Rachel and I are having major problems with email at the moment. Our normal email addresses have stopped working, and may be in that state for a few days for all I know. If you need to contact us, comment here and I’ll get in touch (we still have working email addys, just not the normal ones).

Damn you, technology!

Update: Fixed! Thank gawd…

So, a week or so in Venice, where 16 of us accidentally won the Venice Carnevale’s mask/costume competition while dressed as giant rats. I say accidentally because all we were trying to do was to get up on stage and have a bit of fun; then they invited us back for the next round (on comedy value, we assumed); then they let us through the first round of the final (audience sympathy, we assumed, and the fact that we bribed the judges with cheese) and then we discovered that we’d won.

Oops.

Y’see, there were all these other entrants who have undoubtedly spent months on their kit. Or have hired kit from people who have spent months on their kit. Specifically targeting the costume competition.

All we did was turn up. I mean, there is work in our kit, obviously – Pete (and Kangena’s) rat masks at the least. And some of our coats are ENO, and Rach made all her stuff and a robe for me, and so on and so forth. But none of it was intended to win the competition.

So we felt horribly guilty, and left before we got lynched. Although when we went back for a last hurrah on the final day of Carnevale everyone still seemed to like us.

Allegedly we have won a rather fantastic prize, but it’s yet to be confirmed, so…

Terrible shame that Jen and Tim got messed around by EasyJet and couldn’t go, and other original bookers couldn’t make it.

(There’s a Facebook group here, which should have pictures and such soon.)

Other ratty highlights (some of which from a series of challenges we made up on the spur of the moment) include:

• Elle and Ben blagging free drinks at Florian’s (the most exclusive coffee bar in Venice).
• Elle and Lucy B performing “I like big rats/and I cannot lie” + burlesque stripping (down to their tails) while Nick and I attempted (badly) to beatbox in front of an audience of mostly uncomprehending Italians. This was our entry (and I use the word advisedly) in the International Erotic Poetry Contest. All of the other entries were in fluent Italian. You probably had to be there.
• The snail rider (made out of a Segway and lots of foam rubber).
• Gill blagging free pizzas at a restaurant (contingent on us making the place look busy, which we managed with ratty aplomb).
• Being dragged into ‘the oldest glassware shop in Venice’ to promote the owner’s wares. If I’d had my wits about me I’d have staged a dramatic collapse through a shelf of glassware as a consumer statement. If you ever take a trip to the island of Murano you’ll understand why. You have never seen so much appalling tat in one place. But we were given a free mouse made of glass. How lovely.
• Rats leading several thousand people in “YMCA”. (That wasn’t me, honest, I wasn’t anywhere near it – blame Jo.)
• Ben and I being attacked by a port ninja. A port ninja is a rather rubbish ninja who pulls ninja moves on you that are so appalling that you cringe, until he mysteriously produces a bottle of rather fine port from a previously undiscovered orifice. A ninja who produces free port is clearly the best kind of ninja. Good job he didn’t flip out. You know what they’re like.
• The words “Something Strange Happened Here” written in neon lights across an otherwise innocuous-looking warehouse building on the north side of the main island. We still haven’t got to the bottom of that one…
• Seeing our pictures in Italian newspapers, and people mistranslating the Italian as ‘global domination’. Well, it was a nice thought…

Oh, I dunno. Lots and lots of stuff. It was a busy week.

In other news, just got back from my first Serenity LRP event. It was very cold. I will probably have more to say on the event elsewhere, but it was our first LRP of any sort in 2-and-a-half years. Sadly it didn’t live up to the hype. Here’s hoping that was mostly due to the adverse weather conditions… although I’ve a sneaking suspicion it may also be due to our increasing age and cynicism.

So, nearly a month at the new place and I’m starting to settle in.

I now know what I’m doing at work, which is good; got a handle on the size of the task, which is daunting; but have also realised how much I can remember from the last time I did lots of C/C++ work, which is excellent.

I have learned about AccuRev, and how slow and frustrating it can be (probably when not given enough CPU power to cope).

I have dropped my laptop (boo!) so it no longer hinges properly. Sadly I am skint, so no replacement for me!

I have mucked up my car MOT date and am in danger of being untaxed for a day. Or rather, my car, not me.

I have formulated Future Plans (I think!).

Driving back to Cardiff isn’t too much of a chore; leaving Rach and driving back to Knutsford is…

Since I have been living in this house, the plumbing has broken, the living room roof has started to leak (it’s an internal roof, which is worrying), and a fish has died (so I found a proper use for a fish-slice). It’s not my fault, honest.

Good session of Causa Potentia at Dan’s the weekend before last; good session of planning for Serenity this weekend. Not too many weekends before I’ll have to roll out El Papa Ratto across the bridges of Venice; which is a nice prospect, if financially scary. May have to cut back on the Bellinis.

Mass Effect 2 out on Friday. There go the last vestiges of my free time – or possibly of my sleep…

So here I am, installed Acacia Avenue.

I have already repaired the wireless network, so it’s all very familiar.

Traveller’s Tales for the first time tomorrow morning… maybe I’ll even find out what I’m going to be doing! Sounds like there’ll be more than just me starting there for the first time, too…

Anyhoo — hope everyone had a good festive wossname!

After my rant of a few weeks ago (about the difficulty of getting into games jobs) I have news...

From Jan 2010 I will be a Senior Developer for Traveler's Tales - the guys behind Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones. Will be living in Cheshire during the week, and at home in Cardiff for weekends.

All change. :-)

Muppet's Bohemian Rhapsody:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

Just a quick reminder that if you're looking to improve a kid's vocabulary for Christmas, you can't do better than My Worst Words.

Just imagine the happily drunken hours around the Christmas tree, watching the grandparents' faces as their little cherub pipes up with exactly what they see on the page.

G'wan -- you know you want to. ;-)

Dragon Age is the new Baldur's Gate.

Highly recommended...

Confirmation on Sean Bean in Game of Thrones...

http://grrm.livejournal.com/95840.html

Along with Mark Addy as King Robert...

So, two weeks in the land of cheese and wine.

After struggling down the Gorge de Galamus in a wetsuit, climbing up above the clouds to revisit Peyrepertuse (and into the fog for Montsegur), trailing down into the bowels of the earth for the Grotte de Niaux and the 14000 year-old paintings, driving through thick night-time fog with no roadmarkings on the way back from Andorra, swimming in the lakes at Montbel and Puivert, relaxing in the hot springs at Ax-les-Thermes, standing goggle-eyed outside the incredible Fortress of Ultimate Evil which is Amiens Cathedral...

I'm back to find the boiler isn't working, the roofer hasn't arrived, it's raining, and I've got a pile this long *gestures* of things to do.

Bah.

Edit:
So by 4.30 today, my day has consisted of:
- The boiler not working (and the plumber being on holiday 'til the 27th)
- The roofer not turning up
- HSBC telling my my credit card has been used fraudulently
- 6 inches of water in the floor of my car (dodgy doorseal)
- And at least three other irritating things that I can't discuss publicly.

Double bah! Or even triple...

So, would it expand to an entire musical? ;-)

( Demons are a Girl's Best Friend )

Mysteriously, our book seems to have turned up on Amazon.com.

Which is nice, if surprising.

Although, given that it's targeted at UK English speakers, it might have made more sense for it to be on Amazon's UK site...

Excellent weekend.

Sai and Caroline hitched without a hitch... if you see what I mean. And completely undampened by the damp, except physically. :-)

(I'm sure blokes are supposed to be unaffected by wedding ceremonies. *sniff* No, no - hayfever, honest.)

I still have bits of Andi and Juliet's song bouncing round my head. (Not, not that song, scrofula!)

And all plans and schemes seemed to work out fine. :-)

Really good to see everyone...

Extensive piccies from greatbigshowoff when the dust has settled...

Read the last 5 xkcd comic strips, if you haven't already...

Back from Pisa and Florence.

We saw lots of Renaissance art - hence the title.

Which prompts me to ask - why is it that up until the Renaissance no-one could really draw? I mean, in lots of cultures, all over the world, all separately, no-one could get people right.

Why?

You'd have thought someone would have looked at the rock they were drawing on, looked at the person in front of them and gone "You know - he looks nothing like this at all. Why don't I just capture the light and shade with this piece of chalk and this piece of charcoal?"

Was it all about the heresy? Were ancient cultures forbidden from capturing images in case spirits were captured? All cultures?

I'm not meaning that there wasn't good art, in some cases exceptionally intricate art. And I'm not meaning they couldn't draw images of people. But the real three-D capturing of light and shadow doesn't seem to happen until Michaelangelo, Giotto, Leonardo and co. Even amongst Eastern cultures. I may be totally wrong about that, in which case I blame my art teacher...

I would have thought it could evolve just by someone, somewhere, looking at what was in front of them. Surely some kid, somewhere, who didn't have an art teacher going "that's right, just draw it as if he was a cardboard cut out - it works for South Park, so it'll work for this triptych, okay?"

I don't get it.

Looks like Brütal Legend is really shaping up:

Preview (and trailer) here.

If you haven't played the Xbox game Psychonauts, then get it - it's on Xbox Live as a downloadable game.

It's by Tim Schafer, the guy behind Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and a lot of the first two Monkey Island games.

It's sort of a platform game. Ish. The main character, Rasputin, is at psychic summer camp; he must enter the minds of other people to foil a sinister plot. And that's the least outlandish bit of the whole thing...

Well worth the money. :-)

Oh, and all sympathies to Mickey Rourke (who I thought was amazing) but I'll just briefly wave an 'I told you so' flag.

Home at last, and far more mobile and alive than I expected.

The scar is almost disappointing - nice and long, but just doesn't look like I could pass it off as a result of a desperate knife-fight against Thuggee cultists in the alleys of Grand Fenwick. And although it does boast an impressive set of metal staples, unfortunately no cyborg powers have so far developed.

Thank you for the huge selection of cards and messages. I feel a bit undeserving - it was, after all, only appendicitis (although I can assure you that at the time the word only doesn't figure highly on your list).

And thank you for the stream of visitors - apologies if I was too morphined-up, dazed, or just plain exhausted to say anything coherent. :-)

What is this 'snow' of which you speak?