The Fine Sweater is finally complete! Great pattern by Yu Jie, based on the comic by KC Green. This is definitely the most complicated thing I’ve ever knitted, and I think it took me as long to embroider it and weave in the ends as it did to knit it, but I’m glad I did it. Not recommended for anyone who is a perfectionist, though.
#knitting @knitting
#knittersofmastadon
In 1999 to 2000 I was going through a very rough patch in my life. What with the state of things, I didn't get to see #GalaxyQuest when it was first released. Finally, on a day I was feeling particularly low, and shortly before the movie left the theaters, I canceled work and took myself out to a midday matinée.
I was the *only* person in a vast theater, of a size that no one builds anymore, sitting and waiting for the lights to go down. At one point, I turned and peered up at the projectionist's booth. I saw a shadowy figure moving back and forth behind the window, bending and straightening. This was in the days before automated, digital films. The Phantom Menace had been released digitally in 1999, but the equipment to show such films was extremely expensive and most theaters hadn't converted yet; "projectionist" was still real job.
While I was looking, the figure paused, strode to the window and peered back at me, then disappeared quickly.
I turned back around and continued to fidget and ponder the misfit pieces of my life.
At the top of the aisle behind me, the theater door swung open and banged loudly on the wall. The projectionist strode down the aisle toward me, a tall barrel-shaped man with a thick beard and glasses. My first thought was that the matinee was canceled due to low turnout, and I'd be getting a refund. Just as I'd resigned myself to that, the marching projectionist shouted out in a booming voice,
"WELCOME to your PRIVATE viewing oooooooof GALAXY QUEST!!!"
He stopped in front of my row, and I saw that he had an *armload* of STUFF. One by one, he began presenting each thing to me, and as the pile in his arms dwindled, the one in my lap grew.
"As our SPECIAL VIP Galaxy Quest GUEST today, YOU are entitled to..."
"- A commemorative t-shirt!"
"- A poster suitable for framing!"
"- A limited edition refrigerator magnet!"
"- A button to pin to your lapel!"
The list and the shwag went on. With every ridiculous item, I laughed harder and harder, until there were tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.
Then he bowed and shouted, "WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE SHOW!" and turned on his heel to march back up the aisle and out the exit door.
Alas, of all the shwag only the magnet has stood the test of time. But the humor and kindness of the unknown projectionist lives on.
I'm going to play Successors (4th edition) this weekend, so I downloaded the rules.
They're 40 pages long and begin with a disclaimer that they're a reference, not a tutorial. "A better way to learn the game is to have someone teach you. Watch a video or two online if you can."
So I found the videos -- three parts. The first part, on victory conditions, is 20 minutes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afMAknpZSbw
This video was quite well done. The game promises to be a wild ride of territory-conquering, heir-assassinating, and corpse-stealing.
We haven't been in the forest for a long time to feed the birds, the snow is too deep and too soft to walk on. We tried to walk in again today, just for a short walk.
Some birds followed us, like a Red-breasted Nuthatch and some Chickadees...
Oh, come on, this is not how you report about **a desert exo-planet with two suns**:
This is:
https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/#!/ENSeGbeZjBjkNOO4aR1z/edit
🤓 🔭 👽
#science #scifi #humor #astronomy #starwars
Played more AER Memories of Old. It appears that there are quests and a story arc; I've obtained one of the three items I need to save the world.
I was once again hit by a control mystery; if it was explained to me at some point, I blinked. Many locations silently can't be interacted with if you don't have your lantern in hand. Fortunately, I stumbled across the key (F) for toggling this.
Me, arranging Bananagrams tiles to spell FNORD: Do you know this word?
Student: No?
Me: THAT'S RIGHT. YOU DON'T.
Every Easter, my mom would hide my Easter basket and I’d run around the house looking for it.
It was usually somewhere pretty obvious like in the corner of a room or on a shelf, but I didn’t want my mom to know she was bad at hiding things, so I’d walk past it about twenty times to make her think it was a challenge.
I genuinely thought I was doing a nice thing, but now I think back on my poor mom watching her child walk past a gigantic Easter basket. Each time becoming more and more concerned that she had raised a complete idiot.
#Violet knows what the sounds of the linen closet opening and the bathtub faucet turning mean...
Tried out AER Memories of Old. The tutorial is very gentle right up until the first time you jump off a cliff and turn into a bird. It tells you to use space to flap, but as hard as I flapped I always nosedived.
Eventually I turned to the web and found out the reason: the aerial controls are completely different from the land controls. I assumed that, as on land, W would move you forward and space would move you up. This also seemed reasonable given past games from Joust through Flappy Bird. It turns out that, in the air, W and S point your nose down and up, while flapping propels you forward.
With this understanding, the game is not too stressful (so far). The low-poly graphics are appealing, including various birds you encounter on the floating islands.
My next question was whether there was some kind of quest journal. The answer from the Steam forum:
"It's a walking simulator. Walk / fly around and explore the world. You'll see, what you have to do. Otherwise in your hometown (-island) are some people. Talk to them, maybe they know, what to do."
Open world sandboxes aren't really my jam, but I'll give it a few more sessions to see if it grabs me.
Final G tally:
Go Nuts for Donuts! (x4)
+Go Nuts for Donuts! (x2)
Gravwell
*Go (x14)
Guildhall
Gaïa (x2)
Ghost Stories
CS professor, game designer, and fire dancer ordinaire.