Eleven11

Hi folks, got a few things to chat about so I'm just going to dive right in.

First up, the makers of Abe's Odyssey have released a new Oddworld game called 'New n Tasty' on the PS4. I am desperately awaiting news on the pc port and as I don't really follow console news I completely missed this when it was released in July. Not that I would have been able to do much about it back then other than be completely jealous of everyone with a PS4. The game graphics so far look pretty damned good and gameplay on the PS4 seems to be pretty good. I've not seen anyone complaining about it at least. I'm currently following @OddworldInc for updates.

Blizzcon was only a few days ago and like many people I'm sure my twitter was swamped with messages about the event. However one game seemed to overshadow all others, and with Blizzard's announcement of Overwatch, the internet seemed to collectively lose it's shit. I mostly saw a lot of positive tweets about the game, the choice of characters available to play and the range of weaponry but I did also see some folk just try to pass it off as a cheap TF2 knock off. Curious, I had a wee look at their site (here) and I gotta say, this game looks pretty darn amazing. Playing in groups of 6, you can fight for control of a map or do a kind of courier mission where you have to get a payload from point A on the map to point B and so on. Doesn't sound like too much at the moment but there is plenty of room for expansion and knowing that Blizzard likes to make the most out of their ip's I'm expecting there to be lots of expansions in the future. I'm going to dust off my old Battlenet account and sign up for the beta as soon as I have the chance.

In music news: Gajin-rock band Area 11 have released their new EP Underline, which they are claiming is their best work to date. The 3 track download is currently available through  iTunes,  Amazon and  Musicglue. I only have one issue with this and it's the fact that they're calling this an EP- to me EP's are a 4 track minimum, anything less than that is a single, but that is just me being really pedantic. The guys are currently on tour promoting the release. They are playing Carlisle Brickyard tonight, Glasgow Classic Grand tomorrow and Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire on the 13th November, then they take a short break before picking up the rest of the tour on the 16th. Full tour dates are here. I thought today was a great day to bring it to your attention as it is 11/11!

Kickstarter update for Evan Dahm's Wonderful Wizard of Oz illustrated book- the project not only reached it's kickstarter goal, it smashed it. The goal was made on the 11th October and since then enthusiasm for the project just seemed to snowball with the final amount raised being 4 times what was asked for. I am really looking forward to owning a copy of this book, and may yet still buy further copies for friends and family that have little ones to share.

Speaking of books I am pulling out of this year's NaNoWriMo. Other circumstances have cropped up and I just can't dedicate the time that is required to the project at the moment and I'm already behind so catching up is just out of the question. Also, I've been having a constant headache for the past four days and daily nosebleeds (which has been interesting- I've not had a nosebleed in years), so my concentration's been all out of whack. I'm still writing when I can but it's just wee drabbles here and there. I do plan on finishing the story that I had planned out for NaNo, but I'll be doing so at a much slower pace.

Actually now that I think about it I have still more to ramble on about but I think this is a good place to stop and I'll post something else in a few days time with the other nonsense that's banding around my brain at the moment. Until then, take care.

NaNoWriMo 2014

Well, I did sign up for NaNoWriMo, and I am terrible at it.

I kept delaying signing up because the last three months of the year are usually really busy for me. Not only do I have a ton of birthdays from friends and family, but I like to do things for Halloween and I do usually try to do something for my birthday which is right in the middle of all this nonsense.

What ended up happening was that Halloween was a mess of doing responsible things like having appointments with my bank and cooking, and doing fun things like hand making Halloween decorations and carving pumpkins. All of this took all day. I was surprised and most of it was spent cooking. And the amount of trick-or-treaters we got was ridiculously small. We had three. Only three.

So we started the first of November with a hell of a lot of halloween candy left over, and I got the chance to catch up with some of my friends that were up for the weekend. We all had different halloween parties to go to in the evening so we made the most of our day catching up. The evening I spent throwing together a very cheap, very last minute costume and went out to the party and drank a bottle of rum to myself. This caused the following day to be spent in a hungover agony that was self inflicted and very stupid.

Day 3 of NaNo I had work and then went round to a friends house to play board games, watch Gotham and eat birthday cake. They got me a Batman cake, I have awesome friends.
Sidenote: I got mostly booze and chocolate for my birthday. I repeat- I have awesome friends.
Unfortunatly I got in at about midnight and needed to be up for work in 5 hours time.

Day 4 of NaNo, I finally get a chance to start writing. And I write something around 100-200 words.

Today (Day 5) I'm up to 830. 830 words. I should be in the region of 8300 plus. I am 7500 words behind.

I can't do this. I don't think I can do this. But I'm going to try. Just after I'm done bitching about my inability to do this on the internets. And when I'm done watching stupid youtube videos.

(Update 1 of NaNoWriMo.)