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Well, there goes NaBloPoMo... Pity really. Oh well, thirteen days of continuous updates isn't so bad, I suppose. A couple of months' radio silence followed by a couple of weeks of daily spam, although at least I managed to avoid memes and other fluff. Now, I suppose I have to try to find the happy medium.
This weekend has been ... less than productive. I managed not to fail at the archery club on saturday, which was a pleasant surprise: four years since I've last drawn a bow, and I can still put three arrows inside the nine-ring at twenty yards. Granted, that only happened twice in two hours, but it sounds better if I say it like that. I slept half the weekend without really trying, and only just managed to get some more coding done on the Winter in the Willows project this evening: the skill framework is nearly finished, but it's proving a bit of a pain in the ass to find all the edges of what should be a comparatively simple design. Guess I'll bang my head on it some more tomorrow.
Hope you had a good weekend. By way of apology for a somewhat downbeat entry, have an entertaining link: http://itmademyday.com/.
(It's the same day if you haven't gone to sleep yet, right? Right? This is totally the 13th's entry.)
So, continuing the tradition of my Writing About Weird Shit for NaBloPoMo (I'm kinda worried about what I'll decide's a good idea to write about for day 30, now...), I've decided to scribble a quick note about LARP before I go to bed. Although that was before I helped my housemate fix his computer, and watched him play Flash games for rather too long... Hmm.
Anyway. Briefly, the point of LARP is that it's role-play: you create a character and then play them. If it's going really well, and you're really into that character, then you can be in their mindset for upwards of twelve hours a day - it's very liberating, and quite interesting, to take on a different perspective, a different setting, hell, just a different job for a while. And then you come back, back to what you've known, back to what you've always been. Most of us roleplayers are more or less happy with who we are, but we relish the opportunity not to be every so often. A bit of escapism's healthy enough.
But now it's the winter season, and apart from a few player events (essentially, parties or gatherings being held at the in-character homes of some characters, rather than the huge festivals of normal events), there won't be any more escapism until April 2010. Sure, I'll be spending a fair bit of time doing in-character stuff like writing letters, building props and so on, but it's not quite the same.
C'est la vie. As in so many things, without the shadow, how can we appreciate the light?
I'm going back to the University archery club for the first time in ages on Saturday. If I shoot another arrow into the wall, I shall not be best pleased. Let's see who's fared worse over these few years, me or my bow and arrows...
Interesting weekend, all things considered, but not necessarily in a good way. I have now joined the serried ranks of the fools who put complex electronics through the washer. In my case, my cellphone. *argh*
The real source of damage, however, was at archery. Dry-firing a bow (loosing the string without an arrow on it) is really not smart, especially when the weapon in question has a draw weight in excess of 35lbs. Without an arrow to fling away, all the energy that would have gone into the shot is instead dissipated into the fabric of the bow, causing a lot of vibration and, not infrequently, a lot of damage. At my first competition, I watched an accidental dry-fire (the arrow fell off the rest while the archer wasn't watching) literally rip apart a bow. Fragments of carbon-fibre and various wood laminations were thrown halfway to the targets (about twenty metres, for reference), and the archer in question was left holding a pressed magnesium handle, looking mildly stunned and very, very unhappy.
I dry-fired my bow by accident on Saturday. Checked my stance by drawing it up, and lost my grip on the string at the worst possible moment. It normally makes a nice concise thump when fired: this time it twanged with a rather unpleasant note. It was only after I'd dismantled the entire thing and checked it thoroughly for damage (none, thank goodness) that I noticed the impressive friction-burn/bruise the string had left as it rebounded off my right forearm.
It's really quite painful if I forget about it and try to do something with it, but so long as I'm careful it's alright. I've had worse. But it nearly cost me a lot more than I could pay. If that dry-fire hadn't glanced off my arm, and all the energy that left a 10x5 cm bruise on my arm had gone into the bow instead, I might have been looking at a minimum of £200 to get the bow serviceable again.
Grumph, who stole the damn weekend while I wasn't looking? I was supposed to do several more or less important jobs this weekend (like get my coursework up to date), all of which I failed in one way or another. So now, I'm gonna be running to catch up tomorrow. Argh.
Friday night, I went back to Worthing to watch my brother and his band play a short set as part of a musical event. They were really rather good, even if I say so myself (although not helped by the poor quality amps and PA they were forced to use). All but one original songs, cohesively played and well written. Five other bands followed, but it was pretty much universally agreed that they were the best of the lot. So much so that the organisers have bumped their status in the next gig from supporting-the-supporting-act to headlining. Now, they just have to choose a flipping name!
Saturday, the world came crashing in on me and I didn't wake up till about 1300. Archery started at 1600 (moved from 1500 this week), and we decided to catch a bus. Big mistake: the service was all fouled up and we were thirty minutes late. When we did get there, random cheers were going off from the frisbee team on the balcony, totally wrecking everybody's concentration and thus their aim. Sigh.
Sunday I woke up late again and had a meal with my father and his new wife. Not a bad meal, although conversation was a little ... forced now and then. This and other minor but important events managed to consume my entire day, meaning that I now have a great deal of stuff to do and not so much time to do it in (including job-hunting and Christmas shopping).
BTW, just in case anyone feels like buying me a Christmas present, I've posted a brief list at this address. Ideas for those that want them, feel free to ignore.
Hmm. Last week, Imperial College came down to Sussex to fight a fencing match. They won, though actually not by all that much. I forget the score, but it was pretty close (about five points in it, I think). Today, they came down again (different folks, though) for an archery tournament. That's right, friends, three hours of slinging arrows at distant circles. Quite tiring under normal conditions, but dealing with the condescending comments of the Imperial team really began to wear after a while. They appear to believe they're G-d's gift to archery, practicing three times a week for about three hours a time. Upon winning, the very first thing they declared? "Right guys, now we have to try harder. See you all at practice tomorrow." They ate up our only practice session this week while we hosted the competition, and they wonder why they're better than us? Argh. I was just English enough to be a little inhibited and limit myself to snippy, catty comments here and there (things like accepting Sussex scores without question in my role as target captain, and laboriously confirming every Imperial arrow). I think they got the message after a while, as we seemed to start getting on better ;)
I beat my old personal best, though, for a score of 337/600. I 337. Why do I find that amusing...?
PS: My blog is now syndicated as the LJ account "glasshalf_empty", thanks to the_ladylark. LJ users, feel free to friend it and I'll turn up in your Friends page every so often :) This name may change in the near future, depending mostly on whether I can be bothered.