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TheTome /
DefyCapitalisationYou are on the archive wiki. The new wiki is here. archivebeing a record of my exile to Durban 2002-2003 (is it still an exile if you live there?), mainly featuring a UCT status entry, except that people were still shocked and surprised when I returned ("are you back?" "well, I'm standing right here"), yeesh you'll find up-to-date current-type stuff at "d@vid" DefyCapitalisation used to be my usernamelogin (damn wikiwords), but now I'm all for using RealNames? instead of a PseudoNym decapitalisation policy: enforced by the ministry of little thingsthis blog runs latest-first (blog-wise rather than forum-wise), and accepts outside posts, but said comments may be ruthlessly decapitalised in the interests of public safety; in accordance with the geneva convention acronyms and wiki words are exempt from decapitalisation; the ministry of little things in no way endorses the terrorist acts of the e.e.cummings fan club d@vid Feb 13 2004:
yup, I'm back - so, here ends my diary in exile (exile inna diary?), apart from minor edits and thinking up a new name for a not-a-blog-at-all-really d@vid Feb 04 2004:strangely I find myself back at work sorting out loose ends, so much for hastur discovered niblick way is in SomersetWest? - I hope this isn't a commuting job, because that's just craaaazy but maybe I'll find a CNA in SomersetWest? with more delicious obscure R5 comic books! (I assume everyone knows that every CNA has R5 comic books?) afaik ForbiddenPlanet? is not going out of business or anything (they recently opened a new store), so I'm not sure why most of these comics have FP price tags on, but there you go it's obviously next to impossible to actually get a complete series out of these piles, and I'm not a collector anyways, so I've decided instead to get a good spread of comix styles so far I have way too much DC Vertigo (mmmmm...) but some variety as well, including reprints of TheSpirit? by WillEisner? (omigod! omigod!), Jupiter (recommended by Scott McCloud, not amazingly brilliantly brilliant though), Cerebus, and some non-fiction stuff (and some non-fiction stuff that is not canadian autobiographies, but I couldn't give you titles offhand) jeez, the number of comix I own has multidupled overnight, I just don't want to count 'em and add up the R5s Strangers In Paradise is a continuous (read never-ending) series, so I'm not keen on buying into it, but it is very very good - I should point out that none of the issues I bought had my namesake in them, although it's still true that DavidLovesKatchooLovesFrancine? for actually spending money on (some day in the far distant future in a galaxy not unlike our own) there's all the cerebuses (cerebii?) - the only reason I don't crave sandman is 'cause I already read it anyway, in getting a good spread, the best bet is to visit as many CNAs? as possible, so far that's been
and I'll now be extending into the western cape - flying tomorrow by not-as-cheap-as-it-could-have-been kulula - and I'm sure the committee will have sorted out the CLAWroom problem by the time I land d@vid Jan 30 2004:last day at work, yay! lots of loose ends left, am I an agent of hastur or what? will probably be net-dead until I get a signin at varsity warhammer news: WHAMM informs me that there's gonna be regionals and a national competition run by games workshop for a ticket to some other competition, presumably in the UK not sure who is actually running this, there should be details in the next WhiteDwarf? d@vid Jan 23 2004:so I told UCT my new postal address over a year ago, when I was planning to come back a year ago so they obviously don't have a centralised database since the finaid office have been trying to get me at that address for probably six months - thankfully my ultimatum sent to the science faculty got them in touch and I don't need to stress about paying large amounts of money just yet (instead I'll pay it with interest for the rest of my life, joy) hmmm... change of address form... it's exactly like dna's bureaucracy, I must download that and finish it one day more good news, I have an interview set up for friday - where's niblick way? damn 1time.aero and their limited (one) routes d@vid Jan 21 2004:damn ADSL line, good for stuffing a CD with open source goodies and indie game supplements, still bad for uploading, and now even logging on times out - after much hassling and calls to various service providers I have successfully generated a "not my problem at the end of the month" field and switched to the ISDN line "but why do you have both a..." long story backlogtoo... many... posts... oh well, I'll make up for it with net marathons later (glee) - anyone still playing that DSL MUD thing? I've also noticed there are several inconsistencies and continuity errors over my last posts due to ADSL and rl lag - there goes my humorous recital about dodgy cellphone dealers and the deaths and resurrections thereof - oh well indie 700 - campaign openingsCLAWmarks will feature some book related ranting and unsubtle summaries of the games wot I have bought - I plan to run minicampaigns for as many of them as possible (although not simultaneously, I plan on passing), they are universalis, sorcerer and my life with master - let me know if you are interested universalis is sufficiently cool and easy to run that some kind of weekly open game may be in order - it suits both one shots and campaigns (although campaigns haven't been extensively tested) CLAWprefix?how difficult would it be to just program the wiki to recognise CLAWords? (conflugate the w!) as WikiWords?? CLAWprefixed? words in CamelCaps? make me cry, although I recognise that I'm significantly outvoted here glowormsthey disappeared, how am I going to build a mutant army now? gotta love that DurbanGaming?I still haven't actually seen UND TollySoc? in the flesh, although I phoned the current king kzn roleplayers has acheived liftoff and is accelerating to escape velocity witnessed some actual nobilis play at the second meeting (go jem!) - the system is straightforward, I like it - the game is quite setting heavy, though, I wouldn't want to play in a campaign without actually reading the whole book - with sufficient summary and GM chat, though, it's observably adaptable to modules will be ending my D&D game just as I discover my necromancer has demon blood - drat - potential for difficulties with the cleric of St Cuthbert, so maybe not a bad thing; I've decided this will be the last time I devote much time to d20; there are too many good games out there to spend time on a system that, despite how much I enjoy the campaigns, doesn't actually excite me or even provide tools for the roleplaying I enjoy played bureacracy lately?I am still going to UCT; UCT may at some point say, "but hey, these forms..." at which point I'll say, "but hey, these emails you never successfully answered..." (it's all financial assistance- not admittance-related, unfortunately actually paying them is a rather important step) phoning the nice faculty lady today to give them one last chance I'm in liesbeck gardens which I'm sure is as ressy as any other res, but damn it's far away also damn kulula and their website of everchanging prices oh, and like happy new almost 11/12 of a year d@vid Dec 22 2003:hey sheelaaagh, how long are you in durban for? there's a potential LARP (more potential than LARP - I need to track down the effervescent mr lawrance) and a definite ]] meeting on January 17th. Damn - I would've loved to play, but I'm already booked for the 17th. So love to, but can't.... - ArchAngel d@vid Dec 21 03:stupid froggies do not allow me to download new ringtones, bleh, that's what I get for a cheap contract with an unusual brand DVDs are glorified bloody CD-ROMs?, no wonder they're going to be obsolete in 4 years - in the meanwhile at least gran and gramps can also listen to CDs? and... well, let's get them watching DVDs and listening to CDs? and then I'll try and find a CD with pictures worth browsing stupid ADSL line any rumours that perry and I may write a sorcerer LARP are completely unfounded, as I have only just lent him the books mandie, amazon sucks, use a real bookstore :D you know, if I had money and wanted to burn my soul on the altar of commerce, I'd open a scifi bookstore here in durban - before I lost money due to an insufficient market, it would rock d@vid Dec 14 03:hmmm... after several aborted posts from work I think that there may be problems with ADSL lines, what with them being asynchronous; anyone else experienced this? anyway, veryscarysalesthing cancelled cause I only had one order, so I consoled myself with ordering graphic novels and RPGs? for stock (well, one RPG, mutants & masterminds, talk about streamlined d20!) ohmygandalflordoftheringsmoviemarathonwahoo! I have already booked recovery leave for the 17th :D d@vid Nov 29 03:I reviewed (well, mini-reviewed) Sorcerer at http://groups.msn.com/Kwa-ZuluNatalRoleplayers/sorcerer.msnw but it's not going to feature at the inaugral (public) KZNRP meeting today, because, well, it's a game about summoning demons hello, buffy? d@vid Nov 27 03:belated thanks to jason, directory argonaut! jeez, opening a cellphone contract isn't exactly a smooth process, and the @!$% bastards don't let you choose any number, only 084 5* - so I had to settle for a very obvious misspelled lovecraft reference, which they couldn't verify as available! (I'd phone it, but who would answer?) d@vid Nov 14 03:the pimp is alive, amazing I have bioluminescent worm things in my garden, I've moved them all to the same patch in the hopes that they will breed new books niftiness! I'm not even breaking the law to bring you extracts from the CD database that booksellers subscribe to to source books, find subject extractions on scifi, fantasy (lots of overlap there, sheesh) graphic novels and, er, star trek, including 2004 notifications: http://inkwell.za.net/misc/ read the readme to interpret the BIC subject category file names - note for aspiring booksellers, the BIC code for graphic novels is FNG (fiction - n (other) - graphicnovels) not FGN (fiction - genre - naughty?) which is erotic literature what were they thinking?!?!!? what cool things you can do when your department finally upgrades to windows, sheesh - I'll update the files every month when we get the new CDs? - until february, when I hopefully will find employment with a cape town bookstore... which leads on to... I have two scifi sale books (pick from a list) up for grabs for the first kind individual to send me these details:
for these stores:
Hope this helps :P -- SynKronos easy enough in other news a formal-type gaming group is about to get going in KZN, first meeting on November 29, yay! TollySoc? is still elusive, but I must admit I have a contact number I haven't phoned yet d@vid Nov 11 03:I am shipping a book to david "very patient" sharpe, so now's as convenient a time as any to include things I have found for other people (only weird items for particularly weird folks) and fiction for the CLAWs library; is it suitable/worthwhile/convenient to send stuff for the abodeless library? d@vid Nov 03 03:on the CLAWmarks Unbound front, I happened across this print-on-demand service, run by Van Schaik publishers; Adams may be using it to reprint OP Africana, and it may be a worthwhile option for us (checking figures today) hardcovers look a bit expensive though re. wither's comments on the tshirt page: "CLAWs" makes it less likely for mundanes to refer to us as "The Claw" -- not that they are careful anyway I suppose... as I recall nobody appreciated "be all that you can't be" as a orginial motto thing, nor translated into latin for a coat of arms? (dragon rampant holding d20) d@vid Oct 13 03:from the douglas adams announcement list (I signed up at http://www.douglasadams.com I think): It's been a very quiet time for announcements, but finally, there's some Garth and Nick are very creative and very much in tune with the wit and Douglas, when asked about the movie, always used to say, "Any decade nowŠ". d@vid Oct 06 03:woohoo! guess who's copy of my life with master arrived today? drool, groan, it's aaaaaliiiive! imbolcon roxxored, naturally; there wuz: D&D (didn't play, reports so-so), Seventh Sea (swashes buckled! but a bit linear), Cthulhu (fun, inevitable death, two party members became cultists, no-one listens to the wise amazonian indian ("you white men are doomed")) and Paranoia (this unmitigated evil must be sent to cape town; it's designed for the con environment - perhaps schpatcon? what is bobcon anwho?) also wargaming; their trophies are way cool also actually made enough money at stall to potentially get paid, yippers! larp postponed, bleh :P in other news I am looking for comix artisans who would be willing to draw to my scripts (I'm neil gaiman, you're dave mckean, dig? (hubris! hubris!) except initially I'm gonna be experimenting with form & stealing text from more reliable sources, eg bill shakespeare) sned an email to mailto:kwill@mail.com indicating the kinda stuff you like to draw (no attachments necc.), so I know whether to script macbeth in mangaland or the wasteland in space final format will be free online with a square panel measuring either 150x150 or 200x200, so not to many fiddly bits -- if you're a pen & pencil person without scanner access it can wait till I'm in CT next year, just say so in yer email d@vid Sep 30 03:woohoo! guess who's copies of sorcerer & supplements arrived today, drool not enough time to prepare a demo for imbolcon but I'll be worrying more about selling Uni anyways hey happy commentators! rather insert new posts above mine, blogwise, ta d@vid Sep 28 03:42 reasons why I hate hippies...
(this from the tie-dyed wearing, rainbow dave - AndieMoore) while successfully defying my indigo nature, I noticed that almost every single hippie that approached my table picked up Books Of Fairy (a Tim Hunter collection) - the cover artist should be given a bonus the term "graphic novel": I despise it so, but the problem is I can't say "comix" because pointy-haired bosses hear "comics" and think Archie and Superman, and they wouldn't understand "comix" anyway; and they act surprised when they order shite and it doesn't sell so I have to coerce them to order Maus endless nights! endless nights! endless nights! it probably won't arrive in time for imbolcon, and neither, apparently, will any capetonians, you scurvy dogs! next year I'll keelhaul the lot of you up to Durban, and will hopefully have plenty o' accommodation to boot, ar! recently seen: Pirates of the Caribbean, roxxor! whoever did their continuity should get an Oscar (what? port royale? didn't you hear it sank into the sea? pfft - still AndieMoore) will probably only catch Equilibrium on video/mnet :P less recently seen: ST:Nemesis... hmmm... given the budget I expected a bit more, and they went and killed my favourite TNG character in a no-search-for-spock-type-return kinda way (and don't get me started on his replacement) still entered the sasfa competition :) more recently seen: Pure Blood, south african B-grade horror (just the concept is scary!)... find this and rent it now! destined to become a classic! this is what happens when you watch videos at perry's house (it wasn't my fault I swear, I was led astray my the bad influence of my friends - PeregrineDace) (pure blood refers to a AWB genealogy experiment that doesn't really fit into the plot, then again, nothing really fits into the plot; I'm still wondering what happened to the supermarket plague, or whether my brain made it up to try and make sense of a few bizarre scenes; everyone is still wondering what actually happened to the main character's mom and her alter-ego) currently reading: Time Traveler's Wife... decent science fiction, hurrah! more human drama than zap guns, and very well written, unlike, say, Oryx & Crake which was decently put together but no oomph (I haven't read Handmaid's Tale so I reserve judgment on Atwood in general) currently playing: AsalonFour (once it emerges from stasis), D&D (great group, yay Durban roleplayers, but, like, it's not my bag of holding, baby -- did at least get round to playing Universalis a month or so back, vv nifty, expect it to feature in Orientation or whenever) currently expecting: sorcerer, all sorcerer supplements, my life with master, textbook list for next year, not to pay off student loan this year :P looking forward to imbolcon and taking scifi & roleplaying stock with a touch of hippie, rather than the other way round d@vid Sep 19 03:irl-lag, wow... many interesting tales and books (holy moley! the time traveller's wife, due out in january, 's great!) but, er, no time to write, sorry :P okay, not many, a few, and mostly along the lines of "if another customer... sreaming heebeejeebees..." but seriously, WHO is gonna be at imbolcon? anyone? my house has many rooms - I'm definitely organising something next year vis a vis people from CT > my house > imbolcon, this year, if it happens, it'll just be more haphazard hey! sasfa website finally update: send them your details http://www.sasfa.org/_database/index.htm roleplaying in KZN, now semi-official! http://groups.msn.com/Kwa-ZuluNatalRoleplayers and if another customer wants to double-park outside the shop and rush in for his book which I don't have I'll have the screaming heebeejeebees many thanks to the people who ordered books and let me hang on to them so it looks like I have cool stock for Imbolcon (okay, person, okay, Dave99, ok, ook) d@vid Aug 13 03:I may have mentioned this on before: http://www.sponpress.com/ - I wonder if they'll publish CLAWmarks Unbound for us? then there's the maths textbook dedicated to HP Lovecraft... d@vid Aug 11 03:dragonfire comments people! or do I have to wait for the next CLAWmarks? yeesh finally got my UNISA course material, srre zl yrrg ebg13 fxvyym, except it has shrunk from 18-months to 6! and it seems maths 1 will haunt me forever... aargh... first assignment to at the end of this month... ack... d@vid Aug 08 03:I had the strangest waking dream the other night: the latest shipment from Ralph Mazza (the Universalis guy) had finally arrived but ended up on my floor rather than the receiving department, and someone had gone and opened it up (the last two events are not particularly unusual) but the shipment itself wasn't copies of Uni, but rather unassembled replicas of Seethreepio's head (that were supposed to be assembled), and Ralph had included a silvered hand from an original replica attempt as a sort of bonus now originally I sold three copies of Uni and gave one away for review, and ordered 6 more and one freebie to replace the review copy, so a Seethreepio head naturally equates to 3 copies of Universalis and the hand to a promotional copy, so it all kinda makes sense, see? but I'm darned if I know why the heads were unassembled anyway, as I was assembling the heads (more clockwork than you'd expect for Star Wars technology) I woke up with the idea that shipping direct rather than via our agents might be a better idea (oh and, like, icon was cool and it sucks not be at dragonfire, enjoy yourself, etc, happy birthday lara, get your asses down to imbolcon on oct 4/5, see my clawmarks article if it made the deadline, blah) d@vid Jul 19 03:aargh! work sucks up more time than wabbing... still working on CLAWmarks Online, article, characters for EmailTop and other stuff, promise spam:Universalis has arrived, special introductory price R162.35 and 10% discount for CLAWs as a member of SASFA (*), more details at http://universalis.actionroll.com/ -- also free delivery if you order in time for me to give to Tim on another of his CT<>DBN trips (*) what do you mean you don't know? blame Brendan for not meeting the trekkie, then check out http://www.sasfa.org/ (still under construction) - this is a super super super concept d@vid Jul 02 03:the magic number is 1728-3221 CLAWmarks, now with a slinky ISSN :) doesn't show up on http://www.issn.org/ yet but a genuine french guy sent the email, promise! d@vid Jul 01 03:leave forms: filled, car pool: signed up, uncle & aunt: almost prepared Icon here I come! d@vid Jun 30 03:so I'm sourcing a JackTeeChick? book (shiver) for a fellow staff member who will probably take it seriously -- feel the pain should just maybe be attending Icon (car pools rock! will be convincing people with cars who can drive that they should be doing Dragonfire too ;) finally signed up for my cryptology course (part 1 of 4) reading too many damn books just posted a report of my HarryPotter? demo game to cthudmasters and at TheForge (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=73314#73314), much angsting about the difficulty of selling rpgs, your commiseration welcome d@vid Jun 27 03:the trick to blogging is to leave off until enough interesting things have happened so that it appears you actually have a life (also, working 5.5/6.5 day weeks too many times in a row sucks) forthwith... I ran a roleplaying demo for kiddies at the HarryPottter? book launch - I intended to run a half-hour game, and in fact clocked about 20 minutes (according to JemNorton?) so that was cool, I only sold a Pokemon CCG starter pack so it wasn't cool from the make money and sell 3rd ed stock before 3.5 ed comes out perspective I will post a more detailed report to cthudmasters and on TheForge 733+ website alert: http://www.bookfinder.com/ it finds (almost) everything! including new and old roleplaying stuff (it's connected to the databases of amazon, amazon-alikes, http://www.abebooks.com/ and abebooks-alikes... new game alert: Universalis? http://universalis.actionroll.com/ Uni is a spanky new everyone-is-a-GM game, and it would be in stock at Adams except that it got put on a boat instead of a plane -- if we're really lucky (1) the Adams Roleplaying Book Buyer (a really nice chap) will be making a business trip to Icon and (2) Uni will arive before then so that (gasp) it will splashdown at za's biggest con! CLAWmarks stuff: I'm working on it, I swear (dunno why the ISSN contact hasn't got back to me with a shiny 8 digit number) p.s. it will be cheaper to go to Icon than Dragonfire, that's why p.p.s. hmmmm, I was sure other interesting things happened in the last two months, but it appears that, in fact, I have no life d@vid Apr 26 03:hurrah, more gumph added above the fold; what is this, bauhaus? d@vid Apr 24 03:mmm, still learning this wikithing -- no more byzantine suggestions for now; I do like BackLinks? though... mmm... cross-referencing d@vid Apr 23 03:so much to learn, so little time online... WikiPlugin?! BackLinks?! I heard something about a new astronomy course being offered at d@vid Apr 22 03:more wishlists! I'll submit content too, promise ;) d@vid Apr 20 03 also:although I won't be attending Dragonfire (sob) I have been going (aargh, I'm wikiblogging!) d@vid Apr 20 03:I've worked very hard and used capitals and punctuation and if it's all too much for you just read some reviews (if I manage to post em today) at FandomMenace or find out HowtoSpider the wiki d@vid Apr 19 03:happy birthday to me! d@vid previously on this episode:okay, so I'm stuck in a bookstore, so whydontchew test my leet book ordering skills unfortunately I can't extend a friends-of-d@vid discount, but our prices are good (well, better than EB ;) email me all formal like at mailto:west@adamsbooks.co.za d@vid a long time ago...:naomi klein http://www.nologo.org is a babe, but it's not capitalism I'm worried about here... what kind of a system bases functionality on capitals anyway? none of my standard usernames have capitals! gnash, grrr! e.e. yours, |