My Elf Sorcerer has a flush.

I'm writing a bit of a spiel about interactive storytelling, which I may finish off tomorrow, but I just noticed this hilarious ad at RPG Codex:

Do you play a lot of RPG-games? Then you might have a bright future in the world of internet poker as well. Learn poker rules and use your ability of getting into character when you bluff your opponents.

Blogging? Again?!?

Saw Jeffrey Lewis last night. Actually, he was support for Darren Hanlon. The latter was pretty much what I expected, which was pretty good, but the former really surprised me. I'd heard a couple of his songs before, but I hadn't really listened to what he was saying, and had trouble getting past his voice. But I can honestly say I've never laughed so much during a musical performance. But, there's also an element of heartfeltness and sincerity to his act as well, which is also awesome. Anyway, I found this song to be particularly excellent, check it out:



Someone mentioned something about him playing again at the Hopetoun on the 7th of April, so I am inclined to maybe see him again for a full set.

Dubious facts that I learnt from Robyn Hitchcock's ramblings.

1) The little metal thing that fell out of the oblong black thing on his blue guitar really belongs on the ceiling, where it would've ended up, were it not for gravity

2) People only noticed the world economy collapse because it happened.

3) Similarly, people wouldn't've noticed anything if the economy went instantly from Overblown to Empty, because they would be all be dead.

4) Jim Morrison doesn't grow any older, may not be dead, and parts of him may be preserved in a jar somewhere.

5) Many classic rock songs are much slower than you might expect. For example, an actual bumblebee is much faster than Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's piece Flight Of The Bumblebee.

6) The Sex Pistol's Anarchy In The UK and The Damned's Neat Neat Neat exist solely for the sake of their Japanese album sleeves. The same is true of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight Of The Japanese Album Sleeve.

7) The fact that the little metal that fell out of the black oblong thing in his blue guitar then reappeared in the black oblong thing is a divine sign, and a true miracle, to which we must all bow down.

8) Not many great rock songs were been written in A Minor, except for those that were.


Also, the music was great too.

Bloody red bats, squelching offal! Foaming mutilations in the kiss of death!

I'm looking forward to seeing Robyn Hitchcock at the Annandale tonight!

I don't fully know what to expect though. I mean, he's got a lot of folky music, and a lot of... Neo-psychedelic pop. I expect this performance will contain more of the latter, as he is touring with his band, the Venus 3, and his last 2 albums have been more of that flavour. I suppose I hope to see a nice balance struck between two different styles, as I've seen both Fleet Foxes and Okkervil River manage in the past.

Anyway, I'm sure there'll be some awesome tunes, and a couple of rambling monologues, which will leave me totally satisfied. But we'll see tonight! At least, I will. You may too, I suppose, whoever you are (though I know that no one I know has ever heard any Robyn Hitchcock, I do feel I should add that there will probably be tickets at the door, it doesn't look sold out).

(After adding that, I also feel I should probably add that I wouldn't exactly recommend Robyn Hitchcock to anyone that I know. I like a lot of his music, but I can't straightforwardly see any reason that anyone-in-particular else should. I'm going to plead agnostic on this one.)

Vivid Sydney? More like Vivid Enofest.

I don't know when this Vivid Sydney festival dealie thing got announced, but I'm fairly prepared to be excited about it. The most obvious reason is, of course: Brian Eno. I love Brian Eno. Yeah, I know, I love his Music more than his Conceptual Generative Visual Artworks and whatnot, but I still love the man. And there still is a musical element to the whole deal, even if there's no hope of him personally pulling out the warm jets (musical artists mentioned so far include Battles, who I might actually see this time, and Ladytron, who... Well, they have that one song...? Eh. Also, Reggie Watts? Wasn't he just here?)

Other reasons for excitement are:
1) I'm a sucker for light shows.
2) I'm a sucket for pyrotechnics.
3) Well, look... I love the Sydney Festival. I really do. It's great times. But I would have one major complaint about it, one thing that I just can't forgive, and that's this: It's in Summer. I don't like Summer. It's too damn hot. Now actually, this partly makes me appreciate the Sydney Festival more, for giving me something to actually look forward to during summer, even for allowing me to actually look forward to summer itself. For the past two years, my dethusiasm for summer has actually been outweighed by my enthusiasm for the Sydney Festival. But still... Still... If there could be something like that in WINTER?

I love winter. It's cold, and I like this. But I also like winter at night. Because it's reaaaaally cold. And dark. I like cold and dark. Look, the point is I think I'll appreciate this Vivid Sydney business for giving me some excuse for being out at night in winter.

Information on this thing is kinda sparse right now. I suspect it was only really announced todayish or something. Maybe there won't actually be much to the whole deal. Honestly, I'm not expecting that this will be anything like comparable in scope and awesomeness to the Sydney Festival, especially not in its first year. But on the other hand, if this becomes a thing... Well, I figure they're off to a friggin' good start bringing Brian Eno in to curate. Anyway, we'll see.

Trapped In A Box!

In today's news, I am TERRIBLE at photography.

Also, don't worry, they are no longer trapped in a box. Rather they are playing outside in some kind of open tent-like construction.

Just a link.

88 Constellations For Wittgenstein.

Much like Wittgenstein himself, I'm really not sure what to make of this, but it's certainly very classy. Check it out. (I should note that it's bandwidth-heavy.)

(I'd recommend, if you can find them, the Poker constellation, which is nice and enjoyable in an anecdotal way, and by way of total contrast, the Doubles constellation, which is more arty.)

(Okay, I've been browsing this thing for an hour now, time for elsethings.)

Comics? I like comics!

How did I miss these hilarious MySpace Wondermark comics?

Well, except the obvious answer: "They're hosted at MySpace so you couldn't actually consciously see any mention of the comics, but rather only got a vague sense of uneasy lameness whenever anyone tried to link to them."

(There's a great but short Kate Beaton one too.)

Raaaaage

Turns out Minotaur China Shop is as fun as the name suggests, and illustrates why you should not offer insurance policies against Minotaur Rage. I suspect there's some kind of Moral Hazard here, or something.

In the spirit of Glasnost

I figured I'd respond to Rishi's post about how people write with a post here, rather than a comment, because it's a subject that quite interests me too. And because I refuse to give a nice short answer. And because I haven't posted here in a while, and this is a good excuse.

Basically, the way I write depends largely on what I'm writing. However, given the question, "how do you write?" I'm most inclined to think immediately of writing essays, theses, you know, academic work. In this case I'll tend to be sitting upright, at my (desktop) computer, surrounded by clutter, with a stack of books lying on my bed beside me. I try to leave the floor around me reasonably clear so that I have some wheeling-around space.

It will usually be afternoon or earlyish evening, rarely after dinner. The window will be open (it usually is) and the blinds will be up (they usually aren't). I won't be playing any music (my putting on a song is usually a sign that I've given up working), but I will have MSN Messenger and Steam open for random distractions, as well as Facebook, webcomics, email sites, and, more recently, Google Reader, all on hand for obsessive checking. I'll usually be pretty much njude, or, if it's cool, wearing a bedsheet, or, if it's quite cold, wearing a blanket.

However, when I'm trying to structure a complicated thought, or searching for the ideal way to phrase something (which happens a lot, as I'm a bit of a perfectionist), this changes quite a bit. I tend to get up from my computer, throw on a dressing gown, and pace up and down the corridor outside my room, usually talking my thoughts out loud. I might work a few hundred words ahead in this manner, making notes on my arms with a pen, and trusting myself to be able to reproduce everything when I get back to the computer... But if I happen to hit upon an absolutely perfect, irreplaceable way to phrase something, or just an incredibly brilliant idea, then I tend to sprint back to the computer and slam it down as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, as the corridor is rarely obstacle-free, and getting from my door to my computer involves dodging a huge iron bed... Well, sudden bursts of inspiration are my leading cause of work-related injuries. I also do a fair amount of this composition-kinda-thing while in the shower, and in bed while trying to sleep. In the latter case, I'll tend to handwrite whatever I come up with, as my computer is off.

Blog posts, on the other hand, are rather different. I'll tend to write them in a semi-reclined position, with my arse on my chair but my legs on my bed. It'll be either after dinner or, occasionally, before breakfast. And I'll often be playing music too. Like, right now, I've got some Dan Deacon going on. Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaah. Okay, so things aren't quite that different. Everything else is probably more or less the same.

Tooooootally different, though, is when I write poetry or personal letters (though thankfully I haven't done the former in about 3 years; I'm godawful at it). These I'll do exclusively after 10 pm, sitting up against some pillows in bed, handwriting on individual sheets of A4 paper, resting against a nice, large, hard book... Usually The Story Of Philosophy by Bryan Magee. I will have no music playing, but may occasionally take a quick break to play some pertinent song on my EigenPod. Barring that, I'll keep writing either until I'm done, or until I'm stupidly tired, at which point I'll usually brush the pages off my bed, hope they land in some not-totally-scrunchy way, and fall asleep.

So now you know!