New things on the horizon

So I’ve taken up some new activities this year, to become slightly more sociable than I have been in the past year or so.

1) I’ve finally found a new roleplaying group and game to get all excited about. We had our first session last night, and I had an immense amount of fun. It’s a small group with just five of us. A new GM so it will be an interesting experience to see how she unfolds the story we are playing through. One friend who I’ve gamed with many times, and know that we get on, and two guys whom I sort of know but never gamed with. I’m really hoping for an interesting game and a good meshing of characters and players.

The game is Scion for those wanting to know and it is set in the Renaissance….so should be interesting. Especially trying to remember that we are not in modern times and certain things just don’t exist.

2) I joined the Wellington Community Choir last week. It was very interesting and very different from my past choir experiences. Firstly the choir is huge! I didn’t have to audition, it is open to anyone interested in singing. Secondly we got no music! Which threw me, I’m used to having the words and music in front of me and then being able to take it home and practice.

Learning is all done through repetition and listening. They do have a projector to put the worlds up on and they also go into their website song book…so there is that.

As part of joining the choir, the choir master is offering fortnightly lesson for the ukulele which start tonight, and I’m totally psyched about it, as Paul got a ukulele for his birthday last year and we haven’t really had a chance to learn how to play it yet, it’s also too small for his hands as well…so we’ll probably have to get him a bigger one, that I can teach him on.

And those are my new things for this year so far….still waiting for that elusive job to happen though.

Been on my mind

So last weekend was KapCon. For my non-gaming followers, this is a two day gaming convention that is held every Wellington Anniversary weekend. It stands for Kapiti Convention ( the Kapiti coast is 45 mins from Wellington, and is where the convention started).

So this year was KapCon XIX (19…technically 18, as a year went missing)

Over the past two years me and my hubby have helped run the convention, from orgnaising T-shirts, prizes, manning the desk, printing etc. This year the reigns were handed over to someone else, and both of us decided to get involved in writing the KapCon LARP (live action role play). I’ve been wanting to write about this for sometime, but as some of my followers are people who would attend and play in the Larp, I couldn’t. Now I can.

This was my first go at writing characters and helping come up with a plot and game plan. I hope I succeeded with the characters I came up with. The people playing them seemed to be enjoying themselves on the night…and so far I haven’t heard to many negative things about the game.

So what was the game about? It was called Reunion. Basically a gateway nexus had crashed and been closed for over 500 years (this is set well into the future), then the gates opened, and delegates from six of the union of planets were invited to the station to re-connect with the other planets.

We had six writers and each was responsible for one of the planets. My planet was essentially Hollywood gone very wrong. Where fame is everything, and the whole planet revolved aroundthe entertainment industry.

The people who played my planet were amazing, and all very eccentri. It was great to see the players interpretation with what was given. I have to say my favourite player is a guy named Tigger (Matt) who played a producer, that wanted everyone to work for him. He wore such bright clothing and his catch phrase was “I love ya baby.” It made me giggle every time I heard it.

The other planets were – Aboria, who were Victorian’s that lived on the top of giant trees.

Marrianne Le Grange of the Aborian's - Jenni.

Chapparell – hippies gone wrong and all techno-tribal.

Victory Two-bos of the Chapparell - Frank

Sujan – a feudal society – there planets terraforming did not take.

Bharat – a capalist society, that had slavery (indian inspired for costuming)

Cigani – space gypsies.

All the players from ReUnion

Utimately I had fun writing this, even though there were moments during the year that I couldn’t find inspiration, but it all came together. Though I don’t know if I’ll write another one for awhile, as I really enjoy playing in them too.

As for the rest of the con. I got to play in four games during the weekend, two on Saturday and two on Sunday.

1st game was run by Idiot – Cold Shore. (Nemesis system)

Kinda creepy for a first round game, and I was quiet tired, it always takes me awhile to get into gaming, especially at that time of the morning. But it was a pretty good first round, with Freya, Susan, Liam, and I can’t remember the other guy (sorry :{ )

It’s set in the late 1800s with a ship sailing out from Oz to the UK. I played a cabin boy. The ship gets caught in a storm and is ship wrecked on an island. Weird shit starts to happen. It’s hard to say if we survived or not…as the game ended four of us were alive, some were pretty banged up though…so who knows really.

2nd round game, was run by Conan – NOBILIS ( in caps cause I love this game)

We have worked out that this game is my long term campaign, as I only get to play it at Kapcon and I’ve played all four games and have played the same character each time. This game followed on from the one two years ago (Conan didn’t run last year, which made me very sad) but much fun was had.  I left wanting to play more, like every time I play this game.

Basically you play gods that embody a part of creation. I was time. The other players (again can’t remember all the players that played) were Machines, Ruth was Dreams, Norman was Mind and Jonathan was Mischief. ( Conan had changed one of the characters from the last game, Mind used to be Order, but was very much like Machines). We had to go fight the bad guy that had stolen sight.  We performed some pretty awesome miracles to defeat the sucker.

Day two.

Round four – run by Nick Pitt  – Samurai Stir-fry the re-hash.

Me, Margi, Lucas, Carla and again another person I can’t remember.

Using the truth and justice system PDQ, Nick came up with this little beauty.

Again another episode in a previous game that I had played in a few years ago. Basically we are all Samurai from various animae.  So we had Jin and Mugen from Samurai Champloo, Kensin from Ruruoni Kensin, Samurai Jack from Samurai Jack and some extras that Nick created. Bad puns and hilarity ensued as we tried to work together and work out what was going on and take down the bad guys.

Round five – Jenni’s game – The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon

If you can’t tell, heavily inspired by the emoness that is Twilight and all other cheesy supernatural fiction written out there.

Played with James P, Nick Pitt and Jackie.

Two of us were humans (me and james) and best friends.

The other two were supernatural creatures of some kind. We decided on vampires.

One of the humans (me) and one of the supernaturals (jackie) had to fall in love.

We let the game unfold, with much drama and emoness.

It ended tragically.

Jenni has done a fab write up of the game – click the link below

http://jennitalula.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/kapcon-19-day-2/

I took the last round off to help with tidying up.

Every year the caliber of writing goes up and the players get better as well. It’s also made more enthused about gaming in general. Now I just need to find a game that interests me, and a group to play with.

Goodbye 2009 and welcome 2010

I would like to say that 2009 was a brilliant year, but most of it was pretty sucky…which is a sad thing to say here on my inspiration blog.

So I thought I’d put down the things that were inspiring from 2009.

1) My grandparents celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary, this is apparently a very rare occurance, and something that I can only dream and hope of achieving with my husband, on that note we celebrated our 1st Anniversary, it kinda snuck up on us, so was celebrated with Yum Cha with some friends and not much fan fair.

2) One of Paul’s grandmothers celebrated her 90th birthday and is still going strong, she is truly inspirational having driven trucks during the 2nd world war for the army, she’s quiet a riot. His other granny is about to turn 89 in a few days, and is still in good health so here’s hoping she makes it to 90 aswell.

3) I turned 30 which is a pretty big milestone in my short life, but I’m able to look back and see what I’ve achieved so far. Gone to uni, got a degree and post grad diploma, found the love of my life and got married. Made an exceptional bunch of great friends, some of them I’ve only gotten to know even better during this past year, but these are the people who’ve kept me sane and positive during the year, when all was going a bit down hill.

4) My decision to open up this blog and my heritage one…though I’ve been a bit slack lately on both accounts…something I plan to rectify in the new year.

5) Reading many of my friends blogs that have kept me inspired

So 2010, will hopefully bring me that elusive job I’ve been searching for. The ommph to loose weight and become a healthy person. To keep these blogs going, and to find many new and exciting things to enjoy throughout the year.

Xmas inspired

So, I’ve finally got in the xmas mood and got inspired to do some baking and painting of gift jars for those who are getting them.

So I cracked out my glass paints, which haven’t been used in a long time, found the jars that I acquired last year for my wedding but didn’t use, found the spare tinsel and curling ribbon and got painting. I was a bit gutted to find that the nozzle on my gold lining paint was broken and therefore the paint had all dried up…the black was fine, and a couple of the glass paints have gotten very thick and are close to drying up as well, one of them had.

Gift jars

Detail of the jars

Baking has consisted of mini choc chip cookies

Cookies - YUM

…I also made a batch of bigger cookies for the husband so he wouldn’t eat the mini ones. Two batches of chocolate fudge one batch has been flavoured with raspberry essence instead of vanilla…turned out quite tasty, however hasn’t set very well as I didn’t stir it long enough before pouring into the tray (whoops!), so it is slightly floppy fudge, the other batch turned out fine.

Fudge

My husband is being an absolute angel and making the hokey pokey as my left wrist is feeling the strain of stiring…I’m not ambidextorius so therefore can’t switch easily to my right. The hokey pokey is for my non-dairy friends…I hope they like hokey pokey.

The xmas tree has also been put up and there are even gifts underneath it!

The xmas tree

All in all I’ve gotten that xmas bug, and feeling quiet excited about the coming day, as I get to see my family in Hamilton and then aunts and uncles and husbands family in Auckland, should be very eventful and filling knowing our families. Bring on the ham and turkey and BBQ – gosh I love having xmas in summer!

Inspirational Cooking

So I’m sitting at home tonight, and have been truly enraptured by Heston Blumenthal and his amazing cooking. Tonight’s episode is inspired by the Romans and trying to create a feast that would be similar to what they may have eating.

Starting with Pigs nipples scratching

Then a Calf brains custard

A Trojan pig – where sausages made to look like intestines are cut out of the belly of a cooked pig

Lastly an exploding/ejaculating pudding – where he actually explodes a cake in testing, along with the mentos in cola.

 

I really want to go to his restaurant and try his food after watching this show.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Blumenthal

 

I think this guy is truly inspirational.

Crafting

Jenni held one of her awesome craft days at her place again on Sunday.

 

I love going to craft day. 1) It gets me out of the house

2) I get to hang out with Jenni and other people that I don’t normally hang out with or see

3) It gets me hunting though my various projects I’ve started an gets me doing them

 

So this time I fished out a cross stitch I started about five years ago an haven’t touched in about four. Pulling it out I had to remember why I had stopped. Firstly it got put aside when I started a baby blanket. Then I found a piece of paper with thread colours written on it, making me remember that I had run out of them, there is about 19 colours that I need go and buy. Then remembering where I was up to on the pattern was another challenge…funnily enough I had stopped part way through a row so there was thread hanging there…I had also left the needle in the edging, it ha started to rust (never leave your needle in your work for that long!) I managed to get more rows out before the back an arms got sore, but it was cool to get it started again.

 

I also enjoyed seeing what everyone else was doing for their crafts and just having time to talk with other people, such a great day!

Almost 1 year married

So me and my lovely boy Paul, will be married One year as of this coming Sunday (1 November).

The 1st anniversary is Paper…I really don’t know what to get him, and I’ve really only got two days to go and very little money unless I borrow his credit card. (Suggestions are welcome at this point)

So how has my almost a year of marriage gone?

Not alot has changed really, except I get to say My Husband, instead my boyfriend/partner/boy…which is pretty cool.

I get to flash of my pretty rings

I still look at our really great photos…I still need to check out our wedding video that my uncle did for us..perhaps that is something that we can do on the day.

This year we wont miss out guy fawkes…last year we we’re down on the West Coast and it was really wet…there were no fireworks to be seen at all.

All in all it’s been a pretty great year of marriage (joblessness aside).

So thank you to all those who have supported us this last year.

Enviromental conscience

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11

I have just looked through the images contained in the link above, and it has got me thinking about our environment and what we can do to protect and preserve our delicate world.

I had found earlier in the month some other websites that are making environmentally conscience choices in how they handle their products and production of their products.

Such as clothing companies that are trying to become more environmentally sound

http://www.edunonline.com/mission.aspx

http://www.made-by.nl/madeby_missie.php?lg=en

Of course there is also our personal choices of recycling, buying from local markets and locally produced products. I’ve just started re-inventing clothes, and not just putting them in the charity bins…though I do also do this as i think it’s a great way to clear out the cupboard and know that it’s not just ending up at the dump, someone out there will find a use for my cast offs.

E-day also gets my support, mostly cause for some reason we (my husband and I) tend to end up with computers and printers that die on us, and E-day is a safe way to get rid of the no longer working items.

I tried having a small herb garden, however the neighbourhood  cats decided that it would make a great bathroom and ripped the coconut weave to shreads…I might try it again this season as fresh herbs are better than dried…I’m just not great a tending to gardens, but I want  to be, for when we get our own place as I like gardens, and know the benefits of having your own vege patch as I’ve grown up with my parents growing there own veges, and it really does help in cutting down your  food bill.

I also need to get better at recycling, I’m currently a hoarder of plastic containers, as they are great for freezing left overs in, but it’s also partly ingrained in me from my parents, along with having trays of paper and keeping birthday/xmas cards.

Finally one of my favourite organisations in New Zealand: DOC (Department of Conservation) http://www.doc.govt.nz/

Who work towards the protection of New Zealand’s natural and historical heritage.

TV Watching

So I’ve been watching some really really great tv lately, some of it old and some of it new.

Today me and the hubby have made our way through the first two seasons of Weeds and are on to the third, a great way to spend a wet Saturday afternoon. http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/home.do

Leverage – a new show that fell into our laps, it shouldn’t be as good as it is, but it is. http://www.tnt.tv/series/leverage/

QI – up to season six (F), a great show, and I keep contemplating writing to TVNZ to find out why we haven’t had it air in this country yet, I mean Stephen Fry host the show, surly that’s a dead ringer for having the show air…I also follow the QI elves on twitter. http://www.qi.com/ QI twitter feed:  http://twitter.com/qikipedia One of the QI Elves:  http://twitter.com/JustinPollard And of course the Host:  http://twitter.com/stephenfry

True Blood – I watched the last episode of season two the other night..OMG I love this show and can’t wait for season three. http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/season2/

Outrageous Fortune – Can we say OMGWTF, best ending for a season so far. Those who haven’t been watching season five of this series are seriously missing out on good tv. http://www.outrageousfortune.co.nz/

Buffy – and oldie but a goodie.  http://www.buffyworld.com/

Supernaturals – this is on really really late on friday night, but so worth staying up for. http://www.cwtv.com/shows/supernatural

Smallville – this is on right after supernaturals – the show can be a bit hit and miss at times, but I still really really enjoy it, bad acting and all. http://www.cwtv.com/shows/smallville

So a big props goes out to tv writters, producers, directors and actors, for entertaining me and keeping  me amused through my incredibly boring days.

Pretty, Shiny and Inspiring

I meant to post this up over the weekend, but kind of got distracted.

I wanted to share some of the blogs that I follow, because they are inspiring. They are written by people I know, or don’t, or they are about things that interest me.

To start off:

Jenni’s blog: http://jennitalula.wordpress.com/ It’s a wonderful read. Jenni post about her writing, gaming and crafts that she’s up to. And I love her Things I Love Thursday list (inspired by Gala Darling’s blog).

Regan’s Singing blog: http://sokkysinging.wordpress.com/ I enjoy reading this blog. For me it keeps me inspired to enjoy the things I love and to actually work towards those goals I want to achieve.

Gala Darling’s blog Icing: http://galadarling.com/ She is inspiring! With handy fashion tips and life advice, this is a kiwi gal who has made a career out of what she loves, and shares it with the world. And the lay out of the blog is really beautiful as well. With her fashion pic of the day to Things I Love Thursday, there is something there for every gal.

Kathryn’s blog: http://livelovecapture.com/ Kathryn loves photography and scrapbooking, this blog has lots of handy tips and ideas and some really beautiful photos, lots of inspiration to get those creative juices flowing.

Te Papa’s blog: http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/ I follow this blog because I have a real interest in museums and heritage, and I find it a great way to stay in the loop of what’s happening.

So this is just a few of the blogs I follow that brighten up my day and keep me inspired.