Malor

After nearly two weeks of getting my lungs to stop aching I got back to the job last Thursday. It was tough, though, and even while walking longer stretches I found myself having to control my breathing to prevent blind panic attacks due to shortness of breath. Clearly, my body has taken a hit that will take it a while to recover from. But no rest for the wicked. I am sleeping better and better, and that is doing wonders for my recovery, but the massive stack of backlogged work @ OGD does take a certain 'do what you can and it shall be enough' attitude. I tire more easily then usual and with Lies also having caught the sniffles our relaxation of preference is currently either couching or sleeping.

The kittens are doing great. Nox is clearly the reckless younger brother while Set's more cautious and sometimes a bit of a scardy-cat. Kitting training involves letting them know what is okay and what not, and concepts such as 'scratching pole' and 'not on the table' are coming, as well as 'we eat first, then you get fed'. It is working out.

For added relaxation I went to the Aon Baravond. It was fun hanging with a few new players, and though I opted out of the outside activities I was able to wheel, deal, make sure the right people spoke to the right people and generally have a lot of fun with the fashion and Merode-gang. We did not go home too late, with Lies, Jo and myself under the weather, but it was a good relaxing experience. The 'basic' Gino is becoming a comfy character to slip into, despite there remaining difficult issues to play out. We drove home after, opting to sleep in our own beds.

Lex is going well. We are in the swing of things and despite being a bit laggy in the NPC briefing thing due a few late backgrounds I have faith that we'll manage to present an interesting event to kick off our final three. We have had to be bit blunter then usual, diplomatically, laying down the law in various areas. There is a certain level to which we can accommodate people before it gets silly, and it is important to make sure the limits are clear. Sometimes I do feel we have bent a bit too far, but I'll have a good chat with my fellow SL's about that one after it is all over - the line between flexibility and letting yourself be run over is a thin one, indeed. EE's been great, replanning meetings @ my place so that despite being sick I was not out of the loop. Though my head's been a bit foggy (and writing NPC's then is _not_ smart) it is all working out, and that is the part of the 'job' that I really love. We're all there for each other.
'Lacking' an NPC day this time due to time constraints we've called, emailed and had meetings with all of our Dramatis Personae, and again it is absolutely fantastic to brainstorm creatively with your friends. Even despite repeated phonecalls and msn chats about 'I dunno what to wear!' (yes, multiples - we created a monster) I would not have it any other way. In all honestly, it feels good to be working on the last few, and to have the feeling that we are finishing the run pretty much with the (though heavily evolved) ideas with which we started. Nostalgia has been haunting me for weeks, but it is a welcome friend.

It is easy to forget the next big thing on the horizon: Unity. I cannot remember doing the level of prepwork I did for any other larp 'cept where I organized. The Unit is coming together well too, but after literally two years of writing, planning, researching and working on it I expect nothing less. It is a good crew with a bunch of interesting veterans that I trust implicitly. Bit tired of hearing the old "oh, you are also soldiers" argument though, cause in all honesty: we got there first. I expect it to be the result of peeps being afraid it is going to be a nerfgun-dominated event - but this is not Prooptiki, and with even our unit supporting gun regulations I see the problem just being one of anxious anticipation.
Am not particularly feeling forgiving towards the argument, cause despite the fact that I am apparently playing an unoriginal character who is a gun toting homicidal maniac (if arguments are to be believed) I take pride in the fact that we made a good attempt to properly physrep what a soldier of the future would have on him, from big things such as standardized ammo and guns to little things such as tools, commgear and food rations, and that we'll _roleplay_ a unit of professional soldiers trying to make our way in an unknown world. And that is in my opinion an as valid character as any - so the next one who thinks we just bought a nerfgun and threw on some army fatigues so we'd have an excuse to shoot people is gonna get it cause there is no way in hell I am going to let so much work be marginalized.

Yep. I'm pretty sick. What started as a cold escated into near pneumonia. I cannot remember being this ill for a good long while, and after over a week of staying in, I'm only now showing minor signs of improvement. Clear signal to take it a little easier, but I have had to cancel on too many things for it to be fun. Despite peeps being around it is hard to shake the feeling of being isolated, and with my brain being slow things are progressing on Lex but not as fast as I'd like.

Blergh. Hope this clears next week.

Did manage to play out Starwing, Starfox 64, Starfox Assault, most of Mariokart, Dawn of War II and Forged Alliance. Heh. Nothing like being very ill to catch up on your retro-gaming.

First up: our house has two new residents - Nox and Set, two kittens from selmaika's nest. They are really cool. And cute. My allergies have come to the fore but as expected are on the mend again as my body generally gets used to cats quite quickly.

Second: am getting quite good at nerf-modding. Love my Dremel. Designed and implemented a sound proofing mod which not only efficiently reduces sound but also decreases the stress generated by using after-market springs and modified components inside your - lets face it - plastic gun. I'll even go as far as saying it reduces jams... after close to a 100 testfires none of my modified weapons have jammed, though they still need to be combat-tested. This is also cause I did not go for the most ambitious mods, primarly aiming for the 'road most taken'. More range is cool, but I aim for accuracy and keep in mind I'll be pointing this gun at my mates before firing. And since my girlfriend is in the Unity NPC crew... Why so careful? Well, as riftie can recall I've got a larping character who survived a face to face encounter with a Maverick cause it was modded and jammed, and I am not going to suffer that.

Third: LFG enterprising roleplayers in Utrecht to game PNP with. In other words: maglok and moi have been itching to flex our gaming muscles in a pen and paper game. Prototype campaign is once every two weeks, in Utrecht, NWoD or any other setting we feel like. Bring Your Own Dice. Anyone interested?

My Friday off was spent visiting a location with Rennie & Olga, which was cool. Spent the rest of the day chilling with the girlfriend and getting the groceries for the rest of the weekend. It had been a long week for the both of us, and we both were a bit under the weather, so we spent the night at home.

Saturdaymorning was the Myriad meet @ our place. Most peeps were able to attend and it was a good meet, lasting about four hours. After the i's were dotted and t's crossed most of the peeps went off to home while Jo, Ork, Glok, Lies and me went up to Glok's after lunch to watch the premiere of Stargate Universe on Glok's HDTV. The premiere was good, with mixed feelings. The props, set, and FX have definatively seen a revamp, and the references to 'old' Stargate are pretty good. The darker feel is cool, but the characters haven't grown on my yet. It is more of an ensemble show then the old Stargates, which focussed on a single primary team and their direct superiors each series, and characters get relatively little time. Young Eli Wallace is my fav, but the rest is a bit difficult to wrap my head around. The third part of 'Air', as the pilot ep is called, will be shown next Friday. We'll see. It is a bit 'Stargate: Galactica' and I really hope it is not that for the sake of being just that, so I will remain optimistic but cautiously so. Watched the new Dollhouse, which was okay. Loved it, but agree with Glok that Dollhouse needs to pick up or it'll likely face mid-season cancellation as it is up against... yep, Stargate Universe.

It was a good and fun geeking out. Only thing to rain on my parade is that some yoyo bashed in two of my car windows to check if there was something valuable in my car - it was parked 30 meters from the house, under what I later found out is a broken streetlight. There was nothing valuable in there, though my toilet bag (my toothbrush and deo) and a bag with some random IC nicknacks appear to be missing. Might've taken them inside, might not - will have to thoroughly go through my house. Luckily I is ensured. With the weather turning bad and two windows missing I wanted a quick solution, though, and the Carglass installed emergency windows. Annnoying was that the "7 days a week, 24 hours a day" phonenumber of my insurance turned out to be closed in the weekend, so I am regging a complaint about that one. Glok drove with moi to Carglass and several hours later the problem was solved. Pressed down on my mood some, though.

Sunday was also spent chilling mucho. Played "Dawn of War: Soulstorm" while Lies terrorized Sims, beta-tested Unity's new rulesystem, fiddled with my in-character stuff, made two designs for a dataglove for Mone and played with my dremel some. Also watched the first ep of the last season of Supernatural, which starts on - pun intented - a hell of a premise. I like it for it's Hunter-Thematics, but it sometimes tends to go a bit Drama and I hope they pull together a good end-game instead of having Sam and Dean jojo between Angst and Not Knowing What To Do Untill An Angel Or Demon Shows Up, as season 4 pretty much was.

I will spend this week taking some time for myself. Have plenty to do, and I feel like I am just letting the river carry me inexorably forward instead of plotting my course. This is due to several reasons, mainly exhaustion and not being five-by-five over the last week, but I am going to re-take control, and I am going to get my projects on the road. So say we all.

or: The Last Flight of the Aegolius Gregorius Antonius "Oehoe" Wickström

"The event was fun and good for a first event. Simon and Joost have reason to be proud, and I will continue to play Aegolius; got plenty of plans. I will continue to hang with the Nightkin, but see what I can do to improve my Alchemy. Time shall tell."
- Entry on the first Symbols, 13th of April 2005

The history of Oehoe:
Symbols 1 - Prelude: http://sna.livejournal.com/33891.html
Symbols 2 - Rebirth: http://sna.livejournal.com/39996.html
Symbols 3 - Calm: http://sna.livejournal.com/45860.html
Symbols special - Beyond the Great Bridge: http://sna.livejournal.com/49739.html
Symbols 4 - Storm: http://sna.livejournal.com/53101.html
Symbols special - Saving Wolf: http://sna.livejournal.com/57321.html
Symbols 5 - Sun: http://sna.livejournal.com/58831.html
Symbols 6 - Moon: http://sna.livejournal.com/65097.html
Symbols 7 - Shadow: http://sna.livejournal.com/73512.html
Symbols 8 - Chance: http://sna.livejournal.com/80645.html
Symbols special - the Battle for Centrum: http://sna.livejournal.com/85435.html
Symbols 9 - Breach: http://sna.livejournal.com/89595.html

So, on to Symbols 10: Endgame.

For me, it started Friday morning 04:45, when my alarmclock woke me. I had a busy morning due to various reasons. First up, I'd be picking up musemistress from the airport, who had flown in from Australia for the last Symbols. Harma was kind enough to put her up, and I wanted to make sure that she'd both meet a friendly face at the gate and get to Harma's without too much fuss (it being hideously early). When I got to Schiphol and parked my car the plain had just touched down and was coming to the gate so I got out my bookie and waited. About half an hour later Mel walked out of the gate and we greeted as larpers are wont to do. It was good to see you again, my dear. A quick jaunt to Harma with only one minor detour later and I was on my way to work in Amsterdam. OGD was moving its office, for the first time ever, and we'd be doing helpdesk from Amsterdam just this once. But the OGD Amsterdam office being on the Prinsengracht I had no way to park there without paying a fortune (much less drive there) so I had made a cunning plan thanks to aroka and jpdw which involved us meeting up at Jo's work and switching cars. Jo took their car to her work, while Ork too mine, and I took the subway and the tram to work. Despite a fairly tight planning and me really not having much experience with public transportation in our capital everything went smooth and I was at work well on time. The day itself was tough, as we did not have the full toolkit that we normally have (something about our serverpark being moved), but we managed. I was quite tired, though.
At the end of the day we were done a little early (though still quite late for my standards) and I made my way back to Amsterdam Amstel Station where Ork picked me up again in my own car. Jo had earlier driven to Utrecht to pick up Rennie and Lies, and we were all underway to Symbols. By the time we'd cleared the few trafficjams that remained we recieved an SMS that they were on the A1, about 4 km ahead of us. Good timing. Without the cart (dropped off at the grounds on Thursday Night) and no setting up of the stuff (cause I had pulled a few favors) we were ready to go well ahead of the time-in call, which was very important since most of us would go time-in collectively. Also looking forward to Mel walking onto the grounds in-character, as very few people there knew she would come. Big thanks go to all involved for helping me to plan the rather complicated logistics of this Symbols (riftie & selmaika, among others), I really owe you the fact that I had no stress when I arrived.

( Symbols 10 - Pics & Story - Cut for Length )

So. What remains is writing the Epilogue and browse the pictures. I sincerely hope I get to hang with many of the peeps that I played with @ Symbols again, and I think I will. For now, I will look back on a great event cycle through which I played the same character all the way through, staying a reasonable normal person while experiencing adventures, some great and some harrowing. I have packed up the old robe and much of my alchemy stuff goes to maglok who has plans of his own for them. And I am satisfied. Oeh to da Hoot. Totem time.

After two weeks of larping with primarily the end of Symbols on my mind I feel inutterably lonely. While I am tired I feel restless and want to talk about plans for next Aon, plans for next Unity, plans for next Lex. But I need to work, and I need the nights to regenerate, especially since the minor sniffle of the weekend has evolved into full blown cold with the fall having broken through here. I just want to do something, anything, else, regardless whether it is to plan for the Masquerade Ball or the modding of the new drum cartridge for my nerf Assault Rifle.

I want to have the people I care around me so I can wrap their voice, their laugh, their presence around me like a warm blanket. Damned, what a larp dip. Pluh. I miss you guys.

Crossfire goes Blackwing Lair. Again!

Armed with Onyxia Scale cloaks, better gear and several more levels Crossfire stands ready to tackle Blackwing Lair again. We're looking for peeps to tag along on this classic raid, preferably around level 73 (a bit higher or lower not much of a problem). Tomorrow, 20:00, Terenas Server!

It was a fairly good weekend, despite interference from plot.

Yeah. That kinda 'fairly good weekend'.

It started pretty good with leaving Utrecht only a little behind schedule with Olga, Jan and Gert with me in the car. We had a new tent to try and a few cool ideas, and we did not waste much time getting ourselves ready to go in-character: arrival just after two, and all tents set up and adequatly decorated by five. Plus, all our personal stuff had been arranged, too, so we got into the car and ate in Zeeland before the big larper rush there. We ate food and got some for some later arrivals, and after some juggling with cars and peeps who had just arrived by bus we were all ready to go in-character. Soon after I was puttering about in my little fashion shop, being Gino. Until 'Time Freeze' was called, and the (in-character) Tsunami hit, that is.

Ahem. Yeah.

anemoona words it eleganty, so I will happily point to a quoted bit from her locked post (sorry, necessary Dutch):

Het begon goed, mijn personage kreeg een visioen over de zee die zich terugtrok en een muur van water wat over ons heen zou spoelen. Het voelde echter wel goed, Aon komt eraan. Vanaf daar ging het echter bergaf. Het begon te stormen (lastig uit te spelen met windstilte, maar vooruit). Een aardbeving (tja). Gerommel in de verte (drie Raikua wijzen ieder een andere kant op). Een tornado rondom ons kampje (we hangen met zijn allen aan de tentdoeken, maar ja, het was eigenlijk windstil). Een muur van water komt eraan en spoelt om de tornado heen.
Stel je het eens voor. Je hebt een tornado, met in het oog daarvan een klein kampje met 10 rillende Raikua en daarom heen een zee van water van 5 meter hoog. Als dit nu 5 minuten zou duren zou het nog wel gaan, maar het duurde tot zaterdag 12.00 uur voordat het water weg was en we weer het kamp uit konden. Tot die tijd zaten wij opgesloten in ons kamp en de rest van de spelers in het dorp (er waren manieren voor ons om wel onder water te kunnen lopen, maar wij hadden goede IC redenen om dat niet te doen).
Toen het water eindelijk weg was vroegen wij de SL wat er nog van het bos over was, het antwoord verbaasde ons. Alle bomen stonden nog, alle dieren waren er nog en zelfs het kruidentuintje van Pekka (die toch echt onder water heeft gezeten) stond nog. Veel te episch voor mij, ik ben meer van het what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Ik heb daarna dit hele gebeuren naar mijn achterhoofd gezet en gedaan of het niet gebeurt was want hier kan ik niks mee.

Replace the Raikua with random villagers and their kamp with the small municipality of Speranza, and you have the gist of it - including the ignoring bit, cause we really couldn't work with it. So have just decided to nail the balls to the walls and make this post on the Aon fora, cause I aint happy with that particular bit, and most people agree with the above statement - let yourself be heard. There are other plotbits that I am thorougly unhappy about and that seem to have only served to provide an excuse to send heavily armed peeps into the village to start trouble or advance some spelleider's pet plot, but since those are mostly personal, I'm keeping them to myself. Despite having played a fairly long time and having good fun with most NPC's the plot was just so unsatisfying and so disrupting to the 'normal' routine that it jazzed me out of Gino and kept me from doing most Gino-esque things cept assist in some minor ways. My personal minor bitchy moment where I truly felt Gino creeping up is the annoyance at the Talfar, who attacked right when I was showing a gaggle of noble ladies all decked out in my prized dresses around the village. I was stuck down several times, and several of them were wounded as well... and the dresses are unsalvagable, in-character. The fighting itself I did not really relish, but as then had stuck down my father and Morfinia (don't mess with the familie), I retaliated with fairly reckless abandon, especially after Kyara de Merode was critically wounded.

Luckily I had some decent play, such as sending a bunch of new arrivals (including a fair number of new players) treasure hunting with a map I don't know is real or fake... but since they had an afternoon of fun, I consider it a 2-and-a-half gold well-spent (and the plot is still running). Hung around with my usual partners-in-fashion Dora and Thea (nay, Antoinette), the latter being adopted by one of the noblemen, and we planned for both the bridal trips - don't ask - and the up-and-coming masked ball. Sponsored the new massage parlor next to my own fashion house and made sure that poor overworked Ares got the massage he deserved there - which led to a true epic moment when another group who wanted to fight knocked on the door, being recieved by a half-naked and glistening-with-massage-oil cabaray armed with only his shield and hand weapon asking them to "come back in five minutes after the massage". I'd be intimidated, lemme tell ya... Keeping it all grounded was the small play between our nobler and foremost families, and our little ritual B-team who despite being busy managed to find some time for each other. Had a load of fun with the Schnoodaerts internally too, as we all were doing what we do best. Gert will get the MVP title this event, though, with his booming Real Estate business.

So yes, I managed to scrape some fun together. Very, very few of it was SL facilitated (Marijke: thank you. I needed that), though, and those plotbits are well outnumbered by plots that I had to actually ignore to score myself some fun. All in all, Aon keeps at being a fairly schizofrenic event, ploining back and forwards between basic we're-building-our-village and high epic we-need-to-save-the-world plot. Understandably, with the village rife with experts and low-level commoners, things get antsy - if I had played a certain aspect of my character to the hilt I would have begged my father to let me go back home to the bustling streets of Telmond, where we have decidedly less earthquakes, tsunami's and other... interesting effects. What I am primarily worried about now is that the rep of Enneade - which has been shaky at best since the whole BBB issue and the lukewarm take-off of Aon - will again take damage, even after running two fairly well-recieved events. If interesting players decide to call it and move to greener (or at least, less epic) pastures, then my character will also simply cease to be interesting - much of my interaction comes from those villagers who I help with rumors, gossip, some well-needed re-styling or sending them to one of the many contacts and fellow entrepeneurs in the village. If that falls away, Gino won't be Gino, and I would be better served to call it, because it takes a lot of logistics to be Gino and will only continue to grow. Personally, I'd really love to recommend Aon to players and NPC's who want something different and have roleplaying foremost in their mind, but at this moment I just don't feel comfortable recommending a low fantasy setting that just isn't. And that is just a shame because it had the potential to be a really cosy reasonably unique mid-size event.

Suffice to say, I've been busy. Generally I post a thing about the state of moi once a week, but it has just fallen through lately.

Lots happened. Crossfire ran Azjol-Nerub, trashing Anu'Barak (for the first time, we'll get to do it later again), did the Wrathgate and will start he next session (tonight) with the Battle for the Undercity. Epic moments all around. We're 73 tonight and making our way through the mid-level instances of the Wrath of the Lich King, and judging time we'll prolly get very close to 80 before the next expansion. Other then that I have played Galadaeros very heavily lately, doing dailes, running raids / heroics and upgrading gear. I've managed to up my average from Tier 5 to Tier 7.5-ish, with my highest item on the vaunted Tier 9. The Tier's are a grade for gear, allowing you to see what would be good dungeons for you. I've also been scoring the reputation, upping my chances of getting the right enchantments and netting me a fair sum of money combined with my alchemical transmutations. All in all, I am doing well. Elysium is a fun group, and the raid leads are good (you know who you are), plus coping for a fairly verbose group must be hard sometimes - we tend to talk lots on teamspeak, especially in Naxx which is farm status.

Lies' bday came and went, and was small and good. Family and friends dropped by in small manageble groups, which was good cause I was dead on my feet. With stuff every night, and the new regime of cycling everywhere cept OGD Delft, it is tough sometimes. Still, I am a happier camper then I have been in a good long while, so woot. Planning for Aon went well, and I got most, if not all, stuff. Despite moving Mone has bundled up a nice carepackage for physrepping the Fashion House, and the new system with labelled storage crates for every character makes it real easy to pack. Pretty happy about that.

Had a rocky start of the week, being decidedly under the weather on Monday and having a laaaaate start on Tuesday. Did help Mone and Jules do their first run to the new house (love the new house, btw) and we did an Ikea run which despite best intentions and a solid plan from Mone took a staggering three hours (!), but I managed to run all my errands in Rotterdam at that. Targets of opportunity, yes, but it will allow me to take it much easier packing for Aon. Today will see my first quiet(er) day: tonight more Crossfire (woot), some more chilling and spending indoors with girl. Looking forward to a good homecooked meal, too. Rest of the week will be packing, helping some more with the move, and going to Aon. Yay! Then, a week to prep for the last Symbols, which will be bittersweet, but a singular experience after playing Oehoe for all that time. In the background we have lots of EE stuff to do, which is pretty damned cool as well. With our lineup nearly complete for the November - April months, it looks be to an interesting experience.

Busy life, yes, but good.

My Youtube profile popped up with a new vid from one of the DF video posters, and I found this:



The full fight between the Arena Grandmaster Kul and Yoshida Daimyo. Niiiiiice.

Also, charida turns out to be a new intern @ my regular monday job! Woot, I love familiar faces.

With the larp season starting again I've begun thinking about characters again, finally putting myself towards finishing two mood CD's.

( Elemiah and Sparks - The songs, with links where possible )

A motivational I made. Ran into the picture when researching some costume stuff for Elemiah (though why Google thought that this related to a search query containing "Mage Robe" eludes me...). And I mean the above sentiment - I mean, look at me? Despite having nerd checks up the wazoo I am living together with a cute girl, and have for four years. And I am by far not the only lucky guy or gal in my group of friends who have found that other half that fits them perfectly. Sometimes you just gotta stop and revel in how lucky you are.

And girls cosplaying Link are just plain hawt, after all.

( Appearently these two were part of a group cosplaying the Link: the Four Swords )

It is been a good week and a bad week.

Uh?

Well.

Lemme explain.

Basically I had a period where I took my job 'home' with me, and most of the regular readers of the blog know where that lead... Since then I have been striving on seperating my personal and my professional life to a point that mishaps in one don't (much) effect the other. The ETC course two years ago appears to have been succesful in this bit. While I have been having a downright _rotten_ working week, with an outdated certificate, a blown-out core-switch, a full two hours of unexpectedly having to give an extra course and now having to fill in for a friend and co-worker who has a personal situation that is very sad, I am personally feeling fine.

Joined a Guild in World of Warcraft, one that had a lot of friends & larpers. Had my first real raid (Ulduar10) which went fine, and Lies had hers too (Naxx10) with her also being very happy. I have lost a staggering kilo since last week, again putting me well ahead of my losing weight schedule, and the BMI of 25 looms big in my Wii's interface - after a year of watching what I eat and structurally changing the way I live my life the end is in sight, without crash dieting and no other diet supplements then green tea tablets (cause due to playing Yoshida I've come to dislike it - even with trying the milder variants). Oktober will see the completion of my "year of dieting" plan, but prolly Aon will see me the first time in three years where I am no longer overweight. Officially. Cue the woot. I am feeling happy and secure in my financial situation and this also extend to Lies who is doing quite well. Professionally my supervisors, both on the job and at HQ, are satisfied with my work. I've had a great EE meeting where for the first time in three months my creative juices really flowed, upping my motivation immensely. And I am both ready for Symbols and ready for Aon, well over a month in advance. Bring it on.

(Hmm, on second thought, anyone have an addy for a good hairdresser in Utrecht?)

It also allows me to deal with the work problems much more efficiently. Three out of four major problems have already been straightened, and one more if the contact decides to give me the green light today, with me just coldly analyzing the problems and dealing with them in ways that I considered the smartest option. I cannot guarantee that I can keep this up under every circumstance, but it is definatively heartening.

So simply, I am happy. And that shows. Perhaps I will even finish my master plan today and post it, cause I want to set up a bi-weekly tabletop gaming group in Utrecht. Stay tuned.

Be warned, those not interested in World of Warcraft, gaming, or the epic adventures of a bold group of... uh... adventurers will not want to read beyond the cut.

( Uberloot )

In the next few months Crossfire will be running through the Wrath of the Lich King content, but stay tuned for our next larper zergs raids...

Well, I'm processing the various screenies for the Crossfire post, but first about the rest of the week. Saw GI:Joe, which was just plain fun - and a must for our Unity characters - on Friday and the weekend was taken by the aforementioned Crossfire weekend. Sundayevening it was quiet again, so we ordered pizza. But something must've been wrong with that as I found myself hugging my toilet not two hours later... another thing learned about the local pizza guys. Felt pretty sick and was dead tired so I, wisely, went to bed. The next morning I felt decent enough to go to work (1.2 km from my house, heh) but the day was loooooooong. Luckily there was an EE meet in the evening that managed to kickstart my brain or I fear I would not have woken up all day.
Tuesday I was set to go to Delft, but I was really feeling crap and weak so I took that day off, and spent it getting Galadaeros, my WoW main, back on track with some more reputation and new gear, and I really got into it, blasting through Stratholme with Lies' Death Knight in tow and finally getting Exalted with the Argent Dawn (though I still want that special mount!). I got the Argent Tournament on track, too, Championing the Cause of Just and Rightiousness. Woot.
Wednesday saw a tense day for me, with the first trial run for my Office 2007 course I had designed and built specifically for one of my clients. Was very nervous but in the end everything worked out and I was ready for the courses. I will teach it 11 more times in the next few weeks, to small groups of employees, to prep them for the new software they will be working with. Thursday was another course day and despite being very tiring the employees were generally enthousiastic and have asked if I was interested in giving a few masterclass for things such as academic references in files and advanced layout options. Could be worse, I guess... Spent the evening getting to know my new Guildies in WoW (joined the Elysium crowd on the Terenas server, lotsa familiar faces) and ran Iskendria through the Mana Tombs.
So, now it be Friday, spending the morning with the client and the afternoon in Delft to support Rene in his graduating endeavors. He's worked really hard for this particular bit and we'll prolly be there with a fair delegation to cheer him on (though with less litteral cheering, college professors might frown on the pompom squad...). After that it is only one last bit for him, so fingers crossed...

That leaves the weekend, which will see a BBQ on Saturday and blessed rest on Sunday. I look forward to sleeping late, cause that I've missed in the past few weeks. House status is good, btw. Looks very clean, and very happy about that.

District 9 is a movie that kinda suddenly just showed up. It has gotten very positive reviews and the story looks fantastic. Also, it has two great 'Ingame' websites of a level that is pretty impressive.

Trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/district9/
Websites:
http://www.d-9.com/ - Central Site
http://multinationalunited.com/ - The 'Company'

I spent a quiet afternoon browsing through all the material. Quite inspiring. Peter Jackson is involved... ;-)

Another movie I am looking forward to is Gamer (not Gamers, but Gamer). The whole concept of 'Augmented Reality' is something I did a lot with during my Master year, and currently with Unity. Check out the two in-character sites here: http://gamerthemovie.com & http://www.societyargirls.com/ (especially the last is... disturbing *grin* ); both are very heavy on the flash, though. An idea for a larp?

or: unable to comply, rooting in progress...

The move was tough, emotional, weird, interesting and disturbing, all at once. Still, it got done, with aid from family, friends and a lot of mental reserves. In the last post I had a bit of a list of things to do still, and it is going nicely.

To do:
- Upgrade the electrical grid to host a seperate group for the washingmachine / dryer (v. soon). - Done
- Go through and clear many of the boxes as storage space becomes available. Still several trips planned to the municipal dump cause jeeesh, we have a lot of crap. - Done
- Final run through the old house before turning over the keys. Much has been done already, so there isn't much left but still enough to warrent a few round trips. New possible tenant is coming Tuesday. - Done
- Upgrade home security: new locks on all external doors and upgrades on both doors and windows. Current security is only so-so. - we found what we want, now a question of getting it.
- Light in bedroom. - need to connect it.
- Curtains (Karwei is still delayed) - Done
- Lies' computerdesk. - found a temporary solution
- Finish the TV closet plus bolt to wall. - Done
- Closets above computerdesk - Done 1/2
- IVAR closet in the study / armory / spare room. - Done
- Planks to line the wall of both the Central Heating area as well as the shed for additional 'dry' storage. - made a plan for the winter of 2009

With this going on I have had little time for 'us' and 'me', but we managed to squeeze some in. Several movies (T2, HP6), some roleplaying time, some larping and several seasons worth of DVD's in our spare moments - so it could be worse. Work has tapered off a little with the vacations (I have schools as clients), so I took it easy. Took my time scanning through clients' networks, checking servers, doing extended maintainance and installing updates where required while listening to a few of my mood cd's, even getting a little work done on finishing Gordon en adding songs to Elemiah.

Around mid July I had a busy weekend, where I camoed Elemiah, more or less. Had to leave early, though, so it was hard to put Elemiah behind me, especially when I later heard that - as we'd expected - we'd been betrayed by the supposed turncoat of the badguys. I had loved to be there, but I simply had other affairs. I had to return to Krimpen twice that weekend for the possible new tenants. Good news was, though, that one of those went for it, making it possible for me to go to Drachenfest. Another delight for me was going to the last bit of Exit with the EE crew - was able to assist in a minor way with dropping of Judit and listened to the circle evaluation of the event with a great view of Muiderslot and Statenjacht 'the Utrecht' - Location was the old West-Battery, a mini-fortress, part of the 'Stelling of Amsterdam'. We had invited 15 people to a zero-rules zero-gamemaster interaction game that despite a few interesting Murphy's worked out really well. I will see if I can dedicate its own post to it, for the concept is pretty darn interesting.

We spent the weekend after that doing some well-deserved downtime: Efteling & Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen. Loads of fun, and finally went into the Vliegende Hollander ("Flying Dutchman") ride. Other then that I tried to rest up as much as possible, reading, sorting through some boxes and playing some Supreme Commander. The week after was DF and has seen coverage in several blogs so I won't got in detail again. This week saw the start of the Summer Darkness Gothic festival in Utrecht, with Lacuna Coil opening. Had been fan of them ever since seeing them in 1998/1999 in the Baroeg and they played a good set, with a lot of singing along in the second half of it when they got to their more 'classical' songs. I love their enthousiasm, and loved sharing it with Lies, Ren & speaktothevoid. Plus, being able to cycle to and from home in 15 mins with your girlfriend riding with is SUCH a perk.

I'm starting to nest, too, in the housey, which is really good...

(in the style of my DF 2007 Entries 1 & 2)

Starring:
Roland - Yoshida Kasumi, Daimyo of Clan Yoshida
Suus (ningyomatsuri) - Yoshida Raiko, Samurai & Scout
Mark (omdathetkan) - Yoshida Garou, Samurai & Scout
Geert (drahkan) - Yoshida Kaminari, Samurai
Brian - Yoshida Masato, Samurai
Judith (anna_xanaphia) - Yoshida Kodachini, Samurai
Hans (lupijn) - Kitamura Matsuhide, Samurai & Personal Physician to the House
Gijs - Sakamoto Kiyoshi, Samurai & Hatamoto
Gert- (dj_fritz) Yoshida Ichero, Samurai
Simone (fyrane) - Yoshida Amaya, ex-Miko and wife to Sakamoto Kiyoshi
Petra - Geisha, not of the House
Judith - Yoshida Momoka, Miko
Myself - Yoshida Masuo, Samurai & Hatamoto

After last year's debacle with my leg I was ready for this Drachenfest, as in needing it. With the house troubs mostly behind me I arranged some final things during the Tuesday as Brian, Hans & Mone came by to pick some stuff up, too. I drove to Petra and Ro after a last visit to Krimpen (or tried to, something about a bridge and closed). But I got there well in time so we loaded up and drove back to Utrecht to eat there, after which I bade goodbye to Lies and we drove on. Onwards to Drachenfest. The drive was pretty chill, with us consistently being able to drive a good (legal) pace, and one stop and a little under four hours later we passed the "Am Biggenkopf" station and saw the familiar mountain appear on the horizon. Checking in was done in under five minutes, and we arrived in our camp, Silver this time, less then ten minutes later to find all tents already standing 'cept Ro and Petra's personal tent, which was up shortly there-after. Even the parking and the normally long way up was far shorter due to us running into Arno from the Arabian Nights group in Grey and offering a ride up. Spent a few mins in that camp, too, OC, before hitching a ride to my own. After everything was done we mostly elected to kick back OC for the last bit, so I watched the sunset over the camps and the first fires being lit before chilling for a bit in the common room and retiring to bed.

The morning started off immediatly getting in-character. The costume came easy, and I found out I had slept close to twelve hours - appearently I needed it. Camp commander and general were chosen, ending up with Grandmaster Gilgamesh of the Italian Black Templars as Camp Leader and a mercenary as our General. The Daimyo had also been considered but as the new people in the camp (we'd been in Green for four years) that wasn't an option. And thus started a wonderful week. Personally, I don't know where to start. We had wonderful neighbours in two very experienced and very cool German players (Albracht & Alejandro - yes, I know they have OC names but I can't remember ;-) ), were invited over to dinner a few tents down, held a tea ceremony for the Silver and Gold Avatar (which took a lot of logistics and caused me to visit the Red Avatar, too - long story), went to in-character parties, fetched Avatars from four camps for a top-level meeting, escorted many dignitaries, fought everything from Orks to Shinobi, had many honorbattles, went to the Arena for an afternoon of fun, etcetera. One of the greatest things was the sheer diversity of the play. Member of our group have seen bits of the mainplot, honored many of the Avatars, saw practically every camp from the inside, partied in the pirate bar, chatted with people of many nations, races and worlds and had plain old Yoshida fun in in our common room. We've even attended an ingame wedding, all dressed up, and after that had the equivalent of a networking party, with the mayor, a king, leaders of a few groups and dignataries of a few camps in attendence. Many of the people from our and other camps remembered us from previous years which helped wonderfully in many interactions and made sure we never had an ally far away. And the King of Kargath, a longtime friend, unexpectedly arrived too (the player arrived friday) to the delight of our Daimyo. The mood in the group was great: most things just 'got done' and were coordinated well, and we all got to do stuff we felt like most of the time, within the normal Yoshida standards, of course. Did not see much of the others Dutchees in-character, cept Fem and Andrea - and those only near the bathrooms. Did hear that Kaas was painting the town blue with his role as Pirate Captain and rumours he was running the Limbus, in good Dutch tradition. Also saw the Karavansarai across the ritual circle just before a battle and phalar_reign in the endbattle - and the latter did not survive his encounter with me *grin*.

With more then 3000 people on the grounds the whole larp felt alive. People were doing their thing, from the Garden in Green to the village on the top of the hill or the tinsmith in our own Silver camp. Banners honoring a hundred groups fluttered in the wind, warcries drifted over the palisade and the camps stood solid as a house, being able to field sometimes hundreds of heavily armed and armoured combattants. The sea of camp lights, torches and fires on the mountain is a beauty to behold, with each camp's gate functioning as a centerpiece of light and activity even till deep in the night.

The wonderful element of the group and camp structure is both easy and hard to explain. One of the first is that if a camp or a group has no right to exist by dint of not minding their basics or requiring special powers or privileges to stay alive. In other words, if you play a Drow House in the Camp of Chaos you'd better get it right or won't stand - if your camp falls beneath a certain number of players or performs badly it will cease to exist, either fading away or being absorbed in another camp (such as the Celtic and Orc camps, this year). It ensures a more stable and robust camp structure, where basics are done well in pretty much every camp lest they fade away. And that I love. Camps have stood for years because of having a solid core, solid ideals and lasting appeal instead of being an organizer's pet or a convenient font of plot - if you don't have the manpower, don't have a big mouth lest you get trampled. Thoroughly.
The second is respect. It is not that in Dutch larp respect is not present, mind you. It is just very, very hard to play a group with a hierarchy that is not only respected internally, but also without. At Drachenfest, if I meet a group leader, I nod. If I meet a King, I bow. If I see an Avatar, _any_ Avatar, I fall to my knees in the deepest bow possible, regardless of my surroundings. A guest in our house is sacred. And you get that respect back from both enemies and friends. I was afforded some due to my status as Yoshida, and a little more being the bodyguard of the Daimyo, and I felt that - being offered nods or bows if I spoke to someone, people inquiring after our names and offering food and drink where-ever we visited, being genuinly interested. A very curious thing was that when our Daimyo had a conflict with the General of the Silver Camp (who was a mercenary and a commoner) the camp was instantly divided between the common folk and the nobles in the camp, with the latter rushing to the Daimyo's side to offer their support. It took the personal intervention of the King of Kargath to smooth things over, ending with the General offering his apologies - as the nobles and their retinues represented well over two-thirds of the core of the camp. You don't see that in the Netherlands, and it is not just a matter of larp scale; if I must name a larp that even severely lacks that it is the biggest Dutch event currently running. It is not absent in Dutch larp, mind you, but positions are generally earned and hard fought, and noble birth too often used. I think it also ties in to the fact that many German larpers are part of a group as standard with a single main character, and as such far more often a small cog in the machine then the Dutch larper, who both plays more roles and plays more solo - having more chances to lead at atleast one point. An interesting theory to mull over in my spare time. But I digress.

The end was a bittersweet moment, for we knew that this was - for now - the last time playing the Clan Yoshida on Drachenfest. Perhaps at some time in the future we'll decide to revisit the glorious Yoshida, especially in the light of this wonderful event - and both the relative easy and the fun it represented. For now, however, the image of the Clan kicking back in the common room laughing and sharing stories is the last I will have, in-character - I went to bed as one of the first as I was both dead on my feet and had to drive back the next day. So, that is that, then. Rest well, Yoshida Masuo, Hatamoto no Daimyo. You've earned it. He is the first of the two characters that I knew I had to retire this year, and I must say that both Brian and myself had a lump in our throat when we had to toss our Tori gate (though I kept a small bit of the midsection as a souvenir). But so things go. The memories are fantastic, though, and those I shall cherish.
We spent the Sunday cleaning up, and were done pretty fast. So fast, in fact, we drove off the hill to kick back at the local McDonalds, where I got a decent cup of coffee and a half decent burger. We found ourselves in the queue with many, many more DF'ers, amongst others our Avatar(in), who turned out to really want us back next year... hmmm... I guess that makes four Avatars that want us in their camp. Ran into the other Dutchees there, too, and swapped the first few DF stories. Drove home with Ro & Petra, catching glimpses of other Dutchees on the road here and there, but otherwise an uneventful ride which saw us enter the Netherlands just after five. Had my driving buddies home in good time and drove home myself, parking my car in front of my house at 21:15. This has truly been of the the best larps I've experienced as a player, and that is saying something. This is in no small part thanks to the wonderful group we went with, who to the last person was determined to make this one hell of a Drachenfest for all of us. Fellow members of the Clan Yoshida, thank you - especially the positive reactions when I was able to finally confirm that I could come really made it for me. I felt welcome without reservations or expectations, and that I needed.

I still hope to find a few pics of me, tho, but I will postpone the pic-hunt until most galleries are online - many people are still sorting through their pictures. For now I will bask in the afterglow now that the rude welcome back to reality has been put behind me.

So. You come home in the after larp buzz, and get to do a few chores again immediately, finding things that really are not cool - especially the whole shoveling of emo-shit that piled up is a real buzzkiller. Next day, first day at work, you find that a meeting has been scheduled in your vacation for... hey, an hour ago! And you got the late shift without asking. And then, at the end of a long day where you want to go to the meeting of your friends, your car won't start.

Waiting for ANWB now. Still haven't eaten, still not home. Great. Just Great.

Edit: woot, is redelijk goed gekomen. Stukje EE vergadering alsnog meegekregen en nu thuis met ws. werkende auto (plus werk binnen fietsafstand). Ook ontdekt dat ik nog steeds aardig snel op skates ben.

Just returned from DF and DEAD tired but extremely satisfied. Had an incredible week despite missing Lies bigtime. Will make two big posts about the last month and DF itself... somewhere this week.

Now shower, girlfriend, sleep. Not necessarily in that order.