Blissful Mind Peace

A week off does wonders for the soul, though not necessarily from the skull-shuddering headaches. Never mind, that’s just my mind being invaded by trans-dimensional beings. My open rage emissions make me vulnerable to their pseudopod probings. Aside from their mentational strokings it has been a very nice week indeed. Ihaven’t done much…

The highlight for me was my other half’s birthday and observing the unrestrained glee with which she carefully removed the tape from each wrapped parcel and then tore apart the paper in a neat, folded way. In celebration we have hit the cinema fairly hard this week and had a lovely meal out as Las Iguanas with some close friends. The actual party will have to wait until later in the month because of other people’s birthday parties being arranged earlier. Damn them.

In hopes of approaching the return to work with positivity I have had a shave. I’m not sure why I think this will help. I suspect it will mainly make my face cold as summer is not on the cards this year.

This week’s scribbles

Tuesday The War Alone: Day One – Call Centre

A one-shot story set in the chaos and confusion of The War Alone.

Wednesday Shankbuddy – Convenient Hate Poems

A tiny reminder in poetry form of why I needed a week off.

Thursday The Desert Crystals – Part Three

It’s time to leave the safety of the air behind.

Friday Film Review Double Bill: The Host & G.I. Joe: Retaliation 

Jeez, what a pair of films…

Updates on my thrilling life

Writing

I have, as I predicted last week, been exceptionally bad at sitting down and doing anything of note. All I have done really is embraced the need to write another 800 words every week for The Desert Crystals (and done last week’s Part 2). I have no sense of where this story will end. My original draft was fairly short and concluded with the new beginning… so we shall be going off the wall, underneath the box and so forth for exactly some number of chapters.

I’m enjoying the business of a review every Friday. I thought I might find it irritating, because I’m a bit conflicted about reading other people’s reviews of films and books. Instead it helps me to focus on what I enjoyed about a thing, and am remembering it better. Regardless of any benefit to me I’m happy to thrust my irrelevant opinion onto you every week. I hope you enjoy them and treat them like any other review – ignore them entirely and do what you want.

Last week’s scribbles

Tuesday Appeasement and Loss A short story set in a fantasy world where revenge is all that’s left to one man (or Loss and Appeasement as I reordered it for my picture).

Wednesday Lego Creations: Mini Mechs A happy rootling about in my Lego box and an enthusiasm for matching colours resulted in quite a nice build.

Thursday The Desert Crystals – Part Two The expedition gathers pace, hardware and danger…

Friday Book Review: The Departure by Neil Asher I’m behind the times as always, but I finally got round to reading the first in a new series by one of my favourite authors.

Lego

Mwha ha ha! I have more boxes which has enabled further segmentation of Lego by colour and shape. I don’t know how far to take this, as it can be convenient to have it all separated, but then I have to be surrounded by a roomful of boxes. It’s also really handy to have stuff mixed up together – it supports my lack of planning as I can be inspired by a random aggregation of bricks in a corner.

I finished my little mechs for last week’s post and am still toying with more variations on the theme. I’ve also been tinkering further with Boba Fett’s house. I need to dismantle part of it to get more space in there – the man needs a shower and a wardrobe. I’m quite pleased with his sleep capsule though.

Finally… I delayed the unboxing for weeks but I have broken into The Orc Forge at last! It’s a really cool little model to build (though rather repetitive on the base) and the use of the light brick is pretty. Admittedly I was a touch disappointed because the picture on the box virtually promises two light bricks. I was robbed. However that is completely countered by the orc’s ears being part of the hair piece. Genius. As a newbie Lego builder I also noticed for the first time that Lego are employing techniques more commonly seen on the moc circuit than in their usual kits – the shaping around the base looks great.

Improv Comedy

We’re still punching away at the Evente in Fisticuffs on Tuesdays. We’re a bit torn on where to go with it. There have been just four of us playing it for a few weeks now and it might just be that having one scene each plus the bookend events make it feel weirdly short. However, we are playing nicely together and we had ourselves in tears of laughter last week over the sexy tortoise and dong-face. That was a fine round of therapeutic corpseing.

For the jam we were back in the freezing environment of 8 Stoney Street. It’s a great space but Christ it’s cold. That does make it hard – once you stop moving you don’t want to start again because it moves all that lovely warmth that you’ve gathered. Regardless, Lloydie let us in a fun round of justification and grounding, building in part upon the workshop that Jules Munns did with us a few weeks ago. Having to say “because” leads to wonderful realisations and discoveries.

I also enjoyed going to the pub afterwards: it was warm. And had beer.

Media Intake

Books

I dove straight from The Temporal Void into The Evolutionary Void and finished that yesterday. Loved it, loved it to bits. It’s been a very satisfying 5,000 page read through of the five books almost back to back. Peter F Hamilton’s scope in the series is just immense and epic and it made me very happy. What to read next? Well, I now have a taste for the massive and will have to dig Adrian Tchaikovsky’s next Shadows of The Apt tome, The Air War (book eight of ten). I’ve been holding off on reading it because my anticipation and excitement are immense. Knowing we’re close to the end of the saga causes me internal weeping.

Events and Excitement

Gorilla Burger – Thursday 11th April

7.30pm at 8 Stoney Street, Nottingham.
An improv comedy show where anyone can play.

“Angry folk” lp launch Karl & the Marx Brothers – Friday 12th April

8.00pm at The Guildhall, Derby.
MissImp are providing an improvised protest in front of this excellent album launch show!

Related articles

• This week, Monday 25th March 2013 (captainpigheart.com)
• This week, Monday 1st April 2013 (captainpigheart.com)