Below are the most recent 18 friends' journal entries.

Saturday, December 26th, 2009
ambug666	12:15p	Lullaby of Broadway News It's been a while since I updated about LoB, mainly because after settling on the characters and shows, I've taken a break from the game until next year. Of course, "taking a break" for me means only working on it a few hours a week instead of a few hours a day. Plotting begins in earnest in January, though, so I only have another week of "vacation." (Vacation means working on Slash and my next release for The Game Crafter, oh and playing lots of Dominion online). First off, aries_walker sent me a trio of CDs of pictures from the first game. I've been busy putting them up on the web. You can see the first set here: http://www.interactivitiesink.com/larps/broadway/photos.pl?folder=11 Secondly, we've hit over 50 players. 53 to be exact. This means we have 8 unfilled characters. And I haven't even done the next push for players. If we fill before Intercon J, I'll do some sort of nice bonus for the players. I have no idea what yet, and am open to suggestions. If we overflow, I may be willing to add up to four of the characters who were last on the chopping block; they will likely all be female since we already have more female players than we do female characters. Thirdly, I have successfully negotiated with Dan Gillespie and we will once again have live musicians at the game for the Friday night ball. The ball will last for about an hour and a half. There will be some sort of instructions before the ball, and possible some rehearsals before the game. That's up to Dan though. Finally, I have an interesting quandary. I expect LoB 3 to lose about $2,000. This is partially loss carried over from the second episode, and partially loss I estimate for the third episode. The first episode made some money, but that all went into the loss for the second episode; I underestimated the costs of the catered dinner. The third episode will not have a catered dinner. I was thinking of holding small fund raising larplets in my basement to cover the cost. These would mostly be games I have easy access to (the Miskatonic trilogy, Mary Celeste, Marin County, Tempus Frangit, Road Not Taken, Colonel Rawhide, and so forth). Would people be interested in playing these games? They would be on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, would be $10-$25 depending on the game, and would not include food. Would people be interested? Anyway, have a good New Years. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
ambug666	10:02a	Merry Slash I have started on the next character sheet. I really need to pick up on these. I'm gonna try to get three done this weekend and another three next weekend. That should get me back on track. In any case, here is another paragraph to share. I figure I'll keep posting samples of characters from Slash until my demands are met. Again, this sample is safe for work. I'll see what I can do about posting the NSFW stuff later, but besides being really horrible it contains game spoilers. Stardate 2258.6 . Lieutenant Spock was disquieted. He was annoyed at the disquiet, and was unhappy with being annoyed. He should not have to deal with these distracting emotions, and that bothered him. Being a Vulcan, he should not have emotions at all, but his half-human heritage had a horrible way of creeping up on him when he least wanted it. And that was disgruntling. But perhaps there was more at work here which he had not yet realized or admitted to himself. Something was wrong. And that troubled him. I don't think this one is as wretched as the James Kirk one, but it does get its point across nicely. Edit: I just had to read the Wikipedia entry for Pon Farr. Shudder. It was enlightening though as it gave more examples from fan fiction than it did from cannon. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
geirtbr	4:36p	"Dangerous wands"n Trailer filma kotoryj ne suzhestvuiot - xoroshaya ideya! http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1925557 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
heiccu	3:51p	Tsekkasin Mortician verkkosivuilta, että niillä oli "fiftarimekkoja" 49,- ja pari muutakin todella halpaa juttua, joita voisin harkita. Joten valuin Kampin Morticiaan katsomaan mokomia. Siellä olivat 39,- kappale, joten ostinsovittamatta mustan mekon jossa valkoisia palleroita (polkadot?), joka on muuten sopiva, mitä nyt tietty pitää hankkia Halterneckrintaliivit. MUTTA: Entisaikojen mustien kassien sijaan Morticiasta saa nykyään semmoisen kierrätettävän, kirkkaanpinkin kassin jossa lukee isolla Morticia. Mikä siis tottakai koska en oo 15 ja anorektinen, meinaa samaa kuin mulla olisi mukana valokyltti, jossa lukee "Tässä menee viikonloppugoottinorsu" Vähänkö hävetti valua kotiin, tarkoitus oli vielä käydä muutamassa kaupassa ennen kotiimenoa, mut ei sen kassin kaa. Ei tod. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, December 21st, 2009
ambug666	9:54a	Sigh Made it to work safe and sound. Had to finish digging out the car this morning. They haven't plowed our court yet, so I had to dig a trench from my already excavated car to the parts of the court tamped down by the other drivers. I'm sure they'll plow the court today, leaving me a wall of snow and ice between the court and my driveway. Roads were ok in general. Didn't see a lot of abandoned cars. L was nice enough to make me a sandwich for lunch, but I left my lunch at home so I have have to brave the roads again mid day. I knew I'd have to go out today anyway. We ran out of diet coke at around noon yesterday. That means I went though six litres in a day and a half. Wow. (Comment on this)
kshandr	9:32a	In case ye're all on tenterhooks... ...I passed my OU course. Roll on the next educational adventure. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
larp_musing	1:32a	use of roleplay as part of a design process I found this on Ted talks http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html Discussion of roleplay starts 19 minutes, 40 seconds in. Not that in-depth, but a short discussion of the validity of roleplaying social interactions for design purposes. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
ambug666	4:21p	1,000 Words Last night: Me: It must have snowed three feet so far. raging_apathy: It can be tough to guesstimate. Take a yardstick and measure it. Me: OK, I will tomorrow. 20 inches. As promised. Not quite 3 feet, but still... For the record, i_scribble did the measuring and picture taking (5 Comments |Comment on this)
oolatus	10:20a	Blogitauko Muutettu on. Rakastuttu asuntoon ollaan. Mietin jo, että laitan naamakirjan statukseen, että olen parisuhteessa asuntoni kanssa. Sen verran huumassa kodistani olen ja siellä elän kuin paratiisissa. Paratiisissa, jossa naapurista kuuluu joka ilta klo. 21-22 lemmenääniä, mutta muuten ei kuulu ikuna mistään mitään. Olen pitänyt tahallista blogitaukoa; en itse ole kirjoittanut kumpaakaan blogiani, saatika lukenut muiden. Kotona kun ei ole nettiä vielä (vaikka sanoivat sen viikossa tulevan) ja pikkukoneeni 3G ei toimi, koska seinät ovat paksut. Ainoastaan ikkunan ääressä voi saada yhteyden nettiin, todella hitaasti tosin. Sähköpostit kyllä lukee, mutta ei oikein muuta. Kuvia pitäisi käsitellä kuukauden ajalta ja pistää nettiin, etenkin asuntokuvat kuumottavat kamerassa. Mihinkäs sitä paremmin voisi joululomaa käyttää, kuin taiteiluun? Kiirettä pukkaa. Kuten aina ennen joulua? Rahaa ei ole ollut joululahjoihin (kaksi vuokraa pitäisi maksaa, laskut ja tililtä lähti sitäpaitsi automaattisesti opintolainan korkojen vähennykset, grrr), joten olen yrittänyt tehdä niitä itse, ottamatta kuitenkaan stressiä. Väkilahjominen on surkeaa, mieluummin annan rakkaudella tehtyjä silloin, kun siltä tuntuu, enkä vain siksi, että on se aika vuodesta, kun muutkin näin tekevät. Tänään vien Samppa-kissan maalle Äitini luokse pyhiksi. Kisu on pitänyt uudesta asunnosta ja sen virikkeistä. Ikkunalaudoilla on jännää katsoa maailmaa, parvelle on kiva kiivetä ja lautalattioita on hauska kopistella leikkiessä.n Huomenna on vielä kiirusta; vaihtareiden lähtöjuttuja, omia pakkailuja, paperijuttuja. Iltasella Sisko ja Enkelini tulee kylään, tiistaina roudaan itseni aamuaikaisella junaan ja matkustan viikoksi Kajaaniin Isän luokse. Luminen korpi, hiljaisuus, kolme hassua kissaa, kuusen metsästys, herkkuruokaa, prikaatin jouluateria, Isän seura, Tapaninpäivän jamit ja ulkona touhuilu. Odotan oikeasti! English summary: I have not blogged lately - no internet in my new home and my little laptops 3G won´t work well ´cause ye olde houses thick brick walls. I have falled in love to my home complitely! I need to put some pics online soon... Today I´ll take my cat to be with my mom for the holidays and tomorrow will be hectic day all the packings etc. Tuesday morning, at very early indeed, I´ll be leaving to north. 8h in da full train, yummy! But I really look forward to see my Dad, spending some time with him and enjoying my time in peace. Snowy wilderness around me (my father really lives at middle of no-where!), silence, starry nights... Ahhhh! And now something complitely different: Muahaha! (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
larp_musing	12:44p	Immersion & debate My latest article recently went up on RPG.net, discussing 'immersion' in larp. http://www.rpg.net/columns/bristol/bristol5.phtml As Markus Montola pointed out afterwards, another additional type of immersion is 'challenge-based immersion' - Immersing in trying to achieve a goal state. To me, this seems close the concept of 'flow' used by board / computer game designers. The more I think about it, flow is the game version of immersion. More interesting was the reaction on RPG.net, from an unexpected direction. An American tabletop writer objected to the idea that (as a generalisation) immersion is more relevant to larp than tabletop. To me, this fact seemed 'obvious.' He has (very quickly) written a reply article upholding immersion in tabletop. http://mxyzplk.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/on-immersion/ Personally, I'm pleased to sparking a debate about it. I guess articles on immersion have a long history of doing that. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 18th, 2009
ambug666	9:46a	Back and Better than Ever! In 2002, Interactivities Ink published its first card/board game: Hamlet: A Game In Five Acts.. Among other things, Hamlet was II's best selling game, the only one to turn a profit in fact, and the only one to win any sort of award. Seven years later, I still get a request a month from someone who wants to know where they can buy a copy. Well wonder no more requesting person! Your prayers have been answered! Hamlet: A Game in Five Acts is now available for sale at The Game Crafter for only $19.95 (+ shipping). Suffer the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune. Hamlet: A Game in Five Acts is a strategy game where you and your friends are the voices in Shakespeare's head and are trying to get the play to end the way you want it to. Send Ophelia to a Nunnery. Have Hamlet kill Horatio. Allow Claudius to rule with an iron fist! Or just kill them all off, like in the original. You hold the destiny of eight dramatis personae in your hand. Manipulate their lives for your entertainment. Remember, the play's the thing! So, what do you get for your money? 8 Dramatis Personae Boards. They are a little larger than the originals, for easier to read cards that take up even more table space! Regular Endings Deck - These cards are actual cards not cut index cardstock like the original. This deck is slightly easier than the original Hamlet! endings. Difficult Endings Deck - The regular Hamlet endings on actual playing card stock, not just index paper. 4 Reminder Cards - The original didn't have these reminders. 4 Spy and Dying Counters - These are stickers and wood and they look nice. You do have to stick the stickers to the wood yourself. 40 Bonus Stickers - As it turns out, when you print stickers, The Game Crafter sends you a whole sheet, even if you use only eight. So enjoy these 40 bonus stickers in 4 different designs. Hamlet Rules - A little clearer than the original. 40 Orange Tokens - These are used to keep track of things in the game. They are translucent so you can see what is printed under them. 1 D6 (16mm) - Random Color 1 Pencil All for $19.95 (+shipping). Why the price increase? Well, first the components are better; the original was made of index cards stock and sold in an envelope. This one is on nice playing card stock and sold in a box. Second, the components are complete. The original didn't have the die or the tokens or the pencil. And finally, because it is SEVEN YEARS LATER, and costs go up. You can get your copy of Hamlet here: http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/hamlet-a-game-in-five-acts Enjoy! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
kshandr	9:43a	Avatar - again... It's another one of those "isn't life great?" posts. On the 12th of June 2006 I read the script/treatment for "Avatar" by James Cameron. I went to see it in the theater last night, and I was right... I think it's going to be a very important movie, when we look back. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I might, but I enjoyed it a lot. And it impressed me. There will doubtless be a lot of "style over substance", "the effects drown out the story", "isn't it just a blockbuster with no substance?" comments around the place. I don't think I agree with any of those. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
martinemonster	11:37p	Good day! I met my professor today and not only did he like my chapter, the entire meeting was actually fun. I mean, he's a great guy and it's always interesting and enjoyable to meet him, but for the first time in 1,5 years, I got excited about my thesis! Also, we shared several laughs at the awfulness of Norwegian foreign aid in the 1970s, which I can do with very few people (at least to that degree). So good start. I also had a breakthrough on the next chapter, I figured out where some missing source material could be found (unfortunately it's in Bergen, but let's not focus on that right now, I'll try to get out of a lengthy and expensive trip some other day), and when I went up to the fourth floor to try to find another professor, I got free alcohol since they were having a christmas party. All in all, a very good day (even if it was not productive archive-wise). Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Regina Spektor (4 Comments |Comment on this)
kshandr	12:12p	Loving "Glee." Loving it. Okay... there's an obvious comparison between "Glee" and "Pushing Daisies." Both shows make you feel good, both have a lot of angst, and both are ever so slightly divorced from reality (Daisies way more so.) But "Glee" has heaps more music (two to four numbers per episode, where "Pushing Daisies" struggled to manage one number per two episodes.) I've watched the first eight episodes of "Glee" now, in the last week or so. The last show that caused me to do that was "Lost" Season 1. Lovin' it. You'll love it too, dear Reader. And I now suspect that my musical LARP idea is now more likely than ever before. Current Mood: cheerful (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
martinemonster	9:10a	Good and bad things at once This past week has been really stressful for me. I've finally gotten hold of the list of archive material relevant for me at the Norwegian State department and it's a lot more than I originally assumed. A lot more. And since I don't have any more time, I have to at least try to keep my deadline for this archive (I have one more main archive left, a search through the newspapers and about 11 interviews I've yet to prepare for or even set a date for, before I have to finish writing the degree. Luckily, I can write from anywhere in the world, if I can just get my shit together and finish with the archive searches). So, that means no socializing before Christmas. In addition, I'm still really sick, so training, the stuff I usually do to clear my head after work, is out of the question. Add to that the fact that I've turned my place into a pile of boxes since I'm moving in a week, and nothing seems to make sense anymore. Oh, and Christmas is coming up, which means I have to take 2 days off from work. (I know it'll probably be nice, but so far, I'm not ready for it to be Christmas yet and definitely not in any way excited about it.) The good thing is that I realized that all I needed to make my life imminently better was a wake up light. (That's one of those alarm clocks that mimic a sunrise.) Now, I'm awake and not dreading the day each morning. In addition, I've started working out in the mornings, and that rush of endorphines really get me started. I've also gotten the keys to the new place, and it looks really cozy (even though there're no lights in the living room yet). So all in all, life isn't half-bad. Current Mood: awake (9 Comments |Comment on this)
heiccu	12:30a	On rankkaa olla Heiccu. Kadotin viikonloppuna talvisaappaani ja yhden DVD:n, selvinpäin, jopa. Jos kävelee vastaan, saa palauttaa. Eilen pöytäpelaamasta baariin, josta sosiaalinen pelisilmä käski lähteä jo kahden pintaan. Jonnekin se sosiaalinen pelisilmä sammui sit kotona, sillä vielä neljältä kuuntelin K:n murheita netin yli. Kännissä on vaikea olla ymmärtäväinen toisen taidolla katkaistulle orastavalle alkoholismille, mut taisin onnistua. Vaikken sit nukkunutkaan koko yönä, kun vatvoin mielessäni kaikkea kamalaa ja vähemmän kamalaa. Mut on ihan jees, että välillä tulee hyviäkin kohtaamisia tässä elämässä. Ja ainiin: Perseestä tää viikko. Maanantaina oli Forte, tänään on krapula, huomenna luokan pikkujoulut meillä, torstaina krapula, perjantaina esimiespalaveri, lauantaina Lauran pikkujoulut, sunnuntaina krapula ja duunin pikkujoulut. Yhyy, maksa tilasi jo itkijänaiset hautajaisiinsa. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
ambug666	9:46a	Chapter 1: In Which Our Protagonist Amuses Himself I have been writing LARPs for over 20 years now, but never have I written something so inexorably horrible. I am currently working on Slash, the game of bad internet fanfic. To be true to form, the character sheets are being written as bad internet fanfic. Really bad internet fanfic. Deliberately bad. So bad as to come around the other side and be funny. This is not as easy as it sounds. In any case, I am quite pleased at the opening paragraph of the first character sheet. It is horrible. Also safe for work, a quality not quite shared by the rest of the document. Well, the game is called Slash, after all. I share it with you now for all to enjoy. It contains no game spoilers. Stardate 2258.3 . Personal log. Captain James T. Kirk. We are currently en route to the sun. We have been given a special mission of deep significance to Starfleet Command. There was a historical anomaly of some significance that we have been asked to investigate. By slingshotting around the sun at the exact right speed, we should arrive at the correct time in the past to investigate this significant phenomenon. We should arrive back at the correct time and place early tomorrow morning, subjectively. I plan to take Mister Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, Scotty, and Bones with me to investigate. Hopefully, we shall not run into any trouble of any significance. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
ambug666	1:31p	Counting Chickens Soooo. I was going to audition to be Officer Lockstock in a production of Urinetown next spring. There was a good chance I'd get it, too. It was with a group I've performed with before and they liked me. But when I found out that it would conflict with Intercon and a cruise I'm taking with i.scrib for our 5th anniversary, I started to consider other options. Specifically, Max Bialystock in The Producers. And as a bonus, I've convinced raging_apathy to audition with me. I cannot tell you how much we would rock as Bialystock and Bloom. I'm less likely to get that part since they don't know me, but you never know, right? But they just announced the Urinetown auditions with a show schedule that does not conflict with Intercon or the cruise. So I'm going to audition for both plays (with the same song and everything). So, what should I do if the unthinkable occurs and I'm offered both parts? I'd rather play Lockstock than Bialystock, but Bialystock is for a more well known group. Also, people are more likely to see The Producers than Urinetown. But I like the group that's doing Urinetown, too. They were good to work with on Seussical. Obviously, working with raging_apathy trumps all. I wonder if I can get him to audition for Urinetown too. I ...could... accept both parts since the shows aren't opposite each other, as long as the rehearsal schedules synced. But I feel that way lies madness. What should I do? (Yeah, I know I'm counting chickens before they're hatched, but I have a really good feeling about Urinetown). (11 Comments |Comment on this)