Sunday, 05:21 pm, 12 January 2003

I have painted roughly half of my army of 70+ with the main uniform coat. It looks like it will take me the better part of a month to get the army finished. It is a remarkably reflective undertaking actually and in terms of positive feedback and stick-to-it-ness, it rates high. Once I have finished the army, I am not sure whether I will actually use them in battles. I haven't thought that far ahead. I have purchased a number (60+) backdated White Dwarf magazines on ebay.co.uk - mainly for evening reading. In general this hobby rates much better than the brief flirtation with building model planes. The cash in for enjoyment and time out seems much higher.

But I still haven't gone out there and met up with game players. My wife jokes, that this is going to be the defining phase. Am I willing to endure body-odour/poorly communicated obsessive aggression and meet up with people to battle the figures?

I live quite a hermit-like existence in the UK. Whilst I don't mind people, the British are notoriously difficult to befriend. I have never been asked to a workmate's home or done anything remotely social with the folk from work after hours. Other social outs proved poor. I don't mind being by myself - in fact the Nervana Project shows the productive ideals of isolated work. But having some social contact with the UK may be beneficial too.

Sorry for the lack of progressive updates. I am going to do forty minutes of source code work with the Nervana Simulation before dinner.

Wednesday, 11:04 pm, 15 January 2003

I must apologise for the lack of updates. It has been a turbulent few days. In addition to this I have overdosed on White Dwarf magazines this evening. The first two parcels of Ebay won White Dwarfs arrived today. The first on the pile was one my friend in Australia used to own. Quite emotional. But after about 20 magazines, I realised the company is very different. After I have finished painting my army, it may just end up in a memories box.

For a number of reasons, I feel at a turning point. After some soul searching there will be a number of dramatic changes in my digital life coming very soon. Fortunately, a good portion have been in planning for some time.

In addition to this, I heard this evening that the IGDA IP Committee is going ahead and soon I will be working with 12+ games folk on that front. My 9-5 is also going well. I am someone who has rarely decided change. I have moved between three countries in the past four years - this is a strange omission. But I would much rather live the Kantian life of birth and death in the same location. Letting the ideas fly rather than the person. At the same time, I have enjoyed seeing the world. But rapid change has always been hard to stomach. The feeling I had looking through a White Dwarf that I knew when I was 12-13 (a 1989 issue) was very strange indeed. I have kept very little as I have moved. Every move I throw away a lot of my possessions - just through the cost of freight.

Now I can buy bits of my childhood back - but not my childhood. What I am looking forward to is some musical composition over the next few months. Good night!

Saturday, 03:14 pm, 25 January 2003

Painted the cloth coat for fourteen more of my army today. I took a digital photo to illustrate - in some way - how little I have done so far. The boots, weapons, helmets and shadowing needs to be done for all the figures still and there are fourteen remaining that haven't had their cloth done yet.

Thursday, 10:19 pm, 30 January 2003

The wife and I are taking Monday and Tuesday off and fulfilling a life-long dream of mine to visit Nottingham. I would like to see Liverpool too, but Nottingham has the upper hand currently. We will do a combination of tourist things, shopping and see Warhammer World. Warhammer World represents the crescendo of my rediscovery of childhood miniatures. I want to buy a couple of sprues of plastic Space Marines, potentially some Chaos Space Marines and some Orcs. Because they are old list miniatures, I may pay quite a bit for them. But it is a once off. The luxury of fulfilling childhood dreams is Freudian in extreme but quite edifying. My wife has cultivated this ability to embrace and feel comfortable with childhood again. It enables me to feel a connection with a former self. Like meeting an old friend.

My classic Chaos warriors arrived a couple of days ago and I showed my wife. All were circa 1988 and were stamped accordingly. In parallel to this introversion I have been thinking about Noble Ape quite a bit. Mainly in terms of distinction and improvement from the Nervana Project. The renaming has put to bed some ghosts and made me think more about what I want in the new development. More on the source log for that. Good night.