Synchronous

A kinda... lightish red

2006-10-23T10:15:00.000+02:00

I just saw this news post on the Nintendo site, and it made me think of Waynne =)

"Pretty in Pink - A new colour of DS Lite joins the range, and we’ve got a brand new microsite to show off all its pretty features"

C'mon, you know you want one ;)

Lunchables

2006-10-13T13:58:00.000+02:00

The suggestion this morning by Hannes that we go through to Kalkies for fish and chips at lunch was initially met by skepticism from me. A Kalk Bay harbour fish and chips place sounded really dodgy, and I was not disappointed on that front when we did finally arrive there. The food was really excellent, albeit a little oily. "I don't think I've had this much oil in one sitting in a long time" was BB's comment, and had me thinking of stories of kiddies drinking from the sunflower oil bottles. Loei was lucky enough to be hit on by the waitress when she slapped his arse and said "No bums on the table!". I think that means she likes you, buddy. Blushing like a schoolgirl only makes them more interested. As we were finishing up, the guy at the table next to use really drove home how high-class an establishment it was by pouring himself a glass of wine from the papsak he had brought along. No corkage, I guess, if there's no cork.

But really, an excellent outing, for an excellent Friday.

Changes (not like Tupac)

2006-10-04T10:51:00.000+02:00

It really is starting to get to summer now. Dubious mornings followed by pretty hot days are forcing me to wear my zipoffs more often than not. Not that I'm complaining, even tho I have always preferred winter to summer.

Work has got me writing documentation again, albeit for a short while and interspersed with coding. It does make for a nice change, and at least this lot is low stress.

Julie left for Jozi this week Monday. The weekend was largely taken up by goodbye events for her, starting with drinks at the Planet bar in the Mount Nelson on Saturday evening. It's a really nice place, albeit rather expensive. A nice occasional outing place for pretending to be civilized. Sunday morning saw me fetching Julie for CT station where she put her car on the train, since Al has done something to his car. He wasn't specific and mumbled a bit, so I'm not sure what, but he was driving it the next day, so who knows. Breakfast at the B&B in Harfield was the reward for the lift. Sunday lunch was at Montebello off Newlands Avenue, which was enjoyable despite the slightly slow service. The burger I had was really good, especially after I scraped off most of the FLAMING hot home-made chutney.

It looks like Al is leaving Cape Town for a while. He's not exactly sure when, but it will probably be sometime this month (edit: actually it seems end of November is more likely). Our Thursday D&D game will be poorer for it (read: non-existent). Also, Lucas might get Greg to take his room... we will have to see how that goes ;) At least that way I won't be missing out on lengthy lectures about The War ^_^

[WoW]
60 is definitely the place to be. There is so much more content available to me now, and so many divers think to do. I was kicked out of my PvP guild (Happy Tree Friends, the one with the pink tabard) at lvl59 cos they were doing a massive cleanup, and now I have joined Disabled, a pretty decent PvE guild. I've run Zul'Gurub twice, and will probably run it again tonight.

I have three pieces of my Feralheart set, which was quite a damn mission to upgrade to from the three Wildheart pieces I bought. I still need to do a couple of instances over and over and over to get what I want for it.
[/WoW]

Chibineko

2006-09-06T16:11:00.000+02:00

My first few days back at work have been very documentation-filled. As was mostly expected, although I have done even less coding than I thought, which was not much to start off with. I’m used to documentation, having done a bunch of it for ISO purposes at a previous company, but the OB format I am still getting used to. Thank goodness Chelle is one of our primary document producers ^_^ I just ask her when I get stuck with something.

Kieran joined our Tuesday Shadowrun game last night. Finally, I get another magic user to talk to! The smelly Troll Adept totally doesn’t count. And complete bonus that she is a young Japanese lady =) Also, Kieran might be just what we need to get some actual roleplaying done, rather than constantly having Yancke going off on a tangent. He promised to stab anyone who went off-track with Chelle’s letter opener. He ended up having to stab himself 3 times, and only threatening anyone else once. That once was also James, the DM. And he still tries to claim it’s not him that’s the disruptive influence.

[WoW]
I hit lvl 52 yesterday, amongst much celebration and spending of gold on talents. In the process, I also managed to farm sufficient [Glowing Scorpid Blood] to get my [Darkmoon Faire Storage Box], finally! While killing the Scorpok Stingers, I also dropped a [Journeyman’s Backpack], another 14-slot container. And when I finally found a rogue to open the lockboxes I had been hoarding, I found ANOTHER! Fantastic! Now all of my bags that I carry around are 14 slots, and one of my 4 bank bags too. The other three are 12 slots. The next bank slot will cost me 50g =/ Not sure if that is worth it juuust yet.

Looking at the other Darkmoon Faire rewards, I see one of the epic Necklaces gives +22 to all healing (amongst a bunch of other fantastic stat upgrades). Now, it takes 1200 tickets (which I estimate at 6000 Scorpoks), I have to be lvl55 to even do the handin for it (so 3 lvls away), and I can only wear it at lvl60. So, is it worth it? Or should I farm for a [Darkmoon Faire Storage Box] for my other characters rather? I think I will start off with farming for the boxes first, since I can do the amulet in 2 months time, when the Faire next comes to Mulgore. 2 months is a long way away tho…

PvP rewards are looking very tasty too. I’ve got the [Scout’s Tabard] and the [Insignia of the Horde] already, next up the cape, then the pauldrons. Sp many things to do, so little time! My guild, Happy Tree Friends, is a PvP guild after all, so I should do my best there. Of course, hitting 60 and doing premades with them would be ideal, so maybe I should just grind. If I get bored of Hippogryphs and Scorpoks for the Faire, there is always Argent Dawn or Timbermaw rep to grind.
[/WoW]

zomg 3 in a row!

2006-09-03T13:09:00.000+02:00

I am now back from PE, and not too mentally scarred by the double 8 hour car trip with Yancke, or by meeting Yancke's family. However, some things about Yancke make a lot more sense... his entire family is mad! As Lucas said, 'Well it looks like Yancke turned out pretty all right after all, all things considered'. Or something like that, I paraphrase for humorous effect. His mom was actually really cool, I enjoyed chatting to her =) Dad and bro were not terribly chatty, so I didn't get too much of a feel for them.

Colleen's party on the Saturday was a liiitle bit of a mixed bag. The beginning was terrible, with these retarded metalheads heckling and laughing from the sidelines as Lucas, Si and myself danced. It picked up a lot as the night progressed, and soon enough a large portion of the 100-strong crowd were dancing at various points =) Sadly, the metalheads made the floor a couple of times when the other DJ was playing (you guessed it) metal, making the whole experience unpleasant for everyone. Well, whatever, they suck and I probably never have to see them ever again. Which makes me happy. With any luck, they will not want to come back for the next party, since there was very little thrash metal played, despite their constant requests for some 'motherfucking thrash, like Lamb of God'.

There was not much to do during the day with Colleen at work and Yancke supposed
to be writing an essay (but actually playing AI DotA mostly), so I had to entertain myself. I ended up watching a lot of movies, including Hoodwinked (such potential, but crap), Shaun of the Dead (awesome), Sky High (amusing but blatantly Disney), Aeon Flux (pretty, but not good), Cassanova (very funny, I like Heath) and Lord of War (fantastic, and not disturbing at all - this might make me a bad or insensitive person). What can I say, the video store near to Colleen's (very very nice) house in Walmer was having a 2 for 1 special =) I also went to the game arcades in both Greenacres and Walmer malls, and got in some Metal Slug 5 & 6, and clocked House of the Dead III, using about 12 or 13 credits. Half an hour of awesome gameplay for R13? Totally worth it.

So all in all, a pretty awesome trip =) It would have been much better were Colleen on holiday or if I had more friends with me, but I am still very glad I went =D It was very cool chatting to Colleen again after so long of nothing but GChat convos.

However, getting back to my WoW character was pretty fantastic too. However, the realms have been FUCKED on and off since I got back. Not good, they better fucking give us a free day for this shit. What, are Blizz too poor to afford decent hardwire? Or hire people rather than monkies to run the show? Grates my tits.

After a long long DotA hiatus, I finally pitched at a lan on Friday night. The rust on my play took quite a while to abate slightly, but I had a really good time, and so will make a bigger effort in future. At one point, the DotA clanmembers who were there wanted to run a practise team match against the rest of us, 'just a quick game for practise, it won't even count and will be over quickly'. They sucked SOOOOO badly, it was fantastic. We (the n00bs) all played fantastically, and despite them still winning, we made them bleed every step of the way. Not what they were expecting =) Yancke, in his inimitable way, told them that if they played like that at the tournament next weekend, they were FUCKED. We laughed, quietly, on the inside =) Such satisfaction.

Another gaming hiatus was broken today, with Beth and Garrick coming over to play Soul Calibur. That I am thankfully not rusty at =) Or if I am, everyone else is just as rusty. Oo, I am looking forward to the Tekken tournament at schpatcon =) That will 0wn.

Yay! US public holiday tomorrow, which I am taking =) So, WoW until late tonight, sleep tomorrow.

Destroying arguments since whenever

2006-08-22T15:25:00.000+02:00

I just had to repost this from Firegolem's blog, especially after reading Zenstar's post about the Crazy at Stones. Classic =)

The more things change, the more they stay the same

2006-08-21T15:12:00.000+02:00

Reading through my last two blog posts, it seems to be a crazy mirror of what has been going on. DotA has been completely superceded by WoW, but the amount I play has certainly not decreased. Every day. It is unbelievably good.

Also, I mention that Colleen was coming down to CT in March. Next week, I am going up to visit her =) My first trip to PE, and my first roadtrip ever where I will be a licensed driver. Yancke was making vague noises about joining me for the trip up to visit his family, but that was a while ago and I'm sure he's forgotten. I shall have to remind him, a halving of the petrol bill will be most welcome. Icon has left an unpleasant dent in my pocket.

Dragonfire was this weekend, and proved most enjoyable. The Shelagh was down, which was fantastic, and it was a lot of fun playing with her again. She is an exceedingly accomplished roleplayer. Robyn also came down, but not to attend the con at all. She rocked up on Saturday for a teeeeny amount of time, and then her and her b/f bailed to go do touristy things. Meh. Sed, Si, Ada and myself were invited to her parents' place for dinner that evening, which was a very pleasant evening of catching up with Robs, and Sed as well who I haven't seen for aeons.

In further parallels (this time from the second to last post), I was quite sick last week, for three days. Crap, cos I felt like shit. Cool, cos I got to play WoW all day =)

Other events since the last time I posted including getting and losing a girlfriend, my grandfather dying, passing one of my MCSD exams (SQL), a work paintball event and Waynne's bachelor party.

Oh, and anyone who has an active blog that cares, please let people know that I am posting again. I don't want to spam everyone with emails or IMs or whatever. Viral information spread is better, and cooler-sounding.

I will be adding a WoW section to all of my posts, at the end so those not interested can skip. They will be appropriately labelled. Also, no complaints if there appear a plethora of posts that contain solely WoW content =P

[WoW]
My main, Grothar, has just run Uldaman for the last time ^_^ The 2h mace I wanted off Archaedas, the end boss, just dropped. [Rockpounder] is mine at last! Whee! Now on to ZF, and maybe Mara again, actually killing the princess this time, unlike my first abortive run thru it.

My tailoring alt, Kaeljin the troll shammy, has just twinked his tailoring up to 150, and now needs to be level 20 before he can upgrade his tailoring max, so he'll need to be speed-levelled at some point.

Then in a shock move, Gus at work has just deleted his 60 hunter and 47 lock, citing his complete addiction to the game as the reason. He will be missed =( With all my other stupid friends playing Alliance, thus robbing me of the opportunity for easy party play (thanks guys), I am now more or less all alone on the Horde side of Haomarush. My horde friends include Tai at 56, Sed at 24 and some other guys at work hanging around 20-something. Ah well, I guess it's solo play until I can level up to 60 and start instancing with my guildies. Gus did manage to wangle me into his guild just before he left, so that's pretty cool at least =)

Well, I guess I'll just have to wait for Chelle and Alex to organise ADSL and WoW to get some decent party action in. Until then, enjoy the Alliance, mofos. We'll be coming for you someday.
[/WoW]

.A

2006-03-15T15:01:00.000+02:00

This last week has been crazily DotA filled. I think I've played close on 15 games, an average of 2 per day. Crazy shit! I am getting to learn the recipes and builds a lot better tho, and I'm also teaching Al and Claire how to play. Well, last night Lucas was tutoring her, and it was proving to be a slightly frustrating experience ;) We pulled through in the end tho, so all good. Perhaps we should start upgrading the AI to Insane (we've been playing on Normal). I am really enjoying Shadelzare Silkwood, the Vengeful Spirit. Nether Swap + Magic Missile is fantastic ^_^

The car is still all good, if a little expensive. Really, nothing is gonna compare to an R128 monthly train ticket, but the convenience is totally worth it.

Colleen's coming down this weekend, which should be cool =) It'll be good to see her again ^_^

And that's it for the post. Nothing else interesting has been happening.

Cool or crap?

2006-03-08T18:11:00.000+02:00

Firstly, my apologies to anyone who heard via the grapevine, or just have not heard at all, but Candice and I broke up about... oh, two and a half weeks ago. I just... wasn't really up to talking about it.

In happier news, I have a car to call my very own ^_^ A 1988 Toyota Corolla 1.6GL automatic. Driving an automatic is perhaps the laziest thing I have ever done in my life, and that should tell you something. I feel that it's roughly equivalent to phoning your mom from your cellphone to come home and pass you the TV remote cos you can't quiiiiite reach it. Yeah, something like that. Anyway, it's fantastic being free =)

Details promise to generate too long a post for my current posting stamina, so here are the highlight:

Richard's car was broken into while I was borrowing it. It turned out as an expensive fix due to complications
Power has been fucking us around at work. Getting Richard's car fixed and my new automobile sorted out has been fucking me around even more than others
I was sick for the last two days. Crap, cos I was feeling like shit. Cool, cos I got to play Soul Calibur 3 all day (when I wasn't sleeping)

So, as you can see, it's been a pretty damn mixed bag the last two and a half weeks. I'm still pondering whether it's been more crap than cool, or vice versa. I'll let you know when I decide.

RBS

2006-02-02T16:39:00.000+02:00

This past week I've been working on a project for a client that we really want to get as a long-term, recurring customer. It's been quite stressful and insanely busy, but a lot of fun nonetheless =) I've moved desks in the office to a much more fun section than the one I was sitting in, and I'm really enjoying working with the people I am on this project. A step up, definitely =)

Tuesday roleplaying was once again non-existant, with James arriving an hour and a half late. As usual, we sat around and talked rubbish for a long time. Here's hoping for a better session tonight =)

Last night was my first hockey match of the summer league season. Boy, did I feel it. I had a lot of fun even though we lost 4-0, and I made a couple of nice passes, intercepts and runs, so I'm happy with my performance. My fitness level leaves a lot to be desired, but that will improve with time.

And now I must bid you Sayonara, for I must away to a meeting.

It's a small world after all

2006-01-30T17:40:00.000+02:00

I ran into a friend of mine from a while back at Cavendish last weekend, and this weekend we hung out for most of Saturday. She came back to my place to pick up some movie CDs, and it turns out that her boyfriend is an ex-flatmate of Alastair's. Weird stuff, Cape Town is a very small place. I like when I can bring random friends of mine home, and all my housemates can talk to her about people they both know ^_^

Friday night was Lucas' semi-abortive attempt at organising a work outing to Obs. The only work people who joined us turned out to be CLAWmembers as well, so it might just as well have been a CLAW outing.

On Sunday Alastair and I went out to the new Woolworths on Durban road (near the Red Cross) to grab some lunch. On the way out, we popped into the video store there (a Vee's), and they had... Soul Calibur 3 ^_^ We couldn't not rent it, so rent it we did =) We then went straightaway to fetch Candice so she could join in the crazed SC3 playing. A very enjoyable game, and Al seems keen to buy them. Everything looks fantastic, especially the arenas. Abyss' level has a massive comet streaming past in the background, it looks like something out of a movie. Beautiful!

Tonight I think I will catch up on my Dark Chronicle playing, since I haven't played in a while. Also, I must finish up reading Naruto and Abhorsen. Yay ^_^

Ha ha bonk

2006-01-23T16:00:00.000+02:00

After an unexpectedly long break in my internet access, I am finally back and blogging. I've been at Openbox for just over a week now, and it is fantastic but far busier than Synergy. Finding the time to blog, forum, game and read webcomics has become a lot harder, especially with me generally being so busy in the evenings. I was originally intending on staying pretty late every day to get my fixxxxx, but instead I have been arriving at work later. Such are the joys and perils of flexitime. Hopefully we will get a wireless net connection at home in the near future.

In gaming news, I have been playing a hell of a lot of Dark Chronicle on the playstation. I've racked up 35 hours of play time on Al's memory card so far, and this unnerves me. I have thus purchased my very own card, to ensure my peace of mind (and so that I can play elsewhere if I so desire, or Al does something inconsiderate like removing his PS). This also means that I can play the Soul Calibur 2 single player missions myself, from the beginning. I don't really see myself gaming on the PC anytime soon.

Ada's party was on Friday night, and a generally fun time seemed to have been had by all. Candice was dead tired and so went home earlyish (but was totally lounging on me up until that point, so that was alright ^_^). Afterwards, Al decided that it was time to edumacate Lucas, Claire and myself about the 'joys' of whiskey. Of course, he fed us a shot of tequila and three (in my case) or 4 (for everyone else) shots of Vodka to get us to agree. I did learn a fair amount about whiskey. Sadly, I still feel that it tastes disgusting.

Saturday started off as an errands day, but those were soon done and it morphed into a visit-Candice-at-work day, followed by a further morph into a play-Dark-Chronicle-all-day day.

Candice is collecting the Naruto manga at the moment (4/26, or so she found out the other day) and is finding it hilariously funny. When I discovered that Neil had 161 episodes of the anime, I of course picked them all up from him. Sunday was the day we discovered just how truly hilarious it is. I bent the legs on Lucas' stool while falling off it laughing. Yes, it's funny, trust me. The storyline is about Naruto, a 13 year old ninja in training with a mission to be the best ninja ever in Leaf Village. It follows his adventures with his team, Sasuke and Sakura, two fellow Genins, and Kakashi, a Jounin and their teacher. If you like comedy, then come speak to me about acquiring Naruto.

After all the Naruto watching, Al, Candice and I went out to dinner at Borusso's in Kenilworth (I only found out today that there is one in Claremont as well). It really was very good, and thanks to Al for that ^_^ Then we went back home and watched more Naruto.

<_<

>_>

What!!

Hwaorang is teh shit

2005-12-19T14:34:00.000+02:00

Schpatcon was pretty damn fun. Starting off with poker was alright, just far too large (especially at a long thin table like that). 5 people really is the optimal table size. I pretty much looked after the Tekken for the whole of Saturday. It was great seeing people like Robyn and Adam again, and I must organise something for my leave with them and the others. The foosball was fun, but I can't help thinking that Patrick pulled organiser's rank to snag Lucas as a teammate, ensuring him a piggybacked win. Seanbob was, sadly, atrocious in defence ;)

For the second Sunday in a row, I went to my parents and had a roast leg of lamb on the Weber, again cooked and prepared by Matthew. Again, it was quite fantastic =) Candice's band practise was cancelled for her until John can organise some piano scores, so I was invited over for... a roast leg of lamb! Hectic. Very tasty as well =) Then I went home and sat on the internet until 2am. Bad!

Three and a half

2005-12-14T13:23:00.000+02:00

Moyo was, no surprises, fantastic. The food was brilliant and super-abundant, really tasty. I went in waves, all red meat, then all seafood, then all chicken. Then all dessert obviously =) Can't miss out on that. I skipped the vegetables and starch, since that's just a waste of valuable stomach space. Some of the performers were very good, others were just irritating. It was pretty cool getting to chat to my work colleagues in a far more relaxed (and drunken) environment than we usually do, I got to know a couple of them a lot better. It's a pity that I'm only here for another 3.5 days.

omg! 3.5 days! How fantastic =) Then I'm on holiday for ages. Which is good, since there are 5 friends of mine down from various parts of the world that I would like to get a chance to see and do something with, and December is very busy. It will also give me a good chance to get all my Xmas shopping finished (and started, for that matter).

Last night we playested Schpat's Deadlands module, for Schpatcon this Saturday. It was a lot of fun, but a little unpolished. Hopefully our suggestions will serve to buff it up sufficiently =)

Benders

2005-12-12T15:27:00.000+02:00

In the end, I did get to see Jim, once semi-properly and the other time in passing. The first (and proper) time was on Friafternoon when Julie opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of her time at Old Mutual, and her imminent departure for frosty London. After that it was through to Chelle's bday thinger at One Ring, catching a ride with Candice on the way (well, with Lesley really, but it amounts to the same thing). She was very tired tho, and only barely made it to seeing Chelle in before she crashed and I walked her home. The rest of the evening was fun but largely uneventful, until 3am found Al, Lucas, Claire and myself at Gotham. Albert walked in with the largest goose-egg I have ever seen on a man's chin, and a nice split in his skin just below lip. His story kept wobbling around, to the point where I'm not actually sure what the story is (or what to believe - it is Albert after all). Anyway, Al took him under his wing to sort him out, which is great cos I was fucking exhausted and just wanted to go home to sleep. Just as I was drifting off, I heard Al come back - with Albert. Fuck that, I thought, and went to sleep (timestamp: 4:30am). When I woke up at 10ish, they were still awake in the lounge, chatting. Albert was a little surprised to see me (he is a little slow, especially after being knocked in the head), and they offered me a whiskey for breakfast. There followed a slightly awkward period of chatting to Al and Albert, after which I went to shower. Oh, and the awkwardness was not particularly helped by Albert's random friend being passed out at the time on the beanbag. I just ignored him. When Al decided to go to sleep, I decided to get the hell out of there and headed off for the SCA Yule event.

The Yule event was a large amount of fun. The combat was not quite as it usually was, with combatants randomly drawing weapons rather than selecting their favourite favourite. This led to some... 'interesting' matchups. Such as the matchups where one fighter gets his Purple Caramel One With The Nut, and the other That Disgusting Orange One That Nobody Wants. If you like the orange one, then you are weird and lose all rights to comment on this blog. The food was great, very tasty and lots of it. The real amusement for the evening, though, was the Gift Game at the end. Tracy (amongst others) kindly donated extra presents to the pot, allowing me to play. Much Thievery Incorporated later, everyone was left clutching a present possessively. We were definitely the disruptive corner, and we ended up laughing a lot. Sometimes too loudly, and we would attract someone who would wander over and snatch something from one of us. Very sad. In the end, I got a fantastic goblet, Candice got the sheepskin-wrapped present she was after (books, so all good) and Lucas got some Sekanjabin. Alison ended up with the mate of the goblet that I had, after a tip-off by the goblet wrappers themselves, Sidrianna. They were very cunningly wrapped, and were not goblet-like in anyway.

Thereafter, Dave and I decided to join Lucas at a going-away party for one of his work colleagues at Oblivion (where we once again saw Jim, as he, Waynne and Jean were leaving for the evening - I swear they should all look into retirement villages, they are in Pinelands already after all). Dave ended up having a protracted and awkward conversation with Richard. It was painful to watch. I did meet Nikki and Cailey tho, who seemed quite nice (despite Richard's constant warnings about them).

Sunday was handyman day, filled with chipping polyfilla off from the cornicing and then replacing it with fresh. Not especially productive, but Lucas' place is that small bit closer to inhabitable. I was fetched that afternoon to go off for a leg of lamb at my parents, in honour of my little brother's 15th birthday. He did the lamb himself, and it was damn fine. At about 9pm I headed back home, just in time to catch Episode 3 with Candice, Lesley and Al. Shame, Candice was just about asleep when I got there, and things didn't improve as the movie progressed.

Now I sit here in an almost empty office. Most other people have gone home to get ready for the Synergy Xmas dinner at Moyo tonight. Sadly, the 2h30 between finishing and leaving for Moyo are insufficient for me to get anywhere approaching home and back. I just brought some pants in my bag. Close enough. I am very excited, since I have never been and I've heard that it is fucking fantastic. And buffet, so I had a small breakfast and no lunch. I shall tell you all about it tomorrow ^_^ Yum!

Leisure hours

2005-12-08T14:05:00.000+02:00

After taking a very fucking long time to get back to me, the CEO of the company I work for (he's in the US) finally emails me saying that my last day at Synergy will be the 20th December. The rest of December will be taken out of my leave, but I will still have a few days owing, which will be paid out. This is excellent news, for not only will I have a crazy amount of holiday time over the Xmas period, I will also not actually lose out on too much cash, if you take into account that there are public holidays along the way, and OpenBox is a pay rise anyway. Rock on =) This is great, since there are so many people coming down to Cape Town over the festive season, now I'll actually get a chance to see them and do stuff. I might go get my bike learners as well, if the Traffic Dept are open at all.

Obsfest was last weekend, and it was crazy. It's the fullest I've seen Obs ever (including previous Obsfests), and there were more stalls than there have been too. We met up with a couple of people there and sort of wandered around, then went through to Gotham for the end of the evening. Nothing amazing, but fun nonetheless.

Last night, Waynne's roleplaying group had a dinner event in honour of Jim, since he is down for a week for week. It turns out that (according to Jean) I was supposed to be invited, but I just... kinda wasn't. I hope Jim can make Chelle's bday event on Friday, since my weekend is totally booked (mostly with helping Lucas paint the new place) and otherwise I just won't get to see him =/

The shark tank

2005-12-01T13:23:00.000+02:00

I got the job at OpenBox =) Many months have passed since my interviews with Richard, and I was very skeptical about the promises of 'getting back to me' at some point 'when there was a better fit'. I got a phone call, and coffee was arranged at Cavendish last night, and we sat and chatted a bit. It all obviously went down quite well, since I have an offer letter in my inbox this morning, which I will be signing and giving to Chelle tonight to ferry along. My current boss was very understanding and very congratulatory, so that's pretty cool, although my US boss has not yet found out. He'll prolly be less understanding, but he's the one I don't like, so whatever. Very exciting, although I'm sure it will be a lot of stress as well.

So, see you guys on the 16th ^_^

Events

2005-11-28T15:35:00.000+02:00

Saturday was large expent helping Julie prepare for the opening of Naga that evening, withmuch skewering perpetrated by both Al and myself (Al was the primary culprit, I just aided and abetted on a few fruitsticks). The opening itself was great, and Jo and Steve have some very appealing merchandise in their store, albeit a little on the pricey side according to rumours. It turns out that they would like Candice to work there part time, since they seem to be complete retail n00bs =) Best of luck to them, though, I think their shop is a perfect fit in the heart of town. Oh, and the food was divine. I was particularly fond of the satays, and the chocolate cigars were a total hit.

Lucas' birthday happened to be on the self same day, so a short walk from Candice's (after a lift from Helen and Richard) found me outside The One Ring. Which was closed. At 10:30pm. I went next door to Gotham to see what it was like, and was pleasantly surprised by my short exposure. It's definitely a place that I'd like to check out some more, so I guess that's where I'll be this Friday =) I do so enjoy wearing boardshorts to Goth clubs ^_^ It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Sunday was a retail therapy day, for Julie at least. Ever since my idle talk last weekend about wanting to acquire an mp3 player, she has been dead keen on buying one of her own. Al and I went with her to Cavendish (since she is slightly less than tech-savvy, by her own admission), and we picked up a dinky little Yepp player, including an FM tuner! Perfect. She seems very happy, and quite excited about it. Tonight, I will be showing Al how to rip CDs to mp3 so that he can help her on Tuesday.

After the shopping trip, we picked up Candice and went back home for a small spot of Soul Calibur 2, followed by a braai. As usual, it was an almost exclulsively chicken affair, with a small dollop of lamb thrown in for spice. All the food was excellent, but by about 9:30 everyone was looking very bombed. A mass exodus followed very shortly thereafter, including Al and Julie running off to their respective beds. This left me to my own devices, mwahahahhaa!!! So I played some Guilty Gear XX, read some Batman and then went to sleep. Yeah, exciting =)

Zubbles

2005-11-24T15:17:00.000+02:00

Check this article out. It's all about this dude's mad obsession with coloured bubbles, and inevitable success. Very cool, both on a chemical and a toy level =) I wonder when we can expect to see these in SA.

Wanted: Porn actress

2005-11-22T11:54:00.000+02:00

My coworker, who is helping her friend find a new PA job, showed me this advert this morning:

SECRETARY/PA Confident, well spoken and presentable person required to assist successful entrepreneur. Female required in terms of EE targets of company. Candidate must be open-minded and completely comfortable with exposure to nudity. Comfortable working hours. Salary R5000 pm.

How dodgy is that? Everyone I've shown it to has been of the opinion that he is a porn director, and I tend to agree. What people don't agree on is whether this is a legit advert for a secretary, or a covert talent search. Discuss.

Batman Begins, now that I have finally seen it, has dislodged the first two Batman movies (the Tim Burton ones) from their spot on the top of the franchise, where they were trampling the other filth that comprises the full set. The complement of excellent actors are all great picks for their respective role, with Cillian Murphy being especially creepy as Scarecrow. Katie Holmes makes a good Lois Lane-style Rachel Dawes in a girl next door kind of way. I guess that's why she was so suited to her role in Dawson's Creek. So many great scenes, especially the hallucinogen-induced nightmares. Nightmare Batman is especially scary, but Scarecrow on a Nightmare (haha) is pretty good as well.

House of Flying Daggers is very similar to Hero, so if you liked the one make sure you catch the other. It's not as consistently beautiful as Hero, but it does have some very pretty scenes. The bamboo forest fight scenes are particularly great, and employ the same technique of colour saturation that Hero made liberal use of.

I had all but forgotten that the Arderne Gardens even existed. Candice suggested taking a walk down to them rather than hanging around in Cavendish waiting for our movie to start on Sunday. She does spend far too much time in Cav anyway, so a reluctance to waste any more time is perfectly understandable. I'm glad we did, because it was really tranquil sitting in a heavily wooded area, unable to see any buildings, right in the middle of Claremont. Even traffic noises were extremely muffled (and Sunday at 11am is never all that hectic anyway). Pleasant =)

Does a troll shit in the woods?

2005-11-18T11:53:00.000+02:00

Connor awoke with a start. Glancing at the night sky he saw that it was scant few hours since they had made camp a distance from the raided troll burrow. Noises, of men and horses, from the direction of the river and Caledonian border were what had roused him, and he sat up for a better listen. The Caledonians were obviously crossing the river into the Elven lands, intending to take much the same shortcut as Connor and his friends were currently on. A sudden shuffling and snuffling just outside the camp circle riveted Connor's attention on the dark woods in that direction. "Shhhh," he warned the others. "What is it?" asked Frankie. An indistinct but monstrous shape shambled past in the moonlight, and a growing fear gripped Connor's innards. "Trolls" hissed Connor, stilling Henry's drawn bow. "We'll all die if you attack them, and running isn't really an option. They know we're here anyway." A loud sniffing was followed by a pair of yellow headlamp eyes turned to survey the camp, and Connor indicated the wind. It was gently breezing over the camp towards the eyes. The gaze held for a moment longer, then turned away. The shuffling continued, dying away slowly as the trolls walked on. Connor took a deep breath, it felt like the first in ages, and glanced around the camp. Everyone seemed to be relaxing. "Close call. Let's not upset these ones."

The trolls went on to trounce the Caledonians we heard crossing the river, and we continued on. A run-in with the elves turned out less than pleasantly thanks to Henry and, to a lesser extent, Dante. We managed to cross the river to the Caledonian side with their help (and 'don't let the door hit your ass' attitude), where we ambushed a barge team and hijacked the barge. Sadly, none of us can actually pilot a barge, so it was very hit and miss, with the biggest hit being the impact with another Caledonian barge as we passed it. A short, brutal combat later we changed onto the new barge, which turned out to have Mark soldiers and civilians, tortured and in boxes, on board. Of particular interest was a King's Guard by the name of Reno, who was privy to some very interesting intel about activities in Ratchet. Since we are heading in that direction anyway, and acting on this information would fall within the activities dictated us at the start of the action, we are accompanying him. On the way, we were greeted by a message left tied to a planted lance, from some enemy agents who seemed to be taking a particular interest in us specifically. No need for stealth anymore, at least.

By this point, Chelle was falling asleep, so we called it. Looks like the action is hotting up!

Waynne and Alex whipped out their Nintendo DSs (with Nintendogs) almost as soon as the game ended, and set them to Bark mode, so they could wirelessly play with each other's virtual dogs. Al wanted to go and offered to lift Candice (since Waynne, her usual lift, was a lost cause at this point). He ended up dropping himself off at home and letting me return the Candice, who by this point was also fairly tired.

And then Al and I chatted until 2am. So I am a little less focussed today than I usually am. Tough ;) It's Friday! Excellent... *plots*

Playin' a role

2005-11-17T12:36:00.000+02:00

Waynne's Wednesday game was cancelled last night due to Waynne (and OpenBox in general) being heinously overworked and (specifically in Waynne's case) underprepared. Al offered to lend me his car again while he worked on his Thursday game and how to introduce Candice's new character. I ended up going to Candice's place for dinner, where her sister made a tomato and olive pasta dish, which was very nice despite my irrational fear of olives. Those I just kind of got through as quicky as possible =)

After that we went through to my place. Al chatted to Candice for a bit about roleplaying (or at least, I hope about roleplaying - I was kicked out of the room and told to go make tea, and the door was closed... hroom...), so I chatted to Julie a bit. She had been at the wine bottle, since she had just received extremely good news - she has today off!

Eventually we ended up playing Tekken, at Candice's insistence. She wants to learn Julia properly, apparently (Julia being the Native American fighter - 'Spirits, give me strength', all that). Al joined in a bit as well, and Julie brought us some Jago to try, which is this Vodka cream liquer drink that she won at some work cocktail tasting function at the Arabella. It is very nice, although it does taste a bit 'farmyardy' as Julie puts it. I like almost all cream liquers though.

Just as we were leaving to drop Candice back off at home, Anusha returned. She didn't even attempt to park in the driveway, and looked very grumpy when she walked past. She has seemed very grumpy for quite a while now. Grumpy face!

As Patrick says, I too am looking forward to roleplaying tonight ^_^ I have had a total drought for the last age, thanks to some of our number going overseas unexpectedly. No names mentioned.

Correction

2005-11-16T11:58:00.000+02:00

So, I've been called upon to make a correction on my last blog post. Apparently 'hate' was too strong a word for Julie's opinion of Madagascar. She claims that she actually did enjoy it. I am unconvinced ;) But anyway.

I went to dinner at my parents' on Monday night, and my little brother Matthew turned out to be the one doing the cooking. He made chicken breasts wrapped in bacon with pasta, and it was really delicious. My brother was there for a little while with his new girlfriend, who apparently works at Korbitech. I forget her name >_> We did only meet for 2 seconds while they were on their way out, so I don't feel so bad.

Last night Candice came over to sort out a new character for Al's Thursday D&D game. PCGen is a great great program, but it can be tricky to use. Candice had an overly-complex character concept, which we eventually simplified after much discussion and wangling. It look a long time, but we did eventually get it all sorted out. Now, for the integration. Let's hope it's non-fatal. Al kindly let me drive his car to fetch and carry Candice (read: got me to do the heavy lifting). Not complaining tho, although Candice would have been happy just meeting me on the train at Obs and walking down from Newlands station. This way, we got to get Nandos on the way =) And what a mission that was! Unbeknownst to us, the Nandos in Rondebosch is closed for renovations at the moment, so we had to trek to Cavendish.

In Magic news, it seems that the Izzet guild is specially created for Jim. It's the Blue/Red guild in Ravnica (and will be released with Guildpact, the next set in the block), and it's symbol is a dragon. Sounds like fun =)

Mandragora

2005-11-14T14:57:00.000+02:00

This weekend was very movie-filled. I started off with HP2 on Friday night as a follow-up to the book again. This time, the movie was far further away from the book in terms of deleted scenes and word changes, and far fewer incidents when the lines synched completely between the two. The surround-sound system is really cool, especially when nobody else is home =)

On Saturday Candice and I met up in Cavendish for a milkshake and something to eat at M&B, followed by Corpse Bride. It was loads of fun, and I'd advise any Tim Burton fan to give it a watch, especially if you liked the Nightmare Before Christmas. Looking over the other movies that Tim Burton has done reveals a lot of movies that I really enjoyed, chief amongst them being Beetlejuice for that blast from the past goodness, and Sleepy Hollow for a more recent flavour. The two initial Batman movies (the good ones - I haven't seen Begins yet) are his too.

Sunday I spent a portion of the day playing Soul Calibur 2, continuing with Al's Weapon Master save, as the single-player, questy portion of the game is called. Julie got hold of it ages back, though, and has completed the primary quest and any of the easier side missions, so only the insane ones are left. Insanely difficult. I did manage to clear out a few stages, and was rewarded with the gold to purchase a new costume for Astaroth, and the thrill of opening up an entirely new section on the map. This I can only surmise would be even more difficult than the mission that was necessary to open said area, but I didn't get a chance to try it out, cos Candice arrived just then and we switched to Tekken, which she knows much better.

We took turns playing Tekken (all 4 of us, even Julie joined in for one match against Candice) until dinner was ready, a very nice Woolworths chicken breast roll roasted in the oven. Alastair suggested getting a pair of movies for the evening, which was greeted with general approval, and so we wombled on down to Mr Video to peruse their selection (a selection that lacks The Nightmare Before Christmas, I feel compelled to point out - a glaring oversight). We ended up settling on Madagascar and Kingdom of Heaven, through Al's patented 'How about these two? Great, let's go' method of party consensus. Madagascar was very funny and I laughed, a lot. Especially during a scene where the lion is chasing the zebra, and it shifts to slow-mo and the music changes to the National Geographic theme music. Hilarious! KoH we had all seen already, and I was a bit mystified as to why Al had been so exceedingly keen on it, until I remembered that the History channel (in front of which Alastair lives at the moment) is having a special feature on the Crusades. Oh. Right. Julie hated Madagascar, by the way, so if your movie tastes are closer to Julie's than to mine, don't waste your time =)

After KoH (midway through which Julie had retired, so we really should have switched movies), everyone was a bit tired, and Al went to bed while I took Candice home, in Julie's car. I felt exceedingly bad since I was forced to wake Anusha to move her car, which she proceeded to park and leave outside. So, not only did I wake her up at 11pm on a Sunday night, but I then proceeded to deprive her of secure parking. Bleak =/

Got back and Al and I chatted for a bit, about *stuff*. TM. Yar, and then I didn't sleep very well, and now I'm really tired =/

In gaming news: FFXII, check out the review of the demo.

Current Song: Incubus - Drive

What to watch

2005-11-11T16:54:00.000+02:00

I finished the Philosopher's Stone the other day, and watched the movie on Wednesday night. It was cool seeing exactly how many of the lines were taken directly from the book, and I always enjoy seeing what they cut and why. I'm almost finished with the Chamber of Secrets now too, which means I must get hold of it in movie form as well. I'm not too sure if I'm going to wait for the 4th movie before rereading the Goblet of Fire or not, who knows how long it will take to get to us here.

Well, my email about Corpse Bride on Thursday was a total damp squib. Three people replied, saying that they had seen it already, and that it was quite enjoyable. Fine then. Since nobody else seems interested, Candice and I are going to go see it on Saturday. I should probably watch The Nightmare Before Christmas sometime before then...

Black and White has totally lost its appeal for me. It was fun for a while, but now seems like far too much effort. Oh well. I guess I'll be watching all those movies I've been meaning to for such a long time =) And there are a lot of them.