I have no more desire to use this website, and so this is simply the goodbye.

Tags: it seems to me that i am a simpleton by

Today is my 22nd birthday. It's my first birthday since I moved to Brummieland.
To celebrate, a very special cake was made for me by Kirsty in a form I have often pondered upon but never been able to have until now.
She had told me that as she enjoys baking, she would make me a birthday cake in any form I wanted, even down to the individual ingredients that it contained.
Anyone who knows me should have seen this coming a mile off, but...
( Genki )So yeah. I'm a bit weird but I have a loving partner who puts up with my nonsense and ramblings in cake form.
Her hands have a healthy green colour due to the colouring of the cake now. That shit ain't coming off for a few days :D
We also just came back from a local curry house, one of the top rated, The Spice Exchange.
We've been once before, and it's reknown around this part of Birmingham for it's quality. With good reason.

Prices, for a restaurant aren't too bad...
For shared starters, we had a portion of Chicken Tikka, one Garlic Naan bread, and two Pappudoms (As Kirsty calls it, a Pompadom o__O) which came with three dips - a mango chutney that really did make you feel like you were having a baby (Which makes Kirsty want to try a triple fried egg butty with chilli sauce and chutney) a mint sauce following their own recipie that tastes like it includes lemon, lime and vinegar... and some sort of vegetable thing that I can only describe from it's components. It's like a diced pickled onion in sweet and sour with corriander.  Very nice though.
For the main course, I had a Mushroom pilau rice with a Chicken Tikka Balti (Birmingham is the birthplace of balti, apparently) whilst kirsty enjoyed a standard pilau rice with a standard Chicken Balti. 
The whole lot cost £29.80, the bill came with two Elizabeth Shaw chocolate mints, and we were left so content that we did not stay for dessert. 
Also, we had half a naan bread and a lot of dip left, so in true Essex spirit, I asked them to pack it up to take home. 
Some habbits die hard, eh? :P
It's a really nice place to go, so if anyone for any reason is coming to Birmingham, I suggest you try to find this place.
 

( Take a look at the placemat. )

I had a really good time, thanks to Kirsty keeping me company. It's a bit of a change from my old "jaunt around London in costume" thing, to be sure, but that only happened three times and so it was hardly tradition, was it?  

Giftswise, I have yet to obtain but shall be getting a few GOOD knives for when I begin my professional cookery course, and a copy of Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires for the PS3.

Tags: birthiversary
Current Mood: happy

Recently, whilst visiting Charity shops, I came along a rather interesting article. A decorative plate with an asian design on it.
( Click here to see the plate )
Now, I am not normally the type to buy such things.. However, this one interested me.
My Grandfather died some years ago now, but this refreshed a memory.
He was a great lover of the Japanese art known as Ukiyo-e.  I am aware that the image is not of Ukiyo-e art, but it reminds me of going to visit my grandparents...
When I used to visit, there were many images on their walls and a few plates - which depicted asian art, with a gold rim, and the two types of writing on them that this plate does.
Despite it not matching the style, I felt the compulsion to purchase this as a sort of memory fragment.
It was only £2, and is now the first -proper- piece of decorative art that I own.

Tags: in memory
Current Location: Dining Room
Current Mood: pleased

Well, I just got back from Bournville College. I have enrolled and am accepted onto a course entitled 'Professional Cookery'.  Have my Student ID and everything.
Seems a bit weird. I was never too interested in colleges and the like in the old days. To think that i'm going to be going to learn now seems odd. Kirsty had encouraged me to go to learn for a while, and with my cooking interests, it seemed appropriate to progress further towards a career in the cullinary arts.
I'll be starting in September, and it's a 1 year dealie. Totally free because I haven't got a job. Woot for the government actually being good for SOMETHING.

Tags: enrollment
Current Location: Dining Room
Current Mood: cheerful

Seems that i've gone from daily to monthly as of late.
There really isn't much need for me to blog, and so I keep putting it off until there's some substantial matter.
I've got an open day about a temporary job cleaning plates in a kitchen at a cricket grounds during some sort of test match or something. I don't like sport, so I don't much care about the gig. It's just nice to be able to mark on the CV that I haven't been doing nothing for ages.
That open day is on Monday, so I'll tell you all how that goes.
I just hate the concept of a two-hour open day for such a simple job. Just point me to my sink on the day and tell me to get on with it. I don't need a tour for that.

A few days ago, Kirsty and I went to Church. 
Never thought i'd be saying that. Me, in Church?
Well, it wasn't anything seriously religious. We kept saying for ages we wanted to go for a walk, but never got around to it until a little while ago.
She showed me the local sights, including buildings from the 1400's... And a Church to match. The architecture and details on the outside of this building are monumental, and awe-inspiring. With the exception of the bells, the clock facing and a few dedication stones, the entire thing is still in 'original' state. Very impressive.
See, we both love old-style buildings, they're very interesting to us.
We noticed on the Church bulletin board that on Wednesday evenings, they light the church by candles for people to come in and see.
We intended to just look around it, and then maybe relax before heading back.
There was a weird point where we both walked in-sync down the aisle, which un-nerved us a little, but it was a pleasant feeling.
We met the Vicar. He came and introduced himself because he hadn't seen us before.
Seems that later in the day, they sit down, read a bible passage and then discuss it's meaning to them, with relevant stories from their own lives.
It's not a religious thing like you see preachers in a town center doing, threatening this or the other if you don't accept Jesus. It was more of a community support center.
That I found to be astonishing. After all of this time, after all of the people who blame things on God for their own whims, or follow religion too heavily... here are some people who are following the MESSAGE, and not the STORY. How it's meant to be taken. Very nice, very polite people, listening to and helping each other - in fact, Thursdays are supposed to be silent prayer, but it usually evolves into community support once again where people share their problems and people offer a friendly opinion.
We do intend to visit again at some point.

So, on the 6th is another anniversary for Kirsty and I. Almost two years now... It's gone really fast, and yet, at the same time I feel more as if we've been together for decades. We're getting along well and there's no real turbulence anymore.
We're planning a picnic after I get back from my open day nonsense thing. We've been wanting to do that for a while too, so it'll be nice to spend some time out together relaxing.
She says there's a forest near here, so we are going to go there for the picnic.
Also, if time permits and we get hungry later in the evening, we're going to walk down to a local high-class looking indian restaurant. There's two or three that are meant to be good, so this all depends on how we feel and how far we would want to travel.

In other news, I am beginning concept work for a small scale comic project based upon the AD Police from Bubblegum Crisis. The designs are quite interesting to me, and for a world with such heavy writing behind it in official printed matter, there is so much that is unexplored about the future Tokyo city. People can see my work over at my Deviantart page.

Tags: monthly musings
Current Location: Front Bedroom
Current Mood: cheerful

21 months on the 6th. Figured i'd do something different, seeing as I don't often do much special - we usually go out to eat at the same place, etc.
So I made 21 notes, each of which had a puzzle to find another location in the house on it. The last note had a key on it to allow her to open the hiding place of her gift  - 20 roses and a box of her favorite chocolate.
It took me about three days to plot out the puzzles, and 3 hours to hide the notes about the place. =)

What was nice, is she got me a rose (as well as a huge box of chocolates), so altogether we have 21 roses sittin' here, and it's awesome!
It was fun, and I do think she enjoyed it.
It's difficult, but i'll have to try and come up with other unique things to do in further months.

Tags: professor kirsty and the secret annivers
Current Location: Front Bedroom
Current Mood: amused

I've grown bored of my digital routine.
That is to say, i'm bored of the places I tend to post on the 'net - checking even a few of them is a fairly tedious chore, and my post counts have dropped dramatically in the past few weeks, as nothing seems to spark my interest now.
It's not just that, it's also videogames. I used to use them to consume large portions of days in which I had nothing better to do. But now, i've played them all before. Even with the Download content for SC IV, it was just about 15 new clothing items. Once you've looked at them, there's nothing else of interest in them.
I've been for a long time trying to max every character's level on Dynasty Warriors 6. Only it seems once you've completed story mode on easy for everyone, they're level 21+, and can therefore complete Lu Bu's final mission on Hard mode, which jumps them rather quickly through levels due to the sheer number of enemies that give bonus exp when killed (especially if you focus their skill pattern on 'bonus tome') - So it's kind of dull now. I still want to do it, it's just a bit monotonous, when you get to that level of it in which you know all the layouts and exactly what re-inforcements come out when. I sat waiting on the exact spawnpoint of CaoCao's force in one mission, and beat 5 generals at once. On hard mode. With a level 25 character that has crap attacks.

Not just the 'net and games that're dull though. Even though i'm actively painting and converting Warhammer models, I still haven't played in the best part of half a year. I just don't have drive for it. It's a fun game and all, but the GW in town closes early due to it's location, I don't really know the guys, and it'd just be a hassle to go there even if it is conveniently located.

So yeah. I'm bored with entertainment designed to cure boredom.

Tags: stagnant
Current Location: Front Bedroom
Current Mood: bored

Two day ago, Kirsty was helping me clean the house. She was cleaning the windows and I was in the Kitchen, cleaning some soy sauce up that had leaked it's way onto the shelves.
All of a sudden, she goes "Sami! Bird!" and I look up. It's normal for her to shout random words and normal for me to be confused as to the context.
And so I get up and wander over and she goes "There's a dead bird in the front garden."
She didn't want to leave it there - not only could it go funny, but there's a cat next door and she didn't want the cat to eat the bird.
She asked if we could bury it.
Our front garden is all slate, and the only grass in the back garden is synthetic.
As a result, I suggested we find somewhere along the canals to bury it. Actually, I originally suggested a viking sea-burial. But she didn't go for that.
She did suggest we bury it in the plant pots. It would make the trees grow better (we have a cherry tree, an apple tree and a plum tree that refuses to grow at all)
From our recycling box, we got a cadbury cookie box, helped the bird into it (originally it faced upwards in the box, and Kirsty wanted it on it's side, so she then shook the box 'til it moved), and went off down the canal. With a roll of Cellotape and a spade. Cuz that doesn't look shifty.
Kirsty said if anyone asks what we were doing, she'd offer them a cookie.
We eventually settled for a green area along a rather quiet cycle path, and dug a hole.
We named the bird Geophrey.  I made a cross out of sticks to mark the burial site.
Not sure if burying stuff in public places is legal. Ah well.

Tags: geophrey.
Current Location: Front Bedroom
Current Mood: calm

I've not blogged in so long. I feel like the livejournal police are going to come along and pressgang me into making a post of I don't do it soon.
First off, I'd like to say... I'm not really sure why I blog. I doubt anyone really reads this thing anymore besides Kirsty.
I suppose part of me still wishes that I had close friends who'd read up on my life and be interested, but I've grown apart from so many people now.
There's an offer on my Deviantart right now to do art trades. If anyone wants anything, I do have a spare moment.
Relationship's going steady. We're doing quite well, and in a few more months Kirsty and I will hit the 2-year milestone, which i'm pretty sure unlocks an achievement akin to those on the Xbox360.
It's odd, but things between us are better now than they were at any point in the past with the exception of the first month in which there is always new-relationship energy, so I guess as that's a natural thing, this is better than ever.
I may be looking into deepening our bond in the near future, so I'll keep you all posted.
We do keep mentioning cosplay and going to conventions, but we're just real busy right now. We will eventually get around to doing something.
My secret Ultimate Cosplay plan is still in the concept stages, though it's not too secret anymore. If people want another hint, the word Genom should suffice.
We're also planning Amano versions of the FF6 Characters Locke and Terra, as well as, curiously, Yu-Gi-Oh! Characters Maximilian J. Pegasus (Pegasus J. Crawford) and Toon Dark Magician Girl.
I must say that i'm looking forward to all those costumes, wether they make it to a convention or not.
The Amano designs, with their sashes and beads, remind me of my glory days when I was Jack Sparrow.. Pegasus is about as femme as you can get before venturing back into crossplay.
Kirsty'll look awesome in anything she makes.

I'm also still working on a tabletop games system. People who know me will know that i've been ranting over games systems for many a year, and all of my work has been based on an evolution from my first online game concept when I was 14. Not much of the original system remains. It was too simple in my first website, became barebones for my second, then leapt into overly-complex in my third before being streamlined in 4th and compacted in the 5th.
When I took it offline, there were numerous additions to be made to bring it into the tabletop realm (lines of sight, distances, ranges, terrain and speeds) , which would have been the 6th revision of my rules system... Up until that point it'd been for Mecha.
The 7th revision went to a much smaller scale, featuring people, and it became a fantasy game set in the modern era about Vampires. It's incomplete but playable as-is. The rules were never defined for vehicles, however, and neither were numerous discrepencies on movement that i'd overlooked because I was working from the statsheet outwards to the rules.
Now, for my 8th version of the original rules... I've started from the ground up. I started by simply explaining movement, then expanding on actions related to movement until it merged into combat.
Combat rules were then identical to the 7th revision's laws, bar the distinction of grenades. Before, all grenades were akin to the pineapple fragmentation used by the military. Now, there's a difference between timed and impact explosives.
The new movement rules for the 8th version of my system, "M.P.D.S" include vehicles, obstruction and obscuring targets, working line of sight in 3 dimensions, and a host of new abilities.
The core rules are at 4,500+ words right now and i've yet to describe injury mechanics and recruiting force, let alone special rule exeptions, weapon types, universal upgrades and then the specific lists for the in-game forces.
I am building it based on A.D. Police, Parasite Dolls, Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash, but the system is a core block, as it is. It can, right now, or at least at the end of tomorrow, be used to make a tabletop game for ANY fandom you care to enjoy.

I'll be willing to talk at great length to people who are interested about such a system...
My buddy is doing some research into Japanese licensing laws to see if it's possible in any capacity to go public with this without getting sued. That's the last thing I want for a fun tabletop designed to encourage friendship.

Tags: the musings of the easily amused
Current Location: Front Bedroom
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Konya Wa Hurricane

So, i've been putting off watching this for a while now, but it was recorded on the V+ box, so yesterday  Kirsty and I sat down to watch this 3-part mini-series.

Uhm. It isn't exactly what I was expecting. A fair bit too much CG. On the making of, they said "The hallways are far too long to physically built" :\
Don't give me that shit, you did it before, YEARS ago, on a budget of peanuts, with only two shades of gray paint. Go do it the same way you did it back then. You still need X amount of space for the digital layout to register the surroundings. If you have the right amount of space, you can easily bolt together some cheap fucking walls, you bastards. Stop relying on CG, which probably costs more.
The visiting Coronation Street part was incredibly cheap. "Let's use a set that we have access to thanks to one of our cast working on it so we don't need to pay for any sets or cg or anything." Fuck you. That's not the Red Dwarf way.
It reminds me of Star Trek: The Original Series, where they spent their budget on explosions and stuff and had to set the episode on a planet that was a curious identical copy of Earth during the 1960's.
It could have been so much better than it was. So much potential.
I liked the reference to a few new seasons having to be made, but if they did, I would expect no CG, extensive modelwork, and the classic Beeb 6-episode-season format.
There were a few things that didn't make much sense...
1. Rimmer is a Hologram? In Season 8, he's very much alive. This means that within Season 9 and 10 (to be filmed?), Rimmer lost his body for the third time (First being the original accident, Second being when he regained his body and lost it during Timeslides, third being however he loses it after Season 8) - Note that he doesn't seem bitter about it at all, so this means it'd be early Season 10 at the latest. Could make for a good episode.
2. The second Hologram. They question why she's there but never state how come she is. I know it's a hallucinogenic world they're in at the time, but... Maybe i'm just too fond of knowing all the facts.
3. Where did she come from? She was never listed as registered crew before, they only confirmed she's a member of the JMC fleet. How did she get there? We could theorise that it was another Holoship, or rather a Holocraft, designed for one occupant, but then, the JMC would have to know where they were, which begs the question why this didn't happen sooner.
4. How did a car kill her? She's a hardlight Hologram, Rimmer stated that. A Softlight Hologram is easy to kill as their lightbee can be targetted with ease, but a Hardlight, as Legion stated in the episode of the same name (Season 5, Ep 2), Rimmer can experience both pleasure and pain, but he cannot come to actual harm. Hardlight makes him invincible. I hardly think a car can do damage that the thousands of things the small rouge one's been through failed to do.
These are my main problems, but the list does go on. It was terribly written, used too much CGI, and.. there was something else that seemed wrong with it. Kirsty realised later what it was.
It's too professional. What we love about Red Dwarf is the first few seasons, with it's fresh jokes, and the fact it wasn't serious. All of the actors were pretty fresh, not professional, they smegged up a lot of the scenes, and it was good.
It's been so long now that they've developed skill and acting talent. They're "good" now on a real level, which made them unsuited for a show such as Red Dwarf.
Even if we rebuild the cheap BBC "it's obviously a set" sets, and the Holly Hop Drive "just a box with stop and start on it", the actors have changed too much. They're not the same people who would grin stupidly during takes and play up, competing with each other for laughs. They're actors. They act seriously, and it doesn't quite work.
While I welcome two new series made as Red Dwarf: Back to Basics on a budget of £20 an episode, I think the actors need to cut loose a bit.
Old Red Dwarf was akin to The Original Muppet show: They compete with each other and try to upstage each other to make each performance better. That's what they need to do with the Dwarf now.

Tags: red dwarf: back to earth.
Current Location: Kirsty's Room
Current Mood: cheerful