You Can Only Watch If You Already Know What Happens
This is interesting and a bit weird. The Malaysian film board have decreed that only Christians can watch The Passion of The Christ.
Those wacky Malaysians. They're in the Commonwealth, you know.
I mention this only because it's my last day at work, and I'm going to try not to think about the Commonwealth too much after this.
Friday, July 30
Wednesday, July 28
Tuesday, July 27
Continuum 2004
I went up to Leicester over the weekend to attend Continuum, a gaming convention focused on Call of Cthulhu and Glorantha (not that I know a thing about Glorantha).
In the interests of me not having to type much, I'll cut and paste something I wrote elsewhere.
It was my first residential con, and really was rather good.
My only complaint is that it was sometimes possible to find yourself wandering around with not much to do. This was, admittedly, at least mostly my fault.
I'd say it would be a good idea to have the films running a lot of the time, so that people could go and chill, but then those films were very, very loud.
As it was, I spent a reasonable proportion of my idle time propping up the bar next to some hack from Dulwich.
I played GB Steve's Hellboy game on Friday night. I was a bit worried about that one, as I've never read any Hellboy, but it was great fun as it turned out. And I won a prize, which surprised me. Thanks, Steve! Two prizes, actually.
On Saturday, I played two games of Call of Cthulhu. Firstly, Camp Sunny (for which, again inexplicably, I won a prize. Go me.) - a rather fun story about students on holiday. Part of problem was that we were pretty pissed most of the time, so not really in any fit state to solve a mystery. It's a miracle any of us escaped. I hear other groups achieved a TPK.
The second Cthulhu game, on Saturday night, was the multi-group "Hesitation, Deviation, Repetition". I cannot even begin to describe how deliriously good this was. It was an excellent concept, which took advantage of the conditions that you can only achieve at a convention. I believe it was Paul Fricker who wrote that one, so well done him.
I can definitely blame Fricker for introducing me to the card game Falling, which (now that I think of it, much like his CoC scenario) is an excercise in mounting panic. I shall not dwell on the joys of trying to play Fluxx very late at night after a few beers.
On Sunday I was in Disaster '74. I played the hotel doctor, and basically just spent my time posturing, trying it on with the ladies and admiring myself in the mirror. Oh, and doling out pills. And not really knowing what to do in the event of a medical emergency.
Someone said I played a very convincing soap-opera doctor. There's a backhanded compliment if ever there was one.
Monday morning, bright and early (the curtains, remember), I breakfasted, handed my room key to a woman I can only hope really was the residence manager and strolled down to the station. Very impressively, it only took me an hour and a half to get from the platform at Leicester to my office in London. Not bad.
I went up to Leicester over the weekend to attend Continuum, a gaming convention focused on Call of Cthulhu and Glorantha (not that I know a thing about Glorantha).
In the interests of me not having to type much, I'll cut and paste something I wrote elsewhere.
It was my first residential con, and really was rather good.
My only complaint is that it was sometimes possible to find yourself wandering around with not much to do. This was, admittedly, at least mostly my fault.
I'd say it would be a good idea to have the films running a lot of the time, so that people could go and chill, but then those films were very, very loud.
As it was, I spent a reasonable proportion of my idle time propping up the bar next to some hack from Dulwich.
I played GB Steve's Hellboy game on Friday night. I was a bit worried about that one, as I've never read any Hellboy, but it was great fun as it turned out. And I won a prize, which surprised me. Thanks, Steve! Two prizes, actually.
On Saturday, I played two games of Call of Cthulhu. Firstly, Camp Sunny (for which, again inexplicably, I won a prize. Go me.) - a rather fun story about students on holiday. Part of problem was that we were pretty pissed most of the time, so not really in any fit state to solve a mystery. It's a miracle any of us escaped. I hear other groups achieved a TPK.
The second Cthulhu game, on Saturday night, was the multi-group "Hesitation, Deviation, Repetition". I cannot even begin to describe how deliriously good this was. It was an excellent concept, which took advantage of the conditions that you can only achieve at a convention. I believe it was Paul Fricker who wrote that one, so well done him.
I can definitely blame Fricker for introducing me to the card game Falling, which (now that I think of it, much like his CoC scenario) is an excercise in mounting panic. I shall not dwell on the joys of trying to play Fluxx very late at night after a few beers.
On Sunday I was in Disaster '74. I played the hotel doctor, and basically just spent my time posturing, trying it on with the ladies and admiring myself in the mirror. Oh, and doling out pills. And not really knowing what to do in the event of a medical emergency.
Someone said I played a very convincing soap-opera doctor. There's a backhanded compliment if ever there was one.
Monday morning, bright and early (the curtains, remember), I breakfasted, handed my room key to a woman I can only hope really was the residence manager and strolled down to the station. Very impressively, it only took me an hour and a half to get from the platform at Leicester to my office in London. Not bad.
Friday, July 23
Finito
The magazine has been "put to bed", as we like to say in the business (because it makes us feel clever). Apart from checking the printer's proofs, its all done and dusted - I for one am quite happy about this. Editing the whole issue has been an interesting experience. What was required of me in terms of production, writing and that sort of thing wasn't too different to when I was just the news editor. But when you're overseeing the entire issue, what's different is the overall tenor of your attitude towards the publication.
The things that I was required to actively undertake were well within my abilities, but what produced the stress was that I was never entirely convinced - right up until they arrived - that the articles and photos people had promised me would turn up in time. What if nothing turned up at all? What would I do then?
Some things didn't get delivered, as it happens (University of the West Indies, I'm looking at you). There are some stop-gaps and ommissions in the final product but overall it looks as it was intended to from the start.
Thanks to the capable services of Chris the design guy, it looks damn good, too. Chris really does know what he's doing - and when you've seen the raw text of an article and its later iterations, you can spot the tiny things he's done that really make the layout look good.
That's pretty much it for me here in Gordon Square, then.
An August spent largely in libraries beckons, with the THES and China after that.
Here is a PDF of the cover, with "hilarious" spoof headlines.
The magazine has been "put to bed", as we like to say in the business (because it makes us feel clever). Apart from checking the printer's proofs, its all done and dusted - I for one am quite happy about this. Editing the whole issue has been an interesting experience. What was required of me in terms of production, writing and that sort of thing wasn't too different to when I was just the news editor. But when you're overseeing the entire issue, what's different is the overall tenor of your attitude towards the publication.
The things that I was required to actively undertake were well within my abilities, but what produced the stress was that I was never entirely convinced - right up until they arrived - that the articles and photos people had promised me would turn up in time. What if nothing turned up at all? What would I do then?
Some things didn't get delivered, as it happens (University of the West Indies, I'm looking at you). There are some stop-gaps and ommissions in the final product but overall it looks as it was intended to from the start.
Thanks to the capable services of Chris the design guy, it looks damn good, too. Chris really does know what he's doing - and when you've seen the raw text of an article and its later iterations, you can spot the tiny things he's done that really make the layout look good.
That's pretty much it for me here in Gordon Square, then.
An August spent largely in libraries beckons, with the THES and China after that.
Here is a PDF of the cover, with "hilarious" spoof headlines.
Wednesday, July 21
Dilbert Is A Documentary
Fun and games. Macs suck. Lah-di-dah.
The meeting of one of the academic fellowship programmes here at work is on today, for which I did the promotional activity - press releases etc. - back in February or March. Apparently, they've had a record number of applications.
I remain unconvinced that this is a result of my uncanny ability to write a glorified advert and email it to newspapers.
Fun and games. Macs suck. Lah-di-dah.
The meeting of one of the academic fellowship programmes here at work is on today, for which I did the promotional activity - press releases etc. - back in February or March. Apparently, they've had a record number of applications.
I remain unconvinced that this is a result of my uncanny ability to write a glorified advert and email it to newspapers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)