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| Sunday, March 14th, 2010 |
bleemoo
|
11:24p |
Intercon Report
I’ve never written an Intercon Report before; I’m not sure why.
Thursday Night:
- Casting Questionnaire panel
This was interesting. I didn’t take notes, so I don’t remember details, but it provoked interesting discussions about how to write questionnaires. I wish there had been a bit more discussion about filling them out, but it was only an hour long panel, so I understand why it didn’t.
- Moving Intercon Town Meeting
I went into this panel feeling hopeful but nervous about the move. I came out of it feeling excited. The new hotel looks awesome.
Friday Precon
- Vellum Demo
I’ve used Vellum before. The panel was liveblogged by laura47, and her summary is much more useful than anything I could write now.
- Player vs. Character
I chaired this panel, despite not really having a solid idea what I wanted to talk about. The room was set up with the chairs in round like a discussion group, which I think worked well for the panel. It rambled a bit, but I enjoyed it. I’d be interested to hear what other people thought.
- Unusual Game Formats
Again, given the lack of notes, I don’t really remember much, but this was really fun. I enjoy experimental forms of things, including LARPs, so I’ve enjoyed most unusually formatted games I’ve played.
- Roleplaying Workshop
A new attendee from CA ran this workshop. He talked about movement and dance theory and we did some actual workshop stuff, where we’d walk into the room as a character and have the other people guess who we were, then he’d give us some direction and we’d do it again and see how much it improved. It was fun. He seemed to be presenting himself as an expert, and I would have appreciated if the presentation had been a bit less patronizing. But I’m coming across as more critical than I mean; I absolutely did enjoy the workshop, and he really did know what he was talking about.
Friday night I played Blackout. Wow. This was possibly the most impressively produced game I’ve ever seen. The writing team spent 40-60 hours a week on it for the past few months, and it shows. The game opens on a disabled spaceship, in the dark. There were real electronics, and everything was what it looked like. As mentioned above, I enjoy experiments with form, so I loved it. I spent much of the game playing with ocjacqui, and the after game she and I chatted for a while, which was very enjoyable. I only regret not really getting a chance to roleplay with her more later in the weekend (or, in fact, see her for more than 2-3 minutes at a time after that).
Saturday morning was Intercon Jazz. I played in three games: Mexican Standoff, Tank, and elenuial’s unnamed game. They were all great fun, although elenuial’s game was the only one I’d really call a LARP. Mexican Standoff is a silly party game, and Tank is a trust exercise. Uncle Don also ran a second offering, but I had to back out of it to prep for…
Life at the Securemarket, which I GM’d with zombie_dog. The game definitely needs work, but everyone seemed to have fun. We had a food drive to stock the shelves with actual products, which worked wonderfully. He’s considering bidding it again for next year, and if he does, I hope he asks me to help out again.
Saturday night was Chateau Ennui. It’s hard to talk much about this game without spoiling it. It’s set in 1950s California, and is strongly inspired by film noir. The GMs do a great job of setting the mood, and I had a lot of fun. I also went from being completely screwed five minutes before game was called to getting the best ending I could possibly imagine, thanks entirely to the actions of S’s character (I can’t remember her LJ name).
Sunday morning I played in the newest 10 Bad game. “You’re bad-ass enough. We can be Jesus together,” said my vampire hunter Jesus to Marilyn Manson and Raptor Jesus. It was a standard 10 Bad game, which means I came out of it with my brain hurting in the most wonderful way, and hating all the Alleged Entertainment GMs (including myself) for even being associated with the game at all.
At closing ceremonies, I won many prizes in the raffle. A snood and pretty shirt thing, which I gave to rigel. A free subscription to Journey Surveys, which I’ll see if I can find a family member to give to, since all I’d use it for is for LARP related things, for which it’s free anyway. A copy of Time Travel Review Board, which despite having written I did not own a copy of. And a book of African and Oceanic Art, which is really neat.
That’s it. Hope it was interesting to read.
Originally published at Joshu@'s Blog. You can comment here or there. |
| Monday, March 15th, 2010 |
mr_teem
|
12:04a |
|
| Sunday, March 14th, 2010 |
mr_teem
|
12:25a |
Quote of the con
"I didn't realize I should have made rules for fivesomes." Current Mood:  amused |
| Friday, March 12th, 2010 |
mr_teem
|
11:01p |
|
forgotten_aria
|
7:16p |
too much innuendo
There's an old joke about a psychiatrist testing his patient with rorschach blots and diagnoses his patient as having a dirty mind, to which the patient replies, "you are the one with the dirty pictures." I think we've gotten to that point, or at least the internet and television has. You can't say the word "balls" or "wiener" any more or even use the phrase "grab your" with a huge slew of words. Anything twice as long as it is wide is "phallic" and there's a video going around that because Mike Rowe said, "I've always wanted to go in the back door" on sesame street, it's now notable as "sneaking a dirty joke" in. But really, if you're innocent, it will just fly right by you. I don't know how we can get our language back. |
mr_teem
|
1:13p |
Intercon J - Day One
Thursday: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) citabria and I got to the Radisson around 7ish. (She beat me there but she had about a minute of a headstart and didn't have to deal with a dog that wanted to play with my moving car.) Not very many people were there yet and we got into our room quickly, then I went into the Boardroom and found some minions (I love saying that) to help us get all of the Con Suite equipment and soda out of our cars and near where they should be. We schmoozed a bit and zapf showed up to set up for the Pre-Convention. citabria, natbudin, dkapell and I ran to the hotel restaurant to grab a quick bite before the 10pm panel. We hung out there, along with laura47 and plitwack, chatting and eating. Ended up sitting on the "Moving Intercon" panel, along with laurion, learnedax, dkapell, laura47 and natbudin, to talk and listen about the change in venue for the New England Intercon convention next year. I ended up taking notes and will turn it into a FAQ on the Intercon K website. (I remembered that I forgot to ask one question--whether or not the bathroom walls at the new venue are sturdier.* :-D) I stuck around for aaronjv's panel on "Left Coast LARPing" which was interesting to learn about the growing fun in theater-style LARP, especially with one-shots, giving yet another reason to be lured to California. ( WyrdCon sounds like it's going to be a blast.) unmortal_mind talked a little bit about the work he's been doing to keep track of LARP conventions and organziations around the country. Another speaker GTalked in to speak about LARP in the Pacific Northwest and an upcoming LARPer Census. Clearly some interesting things are afoot and I probably didn't mention half of the ones I heard about at this panel. That panel went over because there was a lot of interest in the subject--especially in the possibility that there might be interesting one-shots exchanged back and forth. (At least one, Limbo, is being run by aaronjv and looks good.) Since one of the goals of Intercon is networking, this should work out great. I didn't stay up much after that panel, wanting to get some more sleep because the weekend will be crazy. (Also, citabria needs to catch up on sleep because her Sunday will be crazy.) So, unfortunately, I missed the small explosion in the Carlisle room and the character sheet auction. I'm sure someone will explain the hole in the ceiling, too. (Probably wasn't our fault--that was messed up like that, already.)
Friday: Got up reasonably early and headed down to the breakfast buffet and woke up slowly. Then I came down to the Boardroom to be the Random Staff Person. There are a bunch of people sitting here playing games and munching and the early panels are going well. Soon we will gear up for the full convention. And there will be much rejoicing.
* Yes, that's an in-joke. Current Mood: happy |
laura47
|
12:29p |
|
laura47
|
1:20a |
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| Thursday, March 11th, 2010 |
ivorjawa
|
6:21p |
|
ivorjawa
|
12:42p |
WTFish?
__ Sent from Jan Kujawa's phone |
dzm
|
11:14a |
Google Bike test drive
What happens if you try to ask the much-discussed Google bike directions service how to get out to 495? The results are less impressive than they could be (and didn't match my obvious routing). ( Read more... )So yeah, this isn't really going to replace the Rubel paper maps for my local trip planning any time soon. I appreciate the effort, but for longer-distance trips so much of the engine depends on having good data that just isn't there right now. |
| Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 |
forgotten_aria
|
3:43p |
Oh yo shime
A shime is a small, high pitched drum used in taiko. Because its heads are so tight, it's hard to find a good practice surface that mimics it( the lukewarm story of buying my shime )Summary: It's going to be a great practice drum. It has the qualities I need to improve my shime playing. I still don't know if I got a good deal though. A Pearl shime is about $700 and is much closer to a performance quality shime. If I'd know ahead of time that I could only really consider it a practice drum, I think I would have waited for a better deal. Though Juni really liked the drum, so I should take comfort from that. |
laura47
|
3:32p |
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| Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 |
laura47
|
11:10p |
|
binkbink
|
9:35p |
Bad Tracfone--No Biscuit
I have had a Tracfone for a while and so far no problems. Until today. I bought the $14.95 Motorola W376g from Target for the "Double Minutes for Life" deal intending to transfer my existing duration and minutes from the old phone. Since I have been having a long string of things go wrong for me, when they should Just Work, I researched online and found detailed instructions by an outsider, as well as on the Tracfone site, but I also found a whole lot of complaints from others who had a problem with their transfer. All of the folks who had the transfer problem (and there were a LOT) complained about Customer Service. It was hours on hold, then talking to someone with such a thick accent they were unintelligible, then being told there was nothing that could be done, then being hung up on. Or just waiting hours on hold and then being hung up on. I logged into my account and followed the instructions: I selected (+) Activate my TracFone with a number transferred from one of my other TracFones.
- Selected the model of my new phone,
- Selected the model of my current phone,
- Entered the Serial number of my new phone (it didn't ask for the SIM number yet),
- Selected my current phone from the list (verified the serial number and phone number were correct),
- and got an error message that the phone number for that serial number was not correct.
Knowing this was the bug, I entered the serial number and phone number by hand, but got the same error message. I do not intend to spend hours waiting on hold to reach someone rude who I cannot understand only to be hung up on. I will return the phone to Target irritating them and costing Tracfone (and possibly Motorola) some money instead. And when my time runs out in September, I will not renew it. I do not want a contract. It must be very affordable for someone who does not use their phone much (maybe 60 minutes a year), and I do not need a fancy phone. I don't need voice mail, text, SMS, speed dial, or any of those things. I just want to be able to dial a number and talk. I have heard good things about T-Mobile. Anyone else have any other suggestions I should look into? |
ivorjawa
|
6:03p |
|
mr_teem
|
9:02p |
|
crs
|
3:08a |
ok, I think we can rule out food poisoning
I got the ick (in its milder danamae form) a full 36 hours after Dana started showing symptoms... Long after I was far, far away from any EHF foodstuffs. chenoameg thinks it's a virus, and I tend to trust her gut on such things. Especially since she got it (twice, if you believe ringrose's description over hers...) long before EHF. (Anyone else see EHF and initially try to expn it as Eddie From Ohio?) In any case, chills, tossing and turning, dreams involving doing a dance that involves a lot of turns (and thus, a lot of flipping over in place in bed), no puking and mild "other digestive symptoms". Unless maybe we're looking at two separate thingies? |
| Monday, March 8th, 2010 |
cos
|
9:47a |
Oscars
I didn't watch the Oscars. Sometimes I see someone say "I give up on the Oscars" after they make some particularly stupid award decision. I really gave up on the Oscars, a long time ago. Go to this list of Oscars for "Best Costume Design" and scroll down to 1982, where you'll see: 1982: Bhanu Athaiya, Madeline Jones and John Mollo - Gandhi
Albert Wolsky - Sophie's Choice
Piero Tosi - La Traviata
Elois Jenssen and Rosanna Norton - Tron
Patricia Norris - Victor/Victoria You know what other movie came out that year? This one. What's the point of an award that doesn't even have a credible pretense of being about merit? |
| Sunday, March 7th, 2010 |
testing4l
|
8:59p |
It is a travesty that: 1) Avatar -- a retread of "Dances with Wolves" -- is being considered for Best Picture. 2) A Harry Potter film is considered possibly the best cinematography this year. It is mildly better that a Pixar film is being considered for Best Picture, but this isn't the year for it. |
dzm
|
10:04a |
The gym vs. the bike
Yesterday was incredibly nice out, and I figured it would be a good day to take my bike out and call it "spring". I waffled some on which way to actually go, and so cleverly avoided the Mystic Lakes in favor of a plan that would skirt the Fells and go straight into the big rotary at 93...new plan. The ultimate route involved climbing the hill on Waltham St. in Woburn and Arlmont Hill from the Arlington side, plus (in an attempt to involve the paving disaster that is Forest St. in Arlington) a little climb up Johnson Rd. in Winchester. (Route map) The short conclusion from this, I think, is that there is some success in my attempts to use the gym to not totally atrophy over the winter. The various hills were, if not easy, at least continuous: winning on the traffic lights, I didn't stop between the light at Park Avenue and Mass Ave in Arlington Heights and the light at Route 60 in Belmont, for instance. Speed was not quite there, maybe 15-16 mph on the flat parts, and it didn't feel like my endurance was there either (though I wasn't really out that long). Maybe next weekend, weather permitting, I'll go get thwomped by the Quad ride. And maybe I'll think about doing the CRW Spring Century again this year and hope for less rain. |
| Saturday, March 6th, 2010 |
ivorjawa
|
4:12p |
|
forgotten_aria
|
5:12p |
kitchen handles
To make the handles on the new cabinets match the old ones, I bought new handles for the whole kitchen. It was a chunk of change, but I'm quite pleased with the new look. ( pictures ) I still have one more to install. One of them was stripped out so I'll have to get a replacement. |
| Friday, March 5th, 2010 |
testing4l
|
10:30p |
Poll #1534509 Blood on the wall.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7 Is this sentence fragment a story? "Blood on a wall." |
bleemoo
|
9:52p |
Vestival!
Hey, do you like LARPing? Do you have a LARP you want to run? You should totally bid it for Festival of the LARPs 2010, V is for Vestival!
It’s an awesome weekend-long LARP con at Brandeis. And it’s FREE! And we need games, so please bid 
Originally published at Joshu@'s Blog. You can comment here or there. |
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