fringe: box and cox - married and settled

Mr Cox, Mr Box and Mrs Bouncer are back together again. And this time Messrs Cox and Box have found themselves wives.

Maniacal Arts have returned with another farce written by John Maddison Morton in 1852, a sequel to last year's show. Reprising their roles are Jake McNamara as Box, Declan Carter as Cox and Emma Austin as Mrs Bouncer, while the additions of Mrs Box and Mrs Cox respectively are Ashton Koroneos and Tess Branchflower.

And the new ladies definitely hold their own, not least of all Koroneos and her singing voice. They just slot into the cast perfectly and add to an already excellent group.

But I have to say, much like the first show, Austin steals every single scene she's in as Bouncer. Up to and including improvising with the crowd before the show officially starts.

The staging is simple, but effective, and the addition of the window was used well.

I do think though, while it was quite funny (especially for a 166 year old play), the script wasn't quite as good as the previous one... the first one seemed a little sharper somehow.

And there were times when the cast was a little hard to hear, especially in a play with such rapid fire dialogue.

But those are very small quibbles on what was otherwise a very good start to the Fringe.

yani's rating: 3 kidgloves out of 5

photo saturday: succulents

Well I never seized up... that was a blessing.

Although it was a busy week, relatively speaking.

Monday was DnD... which meant me running a full table. As much as a full table is great, I do prefer smaller groups, but the downside of being a popular DM (#humblebrag) is you often end up with a table full of players.

But my players had a good time, even if the session ran a little long and a couple of them had to bail slightly early.

I realised over the weekend that not only did I have a chiro appointment on Friday, but the only day I wasn't doing something else at some point was Tuesday. So without telling Ma, I headed down to her place just before lunch time and put together her IKEA chest of drawers. It wasn't so bad... at least not as bad as the wardrobe, partially because I have a very similar set of drawers (I would say identical since it's supposed to be, but they've clearly changed the design a little in the last two or so years). So I just put on my headphones and listened to a few episodes of 99% Invisible while I worked.

Pretty easy all things considered.

I also put up the curtains I'd brought down, because I figured if she didn't notice anything else, then she would notice bright red curtains.

Then I headed home to see if the woman famous for not noticing things actually noticed things. She did, but not until about 6:30 that night. And she was very happy, which is good.

Wednesday was back to back DnD... I ended up running, just because nobody else had stepped up and there weren't that many of us overall. To be honest, we could have made up one table, but if anybody had showed up a little late we would have had to split anyway. Plus, as I said, running a small table is always preferable.

And it was an adventure I've run a bunch and really love, which is also pretty easy to run. Everybody said they had a good time, so that's really the main thing.

Wednesday night wasn't our regularly scheduled game, but we played our older characters, which was fun, since it's been a little while. Although I will say that the adventure just seemed way too easy overall. But then part of that it that group... but also probably the adventure.

Thursday was a lot of pfaffing about. And I wasn't even sure I wanted to be bothered going to DnD... but I went, and had a lot of fun playing an entirely new character nothing like any of my other characters. Because sometimes it's fun to play big, dumb and friendly.

Friday was the chiro appointment... which I was very glad about. My body had mostly been okay all week, but it was definitely in need of a tune up.

Today, being both the first day of the Fringe, but also the first proper Saturday since Ma moved house, was a bit of a long day.

We did the shopping thing... then came back here before heading out to pick up a few of the things that Ma wanted now that she's actually moved into the new place. Which took us to Kmart and Spotlight and Bunnings.

Nothing super thrilling to be honest, and it was all a little irritating mostly due to people.

But once we were done, we went down to Ma's place to drop off her shopping and for me to do a few things for her related to the stuff we picked up. At the very least it filled the afternoon in.

Also, weirdly, at some point seemingly between getting out of the car at her place and going into her bedroom to open the blind, I manged to cut my thumb. I say "at some point" because I don't remember doing it, I don't even remember hurting it. All I know is that it was a very clean slice, not super deep but deep enough all things considered. And I only noticed when I realised there was blood on my other finger.

We also found blood on a couple of other things I'd touched, but there shouldn't have been anything even remotely sharp that I touched, so fuck knows how I actually did it.

Me and slicing my fingers... what the hell is up with that.

Anyway, we did what we needed to do down there, then packed up and came back to my place before heading out to Grilld at Norwood for dinner.

And then we started our 2019 Fringe (more on that in a bit).

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photo saturday: sharp corners

It's been two weeks... TWO WHOLE WEEKS.

And the last two weeks have kind of been A LOT.

We pick up our hero the Sunday after the last post, making relish. In fact, I took a recipe for peach, nectarine and tomato relish, substituted plums for the peaches (since I had a bunch in the fridge slowly going soft), and handwaved certain elements of the recipe, but ended up with three jars of relish (which tasted pretty good at the time, so I'm sure will be really good once I crack into one of them).

As far as DnD is concerned, the two Mondays were much the same as always, the Wednesday before last I ran a game that I've run a number of times before, and one that I love... and while I've done various voices for the final NPC, I usually err on the "little old lady" route, this time when I opened my mouth a soft "Southern Belle" voice just happened. Which was great and creepy and gave me a lot of leeway for putting my players on edge in the best possible way. And a number of them have since told me that the voice made the character super creepy.

Achievement unlocked!

We only had one Wednesday evening game, the week before last, and my character got to have a full on proper paranoid freak out, which was great, because really he's been through A LOT thus far.

And Thursday games have been pretty good... but not overly dramatic.

Although I drove my friend home after the week before last's game and we ended up sitting in the car having a long discussion, which somehow turned into a three-way conversation between the two of us and another DnD friend with both of us texting her and having a weird hybrid conversation until 3am. It was odd, but also something I think we all needed.

Also, speaking of Thursdays, I came home after DnD this Thursday to discover my slightly creepy, older male neighbour standing out on the landing in the dark, in front of my apartment, smoking... which is bad enough... but also I'm 99% sure, absolutely bare ass naked.

No. Just no. What even are you doing, you creepy fucker.

I had already been intending to contact my land agent about the fact that he smokes around the apartments (which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed), but now this fresh weirdness makes it a certainty.

Last Saturday Ma had her haircut happening, and we really didn't have anything we needed to do. Plus she was still packing up her place in order to move (more on THAT shortly), so she came down briefly and then headed off.

Which was good, because last Saturday turned into the "everybody wants Yani" afternoon, in the best possible way. Lets just say that there are times when you put yourself out there and spend a lot of energy getting nowhere and other times when you're just minding your own business and people come running to you. I like the latter times much better, but they're also so much rarer, but I enjoy them while they last.

So, yeah, basically I spent Saturday afternoon entertaining not one but two gentleman callers (consecutively, not concurrently). Yeah, I'm bragging... but it's such a rare occurrence I feel I'm allowed.

Then we get to early this week, when Ma finally confirmed when she was getting the keys for the new place (Wednesday), and then moving (Friday). If I had known then what I know now, I would absolutely told her to tell them that she couldn't move until next Tuesday at the earliest. Because she was not ready.

But it happened anyway.

So this Thursday she and I went on a trip to IKEA to get her a wardrobe (since the new place doesn't have built-ins for some reason) and a chest of drawers (for essentially the same reason, and the exact same set that I have).

Which was all well and good... and we basically got in and got out relatively quickly all things considered (also, first thing on a week day morning is both surprisingly busy, and the absolute best time to go). The wardrobe we couldn't get into Ma's tiny car, so that got delivered, but we took the drawers straight to the new house.

And I proceeded to drop one of the two boxes, corner first onto my foot. Not enough to say, break my foot, but enough to make me regret all of my life choices.

Ma's new place isn't bad... although I always hate when landlords or housing authorities choose to paint walls that light beige colour instead of just using plain white. White is ALWAYS the right answer... and would have made the place feel a little less... I don't know... "old lady" I guess. I mean that's what Ma is, and the types of people who get put into these houses, but still.

But yeah, it's not bad... as I said to someone today, there are less rooms, but more room, if that makes sense. It's also only a hop skip and a jump down the road from the old place, which is only really relevant during the moving process. And no stairs, which is a blessing.

Then we went back to Ma's current place. And I got a look at how absolutely NOT READY to move the following day she was. I mean I'm hardly an expert (see also January 2014 and February 2016) but just walking into her house, I knew that moving day was going to be a complete and total pain in the ass.

And I wasn't wrong.

But we did some packing and some reorganising (my top moving tip is always: pile all your moving boxes in one area so you can still move around... second only to: put everything the movers are taking in the same room and/or part of the house) before I had to head home... had it not been for the case that my Thursday night DM was running a game specifically for myself and another player who had been there for a number of previous sessions I might have stuck around... and I might have organised it that way if I'd known. But also if I'd known where she was at, I would have made her put off the move to be honest.

And I will be honest, that everything about Thursday just did my head in... we all know I hate moving and I hate change... but as I messaged one of my friends during the afternoon, in response to the question "has it been one of those days"...

"sleep deprived, hot, feeling vaguely ill, dealing with moving stress, dealing with my mother dealing with moving stress, dealing with change... dealing full stop"

Also, thank the gods for that particular friend for keeping me sane over the two days of moving, he was a lifesaver.

Anyway.

Friday morning rolled around, I rolled out of bed, into the shower, realised I didn't have any milk so made cereal using Iced Coffee (weird, but not terrible) and headed down the road. I left a little later than I wanted to, so the movers were already there by the time I showed up.

Why is it always the case that when one half of any two man trademan type team is in their late 50's, early 60's, the other one is always barely 20 and built like a stick insect? I genuinely want to know.

Anyway, I started filling up my car with things that we knew the movers wouldn't be moving (or that Ma didn't want them to move) and did a couple of runs before the movers finished up, then when they were on their way, I stayed at the new house and waited for them. And then when Ma rocked up, I got back in my car and packed up a load of stuff at the old place again.

I did faff about the old place for a while, trying to move as much stuff as I could downstairs to make our lives easier later in the afternoon, but there's only so much you can do when it's a) not your stuff and b) you keep thinking "why the fuck wasn't this already in a fucking box so the fucking movers could have taken it".

So by the time I got back again, the movers were mostly done, I unpacked the car again, and we sent the movers on their way. We also needed to wait for the IKEA delivery guy, who was supposed to show up between 11am and 3pm... and I fully expected him to be there at 3pm... but Ma got the message that he was on the way shortly after the movers left just as we were thinking about lunch options... so at least we didn't have to reorganise the rest of the day around waiting.

We went and grabbed some Oporto for lunch, then back to the old house to work out what the fuck needed to happen next.

The answer was carry a bunch of bullshit downstairs and pack the cars up, repeat until dead.

But we got there eventually.

And after work, one of Ma's coworkers showed up and helped out, which turned out to be somewhat of a godsend, even if he did have a front row seat to the tired and sleep deprived version of the Ma and Yani show. Which is a great show, don't get me wrong, but yeah...

Everything that was left when we finished packing up the cars was either cleaning stuff to be left behind, random shit and probably needed to be chucked and a very small amount of "still need to pack that up" detritus.

We got back to the new place, unpacked everything and then I settled in to build Ma's IKEA wardobe, so her clothes actually had a place to live.

Anyone who has been around should know that I'm pretty fucking good at building IKEA shit. I built 3 Billy bookcases, 3 of those narrower cases that should be Billy but probably aren't, a "cafe/bar" table and two stools, a kitchen workbench, a small chest of drawers and a large chest of drawers. I'm pretty decent at this shit.

The wardrobe kicked my ass more than it should have. I claim complete and total exhaustion... but I had to take the sides off and put them back on the correct way up at one point. And while the doors close, they don't line up and there is a huge gap between two of them that may or may not have been part of the original design (if not, then I have NO idea why it's there). And the nailing the back on was a decided clusterfuck. But it went together and didn't immediately fall down when we put clothes in it, so I'm calling that a win.

Ma pottered around while I did that, and her workmate had to leave for a little while, but came back at a certain point (helped me stand up the wardrobe so I could finish it) and reorganised everything that the movers had put into places that Ma didn't like (mostly the box placement). And he rearranged the furniture in the living room (to the room design Ma and I came up with on the fly) and got things a little better organised so that the "oh god, oh god, oh god" feeling that always accompanies the day after a move when you see the chaos of your life spread across the floor of a new house.

Weirdly one of the topics of discussion was all the possible places we could put the Christmas tree in December... and there were a surprisingly large number of options, which is good.

And it was about 11pm by the time we all called it quits.

I was pretty damn shattered by that point... and driving home was a bit of an adventure... as was the simple act of walking from the car to the house. But I took a quick shower and fell into bed.

And my body pretty much gave up at that point. Everything just hurt. I also think that every time I would have just rolled over in my sleep I woke up because my body went "nup, can't do that boo, hurts too much".

This morning was... an adventure. I was convinced that my back was going to render me a useless lump, and the first steps out of bed were inconclusive. I could walk, but I was basically a little old man. Plus there was the lovely cough, from inhaling all the dust that comes along with a move.

A hot shower and some general movement helped, and I headed out to do my shopping an hour late, but still able to move, albeit a little slowly.

You know how they say "never go grocery shopping when you're hungry"... I would add "or the day after you've helped somebody move house" to that as good life advice. I basically bought frozen meals because I couldn't be bothered... and if I ended up flat on my back, I could at least feed myself to a degree. So the trolley looked a little sad, and I probably bought some comfort foods to just make myself feel better.

And carrying groceries up the stairs at my place was something of a challenge, but not horrible.

But then this afternoon I had a friend's engagement party... which mean I had to dress like a "grown up" for the first time in almost two years, and most of the people I knew at the party had never seen me in anything but nerdy tshirts, so that was amusing.

I basically hung out with the people I already knew, which is usually what happens at any kind of party, especially one where it seems like it's mostly family. But it was nice to be their for the pair of them, because while I mostly know him, she's lovely. I also got to meet his mum after hearing a lot about her, and she's fantastic.

So we hung out, ate some really good food, then made our leave when it seemed like the correct time do to so. I think the standing around was probably better for me than just sitting around the apartment, but I may pay for it tomorrow.

And I came home and had a nap, because I just couldn't even anymore.

But here we are... all caught up.

Now I really need to sleep... and hopefully I'll be a little better tomorrow.

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photo saturday: what a beach

This week has been hell... by which I mean the temperature ascended to an actual literal hellscape.

As evidence, I submit these two tweets from the SA Bureau of Meteorology on Thursday (and a fuckton of places around the state also broke previous records for highest temperature):

ADELAIDE RECORD. West Terrace has just cracked 46.2C at 1:42pm, after 130 years of records, beating its previous record of 46.1 on 12 January 1939 

Adelaide is now the hottest capital in Australia, having just reached 46.6C at 3:35pm, beating the previous record in Melbourne of 46.4

The rest of the week wasn't much better.

Fuck everything.

Well, everything except air-conditioning, which allowed me to function as an actual human being for the majority of the week.

This week's DnD felt like it was portentous, but several things just happened to coincidentally line up. To start with I rounded out the finale of a series of adventures on Monday... and while I felt like I was flailing without a net in the first half last week, the second half went much more smoothly.

I also got to do a number of callbacks, which I always enjoy. So that was good.

Wednesday we finally brought the storyline I've been playing since 27 September 2017 to a close... problematically not a completely satisfying or completely successful close, but a close non the less. But my character didn't die, I gave the other characters the letters I'd written them and got the emotional reactions I was looking for (including oddly, from the player who didn't read the letter at all, which was fitting for his character... whether he ever does or not, I don't really care).

I wish we'd done a few things differently, all the way up to missing a number of clues in previous adventures that are obvious in retrospect, but were close to impossible to see in the moment.

The only downside is I have no fucking idea what the hell we're going to do this coming Wednesday.

Wednesday night's game was much less lethal and much more verbal (as usual), and we finally had what I consider to be the core group back together. I also burned my lip so badly on a party pie it blistered, so swings and roundabouts.

Thursday was a good game overall, but the fact that it was the 46.6C day, the game shop has dysfunctional air-conditioning and my car has none... yeah, it was a little bit of a trying time. But it was also the end of a trilogy of stories, which is sad given that I enjoyed playing that particular character again (my first and oldest... well, oldest in the sense of since I actually started playing). And the DM is very good, so hopefully it won't be too long before I get to be on his table for something else.

So DnD in general next week is looking like it could be a little bit of a mixed bag. We'll see I guess.

Otherwise this week was mostly staying indoors hiding from the heat.

Oh, and because I mentioned it last week, my knee completely returned to normal after the extreme bout of "ow" I had last Saturday. Granted it wasn't until about Tuesday (if memory serves, it may have been slightly earlier), but it improved a little each day, so I wasn't freaking out about it.

Today was essentially nothing.

We did the supermarket thing, but a) it's Australia Day (technically, the day off is Monday, but the day is actually today), b) Ma is in the process of packing her house to move in early February and c) there were no movies I really gave a crap about and d) we had nowhere we needed/wanted to go. So instead we hung around my place chatting until about noon, then wandered over to the Village for some lunch before she toddled off home.

So, yeah...

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photo saturday: opera slices

This week's post is brought to you by the letters "FML" and any number lower than 30.

The numbers, because it would have been nice to have more days with a temperature lower than that... or a night time temperature under 20.

As for FML, partly that's the heat, but we'll get to the rest of it.

I properly felt out of my depth for the first real time running a DnD game this week. I get why... the adventure is much more complex, but I do need to relay to the person who ran it for me and the Thursday numbskulls my admiration for the fact that he did a much better job.

And we have the second half of that adventure still to run this coming Monday. But that should be easier, all things considered.

I pulled the plug this week on the Wednesday night game (just for this week, not forever), partly because the guy who usually acts as taxi wasn't going to be there, which made me taxi-man, plus the heat, plus the fact that our DM had annoyed me earlier in the week.

It turned out to be a good idea anyway, because it allowed us to play for 6 hours at the Wednesday day game. Yeah... it was A LOT. I went toe to toe with the big bad guy and did 100 damage in a single turn, then got my ass handed to me by his minions and the other big bad.

And our DM finally revealed that he'd been sitting on a switcharoo between one of the NPCs and a villain we thought we'd killed already. Damn him... so now we have two different big bads to kill. Not to mention that my character is currently alone, all the party having turned on him thanks to the other big bad's ability to charm creatures.

So they're all planning a wedding, and I spent the last quarter of the game handing from a tree over a mountainous ravine, fully expecting that character to die. I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of disappointed that he didn't. If places had been reversed and I'd been the charmed one, I like to think that I would have just thrown one of them into the ravine without missing a beat.

No idea what the hell I'm going to do next week (although I'm in the process of writing them all letters that the character had already written them... because what use are friends if you can't emotionally manipulate them), but the character is most likely going to try and settle in for a rest, regain his lost health and spells, summon his celestial steed before he tries to head out again. And I also know that there is approximately 0.0000001% chance of me actually being able to do that once we sit back down at the table.

Thursday was a very talky game, but oddly, compared with the very fighty game last week, I lost more health this time. I also got to pretend to be a weird creature (on top of pretending to be my character). So that was a change of pace. Also the second time this particular character has done the body switching thing.

My comments about the group of players from last week remain the same since it was the same group. And will remain the same group for the third part of the trilogy next week.

Otherwise it was too damn hot this week.

Except that this was also Haircut Week and Chiro Week... fortunately not on the hottest of the days.

At least it was a little cooler up in the hills for Haircut Day. It was a very "on rails" visit, we did all the usual things, but Tink Jr was taking up all the air in the room as only a 7 year old can. Not in a bad way especially, but yeah, she is definitely a handful.

Chiro Day came with a side order of "ow my leg"... not from the chiro visit, but my knee had been giving me problems since about Wednesday morning, making life less fun, and my chiro said it was probably caused by my hips being slightly out of whack. Seriously, almost everything that falls apart on me is in some way related to my back.

But because she adjusted both my hips and my knee, it was a little whingy both last night and all day today. I may need to take another visit in the next week or so if it doesn't settle down like I hope it's going to.

Anyway... today wasn't really anything.

Shopping was minimal at best... I just buy too much stuff, don't use it all and it ends up going to waste, so I'm trying to only buy what I need, but I don't know what I need or what I want, so I buy stuff I think is going to be fine, and hope for the best.

Oh and Ma is moving between now and the Fringe. Much as I did in 2016. We definitely know how to move house in my family. Not. Hopefully her move will be much less stressful than my last one (although I do tend to find that moving stress is often inversely proportioned to how eager you are to move out of the old house... as in, from Childers Street to Wellington Square, very eager, from Wellington Square to here, not eager at all).

It also meant we really didn't have anything we wanted to do, and I didn't want to spend the day sitting, because in direct contrast to what you would expect, sitting is worse than walking around when it comes to my knee.

So we went to West Lakes. Which we haven't done in a while... at least since they totally redid the David Jones store down there. And we basically just wandered around the place, poked around in the stores we usually poke around in, and that was about that.

We did stop in the little cafe in David Jones for some lunch though, and that was very pleasant. And much quieter and less urgh than the food court. So we need to remember that in future I think... not just for there, but for DJs in general.

And that's it for the day really.

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movies: how to train your dragon - the hidden world

It's been 8 years and 9 months since I first made the acquaintance of Toothless and Hiccup and How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World brings their trilogy to an end in a heartbreakingly beautiful way.

Lets get the two most important things out of the way first.

I cried... oh baby, I cried. The entire last fifteen minutes of the movie in fact I think.

The effects and visuals in this movie are astounding. There was more than once where I thought that the water could just have been real actual footage of water it was that damn good. And the textures, light and smoke effects, hair, dragon eyes... so many things that were stunningly beautiful.

Okay, now that that's been dealt with.

HTTYD:THW is a beautiful climax to the story of Toothless and Hiccup and the denizens of Berk, both viking and dragon. If anything, it's a simpler story, like the first one rather than the second.

Dean DeBlois has finished off the trilogy with the same heart and deftness of touch that I've come to expect from him and from this series.

And even though the villain, played with requisite malice by F. Murray Abraham, is fascinating (even without a ton of screen time), this story continues to be about the connections between fathers and sons, even if, as in this case, the son is a dragon. It's about letting go of something you love because that's what is right for them, rather than what is right for you.

Jay Baruchel continues to project so much emotion into Hiccup, but has also subtly aged the character vocally from the awkward teenager of the first movie to the man he's become in this one. America Ferrera maintains the no-nonsense Astrid as the Yang to Hiccup's Yin and makes you believe that she honestly loves this man.

To be perfectly honest, I could have probably done with a lot less of the supporting players this time around... Snotlout, Tuffnut, Ruffnut and Fishlegs all feel out of place somehow... or at the very least, mostly surplus to requirements. None of them really add anything to the Hiccup story, they all have a little bit of their own business to do, but it doesn't feel necessary (particularly Snotlout and Tuffnut).

I was glad to see that Cate Blanchett had returned as Hiccup's mother Valka, but it wouldn't have been quite the same if they hadn't also brought back Gerard Butler as Hiccup's father, albeit only in some perfect little flashbacks.

Side note: Both Craig Ferguson and Kit Harington return as Gobber the blacksmith and Eret, son of Eret respectively...and given what the previous movie "revealed" about Gobber (heavy sarcasm on the word revealed there), I can't help but wonder if this movie did the same with Eret, if only due to a very brief and even more subtle scene towards the end. And if so, what does that mean about Gobber and Eret... of course the answer to that could be that I'm reading entirely too much into it.

I also appreciated that the callbacks in this movie are often quite subtle... I'm sure that some of the scenes towards the end are set up almost exactly like similar scenes from the first movie, which gives you that wealth of emotion as your brain makes the visual connections.

And even with my minor complaints, I honestly don't care. This movie concludes the trilogy beautifully and that's really all I care about.

yani's rating: 4 lightfuries out of 5

photo saturday: das circles

This week felt more like a normal week... for a sliding scale of whatever the hell normal is anyway.

There were not one, not two, not even three but four games of DnD... which made my Wednesday a little full on.

Monday's game... yeah, let's assign that to the m'eh pile. I didn't have my full group back from various Christmas things, I was running a very Christmas themed adventure and after juggling the universe for a long period of time to avoid having to interact with a particular individual, there wasn't really a way to avoid having him on my table. I mean it wasn't hideous, but yeah, definitely someone I want far, far away from me in the future.

Otherwise, the session was pretty good... I'd decided to try and go as long as possible without referring directly to "Santa" during the adventure, and made it maybe halfway through before I slipped up. Not that it was surprising anyone, you go to his workshop to make toys and then hijinks ensue for fucks sake.

It's silly, but it's fun. And now it goes back in the drawer until next year.

Wednesday was... good, but frustrating, but also good. We're finishing up a "campaign" (and I use the term very loosely, since I've been at every single one of the sessions bar one over the last eighteen or so months, but I've seen so many others cycle through it's not even funny), and we're at the abode of the big bad... and it's just frustrating. And the DM is a little too lethal, or a little too bent on keeping us at emotional and physical breaking point (as characters)... or at least at the point where we're fast running out of resources.

And I'll say it, not my preferred style of gameplay... yes, it fits the setting, yes it makes narrative sense, but I've already lost one character to this particular campaign (and while I could probably bring her back, I'm honestly not sure it's worth it given the circumstances, since everything she owns bar magic items has also been destroyed). And I think possibly it's just gone on that little bit too long.

Wednesday evening's game was tame by comparison. Given it's a different DM, different DM style and honestly, we all want exactly what our DM is putting into the world for this particular campaign. It did mean that we spent about three hours doing something that the DM expected would take us about 10 minutes, partially because I think we were all a little slow on the uptake.

But it was rich, juicy roleplay, and I loved every minute of it.

Thursday's game let me return to my very first character for the first time in about six months... which was fantastic. And it was someone I haven't had DM a full game for me before, but who I've both played with and run a game for. Plus is was a Tier 3 game, which I've only played a handful of, and only once with this character. Which made it a great game. Sure, there was at least one person I would happily have launched from the table directly into the sun, but that's Adventure's League for you.

I also got to have a chat with one of my DnD friends who I've been a little worried about this week... a bunch of stuff had been going on with him, and I think he needed some of that good, clean Yani energy, because he turned up randomly on Wednesday at the store just to get a prolonged hug before heading on his way, and then he was there on Thursday, not at the same table, but in the room, and I drove him home afterwards and got all of the juicy gossip and delivered much of the hugs.

Otherwise, a slow week... my new headphones (after my other ones mostly gave up the ghost last week, but are still powering on due to the magic powers of superglue) arrived, you guessed it, on the one day I'm actually out of the house, Wednesday. So technically they didn't arrive at all on Wednesday and instead arrived on Friday when the nice man handed them too me and made me sign an electronic pad with my finger.

I haven't used them yet, but they look pretty.

Still a little sad I couldn't find a pair with only one cable like the ones I already have though.

Today we had a plan, but we also needed to do a little bit of hot shoe shuffle in order for us to actually get to our plan.

We started with the supermarketry. I honestly need to work out how much stuff I need to buy currently, because I'm out three nights a week at present, plus the rest of Wednesday, so it's all a bit out of whack to be honest. And I'm still intending to eat my way through basically everything in my freezer, provided I can actually find things that are still edible and not frozen hunks of concrete.

But otherwise, average.

Then back here, usual rigmarole. We decided last week that this week was a good time to go to the movies for the last of the How To Train Your Dragon movies, and we could have gone to Marion again (having only done that a couple of weeks ago), or fill in some time and then go to the GU Film House in the city. Given that it's school holidays and it's a family movie, we decided the city was a better idea, since there would be much less people there (news flash, we were correct, total of about a dozen people I think).

So we killed some time at Big W, Kmart and Officeworks, doing the Goodwood Road, Anzac Highway, city circle. Nothing mind boggling... we looked at pretty much all the things we usually look at, plus some things we don't. Bought a few bits of nothing much. Essentially killed some time.

Then we headed into town and the movies. Only to discover that we were there at 12:30 for a 1:15 session and the movie complex didn't actually open until 12:45, because reasons I guess. So more time was killed.

After the movie (more on that later, as always) we just headed back here and Ma toddled off down the road to home.

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photo saturday: textual

A bit of a nothing week this week really... I mean I know it was New Years and everything, but even so...

Last Sunday I ended up clearing out some of my kitchen cupboards, discovering that I have a bad habit of buying multiple replacements/backups for something I already have. This is why I now have two bottles of tomato sauce, three jars of Dijon mustard and two full tubes of Berocca.

Partly I blame the shit cupboard designs, since they're too narrow and waaaaay too deep, and stuff gets lost.

Anyway.

New Years happened.

Wednesday was my only game of DnD this week... and yeah, it was a bit of a clusterfuck. I did get turned into a silver T-Rex (because my character is a silver dragonborn, so of course) for a brief period, which kept me alive a lot longer.

But that was it... no Monday game because of New Years, no Wednesday night game because people have lives or whatever I guess, no Thursday game because the person who would DM for me is on holidays of some description (also it was too fucking hot on Thursday).

I will say that being pretty much by myself in the house all week, with the exception of Wednesday, kinda did a number of my head. Yeah, not a fan of it.

So, I did sweet fuck all that was interesting this week. Even compared to normal.

Today wasn't overly exciting either... but at least it was something.

We did the supermarket thing... I really do need to use up all of the stuff in my fridge and freezer, so I didn't get a ton of stuff... just bits and pieces really.

Afterwards, we decided to head into the city, not for anything specific, mostly to see if there was anything in the Christmas decoration oeuvre still hanging about... with a side order of whatever else caught our eye.

The answer? Not a lot really. There were a few bits and pieces in Myer and David Jones, but other than some cards that Ma wanted, it was all a bit "shit that clearly nobody wanted even now it's cheap".

 We did wander around one of those slightly more upscale Japanese interesting plastic crap and toys places that has opened downstairs from David Jones... I can't remember the name of it to be honest, but it's a cute store. And I found a black gel pen that was in the shape of a feather made of silicon. Weird, but cute. And it'll be useful when my very last black Lego gel pen gives up the ghost.

Other than that, not really much of a sausage.

We stopped off at Boost when we were in need to a sit down, watched the passing weirdness of the world go past and then called it quits.

And that was that...

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2019

And here we are... 2019.

The International Year of Indigenous Languages, Moderation and the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements.

You know those times when you're just going through the motions because it's tradition or it's what you always do, or whatever the reasons. Yeah, that really does feel like my whole Christmas and New Year period. I do what I do because it's what I do.

Up to and including yesterday. Yes, I ticked all the appropriate New Years Eve boxes. I changed my bedding from red and green to black and white. I took down the old calendar. I posted my Top 9 on Instagram and wrote a very lacklustre Year in Review post. I made sure my sink was mostly empty. I took my trash and my recycling out. In essence, I sorted my environment.

It didn't feel like anything though. I was doing the things I do on New Years Eve because this was the day to do them, not because it felt like the last day of the year (if that makes any sense at all).

Then in the evening, I made some dinner (chicken with tomato and mango relish... and thankfully the relish was one I'd prepared earlier out of the freezer) and settled down to watch movies.

And I didn't even get any movies for Christmas this year... fortunately there were things I'd bought or been given that I hadn't gotten around to watching yet. So I went with The Lego Batman Movie and The Shape of Water.

That got me to about 11:45, I played around until about 12:30, stopping briefly to half watch the two square inches of fireworks I can see from my doorway.

And then I called it a night.

Today has been... mostly inconsequential. I got up and did what I would do any other morning... had cereal and coffee, watched some stuff on YouTube. I did do that thing I tend to do at the end/beginning of the year, where I go through my social media accounts and weed out the people I'm no longer interested in, and in the case of Instagram, going through the people following me to clear out the old, unused accounts or mostly empty accounts or just the people who shouldn't be following me.

I also tried to make my usual Instagram/Social Print Studio calendar... but it seems that Instagram doesn't want to play nicely with their interface and I'm going to need to go about it a different way. Which is annoying. But not hard.

Otherwise I just phaffed about.

2019... it's basically like 2018 but there's currently less of it.

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two thousand and eighteen in review

Looking back through this year's posts, a few things became apparent.

Firstly, almost all my weeks are the same... DnD games on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, a monthly haircut and chiro visit, the weekly supermarket/shopping trip. And we didn't go to as many movies, or theatre shows this year either.

It doesn't perhaps make for as interesting a Year in Review as previous years, but 2018 definitely had it's moments.

January: Nothing much to report... a lot of Assassins Creed and not much out of the ordinary.

February: Fringe started.

March: Fringe continued, with a total of 18 shows. I turned 44.

April: I finished Assassins Creed Origins... and was slightly disappointed by the ending. We went to the 2018 Biennial of Australian Art.

May: I didn't realise that running a DnD game on that particular Monday would lead to seven months of running games for a recurring group once a week. And my Thursday group left the game store and started new characters in a new storyline.

June: Ma's 71st birthday. We went to the Waterhouse Natural Science Art show. I kissed a boy I shouldn't have kissed... but am glad I did, even if it broke my brain for a little while. We caught the Musée d'Orsay exhibition before it headed back to France.

July: I got laid in the most spectacular fashion at 3am on a Wednesday morning. I had my 13th bloggiversary. I attended my first ever AVCon, and ran three DnD games.

August: Minor plumbing related issues, one easily fixed, the other which took several attempts for some reason.

September: I sliced the end of my finger off.

October: We went to a Fork on the Road for the first time in what feels like forever (but is probably about 12 months). I had my final appointment with my doctor to change the dressing on my finger. We stopped by the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year show.

November: I finished up Horizon Zero Dawn, which I haven't written anything about, but really enjoyed. My Thursday DnD group moved our games to Wednesday... for now anyway.

December: All the Christmas things that I was generally unenthusiastic about... tree stuff, chocolate stuff, actual Christmas Day stuff.

Unsurprisingly both the "kissing a boy" and the "slicing my finger off" are the two events this year that haven't completely healed (for want of a better term). The end of my finger is still a little odd... as is my relationship with The Boy, especially now The Boy has A Girl.

For the most part though, I have a routine. Which gets me out of the house and interacting with actual living humans. At least several days a week.

There's also a whole bunch of self reflection there, or would be, if I wanted to dig into it. But I pretty much know what it all is, and why it's there, so to be honest it can stay where it is and mind it's own business.

Like the review, I think my "favourite thing" list for this year is fairly short...

yani's favourite things 2018

More Dungeons and Dragons

Yeah, I've played somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150+ games of DnD this year. And maybe run about a third of those, maybe less.

Me running once a week started off as a way to avoid questionable DMs and players I didn't care for. What it turned into was a group of people (the numbers vary) who came back to my table for seven months. At least one of whom I think is only ever playing on my table.

It's made me a better DM, it's allowed me to give back some of the experiences I've had as a player to other players. It's also let me give some of those experiences back to the DMs who ran for me when I was new. And running for a recurring group has let me play around in the margins of various adventures, making plenty of time for character role play opportunities.

Outside of running, I've played around with who my characters are, I've actually done character voices in a couple of instances, and I feel like I've both knitted groups together and torn them apart (in-game groups that is).

Even the changes to Adventurer's League didn't put much of a dent in my enjoyment (or at least not for long, and it did allow me to have a good long whinge about stuff at possibly the perfect time)... I mean they're still incredibly stupid and I have no idea why the hell they need to be in place... but they're in place and they don't ruin the game, they just create more housekeeping outside of it.

Critical Role

This also comes under the general heading of DnD, and while I was aware of the first season of Critical Role before I started playing, it was only when they started their second campaign that I jumped in with both feet.

I mean what's not to love... professional voice actors (is that a pejorative, are they not just actors? I mean it's how they introduce the show, but still) playing DnD, heavy on the character building and role play (and voices).

Movies

It has been a lean year for movies... we only managed to see 12 things (technically 11, since one was a movie that came out last year).

Either we just never got around to seeing things while they were in the cinemas, or the reviews and word of mouth I heard after things came out made me reconsider wanting to see it.

Only three things ended up with a perfect score... Coco, Black Panther and Call Me By Your Name.

So that's all of 2018 done and dusted.

And as always, today (about an hour ago I think) marks my 9th Twitterversary.

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