Barkerburgh

Well, I’m hooked. I’ve got a pretty basic freeware application that lets you mark the cells for what they might contain and then tells you if you’re right or wrong once you start filling the cells in for real. So right now it’s kinda like playing Doom in semi-God Mode, so I’m happy.

With that help, I’m down to about half an hour per medium skill game (ie, 1 or 2 cells with 3 or 4 filled in and the rest with 2 or 3.) I’m sure it would take much longer on paper, which I will try eventually.

A little annoying when I’d rather finish a timed game of Sudoku than watch my TV shows, but whaddaya gonna do?

My TV viewing habits and their importance in my life pale in comparison to the importance of the apocalyptogenic trouble in the Middle East, I know that.

But here goes anyway.

I saw two important things last night.

a) The third episode of the current season of ‘Veronica Mars‘. Saw the first two, also. Very smoking. On the surface it looks like a teenage grrl’s show, but it’s got substance and style and it’s fun, like Buffy with a touch of Joan, but without either of the supernatural goings-on.

ii. The third episode (but not in order) that I’ve seen of the excellent British series ‘Hustle‘. It’s about con artists and in last night’s episode, they actually executed the old con known as the Wire, the same one Gondorff and Hooker pulled in ‘The Sting‘. Smoking. One thing I like about this show is 1> sometimes the characters talk to the camera to explain a con or part thereof and b] sometimes the action freezes and one or two of the characters might inject a little editorial comment into the frozen action.

Well, it looks like the policy of the Bush government is to kick start Armageddon.

Condoleezza Rice, an educated woman, is contemptible for not pursuing an immediate ceasefire under any conditions to save lives and infrastructure in Lebanon, and northern Israel. It’s distressing and disturbing that she appears to believe what George Bush said about himself (“I’ve heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for President.”), and seems to be helping him in his bid to bring about Apocalypse, or the Rapture, or the Second Coming or whatever the Fundies are preaching now.

This was supposed to happen with the Gulf War. When that didn’t work, Shrub tried to start it up by invading Iraq* in Gulf War Jr. That didn’t work either, so now they’re trying this.

No, seriously.

Moving hand, moving on.

*Where Babylon is; read the Scriptures and the modern prophets. You can interpret them any way you want, so you can’t be wrong until you are, so you then claim you were misquoted or misinterpreted. It’s easy.

I blame tnir.

That is all.

Last week I got to spend a few days with Reid and Luisa (along with young whatsisname and the other one) at their ancestral beach home in the Wasagas.

John, Kristen, Jamie and a baby to be named later were there when I arrived (picked up by limousine from the omnibus terminal on the High Street). Then they left. But it was nice to see them for a few minutes anyway.

The wind was high, coming in off the lake and the waves were whitecapped over sandbars. The weather was fresh and comfortable, almost entirely bug-free, and I had a big old bedroom all to my self, because I was the guest, not because I snore.

Rita Quieti, an old friend of the family, whom I know from CBC, came for the last few days too. It was great to see her again and she brought a whole mess of food. Mmmm. We like Rita.

I swam a lot with Junior and other Junior, ate a lot, got sunburned a little, tried to walk to Michigan through Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, slapped the buoy, saw a gorgeous sunset from water level, read much of an excellent book (”Fitzpatrick’s War” by Theodore Judson, the kind of book you regret finishing - because it’s so good, not that you ever regreted starting it in the first place), played the very interesting board game”Power Grid” (but no one won due to dinner being ready and the table being needed. I would have, though.), and the delightful “Munchkin Fu“.

The first time I came back from swimming in the high waves, I felt strangely energized. Might try that regular back here in the city.

Had a fine time.

Well, here’s my wrap up of the last day of the Gathering of the Fellowship.

Again, it was a much smaller scale than the first Gathering, but quite interesting.

Ted Nasmith, the famous Tolkien (and Other artist), seems to be a Beatles fan. He, his brother, and a fellow whose identity I didn’t catch put on a short concert of Beatles songs rewritten as Lord of the Rings songs by Ted himself (I think…)

The first one was a version of “Help!” which got a standing ovation; it was clever and funny. It was also their encore.

During a short break, partway through the concert I felt obliged to shout out “You guys are more popular than Frodo!”

I got a good laugh.

Later that day, Ted did a concert with just his brother on the keyboards of original LOTR-themed songs he’s written himself, some quite moody and mournful, especially about Beren and Luthien (who, as all know, were the George and Gracie of Middle-earth).

At the first Gathering, I wore a temporary tattoo of the Ring Inscription across my forehead and across the back of my head. (Blatherings link, scroll down.) It was from a bookmark provided by Atlantis-Alliance and distributed at the Gathering.

They were long out of them this time, so I went to a dollar store and bought a sheet of temporary tattoos with mainstream fantasy themes. The first day I wore a European dragon on my forehead, the second day I wore a Chinese dragon, and the third day I wore a sword with a flaming skull. Of course, I kept forgetting they were there (especially out in Public) and couldn’t understand the looks people were giving me, which were even weirder than usual.

I want to thank my friends, who I’ll just call “Tim” and “Anneli” for the delightful birthday present of the membership for the Gathering.

There wasn’t one.

There was going to be one. I wrote a few paragraphs about three extraordinary dreams I had on Monday night, involving 1) Stargate SG-1 and Cylons (sic), 2) a charismatic gang-leader in a Toronto with Dickensian Faginian touches, and 3) a community centre pot-luck banquet. I was going to post them to my Livejournal but thought “No.”

I typed them in to WordPress, remembering more details as I typed, then hit ‘Advanced Editing’ which, in WordPress gives you more options for editing. At that very microsecond in time, frickin’ tnir.org went south, pear-shaped, off on a comet, beyond the blue event horizon, into the mystic, retrograde, toes-up, into the outer darkness, and so forth.

I lost my post entirely.

Boy, was I pissed, let me tell you and you can believe it.

And no, I don’t feel like typing all that in again.

The Gathering of the Fellowship: There was an artist who was not in attendance at the Gathering named Ruth Lacon, an Englishwoman of prodigious talent and imagination. Her agent made sure a number of copies of her book were available, although he couldn’t bring a whole crate over. There were originally about six or seven copies. All but one had sold ($50 Canadian) by late Sunday, the second of three days of the Gathering. Her inspiration ranges from the Bayeux Tapestry to classic Indian artwork and she has illustrations from The Hobbit, the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings, and probably other of JRRT’s works that I haven’t read. Oh, wait, she did a scene from Farmer Giles of Ham, which I loved as a teenager.

Here’s the general Google string for ‘Ruth Lacon’ and worth the browse, let me tell you.

She’s wonderfully talented, with a wide range of cultural inspirations and her illustrations inspired by the Silmarillion alone are moving and evocative. FY yer I, every couple of months from now on, google this, and look for a new edition of ‘The Hobbit ‘ illustrated by Ruth Lacon.

Her agent in the UK (and I guess, abroad) is Andy Compton of ADC Book and ADC Promotions. He was here at the Gathering and ain’t just an entrepreneur. He loves Tolkien’s works as much as any old New World streetcorner LOTR geek with an encyclopaedic memory: “Spare a quarter for a Middle Earth question?” We all grew up with them here in Toronto.; it’s a Loonie now (a dollar coin for you foreign visitors. “How old was Frodo on Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday?” You’d be surprised!)

If our streetcorner LOTR geeks aren’t in your tourist guide, (they have distinctive hats) you can always ask anybody you meet:they all know what’s going on.

Now I just found out that Tolkien is considered to have used certain Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire landmarks as inspirations for things like the Three Farthing Stone and the Barrow Downs. I heard this from an Englishman of indeterminate accent, an Englishwoman speaking to Andy and from Andy Compton himself , whose headquarters are in Moreton-in-Marsh, in, of all places, Oxfordshire, which is like this close “< ->” to Gloucestershire. Seriously. Foreign people have such fascinating customs.

Now I’ve admired Ted Nasmith’s work for years. He’s Canadian which doesn’t hurt, and he works hard too. Check my previous post for his link and see what else he does. Knock your socks off, I swear to god. A god. The Gods. I don’t know.

So, anyhoo, Ruth Lacon. Explore her link above.

Today was the first day of the Gathering of the Fellowship.

As a volunteer I was assigned to watch the Art Gallery. Canadian Tolkien artist Ted Nasmith’s work was on display.

An artist named Jef Murray was there too, quite good, but a completely different style than Ted’s realism. He was a guest of honour at the Gathering, and he designed the logo, which is here on the Gathering’s homepage. It is also the image on the passes that we all carried around.

At the suggestion of another attendee, “Carol”, who was in costume, I got Jef to sign my own pass. My name is not eBay. This is a keeper.

I watched the documentary, Ringers: Lord of the Fans. Funny but respectful.