this is a problem when you don't actually have staff or people paying attention.

Anyway.

I saw the movie (more on that later), came out afterwards and ran into our Thursday DnD hosts, which was nice. We had a brief chat, then I grabbed something to eat had an unenthusiastic wander and came back home.

Oh and Tink reminded me that it's only 45 days until Christmas... because of course it is.

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