pedanther

. After about two years of playing Crypt of the NecroDancer on and off, I've finally beaten the fire-and-ice zone and unlocked the fourth and final zone of the game. At this rate, I may even get to the bit with the actual NecroDancer in before the end of the decade.


. The annual performing arts festival is on again. Last year, the vocal weekend was a bit sparse and the instrumental weekend was packed, so this year we've got the same adjudicator for both weekends so the entries can be spread out more evenly. Which was probably a good thing, because we've had so many entries this year that even spread out evenly there's no space for any workshops; I can't imagine how we'd have managed if we'd tried to fit all the instrumental entries on one weekend. Unfortunately, this hasn't extended to the drama section, which has been cancelled due to lack of entries for another year running.

One of the highlights of the mostly vocal weekend was the junior character vocal section, where two of the entries were songs from a revue I hadn't previously heard of called How to Eat Like a Child. The songs themselves were hilarious, and they got really good performances, with a level of acting we don't often get in the junior character vocal section, which sometimes seems like it's just a parade of small children whose attempt at characterisation stops at being dressed like a Disney princess. (This year, apart from the How to kids, we had two Pocahontases and a Cinderella, but to be fair they did a bit of acting too.)


. The Rep Club's production of Away opens two weekends from now, which means we're currently in the "couldn't be worse / will it ever be right" phase of the process where everybody's worrying about whether their lines will stick in their memory, especially the guy who just got cast last week after another actor pulled out, and there are still parts of the set being built and we've only really rehearsed the final scene once. But I'm confident it's going to pull together at the eleventh hour, the way these things usually do.


. The other local amateur theatre group that isn't the Rep Club is putting on Little Shop of Horrors. Between the performing arts festival and Away there's exactly one performance I can make it to, and for a while it was looking like I might not be able to make it to that one either. I'm looking forward to it; Little Shop of Horrors is usually a good time, and this production has been getting good word of mouth.


. I've been vaguely aware for years of Goodbye, Mr Chips, James Hilton's novel about a retired schoolteacher looking back on his life, but only recently got around to reading it. It's a charming book, and I can see why it was popular. One thing I wasn't expecting is that, because Chips's career spans the decades up to and including the 1910s, quite a few of his anecdotes about schoolboys he's known end with him remembering that the boy in question died in the First World War. Quite a lot of people die in the course of the book, actually, though I suppose that's a risk you take in a story that spans eighty years, and somehow it never quite disturbs the mood.

1. Among the things I was not expecting to happen this month: finding Irn Bru on sale in the supermarket. It turns out it's fairly similar in taste and texture to a drink we have in Australia, but a much more interesting colour. (Although I have now read up on it, and apparently Australian Irn Bru isn't quite the same thing as Scottish Irn Bru, in the same way that Australian Mountain Dew, which I also remember finding less exotic than I'd expected, isn't quite the same thing as American Mountain Dew. Australia has some strict rules about what you're allowed to put in soft drinks, particularly when it comes to caffeine.)


2. Have been continuing the process of identifying sources of stress, or activities that I wasn't enjoying enough to justify the time I was spending on them, and letting them go so I have more time and energy for the activities I do value. I was worried for a while that I might find I didn't have anything left, but my enthusiasm for the Rep Club is undiminished, and although there are aspects of the band that I'm not enjoying, on the whole I think it's in the way that makes me want to stick around and try to fix them.

One thing I'm going to have to keep putting up with is my job, which I don't enjoy much and occasionally find myself explicitly thinking of as time taken away from doing something useful, but I don't have anything to replace it with. (For one thing, I am not sure, and don't know how to find out, whether the problem is this particular employer and set of working conditions, or this occupation, or me; so I don't know whether it could be fixed by finding a different employer, or a different occupation, or if I'm going to feel like this about any other job I might get.)


3. Speaking of the Rep Club, the long form improv show went well. It ended up being less ambitious than I pictured when I first heard about it: rather than improvising a single full-length play, we improvised a few short plays, about 15-20 minutes long each, and filled the rest of the evening with the more usual sort of one-scene improv games. Which is probably just as well, in retrospect; making up a full-length play as you go along is the kind of thing you need to work up to gradually. Anyway, we enjoyed it, and the audience enjoyed it, and the improv group is going to keep meeting and will maybe do another show next year.


4. The performing arts festival is over for another year. The instrumental music weekend went well, and included a massed band workshop where all the musicians who played on the weekend and any other interested local musicians were invited to come and play in one big band together. (I enjoyed it a lot, which apart from being good in itself was useful at a time when I was feeling down about playing in our local brass band, and trying to figure out whether it was that I'd lost interest or it was the band that wasn't doing it for me. I wish more of the people from the brass band had made it to the workshop.) The drama evening was good again, although some of the teenagers' self-devised pieces got a bit intense, with domestic abuse and murder and so on. Apparently, there's an actual project they do which involves delving into mental health issues and stuff, so they're not just leaping to these subjects on their own initiative; after some of the things they've come up with over the last few years, that's kind of a relief to know. The top prize went to the same actor as last year, and I'm going to be interested to see what he goes on to do.


5. A while ago, my shower developed a persistent drip, so after putting up with it for a bit in the hope it would go away, I decided to take another step into adulting and learn how to replace the little rubber bits inside taps. The most difficult part of it turned out to be finding a tool that would fit into the cavity and unscrew the tap fitting; I have a feeling the wall was tiled after the taps were installed, and the tiler didn't think to leave enough room. (I ended up making several trips to the hardware store in search of the right tool, and spent some time reflecting on the advantages I had in terms of time and disposable income that allowed me to persist and not give up and live with the drip.) When I did get it out, it was definitely the little rubber thing that was the culprit; the one on the hot tap was completely worn away, and when I'd replaced it (I did the cold tap too, to be on the safe side) the drip was gone. So was another problem the shower had been having where the amount of hot water would arbitrarily decide to have no connection to how much the hot tap was on, which I'd been putting up with for months on the assumption that it was down to a problem in the water heater that would be too expensive to fix. Part of why I assumed it was the heater and not the tap is that the kitchen sink has a similar problem; I recently had a go at those taps, but had to give up because the tiler left even less room and I'm not yet annoyed enough about it to go and buy yet another tool just for this one job.

1. This year the music section of the annual performing arts festival, which in previous years has been held over a weekend, was further divided into vocal and intrumental sections and held over two weekends. This came about because last year we had about three days worth of entries crammed into two days, which was stressful for everyone. This year we had three days worth of entries spread out over four days, which was a lot less fraught; we could begin and end each day at a reasonable time and still have time for proper refreshment breaks between sessions, and there was one afternoon in each weekend given over to some very well-attended workshops run by the guest adjudicators. It does mean we need to find two guest adjudicators each year instead of one, but on the other hand it gives us more options in finding them, since we don't need to find one person who's strong on both vocal and instrumental music.


2. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde opens in a week. It's coming together pretty well.


3. I have been to the gaming group only once recently, as there have tended to be Jekyll & Hyde rehearsals scheduled against it. One of the X-Wing players, whose usual opponents hadn't made it, saw me wandering around at a loose end and recognised me as someone who occasionally watches them play, so he invited me to have a go. I had control of a small Rebel fleet, versus his swarm of Imperial TIE Fighters. There was an exciting moment during the battle where one of my ships was on a collision course with an asteroid, but I managed the dice rolls that converted it from "ship collides with asteroid, takes damage" to "ship hides on asteroid for a turn, takes no damage". It came down to one Rebel and one TIE fighter, but the TIE fighter won in the end. I enjoyed it okay once I started getting the hang of it, but I don't think I see myself becoming an X-Wing player who owns his own set; way too many little fiddly bits to obtain and keep track of.


4. I have finished playing through the storyline in Lego Jurassic World, and am now exploring the bits of the game that are unlocked as the storyline is completed. It's definitely more fun once the dinosaurs show up. The triceratops is still one of my favourite dinosaurs to play, probably followed by the brontosaurus. Playing as the brontosaurus is strangely relaxing, as it's so large that the camera pulls waaay out to fit it in, and the parts of the game that usually seem so important are reduced to tiny distant things going on down by the dinosaur's feet. The baby velociraptor is also surprisingly good value as a player character. (Then you get into the possibilities afforded by genetic manipulation, such as a tiny compsognathus with a headbutt as powerful as a triceratops or a t-rex's shattering roar.)

One thing that's still bothering me about it involves the distribution of character traits: there's a very large overlap between the sets "character is female", "character has a glass-shattering shriek", and "character is Agile" (can jump high and squeeze through small gaps), in a way that makes Agile often look like a consolation prize for female characters who can't really do much else. To some extent, I suppose this is a result of the game being constrained by the roles given to female characters in the original movies. One thing that can't be blamed on the movies, though, is the way that the game seems to be rubbing it in by using hot pink as the colour code for obstacles that only Agile characters can get past.


5. Fanfic rec: Shadow-Self, a retelling of the False Guinevere legend. In the usual version, King Arthur's wife is secretly replaced partway through his reign by an impostor of identical aspect, her low-born half-sister, who causes a number of problems before the switch is discovered. In this retelling, that's not quite how it goes.

1. In July of 2013, I set out to re-read all the novels and short stories by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller set in the Liaden universe (sixteen novels, and considerably more short stories), one chapter at a time in chronological order, blogging my progress as a way to keep myself on track. I have now achieved that goal, but the blog will be continuing for a bit longer while I read the new novel that came out while I was re-reading the old ones. (That also buys me some time to finish up the concluding post on Lessons From This Project, or What You Can Learn From My Mistakes.)


2. For reasons that I may get around to talking about later, I have started studying German through Duolingo. (I did German for three years in high school, but most of it has leaked away since; what I usually say is that I can reliably manage "Hello", "Goodbye", and "I'll have a slice of the black forest cake, please".)

I was amused when one of the example sentences in the first lesson on nominative pronouns was "Ist das deine Kuh?" ("Das ist nicht meine Kuh. Es spreche Neigh. Das ist ein Pferd.")


3. The annual local performing arts festival is over for another year. Once again, I emceed all of it except for the session where I was playing with the brass band. I was pretty wrung out by Sunday evening. (The music section of the festival runs for three whole days, from Friday through Sunday. The drama section fluctuates a lot, depending on how many of the schools have active drama programs and choose to enter that year, but this year we had enough for a drama evening on the Monday, with some pretty impressive work entered. It strikes me that there is perhaps more outreach needed when the city has two theatre groups and neither ever produces any entries.)


4. I completed NaArMaMo this year, and found it very friendly and encouraging. I have posted my daily artworks on my Tumblr. (See if you can spot which one I did on Sunday night after the performing arts festival.)


5. Signal boosting: Humble Bundle offers bundles of games, ebooks, and other electronic products for special prices with proceeds going to charity. They're currently, but not for much longer, offering a bundle of Star Wars audio books which includes, if you pay at least $15, all three parts of the Star Wars radio series.

1. Best thing that's happened to me recently: waking up to a flurry of Teaspoon notifications and the news that one of my fanfics has been recced on calufrax. Made my day.


2. All that emceeing I did at Toastmasters in July and August stood me in good stead in the first weekend of September. I was volunteering at the annual performing arts festival this year, and I ended up emceeing most of it because none of the other volunteers were comfortable in that role. One of the sections I didn't emcee was the evening they did bands, ensembles, etc., because I was performing; the brass band did the usual, and this year several groups of band members also entered as ensembles (the ensemble I was in was beaten by the ensemble I wasn't in). The Character Vocal section was once again free of the scourge of Those Same Three Disney Songs; I'm pretty sure now that that was the work of one particular singing teacher who has now left town, though I kept forgetting to ask the more senior volunteers if they knew for sure. Being a volunteer, I saw all the parts of the festival I often don't bother with, which I think was a net plus; if I'd skipped the piano sections as I usually do, I'd have missed out on this year's trophy winner, who played a Clementi sonatina, a Beethoven eccosaise, and a piano solo version of the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean which featured lots of fancy fingerwork and ended with a dramatic chord that he played by leaping up and sitting on the piano.


3. My Re-Reading Liad project progresses. Tomorrow will see the conclusion of Crystal Dragon, then there's a week of short stories (mostly Tales of Moonhawk and Lute, slightly complicated by the authors recently releasing a new one) before beginning on Balance of Trade.

It's been interesting re-reading these books. I've been noticing details, and having reactions, that I didn't the first time I read them. Having to find something to say about each chapter, I'm paying more attention to details, and spreading them out over two months (the first time, I bolted them in something more like two days) makes a difference to how some things affect me. Although I often do notice new details and have new experiences the first time I re-read a book, even when I bolt it again, so it'll be interesting to see if anything changes when I get up to the books in the series that I've already re-read several times.

(In the mean time, I'm learning new things, and not just about things in the books: for instance, a passing remark led to me learning about the idea that a galaxy's spiral arms aren't rigid collections of stars, but standing waves that individual stars move into and out of over time. Wikipedia's article has some nifty animations.)


4. Another nifty thing involving spirals: Akiyoshi Kitaoka's blue-green spiral illusion.


5. The Hidden Almanac is what happens when an award-winning dark fantasy writer and cartoonist (namely Ursula Vernon, author of Digger and Dragonbreath and co-host of the podcast Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap) hears too many people describing Welcome to Night Vale as "A Prairie Home Companion meets H. P. Lovecraft" and starts wondering what would have happened if Lovecraft had met Garrison Keillor's other radio show, The Writer's Almanac, instead.

There are new episodes three times a week, written by Ursula Vernon and performed by Kevin Sonney, the other half of Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap; in each five minute episode, Reverend Mord describes a couple of events that occurred on this date in history, profiles a saint whose feast day it is, and offers some seasonal gardening tips. (The events are strange and the saints eccentric. The gardening tips, at this time of year, largely revolve around Ways of Getting Rid of All That Zucchini; even in a world where people spontaneously explode into swarms of butterflies, some things never change.)

This evening there was a concert to showcase the arts centre and the various local musical groups and activities. The line-up included a couple of bands, a couple of choirs, a music teacher solo and in a duet with one of her students, and various other solos, duets, etc. (I was in the brass band.)

It was nice enough, but I'm not sure how successful it was as a showcase - subtract the performers and their relatives, and there wasn't very much audience left over.

***

This reminds me that I haven't written the entry I was planning to about the annual performing arts festival.
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The main part of the performing arts festival is the music sections, which take up a whole weekend, but there's also a drama section, which takes one evening a few weeks later.
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One of the reasons I went to the drama night this year was that the adjudicator was Raymond Omodei, who was Director-in-Residence at the Repertory Club for a few months this year. Adjudicating the drama night was one of the incidental things he did as Director-in-Residence. The main thing was directing a play, The Playboy of the Western World.

And there's a whole 'nother entry I could write about that, but I don't think I'll do it right now. This is long enough already.