Raithe

Think of the creamy cheese sauce in mac and cheese, but cooked around cauliflower.. Was woken up really early by a wet dogs nose being jabbed into my face. Managed to doze off to sleep again, but had some strange dreams. Woke up from that feeling strangely depressed. Keep having short moments of thunder in the background, so mayhaps a storm moving inwards. And I've got to delve into the depths of the attic at some point and recover the decorations. I don't know why, I'm just not in the christmas mood yet. It's more "task task task to juggle" then christmas spirit.

And now they've decided to give an extra two days of Early Game Access, starting on the 13th of December... I'm guessing that they're deciding to really stagger that intro launch on the servers with all the pre-orders. Edit: Oh, and now they've "officially" launched access for folks to download the game launcher and client so you can all take your time downloading and installing the game before hand.

Been sidelined today trying to fix my mothers laptop. Strange quirky problems, so the joys of running the basic maintenance to clear those up, then trying to identify exactly what's causing explorer.exe to use 50-60% of the cpu continuously. Although it only does it when logged into her profile.. so I'm guessing there's something glitchy on her user desktop. The wind is being bitterly cold, hm, and I'm not looking forward to the heavy duty cleanout of the kitty litter later.

Yeah, I remember one of the group projects I got stuck with at university. The team leader would divide up the work between us, but every week, he'd have done the work he gave me as well, and would invariably use his versions rather then mine. Which kind of makes it a bit hard to ge tthe enthusiasm to keep doing the work when it never gets used. To take the cake, he then complained to some of my friends that I was a slacker who didn't do the work..

I like the music, and the visuals are pretty damn good. I'd say the Utah Salt Flats at dawn for the win there.. o O (and they left a 40 grand Yamaha piano alone, in the desert, for several hours in the early hours of the morning so they could shoot some more of the video elsewhere..then return for the dawn..)

And for the Saints Row trivia you never actually needed:

Taken care of a batch of christmas shopping via Amazon. Then my headphones broke.. so I've had to place an order for some new ones. With a few other things..my budget and savings have reallly shrunk. Dang it, and I've got to start planning for a highly likely trip to Mexico City in 2013 for a wedding. It's cold and windy outside, but luckily not wet yet. Have to chase mom up on placing her prescription, then I'll have to go up and deal with that later this afternoon. Realised I've got a huge chunk of laundry to sort out, and the kittylitter needs to be completely emptied, cleaned then refilled. Urf..and furniture in the front room needs rearranging before I brave the dangers of the attic and seek out the lost treasures known as "christmas decorations".. Between which I'm hoping to spark some creative brilliance for some actual solid work, that may in time actually bring in some money to provide relief to my budget...

Now I was just doodling about and came across what looks like a potentially interesting tool. One of those mapping programs for rpg'ers that helps you create 3d maps of solar systems, sections of space, zoom in and create planetary maps as well.. all that jazz. Supposedly using scientific principles so that even if you use the random generate functions, it will all make sense and not be some crazy unreal thing.. AstroSynthesis I'm curious if any folks here have actually use this, or any other programs to dabble in mapping things out for their gaming groups. If so, what did people like about them/dislike, how well did they work, the usual rigerous interrogation on these matters..

On a book related note.. Darrell K. Sweete died. 1934-2011. While you might not recognise the name, he illustrated an amazing amount of sci-fi and fantasy books over the years. Tor - Darrell K. Sweete

Kind of late there, buddy. Dang, it's always the little things that slip your notice.. my bad.

And just in time for that Christmas season, and that spirit of good will on earth and to all men.. - Left Behind: Eternal Forces A game that's all set to ship to around 10,000 retailers across America, aimed to be a "beacon of light that could shine in the dark world of video games", where the player is a member of a "christian gang" in a post-apocalyptic New York and you have to convert or kill jews, athiests and other unsavoury types in the employ of the Anti-Christ to advance a level.

What can you say, whoevery it was, they were an "artist". And on other points.. Beta Test brought in over 2 million players

And for the ultimate in geek points.. the guy who made a photomosaic of the TOR loading screen.. using screen shots of his time in Beta testing..

Steamcleaned the downstairs carpets yesterday.. This afternoon the puppy threw up on them.

Did you never see the original Thomas Crown Affair? Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway have one of the most seductive chess games you'll ever see... But for the funny..

Not being a great monday start. That lurking headache, general tiredness and a feeling of depression making it kind of hard to find my oomph today. The wind is cutting coldly outside, the pooches are being up and down. My thoughts seem to be skittering rather then producing work. Found that mom forgot to order up her prescription last week, so now we're out of some of her meds and have to try to get them tomorrow. But I've got some warm bread pudding that gran made, and a fresh cup of tea. So I shall see whether that manages to roll the day onto a better direction.

And in movie land.. some great quotes from Terry Gilliam in a recent interview Terry Gilliam on Tintin and Transformers...

Got my sister to take out the dogs for many hours..and then steam-cleaned the carpets downstairs.. If the timing works, they should all be dry by the time she and the animals get back... Then I'll have to give some thought to getting the decorations out of the attic and put the tree up at some point this week...

Caught a replay of the "Women of Sci-Fi Calender documentary" from a few years back, which was..quirkily interesting Michael Shanks (aka Daniel Jackson of Stargate SG1 fame) apparently came up with the idea, and Christopher Judge (Teal'c of SG1) is a photographer in his spare time. The whole assortment of Sci-Fi shows filmed in Vancouver being really quite familial, they got a bunch of their friends and relatives to turn up and be the stars of a Sci-Fi calendar. Kind of amusing the behind the scenes and seeing them chatting and acting as their real selves rather then the assortment of characters they're so known for by the fans. But yes, the likes of Erica Durance (known more for Smallville, but also guest starred on SG-1 and other sci-fi) happens to be married to Judge's brother. Shanks is married to Lexa Doig (of Andromeda fame), and then they pulled in friends from the various shows they all work in .. So Teryl Rothery, Ona Grauer, Laura Bertram, Rachel Luttrell, Brandy Ledford... Some interesting background chat, and just how interrelated it all gets. Also having these actresses who were all "wow, modelling pinup style for the cameras is a lot of hard work in its way"

And I played on an East Coast US server over the beta stress weekend with no problems.

And now they've done the announcement that all game testing will end this weekend. This upcoming Sunday at 23:59 cst. Thats it, the game will be wrapped and on its way to finalisation..

I've used the game launcher to update it , but alas, no "play" button for me at the moment... I guess that's the system until early access kicks in, putting on the launcher to catch the updates in a semi-regular fashion until the final release is out...

An amusing review of Saints Row from Rock Paper Shotgun

Hm, between the weather and the dogs the garden has turned into a veritable mud-pit. Joys. Trying to figure out when I can get my sister to take them out for 4 hours or so, then I can get the cleaner out and have a big go at the carpets before we get the christmas decorations out. Pondering where to put the tree.. Having the joys of a lingering headache to keep me company this morning, and I seem to having a case of brain-dead about writing up a case-study style documentation type of thing.

Replaying Saints Row and picking some of the alternate mission endings just to see how that shapes things up. That and having moments of stress relief with utter chaos, mayhem and a little weirdness in the game.