I think this may be one of the few times when the weather has been too nice for us to get things done.
Well, alright, I suppose that depends on your definition of nice; it's about a bajillion degrees outside right now. To Canadians warmer weather usually means better because the alternative involves a great deal of nice, snow, and crashing into stop signs. It's just a bit painful when that previous so sought after warmth turns around and tries to melt you. I've had the Canadian people as a whole compared to snowmen before, and this regard I have to say they've got it spot on.
The plans called for some sort of war-type-thing, I'm not a hundred percent certain on what weapons it'd be waged with, but the thought was to get everyone out into the wilderness with nothing but mutual harm in mind. 40 degree and higher weather puts a stop to this stuff just as easily as thunderstorms do. Honestly it's making just getting around incredibly painful whenever I don't have access to wheels.
Anyways, plans for a war are still on the table, and I'd like to do a super-hammy battle video if the others feel up to it, I just can't say when it's due by any means. The weather has been very inconvenient for what seems like the last four months, merely changing tactics when it grows bored of drowning us.
Actually sparking of videos I need to look into other ways we can record on the PS3, with titles like Catherine soon to arrive I'd love to do a let's play with them. Here's still a bit of time before it arrives though, so I'll see what I can whip up.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Books! Books!! BOOKS!!!
I'm knee deep in A Dance with Dragons and as much as I'd like to post about it here, I don't think I could possibly keep from derailing into talking about a Song of Ice and Fire in general if I did. Since I don't have ten hours to write, I don't think I have enough time to do that right now, but I'll get to it eventually. So I thought I'd just ramble about books.
I like to think of myself as a reader. I have a bookshelf overflowing with a number of my favorite authors. I can and have devoured novels in a single day. I've read before I go to sleep so often that I now practically can't get to bed at all without thirty minutes of a good book. But I have been in a bit of a dry spell recently - not in reading itself, but finding new material to eat through. I do enjoy myself a good series but the time always arrives when I've gone through a dozen books of some new author and end up asking myself 'now what?'.
It can take a bit of searching before I grab a brand new author off the shelves. It's not so much a terrible lack of money (though that contributes) so much as dedicating myself to a new imagined world. I've grown somewhat critical and cynical when it comes to reading. I'm overjoyed when I find an author that meets both my tastes in books and standards in quality. Oh, this isn't to say I won't ever read anything but the best of the best, no, I just tend to only explore new stuff when theres nothing left to pick through from source I've grown to trust. Also it tends to help if some one lends you the first book of a new author. The difference between some one handing you a book and feeling motivated enough to pick it up off the store shelf is noteworthy. Thus I find myself re-reading old favorites. Not a chore by any means, but after a couple months of that I start to get hungry for something new.
So it's with no small amount of happiness that I look toward the coming months. It seems there's a new book from my favorite authors coming out in each of them, each and very one continuing a long beloved series I've been following. We have, as I mentioned before, A Dance with Dragons out just now, and Ghost Story coming from Jim Butcher later in July. After that we have a new book from Pratchett contributing to his Guards story line, and then an additional Dan Abnett book in October to follow things up. For a summer that I feel is lacking in movie releases it's incredibly relieving to see a number of long awaited novels making a good showing.
Now if you'll excuse me I think I've typed my obligatory pile of senseless words today and I'm going to get back to G.R.R.M.'s latest work.
I like to think of myself as a reader. I have a bookshelf overflowing with a number of my favorite authors. I can and have devoured novels in a single day. I've read before I go to sleep so often that I now practically can't get to bed at all without thirty minutes of a good book. But I have been in a bit of a dry spell recently - not in reading itself, but finding new material to eat through. I do enjoy myself a good series but the time always arrives when I've gone through a dozen books of some new author and end up asking myself 'now what?'.
It can take a bit of searching before I grab a brand new author off the shelves. It's not so much a terrible lack of money (though that contributes) so much as dedicating myself to a new imagined world. I've grown somewhat critical and cynical when it comes to reading. I'm overjoyed when I find an author that meets both my tastes in books and standards in quality. Oh, this isn't to say I won't ever read anything but the best of the best, no, I just tend to only explore new stuff when theres nothing left to pick through from source I've grown to trust. Also it tends to help if some one lends you the first book of a new author. The difference between some one handing you a book and feeling motivated enough to pick it up off the store shelf is noteworthy. Thus I find myself re-reading old favorites. Not a chore by any means, but after a couple months of that I start to get hungry for something new.
So it's with no small amount of happiness that I look toward the coming months. It seems there's a new book from my favorite authors coming out in each of them, each and very one continuing a long beloved series I've been following. We have, as I mentioned before, A Dance with Dragons out just now, and Ghost Story coming from Jim Butcher later in July. After that we have a new book from Pratchett contributing to his Guards story line, and then an additional Dan Abnett book in October to follow things up. For a summer that I feel is lacking in movie releases it's incredibly relieving to see a number of long awaited novels making a good showing.
Now if you'll excuse me I think I've typed my obligatory pile of senseless words today and I'm going to get back to G.R.R.M.'s latest work.
Monday, July 18, 2011
South Tower Armouring Guild
I've mentioned a number of times that I'm trying to build a set of armor for the SCA. This isn't exactly an easy task, given the price range can wander up into the hundreds if not break a thousand even for the starter stuff. A huge chunk of the price actually comes from shipping, since genuine blacksmiths are precisely as difficult to come across as you might imagine. Furthermore shipping fees are usually base on weight and size, which tends to be a problem when you're talking about big metal plates meant to keep your guts on the inside.
So you can imagine my joy when I discovered a local armoring guild that could lend us a hand. Some of theirs prices were higher than I might have otherwise found, but the quality of work reflected that cost and honestly it was likely to end up cheaper once I deducted the shipping fees I was going to step around. All in all I thought it was a pretty good deal to get a better helmet for less just by picking it up myself, so I called up the guild master and asked for an appointment. He told us he was good for that very day and to come out whenever we could.
Josh and I sauntered out to see what we could. We weren't entirely clear on how we'd go about ordering up a helmet (the first thing we wanted), since he had mentioned that 'one size fits all', at least in terms of the metal, so all we'd have to worry about is the padding unless our heads were horribly abnormal. With that in mind we weren't certain if he'd have a few on hand we could just buy rather than ordering anything at all, so we found ourselves a bit confused but with pockets full of money as we drove off to small town the guild was stationed in.
To say things didn't go as I expected them doesn't give enough credit to what happened. It's fair to say things didn't even fall within the spectrum of what I thought could happen. There weren't any helmets waiting for us to buy, and there wasn't any ordering. Our worries that we'd actually need measurements of our heads were as unfounded as our fears the price would be more than we were led to believe. Mr. Fedun, the lead armorer, didn't even want to sell us anything. I had spoken to Mr. Fedun before and I was aware he knew the merchant business through and through, and when confronted by two young men with several hundred dollars in their pockets and no idea of what they were getting into I'm not certain how he surpressed the urge to take our money and send us on our way. Maybe I'm just a horrible person, because I don't think it ever even occurred to him.
He took us into his shop and showed us around in what I initially thought was just him proving that he does the work personally or at least on site by one of his own people. The tour quickly evolved though; he admitted he could just make our helmet himself and it'd be ours inside a week, but he didn't want to do that. No, he wanted us to make it ourselves. I think its important to make an aside here and point out that the collective metalworking experience Josh and I have amounts to something equalling that of a chipmunk. Possibly a dead one.
Sufficient to say it took him several minutes to make us properly understand what he was suggesting, let alone get me to wrap my head around the thought that the idea could have any outcome other than us accidentally burning down his workshop. He stuck to it though, for you see it turns out every Saturday he opens his shop to a number of people who make armor; for themselves or others. He wanted us to show up and join them. They teach one another, helping each other learn the various ways things are made and how to use each machine. We wouldn't have our armor anywhere near as soon, but it'd come from our own hands and we'd know how to maintain it.
After that came the full tour of his property, including such little things as a mead hall he's building and a trebuchet that can launch pumpkins. He apparently hosts tiny fairs every now and then. He teaches swordplay at Ottawa's Algonquin College and holds a black belt in a martial art. At that point I think I would've believed him had he told us he was a part time wizard.
It should come as no surprise that we took him up on his offer, I suppose, but I'm still shocked we even got it.
So you can imagine my joy when I discovered a local armoring guild that could lend us a hand. Some of theirs prices were higher than I might have otherwise found, but the quality of work reflected that cost and honestly it was likely to end up cheaper once I deducted the shipping fees I was going to step around. All in all I thought it was a pretty good deal to get a better helmet for less just by picking it up myself, so I called up the guild master and asked for an appointment. He told us he was good for that very day and to come out whenever we could.
Josh and I sauntered out to see what we could. We weren't entirely clear on how we'd go about ordering up a helmet (the first thing we wanted), since he had mentioned that 'one size fits all', at least in terms of the metal, so all we'd have to worry about is the padding unless our heads were horribly abnormal. With that in mind we weren't certain if he'd have a few on hand we could just buy rather than ordering anything at all, so we found ourselves a bit confused but with pockets full of money as we drove off to small town the guild was stationed in.
To say things didn't go as I expected them doesn't give enough credit to what happened. It's fair to say things didn't even fall within the spectrum of what I thought could happen. There weren't any helmets waiting for us to buy, and there wasn't any ordering. Our worries that we'd actually need measurements of our heads were as unfounded as our fears the price would be more than we were led to believe. Mr. Fedun, the lead armorer, didn't even want to sell us anything. I had spoken to Mr. Fedun before and I was aware he knew the merchant business through and through, and when confronted by two young men with several hundred dollars in their pockets and no idea of what they were getting into I'm not certain how he surpressed the urge to take our money and send us on our way. Maybe I'm just a horrible person, because I don't think it ever even occurred to him.
He took us into his shop and showed us around in what I initially thought was just him proving that he does the work personally or at least on site by one of his own people. The tour quickly evolved though; he admitted he could just make our helmet himself and it'd be ours inside a week, but he didn't want to do that. No, he wanted us to make it ourselves. I think its important to make an aside here and point out that the collective metalworking experience Josh and I have amounts to something equalling that of a chipmunk. Possibly a dead one.
Sufficient to say it took him several minutes to make us properly understand what he was suggesting, let alone get me to wrap my head around the thought that the idea could have any outcome other than us accidentally burning down his workshop. He stuck to it though, for you see it turns out every Saturday he opens his shop to a number of people who make armor; for themselves or others. He wanted us to show up and join them. They teach one another, helping each other learn the various ways things are made and how to use each machine. We wouldn't have our armor anywhere near as soon, but it'd come from our own hands and we'd know how to maintain it.
After that came the full tour of his property, including such little things as a mead hall he's building and a trebuchet that can launch pumpkins. He apparently hosts tiny fairs every now and then. He teaches swordplay at Ottawa's Algonquin College and holds a black belt in a martial art. At that point I think I would've believed him had he told us he was a part time wizard.
It should come as no surprise that we took him up on his offer, I suppose, but I'm still shocked we even got it.
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