I have returned from my trip, and I feel like a new man. I’ll probably be putting up some recollections from my travels.

On another note, I’m going to be slowly weaning myself off gaming, as it is distracting from my other great love (writing) and general day-to-day life. That’s not to say that I’m divorcing myself from it altogether - it just means that I’ll be limiting myself to casual sessions of an hour at a time or on bus trips with my DS.

Well, that depends on how forgiving Advance Wars: Dual Strike is going to be…or if I end up stabbing the screen in frustration.

I’ll be leaving for Japan for 3 weeks, which will be so incredibly, amazingly awesome I’ll probably go blind from it.

Without a doubt I’ll be visiting the holy land of Akihabara, amongst other places. I’ll be documenting as much as I can.

In the meantime - if you’re in Sydney and are interested in the LAN scene, you should go visit the SOGC site because it’s been given a fresh lick of paint Be sure to check out the forums as well.

A wise man once said:

I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.

-James Baldwin

It’s been pretty good fun offering my services here. It had its share of initial stress, as with most activities in a foreign environment.

Some hurdles I found particularly interesting were:

• The length of time it took sorting out bank accounts,
• The exorbitant costs of being allow to enter and work in the country in the first place,
• Accommodation hitches - even though I had it easier than most, it was a bit of a panic moment trying to find a place before we got booted out,
• Trying not to get my pants (sorry, trousers) pulled down by shifty agents, bucket shops and two-bit operations when looking for work,
• Sorting out Ltd. Company / Umbrella Company / Tax issues,
• Dealing with dodgy contracts and settling on a pay rate,
• Getting paid in the first place.

So (to steal quotes from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), it’s been…emotional.

I’ll be heading off to Bulgaria and Amsterdam next, so by the time I get back I’ll be able to say “I would like 2 Vodka Martinis” in Bulgarian and explain the subtleties between hydro and chronic.

My last trip was to Berlin, and it was…weird. The buildings that were levelled by the Allied bombings (that is, most of them) are now replaced by hastily erected apartments that look several floors too small. And despite the fall of the Wall, there’s still an eerie lingering scent of Communism lingering in the air. Maybe it was just me, a young Oriental man stranded in a very, very white populace?
Potsdam was nice, though.

Not many articles here - by now you’re all playing Vegas 2 or DMC4 working on those Achievements. You bastards.

• 50 Cent II is coming out. The gushing reviews must have had something to do with it. In this latest episode, you’ll find Fiddy and his G-g-g-g-g-g-unit “stranded in an unnamed Middle Eastern country after a benefit concert goes awry”. The irony works on so many levels here - I’m just waiting for the cartoon series to come out.
• Some corporate propaganda always helps to whip the general public into shape - Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 has sold around 2 million units. Good news for the big-name publisher, but mo’ money mo’ problems. (They should make a game on P Diddy while they’re at it, building him up from a struggling freestyle rap artist in the early 90s or something.)
• I thought it was scrapped (maybe I’m confusing with Halo) but the Gears of War film is on track for 2010. “”We’ve got our script on and a director we’re about to attach. We’ll hopefully make that early next year for the summer of 2010,” said (Gears’ producer) Godfrey.”
• This is kinda sickening, but typical of sensationalist tabloidism - a newspaper is offering readers cash to share their stories about how video games turned them to a life of crime. So, rather than actually go out and do some investigative research, we pay some random strangers off the Internet to tell us stories which may or may not be true. Nice one.
• This is a great opinion piece on the sanctity of video game writing. Worth a read if you want something nice and bitter.
• Another good piece of Escapist writing dealing with the common theme of the social stigma of video games and the media bashing; this time it’s from the perspective of a veteran games designer. “What’s sad is that their ideological, ignorant, hostile, one-dimensional attitudes oversimplify one of the most beautiful problems in human history. It makes me very sad that many of these people will die fearing games. I would so rather include them, but they have to meet us in the middle or become sad, lonely, reclusive luddites.”

I just wanted to squeeze out a quick rant before I head off to work.

Last night, I saw some English theatre. Now, in a country where the theatre industry is subsidised for several pounds per audience member (as opposed to the couple of cents per audience member back home), I was expecting great things. I was expecting my love of theatre to be rejuvenated from the heady days of my playwrighting past. I guess I wasn’t disappointed - technically, it did tick most boxes…if theatre has any boxes to tick in the first place.

Lots of old people with programmes, thick coats and sensible shoes? Not quite. In fact, there were far more younger people than the gracious elderly, including a band of young American tourists (who probably got lost on their way to the debut gig of American rock band The Mousetrap).

Tight, stuffy theatre? You bet your arse it was. The seats were about as comfortable as a broken bus seat for a professional basketball player. I’m also certain that, in the unlikely event of a fire, we would all have been in some serious excrement.

Actual production and acting values? Well, Agatha Christie’s play is apparently timeless - so timeless, in fact, that it has been running for 56 consecutive years and still manages to gather an audience every time. I figure the actors would know it all back to front and might even take their characters home with them (especially the exuberant and somewhat camp Christopher Wren character). The acting wasn’t too bad, and given the thick clichés of a whodunnit, the English banter that whips along at a cracking pace and the obligatory twist at the end, it handled itself fairly well. (No, it wasn’t the butler.)

So it wasn’t all too bad, even if I did catch myself doing a little eyebrow-raising at times. But I have to say that I prefer entertainment of the interactive kind.

I haven’t done an actual update in a while, so I suppose it’d be good to get one in before I knock off for tonight.

I’m currently doing a short stint with a Government consultancy - they’re mainly involved in infrastructure and signage. Whatever keeps me out of trouble, give me money to spend and adds more words on my CV goes alright with me

The people at work are hilarious. I haven’t had belly laughs this hard since fucking ages. I dunno if I just get turned on by British humour or what, but it’s a crack up. Awesome place to work.

What else…my sister’s fiancée is over here visiting for a while, so they’ve been mooching it up while I’m firmly in the role of third leg. Although work is helping to get out of their hair and letting them spend some quality time together.

Other than that, it’s actually getting to the point where I’m hitting a routine. It’s good and bad, and eventually I’ll start looking for distractions.