dr_kromm | Entries tagged with life in general

We had a great Christmas dinner yesterday: a goose stuffed with fruit and nuts, accompanied by homemade cranberry sauce (Nova Scotia style) and several tasty vegetables (including artichokes that stabbed me in the finger while cooking). With that, we drank a sweet and lovely Hugel Gewürztraminer vendange tardive; most people don't think that VT goes with food, but just try it with goose. We didn't have much room for dessert, so we munched on a little marzipan with a half-bottle of Mondavi Moscato d'Oro. All told, a wonderful meal.

Today, we're watching ice fall from the sky. Fortunately, I've never been one for Boxing Day sales. I'll most likely stay in, avoid the freezing rain, and play a game involving zombies.

Current Mood: content

1. Bonnie and I got Borderlands on December 19. We've played it way too much! It's a rockin' game. Its only fault is bad online multiplayer functionality. It works flawlessly over the LAN. Internet multiplayer doesn't work for one player without tons of port forwarding, and doesn't work at all for two players behind a router. Gamespy can bite me. But enough with the negativity! Back to Merry Blowing Stuff Up.

2. We went to dinner chez M. & Y. on December 23. It was great! Y. made Japanese food . . . lots of Japanese food. Y. is Japanese, so this means "food that people actually eat in Japan" as opposed to "food similar to what Japanese restaurants sell in North America." This was a nice change from tons of Christmas cooking.

3. We returned the favor tonight, and had M. & Y. over for our Christmas Eve dinner. This is an annual tradition for us: a buffet-style meal with figgy pud for dessert, served alongside tasty beverages. Before dinner, we all made gingerbread critters: people, animals, . . . and zombies. Christmas zombie has lots of gory red icing, a leg off, and little sugar-sprinkle buckshot wounds.

Merry Christmas, all!

Current Mood: relaxed

Man, I've been bad about posting anything but updates on my GURPS work and GURPS campaign. I don't have any major personal stuff to report, but for those who read to keep track of me rather than my GURPS-related activities:

• Our landlord has chaps redoing the brick on street side of the building. They started on September 21. They're still at it. They arrive early and start making noise with power tools and mallets. This is not good for sleep. Their work generates an ankle-deep layer of brick dust every day, and sometimes it drifts inside. This is not good for allergies. I will be glad when they're done, as I'm slowly turning into a zombie.

• Bonnie was away September 24-28, visiting with her brother and parents at her brother's secret Canadian base in Nova Scotia (he lives in the UK, his parents live in Florida, and of course Bonnie lives here in Montréal). When she returned, she brought me live lobster. If you love seafood, you'll know just how awesome that is. If it squicks you to eat giant sea bugs – especially ones you have to boil alive – well, sorry.

• On zombies again: I saw Død snø on Wednesday night. Yes, it's silly and doesn't break much new ground. It's still awesome. I mean . . . zombie Nazis. Frickin' zombie Nazis!

• My office chair was giving me a sore butt. Other parts too. I finally did something about it. If you're in the market for a good chair, the one I bought is really quite nice.

Current Mood: sneezing
Current Music: "Salzsee," Ellen Allien

Wow, this past weekend was full! I was planning to write recaps of our July 21 and 28 game sessions, but that didn't happen because . . .

Friday night, we had a visit from Martin K., a particle physicist friend from my days in graduate studies. He operates out of North Carolina, but he was in Montréal for a short time. We had a lovely evening! We snacked on raw-milk cheeses with homemade blackcurrant jam on baguette (try it!), and then Bonnie made pad Thai, I made many caipirinhas, and we caught up on old times.

Early Saturday evening, Bonnie and I went out with Jim Cambias, his wife Diane, and their daughter Emily. They were in town for Worldcon. We headed down to la Maison Kam Fung – in Chinatown – and grabbed a tasty meal that involved dumplings, noodles, shrimp, duck, and lots of other goodies. Afterward, Emily convinced us to hit a small Chinese bakery to get sesame seed balls for dessert. (Bonnie grabbed a few extras and some red bean buns for Sunday's breakfast.)

On returning home, we had our second engagement of the day. E., D., and their daughter Z. came over to celebrate my birthday – something I'd put off until after my UK trip. I asked for cupcakes rather than a big cake, and Bonnie obliged by baking two varieties I'd picked out: gingerbread with lemon icing and big chunks of ginger, and carrot and cardamom frosted with mascarpone. Yum! We had those with a sweet Coteaux du Layon (Moulin Touchais 1990). Later, we chatted over some mojitos I tossed together.

And on Sunday, we met up with Lisa Steele, her husban Allen, and their daughter Barbara, who were also here for Worldcon. We used the afternoon to visit l'Insectarium de Montréal and le Jardin botanique de Montréal. It was nice to catch up! I only wish the weather had been a bit nicer . . . we had rain menacing the whole time. Nevertheless, Bonnie and I had second thoughts about simply heading home, so we walked around despite the clouds. The pedometer that E. & D. had given me for my birthday the previous day said we got 12,000 steps in. (I'll just not mention that we found out that they serve cocktails and tapas out there!)

That evening, Bonnie and I headed home and had a cooling Lillet. Then we dined on tasty rogan josh that Bonnie had made the day before . . . we had planned to serve it to guests, but it turned out that nobody's plans worked with dinner at our place, so we just had to make do. Yum! Later, we watched Blindness, which is certainly an unusual movie, but one that makes you think.

Of course, all that chatting and feasting and walking came on the heels of my UK trip, so I've yet to recover my energies. I'm trying to take it easy this week. We'll see how that goes. With my coworkers at GenCon, I might just be able to get away with it!

Current Mood: tired

I'm back from my first visit to the UK. To be precise, I arrived home last night. I did so much that I had no time to keep a travel journal; thus, I'm recalling most of this from memory. The broad strokes are accurate, but I might have the order of events a bit off in a few places.

The trip over was uneventful. I got on a plane and sat there for a little under seven hours. Then I got off, stood in various queues, collected my bag, and finally fled Heathrow. Next, I experienced firsthand the efficiency of British trains: The tube worked exactly as advertised and got me to King's Cross, whereupon I caught an electric train to Royston, to meet Phil Masters. All the signs, voice alerts, and maps made this trivially easy despite my travel fatigue. Montréal could learn a few things from London in this regard.

On arriving in Royston, I realized that I had spent more time on a bus, aboard trains, in queues, and waiting than I had spent in the air. And between travel and time zones, I was having what felt like a 30-hour day. Fortunately, Phil had anticipated this, and had tea and coffee ready. (He also explained why there was Buddleja everywhere I had been: It thrives on crushed brick, which is all over the place along rail lines and road margins.) Suitably refreshed, we headed to Cambridge.

At New Hall, we checked in at the Constitution site, grabbed our badges and other information, and met some of the con committee. In particular, I finally got to meet Nicholas Caldwell (author of GURPS Age of Napoleon), who was instrumental in inviting me. After a pleasant chat, Phil and I fetched our bags and lugged them to our rooms. Then, as events didn't start until evening, Phil recommended a walk around Cambridge.

During our stroll, Phil pointed out many buildings that were five or more times as old as Canada. We also grabbed lunch, which for me involved truly monumental quantities of Shropshire Blue. Afterward, we went into the Fitzwilliam Museum, where we checked out much in the way of art and artifacts, including that old geek favorite: weapons and armor (yes, there were blunderbusses with bayonets). Unfortunately, jetlag chose that moment to hit, and I had to return to the residence for some rest.

Upon awakening, I felt really crummy. Nevertheless, I made my way over to the con facilities for the opening ceremonies. There, Nicholas had the brilliant idea that I should drink water. This cured me forthwith, and the con went well after that. The ceremonies were brief and to-the-point. Kudos to Clare Boothby for that. This is why I allowed her to strike me on the head with a large hammer. Perhaps there will be photos.

The con ran smoothly – I mean, without any hitch that I could detect – the whole way through. Kudos to the con for that! My panels:

Friday

• If We Write It, Will They Come? How to get into the gaming industry for love and/or profit, persuade gamers to read, play, and even buy your work, and still manage not to crack under the pressure.
• This Campaign is Not Just for Christmas. Some games are too good to end. How can GMs and players create campaigns that have the staying power to run and remain enjoyable for many years of real-world (and game-world) time?

Saturday

• The Importance of Being Systematic. What makes a rules system work? What breaks them? Do genres and settings make for special cases? Can broken rules still be fun?
• Miles, Dice, and PCs. Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan has captivated SF fandom and critics alike. The Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game is imminent. This crossover SF and gaming panel will look at Miles, his universe, and how to run games in this setting.
• Guest of Honor Slot.

Sunday

• It's a Kind of Magic. From the thaumaturgic artillery of magic missiles, prismatic sprays, and Take That You Fiend, to real-world historical beliefs, and everything in between. Magic is a staple of fantasy games. What's good, what's bad, what's different, and what's just magic with another name?

The evenings after the panels were spent primarily in being social and having much real ale and cider. England surely does these things well. Needless to say, I saw the bar close every night, and had many good conversations. (I was less thrilled with the evil English pigeons who woke me up with loud cooing every morning after.) I was quite sorry to reach the closing ceremonies on Sunday night. Fortunately, the festivities didn't end until something closer to early Monday morning.

Phil and I were both booked through until the part of Monday morning after sunrise. After grabbing breakfast and stowing our bags, we set out to wander around Cambridge again, minus jetlag. We saw quite a lot! Phil had tidbits of information pertinent to everything we saw, which made some already fascinating stuff considerably more interesting.

In particular, Phil showed me around the University of Cambridge (which is celebrating its 800th, by the way) – notably King's College Chapel and the grounds of Trinity College (his alma mater). Then we got down to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, which is quite beautiful and has steampunkish glasshouses. After a lunch of Scottish smoked salmon and a bracing glass of wine (and dessert . . . okay it, wasn't a light lunch), we headed back out. A particularly amusing stop was the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, which housed much obscure scientific apparatus, including a leech stick: a fancy cane with a compartment for a leech. Every dapper gent should have one!

Eventually, the time came to head out. We journeyed back to Royston, where we had some coffee and chatted for a bit. We made plans to meet up in London the following day for more exploring. Then Phil took me down to the train station, where I caught my ride back to King's Cross. As the train streaked toward London at dusk, I was entertained by rabbits hopping about in the grass alongside the tracks! England truly is the land of Watership Down.

On my return to London I encountered the only hitch in my travels. My original plan was to spend the next two nights staying at the flat of my brother-in-law, Rob, up in Maida Vale. While Rob was out of town, he told the neighbors to expect me, and left his keys with them. So far, so good. However, the keys didn't work. Rob's neighbors deduced that the lock was blocked, and feared that a burglary attempt had damaged it. Out of concern for that – and in the interest of finding a place to stay – much long-distance messaging and telephoning ensued. With Rob being in Chile at the time, I shudder to think of the phone bill.

The upshot of all this was that I ended up crashing with a friend of Rob's, Koo, in Fulham. At first, I thought it would be awkward – Koo and I were total strangers. Koo was really wonderful, though. I also met her mum (who didn't speak English, but who made a mean bowl of soup), as well has her other visitors: her cousin Sung-aeh, Sung-aeh's husband Norbert, and their son, Mark-Philipp, all over from Korea. Despite starting out as total strangers, we had interesting conversations and ended up getting along quite well.

Thus, my Tuesday plans went off unscathed, with me simply operating out of Parsons Green instead of Warwick Avenue. I met up with Phil at King's Cross and we started our walk. I should note before I describe our route that I had already decided not to spend loads of time in the queues for popular attractions. Not with a solitary day to burn. My objective was to see the city on foot, and mostly from outdoors.

We strolled from King's Cross to the British Museum – the only place where we really did tarry a while, in order to look over the grand pilferage of the British Empire, including bas reliefs, coins, mummified cats, swords, withered heads, and goodness-knows-what-else. Then we headed to Covent Garden and meandered through Seven Dials, where we grabbed a lunch of Belgian food (again, we couldn't keep it light, because the beers and desserts were too tempting). From there, we headed toward the Thames, angling to put Trafalgar Square in our path.

At the river, we crossed via the Golden Jubilee Bridges, said, "What the heck?", and did the tourist thing by taking a flight on the London Eye. The wheel is a truly remarkable piece of engineering, and afforded us views of . . . well, pretty much everything, from MI6 HQ to the Palace of Westminster to the Gherkin. From there, we crossed back and took the tube down to the Tower, where we stopped for a fortifying cup of tea before walking across the Tower Bridge and pausing to gawk at the HMS Belfast. Then we hiked along the south side of the Thames, up as far as the reconstructed Globe.

By then we were peckish, so we grabbed a light dinner at a terrasse. I think we did all of our chatting about business over that meal! Come dusk, it was time to part ways – I had no desire to arrive late at the home of my gracious host, while Phil had a train home to catch. Thus, we crossed the river for the third time and bid each other farewell at Embankment. I made my way back and spent some time chatting with Koo over a glass of wine.

On Wednesday, I had to fly out in the early afternoon, so I had little time to go anywhere very distant. Fortunately, Norbert and Mark-Philipp were up for a walk. We took a good stroll around a big chunk of Fulham, which gave me my only glimpse of the non-tourist parts of London. After that, I grabbed the tube to Heathrow. Luck was with me, because I was neither queued up and waiting nor unduly early and bored. I pretty much went from street to tube to gate to plane, with the only major stop being at the duty-free shop for some amazing deals on Talisker and Strathisla.

And after just over seven hours in the air, the usual queues, a bus ride, and a taxi ride, I was home. It was a good trip, but hectic, with a lot of talking, a whole lot of walking, a few moments of panic, and probably too much ale. Well, okay . . . merely enough ale, but more than usual for me. And of course I missed my dear Bonnie, who was the first to hear this whole long account.

Now I have about a day to get ready before various friends headed to Worldcon look me up!

Current Mood: tired

To my favorite stalkers . . .

• I didn't forget about the recap for the July 21 session of The Company. I simply used the writing time that I customarily reserve for that to prepare my notes for Constitution (see the next item). I'll present the July 21 and July 28 summaries as a single, long article sometime in early August. In the interim, I managed to post the campaign notes to the SJ Games forums, so you could always read that document for some setting background. Think of it as one of those origins episodes!

• I will be attending Constitution, in Cambridge, UK, from July 31 to August 2. Perhaps I'll see some of you there! Anyway, with a transatlantic flight on either side and a couple of days to be a tourist, I will be away from July 30 to August 5, inclusive. If you're wondering why you can't reach me during that time, well, there's your answer. I will in fact have my iPhone on me, but there's no way I'm paying what my carrier asks for data roaming on another continent. Perhaps I'll find some wi-fi, though. We'll see.

• And since I'll be away, there will be no Another week in the life of GURPS post on July 31. There might be one on August 7, if I feel up to it. I have no cheesy rerun to point you to for that, unfortunately.

And that's it. I might message from the airport, if I'm twiddling my thumbs, but I'll be silent otherwise.

Take care!

Just a little "what I did this weekend" meeble before I start my work in earnest today . . .

On Saturday, Bonnie and I got over to a free event on Île Sainte-Hélène, Dansomania. I wasn't sure what to expect, and the weather didn't look like it was going to cooperate. But . . . the evening cleared up toward dark, giving us a beautiful night sky. The show had two highlights for me. The Afro-Peruvian dancers of Un Don En La Sangre (no website, but here's the guy's YouTube page) were awesome – I've never seen such energy! And the Brazilian-style percussion group Zuruba were simply fun; I didn't go out planning to dance, but how could you not dance to this? Good thing, because I suspect that I scored a few too many calories eating the tasty Haitian food, which had the wonderful zing of Scotch bonnet peppers.

Then on Sunday, we went to the Granby Zoo with E., D., and Z. This was our second visit as a group. We could've had better weather, but the fact that it was a tad overcast and cool kept the crowd down. The ocelots were out playing, the ounces were pouncing, and so on. Personally, I liked the lories best; they jumped all over me as I fed them, so I got to be a human-sized tree covered in parrots. Z., being six years old, was more into the water amusements at Amazoo, so I also got to be a human-sized float jumped on by a kid. Despite being 42 in one week, I must admit that I found that stuff fun, too . . . although it turns out that my bathing suit was a couple of sizes too large. I'll take that as a message that I need more spicy Caribbean food.

Current Mood: amused

For those who don't know, I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and lived there until 1990. I moved to Montréal, Québec in my 20s – I'm not a native. My parents are still in Halifax, and I try to visit them when I can. Time and money rarely cooperate, though. I went to see them when Dad received his D.Litt. in 2001, and didn't get back again until last week. Since several people have asked me about the trip, here's a short recap.

The whole time – from Sunday, June 28 to Saturday, July 4 – the place was wet. Some days, we merely had the occasional spell of drizzle; other days, we had out-and-out rain. We had fog the whole time. That's just the way the weather goes in Nova Scotia. I'd have liked to have seen some sun, but I didn't really expect that to happen.

As the whole point of the trip was to see Mum and Dad, not to be a tourist, I didn't plan to travel around much. I mean, I lived in Halifax for ages . . . what would I need to see? Of course, places change, so a lot of things caught my eye.

For instance, on Monday, I spotted a Games Workshop retail shop while we were running errands. That surprised me! Halifax isn't large; the CMA population is about 350,000, and that's spread out over the Halifax Regional Municipality, which encompasses numerous villages and towns. During the 80s, it was rather difficult to get gaming materials. Times certainly have changed.

On Tuesday, Dad and I drove out to Herring Cove and swung back through an area that recently had a serious forest fire. I was struck by two things: First, the extensive fire damage – yikes. Second, all the houses that were endangered by the fire. Those didn't exist when I lived in Halifax. All that land used to be woods . . . and now it's mini-mansions. Bleah.

On Wednesday – Canada Day – we headed down to Sandy Cove. I'd seen the place hundreds of times before, and it really hadn't changed much. But man, was it good to see the ocean again. We even had a brief period when the fog had dissipated and no rain was coming down. And as luck would have it, the flag irises were in bloom!

And on Thursday, we spent some time in the city proper, including a ferry ride across Halifax Harbour and back, just to say that we had done it. The city certainly has changed. The core has undergone gentrification; condos and boutique shops have cropped up everywhere. Meanwhile, the outskirts have expanded dramatically. I don't even pretend to understand the economics of this.

Since the entire purpose of the trip was to touch base with my parents, we also kept the social events to a minimum. However, Mum and Dad did have a cocktail party on Monday night so that I could meet the neighbors. There were plenty of familiar faces there, as well as some new ones. As is my habit at such soirées, I introduced people to a new drink: the caipirinha. This may be the national cocktail of Brazil, but it isn't well-known in Halifax just yet.

Tuesday night, my parents hosted a dinner party and invited some friends of the family. That was really great. Mum served prosciutto e melon, garlic soup, a salade composée dressed with lime and cumin, a vegetarian lasagna, and her latest dessert invention: a kind of tiramisù ice cream cake. It was a wonderful meal!

Indeed, good eats were a major feature of my trip. In no particular order, I managed to snag Nova Scotia smoked salmon (in big chunks, not planed into sheer nothingness), some of Dad's seafood chowder (with scallops and lobster), proper fish and chips from Fries & Co. (you cannot get the real thing in Montréal), Mum's home-baked goodies (Eccles cakes, Moroccan holiday bread, bara brith, and a wild-blueberry tart), and a great feed of braised lamb shanks. And those were just the highlights. Om nom nom nom!

I did have some time alone, of course. I tried to keep up with my cardio by running . . . but that didn't go well at all. I'm used to no-impact work on an elliptical machine, and my parents don't own one. While the lake was beautiful even in the rain, hilly asphalt proved to be a recipe for impact; I had to throw in the towel. Add in the food above and I should've gained a ton of weight. Strangely, I didn't. Chalk one up to a hyperactive metabolism.

I also had some quiet moments for reading. This is rare. I read and write for 8-12 hours a day for a living, so I prefer to avoid squinting at text during my downtime. But with a whole week away from work, I squeezed in some book time. At long last, I made my way through most of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition – a work that I always planned to read but never found time for. Interesting stuff!

Throughout all this, I had hours and hours of conversation with Mum and Dad, which was why I took the trip in the first place. It was great to catch up, and I was sorry to leave on Saturday evening. I just hope to get down there again before another eight years pass. Here's hoping that Steve gives us a paid week off next June!