Colourful Stuff

My seasonal triumph this year was a buche de noel complete with marzipan fungi (I'm a biologist). The sponge is unbelievably delicate, consisting of mostly egg, no flour and only 50g of coco. The icing was basically just butter, dark chocolate and icing sugar. It is the sort of cake you don't want to cut but it's worth it when you do.

I'm willing to proclaim high and low my love for Thirty Flights, don't pigeonhole my affection!

It makes your kitchen/apartment/house a bloody mess as well, which I take satisfaction in. Home made flatbread and curry for dinner tonight, best winter food in my opinion.

Hey, I didn't see you there. I've been absent from the forums for a while (final year project has had me trapped in the lab). In the meantime a lot has changed. We are now playing A Few Acres of Snow! It really does feel like quite an achievement to graduate to a Euro/war game from our humble beginnings.

I made a five strand plated loaf and took a picture of it with my bullshit Nexus camera.

Who else is ranking Thirst Flights as a GotY? It sits so singularly in my mind. Playing it feels like a kind of milestone, hitting at just the right time for me, judging its enduring significance for others is difficult.

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I'm researching the feasibility of a 24 hour Skyrim stream to raise money for Child's Play and a local homeless shelter. It would be conducted from my student union and be open to anybody who wished to play along, provided they could bring their PC/console and monitor. The stream would consist of a direct game feed from my computer and a webcam giving a view of the room. I'm a complete novice when it comes to Twitch and the like so a starter guide allowing me to start practising at home would be extremely helpful. Any general comments or suggestions would also be appreciated.

So this is a shitty thing that has happened in the world. A French satirical magazine has published a cartoon depicting Mohammed nude, satirising the Kate Middleton pictures and the violence resulting from the infamous anti-Islamic film. The magazine has already been attacked as a result and the website shut-down. Now there is fear of further violence and French schools outside of Europe have closed. French embassies are also on high alert. Links: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19646748 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9552612/France-steps-up-security-at-embassies-as-magazine-publishes-Prophet-Mohammed-cartoons.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/19/paris-magazine-muhammad-cartoons-french Obviously the volatility of the some Muslims is an issue which should be discussed, and comedy like any art form has a place in that discussion. What I find hard to understand is how Charlie Hebdo could be so reckless. There will likely be deaths as a result of their decision to publish the image, which surely nullifies any inherent cultural or political value it has? I don't think people should react violently, I don't think people should react at all, and I do think that Islam has internal problems that must be addressed. However I don't agree with the decision to publish content which will likely result in the loss of human life.

His 70s aesthetic is adorable. I've only ever seen things like that in my mum's old cookbooks. I would immediately explode with fear if I had to do the technical bake. "Make the jam" is not a useful instruction to me.

Sarah Jane forgot to cook most of her food and always looked like she wasn't quite sure where she was. Ryan will be missed, his Asian-inspired bakes were always a delight (other than pork brioche). I'm always excited to see what Brendan will pull out of his bottomless bag of baking knowledge.

The glove of blood is a season highlight. Double elimination was unreasonably stressful.

These suggestions are great. Getting into a pastime which spans thousands of years of human history can be intimidation. We may stick with Rio Grande Games for a while, they are cheap and many seem to be well suited to two players. I'd say Dominion will be our next venture. We may also make the switch from gin and tonics to gin Martinis, gin is a universal constant. Our Carcassonne games are becoming a bitter battle for agricultural dominance, the last game was won by my placing a farmer on the final tile. The final score was something like 80-70. We have also started to read some social commentary into the farmers. Their permanence on the board has lead to a few theories as to their symbolic meaning. The downtrodden working classes or a noble constant constituting the backbone of a developing society? Quick update on teaching and learning games; chess, I taught Abi chess. Yesterday we were hanging out in her house. There happens to be a chess set belonging to one of her house mates set up in the living room. I suggested she learn how the pieces move just because it is such common knowledge, I internalised the rules as a child and they live in my brain with bicycle riding and writing my name. The process of sharing this deeply ingrained information with her was very rewarding. We played a game and by the end she understood precisely as much as me, which is to say very little. I never knew how much pleasure I could draw from the leaning phase of games. Too often in video games the learning phase is just an annoying barrier to enjoyment, however when it is collaborative and systems opposed to reflex based it becomes its own little pre-game treat.

RPS's John Walker likes to criticise the voice acting but I think it really fits the world. Everybody sounds paranoid and uneasy, which is fair enough considering their life expectancy. I also think it help the Jewish character (I forget his name) stand out as having retained more of his humanity than the people around him. I've just started replaying the game and I'm having a fantastic time. It still looks exquisitely artistically consistent, a trait which I feel will give the graphics greater longevity than its contemporaries.

I'm a great appreciator of Ian McEwan. He was probably the first adult author I was introduced to at the age of about thirteen. I remember reading Enduring Love and feeling utterly terrified of one day having to deal with an adult relationship. My literary diet up to that point mainly consisted of school reading and young adult series such as Artemus Fowl. As a result I don't really have much idea of how he is perceived as an author outside of my specific connection to him. I commented in the Thirty Flights of Loving thread today about how well I feel that game captures a moment of warmth in a chaotic, tumultuous and unfriendly world. That is exactly what I see in McEwan's novels. His characters tear themselves and each other apart in the most unpleasant ways and it would be easy to see his world view as horribly cynical. I see the unpleasantness as a sort of heightened normality that is required as a contrast for the brief moments of real human warmth. The common manifestation of happiness in most stories is a permanent mental state to be attained after doing something difficult or unpleasant, but that isn't how it really works. Happiness in our lives exists as a series of individual points amongst a tapestry of other feelings and experiences, and really our most common state is one of not feeling much at all. How do you feel about him as a writer? I feel his place in my growing up elevates him to the point that I find him difficult to criticise so it would be interesting to hear another perspective.

I was thinking about Far Cry 2 last night. I wanted to post in here but thought resurrecting this threat would be a little bold. I have a strong memory of infiltrating a village couched in dense forest on all sides and flanked by cliffs. I got in undetected to retrieve a suitcase but on the way out I was spotted. Not fancying my chances against an entire village of angry men with guns, armed with a dart gun, MP5 and Molotovs, I decided running into the forest would be my best hope. With tracers flying past my head I sprinted into the cover of the trees. Still panicked and convinced I wouldn't be able to make it back to my Jeep turned to face my perusers and tossed my Molotovs across the narrowest point in the valley. The vegetation burst into flames forming a wall of flames allowing me to reach my Jeep unscathed. It's a memory which comes to me now and then, maybe because at the time I was reminded of playing manhunt in the woods as a child.

I don't have any specific memories of not understanding a game (I was just generally terrible and never completed any game until I got a PS2). Playing split screen by myself was a big thing for me. I would play Golden Eye two player by myself just to see all the death and weapon animations. I must have spent dozens of hours walking around the levels and shooting walls. I liked trying to trigger every sound effect as well. When I got my PS1 I hardly had any games so most of my time was spent playing demo disks. The Mat Hoffman BMX demo was one level but I played it over and over again for more than a year. Even that silly T-Rex and Manta Ray thing, I would sit there making them animate for hours. Colin McRae Rally was one of my favourite games and if I knew I was going to have a whole morning to play it I'd set up my racing wheel, wear my brother's motorbike helmet and set the camera to the cockpit view. Kids are dumb.

I just remembered I bought Crysis 2 on Steam a few weeks ago. Christ that game is boring. I played about two hours, put it down, then forgot about entirely. My ill informed impressions are that the environments and health system are too restrictive to allow interesting scenarios to develop. The most effective strategy seems to be cloak, aim at head, uncloak, pull trigger, cloak, rinse and repeat.

I'm going to see Meow Meow in the Southbank Centre this December. She's a cabaret act, which isn't usually my thing but she's just fantastic. There aren't a lot of good videos of her online so here's a shaky cam recording of a Patty Griffin cover.

So it's okay when Jake does it but the plebs aren't afforded the privilege? Double standards! Butts aside, I think we are all here to get away from the less friendly corners of the internet.

You do the specific achievements listed in the hangar next to the ship. They tend to be a little more wacky than the default layouts. Engi B for example has no sensors and one crew member.

Butts.

Has anybody had much luck with the default ship, layout B? The four lasers seem to eat through early ships easily however without replacing them by sector three they are practically useless. I used it as a base for a boarding focused crew (it starts with a mantis) and got further than ever on normal. I just didn't get lucky enough with the loot so was stuck with weapons unable to get through shields. A large Slug ship eventually got the best of me as my Mantis couldn't stand up to five angry slugs with a functioning med bay.

It's pronounced 'F. Nick Breckon'.

Yeah, losing the helm will reduce evasion to zero, regardless of your engine's condition. I like to put a buffer bar in autopilot before fighting the boss as one perfect volley from that thing can cripple your ship.