I Love Creative People

OR Why I would Suck at being a Critic.

I have recently been volunteering at Bats Theatre here in wellington. Bats is an amazing theatre, I have a special fondness for black box theatres. Some of my greatest moments both in the stage and in the audience have been in black box theatres. Add in that at any given moment Bats is staffed by half of my friends makes it even more special and amazing for me. Then of course is all the amazing theatre that happens at Bats.

The benefit of volunteering is that I get to see heaps of plays now. Which is awesome, I could probably see three plays a night for the rest of my life and still wish I could see more! All the plays I’ve seen recently are wonderful independent NZ written shows on topics from Armageddon, to Robert Muldoon. I love these independent NZ plays cause you would never have seen them anywhere else. Some of them this might be the only time they get run. I just Love them.

At a recent play though that while it was very funny and entertaining I found one aspect of it deeply unsettling and semi homophobic. I have struggled to say anything about it since then. Not because I’m not capable of being outspoken. You all know I am! No my trouble is with the fact that these creative people put so much work into, so much love, how can I just dump on that? I don’t want to appear to be mean. I’m Creative, I put things out there all the time and I know how it feels to be heavily critisized.

I could never be a critic for this reason. I’ve always thought critics have an easy job sit there and point out flaws. I know now that it must be harder. I wonder if they sit there wondering if what they said is too harsh? Or just want to sit down and praise how amazing the writers are just for having written something and put it out in the world to be judged? I would be a wreck with the guilt and torn at the two wars within me. It’s easy when something is just rubbish, the hard part is when something is good, or has potential, if only this fatal flaw was pulled from it’s side.

Tonight thankfully I have no plays on just Rugby to attend. That is something I’m happy to criticize.

Things I Like Thursday

Okay so I’ve been away sorry…

Things I like this week. ‘

New musicians that I love with heartbreaking but catchy songs, I have two even Gotye and Kimbra who yo can hear in the same awesome song:

I love the chorus :

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
No you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Birthday Parties with themes, I’m having mine this weekend with a comic book character theme, and the weekend after that my friend is having a failed superheroes birthday party…

Making Costumes… I’ve in the past month mad a costume for Ellen for Chimera and one for my birthday party and one for the LARP “But Nobody Loses an Eye” in which we are all 5 year olds at a birthday party! I have a few gowns….

Dresden File Books…. I’m just starting them and surprisingly LOVE them… I mean the fantasy part I knew I’d love but the gumshoe part I wasn’t sure of.  Bonus is I get James Marsters to read them to me via Audible.com

Have I mentioned my unnatural *LOVE* of audible.com? I’m starting to wonder how I read things… like with my eyes and stuff….

CONfusion (RPG Con)

This past Saturday I ventured out (despite recovering from a nasty cold and it being semi dreary) to Wellington proper to attend my first CONfusion. What is CONfusion? It’s a one day gaming convention held at Turnbull House.  It consisted of three rounds each roughly 3 hours long.  Each session had 4 games you could play in.  So I look at the options for the first session and I see three things I haven’t played and then there is The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon, which I have played both tabletop AND Larp before. I’m predictable as much as I like to do new things I’ll default with something I know I’ll have fun playing, that meant Silver Kiss.

I was the human love interest to Bryn’s Vampire, Thomas, ZOMG WAS HE CREEPY. My character was popular but geeky, she was really into kung fu. She also had a boyfriend and thus I was expecting angsty drama, which one do I choose, etc. Nope Thomas broke his neck within 20 minutes of meeting him. He then proceeded to stalk, kidnap, and force me to either spend eternity with him or die. My character liked living so she was turned, as was her bff. Then we all went to New York where I became an awesome kung fu teacher.

Next round was all about Fiasco. I’ve heard so many good things about Fiasco like SERIOUSLY good. So I signed up for that, but my deciding wasn’t done yet, With Fiasco comes many play sets do I play the Cthulhu set or Regina’s Wedding? I decided to go with Regina’s Wedding, and I’m so glad I did. I played with Jenni, Thomas, Paul and Mike. In Fiasco you don’t really have a GM as more a facilitator who plays just as equally. My main char was “Televisions Margaret Wakefeild” who we determined had a Bridezillas type of show. Jenni was Regina, who though she was marrying the heir to Baroness Something or Another, but was in fact a con-man. The photographer was my crazy ex, who ever since I deserted him at the altar has been Hell bent of destroying ALL OF THE weddings. Turned out good for most people including Margaret Wakefeild who ended up with  her own wedding CHANNEL.

The final round I played Shadowrun. I didn’t know much about this system, I think I would have preferred to have play Fiasco another time. I find while I like classic skill based games that use dice rolls to determine passes or fails, for day games I prefer more free form indie games I think.  I ended up having fun in this game and it went rather fast, mostly cause there were only two players. It took awhile to get used to the system it uses. The game is odd in that it is Science Fiction and Fantasy combined, so you have both magic and advanced tech. The goal of the game was to stop this Terrorist which we did. Dunno if I will play it again but it’s a possibility….

Over-all I played in two new to me systems, and had lots of fun… When’s the next one?

Things I Like Thursday

To start off things I don’t like: Accidently deleting two posts from existence by forgetting to check how recent my database backup was when upgrading my database.

—-real post begins here—-
My new blog theme thanks Sam of Rooster Tails for the cool graphics. I’m probably not done yet… I’ll still be doing a few tweaks here and there.  Also there are a few bits of content that I really need to add to the pages…

Web comics… I mean they are comics and I read them on the internet… for free!!

My top 5 are(in no particular order):

  • PVP Player vs. Player is as very nerdy comic mostly aimed at gamers.
  • XKCD how do you explain this comic to those who don’t know about it… All I can say is when me and my husband talk about it we never seem to get the letter right we have called it XFCE XKFC and XKFD among many other things….
  • Rooster Tails an awesome New Zealand trans/queer comic written by a talented trans comic artist
  • The Knit Princess really funny knitting comic, probably only funny to knitters and maybe those close to knitters.
  • Oglaf NSFW enchanted sperm, naughty stories, and irreverent humour
  • and as a bonus Khaos Komix more Trans/Queer comics, this one tells several stories from lots of viewpoints, not so much funny like Rooster Tails, and more heartbreaking in bits.

 

Audible.com how I love thee… I love to read I read probably about 20 hours a week maybe more, which has always meant that my reading competes with my other hobbies(which I seem to have a lot of) meaning that I can either read or knit, read or embroider, read or cook dinner(okay not so much a hobby). You get the picture… About a two and a half years ago, after hearing on every single one of Brenda Dayne‘s podcasts about audible, I decided to give it a go and get a free audio book… Well I never had an audio device it worked with so I cancelled it.  Fast Forward 6 months I got an android phone , and guess what it had an audible app which meant I could download the books directly to my phone. Now I use audible constantly… I still read actual books but my reading time has increased massively cause I can read and do other things like knitting and cooking.

cover image of Syren by Angie Sage

Related: The Septimus Heap books… I’m halfway through book 5 and I absolutely love this series… They are like Harry Potter but yet not at all like Harry Potter. They are well written engaging and amazing to read.

Honourable Mentions:

Getting a postcard from Jenni… I love mail that’s not bills.

Larping (of course)

The Guild (they are back yay!!!)

I don’t remember posting that!

When checking my stats yesterday I noticed more than a few people had clicked on the post about my 2010 Knitting List which I had completely forgot about! I thought even though it’s been over a year I would check in with how I did!

1. To finish my wedding shawl! DONE!!!!

2. Finish my Baudelaire socks (sock one complete toe of sock two complete) DONE

3. Finish secret socks for special someone (sock one done halfway up the foot of sock two) DONE

4. knit at least 2 pairs of socks for Ryan I cast several pair on and had no end of troubles!

5. Knit one pair of knee highs for myself! NOT A CHANCE

6. This will be the year I start my Rogue Nope

7. Knit Sprossling Nope

8. Knit another Rose Of England Shawl(this one for myself) Instead I cast-on a Neibling pattern for a shawl

9. Try to work out a few of the patterns that are floating around inside my head! YEP just have to test them and write them out

10. have fun! Tried.

The reality was that I actually did very little knitting in 2010 I was sick for a large part of it and my Mojo seemed to flee due to that. I’m finally starting to get better and I seem to be knitting again! I’m in general crafting again, I feel creative and urges to do things and I’m loving it!!! I’ve finished several patterns this year already and have cast-on a few more!

I have been sewing left right and center, making costumes for LARP events purses that are perfect and MORE! I plan on posting some detailed blog posts soon and hope you all enjoy my return to the blogsphere.

I’m still behind on some things from 2010 and I’m working on those too… slowly but surely!