Keith Lawrence's Journal
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Keith Lawrence's LiveJournal:
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| Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 | | 5:14 pm |
NaNoWriMo
Hit 50,000 this morning - now I think I will slow down a touch, but aim for doing at least the minimum suggested (1667) every day until the end. Didn't get into MoD2 (boo), but was surprisingly pleased to see the Italian cover of MoD1 (my story in Italian?: "Disperazione"). | | Friday, October 14th, 2011 | | 11:44 am |
Faux-dax
Last wednesday, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) damerell and I went for a little jaunt around London, following the route of the 100 km London Sightseer Audax. We'd missed the official one, but both being men of leisure, I persuaded him that we weren't bound by such things as weekends or official dates, and since he had a set of directions from a previous trip, we decided that we could just pick a day and go for it. Here are some photos of bikes. I enjoyed the route - it's tortuously complicated in places, but it took me to a lot of places I'd never been before, especially in Docklands. I'd never really considered quite how much of a port town London was before last week - the amount of canals, moorings, docks, harbours etc., there are scattered around to the east of the city is amazing. Most of them are now fancy marinas or decorative walks. The route-planner ( Bill Carnaby of the Hounslow and District Wheelers, I believe) has done a good job of fitting in a lot of famous sights into the ride, even if there are one or two weird crossings-and-recrossings involved in places. The distance was just right for a day, I think - we started at about 10:00 and finished around 18:00 - roughly in the middle of what the allowed time band would have been if we were actually doing it as an Audax (5-10 hours). I started to flag pretty seriously at around 80 km, particularly as there was a gusty wind from the south-west that sped us into London but slowed us down on the way out. But I made it! By far the longest distance I've travelled in a day by bike (previous best: 60 km). | | Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 | | 7:53 pm |
Feats of strength and endurance
I have now cycled 9 megametres. I have also lifted two (full-grown) people at once. The lift may have been helped by the bouyant effect of my gigantic ego. The human tendency to ascribe personal failure to chance and personal success to virtue or intrinsic greatness is a fantastically enjoyable thing. When I am at swing-dancing class and the night sees me asking lots of women to dance, I consider it normal. When lots of women ask me to dance I consider it a great testament to my amazing dance skills, and rarely ever pay attention to the fact there are only two men there on that particular evening. | | Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 | | 2:30 pm |
Dino-Doodles
Sometimes in our weekly games night it is useful to pass notes, so paper (or post-it notes) come in handy. Sometimes they're useful game-related notes. Last night this series of dinosaur-related puns was the result. You Maiasaur As Well Click Here... | | Thursday, July 7th, 2011 | | 10:30 am |
| | Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 | | 12:30 am |
DANCE-BOT 5000 Gallery
For my birthday this year I asked people to draw pictures on the theme of DANCE-BOT 5000. You can see the gallery of awesome artwork here. Once again, friends and family and even people who I've never met were kind enough to draw things according to my whims, and for that I thank you all. You are all stars! Current Mood:  happy | | Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 | | 11:17 am |
Birthday Art Challenge 2011
Last year, for my birthday, I asked people to draw pictures of Dinosaurs or Cephalopods in formal clothing. The idea was that I have most of the things I want anyway, and I'm no great fan of cards, so if people felt like they wanted to give me a present or send me a card they could draw a picture instead, which would be fun for them and enjoyable for me, and super cheap. People seemed to like the idea, and you can see the amazing results here. ...so anyway: I'll be 39 next month, and given that it worked so well last year, I would like to do it again. So if you would like to, and if you feel inspired, this year's theme is: DANCE-BOT 5000(although drawings on the them of dinosaurs or cephalopods in formal wear will also be appreciated, and if you can draw a dancing robot dinosaur or squid, well...) NB: The "if"s up there are emphasised exactly because I'm usually pretty happy on my birthday anyway, so if you can read this you should not feel obliged in any way - just if you feel like it and think you'd enjoy drawing a dance robot, I'd be delighted to see the results! | | Saturday, February 26th, 2011 | | 8:52 am |
| | Sunday, February 20th, 2011 | | 8:29 am |
| | Monday, January 24th, 2011 | | 9:52 am |
| | 7:50 am |
| | Sunday, January 16th, 2011 | | 9:02 am |
| | Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 | | 12:04 am |
The Geekchildren
..today demanded that they be allowed to play the copy of "Gamma World" we bought for their dad. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED | | Sunday, October 24th, 2010 | | 5:42 pm |
Machine of Death
If you're in America, or not averse to paying to-europe shipping rates to Amazon, the anthology containing the first story I sold (back in the old days, before "The Freedom"), is now available: http://machineofdeath.net/oct26/If you do fancy buying a copy, please consider buying it on the 26th October (US time, so late afternoon to evening for any fellow Euros) - it doesn't take a lot of sales to get it on Amazon's bestsellers list.  | | Monday, July 12th, 2010 | | 11:35 am |
Going Flat Out
So, before I knew that I would be rescuing a kitten last week, I was preparing for a week of no Faith (she was in London for a couple of conferences), so it was convenient that I could be distracted from spending all my time writing by Steam having a gargantuan sale. I bought a few things very very cheaply. One of those was FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, a racing game. When I moved to Dublin I somehow lost my copy of NFS: Most Wanted, which was my go-to game for mindless not-too-simulationy driving. I didn't fancy buying NFS: Shift, which looked a touch too realistic for me, so I was left jonesing for a mindless racer but lacking the will to buy a copy of a game I'd already played. Enter FlatOut:UC for €1.90. This is less than the cost of a single LUAS trip, something so cheap that you could pay for it with a single coin. I thought it worth the risk. Gamble successful! Now, it is not without its problems - for one, it's a port of an X-box game, so constantly prompts you with "press A or B", instead of "press return or esc". Plus, multi-player needs a windows live account, and the steam install fails to automatically install that, you have to research this problem and fix it yourself (basically just find where it's put the WL installer and run it). A steep barrier to entry! But it's worth it. The game looks good and is fun. I would go so far as to say it's the second best racing game I've played (after POD - and to be honest, POD is coasting a long way on its setting there. If FlatOut:UC was set on a dying world, it would win). Pros: - Looks nice! It really looks nice. Maybe not photorealistic like Shift, but the tracks are beautiful and the lighting great. - Cars handle well: not running on rails, not waggling all over the place, but they seem realistic. You can't push them too far and hope to get away with it, but you're not constantly fighting the steering. - Destroyable cars - very well-modelled destroyable cars, at that. It's sort of nice to have models of real cars, but frankly the novelty of racing a 206 or a Lamborghini Diablo soon wears off (very soon in the second case, once you realise that it is essentially a straight-line rocket - point in the direction you want to go, press accelerate, 2 microseconds later hit obstacle half a mile away. Reorientate. Repeat). The cars in FO:UC look just as good as real car models would, but you can smash the hell out of them. In fact, it's encouraged. They take full advantage of this with demolition derby levels, which aren't as much fun as racing but do work as a nice sorbet to clean the pallet. - Varied tracks - you see tracks more than once, and there are probably fewer than in MarioKart, say, but they're fun to drive. There are plenty of short cuts and alternative routes, too, so racing them the tenth time is as fun (maybe more) than the first. - No Catch-Up: A biggie. Catch up on the NFS games was always a tremendous pain in the balls. It seems like a good idea - to make the race more interesting by making sure you always have someone you're battling with - but in practise it just means that even if you get well ahead, a slight trip-up at the last moment means you're screwed. FO: UC does have a sort of catch up, but it's an organic part of the Nitro system and works just as well for you as against you - if you're out in the lead, the only way to get Nitro is to do jumps, but if you're back in the pack, you can get it by hitting other cars. So people behind you get more nitro than you do. If you've built up an impressive lead, though, you won't lose it immediately if you clip a wall. Run full-on into one and you will, but there you go. Don't smash head-on into walls, people. - Fun physics: The tracks are littered with objects to smash, cars behave nicely when hit, etc. Tracks really do evoke the word "carnage" after the first few laps, with broken scenery littered all over the place. It's not quite right - but it's good enough for government work. The only real gripe I have is with nitro working in the air - I understand that nitro doesn't work in real life as it does in the game anyway, but really? It's not a rocket. In other news, I executed a dukes-of-hazzard-style barrel roll off a flood drain lip earlier, that was amazing. - Tracks change: Not as much as SpeedBusters or MarioKart, but the fact that tire walls and other wreckage are scattered around after the first lap does make the race evolve somewhat - you can plow right through, but hitting a tire wrong can spin you off the track. Also, some of the shortcuts are only shortcuts if you're the second person to take them (for instance, a jump through a section of plane filled with airline seats. If you have to plough through them they will slow you down. But force some other poor bugger to bulldoze them aside, and the next lap it's a jump that won't slow you down but will get you nitro). - No f**king blue shells: Nuff said. - Not infuriating: Hard to define, but I feel justice has been served when I lose a race - I don't find myself pounding my fists in frustration against the desk, just thinking: "Well, I should have been a better driver. Let's try that again." i.e., it is actually enjoyable. Cons: - Install problem - Port could have been slightly altered to remove XBox craziness - "Reset" doesn't seem to take long enough. When you crash severely or go off track, you can reset to get back on the track with a time penalty. I don't know if this is the same penalty in multiplayer, but it seems low. I often knock other cars off the track, only to see them respawn in the middle of the track going a good speed before I've recovered control of my vehicle. It should be an advantage to struggle heroically back into the race, not a disadvantage. That said, it's not so much of a bother than I cry out against an uncaring god. Advantage: Pros! If you are a working person who likes this sort of game, I would buy it! If you are a non-working person who likes this sort of game, I would wait for it to go on sale and then buy it! | | Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 | | 9:06 pm |
Dinosaurs and Cephalopods in Formal Wear
..so. Today I am 38, and I asked my friends and family to draw pictures of dinosaurs and/or cephalopods in formal wear. The experiment has been an resounding success! See the galleryI'm now trying to work out what the theme will be next year. I'm leaning towards "Rodents in Wigs" at the moment, but I have 50 weeks to make my mind up. Current Mood: happy | | Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 | | 8:02 am |
Connect Tab A to Slot Clueless
From the BBC's report on the new government's plans: There will be a "significant acceleration" of efforts to reduce the budget deficit - including £6bn of spending reductions this year. An emergency Budget will take place within 50 days..ah! Now, I've got an idea how we could... The Lib Dems will drop opposition to a replacement for Britain's Trident nuclear missilesSON OF A... (In the interests of fairness, I should point out that the programme will be "scrutinized for value for money" - whatever the hell that means. I assume it doesn't mean: "If, as everyone secretly suspects, this is found to be a braindead moneypit we will scrap it"). Current Mood:  annoyed | | Monday, April 26th, 2010 | | 7:49 am |
| | Thursday, March 4th, 2010 | | 10:43 pm |
Every so often...
...you make a word in Bookworm Adventures which you are unduly proud of. MORGANATIC | | Monday, November 30th, 2009 | | 11:29 pm |
NaNoWriMo
...so. Having decided not to go for NaNoWriMo last year (due to all the other things I had to do during November, such as finding somewhere to live in a foreign country), I wasn't too sure until the week before whether I was going to do it this year. But, as fides pointed out, if ever there was a year to do it, this is it. It ends in half an hour, but I am not writing anything more. Having hit the target 50,000 words in the first week, I've since gone on to hit 125,000 - that is to say, 2.5 Nanos. The story isn't finished yet, but tomorrow I'm going to take a break for a day. Current Mood: accomplished |
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