Jeanne-Baptiste Emannuel Zorg and Commissioner James Gordon are played by the same person.

Your mind is now broken.

So I'm back.  My sister flies back to England tomorrow.  Said good byes tonight, since I'll be working.

Week off was good, though very rainy, for some strange reason.  Ended up stuck inside a lot, so not nearly as much relaxing on the deck, or fishing as I'd hoped.  Still, a good holiday, and a good chance to spend time with my sister and nephew.  He's 11 months, and crawling over everything.  Not easy to keep up with him.

Went to a farmers market, and came away with a china tea-pot specially designed for brewing loose tea, as well as a bag of organic Irish Breakfast blend, and a bag of gunpowder tea.  Also picked up a cafetiere today, so I can finally brew fresh coffee.  Given how bad my obsession with fresh teas and coffees got when I was living at Portland Street with Andrew, I'm a little worried to be honest.  Five months from now, I'll have whole cupboards given over just to storing my twenty varieties of tea and coffee or some crap like that.

Still need an espresso pot, and a grinder.  Working on that.

Going to build a home theatre pc.  I've always been a fan of them; again, really enjoyed having one at Portland Street.  Admittedly, living with only one flatmate, and no communal space reduces the utility somewhat, since you don't really have the whole "everyone dumps their media onto one server" deal going on, but whatever.  I'm mostly just jonesing for a proper home theatre set-up, instead of watching everything on my laptop.  It'll be nice to be able to throw something on in the background while I write.  There's also the fact that I just want to build something again.  Working in a computer store has left me itching to throw some tech together, and I really want to play around with linux again.

Final thought; I've been messing around with Reign, amongst other variations on the One Roll Engine, for a while now, trying to find an application for it.  Now, I've found myself dusting an old project, my live system that I failed to get off the ground, and re-appropriating it as a tabletop rpg using the Reign system (originally entitled Exiles, though nothing to do with the novel I'm now writing by the same name.  I just happen to like that name.  I'll be renaming the setting to Haven to avoid confusion).  They match well, with only a few tweaks needed.  The hard work is writing up spell lists and stats for all the monsters.

And, of course, fleshing out the actual setting some more.  I'm very relieved to see that Andrew kept the old website up, because my terrible habit of doing work directly on the wiki means that a lot of my notes are only online.  I'm now digging through it all to see what setting material I have that I can work with.  I'll be tweaking and rounding out some stuff, keeping some parts of the Stormhaven material that I based the world on, and dropping other parts.  Stormhaven being dead now, I really don't see much of a need to try to cleave to the original material too closely.  Out of respect to Toby and Karl I'll be changing the name of the city to Stormguard, close enough to the original meaning without actually infringing.  Since not much is even remotely similar, the name remains simply as an acknowledgement of their fine work, from which this setting was born.  The Emiroge pantheon will be carrying over, since that was all Dan's work, and he very kindly gave me permission to use it.

If I ever get my notes properly written up, I'll try to post them to scribd or something, so that you guys can grab them.  I'm sure someone out there must have some use for a political fantasy post apocalypse survival horror setting.

Chapters 1 to 7 (plus what I have of chapter 8) are now up.  Remember, this is still all very, very rough draft.  Characterisation is pretty inconsistent, because I've been getting a better handle on the characters (or sometimes losing it) as I go along.  Plus there are a bunch of continuity problems.

Still, for anyone interested in reading this stuff, here it is.

Story wise, we spend a couple of chapters with Arsha here, to get her side of things, before we kick off a pretty huge action sequence.  We also meet the Watchmen, properly, though my intention is to not explain too much at this point.  It'll need tweaking, but I'm hoping to strike the right balance between offering answers and just giving people questions.  The plan is that a proper exposition segment will actually lay everything out once Rachael is safely aboard the Triskelion.  But before that happens a giant monster is going to tear up a large portion of London, which ought to be fun.

I'm still not entirely sure about my pacing and structure here.  The general layout, of introducing Rachael, and then Arsha, seems solid.  I'm less certain about the chase scene we just had in the forest... I get the feeling that it doesn't gel particularly with the big action sequence coming up.  In fact, I may cut out the jungle sequence, and shift the interaction between Justin & Rachael to the hospital.

I dunno.  The forest/jungle itself is very likely going to be important later, but I'm not sure if it needs anything more than a brief introduction here.

Getting my head around Arsha, as a character, has been difficult.  I've been playing around with writing diary entries for her, stuff like that, trying to get the voice of the character.  You'll notice she's not very heavily involved in her 'introductory chapters' which is largely because she's the one character on the Triskelion that I have no idea how to write.  Micah and Ilona come so easily, as does Rishi.
(OK, not entirely true.  I haven't even introduced Sarah yet, because I have no clue what I'm going to do with that character.)

I'm pretty sure I need to make both the main characters a little older.  Around 14, instead of 12.  The action, the story, and the relationships just call for a little more maturity from both of them.

Slowly working my way through words for everyone who responded to my last post.  It's harder than I thought to find things that be boiled down to one word.

Words from lentilthelegume 

Caring - You know, the more I think about this one, the more I realise it's not really as true as people think it is.  Or perhaps, not true in the way a lot of people might imagine.  I am a caring person, and I'm certain of that... when you spend most of a year as a 'Care Worker', it's well, kind of your job description.  But at the same time, I did so well as a care worker because I knew how not to care.  I knew how to just shut it down, step back, and not let things affect me.  There's really no other way to deal with the kind of job where people die on you, all the time.
When people come to me with problems, I rarely offer sympathy.  That's something I reserve for where it's truly needed.  What I offer, most often, is solutions.
My third week on the job, I saw someone die, right in front of me.  I was pretty OK with it.  A week later his daughter sent us a box of chocolates, as thanks for looking after her dad, and I damn near burst into tears on the spot.

Comics - All Joel's fault.  Whilst I've always enjoyed comics off and on (read 2000AD for about 3 solid years), I never really got into them properly until I arrived at Lancaster, met bold_or_stupid, and was leant a copy of V For Vendetta, followed closely by Watchmen, and the Warren Ellis Stormwatch run. Later on I ended up hanging around with bodybag_pilgrim , and getting handed most of his bookshelf at some point or another.
I'm pretty sure I'll get into writing comics at some point or another.  I've got ideas that I'm still playing around with, both for creator owned properties and some existing series.  In particular I find myself increasingly wanting to get my hands on an X-Men title, preferably one featuring Emma Frost, because she's just too much fun.

Brave - I'm not really sure how to respond to this, because I'm not even sure of what bravery is.  In my case it just seems to be stubborness for the most part.

Individual - This word can be read two ways.  The first would be "unique", which everyone is, but too many people forget.  The more comfortable I am around people, the more I tend to let my individuality out of it's box.  I am, I know full well, a very strange person, and I don't always show it.  Of course the other way it can be read is "alone".  Sometimes it does kind of work out that way.
I think sometimes the trick to not following the crowd, if there is a trick, is being comfortable with your own company.

Arms - I, uh, have two of them?  Umm... Lentil, you're a very strange girl sometimes.

Meme:
Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

Dear god, when I actually think about the mechanics of this meme, it's hideous.  I mean depending on how many people on your f-list get involved, and how many you respond to... well each those is yet another post with explanations of the words given to you by other people in the meme, which only propagates it further, causing more people to get involved, meaning more people you get words from, meaning...

We could be at this for months people.


Words given to me by bodybag_pilgrim (since he's never in short supply of them):


Wokslinger - There's a temptation to try to turn this into some all encompassing statement about multi-culturalism and a love for the world, all the things that my father has done such a great job of passing on to me, and all of that...

But let's just cut to the chase and say that woks are awesome.  Seriously, the single most useful piece of cookware in the world is a flat-bottom wok.  After I arrived in Canada, it was, for a long time, the only real piece of cookware I had, aside from one small pan.  With a flat-bottomed wok you can do just about anything.  Stir-fry is obvious, but it's also a functional frying pan, and good for making curries, soups, deep fat frying, omlettes, stews... just about anything really.  If you only have one piece of cookware, make it a flat bottomed wok.

Now, naturally, a real wok is not flat bottomed, but sadly requires an open flame, and gas cookers are so hard to find in furbished apartments.

Earnest - Not unexpected.  If I were writing this list for myself, I'd probably pick this word.  I guess if I'm supposed to be unpacking what this means to me, I'd say that it encompasses many of my faults in a positive way.  If I talk too much, trust too easily, or fail to get the joke, this is probably why.  I'm kind of OK with that.

Well-read - Flipping things around, not one I'd choose for myself, because I always think of myself as not nearly well read enough (meaning, of course, that I'm sort of person who considers it important to be well read.  I guess there's som).

Caring - There are some aspects of who I am that I feel very unsure about, others that I have a great deal of confidence in.  For the most part, this is one of the latter.

Missed - It is difficult to think of myself as an empty space.  The idea that I can exist as a presence in someone else's psychic landscape is not something that comes naturally to me.  I never stop being surprised by phrases such as "We were just talking about you."


--EDIT--
-- Regarding the words I am giving out:  For the record, I am very much free-associating here.  If, for any reason, anyone finds a word I choose offensive, or awkward, or you're just plain curious, ask me, and I'll explain what I meant by it, if I 'meant' anything.  Just thought I'd mention that.--

So, my sister has arrived safe, if somewhat worn out, to be met by some utterly vile weather, after about a week of blazing sunshine.

My nephew has somehow transformed into this functioning human being, capable of moving under his own power, and even feeding himself quite successfully.  It's all kind of obvious, but still completely astonishing.  I last saw him when he was still breast-feeding.  Now he's sitting in a high chair, munching on chips.

He still threw up on me.  Of course.

In about a week I'll be heading up to Blue Hawk Lake with Cathy and Aristotle, to visit my aunt and uncle there for a week.  This promises to be a welcome escape from my increasingly dull job of looking at stuff, and writing numbers on a list, and then getting shouted at because the numbers on the list aren't the numbers he wants to be on the list.  Right now, the prospect of a week spent relaxing in a beautiful house, overlooking a secluded lakeshore, sounds absolutely perfect.

So, update.  Chapter 5 is finally finished (ish).  It's too long, clumsy, badly paced, it took me far too long to write, and I hate it, but it's done.

I have no idea how I'll eventually go about fixing it, but we'll leave that for later.  On the bright side, this concludes act one of the story, and now I get to move on to act 2, tentatively entitled "Airships, **** Yeah!"

*Cue screaming power chord*

So, yes, after spending five chapters getting a handle on Rachael, and her situation, we move our attention to Arsha, and her thrilling life of excitement and adventure, sailing through the cracks in the world on a ship powered by the souls of lightning.

Chapters 1-5 can be found here.  As always any comments are most welcome.
(Oh, yeah, there's also a new chapter 0 / prologue thingy that will probably just be part of chapter 1 that I added on there.  Only just remembered it after uploading).

So, pretty good week really.  On Wednesday I did some shopping and general strolling about Down Town, with Greg and George.  Dropped by the Hairy Tarantula, the first gaming store I've seen with five cats on the premises (and presumably no mice).  One of them was sat by the cash register, staring at everyone who came to pay.  As anti-fraud devices go, that rates as one of the most impressive I've seen yet.

I also dropped by one of the most famous comic book stores in all of North America, which I cannot, for the life of me, remember the name of now.

Between these two, I managed to nab the first book of Gail Simone's Birds of Prey run, which I've been meaning to pick up for ages, but couldn't find in any of my local comic stores (they all had the entire run save for book one.  Grrr) and Nextwave book 1, which I got because it's freaking Nextwave, man!  If you haven't experienced the awesomeness this comic yet, find someone who has it, and borrow it, right now.  I also picked up the first issue of Grant Morrison's new Batman & Robin (featuring Dick Grayson as Batman, and Damien Al'Ghul as Robin), and the third/final issue of Morrison's new Seaguy: Slaves to Mickey Eye mini-series.  Regarding the first of these, I'd been pondering for a while now how one would go about inserting an interesting new villain into Batman's somewhat run-down menagerie, without involving any super-powers.  In this opening issue, Grant provides the answer, and reminds us just how fucking terrifying his writing can be, when he's going for the scare.  Seaguy hits pretty much the opposite note; instead of being scary, it's subtly creepy, and kind of goofy all at once, which is cool.  The ending is pretty much quintessential Grant Morrison, providing a great sense of closure, without actually closing anything at all.

Side-tracking randomly for a moment here, I'll also mention that I recently snatched up Alan Moore's new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in trade form, and it is beautiful and brilliant, everything you'd expect LXG to be, and yet completely throwing you for a loop at the same time.

Today, I mostly lazed around re-reading Gunnerkrigg Court (and if you're not, you really, honestly should be.  Click that link to start from the beginning.  Reading through again, I keep spotting little details that make me realise just how much thought Tom Siddell puts into his work.  There is one page where the specific high school science experiment they are performing is a fucking metaphor for the entire series).  Other stuff; got my license exchanged today.  The process was entirely painless, and I am now fully licensed to drive in Canada.  In fact, by a process of temporal magic, I have been a fully licensed driver since 2005, which is good news for my insurance premiums.  Then, I discovered Ocean.  Ocean is what happens when you take a supermarket and devote it entirely to imported food.  I don't just mean Eastern imports, I mean anything imported.  Next to the aisle full of nothing but rice was an entire aisle devoted to British foods, such as Tetley's tea (dear God, why not something drinkable?), marmalade, and brown sauce.  Still, I was mostly there for the Chinese stuff.  Spent about an hour just wandering around the place staring at all of the awesome and weird foods they have.  I'll be going back with a bigger shopping list and some recipe ideas next time, to try out some new stuff.

So help me God, the fresh fish was so fresh, they had it swimming around live in tanks.

By way of The ISB, I present what is simultaneously the worst and most awesome wrestling federation ever.

INTER-SPECIES WRESTLING!

The clip below features a fight between a male porn-star, a man in a tiger mask, and 300lb grizzly bear!

This same wrestling federation has managed to set up a rivalry between a luchador panda named El Hijo De Bamboo, and the man who killed his luchador panda father, a Quebec-seperatist ex-Nazi whose moves are inspired by Tony Jaa.

Awesome!

A more complete write-up, with links, from which I have stolen liberally, can be found here

Crossposting this from the LURPS forums, because I just realised that everyone deserves the miracle that is...

Microwave Brownies

Oh yes, this shit just got real.

Gather the following;

• 4 tablespoons of flour
• 4 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• 2 tablespoons of butter

OK, now here's what you're gonna do. First, put the milk, sugar, and butter in a coffee mug, and microwave on high for about 45 seconds to a minute. Milk should be hot, butter should be melted, and the sugar should have dissolved. Now put the flour and cocoa in a second mug, and pour the hot liquid on, a little dribble at a time, stirring constantly. At first you'll get a thick powdery paste, but it will slowly thin down to a goo. Yes, it should be quite runny at this point... enough so that you could drink it if you wanted t...

Damn. OK, let's try that again, and this time DO NOT DRINK YOUR GOO!
(Honestly, I can't count the situations where this advice holds true)

Right. Finally, microwave your mug o' goo for a minute and a half to two minutes. Remove from microwave and GOD DAMN! BROWNIES!

(OK, technically it's brownie, singular, unless you do a bunch of mugs at once or some shit. I dunno.)

You can wait for the brownie to cool, or just add a dollop of ice-cream and chow down. Guess which option I prefer.

I love this recipe because you can make it anywhere. It's actually hard to find a kitchen that doesn't have all of the necessary ingredients. Also, don't be afraid to improvise. Don't worry about "tablespoons", just find a measure and keep the proportions right. Use oil if you don't have butter or margarine (not as tasty, but works). For dark chocolate brownies replace milk with half milk, half water, or all water. For milkier brownies add a tablespoon or two of milk powder (possibly a splash more milk to keep the consistency right). And if you have them, throw a handful of crushed nuts of some kind in there. Walnuts are amazing.

(Here's a hint; the answer rhymes with "Duck Bear")

In episode 3 of Chuck, Adam Baldwin beats a man unconscious using a microwave oven.


--Edit--

I wish to further add that in episode 4, Yvonne Strahovski uses a bar of soap as a weapon.  I really wish I was good enough to be making this up.

Buffy: Season Eight - Living Doll (Issue #25)

Buffy is awesome again!  Yayyyyy!!!


Seaguy: Slaves To Mickey Eye (Issue #2)

Cross-dressing bulls.

...

Seriously.

Also, "To the Octomarine!"



Also, I just started watching Chuck, and it is genius.  The first episode contains 150% of your recommended daily dosage of AWESOME!

(Also, 100% of your recommended daily dosage of Adam Baldwin.  Oh fuck yes.)

First off, OHMYFUCKINGGODSOFREAKINGAWESOME!

Spoilers ( to follow... )

Storm just broke over my house.  Air feels like you could cut it.  It's been blistering hot these past few days.  Starting to wish I could wear shorts at work.

Speaking of which, air-con at work is broken.  Stuck on 25C.  Fucksticks.

Fun weekend.  Went along to Kennedy Road Tabernacle, and had a really good time.  Dropped by the youth service the following evening, which was also cool, and then spent Tuesday hanging out at Bramalea mall with Allen and his friend Suzy.  Bought myself a $400 set of brushed steel heavy bottomed cookware for just $170.  Very happy about this.  Finally have an actual fucking frying pan.  Rivets, not that stupid welded shit that falls apart on you (remember people, if you can't beat a man's brains out with it, you can't fry a fucking steak in it).

The store is improving greatly.  Head office very happy with how we've turned things around.  Also, should be getting a raise.  Everyone went out for dinner to celebrate, and stuffed ourselves full of truly excellent chicken wings.

Haven't written anything in the last couple of days.  Bit annoyed about that.  Well, haven't written any actual story.  Have done a lot of background notes and ideas; sorted out a bunch of problems with my arc plot, and my general "why everything works the way it does".

Have to go to work now.  Dollhouse season finale will have to wait until I get back.
 

((Also: *Throws sticks at Lentil*.  Because she asked me to))

This is a link to chapters 1 to 4 of Exiles (warning:  very much rough draft):  www.scribd.com/share/upload/11309404/2nr72e1ka3bmtkh7x8wz
Just so you know.

Do I actually need to say that comments and critiques would be more than welcome?  Even just "I liked it" or "I hated it" is pretty useful.

"Robert Rodriguez is ready to cut a wide swathe, and his plans include re-launching the 'Predator' franchise for Fox and co-directing 'Machete.'"

Just to take a moment to pick your jaw up off of the floor, before you read the full article here: http://www.variety.com/VR1118002792.html

Yes, not only is Robert Rodriguez helming a new Predator movie, a concept so mind blowingly awesome it should come with a public health warning, but he's also finally making his most insanely awesome half-baked-idea-that-no-one-will-take-seriously into a reality:

Just looked back and noticed quite a few that nobody guessed. For those who were curious, here are the answers:

( *snip*... )

So, in summary, I like weird-ass films that nobody else has heard of, and choose even weirder quotes from the ones people have.

"Now for this song you probably all want to get your lighters out. Or, since this is a Jonathan Coulton audience, just wave your DS, or your lighter app for your iPhone."
-- Paul & Storm

So, that was an evening comprised entirely of awesome and win.

Jonathan Coulton, of "I wrote the freaking awesome song at the end of Portal" fame (who I knew of long before he exploded into internet celebrity with his work for Valve and appearances at PAX... so there) performed in Toronto tonight.

I live in Toronto.

2 & 2 managed to equal 4, and my friend Adam and I nabbed tickets and wandered on down, managing to hammer out our character concepts for an upcoming D&D game along the way (because let's face it, when you're off to see Jonathan Coulton, it's time to ramp up the geekishness to full force).

Shit was epic.

Arriving at the Lula Lounge we discovered that we could have got in early if we had dinner reservations... which was OK, because at that point the guy in front of us turned around and said "I've got reservations and I've just had four people bail on me. Anyone want to share a table?"
So yeah, ended up sat with a bunch of completely random people, who were all cool, crazy, and awesome, and chatted over dinner before the show started. Great food, nice wine, a beautiful dinner and cabaret club setting, and a generally great atmosphere ensued, and everyone got along amazingly well (ah the joys of being amongst people who can make Star Wars jokes). And then the music started.

Opening act, Paul & Storm, turned out to be more of a stand up comedy group than a musical act (in a good way), and I laughed so hard it hurt. A lot. The heckling and general audience participation was plentiful, and they played to it really well, finishing up with a piratical number that took about four times longer than it was allegedly supposed to, because it kept getting hijacked by the combined forces of audience and performer improvisation.
Geek crowds; where people aren't afraid to try to upstage the musicians.

And then of course the man himself came on, and played just about every song I could want him to play, and it was awesome. The same open atmosphere prevailed, and I got my chance to crack up the entire audience by responding indignantly to an off-hand crack about the British. So that was fun.
And yeah, he finished up with Re: Your Brains, because there's not much that's more fun than an entire crowd getting to sing the zombie part. First time I've seen a musician tell an audience that they're too tuneful.

Left with a signed t-shirt, a photograph, and the look of dawning horror on Jonathan's face after I informed him that my nephew was, in part, named after him.

"I, uh, really don't know how to feel about that."

I love my crazy family, I really do.