Ukes, cats, comedy and a beard.

Tonight I played some Magic: the Gathering on a sticky pub table; then I went to my second Ukulele Night at Gwdihw, a Cardiff bar that I've otherwise never set foot in. The people were so friendly, and so interesting! I hope to join them for next month's jam session. I'll bring my lovely uke along and show them what little I can do.

Ukulele + cats = maybe heaven?

I've also been watching a documentary about Bill Hicks (this link is good for another 24 hours if you're in the UK). I've seen the occasional glimpse of him before - saying strange things about the nature of reality, or verbally abusing hecklers - and I've been too scared to hear him out, but I think I'm a different person these days. The past few years... I've experienced a lot more. I'm not claiming to be a better person than I was, but I understand him better now.

"I need my sleep. I need about eight hours a day, and about ten at night." - Bill Hicks

As requested, this post contains more kitty than my previous one, and a game about Scroobius Pip's beard that I think is absolutely fantastic. Give it a go!

Found no results for Scroobius Pip + cat. Nice going, so-called GOOGLE.

March Forth

I'm feeling all empowered lately. I am gaining points in both standing up for myself and in standing up for others.

I'll write more about the cause I'm taking on at some point (when I'm sufficiently well informed), but if you fancy researching Stop The Traffik in the meantime I'd be delighted by that.

I have two things to link you to, both of which are so mind-blowingly awesome that you may never recover.

Firstly, Robot Unicorn Attack (a simple and addictive flash game). Check it out, if only for the epic / terrible music.

Secondly....

A title

I had such a lovely weekend. Gavin, his parents and I went to London on Saturday to see Twelfth Night being performed - it was great! Properly funny, not 'Shakespeare-funny' as I was expecting.

I've been reading Ten rules for writing fiction. Warning: there's more than ten of them; I got fooled by that one, and by the time I realised how many there were, I was learning too much to stop! I've been thinking a lot about my writing lately... I seem to suffer all the anguish, procrastination and self-doubt of even the best writers, but without the actual... you know... writing. Until I've finished something substantial, I've no business even calling myself a writer. (Which I don't, by the way - I call myself a student.)

Anyway, I'll put the link on the left, it seems like forever since I updated my Interesting Thing of the Day bit. Do you ever go there to look for a game or something to kill ten minutes? I do, so I don't really mind either way what your answer is! Ooh, that reminds me, Shopping Cart Hero is an excellent, addictive little flash game. Great time-killer.

I keep thinking of ideas for blog posts, but by the time I've written a note to write it up later, I've lost all interest. I feel like a lepidopterist pinning down butterflies. Either they're elusive, or they're dead... ideas are crafty little blighters.

I wouldn't call this Writer's Block, not exactly. More like a blasted tendency towards introspection and idleness. Ah well; that's life, that's what all the people say.

What I did for Valentine's Day

I got a text at about 2pm saying 'Where are you?', so I rolled out of bed and into some clothes and ran to the pub. We then proceeded to embark upon an epic showdown, us v. cursed mummy, battling to the death in a rainstorm. We ended the adventure in the following (rather spectacular) manner:

Two of our group hitting him with magic bolts,

Me firing off a bullet into his last remaining organ (his heart),

And the last of us throwing a sword directly into his heart. The sword was then struck by lightning and the mummy exploded.

Something like this, only more awesome and also nothing like this.

So, yeah, I guess my point is: Happy Valentine's Day! It is what you make of it.

A rare rant

I've been so grumpy today. No, not grumpy; grumpy implies that it's my 'time of the month', or that I 'got up on the wrong side of bed', and I want to be very clear about the fact that it was not my fault. In fact it was very definitely other people's faults. And I was all ready to write a strongly-worded blog post that they'd (hopefully) never read that would eviscerate them and prove me King of the Everythings once and for all.

Then I remembered to get over myself, and that it was just a damn uni project, and then I was ok.

BUT THEN! Oh, I know, non-stop drama!

HULK SMAAAASH.

Anyway, in the spirit of Phil's glass-half-full approach, at least it reminded me of Trogdor. It's an awesome game!! Maybe the best game ever!!! You can't play it though.

Oh, go on then. BURNINATE!


PS I know I'm being a douche, but that's my right. I'll get over myself again soon enough.

Atakachik!

Right, only a brief post to tell you all about the new Atakachik game on Newgrounds! I say new because I happen to know it was uploaded mere hours ago. It's the latest creative effort from the legendary my boyfriend and his mate, and as an early alpha tester, I can vouch for its awesomeness!

Secret places

I had a pretty good childhood. My family got on okay, and I lived on an island with fields and beaches and forests... life treated me well. But there was something missing from my youth, something that I've always longed for - I knew, as so many children do, that there are supposed to be secret rooms.

I'm sure you know what I mean. We've all read the books, haven't we? The ones where a tapestry conceals a hallway, or moss hides a door. Narnia's wardrobe, Harry Potter's platform 9¾... fiction is littered with secret doorways to unusual places.

It even happens in real life - there's Anne Frank's bookshelf; Queen Victoria's wardrobe in Osbourne House that leads into other rooms. I remember going into her room on a school trip as a child and being amazed that the Queen of England would employ such subterfuge. If I was queen, I would do the same.

Why have I never had a secret room?!

It's what I longed for when I shared my room with two other sisters, and it's still the most common dream I have. I dream of being somewhere familiar - my home, my church, my school - and finding unexpected passages, or a gap in a fence, or a big wall hanging beyond which lies a secret space that nobody knows about but me. I can't count the number of times I've had this dream. It used to be flying, but now I dream - sometimes as often as five times a week - of these secret places.

Perhaps that explains my love of exploring.

It certainly explains my love of Ben "Yatzhee" Croshaw's games; I've only played one so far, but secret rooms feature heavily. OH MY GOSH SEAMLESS LINK! Maybe some of you have seen his amazing game reviews (I don't care about gaming, but watch his reviews obsessively), but I want to recommend his own games. They're honest-to-goodness, point-and-click, pixel-art masterpieces. You can find them linked at the top of his site. (Where it says The Best Stuff.) The links will go, as ever, on the left.

Also, just for fun, I made a picture of myself in the style of Jeph Jacques (artist and author of the epic Questionable Content). What do you think?

Volunteers and things in ears

Ever been 'volunteered' for something? As in, told that you were going to do it and then left to deal with that fact? Of course you have. Well, last Thursday was the date of a church party that my sister had volunteered me, my brother, and my youngest sister for.

We were all up visiting her for the week, and had been shopping a few times and watched a lot of movies by this point. When I got to the church on Thursday, I started blowing up balloons for the games. I'd been told what game I was going to run, and secretly I was delighted to return to something I knew that I was good at. I did a year of youth work for a Christian charity on the Isle of Wight (something I've blogged about on many previous occasions), so I have a huge repertoire of games. We played quite a few classics that night; Mafia, this is a tick, Splat, and of course musical chairs. We were catering for people aged 15 to 90. My previous experience with youth work had been a lot more... youthy, but I distracted myself by taking photos of everything in sight.

These were the lights in the kitchen of that church - look how pretty! Oooooh! (Photographers are much like magpies. Anythign that looks even vageuly interesting, and we're as good as hypnotised!)

While we were staying with my sister, I absolutely fell in love with a cat that had adopted her. The cat's called Lilcat Freesian, or Lily Freesia for short, and is a one-eyed beauty with a heart on her back. Sadly her real owners showed up towards the end of the week, but I absolutely loved having some kitty time anyway! Honestly, those of you with full-time cats are very lucky indeed, I have to borrow cats from my friends.

I'm back with my parents on the Isle of Wight now, after a beast of a train journey that was meant to be direct (but ended up with two changes and huge delays). I've been meeting up with old friends and relaxing (as relaxing as anything can be when you're once again surrounded by siblings) and I'm very much looking forward to getting home to Cardiff!

I got a phone call from my boyfriend this morning. He's - how much of this have I told you? - He's on a stag do for his best friend, and they successfully survived the mountain-climbing part. He hasn't been so lucky with the pubs and clubs part, however, as apparently he had to be taken to a medical centre to remove something from his ear with pliers! Now, I love and respect my boyfriend tremendously, but if I can't mock him relentlessly for that then there's just no point us being together, is there.

Shameless

Well done you, being so patient while I jetted off to the exciting and exotic location of, ehm, Tewkesbury. I have so much to update you on! I want to tell you about my boyfriend climbing mountains, about visiting my sister, about the party we threw for old people! I want to tell you about watching a performance of the Mikado, about what I believe about Life, the Universe and Everything! I want to tell you about an interview I've done about this blog (for serious), although I think that'll wait until shameless-appeal-for-votes-time. Everybody loves shameless-appeal-for-votes-time.

I've taken a lot of photos of my sister's snake, and the cat she adopted that woke me up by sitting on my face, and various other lovely things that I'll no doubt post in here at some point. For the meantime, I shall merely keep you entertained with this: Grow Tower. It's a fun, quick game. If you've got ten minutes to kill, give it a go.

Proper post coming tomorrow.

Interesting Things

Listen guys, I keep accumulating neat things to tell you about and forgetting to put them in my posts. So here, for your delectation and delight, is a list of Interesting Things.

First off, we have the delightful FaceYourManga, a simple, fun and versatile facemaker. This is me:

But to be honest, creating these was much more fun!:







Second we have an amazing little flash game called The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2. The physics of it feel natural, and it's charming and original. I absolutely love it! One mini-level is an homage to sonic, and despite the simplistic graphics you could almost believe it was made by the same people. Watch the backgrounds too, keep an eye out for the batmobile!

Thirdly I'd like to recommend Forumwarz. For the internet savvy among us, the terms 'emo kid', 'camwhore' and 'troll' conjure up familiar archetypes. Well now's your chance to play as one of them in the beautiful game that is the internet. By the time you realise that you're addicted to a roleplaying game it'll be too late! I'm a level 7 camwhore, and my only gripe is that you get limited activity per day unless you pay for more.

I think I'll leave it at that for now, but remember I do honestly enjoy sharing this stuff with you. Let me know if you check them out, and tell me what you think!

Big Al says dogs can't look up

Well, things are looking up for me! I'm feeling better, showing up at uni (if not actually enrolled yet), and turning 21 tomorrow. 21. That's properly grown-up! Fortunately that means nothing these days.

And, in addition, a bit of charity shop hunting has led to me listening to Hanson and B*Witched's albums from back in the day! AMAZING. It's even sunny and everything!

Oh, and I must remember to tell you why time flies when you're having fun. I worked it out! yeh! so remind me if I forget.

Today we have a VERY interesting thing: Fantastic Contraption! I've had so much fun with this the past couple of days. Give it a go. If a few of you are into it, I'll post up some amazing solutions!

Morning sounds

I wrote this at the beginning of June. It was while my blog was deleted, or I would have posted it sooner...

It's late at night. The seagulls are playing outside my window, screaming at each other. My housemate's fucking some girl. Doesn't matter who, it's not about her. If that man could fuck a mirror he'd do it. There's a cat wailing at the pre-dawn chorus, and the gentle hum of my laptop. There are sounds.

The wind picks up, or maybe it's a car far off; either way it gets me thinking about leaving. I'm counting down the days until that fresh sea breeze blows me out of this ruin, this dead city. Dead to me anyway.

Nobody emails you at a quarter past four in the morning.

I look past my curtain to an inky-purple sky. Strange, that. The moment I turn my light off, I know it will change to a muddy streetlight orange. How can the same sky be orange and purple at the same time? Somewhere else it's blue, somewhere else it's grey. At this moment, somebody somewhere is watching the sun set. Or rise. Or just lying on their back listening to the stars sing.

My shelves are empty. The floor is still a mess, I still have clothes everywhere, but my books are gone from sight until I unpack properly. That might not be for months. The birds are going crazy now, singing with all the breath in their fragile feathered chests. Can they really sing with such joy and passion every single morning? Do they ever sleep in?

I sleep in when I can. Long past noon. Even when I wake up I don't move from my bed for hours, not if I can help it. I can't help feeling that if I had a dawn chorus to be part of, there'd be a reason to get up early.

But here, in the pre-dawn gloom, I hear the hurried pad of feet; somebody wants to get home quickly. And why not run? Waddle, flap, skip as much as you want. Run slowly and awkwardly if that's how you run. Who's going to see you?

How can I go to sleep when there's so much happening! I'll regret it tomorrow when I face the disappointed voice of the one man I never want to disappoint, but for now as the sky pales I like to be aware and awake again. It doesn't happen often. That's why I'm not succumbing to sleep; not yet.

While you're here, I'd like to recommend Girl Genius, an utterly fantastic gaslight fantasy comic that I've been absorbed in for the past few days. Or if you just want a highly addictive flash game, try this one out for size. They'll both be going up on my "interesting thing of the day" link list to the left, so don't forget to check that out if you've got time to kill.

I'm free! I'm free!!

At last the curse is lifted!!

7 things I approve of

I have been tagged by the boy! It is now my sworn duty as a blogger to perpetrate this meme, because if I don't they'll take my crayons. It's true.

Fortunately I've been feeling quite positive lately, so here we go! These are my seven things!

1) God. An obvious answer, usually, but lately I've been struggling. Fortunately, however big and scary and beyond my understanding He is, He's still there and still awesome and still loves me in all my pantsness, thank Him for that!

2) Strawberry splits. Ice lollies with ice cream in, what genius invented these... and then had the brainwave at selling 20 for £2 at the co-op?! I've been offering them to anyone who stands still long enough, which made my housemates happy, which made me happy. Yay for strawberry splits.

3) SPRING!! Any day now, I swear it!! The days are getting longer and daffodils are getting ready to bloom the second it warms up a little. It makes me happy, and fills me with hope, hence the positive mood... I definitely approve of spring.

4) Cardiff. I may live in Plymouth but Cardiff is my home. It's where the heart is and all that, so wish me luck / pray for me regarding this transfer! Going up there again this weekend to get my hair cut and go swimming and eat sushi and watch rugby and have cuddles. how can you NOT approve of a place that has all that, when I do absolutely eff-all in Plymouth all week!

5) Gmail. If you don't have it, get it. The spam filter is superb, the layout is ideal, the tagging and archiving and searching is an INFINITE improvement on outlook express and its folder system. I'll also add to this, iGoogle. I can check my gmail and the news and my hotmail and the weather and such all on my homepage, which given how often I need Google itself, gets used fairly regularly.

6) Adventures!! Oh man it's been so long since I've been on an adventure, I might have forgotten how! Back home I used to go for a walk in the woods at full moon in the middle of the night with my friends. Or I'd climb a cliff in high-heeled boots. Or we'd catch the bus out to the middle of nowhere and walk for an hour down a long road with the stars spread out above us like glitter. I miss adventures.
My boy's gearing up for an epic one :) I'm so proud!

7) My diary. Yes, I've started keeping a diary again for the first time in over a year. Sorry guys, I just need to write some things you can't read! ;) It's a beautiful one, not sold in England, I bought it in a charity shop for £3.50 and I loooove it.

So, in the fine tradition of meme-spreading, I tag: djchallis and Ben!

Interesting thing of the day: bunny game!