The Problem

The problem with writing my blog posts at lunch on mondays is that I never remember to upload appropriate of 52 materials. I know I'm up to 34 (I am aren't I? I cant be bothered to check) but I dont remember what that is, nor do I have the files to make the title.
So instead I have to post about something else. The problem with THAT of course is I should be posting something observational, but I was too tired on the way to work to notice anything. Plus I was reading on the way to work, Fool's errand by Robin Hobb is much more interesting to me than what annoying train people are doing.

What is Robin Hobb's Fool's Errand? its the first book in the Tawny Man trilogy. no? nothing? well its about Tom Badgerlock AKA Fitzchivalry Farseer, bastard brother to the late king chivalry and his Wit partner, a wolf named Nighteyes. The first half of the book is about them enjoying their life of solitude, resting after a life of saving the world, only to be dragged back into it by their old friend, the Fool AKA Lord Golden.
They must hunt down the missing prince before his betrothed arrives and causes a war due to the insult of his absence. It's a very interesting tale so far but seeing as I havent finished it I see no reason I should blog about it.

This blog post, as often is the case when I work, is very much just because I said I would. I do recomend Fool's Errand. Robin Hobb is one of the fantasy greats, there are few others I'd paint with that brush, but Hobb is definately one of them.

I've put my writing on the back burner recently while I get used to work but I am coming close to finishing Book One of the Tales ofthe Hunter. I'm also considering changing the title from 'A Change in the Wind' to 'On the Hunt' and then making all the books I write about him have the word Hunt in it somehow (i.e. On the Hunt, The Unexpected Hunt, Becoming the Hunted, etc...).

One of my main problems at the moment is that I'm REALLY looking forward to writing Fragile Kingdom/Fragility of Friendship/Fragile Aliances, whatever I'm calling it. The story after The Longest Cycle. However I'm not halfway through TLC's last book. I'm coming up to half way and the rest of this part (pretty much) is just editing, no writing, but still, its a lot to do before i can start story 2.

In Exile news; I've got the front cover and 1 set of edit notes. most of my readers are yet to respond, but I'll chase them up later.

So... yeah, thats everything I can think of. Podcast wednesday is on the subject of TV shows, and for a brief moment my cleaning habits.

Submitted-Video
- James

Kit Ironsmith

Since my blog post last week on Black Serenity Studios I've had a lot of... well, ok, no interest, but I am interested in it and I share my interests.
So here is Kit Ironsmith, the private investigator that is the main character of Black Serenity Studios' first game provisionally named; Kit Ironsmith P.I. (creative, no?)

 

Name - Kit Ironsmith

 

Age - Twenty-three

 

Occupation - Private Detective

 

Role - Protagonist

 

Motivations - Initially; Getting paid. Eventually; Solving the case and saving Anne.

 

Personality -

A mixture of silly, weird, brilliantly intelligent and foolish. He has a sense of courage, morals and is willing to go above and beyond to finish what was started, but he often gives the impression of a foppish young fool of a nobleman.

 

History -

Heir to a massive ironworks fortune, John spent his youth avoiding responsibility instead of living up to it. He got poor grades in school, barely got into college - only managing because his father bought them a new wing - barely passed and then resumed his life of irresponsibility.

He set up his detective agency initially out of bordom, but when his father dies of a heart attack and leaves everything to charity, bequeathing him nothing.

His fathers Will reading will be the prologue.

 



---

As with all things much here is likely to change, but for now; thats Kit Ironsmith, the foxy detective of <Insert apropriately animal pun named town here>.

 

Youtube

- James

New this week.

Nothing really.
Nothing particularly interesting or important has happened this week. I have been learning just how hard it is to keep up with everything when I have a job. I mean seriously; I've been here 2 weeks now and I'm yet to have a proper session at the gym or write a chapter of my books or anything. How do people do it? seriously! I get up at 6:45, leave work at 7:45 get to work at 9, leave work at 5 get home at 6:15, eat dinner a little later, then I'm too tired to do anything and go to bed at 10:30.
How do people have lives?
Its ridiculous.
On another note; I've started work on iOS development. It's a point and click adventure game, like the old monkey island and day of the tentacle games.
We plan to set it in a 1920s environment with disney's robin-hood style anthropomorphic animal characters.
The game doesn't have a name yet, but the main character and the fem fatale are called Kit Ironsmith and Anne Dawson respectively. Kit is a red fox private detective and Anne is an arctic fox fancer at the locale burlesque club.

The development company name we've gone with is;

I'm excited about this project, I've already got a lot of design stuff and narrative doc stuff done and my friend Liz has a load of art. At the moment (until we win the lottery) we're planning on making it on gamesalad as simply as possible (little to no animation, no audio dialogue, etc...) but hopefully it'll do well and we'll be able to turn it into a real company etc... etc... etc...

Welp, thats all for this day.

Disney-princess-after-ever-after
-James

Thirty-three Of Fifty-Two

Characters

Rapunzel

So I'm betting you didn't expect to see this little lady on my of 52 list, huh? She's the lead princess in a Disney film. But I did have tangled up as one of my favourite films so it's not that unexpected is it? But anyway, she's great.

Rapunzel is full of wonder, self conscious, beaten down by her mother, yet she still finds it in her to make her dreams come true.
She's cute, awkward, endearing, a little naive and beautiful. Seriously; if it was a possibility I would marry this girl. I say that, knowing full well she wouldn't take me.

I don't really have much to say on this subject, she's just so awesome, beating people up with a frying pan, singing songs and getting the trust of all of the people she comes in contact with.
Oh and that smile and her myriad of expressions... damn. If she was a part of the UK royal family I would be a royalist.

Seriously; one of my exs I dated specifically because for a short while she reminded me of this character.

In the past year I've bought a bunch of Disney soundtracks for the first time since the lion king came out, and this girl is the one who started it all. I mean look at her! She's wearing pink n purple while adventuring with her frog... chameleon.

Just watch this film and try not to fall in love with her. It's impossible.

Just-a-great-example-of-Rapunzel's-character.
- James

Thirty-Two of Fifty-two

TV Shows

Doctor Who

So Doctor who is awesome. It's one of (if not the) longest running sci-fi having started in 1963 and still going strong today. It had a hiatus - a long one for sure - but there were books, comics, radio plays and films to fill in the gap.


At it's heart Doctor who is a story about exploration. A story about wonder. Really it's about children. About how every child in the world gets into the little box and it's something they didn't expect, be it a boat a car or a time travellign space ship. Every one of us, when we were kids and we were handed our first card board box by our parents, the seemingly impossibly old and impossibly smart people in our lives, it could take us practically anywhere, sometimes even places we didn't want to go.


Doctor who takes us to so many places that it's unbelievable - literally, you have to suspend your disbelief - and we love every minute of it.
One of the most interesting things about it is it's main character, the Doctor. It's been the same character for fifty years, but eleven different actors, all with their own uniqueness. It's not like Bond, where they say it's the same person and don't remark on their appearance changing, they make it a part of the story. when the doctor is too badly injured to go on he changes every cell in his body and comes back as a completely knew person, character and all. From the serious stuffy first doctor of William Hartnell and the clearly insane but often equally serious eleventh doctor played by Matt smith to the charming and 'just want to have fun' tenth doctor of David Tennant and the selflessly hopeful fifth doctor played by Peter Davidson, they were all so different.


Another thing that's great about the show is the companions. popping in and out throughout the Doctor's span are a myriad of companions to help him through his long life. He has time lords, humans and even tin dogs running around with him.
Some of them fall in love with him, some of them learn to hate him, and others are just his really good friends. and honestly the ones that are just his close friends are the best. I dont really remember everything from doctors one to eight but nine, ten and eleven are fresh in my mind, and of them the best two companions are Captain Jack Harkness and Donna Noble.


Go watch it and tell me I'm wrong.



Anyway, go watch it, it's great (Christopher Eccleson's doctor, the ninth, is a good starting point, its where the hiatus ended.) Plus, for all you American girls out there; English accents.


Two-David-Tennant-Doctors-and-ones-naked. More-fun-is-never-to-be-had.
- James


P.S. so I missed 1 post last week and I game a bit of money to charity on the way to work today.
P.P.S. All the mobile links to the podcast were dead so I replaced them with the mobile website instead of just the file.

New Years Resolution Update

So, this last month I worked on my audio editing skills in the form of a podcast. You can listen to them  here; Stuff and Things .

I think I did ok with it and I'm going to continue to do it in the future. I'm going to continue posting once a week on Wednesdays. We have already recorded the next 3. The next one is Science Fiction then Disney movies then Time Travel. In the time travel one I get a new microphone :)

so yeah;
New Resolution 5, part 2 of 12; Learn something new every month.
Done.

Next month will be the lock picking. I've bought a lock picking set to practice, and I have a bunch of padlocks I can probably use, if not I'll just get a hold of the cheapest lock picking practice board and go at it on that every night.

In other news I have a job, it's only temporary (a month) working with FGOL as a QA tester for their mobile games. It's a completely uninteresting story how I got it (my previous boss called me up, told me he'd moved there and offered me a months work, completely uninteresting) but that should tide me over with a little bit of money so I don't have to lock myself away from society for fear of spending money.

Speaking of which; I get to order my new TV on thursday! Yay! Full HD, 3D, smart, etc... etc... I'm looking forward to it, it'll be put on the wall next to my computer so I may even end up with a third monitor, you never know!

Anywho; I don't have ny more interesting news and I apologise for beign so boring :P

Tubey
- James

P.s. the job means later blog posts, they'll still keep coming.

Thirty-One of Fifty-Two

Games

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy VIII is the first final fantasy game I ever completed. Lots of people didn't like this one because of it's differences to FF7, but I came late to the game with Final Fantasy so by the time I played FF7, FF9 was on it's way and I just didn't care about 7. It looked awful. graphically it's one of the worst games I've ever played so, try as I might, I never completed it. As I expressed in Wednesday's podcast I'd love for them to re-make it exactly as it was but with next gen and beyond graphics so that I can complete it and have the awesome .

But Final Fantasy 7 isn't why I'm here today, Final Fantasy 8 is. FF8 is the story of Squall Leonhart a member of the Garden school, a mercenary system that trains young people to fight wars and go on missions. Early in the story he graduates to the elite SeeD and is caught up in a series of events that lead him to face off against the evil witch that's taking over the world.

It's a long story that took me well over a hundred hours to complete that delves into the main characters histories and their futures to show how intertwined everyones lives were. From soldiers in the last real war right up to the witch from the future.

It's a love story, an action story, a detective story, and a high school story and I think they work really well together. Plus; Squall uses a gun-blade, that's a sword that fires bullets. you can't beat a sword that fires bullets!

I loved the gameplay I loved the story I loved that it took a significant portion of your life - not like the games these days that you pay £50 for and your done before the day is over.

Not only that but it has some of the best CG animation, even to this day. I'm fairly sure I've posted this scene before but it's well worth watching it again, I can't stop. Dance dance. It's such a simple idea, a graduation dance, but I'd never seen it in a game before and it's still awesome... for the most part.

Anyway; if you have a PSP or a PS3 (or possibly vita, I'm not sure) it's on the PSN, so go buy it.

FF8-Opening-sequence. It's-Awesome.
- James