The Thessaliad Redux

So ... wow. Future planning. Awesome.

Nothing of magnitude going on in July or August, but the autumn's looking pretty busy for me. Starts in September, when I have a ticket to see Doctor Faustus at the Globe. It is an awesome seat - front row, middle gallery so I don't have to strain to look over the people standing/sitting on the floor in the yard section, on an aisle so I don't have to sit next to more than one stranger, and right in front of the stage. Costly, but hell yeah, worth it. Plus it's got Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who) playing Mephistopheles. This I have to see.

This sort of thing tends to bring me to the luck I've had with seeing screen stars on stage. I'd say it's a side effect of living in London, but really I think it's just luck. I mean, having to miss David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing was a serious blow (someone on my Twitter feed retweeted a friend of theirs selling a ticket for that night for £25 and while I could afford it, I was more or less still floored by headache and just couldn't go) and missing Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Othello kind of sucked, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose. So too does the cookie crumble when things happen like Richard Griffiths getting ill the night I went to see Equus and the understudy more or less phoning in his lines, but Daniel Radcliffe is pretty awesome outside of the Harry Potter role. (Then again, I've seen him singing and dancing in musical theatre in a YouTube clip; he's one versatile little cuss, is Radcliffe.) And then of course there was the utter glory of seeing one of my favourite plays done by truly fantastic actors who just happen to be some of my favourites as well. Yes, that would be Waiting for Godot, which I'd loved since I was maybe fifteen, starring Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup. Best. Stage production. EVAR.

Anyway, then there's end of October, when the comics con is going on at the Excel. Now, I might not have ordinarily gone but it seems like there might be a bunch of quasi-local Dragon Age fans going and it's nice to meet the people I'm squeeing with online. I just wish I could sew worth shite; I'd love to cosplay but kind of hard without any kind of costume, y'know? Ah well. Maybe one day. I can dream.

So, yeah. Lots of meatspace interaction on the horizon. Awesome. And I've been poking around at the writing again, trying to figure out where I left off on the last HIPPIE book. I've left it way too long and I need to pick it back up again. Thankfully I have comprehensive notes. I guess they really do come in handy, notes and outlines. Anyway, maybe I won't ever get anywhere with this, but I do have fun writing it and at least some people enjoy reading it so why not actually finish it? Not that I'm not glad I've had a break, mind; just ... y'know. All breaks have to end eventually, and I'd hate to lose too much more impetus. Then again, this whole idea has survived seven years and a really crappy first attempt. I think it can survive a long hiatus.

For now, though, the usual journal-faff, answering the door to grocery delivery (the extra I pay to have it delivered is well worth the not having to wait a half-hour for a bus there and back, or trying to find everything I need for the week in an understocked Co-Op) and then I dunno. Another weekend enters its twilight and all I can think is that it's been way too short. Again.

Oh, before I forget? (Again.)

Interview for one Michael J Algernon: ( Meet the N00b Shutterbug )

In FFXI news, I have not as yet massacred enough bunnies to unlock Dark Knight as an advanced job yet. Also, I'm becoming convinced that the Beastmen's ability/likelihood to aggro has either:

a) been gimped beyond all recognition
b) become entirely arbitrary

Seriously, I recall beginning my FFXI-related life as a teeny tiny Deathgnome and crawling up the single-figure levels in Sarutabaruta. I remember being terrified of the goblins and Yagudo that ran around the place while I was busy being single-figure-level nothing. I recall the indescribable noise produced when some nasty beastie horror caught sight of you from some unfathomable distance and being obliged to either stand and fight (low MP, low HP, no hope in hell) or run like the wind and zone out (oh, but the nearest zone point is half the area away; how fast can these little springy Taru move?) or ... well, hope that someone spots you dying and leaps in to help. Your ears become very sharp very fast when it comes to that indescribable noise of being aggroed.

I don't expect to be levelling Warrior and crossing the path of a goblin at level five, only to have it not even notice until I shove a sword in its face. Some of them noticed me and aggroed. Some of them did not. I am ... bemused by this. However, not being aggroed by the goblin that I was going to attack anyway in no way alleviates my displeasure at being aggroed by an Orc hiding behind a faraway tree waiting to ambush me while I was taking my stupidly slow great sword Chaosbringer to a Forest Hare. I came very, very close to triumphing over both. However, I did not triumph over both. The mutant rabbit died. The Orc ... not so much. Bloody Warcry.

So anyway, yeah, I am going to have to go and kill more mutant rabbits to actually unlock this job. And you hear me talking about 'mutant rabbits' and wonder what on earth I mean?

That's a rabbit in the wonderful world of Vana'diel. Kind of looks like the mutant offspring of a rabbit, a gerbil and an owl, doesn't it? This is not the freakiest thing in FFXI, but it's one of the first you see if you start up anywhere but Bastok. Seriously, a look at any bestiary for the game is worth it just for the "OMGWTFBBQ?" factor. One day I'm going to make a list of all the BIG things I've fought, just to say I did.

Also, before I get too caught up in squishing the little mutant hoppers? Interview with Carl M Tanner, Hunter's Get and accountant extraordinaire. This particular interview is kind of special because it's the only one that hasn't entirely seen the light of day yet. See, I wrote this for email distribution and there were profanity filters to be considered and so the entirety of what I sent out was marked out with [expletive] where the swear words should be. But there are no profanity filters here, unless you the blog reader have put them there yourself, and so... ( Interview with a Demigod: Uncut )

Right. Food, then the mutant bunnies go SQUISH.

Because mitchy was good enough to send me interview questions for the HIPPIE cast (theory: she was bored at work), I have elected to post the questions she posed, and the replies written. Please, feel free to comment to the appropriate character interview post with questions of your own. Y'know, if you're bored. (To clarify: questions for Rachel would go here, questions for Annette in the post containing Annette's initial interview questions, etc.) I'm planning on recording these things and sending them out via podcast as soon as I get around to it or con a certain dormouse into actually recording herself asking the questions in the first place rather than recording the question portion myself, depending on whether or not I gain a complete disregard for my life and limb.

So let's start with Rachel:

( Rachel Hutton: Interview Questions the First )

Next up: Annette Dodd.