WAI!


NOWAI!!!


Gaius Baltar Marionettes!


Greg  . . . .hes an evil robot! **grins**


I was like! =O


But then I lolled!


SHES A NUT BAR!


I beet you! I beet you with my mind!


I am a scary ghost!


Perhaps I should try that again, without sucking!


SHES A NUT BAR!


A NUT BAR!


Welcome ladies and gentlemen to a blog of epic, sheer epic, so much epic that you may have to stop reading just to be sure you can absorb the epic in smaller, more bite size chunks, because otherwise your head may just explode from a sudden overdose of what could only be described as epic.

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As a matter of fact, I highly advise you all to stop reading one I've finished this sentence, go and make a cup of tea of something, and a biscuit, and come back and carry on.

Seriously, I'm not kidding you know, this isn't my ego here, this is a health and safety warning!

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Right, welcome back, this blog will be of epic length, will contain epic in its entirety, and will leave you coated in epic, as if you where in some form of shower that sprayed pure liquid epic.

Or possibly an epic bukakke session.

If you get the second option, I seriously do NOT want to know.

No - really.

Now we've got that sorted, let us begin.

It began a week ago, on a Friday, on a train, on a train to THE WALES, which shall henceforth be known only as THE WALES and by no other name, because I said so.

The reason WHY I was heading to THE WALES was to see an old friend of mine, THE ROYCE because I was invited to lampeter university for another open weekend, and to pathfinder the weekend afterwards. The plan I graciously requested was for me to visit THE ROYCE and THE KATE in THE WALES for a week, partly to keep my travel costs down, but mostly because I wanted to relax with good friends.

The result was EPIC.

I arrived on the Friday, to then crash in front of a lap top and introduce Royce to sins of a solar empire, a game of sheer, un relenting awesome. Think home world fleet command and combat, crossed with civilizations arc of development of planets and space stations and research into new technologies, ships and weapons, which is then crossed with command and conquers speed of combat, and supreme commanders ability to scroll at any level, from leading individual craft at the tactical level, to entire fleets at the strategic level.

We both sat down to begin our lan session at roughly midnight, we didn't stop until 4 am.

Simply because neither of us could tear ourselves away from the screens until we where no longer able to see what was going on upon them any more.

The resulting lannage and fleet battles cannot be described by words, it's a game that creates its own story so to speak, as it plays, each game gains its own personality as you progress, and between me and THE ROYCE, these games where an epic that could not be bested.

Oh yeah - and if we ever colonise space, we need to name one planet WAI! And the other NOWAI! So it is written, so it shall be done!

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Now comes our first break of the blog, by now you must be loaded with awesome, and in need of some relief, so go and take a bath . . . Or something . . .

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Now, onwards to the visit of lampeter university, which opened my eyes a little more to the way things are going to become.

It began with the arrival to the uni with THE ROYCE, we where sat down in the lecture room with a lecturer from leeds university who sounded as if she knew exactly what she was talking about, but talked at perhaps, 1 million miles an hour, which left me in places gasping fro breath and struggling to keep up, but it opened my eyes to a few details of my English course that hadn't quite been covered yet.

After that there was a lunch of the free variety, which is my favourite variety! XD and we then began to marauder around the university until I came around to my media workshop, which actually involved some teaching, of an unorthodox method. Instead of the standard, we sit you all in a room, and tell you what you need to know to pass your exam, we sit you down in a room, give you a camera, and then tell you to leave the room. The lecturers all left the room with us, and our cameras, and took us around the uni, lending hands when needed, and actually hands-on teaching us what to do when and where it was important.

My jaw hit the floor.

This is the actual meat and bones style of education I have been looking for, for such a damn long time, and when we where finished, they returned us to the room with our photographs and then showed us how to use Photoshop, but not as an instruction list, as an actual open task.

Once the photo editing was over, we where told that our pictures would be sent to us via email, and we all went on our merry, I re-joined with THE ROYCE and headed out to the med soc, whom I had met in my previous visit to lampeter.

And I was shocked.

In my previous visit, I spoke of a girl who had shown some unexpected kindness to me, and acted like an utter twit because I realised I had most likely miss-interpreted it, when I arrived to find the med soc, she was there once more, and I was greeted with a "Hello Craig!"

Now, that shouldn't be so shocking, if it wasn't for the fact that I hadn't been to the university in just over three months, and had no form of contact with the girl I now know as Tash during that time. At which point my brain turned around and said "Did I really mis-interpret it?" only for the other side of my brain to say "Shut up you tit and roll with it!" so I hung out with the med soc once more, and eventually returned to Newport with THE ROYCE to further lan gamage.

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Okay, the next part of this blog is filled with so much epic and awesome, it may cause you to nerd-gasm.

To make sure you get this out of your system, please go and relieve yourself of all nerdery now, I can wait a while!

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Once lampy was out of the way, there was much lan gamage, the watching of the newest episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Macross Frontier (which are, by the way - AWESOME) and then Matt and Rhii arrived.

Allow me to put to you - perhaps the best LARPers day out ever.

Beach

+

LARP practice

=

AWESOME

Matt and Rhii arrived and drove us down to Newport beach with ice creams, which we then devoured on the beach, and larp practice began, starting with my and Royce getting back into practice for a while, before he taught me a few new dagger fighting techniques (Note to self, get a buckler shield) and generally got back into practice, before shoes where removed, and bare foot beach combat began. Including one hell of a triple threat fight between Me, Royce and Kate before settling down, enjoying the view for a while, and then eventually toddling off back home.

During this time, I ran into some money problems, which basically required an overdraft as a temporary fix for, but that is now all in order and going fine.

There was then the viewing of MARTIAN SUCSESSOR NADESICO! Which is by far one of the most retarded but amazing anime series I have ever had the pleasure of watching, and even now - a week after I was introduced to it, the theme tune is lodged in my head, never to be up-rooted. I also finally had a chance to watch wings of the hommeanise, which was awesome, but not what I expected, bloody childhood manga video entertainment adverts! How could you lie to me! >

I was also introduced to a certain sweet shop in Carmarthen, which I have to return to. Long story short, they sell just about any kind of sweet you can imagine, if you cant imagine it, they probably have it too.

On that day, I was introduced to the wonder of Bangor bonfire toffees, which are suffice to say, awesome.

After getting monetary problems sorted, the rest of the day went well, and followed into a day of lannage, and the continued viewing of Martian successor nadesico!

Shortly later that night, there was a pathfinder tabletop adventure with a supreme Uushki Magatanalier flavour, involving funky fruity fruitcakes! random drug taking mayors! Uushki paying for damages! Brotherly love! Scarring guards for life! Rescuing the girl (yet not sleeping with her . . . Note to self . . . . SLEEP with fair maiden in distress next time, or at least, imply it lightly in role-play terms anyway! XD) and generally having an opportunity to drop the social barriers and role-play for a while, which was much fun, as I'm far to used to running games now and not actually playing in them.

And oh yeah - Uushki changed from chaotic neutral to Chaotic good! XD

Eventually, the game ended, randomness ensued, we all crashed and I watched Martian successor nadesico for a while longer, which eventually caused me to zone out.

In the morning, more Martian successor nadesico followed, while counting cash and loots for the following pathfinder weekend event . . . Which deserves a section all of its own.

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Yes, this is another blog break, so please, take the time to adjust your seat, scratch yourself as may be appropriate, try the veal, and then get comfy for . . . . We head deeper into the heart lands of Wales, to the place known as Newtown, so go into . . . Pathfinder, the tolling of the bells . . .

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First off, I had to travel on my own from royces to newtown, a five hour bus transition which was neither comfortable nor convenient - but I could see the reasoning for it, as we had a lack of car space, so I volunteered to travel via the bus and carry pathfinder kit with me (what the hell was I thinking?!) to the site.

Which was, perhaps - the best and worse larp site ever.

Best, because of the fact that once we cleaned it, we had an actual full-blown fire and candle lit tavern at our disposal, worst for the fact that it was filled with dust (when we arrived there, but much left by the time we went on a cleaning spree) and well, things that make allergies go nuts (By the time I left the site I was happy, but wanted to cough up a LUNG!)

But the event itself - was awesome. Simply Awesome, and it will go down in my memory as one of my best Larp events I've ever played (out of the few I've ever played! XD).

On my first night, I was running around outside Foinaven (a fortified village of sorts that was under siege in the pathfinder universe) as Uushki Mag, only to overhear Arriana yell that she wanted the wildmen encamped outside the village to pay rent while they where staying there! Next up came me yelling at Beth that I really, really wanted to kill her - and the retrieval of food for the village, only to arrive and be in the greatest arms deal (Hell, the only arms deal!) I have ever seen.

The sale of anit-shadowling swords, through Morden the high priest of starsha, to the armies of Vara - funded by himself and the COUNCIL OF RULERS.

My jaw dropped and I spent the rest of the night downing my mead and coughing "HOYL CRAP!" under my breath repeatedly.

The next day was a split effort that involved a half-ling of the evil variety being well, violently murdered! And a giant mechanical dragon, a shadowling/twilight elve encounter and much insanity, followed by uushki pretending to be a ghost (WOOO! IM A SCARY GHOST!) and much shadowling murdering, before we ended up facing off against a group of shadowlings apparently with a shadowling dragon, and many loots.

The next day involved a lot of well, things running together, including an anti-ritual magic, ritual (I wont even begin to explain it, I don't understand how ritual magic works myself) to de-power the wildmen in the area who had been gifted with certain nasty things thanks to the shadowlings, while at the same time, a second group went off on a hit-and-run style scouting mission of the enemies camps, only to end up in a direct fight with them, and then pretty much drive them away with a firefly enchanted bear-from sarah (again, I don't even know how that works, but apparently she can turn into a bear . . . Go figure! XD) and then everyone returned to the tavern, triumphant from their different missions, only for the shadowlings to turn up, and my cloak to wrap itself around my throat!

At which point I ended up with a one eyed Nerys (beth) with a knife to my throat yelling at me if I want her to kill me or not, while im to busy choking half to death, and then Kiall decided to grab the cloak and pull it away from me, while ral-thump the troll was holding onto - well - the "me" end of me! During this whole thing, the cloak apparently launched a shadow bolt into kials chest while I was trying to load a crossbow with one hand AND MY TEETH and firing it into the fray. Eventually the fight came to its end, as did the even, and many things where left open to question, while a few questions had finally been answered.

Eventually, we left the site, and the drive home was filled with many stooped conversations (actors and famous peeps as role players - go figure XD - goon show and much other stupidity) and eventually showering when we got home and unpacked (I think I lost a layer of skin in that shower, I swear it!) and then, just powering down and crashing . . . .

Eventually, as all good things come to a close, I eventually had to leave THE WALES and THE ROYCE and THE KATE behind, and packed mah things, and left with fond farewells.

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This is the final blog pause point, if you wanna go and make a cup of tea or summat, or go move about, do so . . . . . NOW!

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On the bus home, a random thing happened, something I didn't expect, about halfway between Newport and Fishgaurd, someone got on the bus, a cute girl of what Royce said was known as the "Welsh scale" (Shorter, curvier, and when they slap you, it hurts harder-OWWW! - yes, that IS the quote) with giner hair and glasses, at which point I went into instant "URK" mode because as many of you know, I don't deal well with the female gender . . . Ever. So I was sat there, just desperately trying to distract myself from making contact (Yes, I am an idiot) and well, looking from window to window, in that faaar to obvious manner of "I'm looking at you, but trying not to look like I'm looking at you" way (Yes, im a blatant idiot) until I finally decided to hide behind my pad and draw, at which point I could just retreat back into my comfort zone and get the bus ride over and done with. The one thing I wasn't expecting was for the bus to go the long way to the train station, at which point I had to break my taboo of silence and ask, "where the hell is the bus going?" she replied back, saying "To the college" and I then disappeared back behind my pad for 30 second before she asked what I was drawing, and so I just showed her my scribbles and we started to talk, and we where talking for a surprisingly long time, and not in my usual half-choked manner of talking to females.

The bus pulled up to the college eventually and I thought "Fook it! Gotta take a chance, make contact with someone!" and asked for her email, and I was surprised that I got it, I asked her name, but all I heard was half a shout from through the bus door, and then I was alone on the bus.

Eventually, I got home and entered the msn adress and just, went back to my old life - and it want until the wensday afterwards that the mystery person logged online, and I discovered the name and life of Rowan, from - THE WALES!

We pretty much ended up talking ALL of that wensday, until I had to leave for work - and then Thursday, Friday and Sunday night, and from there - pretty much every other day after that, about LARP, tv, music, art (of all things, apparently her art style is a lot like lucien frieds - who surprisingly, I didn't even know existed until she told me) and just, stoofs.

Woot! Random bus conversations ROOL!

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I pronounce this blog post done now, as it has taken two weeks to write, and I now need to write another for my return to Farnborough, so hold onto your hats, as a nother blog post is just around the corner!

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