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Well that was a fairly good pair of festive days; we had a few people over on Christmas day and I made a small mountain of food - particularly happy with the grilled salmon steaks, kartoffelpuffer, and a giant tiramisu - all downed with some fine cognac. We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, followed by Bad Santa. I really quite like the latter although I do understand that perhaps that particular film might not be to everyone's taste (mind you, I like Jim Carrey as well). Following day attended Hansie and Marilyn's Boxing day gathering with a good score plus of people mainly from the language school. After the mountain of leftovers are finished, I think I'll be living on dry bread and water for a week.
In preparation for the end of the year I've been clearing a few cobwebs to sharpen my focus next year. I've dropped the OpenFOAM book, which I wasn't really enjoying (the best content is already online, and the publishers were 'interesting'). I've enrolled in a GradCert in Adult and Tertiary Education at Murdoch University (goodness, a Murdoch student again), with a plan to do a Masters in 2014, because one Masters degree is not enough, obviously. I have also received an invitation to be a plenary speaker at the The IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society. So it's beginning to look like that next year is already being thoroughly planned - as usuall I'll have to be careful not to try too much.
Last Sunday thoroughly enjoyed a game of The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, although our puny human forces where quickly overwhelmed by the giant robot with laser beams, at least partially thanks to a rapid succession of unusual dice rolls. Last Thursday, in what be the season for such activities, played classic Talisman. My review for Call of Cthulhu has been published on rpg.net; I am planning a column for said forum next year on game design, entitled Via Negativa: Good System Design By Bad Examples, with reference to the article in the first issue of RPG Review. Oh, and the next issue of RPG Review has to come out real soon now.
In preparation for the end of the year I've been clearing a few cobwebs to sharpen my focus next year. I've dropped the OpenFOAM book, which I wasn't really enjoying (the best content is already online, and the publishers were 'interesting'). I've enrolled in a GradCert in Adult and Tertiary Education at Murdoch University (goodness, a Murdoch student again), with a plan to do a Masters in 2014, because one Masters degree is not enough, obviously. I have also received an invitation to be a plenary speaker at the The IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society. So it's beginning to look like that next year is already being thoroughly planned - as usuall I'll have to be careful not to try too much.
Last Sunday thoroughly enjoyed a game of The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, although our puny human forces where quickly overwhelmed by the giant robot with laser beams, at least partially thanks to a rapid succession of unusual dice rolls. Last Thursday, in what be the season for such activities, played classic Talisman. My review for Call of Cthulhu has been published on rpg.net; I am planning a column for said forum next year on game design, entitled Via Negativa: Good System Design By Bad Examples, with reference to the article in the first issue of RPG Review. Oh, and the next issue of RPG Review has to come out real soon now.
