London, Origins, Bloomington
Jul. 2nd, 2008 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthI fell a bit behind in my updating. I'm currently in Bloomington, visiting my friends there, which is spiffy. I'm not being good about organizing things to see those who are at all out of the way, but I know that most of the folks I'd like to see who I won't see unless I pick up a telephone will be at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
d_c_m's party on Friday, so I think it's going to all work out despite my laziness, which is good, because those are folks I want to see!!
With less than 2 days in London, I was determined to make those days count. I arrived around noon something, and grabbed my luggage and headed out of the Liverpool train station (plain to Stansted, train to London...) to go to one of my chief destinations - the British Museum. On the way, though, I rapidly discovered a serious problem - there was no place for me to change money. I then had a bright idea - banks! So I peered around and noticed that they were closed, and was like, WTF? Then, I had the second bright idea - it's Sunday! This became an increasing problem as it got later, I got hungrier, my elbows hurt more and more from hauling the bag, and still I had no money. Finally, after keeping my eyes open, I spotted a place that would take credit - a Japanese "grab and take" place called Samurai. This was also the name of the Japanese restaurant in Prague, and I thought it a good omen, so I bopped in there. And it was a good omen. It was a great omen. They had onigiri, inari, and daifuku. Man, my mood improved about 300%. Even better, when I left I checked the map and I was nearly to the BM, which was also a win.
The BM was about as awesome as I remembered, though sadly many of the Greek and Roman rooms weren't open. I only had a little more than 3 hours there, so I was determined to see as much as humanly possible (rather than take the "see one area thoroughly" route. I did what was open of the Greek stuff (including the Elgin marbles, which were actually a bit less impressive than I remembered) and wandered through the Egyptian stuff quickly. From there, I headed up to the British Isles and Europe stuff, which was very interesting, and finally I did a super-quick walkthrough of the Chinese and South Asian stuff. I also looked through there very small exhibit of Japanese stuff - there I was a little disappointed, there was little, though almost every bit of it was gorgeous. Lastly, they had an exhibit that my mom would have loved, etchings done by Americans (mostly New Yorkers) from around the turn of the 20th century until the 1st World War - Ashcan school, WPA, all the stuff she loves, much of which hardly appeals to me at all. They even had like three Hoppers. I'm probably not gonna tell her about it - it's temporary and she'd be so sorry to miss it.
After wandering the BM, I realized that walking to my hotel would kill my elbows, so I hopped on to the Underground and headed to Earl's Court. In the end, maybe I just should have walked - once I got to Earl's Court, I managed to walk about 3/4 of a mile north and another 3/4 of a mile east...when it turned out my hotel was less than a block south and less than a block west. So I was once again pretty grumpy by the time I reached my hotel. Still, it wasn't a bad place - pretty cheap (35 pounds a night, or about 70 bucks, but the best one can do when the exchange rate blows) and the room was simple and adequate to my needs.
The next day, bright and early, I walked to the National Gallery. The tragedy of my trip then took place - the BM allows photographs; the National Gallery doesn't. I was so sad! Still, when I started walking the rooms, I was reminded of why. The National Gallery is SO MUCH NICER than I remembered - which is pretty impressive, since I remembered it being damn nice. Anyway, since I couldn't take pictures (sure, with work, I could have sneaked a few, but I just didn't spend like spending the day being furtive) I instead wrote down the artists and names of the paintings I liked best, and I'll figure out something to do with them. I was there all day and say pretty much everything except for the special exhibits, all in time to go to tea in the fancy cafe there (this was my final decision on tea, and it worked out pretty well, though I didn't get enough scones, cry...). All in all, I had a fine time there, bought a few books of shiny paintings, and headed out for my last bit of touristing.
I wanted to get some pictures of the city, so I planned an ambitious walk - up from the National Gallery to the Tower of London, walking along the Thames as much as possible, then across the Tower Bridge, and then all the way back to Parliament walking along the southbank, and finally back to Earl's Court and my nice, pleasant bed. Ideally, it would be dark for at least some of this so I could get some spiffy lit up pictures. All of which is to say, I walked 12 and a half miles that day - which is less than I thought!
Very bright and very early the next morning, I woke up and took the train to Gatwick, only to find out that my flight wasn't at 9:30 as I believed, but 10:30, which meant I could have a somewhat leisurely time of it all. The flight itself was no big deal, except that it had about the most awesome selection of movies I've ever seen on a flight. I watched Princess Bride, Spiderwick Chronicles (which I'd never seen and rather liked, especially as a fantasy movie for kids), Batman Begins, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (which made my flight, honestly...best movie musical ever. ;) ). And these doesn't include the things I chose not to watch - Catch Me if You Can, Dr. Strangelove, there were 19 movies in all, and all of the ones I was familiar with were awesome, and most of the ones I wasn't familiar with I would have been more than happy to watch. I wish all flights were like that!! Continental 115, you win!
And thus I arrived home, a bit late after being stuck in a holding pattern, but otherwise safe and sound, had dinner withultimabaka, and fought the jet lag by forcing myself to stay up until 9:30 or 10 PM or some such. I was sooooo sleepy by then.
Next morning, not all that early due to the need to get some actual work done for the job, I headed out to Columbus, Ohio, for Origins. The trip took forever - I got stuck in traffic in Akron for about 90 minutes and was very irritated by the end of it since it was all caused by a spot where the highway went to one lane for about 60 feet, but I arrived safe and sound, dropped my stuff off, and walked over to the con center to meet up with Kev andeviltophat, who were to be staying at my brothers with me. Meanwhile, on that first night, I managed to cross paths with everyone I knew at the con, which was pretty funny - caspiangray and her husband and friends, eurudite and sallys_jack, Akira, and of course deadmanwade and tooth_and_claw. Getting to see my friends and meet new people? Always the best part of any convention.
Still, fascinatingly, I actually played some games this convention - two LARPs, despite bringing nothing ostensibly for costuming, and one table top. I played in a CoC game that Kev ran, and had a damn good time with it, though my attempts to sell my characters soul to Dagon ultimately failed, much to my disappointment (okay, okay, I'm glad I finished the game sane and stuff, but man, I tried not to!).
The two LARPs were both a lot of fun - the first, on Saturday night, was a side universe of a game called "Threads of Damocles" which Akira plays in continuity for. The game has multiple worlds in it, but the one in which we played was blade runner-esque cybertech thing. I told the GMs that I liked playing shy and timid characters, that I enjoyed plotting with my faction, and that I liked politics. This, clearly, is how I ended up with the most political character in the game (according to the ST and my character sheet) - my character sheet was five pages long - longer than anyone elses that I saw, and included how I had assassinated someone and was rigging an election (it's okay, everyone else was rigging the election, also). Anyway, all in all, I spent the following 6 hours plotting my little butt off (after emergency memorizing my sheet) and in the end, I had successfully rigged the election, sold out my main ally for his main rival, planted evidence that said former ally was actually responsible for the assassination I had arranged - which he kind of was, since I had arranged it as a favor to him - and ensured that I was on the right team so that when the upcoming military coups took place, I'd still have my job as a head of Communications at a major film company (did I mention the game was set in LA?). Heck, I even arranged for the existence of a better job for me, coordinating the "export" of materials (films, tv shows, porno...) to other Threads (worlds). So pretty much? Me and those I allied with won the game. This was made more fun by the sudden and unexpected arrival ofgilded_ygdrasil and Mayghin, neither of whom I'd seen since last summer - getting to be plotty with him, eviltophat, and deadmanwade was lots of fun. It was only frustrating to learn that it wouldn't be in continuity.
Continuity was no issue what so ever in Sunday's LARP, however - my second go round in the ADGNEPSEF 555 (Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja Educational Preparatory Super Elementary Fortress 555, I might have one of those wrong) LARP - this game, written by Akira and fleshed out by the rest of those folks I've been talking about, is set in a grade school attended by all manner of kids based on anime stereotypes. My favorite character, who I played last year after building an imitation "hover board" complete with lights, is Cyd, the oldest kid in the game at 13, and a trouble making cyber punk. Here's a post from last summer in which I geek out about how much I loved playing him and how I won the game. Cause I totally did. Anyway, I wanted to play Cyd again, but I didn't have my costume, and in the spirit of fairness I decided that if someone beat my to it I'd play a different character. As such, I brought two costumes - one I'd thrown together for Cyd, and a big white sheet with colorful butterflies and flowers on it. This, obviously, would enable me to play Nick, who is a ghost. Sure enough, Cyd got taken, and I spent to game as Nick - a complicated prospect, given that Nick can't actually speak to any of the PCs who were participating in the game. All in all, I think it's safe to say that I accomplished absolutely nothing, but I had a whole lot of fun doing it and got a crash course in just how much I suck at charades (gilded_ygdrasil, on the other hand, is damn good at it, and eurudite ain't bad either!)
In between the gaming, I spent of course tons of time in the Dealer's Room. I painted three minis, and finally made the command decision that the time had come for me to buy a few paints and a few brushes, because I like painting minis so damn much and I NEVER EVER DO IT except at Cons. I'm glad I did, though I won't have time to play with the stuff I bought until I get home. I also picked up a huge stack of gaming books at $5 apiece. I also got myself a small gift - 4 back rubs at a booth offering them, which ended up being one Thurs, one Fri, and two back to back (so 1 20 minute) on Saturday. It was worth every penny, oh-so-relaxing. Lastly, there was my time spent in the art room, where I got one commission which turned out FANTASTIC and two other pieces of art, including my first ever digital print out, which after much debating I spent the extra money to get the signed limited edition one, because I figured that my art sort of is a collection, and that's definitely more of a collecting decision. I didn't spend nearly as much as I have in previous years, but I still spent more than I should have all things considered, and I'm rather worried about it. I mean, nothing bad will happen, but my credit card now has a balance again, and it's more than I can pay off this month, and next month is scary, and all in all I'm more pissed at myself about it than anything else. Sigh.
It was really nice to see my friends, too, of course - I got to have lots of fun conversations and a few deep ones as well, and spend a lot of time with them. In particular, I ended up spending a lot of time with Kev, and this was surprisingly a-ok. All in all, I'm REALLY looking forward to Gencon, where even more of my peeps will be includingmistress_sin and her boy and many, many others. :)
Anyway, there's not loads to say about Bloomington. I've been hanging out with a few of the Knightridge folks and generally taking it easy. On Saturday I'll be heading to Chicago, and I'll be stopping briefly in Binghamton on Monday evening and either pressing on home then or heading home on Tuesday morning. After that things settle down, though July isn't without fun stuff - I get to see Alkaline Trio on the 12th and I'm SO excited about it, andmistress_sin and I will be going to Warped Tour on the 27th, where I will NOT lose my camera this year. :) Then August is busy again, with weddings on the 2nd and the 23rd, and Gencon. July will be mostly eaten by work, though. Damn "paying the bills." :)
As for now, I'm going to do my writing and then head over to the east side Goodwill - if anyone is reading this and bored, feel free to come along, though I promise nothing in regards to being interesting. :)
d_c_m's party on Friday, so I think it's going to all work out despite my laziness, which is good, because those are folks I want to see!!With less than 2 days in London, I was determined to make those days count. I arrived around noon something, and grabbed my luggage and headed out of the Liverpool train station (plain to Stansted, train to London...) to go to one of my chief destinations - the British Museum. On the way, though, I rapidly discovered a serious problem - there was no place for me to change money. I then had a bright idea - banks! So I peered around and noticed that they were closed, and was like, WTF? Then, I had the second bright idea - it's Sunday! This became an increasing problem as it got later, I got hungrier, my elbows hurt more and more from hauling the bag, and still I had no money. Finally, after keeping my eyes open, I spotted a place that would take credit - a Japanese "grab and take" place called Samurai. This was also the name of the Japanese restaurant in Prague, and I thought it a good omen, so I bopped in there. And it was a good omen. It was a great omen. They had onigiri, inari, and daifuku. Man, my mood improved about 300%. Even better, when I left I checked the map and I was nearly to the BM, which was also a win.
The BM was about as awesome as I remembered, though sadly many of the Greek and Roman rooms weren't open. I only had a little more than 3 hours there, so I was determined to see as much as humanly possible (rather than take the "see one area thoroughly" route. I did what was open of the Greek stuff (including the Elgin marbles, which were actually a bit less impressive than I remembered) and wandered through the Egyptian stuff quickly. From there, I headed up to the British Isles and Europe stuff, which was very interesting, and finally I did a super-quick walkthrough of the Chinese and South Asian stuff. I also looked through there very small exhibit of Japanese stuff - there I was a little disappointed, there was little, though almost every bit of it was gorgeous. Lastly, they had an exhibit that my mom would have loved, etchings done by Americans (mostly New Yorkers) from around the turn of the 20th century until the 1st World War - Ashcan school, WPA, all the stuff she loves, much of which hardly appeals to me at all. They even had like three Hoppers. I'm probably not gonna tell her about it - it's temporary and she'd be so sorry to miss it.
After wandering the BM, I realized that walking to my hotel would kill my elbows, so I hopped on to the Underground and headed to Earl's Court. In the end, maybe I just should have walked - once I got to Earl's Court, I managed to walk about 3/4 of a mile north and another 3/4 of a mile east...when it turned out my hotel was less than a block south and less than a block west. So I was once again pretty grumpy by the time I reached my hotel. Still, it wasn't a bad place - pretty cheap (35 pounds a night, or about 70 bucks, but the best one can do when the exchange rate blows) and the room was simple and adequate to my needs.
The next day, bright and early, I walked to the National Gallery. The tragedy of my trip then took place - the BM allows photographs; the National Gallery doesn't. I was so sad! Still, when I started walking the rooms, I was reminded of why. The National Gallery is SO MUCH NICER than I remembered - which is pretty impressive, since I remembered it being damn nice. Anyway, since I couldn't take pictures (sure, with work, I could have sneaked a few, but I just didn't spend like spending the day being furtive) I instead wrote down the artists and names of the paintings I liked best, and I'll figure out something to do with them. I was there all day and say pretty much everything except for the special exhibits, all in time to go to tea in the fancy cafe there (this was my final decision on tea, and it worked out pretty well, though I didn't get enough scones, cry...). All in all, I had a fine time there, bought a few books of shiny paintings, and headed out for my last bit of touristing.
I wanted to get some pictures of the city, so I planned an ambitious walk - up from the National Gallery to the Tower of London, walking along the Thames as much as possible, then across the Tower Bridge, and then all the way back to Parliament walking along the southbank, and finally back to Earl's Court and my nice, pleasant bed. Ideally, it would be dark for at least some of this so I could get some spiffy lit up pictures. All of which is to say, I walked 12 and a half miles that day - which is less than I thought!
Very bright and very early the next morning, I woke up and took the train to Gatwick, only to find out that my flight wasn't at 9:30 as I believed, but 10:30, which meant I could have a somewhat leisurely time of it all. The flight itself was no big deal, except that it had about the most awesome selection of movies I've ever seen on a flight. I watched Princess Bride, Spiderwick Chronicles (which I'd never seen and rather liked, especially as a fantasy movie for kids), Batman Begins, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (which made my flight, honestly...best movie musical ever. ;) ). And these doesn't include the things I chose not to watch - Catch Me if You Can, Dr. Strangelove, there were 19 movies in all, and all of the ones I was familiar with were awesome, and most of the ones I wasn't familiar with I would have been more than happy to watch. I wish all flights were like that!! Continental 115, you win!
And thus I arrived home, a bit late after being stuck in a holding pattern, but otherwise safe and sound, had dinner with
ultimabaka, and fought the jet lag by forcing myself to stay up until 9:30 or 10 PM or some such. I was sooooo sleepy by then.Next morning, not all that early due to the need to get some actual work done for the job, I headed out to Columbus, Ohio, for Origins. The trip took forever - I got stuck in traffic in Akron for about 90 minutes and was very irritated by the end of it since it was all caused by a spot where the highway went to one lane for about 60 feet, but I arrived safe and sound, dropped my stuff off, and walked over to the con center to meet up with Kev and
eviltophat, who were to be staying at my brothers with me. Meanwhile, on that first night, I managed to cross paths with everyone I knew at the con, which was pretty funny - caspiangray and her husband and friends, eurudite and sallys_jack, Akira, and of course deadmanwade and tooth_and_claw. Getting to see my friends and meet new people? Always the best part of any convention.Still, fascinatingly, I actually played some games this convention - two LARPs, despite bringing nothing ostensibly for costuming, and one table top. I played in a CoC game that Kev ran, and had a damn good time with it, though my attempts to sell my characters soul to Dagon ultimately failed, much to my disappointment (okay, okay, I'm glad I finished the game sane and stuff, but man, I tried not to!).
The two LARPs were both a lot of fun - the first, on Saturday night, was a side universe of a game called "Threads of Damocles" which Akira plays in continuity for. The game has multiple worlds in it, but the one in which we played was blade runner-esque cybertech thing. I told the GMs that I liked playing shy and timid characters, that I enjoyed plotting with my faction, and that I liked politics. This, clearly, is how I ended up with the most political character in the game (according to the ST and my character sheet) - my character sheet was five pages long - longer than anyone elses that I saw, and included how I had assassinated someone and was rigging an election (it's okay, everyone else was rigging the election, also). Anyway, all in all, I spent the following 6 hours plotting my little butt off (after emergency memorizing my sheet) and in the end, I had successfully rigged the election, sold out my main ally for his main rival, planted evidence that said former ally was actually responsible for the assassination I had arranged - which he kind of was, since I had arranged it as a favor to him - and ensured that I was on the right team so that when the upcoming military coups took place, I'd still have my job as a head of Communications at a major film company (did I mention the game was set in LA?). Heck, I even arranged for the existence of a better job for me, coordinating the "export" of materials (films, tv shows, porno...) to other Threads (worlds). So pretty much? Me and those I allied with won the game. This was made more fun by the sudden and unexpected arrival of
gilded_ygdrasil and Mayghin, neither of whom I'd seen since last summer - getting to be plotty with him, eviltophat, and deadmanwade was lots of fun. It was only frustrating to learn that it wouldn't be in continuity.Continuity was no issue what so ever in Sunday's LARP, however - my second go round in the ADGNEPSEF 555 (Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja Educational Preparatory Super Elementary Fortress 555, I might have one of those wrong) LARP - this game, written by Akira and fleshed out by the rest of those folks I've been talking about, is set in a grade school attended by all manner of kids based on anime stereotypes. My favorite character, who I played last year after building an imitation "hover board" complete with lights, is Cyd, the oldest kid in the game at 13, and a trouble making cyber punk. Here's a post from last summer in which I geek out about how much I loved playing him and how I won the game. Cause I totally did. Anyway, I wanted to play Cyd again, but I didn't have my costume, and in the spirit of fairness I decided that if someone beat my to it I'd play a different character. As such, I brought two costumes - one I'd thrown together for Cyd, and a big white sheet with colorful butterflies and flowers on it. This, obviously, would enable me to play Nick, who is a ghost. Sure enough, Cyd got taken, and I spent to game as Nick - a complicated prospect, given that Nick can't actually speak to any of the PCs who were participating in the game. All in all, I think it's safe to say that I accomplished absolutely nothing, but I had a whole lot of fun doing it and got a crash course in just how much I suck at charades (
gilded_ygdrasil, on the other hand, is damn good at it, and eurudite ain't bad either!)In between the gaming, I spent of course tons of time in the Dealer's Room. I painted three minis, and finally made the command decision that the time had come for me to buy a few paints and a few brushes, because I like painting minis so damn much and I NEVER EVER DO IT except at Cons. I'm glad I did, though I won't have time to play with the stuff I bought until I get home. I also picked up a huge stack of gaming books at $5 apiece. I also got myself a small gift - 4 back rubs at a booth offering them, which ended up being one Thurs, one Fri, and two back to back (so 1 20 minute) on Saturday. It was worth every penny, oh-so-relaxing. Lastly, there was my time spent in the art room, where I got one commission which turned out FANTASTIC and two other pieces of art, including my first ever digital print out, which after much debating I spent the extra money to get the signed limited edition one, because I figured that my art sort of is a collection, and that's definitely more of a collecting decision. I didn't spend nearly as much as I have in previous years, but I still spent more than I should have all things considered, and I'm rather worried about it. I mean, nothing bad will happen, but my credit card now has a balance again, and it's more than I can pay off this month, and next month is scary, and all in all I'm more pissed at myself about it than anything else. Sigh.
It was really nice to see my friends, too, of course - I got to have lots of fun conversations and a few deep ones as well, and spend a lot of time with them. In particular, I ended up spending a lot of time with Kev, and this was surprisingly a-ok. All in all, I'm REALLY looking forward to Gencon, where even more of my peeps will be including
mistress_sin and her boy and many, many others. :)Anyway, there's not loads to say about Bloomington. I've been hanging out with a few of the Knightridge folks and generally taking it easy. On Saturday I'll be heading to Chicago, and I'll be stopping briefly in Binghamton on Monday evening and either pressing on home then or heading home on Tuesday morning. After that things settle down, though July isn't without fun stuff - I get to see Alkaline Trio on the 12th and I'm SO excited about it, and
mistress_sin and I will be going to Warped Tour on the 27th, where I will NOT lose my camera this year. :) Then August is busy again, with weddings on the 2nd and the 23rd, and Gencon. July will be mostly eaten by work, though. Damn "paying the bills." :)As for now, I'm going to do my writing and then head over to the east side Goodwill - if anyone is reading this and bored, feel free to come along, though I promise nothing in regards to being interesting. :)
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-02 03:22 pm (UTC)BTW: joanie has two 'heat spots'. we've started the treatment (odie had them earlier this summer) and she is doing fine. they may be healed when you pick her up but i'm not sure. i suck at estimating healing times.
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Date: 2008-07-02 08:13 pm (UTC)What are heat spots? I know there was a point last year where she kept scratching out big swaths of fur, is it like that? I'm sorry that you've had to take care of her so long, but I really super duper appreciate it. And I hope the move is going well!! :)
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Date: 2008-07-03 02:41 pm (UTC)that's pretty much what they are. and no worries on us watching her. it keep odie company and she is loving the country!
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Date: 2008-07-02 03:35 pm (UTC)Say, speaking of GenCon, were you still interested in sharing a room? I've been upgraded to the Omni (which is in the convention rate, and ends up being cheaper than the Courtyard Marriott five blocks away.)
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Date: 2008-07-02 08:16 pm (UTC)I will definitely let you know by Friday, so that you can plan accordingly. I'm glad the offer is still open, though - I really appreciate it!
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Date: 2008-07-02 04:38 pm (UTC)It was great to see you. Take care of yourself and I can't wait to meet up with you again soon!
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Date: 2008-07-02 08:17 pm (UTC)Will you be at the July 4th party?
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Date: 2008-07-02 05:34 pm (UTC)Hopefully we'll get to meet up and catch up sometime soon, if for anything, to exchange vacation experiences :-P
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Date: 2008-07-02 08:19 pm (UTC)How crazy busy will you be with studying? Are you gonna have a post test party? I'll have some time end of July beginning of August if you're too busy with prep for your test, but if you want some time before that I know for sure that I'm dropping whatever else is going on in my life for one night to go see the new Batman movie around when it comes out on the 18th - if that interests you, maybe we should plan something around then?
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Date: 2008-07-03 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-03 01:55 pm (UTC)Yay Batman movie!
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Date: 2008-07-03 01:50 am (UTC)See you soon!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-03 01:55 pm (UTC)