Colinmo's Cupboard

The next Christmas special?

2009-07-07T21:11:47Z

I think I have proof I was getting over something icky yesterday by taking the day off work. Today, out of the blue, my brain decided the best thing to think of was a mashup of Nation and Henson. The Daleks Take Manhattan.

-------------

Dalek Krmt> It's the Dalek show, with a very special guest star, the Doctor! Exterminate!

*music starts, dancing Daleks in fur or scales or ... other... come on stage*

Daleks> It's time to smite resistance, no-one put up a fight / until the Doctor comes on, then for us it's nighty-night!

*Dalek Gnzo is lowered in the Dalek logo, its eyestalk bursts like a trumpet*

-------------

Dalek Fzie> Wakka wakka wakka! Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it's an inferior life form!

*Dalek Fzie's dome lights waggle up and down and his hat slides jauntily down to the floor*

Audience> *fearful silence*

Dalek Fzie> *expectant pause for applause*

Audience> *nervous cough*

Dalek Fzie> EXTERMINATE! *ZAPPO!* *covers the audience in selzer water from his gun-port

--------------

*the war room, the Daleks unveil their plot*

Dalek> First, we have the left flank ride in on giant weasels, while playing the ride of the valkyries on souzaphones; meanwhile I eat a buik...

Dalek Krmt> You're an idiot, Dalek Gnzo.

Dalek Gnzo> Philistine! Come Camilla!

*Dalek Gnzo leaves, trailed by a cybermat that 'buks'*

---------------

*Dalek Pggy hitting on the guest, the Doctor. *shudder* It ends with a plunger-powered karate chop*

--------------

* A music number with singing, dancing Daleks *

Dalek Stdlr> Well, it could be worse.

Dalek Wldrf> How?

Dalek Stdlr> Did you see our other movies?

* Dalek laughter *

Better cog generator

2009-06-25T13:12:22Z

Just a quick one, upgraded the cog generator on vonexplaino.com so you can add spokes and a mooring hub. As you were,

EDIT]: Edited due to LJ's input box deleting most of the content before posting, because that's fun apparently.

Curses

2009-06-24T11:39:14Z

So I haven't been able to say anything further regarding the big secret because it hasn't gone anywhere yet. While those involved have been assured that something will happen, at some point, the current status is "give me ambiguity or give me something else." *sigh*

In an unrelated topic, honest *casual whistle*, my new style for my home site has gone up to absolutely no fanfare. Budget cuts, don't you know. While you can still access the site from lapse.nerdvana.org.au I'm now the proud owner of http://vonexplaino.com/ — huzzah!

I've got a journal over there where I'm posting Steampulp shenanigans with hopeful regularity. While I do have code links under "Experiments" and a code post in the blog, I'm probably going to remove those and have the only experiments shown Steampulp related ones (direct links to devices, the cog application, the jaeger application etc.). I'm not entirely sure, though, as I have had some of my applications discovered and used by google-hunters — the GURPS lite character generator and life-path generators to name a couple.

Oh, and mandatory Connie update. I had the door closed to my room this evening so I could work without hearing Master Chef, but as soon as Jos opened the door to ask me a question Connie ran in, jumped on my lap, and decided I wasn't paying immediate attention to her so forepaws walked up my chest until she could face rub against my cheek and chin.

Cute kitty is cute.

Close to reveal

2009-06-06T02:23:57Z

OK, so now I can tell you a little bit more about why I'm excited. Because it's close to being confirmed.

You may want to be watching Channel 10 Brisbane news next Monday/ Tuesday nights. Some friends and I may be on it. There's a chance it might be shown on the Ten News Videos page. Fingers crossed.

Update: It's now sometime this week. Curses.

Eeeeeee

2009-05-28T06:42:14Z

I am so incredibly excited right now. I wish I could tell people why, but this has to remain a secret for a week in case I jynx things and get lynched.

To my fellow secret-holders: shhhhhh!

Seven things meme

2009-04-29T11:44:21Z

This has been some months in coming but devil may care, all around good guy Aleks tagged me in ye olde "Seven things you may not know about me" meme. Seven things you may not know about me:

I am missing one and a bit ribs.
I have been clinically dead 3 times.
I suffer a lot from sympathetic embarassment, to the point I can't watch some shows/ movies.
My nickname of "Relapse" that I have used online for 14 years was the result of a quick-nick change due to someone else claiming to have the one I was using at the time.
I played the violin and had tennis lessons in primary school.
Connie the cat jumped onto my lap for a sleep while I was writing this.
I am unbelievably bad at strategy games of any kind.

There are apparently some rules that go along with this, but I mock their petty requirements. I tag Kevin Rudd, the cast of Neighbours, Phar Lap's ghost, Pi, the sound of one heart breaking while another soars, Count von Count, and the surprisingly legitimate love child of Cthulhu and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Catchup

2009-04-19T09:30:44Z

Hi there, long time no speaky. It's been a while but I'm trying to get back into the ol' LJ vibe so it's catchup time.

Jos and I went to Melbourne at the beginning of this month to stay slash catch-up with friends, drink in the Melbourne vibe and attend a little gathering called the Melbourne Comedy Festival. First time. And it was awesome.

First of all I have to thank Troy and Vicky for putting us up for our visit, we had a blast hanging around you two; having dinner, attending shows, looking at shops. It was a shame Troy had to work for most of our stay, but we made up for that with the four shows we attended. Round up time!

Opening Gala, 1st April. I managed to score last minute tickets for these, and it was great fun. A lot smaller than I expected given all the televised shows I'd seen, but man laugh-out-loud funny, yes. Of course one or two comedians were duds and we went so far overtime everyone was flagging out by the end of it. Danny Bhoy still stole the show.
Best of the Edinburgh Festival. These guys were great - a Scotsman, Englishman and Irishman walked out onto a stage and were funny.
Bedroom Philosopher. This guy's a musical comedian, we were a bit late but it was still a great performance. It was underneath a pub and the publican turned his own music up so the Bedroom Philosopher incorporated that into his act. Even smacked the ceiling speakers with his guitar once or twice. Heh.
Adam Hills. So. Damn. Funny. Half an hour into his act and he was still riffing with people in the front few rows of the show; so much he had to apologize to us up in the balconies and promised he'd get on with the actual show soon. He has a really positive message through his shows, the ending was nearly preachy but still fun.

Shopping naturally featured heavily; I think this trip I ended up with more stuff than Jocelyn. Maybe I shouldn't consider moving to Melbourne. I've got a new casual Professor hat, a bunch of stuff for the lab from Industria and Wunderkammer (so... much... joy!); a few more odds and ends plus the card game Unspeakable Words. For such a simple premise, we played it a bunch while we were in Melbourne and still more times now we're back. Heh, H is for ______.

Now we are back home, Connie let us know she missed us by climbing all over us during the night to ensure she'd wake up if we tried to leave again.¹

This Monday's my birthday. Last night we had a bunch of friends come over for dinner with a mexican/ portugase theme. Everyone brought a plate, such foods! Full of yum! From beef mince wrapped in space-ship-esque pastry, to desserts, to shredded beef, to palau; it was a real great food experience. Big thanks to everyone for coming over, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Today my family came over for a late lunch, Jocelyn cooked the monster turkey that had been occupying our freezer for some time for 6 hours and it was wonderful. My Dad gave me the first disk of "Creature Comforts" from Aardman productions, glee! So, now I'm completely knackered with a cat on my lap and absolutely no desire to do any ironing. But first:

Last night during dinner I made Caprioskas. These are Jocelyn's favourite cocktail and I did a pretty good job according to rumour. Brown sugar + alcohol = tasty. However, I did need to make a few non-alcoholic cocktails so I grabbed the beaker that came with my mad scientist cocktail kit (thanks Jolyon) and put the following together:

Tropical von Explaino:
Equipment/ compounds:

375Ml can of lemonade
Half a kiwi fruit
Half a passion fruit
3-4 easpoons of seeds from a pomegranate
Beaker
Science!

Method:

Scoop the passion fruit and pomegranate seeds into the beaker.
Scoop out half the kiwi fruit, cut it up into small bits and add that to the beaker.
Fill with lemonade
Mix. For added science, mix vigorously so the froth spills out over the top of the beaker in an appropriately sciencey manner.
Serve in martini glasses, ensuring everyone gets some bits in there.
Laugh maniacally to taste

¹⁾ As I was typing that she came into my room and surprise jumped on my lap. You almost got "...we tried to leave aggoing".

The Watchmen meets The Smurfs

2009-03-20T23:57:47Z

(as suggested by Rocketpilot)

The Comedian -> Jokey Smurf
Ozymandias -> Vanity Smurf
Silk Spectre -> Smurfette
Rorschach -> Grouchy Smurf
Nite Owl ->Handy Smurf
Doc Manhattan -> Brainy Smurf

Wherefor Coraline

2009-03-20T23:50:09Z

OK. I watched the Watchmen. I liked the Watchmen, as I'd read the Watchmen. Other people have made better review posts, I will merely giggle at the cinema-screen-sized-wing-wang and move along.

I'd like to watch Coraline. I've enjoyed the web site, read a few reviews, so I hoped onto the local cinema site to discover when it'll be out in Australia.

August.

America is seeing it right now, and I have to wait 5 months.

Until studios/ distributors can figure out why that's a problem piracy will continue to be rampant.

(Note: I'm stupidly going to wait until August like a good citizen, so no spoilers or pointers on how to get it now please)

Because I actually use this

2009-03-03T22:35:47Z

Since I've got things I copy back and forth between work and home machines; plus I don't cart the desktop everywhere I go, I've started using DropBox. Sits in your task tray (win, mac, lin) and works just like another drive but it syncs to a central server where you get up to 2Gig of space. And it's free for that amount of space, and a subscription fee to get 50Gigs of space.

Been using it for ages, works fantastic. They're currently doing a promotion such that if you sign up by this link we both get an additional 250M of space. Free! Huzzah!

The Professor's new vest

2009-02-28T08:24:26Z

No, it's not the naked prof, thank goodness. Although that would make for an interesting series. "Let's see what death dealing devices I can make with simple ingredients."

Nope, the Professor's new vest has been photographed with goggles, hat, official badge and your choice of either Love-o-meter or Adventure bag.

A few weekends

2009-02-22T11:45:53Z

So recently I've

Eaten chicken's feet, on purpose. Like quail, it's too bony and a lot of effort for not much gain.
Predicted doom, how accurate that is remains to be seen.
Run around madly trying to prevent, or at least prepare emergency plans should doom arrive.
Gained a specific purpose waistcoat personally tailored for Professor von Explaino by a seemstress who creates professional movie costumery.
Gone squee over the above, loudly and often.
Bachelored it up while Jocelyn was away at a training course. This involved me eating prepared meals she left me, and cleaning the house. I think I may have forgotten how to do that properly.
Not minded forgetting how to bachelor properly.
Come closer to having my iPhone application actually released unbuggilly.
Found out that it likely wasn't bugger code, rather unexpected quirks in the input that was my downfall. Stupid downfall.
Ninja-delivered chocolate twice. Once the recipient wasn't there and that was easy. The second time I delivered it into their intray while they were at their desk and wasn't noticed.
Re-ordered my comic collection to make some room for new comics. Anyone want my PVP collection? I've got issue 0 up to thirty something.
Put on weight. Damn you, weight.
Gotten my arse handed to me in online Left 4 Dead but had fun regardless.
Discovered I may be getting bored with Fallout 3. Looks like my attention span for long-reaching games has dimmed, I think the last game I actually finished was Penny Arcade's game - and that was because it was a tailored interactive and personalised* novel
* by personalised, read the same sort of personalisation you get out of those Christmas books you can buy that have your child's name in it - only this time it also has a close approximation of your face**
** by close approximation, read as good as you can get from predrawn Penny-Arcade style person parts***
*** by that, read the game kicks butt and if you don't own it you should.

Get Smart meets the Matrix

2009-02-17T01:41:36Z

"Would you believe I could dodge bullets? No? How about a BB-gun?"

"Oh Neo..." *rolls eyes*

"Ve Are Agentz! Ve do not 'doo doo' here!"

*Neo fails the jump* "...missed it by that much..."

GAHH!!!!!

2009-02-12T22:56:24Z

Quick prop-check before work this morning reveals the Love-o-Meter is broken. Hopefully I'll have enough time/ skill/ equipment to enact repairs tonight.

Fallout musings

2009-02-09T03:10:33Z

So I've been playing a lot of Fallout 3 lately. By a lot I mean on occasion, I don't get to really play for days on end/ an entire weekend without sleep any more. More than I've been playing any other game recently, how's that? There's a number of people at work that also play, so morning teas can be filled with references to what people have found/ been doing/ what they like about the whole thing etc. Now the makers have released the GECK which is their development thingy to create your own adventures.

Which got me thinking of one of my favourite daft RPGs. Also post-apocalyptic. Also with a slightly off-centre sense of humour. Also with a love of various ways of killing anything around you.

When is someone going to take the GECK and build a Macho Women with Guns module?

colinmo @ 2009-01-20T08:45:00

2009-01-19T22:45:55Z

Today's "Origami a Day" is a talking dog.

Passers by> "Ha, does it really talk?"
Colin> "Hmmm, step 5: Summon Cthulhu..."

Alchemy

2009-01-10T23:45:06Z

Last night Jos, Jolyon, Kane, Susan, Haikal and Karin went to Alchemy, a very expensive restaraunt in Brisbane. Why? SCIENCE!

The meals themselves were great, and the cocktails were tasty and the conversations were fun. My highlight, and the reason for picking Alchemy, is because they do Liquid Nitrogen desserts. They freeze them in front of you and then you eat them. Typically, while I was eating the treats and blowing jets of mist from my mouth the only photo I've got is me with twin jets of mist bursting from my nose. Thanks Kane ( ;) )

COLD!!!!!

Again mixed

2009-01-08T21:38:20Z

This event happened after morning exercises. Connie was being shark-like, even to the point of plonking down behind my head mid sit-up and attacking it when I completed the sit-up. She ran out with me when I went to do my outside stretches - I'd barely started when a crested pigeon buzzed her and she just leapt up and snatched it out of the air. She ran off to under some bushes but I pulled her away and picked up the pigeon - it was already dead.

Cats do these things, fine. I've already found a few small lizard corpses around the place much to my disapproval. I don't want to have to lock her in a cat-run but that may be the only way to protect the local wildlife. Pigeon now, could be a lorikeet or one of the blue tongues later. Plus it would protect her from the other, nastier cats in the neighbourhood she gets chased by.

*sigh* They grow up so fast.

Fortune cookie

2009-01-06T22:34:46Z

I may be thinking about Relapse the Ninja a bit too much lately, as that character appears to be warping my brain patterns. Today I'd managed to work off the weight I'd put on over the break, but I'm still over 90Kg by a fair margin, lowest I'd managed in the past 5 years was 89Kg late last year. I've been bouncing between 91 and 95Kg for about a year, ignoring the 89-for-a-few-days-after-being-ill aberration. Today's morning exercise really hurt, and I was down about the whole weight thing.

[Colin]: It's hopeless.
[Relapse, joining thoughts unbidden]: Then in the absence of hope we will rely on effort.

This is my day.

2008-12-03T01:41:28Z

more animals

I may have posted it before but, if you'd like to complain, please review image.

High tea

2008-10-27T11:25:09Z

Saturday I had a bit of an open-lab and invited some friends over for a high tea. Good friends of mine are going to Melbourne and hadn't seen the latest lab so it was time for another gathering. Jos and I cooked mightilly in the morning, I made my normal chocolate brownies but also added a lemon curd slice for the first time - I think it turned out OK. It has inspired me to more device-workings.

Professor posing

Jos and Colin, cameo by Scott

Some of the spread.

Uploaded on 27 Oct 08, 9.15PM EST.

EDIT:
For those who are interested, Jos has sent me the menu!

Assorted finger sandwiches
Roast chicken & wholeseed mustard with rocket (wholemeal bread)
Cucumber with snow pea sprouts (white bread)

Other Savoury Delights
Pork and sage sausage rolls, with home made tomato chutney

Sweets
Chocolate Brownies
Lemon Slice
Scones, with double cream and homemade strawberry preserve

Cheeses
Sun dried tomato & chives crispbread
Kenilworth cracked pepper cheddar cheese
Kenilworth garlic cheddar cheese

Teas
Black tea:
Assam Dhelakat
Stockholm blend
Earl Grey
Black dilmah

Green tea:
Monkey Jasmine
Japan Bancha
Green Earl Grey

Coffee

Champagne
Wine

Lemon vodka tubes with lemon lime squash

Australia to be removed from the internet

2008-10-24T04:59:54Z

...
Australian Government Censorship 'Worse Than Iran'.

* falsely blocks 10% of safe sites (which means one of ten pages you want to visit, which are legal and non-porn, will be blocked anyway).
* reduces download speeds up to 86% (which means your download speed could be reduced to 14% of its current abysmal rating, Aussies).
* the government report on the product said it was useless (which means they know it's crap and doesn't protect kids or stop illegal activities, this is political and is definitely not "thinking of the children").

And yet the Rudd government is bullying people to put it in. For the love of the flying spaghetti monster and all that's nerdy - write to your local counsellor, minister or other important person. Better yet, phone them. Hell, get on Sunrise, that'll get noticed.

Select pictures

2008-09-29T03:39:25Z

Quick pic links of Rompness.

Hunter

2008-09-23T21:24:40Z

I don't know whether to be proud or chastising. Connie caught a minor bird yesterday. The great hunter is starting early. I have to make sure that she doesn't attack lizards, but she can kill as many mice/ rats as she likes.

colinmo @ 2008-09-23T13:49:00

2008-09-23T21:17:24Z

So this weekend was the Brisbane Romp. The Royal Omnitological Society for Electrodyne Adventurers was there, and we have photographic proof of this. You can see us at the official page for now, but we are slowly collating and uploading our own photographs, including close-ups of all the devices our crew has accumulated so far. I saw a few friends at the Romp - Tori and Bec, plus Heidi and family. That was always nice. For the first time I was also asked to be in a few photographs and spoke to people - normally Scott and Martins' fabulous personalities and outfits wow all the crowds. I like to think the combined effort on the Clueometer helped this.

This culminated in winning the costume contest! Huzzah for R.O.S.E.A!

I have to write a game for Friday and I have limited ideas. Looks like it's going to be an off-the-cuff one. Comedy ahoy.

Jos is back soon. Now that's something that makes me smile :)