June 2001

June 5, 2001

Well, well, well, and a big hullo to all my loyal readers. After a long weekend I'm back at work so I can finally put my feet up, have a rest, and do some CL stuff. And they pay me for this. Fucking amazing, eh? Taxpayers' money too. YOUR money (or it used to be if you live in the US). All your hard-earned dollars going to pay a lazy bum to write a pathetic online CL-based diary. Holy shit. Ain't life grand?

What did I do over the weekend? Ooooo.... well, I wrote lots of trios for the Slyphonics. Three is lots. Baba insisted on two new ones for her, for a start, and then I did another. One of them is bound to get us evicted from the guild. Hope so anyway. It will certainly get certain persons riled as being completely musically inappropriate. Great lyrics too, designed to cause maximum irritation to the most people possible. Actually I'm rather limited in the lyrics department. Tunes I can do. And silly lyrics.. doggerel. But serious ones? No way. They always come out sounding pathetic. So I think I'll give up and just write stupid words.

The Slyphonics are already generating some heat. Trep complained like billy-oh. *His* was the FIRST band apparently, and *they* are'nt rushing into a concert ill-prepared. Not like us. We are sooooooo arrogant. And then Stinkfist took umbrage also. *His* band is better than us, apparently. Hmm..... Isn't it funny? It's just a band, guys. You don't like it, do your own bloody band and do it better. If I think you're better than us, I'll say so. If not, I'll say that too. But enough already with the whining and the chest-beating.

I heard Math play yesterday. Good music. Most bards in the game are pretty hopeless. They try hard, but just don't have the experience or knowledge. Math does, and it shows. If you can, get him to play for you, it's worth it.

Sleipy got to visit the new Valley with the RQ. We all died of course. It's amazing how a little icon on a computer screen can radiate such strong irritation that it makes you wince. And she didn't even say anything. The patience of an angel. Ahem.

Unshipped the tiller and rudder off the boat and towed them to shore with the inflatable. My dinghy got smashed to pieces in the last easterly storm. I leave it padlocked on the beach, but the combination of a storm and a spring tide meant that the waves got to it. They picked it up, chewed it up, and spat it out. In pieces. The power in the waves is quite tremendous.

The same storm also smashed the top of the rudder. Has a special name I guess, but I don't know what it is. But it's seriously thick metal, which the storm just bent in half. Probably without any effort at all. So no sailing for a while.

Which is a shame because the winter weather is superb at the minute. Clear sunny days up to maybe 20 degrees in the sun, and chilly nights, almost down to freezing. Probably gets down to 5 degrees. And light winds. Would be lovely to get out on the gulf.

Ten trios completed now. Huzzah. Maz got the full preview last night. I've said rude things about him here, but he isn't so bad once you actually talk to him. I was (seriously) expecting him to be more than a bit pissed at some of the tunes. But no, he wasn't at all. He was really pleasant, and good company. Isn't it funny how, once you actually talk to someone, it can change preconceived notions? Amazing. Who'd a thunk it? Hell, maybe even Arocet is a kind father, a humorous after-dinner speaker, and a generous soul. Once you get to know him.

Actually, Sleipy's been getting a lot of hostility recently from unexpected people. Crow, Natas, Stinkfist. Er..... others too, but I can't remember who exactly. I'm really not sure why. PWC Vagile was wondering if there was anyone Sleipy *didn't* rub up the wrong way. I couldn't think of many. It may be attempts at IC responses to Sleipy, in which case I'm all for it. May not be too.

I sometimes watch my kids play Bunbel and Sabaria. It's a real scream. People try talking to them, or interacting, and my kids just don't have a clue. They just carry on regardless, not sharing with the healers, running around in little circles, getting terribly excited. I insist that they have to do everything themselves, typing and spelling and all. Sabaria spends all her money on clothes or hair styles. Paul is very scornful of clothes. He just wants a greatsword so he can be like Babajaga. He now has 129 coins. Very exciting.

8th June

Nothing of any note to report, captain sir. Working on more trios, spamming the SS network every opportunity, bugging Slyph to learn her words (she has a serious star problem, let me tell you. Real bad attitude). Even RL has been dull, just work, work, work, and no play makes me a dull boy. You all know the story. All my musical gear is in getting repaired (due to damage caused by a plane flight) and the rudder is off the boat and getting repaired. So no playing and no sailing. Damn. Doesn't leave much. Maybe I'll have to talk to my family or something. Horrors.

RQ getting in *yet another* tizz. Bloody Shepherd's fault. Why oh why couldn't he just stick a sock in it? Or let someone else stick the sock in. Or a boot. Or a cat. Anything. And I'm not talking about his arsehole, only his mouth. Anything else would be too exciting for him, and he surely doesn't deserve it. Why oh why did he have to nominate Indigo of all people? Huh? Answer me that! Fuck. Quite predictably the shit hit the fan again. A rash of departures from the clan will be next. Mind you, certain other persons aren't exactly flexible and forgiving. Ah well. If everybody was as perfect and sweet-tempered as me the world would be ...er .... well... never mind.

Babajaga, update your diary please.

Clan Lord Journal Dames, please write more often. Don't be a bunch of lazy bloody slackers.

Worf. Please, no more about chastity belts. Please. It hurts me just to read it. See, I'm crossing my legs and wincing.

By the way, EVERYBODY is expected to attend the

Booked tickets for the SF leg of my next US trip in August. You know, I get rather bored at all this bloody hopping backwards and forwards. A common reaction is for people to say..."Ooooo... going to the U.S. for a week! How lucky for you! Wow!". I try to point out to them that (1) I used to live there for a long long time: (2) It'll be my third trip to the US this year already: (3) the plane flight is really really really fucking long and boring; and (4) I don't particularly like the U.S. The message doesn't always get across.

But this trip will be a shit load more exciting than the previous ones. Cause I'm going through SF!!! Huzzah. Should have arranged this years ago. I'll be meeting all sorts of old friends; Sadraz, sir Westie, Healery, Tayra, Althea (I hope), Chum (I hope), Elenis, Aeaea....and..... er... and a host of others I guess. What fun. I will have to be on my worst behaviour. No hair brushing for the month beforehand. And I must practise saying fuck. Well, I suppose I don't need practise there. Still, never hurts. Fuck, fuck, fuck. (I think I say it with great panache).

And then through Chicago on the way home to visit Shepherd, Slyph, and Tahxis Obscene. Huzzah! By the time I make it home again (if I ever do) I'll be 10 years older, and missing another million brain cells. At my age, this is a bad thing.

The bad news is that a trip through Oslo again (on my way to London in September) is not a possibility. Damn. Damn. Damn. The one place I really really want to get to again........ And I only get to Europe once a year, usually. Damn. Damn. (Of course, I didn't check first that I was invited, but what the hell. Sometimes it's best not to ask just in case you don't like the answer.)

Don't you hate it when you're forced to broaden your mind? It really hurts like buggery. You know, there I am all comfortable, ensconced in my own superiority, quite certain how nice I am and how nasty other people (like Arocet) are, no worries, no problems, pass the gin please.

And then someone (like Arocet) comes along and completely spoils the fun. Says something pleasant and intelligent. Shows himself to be a tolerant person. Shows himself to be probably quite a reasonable and decent sort of chap. I really hate that. Makes me look stupid and small-minded. Forces me to reevaluate. Forces me actually to think, instead of just using my lower brain functions to communicate. Have I said how much I hate that? If I haven't I should, 'cause I do.

Life would be so much easier if I could just remain superior to everybody else, without ever having to think about it. I may even have to apologise. Holy shit. Just the thought makes my bowels loose and my teeth ache. Ack. It's probably better instead to wind up the Poguies with a few rude emails. Elicit a few nasty replies, so I can feel all comfortable again. Yeah, that's what I'll do. So much easier.

OOoo... Oooo... Oooo and I just noticed. Amazing things, those wee stars on Kira's page. Never noticed before. I'd always just thought "What the fuck are those stupid bloody stars doing? Jeez. Piss off you little turds". But no, they're on some elastic thingy attached to the mouse. I just spent 10 minutes making the mouse go back and forwards and watching those little star thingies bounce around. Wheee.

That's when I wasn't ogling the tits that she thrusts at you on the front page. You naughty little girl, Kira, tsk, tsk. You shouldn't go around pressing buttons like that, you know. Very wicked.

Holy shit. This is better than working.

Yet another interesting discussion over on Worf's page. Me, I couldn't care less about people "cheating" (although I can certainly see how it might ruin the fun of some rescues, and downgrade Mystics as a class). ICQ, Hotline, two screens, two characters, macros, who cares? Not me. You see, I think that a lot of the time people don't like "cheating" as they feel it is giving some other character an "advantage" in the game. Not always, no, of course, I hastily add before Kodo jumps down my throat. But by and large that's not too inaccurate.

And it does give these people an advantage I suppose, if that's what they care about. Getting the most ranks as fast as possible. Not lying dead for ages. Getting huge amounts of money. But, you see, to me these so-called "advantages" are completely irrelevant. There's only one thing that matters to me in the game (apart from writing my trios of course!), and that is the presentation of a consistent and plausible character. No slip-ups, no OOC breakdowns, etc, unless intentionally done. It's roleplaying. This has nothing to do with ranks, or money, or game mechanics. Nothing at all. So if someone writes a macro to get themselves 30000000000 coins what do I care? I don't. They are lousy roleplayers and that's the standard I use to judge whether or not something is fun. On the other hand, roleplaying requires that the Knight be generous. So he gives away money right left and centre. He charges into things and falls, often very stupidly. Loses many ranks that way, but again, who cares? Not me.

But other people play the game their own way. I don't criticise OOC conversations in TS. They can play the game any way they want. I don't object to macros of any kind. I don't object to bad role playing. I don't object to no role playing at all. Live and let live. Nothing like this spoils my fun. In fact, one of the only thing that does spoil my fun is when the Knight gets OOC hostility for IC actions. That, I don't like.

Obviously DT can't have such a laissez-faire attitude. But I can. And many players could improve in this respect also.

18th June, or so

Goodness, what a shame. No sooner do I write that about Norm than he demonstrates himself to be an idiot. *sigh*. How disappointing.

Baba logs on and I can tell she is nervous, distracted, not quite with it. Funny how such things come across clearly, even just over the sunstone, when you know someone well. So the Knight hurries off to town and finds that Baba is about to take the fighter test. Aha, think I, that explains it. So off goes Baba to do the test, with her knees shaking, and she fails. Fuck, think I, now there will be a really really really pissed Baba (not to mention SWC Baba) raising hell in Puddleby, and the Knight is right in the firing line. Do something fast, do something fast. I mean, sure, I'm bad tempered when people give me orders, but that is NOTHING compared to Baba's temper when she fails a test. NOTHING. Trust me on this.

A brilliant thought occurs! Blame the witch! Sue Prue. Yes. Shit I am clever think I. I pause for a microsecond wondering just how much bad karma I'll get for a court-case, but (as you may have guessed) that encourages me rather than otherwise. When the Knight gets BK I feel that I'm doing something right. So off to court and of course I lose. Sleipy has never won a court case and never will I'm quite sure. But at least this time he wasn't put in jail and fined, so I count it as a success.

In comes the BK of course, but then in comes foul temper from a completely unexpected source. Norm. What the fuck is wrong with you, you dipshit little dorf, think I. Well, it transpires that the court case stole *his healers* away from him. Not him, oh no. He could continue hunting to his fat little heart's content. No, it was *his* healers (sic) that were taken away, thus ruining his brainless little life.

Well, golly gee. Wasn't I just *so* fucking sorry. Taking his healers!!! How could I be so mean? So Sleipy grovels a bit, says all kinds of apologetic things, and even gives Norm a pile of cash to make up for his lost hunting time. Does Norm say thank you? Oh no, not a bit of it. He still struts his little temper across the stage.

Fuck you, think I. Cross Norm off the guest list.


	And then, the Slyphonics concert. A roaring success. Ann GM made Slyph a real chain-mail bikini to wear. When I saw this I laughed so hard I couldn't type. Damn, I love Ann GM. I even asked her to marry me, but she wasn't so keen on that idea. Can't imagine why not. Maz was a great help too, with a little fracas that happened the day before. I won't talk about that here as it's best just swept under the carpet and forgotten about. All our auto-triggers were totally messed up because of the crowd and because of lag. They just didn't trigger. So we had a few embarassing moments but managed to survive. Now it's work on proper visionstones and MP3s. Cori has some really neat ideas for these and is working hard to implement them. I just found out he's much younger than I thought. I'm probably much older than he thought, but if he ever says that to my face I'll tell him to get fucked and poke him in his big ugly fish eye. Cheeky bastard. Vagile and Achates did wonderful jobs. Vagile worked the crowd up so well at the beginning, it was a treat to watch. And Achates had the inspired idea of being a sound man. When I saw him doing his backstage thing I was really delighted. I hadn't thought to arrange that, and was so glad someone else had.


		As you can tell from the blue sparkly, the last few rows of the crowd don't show up here. People were popping in and out on the edges continually. About 80 people attended.


And what's a gig without a bit of drunken debauchery?

21 June (about)

A good point made in the comments. Was Norm just being annoyed IC? Have I completely dropped the ball here? Well, that is sometimes very hard to tell. If someone abuses Sleipy how do you tell whether it's OOC or IC? Whether they just want Sleipy to play along, or whether they (OOC) just want him to fuck off.

Often the player makes it clear, by making the abuse clearly IC. Althea, the witches, Cutlas, for example. But others....? "Just fucking shut up". How do I interpret that statement? It's not really IC, although it could be I suppose. "You really are a shit". Same there. With Norm I made an effort to respond in a clearly IC manner (although my gut OOC reaction was to tell him to get fucked). The Knight was awfully apologetic, in that Knightly way of his, and gave Norm 100 coins as a gesture of goodwill. I think that if Norm had been trying on an IC thing he would have responded to that in some other way than just abusing Sleipy some more and storming off in a bad temper. So I judged that Norm was pissed OOC, which makes him a wanker in my book. Yeah, yeah, I know, I've got pissed OOC a couple of times. Well, once. So I'm a wanker too. Big surprise.

Am I wrong? It's been known to happen. But until I find out I'm wrong I feel I've lost yet another sympathetic player in the game. A shame.

Finally got the official word from the band that used to get me the most work. They don't want me any more. I knew it was coming of course. The real reason was that the band leader found my style too flamboyant on stage, taking the spotlight off him and the other lead singer. I can be pretty out there when I try, or I'm hyped up, but, quite frankly, I think they are crazy. They have a very boring stage presence that desperately needs to be livened up. Ah well... their loss. They also did a lot of travelling, touring Australia twice each year and all of NZ once. I couldn't do any of that, which didn't fill them with joy either. Well, I could, but I won't. I've done my time touring with bands now, and I'm getting too old for that scene. I'd rather stay at home.

So now I'm at a loose end musically, and searching to restart things with some other groups. Approaching the blues scene, cause I'd love to get back into playing that stuff again. I know the guys in Kokomo Blues so that's where I've started. But I've also decided to try and put my own band together, to do a project that I've been thinking about for a while. Harmen is keen, so we'll get together this week sometime and discuss personnel and stuff like that. It'll be a shit load of work, and who knows whether I can pull it off? I hope so. It's a folk rock project. Most "folk rock" bands are lousy. They are often basically folk musicians playing electric guitars, and they just don't *rock*. No groove. No funk. And most rock bands think folk music isn't proper stuff for them to play. But the basic tunes of folk music are wonderful; when combined with a proper dance beat, and high-quality vocals, I think it can be compelling music. We'll soon see whether or not anybody agrees.

June 26 (?)

I am happy to announce that I have caused the slimy Alexis great offence by criticising his use of a geek-filter on his web page. I was, of course, trying to do exactly that, and it's nice to know how accurately I can press his buttons. But I didn't know that my gratuitous and offensive use of profanity offends Shamhat. Well, it's offensive I suppose so it probably offends everybody, but only Shamhat has really complained about it. Well, apart from Tove, but she complained to my face. Sorry, Shamhat, Just for you I shall refrain from any use of the f-word for a post or two.

Just spent an hour or so at one of those boring and pointless flipping meetings where they try and make me pass more students. I hate that, but I fail the flippers anyway. If students don't work, I fail them. Pretty simple really. And the relevant academic committees can go and flip themselves.

Making long and complicated arrangements to paint the yacht. Got to get the blimming thing out of the water, which is a bit of a pain, and then spend all my weekends sanding the darn gosh thing down. Flip. But the music project is making great strides so far. We'll test some personnel soon, maybe even tomorrow night, and try and get some studio time soon. It's a breath of fresh air to drive a band myself, actually, rather than just join one. Even though it's a lot of extra work.

Off to Rarotonga in a couple of days. Dragging the whole famn damily along, which makes it fun. A week of sitting on a South Pacific Island beach, snorkelling, drinking wine, wishing I wasn't too old to.... oh well, never mind. Trying to beat the kids up. Sounds nice.

And, of course, the Chicago RQ gathering. Despite the pathetic (although plausible) claims of that lazy degenerate, Worf, I have yet read NOTHING of any malicious interest on any web site at all. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Whatever. Not a flipping thing. Worf is probably still tied up, with his testicles in thorns or something. Come on Conny, let the poor blighter go so that he can satisfy my need for nasty gossip. I got a little from Kim and Jeff, but they just said nice things about everybody. Not much fun there.

Just noticed the Clan Lord journal is first off the mark, with some appropriate insulting references to the Red Quill, that greatest of great clans, that repository of intellectual creativity and personal excellence, that marvellous and peerless gathering of perfect individuals. Ahem.... anyway, as I was saying, the CL journal is far too polite too. Nothing nasty at all. Who knows more details of the night Shep spent with Aridfox and Xantcha? Oooooo.... sounds interesting! What about Slyph's breast implants? Are they really made from the same stuff chains are, and thus infinitely extendable? Enquiring minds want to know.

And if you don't care about my mental health, think of poor Tove. Stuck way in the middle of nowhere... in some little country in the far far frozen northern wastes.... with no internet access except the ability to sneak a quick peek at your diaries when her boss isn't watching. Think of her, and relent.

And gosh darn flip it to heck, I wish I could light a firecracker (a 0.3 megaton one) under SWC Althea who has promised promised promised to send some Slyphonics videos but hasn't done so yet. I think she is just jealous of all the Baba songs. Yup. Pure, green, bitter jealousy without a doubt. She's better watch it or I'll write an Althea song. She may like that even less. Nevertheless, the Slyphonics web page is almost done, hosted by Coriakin, and then you can all hum along to "Pearl of Puddleby" to your hearts' content.


	Introduction and Archives		Latest pathetic writings




He is indeed a foolish Knight.

	The Red Quill conquers Tenebrion's tower. Almost.


		The Knight dives in (of course) but found only the meshra cave. Most disappointing.




	The Slyphonics gear up for the debut concert. Huzzah! Listen to the man. Damn we're hot. But seriously, it's been the most fun I've had in CL for ages. Haven't done anything else but trio stuff for a while now. Except that Sleipy is still looking for the alchemy bowl. I'm hopeless at quests like that, and I'm stuck.

HWC's Diary. Read it at your peril.

June 5, 2001

8th June

18th June, or so

21 June (about)

June 26 (?)