Even more skipping.

I didn't bother writing posts for thursday and friday as I was far too tired to bother. On thursday I went round to my girlfriend's place for the day, and on friday I supposedly did revision but didn't actually get much done unfortunately. At any rate I'll write a rather brief account of today. I went in to work early as that's when my step mum was able to drive me in, so I actually had a big breakfast which was nice. Work itself wasn't too bad even though it did drag on a bit. During my breaks I mostly had a rest, since I wasn't exactly feeling pumped full of energy, but I got through the day alright. When I went round my girlfriend's place we mostly spent time together chatting, then had dinner and I challenged her to a few more games of chess (continued on from thursday). With time I reckon she'll improve, as at the moment she's essentially a beginner. Even though I made a stupid mistake here and there I still only lost four or five pieces a game, always eroding her down to just a King. It'll be nice to gradually teach her how to improve, as then we can have close matches and what not. At any rate after I got home I watched Kiba and Death Note, and both updates were good. Kiba had an armoured Amil Gaoul, whereas Death Note had Light working for the police investigation. Having the real Kira needing to pretend to be Kira for the cops strikes me as very funny. At any rate I'm tired again, so till next time.

On time!

Wow, a post I didn't have to roll back. I'm impressed with myself. I didn't go to bed last night as I didn't think there was much point. I was supposed to get a call from my mate when he left to go to uni so we could meet up, but he forgot to call. He then didn't call for a couple of hours assuming I'd go in anyway, even though I'd pointed out I'd go to uni when he called me. On the plus side thanks to this I got a few hours of rest though I didn't fall asleep. When I eventually did meet up with him it wasn't long at all before the pair of us were picked up by another SWARM friend and we went to (yet another) SWARM friend's house where the four of us, a sister and her boyfriend played a Settlers game. For my first game I did pretty poorly, as a black ship utterly stopped all of my development. Meh. I had an hour or so of rest as I sat away from the game, and I eventually returned to watch them all play Niagara. The dinner there was quite nice, sausages and mashed potatoes. When we took our leave we went back to uni and round my munchkin mate's room where we played a fair amount of Tekken 5. I did rather well, though the guy who hadn't played it at all before became very good with Tina very quickly. It was funny to take part as to begin with we had to keep tweaking the handicaps.

After that it was time to go home and so off I went on the train as the munchkin went to his own home. In my free periods during the day I played more Rengoku II, and annoyingly I died after clearing half a level without saving. This meant I couldn't really just turn off and on again, as I'd lose a load of progress. As such I had to trek back to my room of death to reclaim all the previously equipped weapons. Thank god I keep a load of spares, as it's something I learnt from the first game. Never be without weapons, punching someone armed with several guns and blades isn't really a viable tactic. After getting home I did a few anime and PSP searches but started feeling quite tired, so I'm off to bed now. Till next time then.

Seeing more family.

I had to get up relatively early this morning. It was another day planned to spend with family, this time one of my step mum's daughters and her husband. They're really nice people and I've met them quite a few times before, so it was nice going round there and meeting up with them. For the most part everyone watched a lot of TV or generally had a chat, and eventually we all had a big dinner and a large amount of dessert before four of the five of us played a game of 'Deal or no Deal'. It's... not really the type of game I go for, but it was still mildly entertaining when I got rid of the high cash totals. It wasn't too long after that when the time for us to return home arrived, but I spent a fair amount of my time their dangling a cat toy for their two kittens. They're the size of adult cats now, though not quite old enough to really be called adults. They're long haired, and one is a nice smoky grey and the other is mostly black with a grey underside. They're lovely cats. On the way there and back I spent most of my time playing Rengoku II: Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N. since I'd placed it back on my PSP memory stick and I like it quite a bit. I'm a fan of the Rengoku games even though most reviews trash it. I personally like the game music, the levels, shooting the crap out of enemies and upgrading the Adam unit. Some of the weaponry is immensely fun. For some reason when I first got it I played it for about three hours then set it aside. This is probably due to testing other games, but I'm not sure why I didn't pick it back up. At any rate I'm a lot closer to completing the main game now.

When I did get back I quickly checked for anime updates, new PSP news, then updated the forum and added another four new Artifacts on top of the six I added yesterday, and also added another ten purchase-able items. Other than that however I didn't do much else. I only really had more Jonathan Creek running as I went about talking to mates over Skype. Not overly eventful really, so I'll call it a day there. Till next time.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

I decided to skip the post yesterday in favour of writing a post spanning both the eve and day itself. Though I don't believe in Christmas itself, what with the whole religious aspect, I do happen to be a happy capitalist and therefore don't overly mind promoting the consumer angle. At any rate yesterday I had to go into work, and it started off with a mad rush. When I got there early the store had the main doors closed, and there was a fairly large crowd gathered in front of them. It... wasn't overly pleasant to see from my viewpoint. Thankfully as the day wore on the number of customers steadily decreased. By late afternoon, roughly 4 pm-ish, I was only having one or two customers every ten minutes, so that was all good. It made the afternoon a lot more bearable I must say. In the morning I was nearly falling asleep due to only two hours of rest earlier, thanks to the Nintendo Wii. It's a fun console. Anyway, after work I went with the aid of my step mum, who actually drives unlike me, and picked up my girlfriend. We had a Christmas Dinner together with my family then she had a lot of fun playing on the Wii. She's 'fallen in love with the console' according to her own words. I assume, therefore, that she wants one. Considering her dad also wants to get one as he thinks it sounds like a good family investment, things look good for her.

After that she had to go home unexpectedly early for no reason at all, and when I asked her mum today she seemed quite confused. Odd and vexing, but oh well. When she'd gone I felt quite tired so simply went to bed not long after and slept for a long time for a change. Today I got up a short while before midday then got picked up and went to my girlfriend's house till 10 pm. It was great having Christmas dinner with all of them, especially as I got to spend Christmas Day with my girlfriend. Since I'd bought a set of six Marvel DVD's for my girlfriend the pair of us, and her dad, all watched Fantastic Four which they enjoyed. After that was random TV and chatting, and eventually starters and (a few hours later) dinner. In the gap we played the Zombies!!! board game with the whole family minus the mum, as she was cooking, and it was pretty funny. My girlfriend's dad held back and hid behind people all game, letting me throw zombies at my girlfriend's sister as she was nearest to winning, only to run in and steal victory from nowhere. Needless to say the sister was slightly surprised, but everyone else found it funny.

Unfortunately the time did come for me to return home, so with parting goodbyes I did so, having thoroughly enjoyed my day thus far. When I got home I spent some time with my dad and step mum, obviously as they'd get annoyed if I didn't, then popped onto my computer. I actually logged onto Guild Wars for the first time in bloody ages, and was extremely disappointed to see that the Christmas event was exactly the same as last year. The only new stuff was a few more candy cane weapons for the new classes. All the new Christmas quests were for Nightfall only, which completely and utterly sucks. Meh. Giving up on it I went to IRC, then was overjoyed to notice the 3.02 OE-B update for the PSP thanks to Dark_aleX. That guy seriously rocks, the amount of work he's done is truly impressive. He certainly helps define the PSP homebrew community. I reckon I may actually play Final Fantasy VII now, considering it can be run on the PSP. I'll have to think of what other Playstation games I'd want on my little portable gem of a handheld. At any rate for now I'll be re-watching Black Books in the background as I randomly chat to mates, so till next time.

Wrapping.

So at work today in my break I did a bit of shopping. I got the final presents for my girlfriend's sister and respective boyfriend, then bought wrapping paper and Christmas cards since I left those a bit late. I'll most likely give all the SWARM group Christmas cards even though I'll be a couple of weeks late. None of them seemed to give any out, so I assume it's all good anyway. Work itself was alright I guess. The same amount of people as usual, just double the usual money totals. I had to do a fair few cash pods, there was a -lot- of money. Damn... So close yet so unattainable. At any rate after work I felt shattered, so when I got round my girlfriend's house I accidentally fell asleep twice. Admittedly not for long each time, but I still felt a bit sheepish. On the plus side the rest did make me feel a lot better, and nearing late evening I felt pretty normal once again. When I got home instead of wrapping presents and writing cards, which was the priority, I tested out the other main item I'd bought today - Rayman Raving Rabbids for the Wii. It's not a coherent game per se, but rather over 70 mini games. What I've played of it so far is pretty cool, especially the dancing stages. I quite like the running one too as it's simple to get to grips with. The cow swining one is bloody harsh as if you get the angel wrong it either goes only a short distance or gets thrown backwards into the surroundings, gaining no points. Bah to that one.

After playing that for a while I made a couple more Wii Mii's then played even more Wii Sports boxing. God I love the boxing. It rocks. Once all that was done then I started with the presents and got them done reasonably quickly. Writing the Christmas cards took longer since I personalised each one (instead of simply writing to and from...) though I left the writing of the main bulk, mostly for the SWARM-goers, for a later time. Probably a day or two before the new term-time SWARM meeting. At any rate that's everything, cutting my post a bit shorter for today. Till next time.

The new arrival.

Ah yes, this morning was certainly interesting. I went to doze off at about 8 am for a rest as I'd not got any sleep, and I was awoken a couple of hours later as a large heavy parcel hit me, courtesy of my dad bringing it to me. I didn't pay it much heed though I knew what it was, but I was up by early afternoon and opened it quite happily. Yes, it was my Nintendo Wii. Though I'd paid a bit more for it on eBay I still managed to get it before Christmas which is suitably impressive, and as such I quickly went through my mail, leaving a new White Dwarf magazine for later, and set everything up. The first game I tried was the Zelda one as I'd bought it on the day of release. It certainly worked well, and I played for roughly eight hours without a break before deciding to try something else. It took a bit of getting used to, having to swing the remote to slash, and many times I pressed A or B by mistake (wasting a fair amount of lamp oil.....) but I'm slowly coming to grips with it. The two-part controller is remarkably comfortable for me and I'm looking forward to a good multiplayer first person shooter for the Wii. Ah, that'll be sweet. There are in fact several games I'm looking forward to, but I digress. The second game, or rather games, I tried was Wii Sports. Though they were all quite good, my favourite by far is the boxing. Poor computer sucker barely got a few hits in. Mwahahaha.

All in all I spent nearly nine hours on the Wii, so afterwards skimmed through White Dwarf, updated the Soul Society forum and added a new 'riddle' of sorts in which people had to write the next part of it. I chose the one I liked the best, altered a few bits in the submission and my own riddle, and made a psuedo-anagram from all the first letters of the lines. Thing is, there's 20 lines, and the question is pretty much - 'After removing five lines, form a five word sentence which I picked randomly from my mind with the first letters of the remaining fifteen lines.' Needless to say, it's vaguely difficult for them. On the plus side the prize is huge, being three Artifacts, one of which the winner can choose for themselves. Considering that on the forum Artifacts are items of ridiculously nifty power, this has got the main group of regulars very interested indeed. Other than the forum though I didn't really do much else aside from chat on Skype to the forum regulars, so my day was in fact pretty linear. I may as well be off then as that's all the news for now. I'll just get in a last game of Wii boxing before I go to sleep. Maybe two.... Till next time.

Glitches

Hmm, I'm not too sure why, but the posts from tuesday and wednesday weren't showing. At any rate after messing around with the settings they are now, so read them if you like.

As for today, I was woken up in the morning at roughly 9.50 am by my girlfriend gently poking me. She'd been let into the house by my step mum as I was still asleep so when I did wake up it was a surprise, but an incredibly pleasant one. We had decided to go to Brighton for the day to catch a movie and so forth but it was incredibly cold. My girlfriend was incredibly cold from being outside too, so a duvet helped in making her warmer. In the end we pretty much just watched X-Men II and some Family Guy, spending a large part of the day just dozing off together. It was remarkably serene and relaxing, so it was all good. It was especially nice to spend more than just an evening with her again, and she enjoyed seeing the movie as she likes Nightcrawler and found his teleport effects quite spiffy. That actually sums up our day together really. Not overly eventful, but still happy.

In the late evening after she had to return home I spent a couple of hours on Achaea killing the populations of small villages. It was immensely enjoyable, and seeing the different fighting style in action was quite good. It means I'm likely to go kill of denizens a lot more now. Once that joy was over I actually watched anime again as I had a few episodes. I went through Bleach, Naruto, Kiba, Welcome to the NHK, Asatte no Houkou and Death Note. Bleach was alright and hopefully the filler arc is much nearer to ending as the main 'bad guy' got killed. Naruto was fairly poor, with incredibly sub-par animation. Sakura held an expression for several seconds that didn't actually look like her. Oh dear. Kiba was cool and had the killing of hostages. Incentive that works I would assume. Welcome to the NHK also started wrapping everything up dramatically so I'm looking forward to the next episode. As for Asatte no Houkou, the little girl in a teenage body ran away and got a job. How angsty. Death Note was, however, my favourite episode of the lot. A second Kira has emerged with quite a different style as the Death Note user took the offer of the Shinigami's eyes. It's safe to say I'm looking forward to the next episode of that too. At any rate sleep calls, so till next time.

A lot of poker.

Not much happened in the morning aside from getting ready really quickly then heading off to Brighton to meet up with my 'munchkin' friend. We both met up on the train then proceeded to walk around Brighton to visit the usual shops, namely Dave's Comics and David's Books. I spent more cash I really shouldn't have, buying a few models and a Ravnica booster box for Magic the Gathering. It dented my account, but I figure I'll be able to cope since I've only got a single present left to buy, and can conserve my spending (for the most part...) for a couple of months. After the brief time in Brighton we both went into uni in Falmer and hung out at his place listening to music till SWARM started. When it did the games of poker began. Texas hold em' to be exact. I'd never really played poker before, so when I started I didn't do all that well. I barely kept afloat, though at least I wasn't the first out. During the second game I went out about halfway through, though everyone was kind enough to lend me some chips. I eventually went from strength to strength, admittedly fluctuating in how many chips I had left, to eventually win the game. It was a last gamble on the hand I had, and when my actual good poker player went all in, I decided to call his bluff. It turns out neither one of us was bluffing, but my hand was slightly higher than his. Phew eh?

I quick trip to get a large doner kebab later and there was more poker. I deliberately went out early and decided I may as well have a rest, so I zoned out for a while. Though I listened to them my track of time wasn't the most exceptional in the world, and I eventually got up and started my Paranoia XP game by 7.50 pm-ish. Four people took part which wasn't bad, as there were only another three around. The GM of the D&D campaign I'm in at uni took part, and damn. He was good with words. He managed to get around a good deal of semantic traps I put down and actually only lost two clones in the last ten minutes or so. For a good two hours he was still on the prime. In a 'zap' game, where the average life expectancy is roughly a few minutes if not less, this was of course impressive. Unfortunately he'll be unable to play in later games since he works and D&D runs in the later slot. Oh well eh? After the Paranoia XP game it was time to go home and thus I did, collapsing in bed a couple of hours later, having played Achaea some more. Recently I decided to invest some more time into it, bought a small amount of credits and pretty much redid my whole character, changing him from the serpent class to the monk class. Now he can combo. How interesting. At any rate, till next time.

Painting.

I naturally got up late today and then proceeded to paint my gargoyle. I finished him off with a series of incredibly thin and layered dark green and brown washes in select areas. It gave some parts the appearance of mottled stone, slight weathering and so forth. I then added a tiny bit of colour by painting the shield face a subdued turquoise, finishing off overall with a small amount of static grass. Overall I'm rather pleased with the effect. Once it was early evening I went off to Games Workshop and met up with my main two mates there, with my girlfriend turning up an hour or so later. It was nice seeing her again, as even though it'd only been a day since I last saw her I missed her. I'm not too sure if having her on my mind so much is a good or a bad thing, but it's enjoyable at any rate. I ended up showing the gargoyle to mostly everyone I knew in Games Workshop, and thankfully (and rather pleasingly) all the reviews I got were good. One mate I don't see often repeatedly said it was good which was quite pleasing, though no doubt the fact that the model itself is awesome does help a substantial amount. I hung around for a short while after that before my group of mates went to the noodle place. This time it was up to my girlfriend to treat us all, as the rest of us had, over a period of months, bought quite a few rounds of meals.

Once that was eaten we went to the pub and started up the D&D campaign once more. My girlfriend's drow character seemed to be incredibly fearful of my monk and did everything asked without any question and barely any delay. Quite entertaining really. However during the course of exploring my monk got cut by a giant swinging axe and therefore started losing health over time. This was, quite obviously, faintly annoying. s such to finish myself off my monk quite literally dug his own grave then did 50 sit ups. The exertion killed him rather quickly. This leaves me free to write up another character, though I'm not too sure what to go for. I'll most likely end up going for a Warforged fighter or Paladin. It's sturdy, different, and can heal itself (if a Paladin). It seems as good a choice as any. After my girlfriend left the three of us decided to play pool, and I was a 'lucky bastard' as my friend put it. Both games we went down to the black, and both times I got it. The first game I didn't aim per se, but merely got the right colour in often enough to annoy my mate. The second game the black was an inch from the pocket, the white a further four inches away. My mate, to show off, put the cue behind his back. Yeah, he promptly missed and I got the black in. Oh how we both laughed, heh. At any rate, till next time.

A lack of revision.

The title is quite self-explanatory, in that today I've not yet even started my holiday revision, and it's already the 18th and past 11 pm. Er, bugger. I'll actually start after this post since I do have to start eventually, so it may as well be today (rather than friday when I should have started....). I actually slept in till about 2 pm anyway since I didn't feel all that fantastic. Not ill, just quite tired and worn out. In fact, 'shattered' is quite an accurate description. Anyway, when I did get up it wasn't long before my dad returned home from the hospital, and he was quite glad to be out of there. It was nice to have him back at home. For the rest of the afternoon I generally put off my revision for a variety of reasons, such as watching more Family Guy, watching more Bill Bailey comedy, generally not doing much, and repainting my gargoyle miniature. I'd already done the dark green stippled effect, but when I started the marble veins it looked, to put it bluntly, bloody terrible. As such I gave the model a very thin wash of black to mute everything and started once more from a near-black base up to a slightly muted grey. I went for a usual stone effect as a) it's traditionally what suits a gargoyle, b) it looks quite nice, and finally and quite importantly, c) I suck at painting marble veins.

Here's the picture of what it looks like so far -


Since it's predominantly stone, most of it therefore counts as finished. There's only the partially buried shield and war hammer to paint up, but to add a tiny bit more colour I'll no doubt add a small amount of static grass to the base in tiny clumps around the base of the pillar. I'm not too sure how else to add colour to a stone model as I'm pretty happy with it even if it does look quite monochrome. I'll probably end up making the eyes red and gem-like, as well as painting the small face on the central part of the buried shield with (incredibly) muted flesh tones. Hopefully the minimalistic style will help the overall impact. It's the main reason why I made the talons, claws, fangs and horns almost white so they'd stand out.

Gargoyle musings aside, my plans for tomorrow generally revolve around going to Brighton in the morning for random shopping, then going to Games Workshop in the evening as per usual. No doubt I'll bring in some D&D stuff and so forth, etc etc. With luck I may even get a few games played, so that's all good. My revision calls, so I'll be off for now. Till next time.

Skipped again.

Well, looks like I skipped writing the posts on friday and saturday. To be brief then - on friday I slept in instead of doing revision then my munchkin pal came round at 2 pm and left at roughly midnight. There was a couple of games on the Gamecube, some testing for my D&D gargoyle character, who only managed to kill ten regular gargoyles before he was killed, and some general hanging out together. Yesterday it was the boredom of work, then I saw my girlfriend again. Unfortunately her work isn't exactly good at letting her out on time and she was upset because she ended up being late to pick me up but I didn't mind so it was quite sweet that she was worried about me (as it was cold outside where I wait).

Today was yet again work, but whereas yesterday I was almost falling asleep during the first half of the day, today I managed to cope quite well as I had an extra 20 minutes sleep, not to mention also had a chocolate bar this morning in addition to breakfast. Yay an' all that jazz. I was even put on self scan for an hour or so to cover two breaks, though annoying my own break had actually started a few minutes before midday, meaning I had to work the full four hour period without any gaps. Harsh, and in fact it was only mitigated by the self scan time which I quite enjoyed. Normal tills seem to be much more emotionally draining for me. Meh I guess. After work I got to see my girlfriend again and it was bliss going from work to her. Her job did cause her to overrun again, but this time there was only half the wait of yesterday, most of which I had already been picked up in, so it was all good. When we got back to hers it wasn't long before it was dinner, and not much longer after that Hogfather started on Sky One. Admittedly I found it to be slightly disappointing, since my expectations were quite high, what with it being Terry Pratchett an' all. Overall there were quite a few details that didn't strike me as quite right. The Auditor's whiny voices, Death's appearance (which I feel should have been CG'd like the AWESOME Death of Rats), Death actual weaponry (which so blatantly should have been CG'd to look like the blades were made from blue light), Ridcully being as fat as the Dean, whereas the Dean was quite skinny, Susan having a cool visage yet not having 'The Voice', etc etc. Some people may consider these to be minor details, but to me they're quite important since I like the book so much. Unfortunately it also looked very... non-film-ish. That is to say, it didn't have the expected gloss and professionalism as most films. Since it's probably going to be four hours long, that's a great shame.

Half way through The Hogfather I had to return home, so I caught the rest of it when I got back. Part two airs tomorrow and I'll be around for it, so that's all good. The second half of the book was more interesting, so I'm looking forward to seeing it, even if it doesn't quite meet my hopes. Once it ended I went back to my room and put on some Bill Bailey comedy as I blasted apart another unlucky zombie in Urban Dead then after Bill watched some more Family Guy. As I only have two episodes of anime to watch, Naruto and Death Note, (conveniently ignoring Burst Angel or Garasu no Kantai...) I figure I'll wait a day or two for all the weekend and monday episodes to be subbed to I can have another mini animarathon. With only eight days left till Christmas too I really should get around to getting cards and wrapping paper. Meh, I guess I'll eventually get round to it on time. At any rate, till next time.

Hospital visits.

I had another sleep in this morning, which was nice, then eventually got up, made my bed and so forth, etc etc, and finished just as my girlfriend arrived at about 12.45 pm. She went through some NewType USA's and had a look at the miniatures I'd bought and the time seemed to fly by. Before long it was time to visit my dad in the hospital, and so we both went along with my step mum and spent three hours with him. General chat followed and my dad made a few comments about us raising the temperature of the ward. I guess we class as 'affectionate' when near each other. Afterwards we came back to mine and had chicken, french bread and pizza whilst we watched The Matrix as my girlfriend hadn't actually ever seen the movie. After that we watched the first three episodes of The Animatrix before time ran out and she had to return home. Though a fair chunk of time was spent in the hospital I still enjoyed seeing her and spending time with her and I'll see her again during the weekend so I don't exactly have to wait long. After she'd left I generally didn't feel like doing much so put Family Guy season five on for something to listen to as I generally surfed the net. Not long after that one of my mates said he was bored so he popped over and we have three games of Magic the Gathering. I really need to improve my burn deck. It kinda works, but it's quite fast enough to be honest.

Once he had to return home, as he has work in the morning, I figured I may as well watch some of the anime I had waiting to be seen, so I got through Bleach, Kiba, Tonagura, Tokimeki Memorial, Negima, Chocotto Sister and two of Busou Renkin. Bleach was fairly alright, and the Bound's doll has bloody finally appeared. I hope the filler arc ends soon. Kiba was pretty cool, with Amil Gaoul or however it's spelt going into some special form and kicking ass, though the side effect doesn't look all too pleasant. Tonagura had more shenanigans from the pervy guy and a lot of misunderstanding going on. Tokimeki Memorial had the girlfriend trying to actually spend time alone with her boyfriend and unfortunately, for her, failing miserably. As for Negima... Well, the series is just plain weird. I'm not really all that keen on it. At all. I'll probably drop it if the next episode doesn't improve much for me. Chocotto Sister had more potential love worries and a really weird dream for the manager. Busou Renkin had more fighting, though this time against humans rather than homonculi. How interesting. I didn't feel like watching any of Garasu no Kantai or Burst Angel, since .mkv is an effort to watch. I guess that's all, so till next time.

Purchase.

Shopping was on the agenda this morning as in the morning I went into Eastbourne. I managed to find a suitable present for my girlfriend's dad, so I just need to buy a combined one for her sister and boyfriend. I already know what I'll get them, so it's a question of finding it. I'll probably just look around closer to the time. I still have to wrap up all the presents, but I have enough time I reckon. After that I came back home, rather hurriedly got everything ready, then went into university since SWARM still runs during the holidays, though admittedly with smaller groups. There were a fair few people still there though, however most of the previous Paranoia XP group weren't around. As such I ran the game with three players, only two of whom had been in the previous game. Even so the new player, who'd been a bit iffy about joining, quite enjoyed it, and afterwards was relating his exploits to other people. Excellent, excellent... There were quite a few games of Magic the Gathering too, and I came to realise that though my decks work I'm not enjoying them as much. This is probably because I have a shedload of ideas for new decks but simply haven't built them yet. I'll get round to it when my next order from Merlin's Games arrives... Then I can build my milling/repeating deck which'll be fun, I'll be able to alter my artifact deck and make a few more, and I'll quite possibly make a sliver/equipment deck. Those should be interesting to play.

One recurring point I kept stating was how awesome my new gargoyle model was. As Game didn't get any Nintendo Wii's in today, which was unfortunate, I went wandering around and popped into Phantasia. There they had some Confrontation miniatures, and when I saw the gargoyle it was immediately mine. I also bought a few lightly armoured skeletons which looked fantastic, but it was the gargoyle that truly called to me. Ever since I really got into Dungeons & Dragons I've wanted a gargoyle character, yet never quite had the model for it and the task of sculpting one was quite daunting. Ages ago when looking through a Confrontation miniature catalog I'd seen the gargoyle model and wanted it, yet had no method to buy it. Well, seeing it today naturally led to the purchase. It's this one - http://www.rackham-store.com/boutique_us/images_produits/UKMVCR04_1.jpg and as you can see, it's pretty nifty. I'll most likely be painting it in a darker marble colour scheme, mostly black and dark grey with veins of green in the stone and weathered edges. I do hope it'll look quite nice, though it'll be moderately hard to do since I've never really tried to paint marble before. I'll most likely get the basing done tonight then start painting it on friday, as well as getting the sculpting on the Diabolus finished then. This means that by next wednesday I'll hopefully have a finished gargoyle and an almost finished Diabolus. It's all good eh? At any rate I'm off to watch more Busou Renkin as I realised I'd been forgetting to get the updates for that series, so till next time.

A day out.

I was up vaguely early this morning at 9 am and had a relaxing bath. It didn't help me wake up at all as warm baths naturally make me quite drowsy, but at least I felt better. By 10.45 am my girlfriend turned up and we read a bit of NewType USA before heading off to Brighton. When we got there we did some shopping, and I bought five little anime figure sets for Genshiken and a little lazer ornament from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The little lazer is awesome for my Paranoia XP campaign, so that's all happy and good. My girlfriend bought a Marvel graphic novel and another rather spiffy looking graphic novel with a dude who can control the powers of hell. Lots of goblins and good artwork. After that we briefly popped into Daydream Nations so I could get a new card folder then we headed to the cinema. It was pretty good timing (in theory) as when we got there it was three minutes till the start of Casino Royale. I say 'in theory' as though we got into the screen on time, there were 25 minutes of adverts. Bloody things. The film itself though was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and so did my girlfriend, guessing from what she said. Afterwards we went to Wokmania for our meal as it was nearby, and the food was very nice. Though a buffet, I only had a single plate, and not much was on it, since a small meal was enough for me. Even so, I'd quite like to go back there again.

Once we'd finished the meal it was back to my place where we watched some anime together, wrapped in a duvet, to complete the day. It was one of the best days I've had n a while, as spending all of it with my girlfriend was really, really wonderful. I'm not sure how else I could express that really, but 'wonderful' is close to the word I'm looking for at any rate. Unfortunately she had to return home as she still has college, so I proceeded to sort through just over 2 folders' worth of rares, sorting them into colour only rather than set and colour. This allowed me to actually get all of the same colour in set areas, which is bound to help when I make more decks. I really should get round to more deck making, but I think I need to find some more land. Hmm. Well at any rate once that had been finished, and thankfully it didn't take long, I ended up doing more sculpting work on my Diabolus fighter's cloak, fleshing the folds out more and so on and so forth. The Borat film was playing as I did this and it's quite a funny film, if a bit odd. My Diabolus only needs another day or so of sculpting and it'll be done and ready to (re)undercoat. Then it'll be the happy job of painting him, so that's all good. That's all for now and I feel quite wrecked, so till next time.

Return of the Animarathon.

Sleeping in was wonderful. I got several hours more than normal and didn't get up till shortly past midday. Fantastic sleep, and I generally felt a lot better than I have done recently. It wasn't long before I went to visit my dad in hospital, and he looked a hell of a lot better than before. e still seemed a bit weak, but was sitting up in a chair and was able to speak (reasonably) normally, without having to use the provided oxygen mask much. I spent several hours there with my step mum, then eventually we both left and grabbed a quick meal of fish and chips, though I went for sausages instead. My step mum and I had a long conversation about life in general before returning home, and she went about all her chores and duties, which have got a lot heavier since dad's not in the house, and I went to watch anime after I finished a few small jobs.

I got through 'a fair few' episodes of anime this time round, as I'd said I was going to demolish my anime today, and by the gods I did it. Mwahahaha and all that. At any rate, I watched - three of Bleach, two of Naruto, the final of Zegapain, three of Inukami, Welcome to the NHK, Chevalier, the final of Tsubasa Chronicle, two of Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori, two of Witchblade, The Gargoyle of the Yoshinagas, Mei Otome Zwei, two of Otome wa Boku ni Koshiteru, three of Asatte no Houkou, three of Crescent Love, three of Negima, and three of Tokimeki Memorial. Of course in describing these I'll be ridiculously brief. Bleach was alright, though not amazing. It looks like the arc may end soon which is funky. Naruto was again alright, but I want it to follow the manga soon... The Zegapain final was quite good, if a little odd. meh, I can deal with odd. Inukami was again funny in a vaguely perverted way, and Welcome to the NHK depicted the girl as one hell of a weird delusional freak. She really is more broken than Satou. Chevalier had interesting issues of succession, Tsubasa Chronicle had more fighting and, oddly enough, lots of Sakura's feather unclaimed and Jigoku Shoujo had some wasteful uses of revenge. Witchblade was pretty cool as 'Masamune' looked good in that dress, and Yoshinagas was strange but watchable. Mei Otome Zwei was ridiculously action packed and fun, with Koshiteru also being quite enjoyable as more tension seemingly developed in the background. Asatte no Houkou had more angst with apparent happiness marred by sudden revelation, doubt, and the mystically aged little girl running away. Sill girl eh? Crescent Love was filled with determination for the two the stay together, and Negima was artistically quite strange but I managed to follow it all the same. Last but not least, Tokimeki Memorial is developing quite strongly into a truly harem title, with three girls in the running. Not quite as harem as, say, Shuffle, but then again Shuffle did rock an awesome amount.

Tomorrow I'll be spending the whole day with my girlfriend pretty much, as she'll be round from 10.50 am and we'll be going out for the day together. It's something I'm quite looking forward to. Till next time then.

Ditto.

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday, though when I was round my girlfriend's place we both wrapped ourselves in her duvet and watched Hellboy. It was remarkably comfortable and generally quite nice to watch a film together. Once I got back home I tried out a few PSP games, namely Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Valkyrie Profile Lenneth. Metal gear was, of course, quite fun to play as in the tutorial I managed to shoot a load of surprised guards. Valkyrie on the other hand was quite boring. Everything was slow, there wasn't that much interaction for ages, and I didn't find it all that enjoyable. Oh well eh? I still have at least two other games to test when I get round to it. For now though I'm off to sleep, and I'm going to savour tomorrow morning as I can just stay in bed for most of the day for the first time in months. Till next time.

Bleh.

I had a boring day at work and a happy content evening with my girlfriend. I also caught up in the Air Gear manga, and watched the latest episode of Black Lagoon. I'm too tired to bother saying any more, so till next time.

Happy Shopping

Today was incredibly relaxing for the morning, and gave me a good deal of contentment in the afternoon through till the evening. Unfortunately I ended up falling asleep at 3.40 am and woke at 9.50 am, so when I went into Game to check if they had any Nintendo Wii's, the answer was no as I hadn't pre-ordered. Fair enough then. On the plus side they only got consoles in for the pre-orders, so had I queued up in the early morning I would have been disappointed anyway, plus cold. After that I went to see my dad. For the past two days he's been severely ill, and yesterday got admitted to hospital as he'd contracted a virus which gave him a chest infection, then got pneumonia which simply sucks. He still didn't look all too good, but at least he could talk which was a big improvement on two days ago. Once back from there I decided I may as well go into uni, since Falmer is closer to Brighton than Polegate, and so in I went and saw a bunch of SWARMers playing Twilight Imperium. It's a pretty fun game from the looks of it, but I simply didn't have the time to take part, plus it'd been going on for a few hours before I got there. Instead I played a game of Magic the Gathering then hung around. It wasn't overly long before my girlfriend called and I quickly got on the train at Falmer. Thanks to handy planning it was the same train she was on, and seeing her made me really happy.

When in Brighton we popped into a few stores, Dave's Comics and David's Books being the most prominent two. I bought another couple of things, though my girlfriend decided to wait till tuesday before buying much as she got paid today in theory, and hadn't checked her account balance. Since she finished on tuesday at around 10.30-ish am, we'll definitely have enough time in Brighton to catch a movie, have a meal, go look in some shops and so on and so forth. At any rate as it was getting quite dark and we'd decided not to got have a meal out today, we both went back to hers and generally spent time together. It just makes me feel content when I can be by her and hug her. I had planned to walk home (which, admittedly, would've taken bloody ages) as my dad obviously couldn't drive me, but her mum drove me home instead which was incredibly kind of her. Once back I generally didn't do much (as per usual) aside from chatting on IRC as I hadn't been on it in a while. Once I got faintly bored with that I felt like watching something, so I dipped into the reserve of anime I have waiting for me, which I'll demolish on monday, and watched three episodes of Black Lagoon, two of Kiba, three of Death Note, two of Welcome to the NHK, and the final for Black Blood Brothers. 11 isn't bad considering I only felt like watching a few. I was quite disappointed that I didn't have more of those series to watch, especially Death Note and Black Lagoon. In Black Lagoon Rock and Revy seem to be getting on incredibly well, as she's nowhere near as violent towards him as she used to be, and it's obvious she likes him in a guarded way and doesn't really know how to deal with it so seems to stay a bit distant. In Kiba by the end of what I watched Zed was able to summon a glowing red Amil key spirit. Nifty. Death Note was simply supremely cool, with L revealing himself to Light. The plot quite blatantly thickens. As for Welcome to the NHK, the poor guy's lost his otaku friend who had to go home to run his family's farm, the poor bugger. The final of Black Blood Brothers wasn't too bad, and left it open in a way that didn't irritate the hell out of me, so it's all good.

I really should be off now as I have work in the morning and I need sleep. Till next time.

Seeing a friend.

Not much happened at uni today, though getting there was an absolute pain. Firstly I slept in, so had to rush like a madman to try and get the right train. I left the house at 10.05 am to catch the 10.11 am train, when it's a 13 minute walk.... What was more annoying is that when I got there the train was delayed, then canceled as there had been a flood in Polegate and a landslide in Lewes. Well bugger then. Furthermore, the next train was canceled too, and the one after that was delayed by ten minutes. Bloody hell... By the time I got to my lecture I was 25 minutes late, and faintly annoyed. This wasn't helped by the fact that the lecturer was merely holding a small quiz, there was barely 40 people there out of nearly 200, people kept randomly leaving, and as I'd handed in my case note the previous lecture I didn't even need to be there. This vexed me, as afterwards I had a two hour long free. Thankfully I met up with a couple of mates from SWARM, most notably the treasurer and president, and hung out with them till I had my lecture. That was quite packed with information and actually overran eight minutes, but he did manage to finish the course. Due to that he said he'd consider canceling the lecture tomorrow since the course was finished, and later on he did email everyone saying it was canceled. Considering I don't have anything else tomorrow that's quite handy.

After uni I went straight into Brighton to do some shopping and bought a fair amount of stuff. The most important was a Cloud figure from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. This was a combined birthday and Christmas present for my best friend since a couple of hours later she turned up and we generally meandered around Brighton. We went to Yo! Sushi and had a meal there was wasn't too bad, but quite expensive. After that we popped into the cinema but as she felt tired we decided watching a film was largely pointless. As such we had a brief stop in the arcade where I shot a lot of people in Time Crisis 4 (which is a fun game) then went back to Haywards Heath and I hung out at her house for a few hours. We had a great conversation since I hadn't spoken with her properly, face to face, for a hell of a long time. It was nice managing to catch up with her again. I ended up getting the last train back to Polegate, which was delayed (surprise surprise...) and got back in about 30 minutes past midnight. Then it was just a question of grabbing more anime updates to add to the pile, and prepare myself to stay awake. After all, I want to be up at 6 am so I can go into Eastbourne to get a Nintendo Wii. It's a bit of a long shot since I didn't pre-order, but meh, may as well try. Till next time.

SWARMing.

It wasn't a bad day, not a bad day at all. It was however quite tiring. It started off with a seminar which didn't go too badly considering I barely prepared for it (i.e. basically didn't prepare and only made skeleton notes) then there was an hour gap in which I played Magic the Gathering before I went off to my lecture. In the Tort lecture the lecturer went over by eight minutes but managed to finish the course. I have another Tort lecture on friday, but since he'd finished he said that he may cancel the last lecture. If he does I'll actually have nothing on friday which is pretty cool as I'll be able to spend more time with my girlfriend in the afternoon. Rock on indeed.

After the lecture SWARM essentially started as people were already playing Twilight Imperium and several people were playing MtG, so I quickly joined a game that had only just started and proceeded to annoy my munchkin friend by picking on him. This resulted in him dying first out of the four player, me second as he'd obviously been hitting back, then the other two went on for a while as they tried to wear each other down. A few games later and it was time for the Paranoia XP game. This was played in the 'zap' style, therefore resulting in a rather short life span of each clone. As I'd spent a fair amount of the early hours of the morning planning everything I hoped it would go well and that people would enjoy it, and happily the six players all did. That was comforting as I hadn't spent a shedload of time in vain. After that session it moved to the zombies campaign, and that was quite fun to ZM since I got to scare the crap out of a few people. Entertaining stuff. Last but not least for SWARM I took part in the MtG tournament which consisted of ten people. It was a 'best of three' arrangement in a 'Swiss' style of play. I decided to play all three games each time as my games were quite fast, and in round one I flattened the opponent all three time, in round two I did the same but with more relaxed cruelty, and in the final round I got slapped all over the place. I have a grudging respect for Dragonstorm when it's used to bring four Bogardan Hellkites into play, doing a full twenty damage to me in one go. That tends to hurt. I still came third however and got a Time Spiral booster pack as a prize. Not too bad really, as the entry fee was £2.00, so I essentially paid 25p to take part.

Once I got home there was the second batch of MtG cards and out of the 1,000 about 400 were English, putting the overall total of English cards in the 2,000-ish to be nearly 900. How nifty. I also sold 511 Portuguese MtG cards today for £4.00, so that got rid of some of those. I just have another 644 to sell, probably for £5.00. That'll mean I'd have paid £31.00 for nearly 900 cards which is pretty good. I also sold a Nether Traitor, two Mass Hysterias and Ib Halfheart as another friend is plannng to make a goblin deck, so I'm helping her with some cards (such a goblins from both the Mirrodin and Time Spiral blocks) as well as constructing it. As that about wraps it up for now, till next time.

Heads up.

Just to inform, I haven't written a normal post today since when I got home I had to read over 250 pages of RPG rulebook, prepare three tasks for a seminar, and actually print off all the materials for the game I'll be running, as well as making the mission and so forth. I also sorted through over 1000 MtG cards as they arrived today, and though over half weren't English, at the usual price of 10p per card with the English ones in just this lot I actually got more cards than the usual price would allow, counting the cost of -both- lots. Obviously when the second one arrives I'll have more cards and it'll be even better. At any rate, till next time.

Entertaining.

Ahh, today I had a good day again, though for differing reasons to usual. After my single lecture I hung around for quarter of an hour before going home, gave myself an hour of rest, finished reading the relevant section of the politics book, then actually wrote my Public Law essay. Yeah, I finished the bastard! Mwahahaha! Not only that, but once it was done I checked my email and there was a new one proposing a small get-together at the Grapevine on uni campus, so I went back into uni and met up with my mate, the SWARM president who's also a mate, and one of his friends. We ended up playing a fair amount of pool and though I was abysmal, there were some close games. Overall it was immensely enjoyable simply hanging out (in a smoke-free pub, excellent) and I came home relatively late at about 10.15-ish pm. I got home by about 11.50 pm and proceeded to lounge around whilst surfing the net. I played some Urban Dead, on which I'm now a level 41 zombie as I purposely died to get all the zombie skills bar Brain Rot. I managed to kill a survivor and get another to three life before I got shot to pieces and ran out of action points. Later on I signed on just to see what had happened, and burst out laughing. It turns out I was at a revive point, as some random guy just revived me. Cool, now I can use guns again. Rock on eh?

I also played quite a few games of Magic the Gathering on Magic Workstation and managed to lose them all. Annoyingly I generally came within either a few cards of milling my opponent to a loss, or a few life (generally two) before I was killed. A string of close losses was a bit frustrating, but one game was simply boring and no fun at all. Brine Elemental combined with Vesuvan Shapeshifter. I never got an untap step after that and almost died from boredom till he hit me for 10 twice. Not a very exciting or enjoyable deck. Other than that not much happened, though the anime is certainly piling up, Jeebus... Now I generally just need to read the whole of the Paranoia XP rulebook and I'll be fine. Hmm. At any rate, till next time then.

A happy day.

Since one of my workmates was ten minutes late for work today he was taken off self scan. He was then put on my till, and I took over self scan for the day. That was pretty damn cool actually, since I obviously like working there. The day went quite smoothly overall and the time seemed to fly past as I only have a few problem customers. About six out of each ten got something wrong though, but for the most part it was solved by pressing a single button. This is one of the reasons why I like self scan. Most of the time I simply pressed the odd button, walked around the four self scan tills, grabbed empty baskets and opened bags. Not overly exciting, but incredibly more fulfilling than simply being on a damn normal till of bored death. My break was also quite pleasant as the meal I had in the staff canteen was nice for a change. How unusual. After work I (as usual) met up with my girlfriend and when we got back to hers there was a gingerbread house to put together. She's wanted to make one for a while, and her mum bought a pre-baked and unassembled one for us, essentially so we could try it out. It was quite a lot of fun messing around with it and it didn't look too bad when we were done. I took two pictures of it on my camera before we had dinner, then tried to cut it apart from everyone. As it fell apart by itself I just cut up the sides instead.

Eventually I came home and didn't do much at all. I felt a bit dazed for no real reason to be honest, and hadn't done anything till coming here. I really do need to read some of the politics book I loaned out, then I can start writing the essay. I'll probably start with the functions of Parliament, if vaguely, so I can outline the benefits and drawbacks of it in a general sense. Then I can bring in the concept of reforming the House of Lords, using the House of Lords Act 1999 and the Royal Commission's 2000 report. After that I can introduce the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 as further explanation of the judicial reform of the House of Lords in accordance with the separation of powers. With luck that should be alright. I guess I should be off then, so till next time.

Nifty.

I enjoyed today. Admittedly in part this was because I saw my girlfriend and I hadn't seen her since tuesday, but I get ahead of myself. From the beginning then - work went smoothly. The morning was broken up slightly as another girl came and stood beside me and watched, then took over for semi-training. I basically explained all the odd things then she was off after another half an hour. Still, it was nice to simply stand there and watch someone else do all the work. After that it wasn't long till my lunch, which involved a rather sickly, if initially nice, cake. Back to work it was and it was generally normal, though I did get to do the break of self scan. As I like self scan, that was pleasing. It wasn't till late when I had my tea break, but that was fine as when it finished I didn't have much longer to go. After work it was simply a great feeling to see my girlfriend again. I'd really missed her even though it had only been a few days, but being to hold her close was a truly blissful feeling. Regardless of the odd problem which we work out relatively quickly anyway, it's sheer bliss with her. I'm actually quite impressed we're still doing so well. I always assumed my luck would cause most things I get involved in to crash and burn quickly, heh. When back at hers we spent most of the time snuggling, watching anime, chatting, generally being happy and so forth.

Once again, unfortunately, I did have to leave. When I got home I generally lazed around for a while before checking the forum. It's been quite dead for the past few days which is a bit worrying. Hmm. There weren't any more anime episodes to grab, but I have a shedload to watch once I reach the holidays anyway. This coming friday will be my last day before lots of happy happy free time (theoretically.... I do need to read an awful lot of cases, write a case note, prepare a court report and revise for a tort exam...) and coincidentally said friday will be the release date for the Nintendo Wii. Though it's not essential for me to own one I will be going into Eastbourne for 7 am anyway to queue in the slight chance that I may get one. I completely missed preordering one because I'm not desperate on getting one. At any rate it'll be interesting, since later that day I need to get into uni for a tort lecture. It'll definitely be a fun day too, since after the lecture I'm meeting up with my girlfriend. Ergo this coming friday will be an enjoyable day indeed. A possible Wii, only a single lecture and the end of uni for the year, and time with my girlfriend. Rock on methinks. At any rate I still need to read a chapter or two in a law book for my public law essay before I go to bed. I'll also be reading more tomorrow before hopefully starting to write it. Having even just the introduction written before monday will be a huge help, since if I actually get it finished then I'll have tuesday to read the Paranoia XP rulebook. Considering I'm running a game of it on wednesday this may be quite an important task. At any rate, till next time.

Research and reading.

It started well today, with the seminar going smoothly. I was a bit quiet as I felt tired, but I did answer the questions I thought I could and was right, so that was all good. The bright light in the room did hurt my eyes quite badly though, so that was a bit of a drawback. In the four hour gap afterwards I had an hour of relation and breakfast, an hour and a half-ish of research for my public law essay, then finished up the time playing Magic the Gathering with a mate as I'd got all the research I need. I ended up with a constitutional reform statute, the House of Lords Act 1999, several sections picked out in two main chapters of my constitutional and administrative law book, a politics book concerning the constitution and a report on constitutional change by the Royal Commission in 2000. That should be enough for a 1,500 word essay I do believe. When I played Magic the gathering I actually used my mate's rather limited selection of cards to make a mono-black deck based on creature resurrection. Though he had a black and red life steal deck I absolutely flattened him. I killed my own creatures a hell of a lot more than he did just so I could keep drawing cards, and I ended up with so much mana and enough critters, compared to his none, to just beat him down. It was especially funny since whenever black spells were played he gained life, yet I still killed him. How entertainingly fun.

After that I had the tort lecture and that passed well enough, though I dozed slightly for a few minutes here and there. I was still taking notes, but almost in a daze. Impressively they still seem to be coherent and, to me, legible. Nifty. When I got home I felt quite tired, so I took a nap till about 8 pm. Afterwards though not quite at full energy, I did feel a lot better,. As such it was then time to go through my research and I went through it all, bar the politics book I'd lent out, highlighting and trying to work out an order. As for the book, I got partway through one of the essays and it was quite useful as it's practically pure evaluation of the House of Lords and their function. Perfect. I'll most likely spend my free time when I get home tomorrow and on sunday finalizing my reading then beginning to write it. To be honest I thought I'd have been able to make a start on it today, but feeling so tired tends to stunt my productivity. I should be able to get it started by monday, and since I only have a single hour of lecture from 11 am till midday I should have more than enough time to finish it before wednesday. Theoretically I could write it during my gaps on tuesday, but that would require me to bring my laptop into uni, so I guess I really need to get down to work on monday. Le sigh. At any rate that';s the end of my rambling for now, so till next time.