Yikes - it’s been a while. I’ve been neglecting this poor page, letting it slowly starve to death, and I feel a little guilty about that. I’d like to remedy this, but I seem to have misplaced my interest. It’s been months since I saw it last; I’m fearing the worst.
I haven’t been doing any writing of any sort lately. I sit down in front of the computer to write a post, or to try my hand at some fiction, and my mind immediately flips to something else. I just haven’t been enjoying the process lately. I get like this sometimes. I start out fresh and free, posting anything I fancy, and eventually over time I fall into a mental rut. I start by posting what I think is interesting, and then I get to the point where nothing seems interesting enough anymore.
Which is silly, really, as this isn’t exactly the highest trafficked weblog around, and I shouldn’t really have to worry about being too interesting, but that’s just how I am sometimes. I know I come across as a cool and collected stud of a man, but some days I’m just a raging emo inside.
So what have I been doing with my free computer time? Well, mainly trolling through my RSS feeds, listening to music, posting random thoughts, and sharing the occasional song.
I think I have a small creature growing in my sinus cavities, a hedgehog or possibly a marmot. I feel like death.
You see, last weekend I was at an event in Seattle called the Penny Arcade Expo, which is a gaming convention. While it was a lot of fun, it also means I was stuck in a conference centre containing just under sixty thousand people with shady hygiene regimens. I seem to have contracted some kind of nerd SARS, and I think my face may split open at any minute now.
PAX was a blast, though. During the days, we mainly played and watched demos for upcoming games, lazed about in beanbags, and stood in many, many lines. We had a chance to watch Wil Wheaton’s panel and Q&A session, which was great. We stood in line afterward to get a little collector booklet of his fiction that he puts together for conferences.
We also queued up to get a copy of The Guild DVD and have it signed by Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh. Day wrote and starred in The Guild, but when we were there I only knew her from her role in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog. I didn’t think I’d be nervous meeting her, as I hardly knew of her, but I realized once I got to the front of the line that I really had nothing to say. It wasn’t so much a wow-a-famous-person moment as it was a wow-I’m-generally-awkward-in-social-situations moment.
The plan was to say something incredibly witty and insightful, rendering her helpless to my good looks and charm, and setting off our long, happy life together. Instead when I went to speak to her, she complimented my shirt. This completely derailed the imaginary dialogue I had running through my mind, and through a chain-reaction of half-thoughts and stutters, I ended up saying “it sort of makes me look like a cotton candy lumberjack”, thus ending our torrid love-affair before it even began.
Jonathan Coulton was also there, playing a concert one of the nights. I’m a fan of his, so it was great to see him play. He was excellent, by far the best act there, and he even did a duet of Still Alive, the song from Portal, with Felicia Day. I picked up a Skullcrusher Mountain shirt after the concert.
Despite my internal organs now failing, and my squandered chance at love, it was a great weekend. It was fun to spend a few days away from work to geek out with my friends.
Below are a couple of photos that Manda took at the signings. No, I don’t wear plaid everyday. Also, below that is Coulton’s Skullcrusher Mountain, one of the MP3s he provides free of charge on his site.
Bloodsucking Fiends was one of my favourite Moore novels, so I was really looking forward to reading this sequel. Luckily, he didn’t disappoint, as this book was every bit as funny as the first, probably even funnier. The diary entries he wrote for the character Abby Normal, a 16 year old goth girl turned vampire minion, were pure genius. I also loved how he weaved the plot of this in with the plot of A Dirty Job.
The ending wasn’t the best, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
The main character, and his coworkers, are a team of software developers working on a large game that is doomed to fail due to terrible management. It’s a quirky commentary on corporate life and pop culture, as well as just being a bizarre story, and there’s certainly a lot to relate to for those of us who have spent time wasting away in offices.
At first, I had a bit of a hard time getting into the book, as the characters acted and responded to events in ways that aren’t very believable, but it didn’t take long for me to get sucked in. This was my first Coupland book, and I’ll definitely be buying his others.
A novella about a young girl who finds another world behind a locked door, or rather another copy of her own world. It’s aimed at young readers, but it’s certainly suitable for anyone. Very dark and surreal, you can’t really go wrong with Gaiman.
Soon to be made into a animated stop-motion movie, which could be very good.
I picked this up on a whim in a comic store while visiting a friend in Vancouver, and I’m glad I did. It’s a collection of strange poems written and illustrated by Tim Burton. It was short, but a lot of fun.
Peek-a-Boo!
