Raithe

Geez, making the christmas cake is an important family tradition. Start the sultanas, raisins, cherries and other fruit soaking in brandy a few days before.. Sift flour, spices, salt all in together.. Whisk butter and sugar together in a seperate bowl till its really fluffy.. then add some beaten eggs to it a bit at a time.. Folding that mixture into the flour.. that whole squelchy goodness.. Then you get to add a splash of brandy and watch it all settle.. before the fruit, peel, chopped nuts and such get added..possibly a touch of treacle depending just how you like it.. If you cook it just right.. it's a really nice rich, moist fruit cake.. if you cook it too long it dries up.. (and personal family tradition is to use a hypodermic to inject brandy directly into the cake to help make up for any that's evaporated during the oven time...) Usually we do that in mid october so we can seal it up in an airtight container..then early December break it out to put on the marzipan and a thin layer of icing...

hm, Telltale games are doing a series of episodic games based/inspired on Back to the Future.. Supposedly in the sam and max/monkey island style... They got the rights to Christopher Lloyd and Michael Fox's likeness.. and Lloyd will be doing some of the voicework apparently... And a percentage of the profits will be going to Fox's Foundation for Parkinson's Disease.

Actually already broken into the supply of Christmas Puddings... Although we're saving gran's home-made one for christmas day proper.. And it always amazes me that my friends in the states have never had a proper Christmas Pudding...

Had a rough night, and stirred from bed with a nice headache grinding away on my forebrain. Tried getting various things done, but I've had the focus and attention span of a goldfish so far today.

Tron 2.0 It was a fairly standard fps in mechanics.. but it managed to grab the mood and athmosphere of Tron rather well. The scattered emails and such just helped flesh out the feel of the universe.. Whilst the level design and look just made you feel like you were inside a computer.

For that shift in focus from the rpgcodex style.. To something a little more smile inducing..

But can we expect to run into Conrad again?

And for the non-food related festive spirit..

On the flip side of that.. I really need to break the habit of having a pint of tea for breakfast, and just a mini-pork pie or similar type of snack for lunch... and then have one significant meal for dinner.. Maybe the christmas season will help jog my eating habits into a better place..

Regardless of how you feel about the games, the scores to ME & ME2 are some perfect orchestral space ambience music

Bizarre. Tis a swedish singer.. what can you expect? But seriously, you can listen to the music and get one mood..but the moment you start watching the music videos that go with them..and they go quite... strange.

There were good points and bad points to its rpg-ness. But it was an entertaining and enjoyable game.

Had the assorted ME & ME2 soundtracks playing in the background. Whatever you have to say about the games themselves, the music is some good orchestral scoring..

Got back in from some errands around the village..and fog has rolled in and the chill is in the air. That sort of fog where 20-30 feet away the world fades into greyness, all the streetlights are muted, and the sounds of traffic in the distance are subdued. The moon hanging just visible like a sliver in the sky and the wind barely moving, just that cold caress you can just feel. Cutting through some cobblestoned alleys with old buildings on one side and looming trees on the other. Perfect atmosphere to go with wearing my crombie and fedora. But had that strange mix of moods, one of almost childlike glee for the ambience of the wintry night, but also kind of melancholy with that wanting to share it with one person. Still, I suppose that's enough of the waxing a touch poetic, and onto the practical matters of a cup of tea to warm the body and soul.

The moment you had the first few bars of "I am the very model of a scientist salarian" was total ME2 win.

I have to admit.. the setup was just.. immensely appealing to my childish sense of christmas wonder. But the mulled wine split into hot and cold.. so if you take a sip perfectly.. you have the left side of your mouth hot..and the right side cold.. That has me extremely curious how that trick worked..

The tv had blown up the other night, so cleared an area so could get it off the wall. Whipped it up to the repair shop down the road. Took on the vagaries of cold weather and the chill of an attic to stash stuff away out of the way. Now just settling in for a late lunch and a hot cup of tea...

To take a slight diversion, I remember reading a critics review of the Lensman series when E.E. "Doc" Smiths books were re-released a few years ago.. and the critic was raining down on how cliched and overused it all was. Of course, when the books were first written he invented most of those points and ideas. But after around 60 years of other sci-fi writers copying them and using them for their stories.. they have become cliche. The struggle of original and exciting becoming commonplace and overused. Grand stories are always going to suffer under that, regardless of whether it's in a book, a computer game, or film. What are you going to do? Stop enjoying everything?

Hit the random and ended up with the strangely jaunty E-Type's Russian Lullaby

Just for the festive spirit.. and if you have 50 minutes or so to pay attention.. A christmas feast designed to put the festive mood and childhood memories back into you.. Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Christmas The mandarin mousse was poached in nitrogen which, when eaten, streamed out of his guests' noses in two frosty jets. The mulled wine was hot on one side of the glass, cold on the other. Reindeer milk ice cream.. gathered by sleigh from Siberia.. Even a meal made with gold, frankincense and myrrh.. Among a whole heap of strangeness..

Sort of. It was an announcement along the lines of they were acting as advisors / consultants to a company that has the rights to the WoT

Extensive fantasy series of books.. People divide up on either loving the hell out of them, or finding them annoying/boring. There was a fairly decent fps built around the Wheel of Time some years ago.. but there's been some talk of turning it into more of an rpg game style of thing.

The Warrior's Way Cowboys. Ninjas. Circus Folk. What more needs to be said?

Just spent a bit over 4 hours of my friday night working with a guy on getting some coding done. A touch of help and guidance given and now I actually feel as if I've achieved something. Which after the last few weeks of coder's block and frustration (which can be very soul-destroying in its way) is actually quite nice. Thought I'd get back into some gaming time, and decided to pick up a copy of AC2 cheap via amazon (it was about

Well to my mind it was more the whole.. he wakes up and it seems that it's a fait accompli. From what we saw it doesn't look like anyone asked him to make the choice..they did it regardless. And so far we haven't a clue on how badly injured he actually was.. thrown through a glass panel doesn't lop off his arms at the shoulders.. His arms might have been salvagable to some degree..but he wakes up and finds they were amputated and replaced with the cyberlimbs.. which while cool in their own right... still , having no-one check his wishes first would be rather..annoying. And dang, I still love that music in the trailer.