The summer has begun

It's officially been summer for a week now, and it seems like Mother Nature agrees with that. Walking around outside in the sun in the weather we've had the last couple of days is definitely not good for my mood, as it induces headaches and tiredness. Our bedroom is at the east of the house, and hence is bathed in sunlight all afternoon and evening. We go to sleep in an icky warm room (don't want to lie down on a prewarmed bed) and get up when everything is cooled down (don't want to get out when your bed is nice and warm)...

Another LRP milestone

Another point for my resume ;)
Today will be the first event that I'm going to be running as a gamemaster without possibility to fall back to other people. Well not entirely of course, but during large lives we usually have 3 to 4 gamemasters walking around. Today's a short event of only one afternoon and most of the time I'll be walking alone guiding the players around the area.
It will prove an exciting adventure, both for them and for me ...

And ze new mazjine is alive!

Hahah! Ze new mazjine... It is alive!

... so indeed, my old and well trusted 'puter is now standing next to my desk, having been replaced by a newer model last week. Not that it was broken... Things were just getting too slow. Still have to think about what I do with the old one.

A very aptly named blog

I don't get around to posting as often as I would want to. I recently realised why — not because I don't have enough to say, but because, how ironically, I have too much to mention... Too many things going on at the same time, and too little time to sit down and write.
Or is it because I'm already busy with plot writing for Maerquin and two D&D sessions, so that I don't feel like typing to write down even more? I'm honestly unsure. I do like writing (and I'm happy to notice that I'm getting better at it), so that's not very likely the real reason...
Perhaps I should try to organise my days better. No, scrap that thought, that's not going to work. Although I need some degree of organisation to work really well, organising is somehow also my weak point, being distracted way too quickly. Typically I'm busy with three or four things, interleaved, at the same time.
Nevertheless, I think I should. I'll let you know if it works — if I have time ;)

Back home from the Moots

Only two weeks after the previous roleplay event, last weekend I attended once again the Moots. As our usual cook ("X") was not present, I took up his role and learned that a small barbecue, how cute and time-in looking it may be, is not sufficient to boil water or fry eggs. Luckily, lots of friendly people were willing to help out and eventually everything went well. I have a shopping list for next time :)

Now, Ascension and Pentecost are nearby and I'm really looking forward to a few days off to regain some rest. More than once in the last two months I've had the need to lie down for about half an hour before or after making dinner because my body just could not support me anymore. Hopefully it's just caused by doing too much, and nothing more serious...

Time for Maerquin!

Well, it seems like I have packed everything that I need, and some stuff I probably won't. In case I've forgotten something, I will have to find out quickly, in 10 minutes my tram will go.

Off to a day of travelling and organising, first to the storage to get all the clothing and other 'stage' equipment, then to the terrain to build up for the Maerquin live. But more importantly, off to three days of intensive role playing fun!

Next post when I'm back to a normal sleeping pattern :P

Stop taking my talents

Before you read this post: I don't want to fall in the category of people that just complain about everything new that they don't like, "because the old ways were better". Neither am I someone to really bash a product or a company. I just have to ramble for a bit to cool down, and it feels well to pretend someone, somewhere, is listening.

Let me say first that I've played very little World of Warcraft for a while. Lately, I've increased my dosage to a few hours for two or three times a week. I still don't have much time to spend on checking every little detail, nor do I want to do so. With the recent patches however, I've been forced to do so and I've come across more and more little details that I'm rather not amused with. Granted, there are other details I do like, but the things I dislike are more irritating than the ones I like are nice.

One of my largest gripes is the repeated change in the talent system. Using talents, a WoW character can specialise in a certain direction. Because of large changes in this system, I've already re-spent my talent points twice in the past few weeks, and tomorrow's update will clear the spent points in order to be able to fix some issues. I don't have time for that, people...

Warm.

It's nowhere near summer, but this Easter was a pretty warm one. On the plus side, we've been able to air the house quite a bit. On the minus side, we've been home all weekend - but well, getting people over is nice as well. Nevertheless, I can't wait till I'm outdoors again with this nice weather. Luckily the Maerquin live is not far off.

Hugs

Waking up after a very late night to learn that the last room has been painted yesterday. Coming home this afternoon to find the hallway painted.

Someone deserves more hugs than I can give her. :)

On the filling of an agenda

We're preparing for a new release of our software product at work, which means that lots of internal support questions come in that ask for a quick answer. I can of course pass on most of those questions to other people, but it's more fun to try and find out the cause of the problem myself. So, I learn lots of new things about the internal workings of our business logic layer nowadays.

Work on the summer internships has also started. I'm co-responsible for the development part of this year's edition of the project, meaning that I'll be trying to recruit students, find assignments for them and do their coaching, join in on social events, and of course help out with general organisational stuff when needed. It won't be a sit-back-and-relax job, but since I'm really looking forward to the coaching and the social parts, I'll happily do the rest that comes with the job.

Three cheers for typecasting

type·cast \ˈtīp-ˌkast\ (transitive verb)
1 : to cast (an actor or actress) in a part calling for the same characteristics as those possessed by the performer
2 : to cast (an actor or actress) repeatedly in the same type of role

At Maerquin, a few people know by now that I can play the arrogant mage or priest quite well. Apparently the news has sprung over, since this weekend I had one of those roles again. I still wonder if my resemblance of the guy playing the older incarnation of the same necromancer was really the primary reason that I got the role of his younger self...

Writing and playing

And yet again time passes far too quickly. I've spent last week writing some plot for Maerquin, but more importantly I've given myself some rest. An unforeseen consequence of that is that I planned to post an update at the beginning of the week... which Thursday is not.

Anyway: the first long roleplaying event of this year is coming up. This weekend, I'll be NPC'ing at a three-day event organised for (and by) a group of players with whom my girlfriend is playing. I have no idea whatsoever about the plans, so I'll let them surprise me when I arrive :)

Both D&D sessions we're hosting at our place have also started. One of those is a starters campaign we try to play every other Friday evening. The other is the more advanced setting with higher level characters that is played at Saturdays. Hence, you can often find me thinking out new ideas for one of those campaigns when I'm not busy for Maerquin. It's not that I don't like playing, but I have lots of ideas, others want to play rather than DM, and so far it's going well.

Pfew

I've hardly got time, or should I say taken time, to post something lately. But at least I'm sitting in the freshly (since a few days) finished study room!

It's alive, part two

After my successful renewed connection to the life tube called the internet, I suddenly could not retrieve my e-mail anymore. Several days of troubleshooting later (quoth the help desk employee: communication is misunderstanding each other as little as possible), it appeared that something had gone wrong with some settings - what exactly, I'm still unsure about - but it's working again like a charm.

Then, I got a new modem after prolonging my contract. It's a cute one. And it works like an even bigger charm: the configuration screens are actually logical, and it's smart enough to propose sane settings for certain options such as port forwarding. I haven't tested its wireless yet, but I assume that I'll have no problems at all setting up the connection :)

Plots and preparations

Two more weeks of being busy with settling down have not really changed much in the appearance of our house. However, we're starting to get used to everything and we're slowly converting our new house to our new home. I've managed to clear lots of trash from the study room and we can now start to clean and paint the walls there, in preparation of actually using that room.

At the same time, preparations for two new DnD campaigns are almost finished. The large one (two dungeon masters, heavy roleplaying) is to start soon, three players having almost completed their characters. It's now a matter of getting a 4th player and preparing the introductory session.
Then, I'm planning on starting a smaller, much simpler campaign besides it, and as a matter of fact, the plot for the first few sessions is already done. As I'm also playing in a campaign, I'm about to see - and do - many more impersonations in the near future.

There is even more plot to think about, since it's only two and a half months before the next Maerquin live roleplaying weekend. We'll have another meeting this Sunday to see how our story is coming along.

It's alive!

Hurray, the internet connection in our new home is working. Time for a short update on the last few weeks.
My moving went pretty smooth. The first time we managed to drive through half of the city because of a wrong turn - it took a while before we could backtrack to our original route - but apart from that, no real nuisances.
A few days later my girlfriend's stuff arrived as well, and that was when the fun started. At that point, we had no real space to do anything at all. Some smart moving of boxes did the trick though, and since then we've been improving our living area slowly but surely. At this moment, the living room is almost completely as we want it, apart from decorations, and three computers that need to be moved to a different room once we have space there.
And while I'm typing this, I'm enjoying a fresh cup of espresso. The kitchen is now almost complete as well, with all appliances we need. Some minor things are still to be done, but hey, we've only been living here for two weeks now ... So, it's time to go shopping and do some more work!

I can sleep

That in itself is no news. But now that our new bed has been put together (yes, we've been shopping at Ikea) I can sleep there properly as well. So the bedroom is slowly getting in shape: paint and covering are done and the bed and bedside tables are there. The wardrobes are already standing but still need finishing details such as doors :)
Today I had the special pleasure of waiting for a plumber to place a new tap. I tried to do so myself, but couldn't get the old tap fully free and cracked a bolt while replacing it. It turned out that it would have been a hell of a job otherwise, since the plumber needed two hours himself to get everything in order. All in all I arrived at work at about 15:30...
Let's try a full day tomorrow. First some more packing though, I should be able to clear the kitchen this evening.

Paint it is then

Alas, the wallpaper we bought seems to be either of very bad quality or just in a grumpy mood. In any case we've resigned from trying to put it up and have settled for painted walls in the bedroom. Then again, with two out of four walls painted, it's already looking lots better than before.
I've also started packing again, with only one week to go before my moving. It's a busy and bouncy me.

Oh, and of course...

A healthy 2009!

From holes via spots to smudges

We've ended the old year well and we had an equally nice start of the new year. Completely in style, we've been working on our home instead of doing large celebrations with fireworks.
These two days we did lots of useful preparations. We filled the holes in the walls of our bedroom, which resulted in a quite spotty appearance - see picture. After a layer of primer however, it looks a lot better already. Not that we're going to see that when we've covered it with wallpaper, we've put on the primer mostly because it holds well against moisture.
We've also got a much nicer hallway now that most of the mortar that stuck to the tile layer is gone. The kitchen is almost complete as well, and nearly everything for the bedroom and living room is already present, it just needs to be put together and placed. A nice job for when the floor covering has been laid - which comes right after the wallpaper :)