Nobles Paroles, Seigneur Gardakan!
posted at 21:57 on 2009.04.29
 


A while back, I promised some basic regularity in my postings here. I've been somewhat lax with that, so here's the first in a rapid succession of updates covering my numerous activities this previous fortnight.

The weekend of April 17-19 brought me the inestimable bewilderment and pleasure of two lifetime firsts. It was my first visit to the beautiful bastion of historical import that is Quebec City. I only received a cursory overview of the city proper, however; the bulk of my weekend was spent engaging in the sort of faux-chicanery alluded to by the above snapshot. (I've got a few more here, among other random photos.) Yes - it was also my first time engaging in the bizarre yet alluring world of Live Action Role-Playing, which translates in French to the somewhat more poetic Grandeur Nature.

Imagine a weekend-long costume party where the attendees actually put in some effort, throw in some overtones of medieval fantasy, toss it all together with a heavy dose of guerilla theatre, and garnish lightly with pencil-and-paper role-playing geekdom. That gives some idea of the atmosphere here.

Of course, Imagika is one of the more politically-involved games out there, and so I spent much of my time randomly milling about while grasping desperately for some context as to how exactly a debate on slavery, a war against the descendants of dragons, the birth of a new god, a wayward monk whose teachings instilled madness, a roving band of necromantic cultists, and countless other subplots were connected. Owing to my status as a weak newcomer, I also spent a good deal of time faking death while awaiting the kindness of capable healers. Peu importe - it was still loads of fun, and I might even consider taking part in Waterloo By Night if my habitually overloaded schedule permits!
Something To Chew On
posted at 20:26 on 2009.04.16
To please certain of my readers, I furnish you with this bilingual gem from the hinterlands of Gatineau - enjoy.

Synergy: Now Useful
posted at 18:16 on 2009.03.23
This synergy, that is. (Thanks to Jeff Verkoeyen for the app tip.) Installation is absolutely painless, especially with the APT repos on Ubuntu; in less than five minutes I was happily swerving my mouse around my newly augmented screen real estate.

Oh, and the installation pics are up. Enjoy!
Computer Pics
posted at 18:51 on 2009.03.22
Here they are. (Yes, it's a complete mess of cables. Yes, that's a microATX board in an ATX case. Yes, there's a giant opening in the front - I'm thinking about slapping in a fan above the optical drive. Yes, I put four hard drives in there - I'm going to put them in RAID 5, with a small RAID 1 partition on each to accomodate GRUB.)
Life on Film
posted at 07:24 on 2009.03.16
Well, not quite - but I have started uploading my photos here. (Yes, my other account still exists.) So far, the Parkour album contains nary but a couple of shots of the OGC gym floor and various downtown Ottawa hotspots; I have yet to grab any action shots, which may disappoint those of you expecting to see photographic evidence of my accumulating injuries. I haven't quite started living by my camera yet, and routinely forget to bring it along for photo-worthy events. Hopefully the act of keeping this blog will change that!

Other than that: I'm back in Ottawa, this time with a bike, a djembe, and a mostly-finished computer in tow. If I ever figure out how to use all three concurrently, I'll let you know. (Maybe if I strap the tower to my rear pannier rack with bungee cords and excessive amounts of duct tape...)
On the Bright Side…
posted at 21:42 on 2009.02.23
...my camera and associated USB cable are finally in the same location, which means I can start annotating my posts with random images like this:

Photographic Evidence!
posted at 08:17 on 2009.01.12
Speaking of Japan, the pictures from that trip are now available for public consumption. Enjoy!