amuchmoreexotic

Although it is edited from a (presumably much more boring) original.

Yesterday my_name_is_anna and I went to see an exhibition about the invention of photography. Did you know that the photographic process as we know it was initially less popular than the daguerrotype, which made a photo on a metal plate which was a mirror image of the real scene, couldn't be printed multiple times, and is hard to see unless you got exactly the right angle, but was nice and shiny? Or that mediums used to make obviously fake spirit photos, and if they didn't have a photo of your dead wife to paste in, they'd just use a publically available photo of the Empress of Austria?

Then I walked to Aldgate to see The New Royal Family play Antlib, the Adam Ant & The Other Ants convention. Their heavy monster sound blew up the PA system!

Reasons to be cheerful:

• I enjoyed the concept and practice of "Charioke", a 12 hour sponsored karaoke marathon, although I'm glad I was only in attendance as a "charioke admirer" so I could leave early when the heat, crowding and the two girls who screeched their way through every song started getting to me (not anyone we know, I hasten to add). I liked it when mrs_leroy_brown and demiabeille rocked out. Next time, though, the event should be a karaoke endurance test where you have to keep going for as long as you possibly can, and the last group still singing gets to keep all the money for its chosen cause. I can't think of a better way than that to decide how best to allocate scarce funds for the alleviation of human suffering.
  
  One group who were using the karaoke pod we were in seemed to be raising funds for the Labour Party! They had a sign with some rhetoric about "singing together" and "securing Britain's economic recovery".
  
  I think this is the clinching proof that Labour has lost its way. Shall we raise money to help Peruvian kids with AIDS eat more organic food (may not represent actual aims of a charity)? Or shall we raise money for ourselves, to spend convincing people that we are securing Britain's economic recovery (after years of running up debt from PFI and failed PPP schemes, and ignoring corporate tax loopholes, and not regulating the banks properly).
  
  


• I have a free ticket to Ant Lib Weekender, a "celebration and convention" where people convene to celebrate the music of Adam Ant And His Ants. Does anyone want to be my +1? Bring a starting pistol and a car battery.
  

Reasons not to be cheerful:

• I am still a loser.

Question:

Why is it not OK to say "I don't want to date a fat woman", but it's completely acceptable to say "I don't want to date a man who's shorter than me"? Show your working.

(Obviously I would not endorse the former statement. I like fat girls. As the old civil engineering saying goes, the bigger the hill, the tighter the tunnel.)

EDIT: Here is the article which inspired this question. In it, a woman meets a man at a party who doesn't want to date fat women (and expresses it an obnoxious way). Then, she tells her single (and apparently fat) friend about how eligible the man is, then when the friend gets excited, she then comes out with:

“I hate having to say this but I’m only saying this because I wanna be honest with you and I love you bu—”

“He doesn’t date fat girls, does he?” she answered in a dead-pan tone.

Why did the author mention this obnoxious man to her friend at all, unless she just wanted to have a nice passive-agressive jab at her fat friend's self-esteem? Oh, he was "tall, seemingly East Indian in descent, fair appearance, educated, good job and spoke three languages" - so obviously a tall, rich man is too important not to mention, even if he's an arsehole?

The main message of the article is that the thin writer likes to make her fat friend feel bad about herself. A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as etc. etc.

I may be an unemployable loser, but at least I get to take part in amazing zombie games. Last night I helped out with the latest Fire Hazard extravaganza on Hampstead Heath.

Almost every player had dressed up to some extent. Since part of my job was to look out for people who'd tripped and injured themselves, the fact that everyone was covered in blood (and later on also shambling and moaning) made it a bit tricky to spot real casualties (I don't think we had any). There was a genius zombie bride (who ironically went on to have a massive row with her boyfriend because he dropped something he was supposed to be looking after for her). kevandotorg looked quite convincingly like he'd been sliced about the face. There were even a couple of guys in proper latex makeup.

It almost went horribly wrong because our usual play area had been taken over by some kind of goddamn Hallowe'en "walk". What's scary about a walk? Who goes on a walk when they could be fighting for their very survival?

Luckily we managed to pull off an emergency relocation to a back-up site. We were all on a comms net of cheap but effective walky-talkies, otherwise the whole thing would have been a disaster.

The first game is called Nightwatch and it involves the players sneaking past guards who have torches (who in the zombie apocalypse fiction are enforcing a quarantine zone). I am a guard for this, which is very enjoyable as I get to berate the players, threaten them with execution, sneak up on them with the torch off and then suddenly dazzle them, scare players who are hiding by getting really close to them and acting like a videogame guard ("What was that? Hmmm, probably nothing"), and generally be mean to people and have them love every minute of it. You know, like sex.

This time round I had a toy gun with a laser "sight" attached to it, as well as the torch. So when players were reluctant to obey orders (they often freeze when caught and hope that you're talking about someone else), I could say "Yes you! You with the blue top and the red dot on your chest". Some of them even put their hands up! What was nice in game design terms is that when I was pulling my usual dick move of turning off the torch and waiting for people to start moving, they could still use the dot of the laser to see roughly where I was and where I was looking.

Next time: night vision goggles.

Later on in the pub I spoke to two girls who had leopard-crawled for ages across the open ground to my right to reach safety. I could see that there were people out there, but every time I played my lights over them, they froze, so I thought I would let them pass.

The actual zombie apocalypse bit also went well. I was a safety steward for this bit. My favourite part was when two human survivors, who'd spent most of the game hiding out of bounds, refusing to believe my advice to head back to the start point and help assemble the "zombie cure", because they thought I was a zombie trying to trick them!

The humans started off more heavily armed (with Nerf guns) than in previous runs, but as a bit of clever balancing, we forgot to put out most of the ammo, so pretty soon the humans were nearly defenceless and there was a nice exponential growth until the zombies were in the majority.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, apart from the bride and her groom, and another couple who had failed to read the emails or apply any kind of common sense so the woman had turned up in pointy boots which hurt her feet.

Most disturbing feedback from the feedback forms was "Nice game. Nice girls". What would have made the game better, disturbing man? "If we could have had sex with the girls". Thanks, we will be sure to arrange that as a bonus round next time.

(Actually, the girls were pretty nice. I was disturbed by how sexy I find low-budget zombie make-up, the type with black smudges around the eyes and white skin, so you look like a goth who's overdone it a bit. I guess that just means that I find goths sexy, which is no surprise to anyone. Still, had better make sure I don't turn into this guy - I already look like him.)

There was a reviewer from Time Out there, apparently. I am keen to see if he enjoyed it as much as most of the players did. This time next year, we'll all be zombillionaires!

So, let's just clarify here:

It's wrong to kill an animal - except if you are planning to eat part of it later, which makes it OK.

BUT if you kill a baby, and eat part of it later, that makes things worse?

Out of sheer fucking boredom I just went and bought a tiny "artisan" sandwich from Pert Minger. There was a man in there who was acting like a wide-boy tool to a ridiculously parodic degree. It was if he had taken on the assignment of packing in as much cuntery into a two-minute sandwich shop visit as humanly possible.

Let's see if I can remember all his various cunteries:

Tool (sees salt beef and gherkin "New Yorker" sandwich) A Noo Yoiker! I'll be having that. The Noo Yoiker. Noo Yoiker!

Tool (sees "Classic Bloomer" sandwich) And the classic bloomer!! Classic!

Tool (wears sunglasses indoors in winter)

Tool (to his female companion) Do I need all this? Will there be a dinner? There'll be a dinner, right?

Tool (at the till, he hands over his sandwich, then reaches back to take his companion's tiny artisan sandwich) And this little number, please! (pats companion's shoulder) It's on me, mate.

1. On my road, at night:

Man: Can you please help me? I haven't eaten for two days! (lights cigarette)
(I walk past ignoring him)
Man: Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaase? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease? (he watches as I go into my house)

2. Back streets near my house, months ago:

(There's a bright flash from around the corner. It turns out to be two girls with a camera).
Me: Oh wow, I thought a Terminator had arrived!
Girl 1: (scared, in thick Spanish accent) We are just going home please.

3. In Embankment tube:

Middle Eastern man: (he holds a map and catches my eye; I hesitate for a second)
Middle Eastern man: (says nothing but grabs my left forearm firmly, while maintaining eye contact)
Me: (shocked) Let go of me! For fuck's sake! Twat! (storms off)

The world is a wonderful place.

My favourite bit in Newsnight was the woman who said she was "cringing"
because Jack Straw said "Afro-Caribbean" instead of "African-Caribbean".
Yeah, never mind the actual fascist leader sitting right there, focus on the
important issues!
Presumably "African-Caribbean" is the successor to "Black and minority
ethnic", where the game is to make out that an existing, widely-accepted
term has suddenly become incredibly offensive. That way, you have so many
more opportunities to enjoy some delicious, huffy victimhood even if you
don't encounter any actual racism.

What can we call these newly-coined terms which are entirely made up for the
purpose of scoring points off people?

I need to buy a Hawaiian shirt for Friday evening... Where's a good place to
shop for that kind of thing in the Oxford Street area?

You know the little cardboard sleeve you get to protect your fingers when you waste money on a burnt double shot latte from Perter Minger to try and feel like there's some point to the morning?

What is the technical name for those? Can we all start calling it a "coffeelactic"?

So, last night I ran my duelling/aristocracy based game Like A Velvet Glove...
Thanks to all the grievance-contributors.
It was a bit meh - I think the rules and setup process are overcomplicated.
The first session was a bit stilted and the second session, with drunker
players, a bit chaotic.

I am pissed off that my broadband isn't fixed yet. In what sane universe
does changing the person who pays the phone bill mean changing the landline
number, losing broadband service for 2 weeks, then sending an engineer round
unannounced to remove a digital-to-analogue converter which will apparently
stop me switching to another ISP (despite the fact that a non-BT ISP worked
fine before), then leaving a "while-you-were-out" note to a completely
imaginary person? I hate the BT private monopoly - it should be nationalised
and the executives hanged with telephone cables.

I want to be able to play Operation Flashpoint and Borderlands
online. You are all going to get those games and play them with me, right?

Can you think of some reasons why an 18th-century gentleman would need to fight a duel to defend his honour? Preferably "funny" reasons, written in the first person?

For example:

• spreading rumours that I indulge in vingt quatre


• posing with a theodolite


• contractum trinius


• gross and repeated villandry


• leaving my sister in an interesting condition in Ostend


• waltzing counterclockwise


• Lord Coryat's muff


• introducing the use of the fork to Wales


• teaching my niece to play "Ruff and Trump"


• my love for the late Emperor

Why not add them as comments to this post? By 5pm? You will get a credit on a prestigious pervasive game design website? Thanks.

Anyone who points out that all this sounds suspiciously like outtakes from the Baron Munchausen RPG is instantly banned for violating my safe space.

ITEM: I have a spare ticket to see Going Postal, a film about US workplace massacres, this Friday at 7pm. Anyone fancy it?

ITEM: You know that ridiculous "Prestige Edition" of an upcoming videogame which includes working nightvision goggles? I just preordered it! I reckon I can justify it by using the goggles for some kind of game, or, failing that, stealth dogging.

ITEM: Don't forget there's the Hide & Seek Sandpit at BAC pervasive games night on this Monday (19th October) at 6:30-10:30 in Battersea Arts Centre!

Congratulations!

My chest feels tight, and almost like there is something in there just below
my ribcage. I think it is probably one of those fast-growing tumours caused
by the HPV vaccine, or stomach cancer. Oh well.

Anna Faris is a fine comic actress, and she was excellent in Observe and
Report, but that doesn't mean watching The House Bunny is a good idea.

What's the point of posting by email if LJ is going to mangle the formatting
by inserting/failing to strip a load of weird line-break characters?
So posting by email is fucking pointless; there's *two* "mobile" interfaces
and they're both shit, and seem to have been designed under the assumption
that mobile users want to look at dozens of small pages, when all you really
need is the full contents of your friends list with none of the cruft and
Javascript of the full site; and all the development is being done in
Russia, where they have a rich tradition of designing user
interfaces like this.

Apart from the lax attitude to underage Harry Potter slashfic, why am I
posting here rather than on Facebook?

Test.

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