Low Heat

My tea plants arrived on Friday, and are currently languishing in my tiny yard.  Their waxy green leaves are still curled up and spotty; they definitely don't seem to be in the best condition.  I'm still holding my breath while I wait to see the results; I don't think I'll consider the entire project a success until I see new leaves on the pitiful, 18 inch stalks.  I also put in a japanese plum tree (which currently has neither branches nor leaves; hope that changes) and a mock orange plant.

It was only as I planted the plum tree that I began to recover the romance of the entire gardening project.  The plum blossom retreat (prepare for geek-out) was a manse my exalted character formed in the hills of the Marukan Alliance.  It played a pivotal role in the game's plot, as did the production of high quality tea.  The thought of a spring morning, three years hence, sitting beneath the mingled cherry and plum blossoms, screened by a tea grove... ah...

But until these perennials take off, my garden will continue to look pretty pathetic.  I may need to replace many of them next year, since I realized midway through the project that I really shouldn't put dwarf varieties in a small garden; it just makes things look cluttered and tiny.  More work!

I generally don't care about fashion, except when I am reminded by steampunk home and steampunk magazine about the growing scene, I get that itch for a pair of goggles, a frilly pirate shirt and vest, or at least some brass buttons and a top hat.  

Played a little more Yeld last night; this time with many traps.  We found out (1) some of the rules for traps didn't make sense if applied literally, like the idea that every character needed to roll against the trap, particularly when a solution was found by thinking up a way around the trap, and (2) traps are hard to work with and still keep the game moving.  Really, a trap should never actually stop the party for good, because that's just not that fun.  It should hurt them, sure, but even that has to be balanced against the fact that it's really easy to one-shot characters.  We also couldn't figure out if we could help each other over a trap, or start a chain against a trap.  After all, if you have strength of 1, any reasonable trap requiring strength to pass is going to be almost impossible to cross for you.  How does that work out?  This was particularly relevant to my poor blackmage, with strength of 1 and tough of 1; I can't jump/dodge/roll, and if I fail, that means I'm dead or left behind.  So!  Overall a fun session, but very different from our first; in the first game we were running using the usual gaming stereotypes, which to me is a lot of fun, but this time we were trying to be more subtle and literary about it, which is a bit harder.  Anyway.
Changing subjects: I've been working in my off time on abdiel (test automation center) for about six months... I'm presenting it to my group tomorrow.  It's been a lot of work, but I've been eating it for so long I think it should pay off (ie, it's not utter garbage).  Even so, when you develop something that only you use for a long time, you sort of learn to work around the known bugs without ever thinking about it.  It's about 4300 lines now, spread out in a handful of modules, none longer than a thousand lines.  What's odd is thinking about how programming applies to creative writing.  But anyway.

Hillside Quickie and Remedy Teas tonight; once again a Friday sans expectations has lead me to local venues that support my various habits; this time it is fine tea and vegan fare.

Hillside Quickie is a sandwich shop that apparently has a new dinner menu, which is sadly far too expensive for regular indulgence.  I had a $13 thai seitan burger with yam fries that was ridiculously oppulent, the sort that demands knife, fork, patience, and fortitude.  Quite excellent, but I think I'll try the lunch menu next time.

Remedy Teas, on the other hand, is actually less expensive than my usual tea shop, the Vital Tea Leaf in pioneer square.  Sadly, I've been trained by Vital in the chinese fashion to prepare teas in a vastly different fashion than their moda; all tea should be washed before use, and brewed for between six and thirty seconds, not 1-5 minutes.  I'm afraid to exercise my tea-fu in their presence, however, since they actually set a time and hand it to you with your tea at Remedy; to disregard this advice would seem like a challenge, a veritable slap in the face with a tiny silk glove, meet at noon with pistols and a coffin sort of thing.  It's like... well, for me, like walking into a math class and being told that taking roots of negative numbers is impossible... no, that's not quite right, since I can't really say that their brewing technique is less mature; it's just a different style... I know, it would be like going into a kwoon to work out, and having an instructor try to tell me twist out of the way of oncoming punches (hung gar kung fu, which I spent a few months learning, always uses footwork to dodge or vigorous blocks; twisting would put your spine in a dangerous position!)  I'm still too much of a neophyte to contradict their tea ethos, but it runs counter to my training by the tea sihings at Vital Tea Leaf.  However, they at least vary the temperature of the brewing water correctly (or rather, aligned with my traditions), and understand that different tea traditions can be brewed for multiple cycles. 

If I seem more verbose (read: pretentious) than usual, it is because I am trying to write tonight, with moderate success, so I'm in the vein.  Already though, my scooter is calling me back to the streets... the weather is warm enough that a ride through downtown to the Sound would be entrancing, invigorating, liberating...

hey, creative types, you should really read an interesting article on creativity over here: http://iloblog.quelsolaar.com/news?Home&post=11

It's uh...

wow.

Guru-worthy.

Started a spinoff Magical Land of Yeld game last night with graypawn and my wife, graypawn running.  Very different.  Hardly got through the gate though, since we started late... should be interesting since we're playing three sisters, age 8, 8, and 6 (and yes, still using the conceit that children of that age are capable of pretty advanced thought and responsibility, etc). 

Main point of interest: my wife actually played in a game.  Admittedly, it was her second choice to "characters from Fantasia going to high school", an assuredly infernal idea which we dubbed "never-ending high school", which resulted from plying her with a game that we assumed would be irresistible: Buffy Summers going to school with Harry Potter (Giles' nephew visiting from England!) and Atreyu, with classes taught by the Goblin King (played by David Bowie), Meg Ryan, Harrison Ford, and Falkor, the principal being the childlike empress, all set in Montmarte during the Bohemian revolution.  Exactly the sort of fanservice that inspired "The Five Fists of Science".  Both ideas fell apart with the inclusion of Fantasians; after living in a magical imaginary land of thrilling adventure, attending a modern high school could be nothing short of hell.  On the other hand, that's a fairly accurate descriptor of my personal experience as well...

I just converted my five year old Sony desktop to Ubuntu Hardy Heron Linux.

The tipping point: the sound stopped working a few months ago.  I reinstalled the device drivers, checked for "mute" in all the usual places.  Nothing.  I didn't care much, but for Dawn this was unacceptable.  I figured it was a buggy OS, or the sound card.  I was betting that my old OS was getting senile, but proving that would require a total teardown; I just couldn't troubleshoot it.

The problem is that it is very difficult to reinstall Windows (finding all those disks... five year old disks...), and that's the only way to make it peppy again after it has reached a "certain age".  Garbage accumulates, registries slowly corrupt from adware/malware/spyware/pups/viruses/poorly installed programs, and everything starts to slow down.

So I backed everything up to an external hard drive and tore down.  The install was so easy, it was ridiculous.  All I did was select the drive to install on.  The hard part came later, trying to get my usb wireless router-thingy to work, which required installing a few packages manually from the terminal.  That took about 40 minutes to get right, since I had to manually port over all the dependencies on a little flash drive, but once the install was complete, presto, internet was up just fine.  I'm amazed at how far these installs have come in the last nine years (since installing redhat in college on a dual boot setup).  I'm flabbergasted.  I could cry.

Oh, and the sound works.  Surprise surprise.

I appear to have found a coffee house open till 2 am that is within a mile of my house.  They have coffee and hard drinks, free wifi, and serve food as well (some sort of strange french menu of appetizers and small dishes; hard to tell what they serve with the language difference... what are Le Casse Croute?)  Needless to say, I am pleased and will never fear the night again.  Caffe Presse, near SU.

Roleplaying is an art form of a different kind.  It only exists for the participants; there is no record beyond their memories.  Sure, there are artifacts, but it is impossible to recreate the event from them.

That's probably why I stress about gming.  I'm slightly more responsible for the artwork as a whole, and so I internalize any flaws in the result.  But these flaws are not like problems in a piece of literature or a painting.  For one thing, they can never be edited.  If someone didn't have fun that night, it will never change.  It will always be a stain on the quality of the evening.  In addition, your opinion of the event only counts as a fraction of its actual value, since each participant has an equal say in the evaluation.  Your work doesn't live for posterity, and does not exist independent of that one context, the context of those people on that particular day.  It's like a military maneuver, really; your plans affect the outcome, and you'll hold yourself responsible for any casualties along the way, regardless of the cause; when it is over, the results can never be amended or repeated.

Clearly, I'm talking about games that have a GM; I think it's still applicable if it's an "unplanned" game, though less so.

I realize also that this view is flawed at its core.  A game is not a work of art, it is a social process, like a party or a date; one's preparations and influence may improve the result, but perfection is not the goal; entertainment and intercourse would be better candidates (although there are certainly other valid reasons to game as well, including catharsis, escapism, exploration, and... ventilation).   But for some reason this knowledge cannot mitigate my own drive to create flawless work.  I'm just not built to try and make an experience that is "good enough" or even "really good", since it could always be better... but it never will be; the deed is done.

Parents have left.  Garden is now half planted.  I can't remember most of what I planted, but it included Baby Tears, some kind of creeping thyme, two varieties of dwarf blueberry, lily of the valley, ivory prince hellebore, two varieties of heather, a dwarf rhododendron, English thyme, sage, lavender, oregano, and ferns.  I already had a different variety of hellebore, redwood sorrel, wood sorrel, sweet woodruff, a different kind of lavendar, rosemary, a cedar, a different kind of fern, some kind of box-plant, and more lily of the valley.  Emphasis has been on white flowers, perennials, foundation herbs, steppables, and plants that self-propagate.  I have a small patch of purple and pink centered around the heather and a potted hydrangea that buck this trend (as concessions to my wife).  I'll soon be adding to this a plum tree, a mock-orange bush, a lot of basil, and 8 sochi variety tea plants.

This sounds a lot more impressive than it looks.  In reality all of these plants are starting out small and rather pathetic looking.   My cedar is waist high.  My lavender is a tiny sprig.  I've basically set up the conditions for a battle royale between many of the plants, to see which can survive the weak sunlight, inattentive gardening, and rocky soil (I've improved it at the initial sites with compost).  The victor will run riot across my yard, given free rein and license to conquer.  This, assuming that I remember to weed... there other "native" species that have already sent swarms of petitioners to the gates of desolate yard.  We must be vigilant.

Anyway, that's what I've been obsessing about lately.  Back to orthodox monasticism, French literature, role-playing, and knitting!

I used to like MMORPGs, but the old ones have certain legacy issues, and the new ones... look like more of the same.  Except love.  This one looks.... really.... unique.  And not unique as in "free-to-play hello-kitty v. predator" unique.  Unique like diamond in a pile of fishguts.  Unique like a an orchid in a field of crabgrass.  It's a one man development team, though.  But that man is a genius.

Something to look forward to.

When I say that I'm excited about getting tea plants, this is a drastic understatement.  I assume that as soon as I do so, and they planted in the earth in front of my tiny patio, I will be instantly transformed into a fu-manchu wearing kung fu master, enlightened and serene; so sure in fact that it's completely unnecessary to actually grow said mustache (which let's me retain my comedic "British Officer" mustache until said hour.)  The difficulty of my quest to find said plants has only whet my appetite.

A month ago, I called and emailed a few nurseries in the Seattle area.  Sky Nursery claimed to possess them, so I rested easy in this knowledge.  However, now that I was ready to purchase, they informed me that the last one had been sold six days ago.  I began my search again, and listened to another nursery explaining to me (so helpful!) that they had two varieties of Camellia Sinensis: the Cleopatra and Jean May.  I told them to hold six of them for me; only to discover after a little googling that these were in fact Camellia Sasanqua (!) and completely unsuitable.  A nursery on Vashon Island claimed to sell them by the dozens, but a short email quickly revealed that they too were out of stock.

I was forced to turn to the internets, where I discovered that the "nursery" subsection of the said series of pipes and tubes is a wild and barbarous land.  I'd look through newsgroups to find references to websites that no longer existed or no longer sold the variety; I'd discover broken links and about.com articles (shudder).  One website offered the plant, but when I clicked the link the top of the page said "crop failure: unavailable".  Camellia Forest turned out to have an excellent supply of Camellias, except that they are in Chapel Hill NC, and have a 40% packaging surcharge West of the Rockies, not including shipping.

I finally found the Burnt Ridge Nursery in Onalanka Washington through one of these ancient threads, apparently willing and able to sell gallon pots (hopefully second year plants) for $18.  They only had the sochi variety, which should be appropriate: "The most northern tea grown in the world, from Sochi, Russia. The brewed tea is flavorful and aromatic."  My order is in... now I'm just waiting for yet another apologetic email....

Enlightenment's path
Is hard to follow.  Will my tea
Arrive ere summer?

I'm starting to work on a game (curses).  It's beating around in my head now.  It's based on the "Blame!" manga universe, loosely or strictly.

The odd thing is that I'm realizing that there is no dice rolling in Blame!.

Human meets silicone creature (exterminator, say): human dies.
Killy points gun at exterminator: it dies.
etc...

That's one of the thing that I love about the source material that I'd like to preserve; it's very "karmic" (am I using the forge theory jargon?) in that sense.  There is never an "I got lucky and shot him in the weakpoint!"  It's way too dark for that.

Should be a fun exercise... it's surprisingly similar to programming.

Because of living with graypawnand amnesiack, I'm constantly in the midst of game discussions; they are the respective angel/devils of traditional roleplaying and indie storygaming.  I've even had a taste of a lot of interesting games that I simply am not playing.  Here are the games I wish I was playing more of, in no particular order.

1. Exalted.  Solar, DB, or Sidereal, doesn't matter.
2. Magical Land of Yeld.  Just got to play a single pickup game last Saturday, but I wonder when we'll ever find time again *sniff*
3. Ars Magica pickup.  Actually started to run Ars, and I think it would be sweet to have the game take off a bit.
4. Anima Prime.  Another fantasy game (theme!) with some FF roots that I'm sadly not playing.
5. Weapons of the Gods.  And it may finally start next week (yay!)

Anyway, that's where my head is when I have free nights and my wife is at work.  You'd think I was somehow deprived of a serious fantasy game; not so!  I'm already in Burning Wheel and a historical Ars Magica game on the weekends, playing some flavor of wizard in both situations.  BW in particular is an immensely fun gritty adventure game, but I'm missing the high-octane slightly-over-the-top thrills I used to get with Exalted or MLoY, playing (yet again) a slightly different wizard.  Surprising!

I decided I would try to be responsible and add "use strict" to my perl modules and replace "local" with "my".

I'm now rewriting vast sections of code to explicitly pass previously global variables.

ouch.  ouch.  ouch.

So, if you played Final Fantasy VII (and liked it), you should buy and play Crisis Core.   (note: if you have not played FFVII, then I feel great empathy.  The game compares poorly with today's graphics and its gameplay is severely dated as well, so playing it now does not do it relative justice, but when it came out it was revolutionary.  There's a reason that Square has made two prequels and two sequels to the game, effectively: it was such an amazing piece of work that it's practically a benchmark, a watershed moment.  Look at the critical reception section of Wikipedia for examples, if you don't believe me.  Anyway, enough about the significance of old JRPGs with which I have a sentimental attachment.)

I was iffy on it until I reached about the midpoint of the story.  In fact, for a while I thought it was going to be a bit Episode 1; a prequel that guts the heart of a franchise.  At this point, however, I'd almost believe that SquareSoft remembered how to make a story.  Not just a game, or a set of good cgs.  A moving story.  Something that leads in to Final Fantasy VII well, and (while not matching it in breadth, since it is a portable game), at least giving the same quality and depth.  I'd say it's the best piece of the compilation thus far; the movie just doesn't have the same strength, and Dirge of Cerberus was lesser in many respects.  A start that seems weak builds into a dramatic and dynamic cast of characters that redeems the slow start with a powerful completion.

So buy it, because I want this director working on their next games.

Jay (my pal from church back in the SC) is sending me some more Christian metal from a band called Demon Hunter, local to Seattle.  That's not why Jay is awesome.  Jay is awesome because he never /asked/ me if I liked metal.  He just said, hey, listen to this stuff (last album he recommended was Flyleaf, whose lead singer I think sounds a lot like an angry female Davey Havoc, though they're not nearly as experimentally gutsy as AFI, playing to solid drumlines and chunky, heavy guitar riffs), and assumed I would I would find it awesome because it was intrinsic to its nature.  It's weird, but he's right (as far as I'm concerned).

That's my favorite way to have music recommended to me.  Not as, "I think you might like this because of your history and tastes", but "I think this is fantastic and you should listen to it".  I'd like to be open to new stuff, so maybe I just feel like it's a huge compliment to be offered an experience without being judged to have certain tastes and prejudices.  But that's just how he is, generally thinking the best of people.

The patio is done.  pictures later.  very tired, back sore.  took a day off and worked for seven hours on it.  day off?  anyway, still need to clean up.  put the leftover pavers somewhere, break down the pallets and ditch them, spread the sand on the yard (soil is so bad, won't make a difference, and sweep up.  Maybe Saturday.  Next weekend, dad gets here with mom, maybe I'll buy the tea plants, a cedar, more lilly of the valley, sage, rosemary, thyme....

So tired.

I joined the square-enix members club. Early enough to get a pretty sweet name (imho) too.

as you can probably tell by my posts, I'm back into knitting hardcore.  I just joined the knitting social network, ravelry, after waiting a week and a half for an invite.  It's like a giant database for everything knitting, as near as I can tell, with links to patterns, knitting groups, people, yarn, needles, blogs, forums, ways to track your stash, your projects, your future projects, etc, etc.

Sadly: I'm looking at that old sweater I made, and I'm starting to think to myself... you know, If I unraveled that thing, I bet I could remake it right next time....  I can already see that it must be done.