[blarghflglnnkkk...]

Let’s just keep this simple: I had a family holiday… thing this weekend to celebrate solstice, x-mas, and our 5-year wedding anniversary, all in one shebang. It was absolutely resoundingly wonderfully marvelous, largely due to two factors: The Pelican Inn and their marvelous staff, and my goddamn family.

Plug: if you are ever staying in the Bay Area, and want a wonderful, relaxing, fairly-British-like weekend, the Pelican is the place for you. I [heart] the Inn.

Plug The Second: My family r0x0rz the house. Most times, when you get your family together for a holiday thing, it’s a drag. No one is comfortable, and the kids want to leave before you get there. This year, somehow, everyone wanted to stay, and everyone wanted to do it again. I don’t really understand, but I’m rollin’ with the punches, as they say.

Here’s how it broke down:

Noon: Arrived at the Inn to discover mom was already hanging out in the Snug. Set up stuff. Hit play on the medieval solstice-y music compilation I had assembled not two hours prior.

(The Snug, by the way, is the guests-only lounge that hangs off the pub. As advertised, it is quite snug, with a big (big) fireplace and lots of furniture that will grab ahold of you and not let you go until you’ve given it a good sitting on.)

2:30pm: Everyone checked into their rooms, of which there are seven. We had reserved the whole place last year, and thus, the Snug was our own private lounge-o-rama. Cider, cookies, meats, fish & chips, and other goodies abounded.

2:45pm: Commenced hanging out in the Snug.

…

6:30pm: Extracted ourselves forcibly from the Snug, barely escaping it’s clutches, in order to sit down to dinner. Ate meat. Everyone had little english cracker things, and toasts were made. By the end of the toasts, I was telling them to stop, stop, just stop, goddamn it, I can’t see with all this liquid you’re causing to pour from my eyes. It was quite disorienting.

8:00pm: Return to Snug. Dessert. Gift exchange. Marginal success, but everyone was so determined to have a good time that it was pretty fun.

9:30pm: My brother and my wife’s sister’s husband begin to discuss politics. Those of you who know either man know that this is a) inevitable, and b) unstoppable. I sneak upstairs for a “nap”.

11:30pm: Awoken by my wife, who has given up on the two combatants, I crawl back downstairs, wish them all good luck and good fortune, and then return to collapse.

Some Ungodly Hour: The two crazy men agree to stop talking long enough for sleep to occur.

…

The Next Morning: We awake, with a food hangover.

9:00am: Food hangover or no, English breakfast is served in the… uh, well, I suppose you could call it a green house. It’s kindof like a little enclosed patio, but is “indoor” enough to provide shelter from the torrential downpour that was occuring outside. Thus, we gather.

(As an aside, I can of course mention that this downpour added to the ambience in that “ooooh, it really sucks outside, but boy it’s nice in here” kind of way.)

9:15am: Baby niece entertains the whole table by opening her presents, and playing with plastic barnyard animals. God damn that kid is cute.

10:00am: Breakfast thouroughly enjoyed, we retire to the Snug for a fond farewell. I instruct two of my children in the finer points of throwing darts. They are, of course, naturals at this; I’m sure that in twenty years they will both be competing in the international darts championships, against each other, with the victor walking away with $15,000,000. I’m betting on the kid who gets the best grades between now and then to win.

Have I mentioned that my kids read my blog sometimes?

12:00pm: Packed up, went home. Some folks ended up at our house, some didn’t. Some revelry continues to this day.

Fucking awesome. Here’s a shout out to all my family.

…None of which (save my wife & kids) read my blog. Sigh.

Yesterday, I go wandering into one of my designer’s cubes. He’s working away on his XBox dev kit, but (clever boy) he left a Darklord trap right there on his screen. His web-browser was pointed at… at…

Well, at this.

I have mentioned, have I not, how much I appreciate the indy games industry? Yes? Well and good. Now, there is another games industry afoot; one that is strange and multi-colored. Here and there, you can find these websites that are basically full of very, very addictive flash games & puzzles.

That you can play for free. Until you pass out. Or manage to pry yourself away from the screen.

Now, this particular incarnation of the free flash game is particularly insidious; it’s half logic puzzle, half guessing-game, built around the idea of discovering the rules that govern this strange little world it’s creator has fashioned, and then winding your way through the maze of possible triggers to find the win condition.

You poke it until it brightens up. Along the way, funny things happen. You know, games.

There are others of this sort, of course. They will also destroy your mind, if you let them. (I have not yet solved either of those two prior links, FYI. Taunt me at your leisure.)

Point to the Darklord: I solved the GrowCube. And I’m going to post the solution here.

Now, I’m not posting it for you. You should go and solve it. But, see, the best way for me to record the solution (so that I may later taunt my friends with my mad skillz) is to write it down. And, believe it or not, this here blog is currently the most reliable place for me to store information that I want to keep and be able to refer to later.

Does that scare you? It scares me. It certainly scares my wife.

So, here it is, for my record keeping.

People,Water,Seeds,Pot,Pipe,Fire,Dish,Bone,Spring,Ball

Don’t cheat!! Solve it yourself!! It’s freakin’ bizarre, and totally worth it! Don’t give in to the dark side, and peek at my solution before you solve it yourself!!

[evil laugh]

These may well be the most fun toys I’ve ever gotten.

Just to be clear, what’s happening here is that I’m taking molds like those shown at the right (and also shown in a previous post) that were purchased from Hirst Arts, and casting blocks out of plaster.

When I say “casting blocks out of plaster”, one must understand that this is a significant threshold that I’ve crossed.

Plaster, you understand, is one of those craft materials that only grandmothers use. It’s so fasionable out-of-date as to be historically quaint, in this era of plastics and uber-clay of all shapes and sizes. Why, the very notion of casting something out of something else is itself quaint in many circles. That would involve work, and why would you do that when you can just go and spend money?

Yes, but see…

The molds cost between $25 and $50 each. You can use them (get this) hundreds of times. They are not, in any sense of the word, disposable. You buy them with a certain commitment in mind, something like “boy, I’d better use these, or my wife will slice off my testicles with them, and wow, they are dull.” Hypothetically speaking.

You need plaster to cast with. Plaster, for those of who who have lingered on the edge of craftyness, but have never actually dipped your toe in the waters, is a white powdery stuff that can easily pass for cocaine. You mix it with water (or, as I have learned, sift the plaster slowly into the water, thus allowing it to absorb more evenly… lumps are bad), pour it in to the mold, make a huge mess, and then wait for it to dry. It hardens into something that resembles stone, although is more fragile. It is, in a word, invented by God himself for constructing wargaming terrain.

And, it’s like $3.00 a box. I’ve spent like $9 on plaster so far. It’s cheap.

Beware, though. Once you first discover within yourself the ability to create your own Lego blocks, the future may become clouded and uncertain, filled with constant 40-minute casting cycles in which you generate more and more and more construction material for your constantly inflating plans. This may be unhealthy for those prone to obsessive behavior. I may suffer from this disorder; no conclusive evidence on the topic has yet escaped my minion’s suppressive powers.

Once the blocks have been cast, they must dry. I can now measure the dryness of plaster blocks by touch. And, perhaps more chillingly, by smell. I dry my blocks our tiny oven, on cookie sheets. They don’t taste as good as cookies, but they provide much more joy. Imagine that.

What do you do with a pile of plaster blocks? What wizardry is needed to assemble them into something intelligible?

Wood glue. Lo:

I give you, the Traveller’s Bridge, Darklord-style.

What boggles my mind is that I modified their design on-the-fly while building this thing. The bridge steps in their version are narrow as sin, and are far too steep for my tastes. So I extended them and lengthened the bridge. Try that with a terrain kit from… some… other company that sells terrain… things.

Not only that, I can make a giant phallic symbol!

This is from this Egyptian mold they make.

A question: can you tell me, off the top of your head, the difference between Mayan and Egyptian architecture?

…

Well, fuck you, so you can. Who asked you anyway. My Mayan architecture that I’m building for my Lustria campaign is going to be graced with heiro-fucking-glyphics. Deal with it.

And what Mayan setting would be complete without a ziggurat? You know, a ziggurat?

It’s on its way. I’ll let you know when I’m done.

I love my toys.

Some time ago, this wacky friend of mine bought a metric truckload of molds from Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture Inc.

At the time, I called him crazy. … I also called him a diety, and washed his feet with wine, and my hair. See, because these are some of the coolest damn toys of all time. Imagine: Lego, except you can make all you want, and they’re textured like stone.

[drool]

This weekend marked the first actual excursion into the land of Casting Plaster Blocks. And, I’ve gotta say, it’s really, really fun.

First thing you do, see, is…

Well, wait. The first thing you do is read the instructions. Over and over.

Okay, then, the first thing you do is make yourself a litle casting station.

Here’s the recommended station, from the website:

And, here’s mine:

Mine’s better. Mine isn’t a goddamn STAGE SET.

In short order (like, within an hour of getting started), I was cranking out a bunch of these:

I have, at this point, a reasonable collection of blocks. I need more (oh yes, I need more), but for a first day’s work? Not so bad.

My first attempt at assembly will be something resembling a bridge, although I’m going to have to modify the original plans some to accomodate the width of a Warhammer movement tray.

(If the phrase “Warhammer movement tray” means nothing to you, don’t sweat it. You’re normal.)

Here is the current status of said bridge:

Dude (and by “dude”, I mean the goddamn sugardaddy who hooked me up with these badass toys; that’s right, I’m talkin’ to you), you have no idea how happy these things have made me.

It’s stupid, but… I really like making bricks out of plaster. Go figure.