Moar rain, moar miserable weather, more cold ears.

( December 2 )

Even if it's miserable and rainy and awful outside in Wellington, it's still the first day of December. That means, first day of Jenni's Amazing Advent Calendar(tm).

( Open the window for Dec 1st )

Don't forget about craft day on Saturday, Come on over in the afternoon! I'll be heading out for Roller Derby at about 6 :)

Also, tomorrow the advent calendar will start up again. I'll stick it here I think, since it's the easiest way and I'd be linking from here anyway.

Movie night prolly not on this week, since I may have roleplaying on Thursday and might be seeing Zombieland on Friday :)

Also, if you're curious about my various writing projects, I am checking in:

http://jennitalula.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/checklist-where-my-writing-is-at/

It's that familiar time in essay writing. You've done all, or almost all, of the thinking, read the background material, written the core of your argument, and now you're footnoting, tidying syntax and fixing all the partially-complete bits and pieces. This has always been the bit I've struggled with most, which is a significant part of why learned folk like stephanie_pegg will always be better scholars than myself.

For the SDC, this is taking the form of stating NPCs, tweaking language, and squeezing out the details of scenes and actions that I wouldn't need spelled out myself to run the game. In terms of "stuff I'd need myself" this game has been playtestable since mid-morning yesterday. About 2500 words ago.

As with essays, I spent a chunk of this morning reading the SDC archive. The link to the adventure that beat me last year doesn't work, and a couple others are just titles for unknown reasons, but I've at least skimmed the rest. The quality runs the gamut from very good to fairly poor, and there are pretty much as many different approaches as entries, especially across the prolific Matt Cowens' work! I'd struggle to have picked some of his entries as being by the same guy.

Unlike a real essay, I think that the genius of most of the games that have been entered up to this point is not in the execution of the work, but in the inventiveness of the idea and a kind of etherial quality of spirit. I can see any of these scenarios being picked up by a GM Wizard like Dale or Morgue and being excellent fun; as glock_9mm did a couple of years ago.

My selection for running a whole-con of KapCon SDC entries wouldn't overlap much with his selection. For my money, and for no really compelling reason and in no particular order, I think I'd run The Tower, The Titan Dilemma, The Villain Wore Black, Mumford Hall, and of course, my own Spirit of the Tentacle.

I've suggested to the organizers that we should get in copies of the first SDC omnibus as prizes, and prepare a second volume. A prize worth striving for.

I think it was Ivan who asked me whether Zombies had anything left to offer by way of commentary on the human condition. I don't know. But Zombieland sure looks like a bundle of fun. :)

Anyone know anything about polished wood floors? My kitchen seems to have been munted, and I have no idea whether I can just have it repolished, or if I'll need to strip it back to wood or how much it's all likely to cost.

Today's news is that Jason Kidd moved into second place on the all time assists list with 10,335 career assists.

What is astonishing is that John Stockton, the all time assist leader, had 15,806 assists. Yes, that's right, 50% more than the second place hold.

I knew Stockton held the record, I just didn't know it was that far above everyone else. 50% more than the next closest person! That is just phenomenal. Yeah, I hated those Utah Jazz teams, but that's incredible.

Leatherworking happened. Got a bunch of people started on projects. Actually feel like doing some leatherworking myself, which is a huge plus.

http://wp.me/pp6oN-ZI

Oh and I'm happy for people to come over tomorrow night and watch a movie with me if they are so inclined.

Also. Lee's out for a LAN on Saturday Dec 5th, so craft afternoon at my place, all welcome, craft not actually required, you just have to be tolerant of others crafting. ALSO that night there is Wellington vs Auckland roller derby and I am going to that and you should too, it will be awesome.

http://susan.sean.geek.nz/2009/11/no-no-one-of-kind.html

We had got out the door(!) and were about to walk down to the local cafe for brunch. Hazel spied the garage and suddenly wanted to scoot her scooter instead of walking. She needed to go back for scooting shoes, I was hungry, gave her the key and suggested she go and get the right shoes on and catch us up. Hazel wanted an adult to come with her to help find and put on the shoes, Sean went with her so to do. I suggested to Iris that we start walking, she was unwilling. I explained that they would catch us up, because they would be fast. Iris pointed out a rose with sunset coloured petals. We looked at the rose. Iris pointed out a soldier fly with black patches on its wings, we looked at the soldier fly. Iris asked why the leaves of our sycamore are much paler green than the leaves of the oak, I thought aloud about possible answers. Iris gazed thoughtfully at the sycamore and the oak. Iris heard movement at the house and informed me that they were coming, and we could wait for them. We waited. Hazel got her scooter and scooted off, zooming past us.

CPEng: Done
Leagues Organizing: Done
Fright Night: Done
NI Champs: Done
Riddiford St: Done
Crieff St: Done

SDC Entry: Top of Queue!

I am not going to have time to play-test my SDC entry by the submission deadline of 1/12/09. Now, I understand from Paul that there's some leniency on the deadline, but I'd like to try and hit the target if possible.

I am looking for proof-readers and advisers to review my entry. The entry is written in 5 distinct chunks which each kinda make sense by themselves. I have all-but finished 2 of these chunks and am substantially through 2 more. I expect to finish the main writing for all 5 on Saturday evening sometime.

Are any of you, my dear, dear readers, able to help? My plan will be to send you the individual parts as they are completed so I can incorporate changes organically, and then a final draft on Saturday night including everything.

RPG company Adamant Entertainment, who have a couple pieces of my writing available at their store, have announced a completely crazy $1 sale!

Stuff for 4E, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, the OGL, and Mutants & Masterminds. Worth a look.

Wow. Upper Hutt YMCA are advertising their own Ultimate Frisbee league in the wake of Business games. This is somewhat of a big deal for Ultimate as as far as I know most ultimate leagues in NZ have been started by ultimate players. Having a third party start a league is fantastic! Plus it might reach those people in the Hutt for whom Wellington leagues are just too much of a transport/time hassle.

( Flyer )

Ah! With great satisfaction I think I've finally assembled the structure of the game I'm writing for Kapcon 19.

It's rather done my head in. But I'm happy to have got something down that I think will work.
Next step: actually start *writing* it. (Then playtest! Eeek, time time time...)

Yes, it's another revival. I don't feel nostalgic but I sure seem to be acting like I am...

Aliens: Endgame
Endgame is an intense character-based drama in a horrific world.

In 1995, the weekend-long event Gametime launched a series of large-scale games in Wellington inspired by the Aliens film franchise. The last of these was Apocalypse in December 1999, which found Earth overrun by the alien creatures. Now, ten years later, Endgame will take you back to that blighted planet and give you a chance to seek out its future.

(Note: Anyone looking for a battle scenario will be disappointed. No, you don't get to be a Colonial Marine, you don't get to drive an APC, and you don't get to fire a pulse rifle.)

( Captain Boozehat, Riverboat Captain )

There was a party you understand. Things got silly.

A little post on queries: http://jennitalula.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/query-this/