28 September 2007

Shadows Over Camelot

Okay, I am seriously SO psyched. Just got back from youth and playing this absolutely AMAZING board game called, as the title indicates, Shadows Over Camelot (clicky lick for info). It's up to seven players and it's collaborative, meaning that you all play together on one team against the forces of Evil, which aren't played by anyone except a traitor, if you choose to have one. So there are seven knights: King Arthur, Sir Gawain, Sir Galahad, Sir Percival, Sir Palomides, Sir Tristan, and Sir Kay (we played two games, and I was Percival the first time and Tristan the second time. You don't get to choose who you are, it's random). At the beginning of the game you pass out Loyalty cards, and there is a possibility that someone will get a Loyalty card that says Traitor. This means you're working WITH Evil, and you want to stab the other knights in the back. So the game starts out, and there are different quests that you use White Cards to complete, and Black Cards try to thwart you. There's...defeat the Black Knight jousting, defeat the Picts, defeat the Saxons (all three of which are ongoing), obtain Excalibur, obtain the Holy Grail, obtain Lancelot's Armor (all three of which give you a special item if you win them, which in turn gives you a special ability) and Defeat the Dragon. Every time you complete a quest you get a varied number of white swords, and every time you lose a quest you get a varied number of black swords. Seven out of twelve white swords win you the game, whereas seven out of twelve black swords loses you the game. We won the first time, but Evil prevailed the second time. It got so tense near the end!!! Four out the the seven of us playing actually ended up sacrificing themselves so that we wouldn't lose.

Yeah. Majorly hyper over here. I wonder how long till I settle down enough to go to sleep.

~Sil

"Arr. Bode thee well."

27 September 2007

Funnest Most Fun banner yet

I just finished a Nazgul banner/avatar set and I honestly had SO much fun with this one.




Played around for a long time with color settings and various layers (this banner, incidentally, has 16 layers, the most I've ever had) and I think I have a couple layers in there that were oilified and then decreased in opacity, which made the whole thing look COOL. I think about six of the sixteen layers are in the word "never", which has the font Copperplate on top of Scriptina in black and white, faded to various degrees. The one thing I wished I could have fixed is that it looks grainy in bits. It looks fine on my computer, but somewhere in the uploading to tinypic/photobucket something went a little awry. Oh well. It still looks okay.

As for life in general...I started Harmony 3 on Saturday. So far it's not that bad, we're writing soprano/alto/tenor/bass voices, and you just have to make sure you remember all the rules. Keep your common note, make sure the leading note rises to the tonic, etc. I feel very sophisticated, being in this level of theory. Hehe. Piano's good too, currently playing grade 9 Colors of the Wind (hard but very pretty), a Gigue by Handel, Sonata in C- by C.P.E. Bach, and Sonata in C by Scarlatti. AND I'm going to start Ronda Alla Turka (Mozart) next week, which I'm insanely excited about because I've wanted to play that piece FOREVER.

Yep. Stuff's good.

~Sil

"I spent the afternoon cleaning out my wound."
"Your WHAT?"
"My wound."
"Oh. I just thought that if Kyle had a womb, something would be seriously wrong."

24 September 2007

More banners

Life's good, but not overtly interesting - so more banners! (If you click on them they bring up Photobucket. Not sure why)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

None of them are really complicated, but I'm rather proud. They're fun to make, too.

~Sil

Me: "You have been responsible for the death of one Meldawen. You will be notified regarding funeral fees imminently."
Chris: "Hang on, she's implying that there's more than one Meldawen!"
Jamie: "Wow, can the undead reproduce?"
Chris: "They spawn."
Jamie: "Oh, true."

18 September 2007

Robert Jordan

Best selling fantasy author Robert Jordan has died of a rare blood disease aged 58, it has been reported.

Jordan - whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Jr - wrote the "Wheel of Time" series, which sold millions of books since the first - "The Eye of the World" - was published in 1990.
Full story

I'm in shock. I spent all of this summer reading Wheel of Time, up to book 11, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened in the twelfth one - and now will there even be a twelfth one? Will we never know what happened at the end? It's so hard to believe that the end is just going to hang there, and we'll never know. Someone else could write it, I guess, but it won't be the same. Age 58. I think all of us expect to live longer than that. It really makes you think - what am I waiting for? I can't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next year or next month - so what am I waiting for? Why am I still in the mindset of 'When I grow up'? I'm almost grown up. I could be writing right now, writing fantasy novels, or whatever I'm going to write - so why aren't I?

It's a little...weird...to think about.

R.I.P., Robert Jordan.

~Sil

17 September 2007

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I finally saw HP4 last night. Watched it on my dad's laptop with my brother. I actually really liked it, better than the previous three. But as always with movies based on books...they cut out parts. The Quidditch World Cup was all of about five minutes of the movie! I LOVED that part! And it showed the train coming into Hogwarts and the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students arriving pretty much simultaneously. There was kinda more of a time lapse than that. But I really liked the people who played Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum, even though Krum looked about twenty, and he's taking fourteen-year-old Hermione to the ball...cue eyeroll. Ben kept complaining about how he didn't like the new Dumbledore as well, but I think I liked him better. More like Gandalf. Harry was so small! He's the same height as Hermione, and Ron and Fred and George and even NEVILLE were about a foot taller than him. It's kinda cute.

I've also decided that I am SO a Harry/Hermione shipper. They're so much cuter than Hermione/Ron. All the angst about the ball was done very well, I thought. I liked how they kept the line - "Hermione, you're a girl!" "Oh, well spotted." It's so interesting when they fight. I sound callous, but it is. The challenges were COOL. I love the special effects in these movies.

It's kinda weird how I liked Hermione so much more in this one. I thought she was a bit meh before, and I still think her hair isn't curly enough and she's too pretty, but I liked her a lot better. Ron was better too. I'm really curious to see the fifth one now.

~Sil

"The only proof that humans came from monkeys is BEN!" - Carissa

10 September 2007

Random things, none of which are important enough for a title except the first one. Read it.

Today I shall be blogging about random things. Get ready.

First Random Thing: Today is the International Day of Hugs (or something). I think this is because September 11th is tomorrow. So, you know, hug someone today! I still can't get my head around the fact that 9/11 is six years ago. It still seems so huge in how we remember it that it's hard to believe how long it's been. I remember everyone being freaked out about buildings being blown up, but not really understanding what was happening - I was ten at the time. So there's another reminder - remember the Twin Towers tomorrow. It didn't affect most of us, but it did for many, many people.

Second Random Thing: I made my first banner!



Click on it to make it bigger. It's not technically my first one, but the first one I'm actually proud of. I've done others that I didn't like so much, but I REALLY like this one. I'm really very proud of it.

Third Random Thing: I got new piano books! The grade 9 ones are really extremely large. The repertoire one actually has a spine. It makes me feel important. I haven't looked through them much, but piano lessons start again on Wednesday, so I'll be working out of there a lot.

Fourth Random Thing: Youth starts again this week!!! I'm so excited to have Tuesdays and Fridays back, and all the awesome people at Bible study to rant to (er...I mean...talk to). First Friday youth event is wide games, which is pretty much my favorite type of youth event ever besides the Pirate night and maybe the Survivor night.

Fifth Random Thing: I got Facebook! After grumbling for a while about how it's not homeschooler-friendly, I basically decided I was missing out and lied about my age so I could sign up with no network. It's actually really fun, and sorta addicting. I'll always love my Arwen-Undomiel best, though!

Sixth (and last) Random Thing: My arm really hurts. I'm serious. Nobody is taking me seriously because they ask WHY my arm hurts, and then I have to tell them that I was playing the AWE game on Wii and I was overenthusiastic, but it really hurts! It hurts to write and play the piano and anything involving doing anything with my right hand and I'm really annoyed. I know it's my fault...but some sympathy would be nice...

~Sil

Elegost: we don't have a submarine car.
Me: you're not cool without a supmarine car. [OKAY, so I typoed. Sue me.]
Reindeer: well, I'd actually prefer a submarine car, Melda, but you can enjoy your supmarine car
PotR: it drives on land, drives under water, and prepares your supper all at once!

06 September 2007

Gloaming

That's the word of the day. Gloaming. The definition of it in my Dictionary application is:
gloaming |ˈglōmi ng | noun ( the gloaming) poetic/literary twilight; dusk. ORIGIN Old English glōmung, from glōm ‘twilight,’ of Germanic origin; related to glow .
And yes, I got it from Beowulf.

Speaking of which, as Reindeer said I might, I found a guy named Eomer in there today, along with several interesting parallels to The Hobbit. See, the reason Beowulf has to kill the dragon is that it's terrorizing the land because a thief stole one of its treasures - a goblet. Ring a bell, those of you familiar with The Hobbit? And then, when Beowulf and his men go out to fight the dragon, they 'press-gang' this thief, against his will, to be their guide. Again, like Bilbo in The Hobbit. I thought it very interesting. Oh, and I found the phrase 'prince of the rings'. Precursor to 'The Lord of the Rings', perhaps? The 'prince of the rings' described there is Beowulf himself, but the phrase is certainly very similar to Sauron's title.

Seeing a I'm a nerd...I have more vocabulary words. These are actually from my vocabulary-building book, Word Power Made Easy, and they're all personality types.
Egoist - someone concerned only with him- or herself. The phrase "look out for number one" comes to mind.
Egotist - someone who brags overtly about his or her own accomplishments and isn't interested in those of others.
Altruist - someone who thinks others are more important than him/her, wants to know how they're doing, what they've been up to.
Introvert - (yes, this is me all the way) someone who prefers to work alone, prefers the company of one or two good friends over a group, has trouble with cooperative projects. Introverts spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think of them. An introvert may seem unsocial, but their greatest desire is to be accepted and liked. All that is mostly paraphrased from the book, and the last sentence, which made me laugh, is: "You may even be a genius, or eventually turn into one." Go me! A genius!
Extrovert - polar opposite of an introvert. Extroverts make great teachers, counselors, administrators or insurance agents. Extroverts are the life of the party and never worry about being embarrassed. They like to be with lots of people and their personalities are 'turned outward' (as opposed to an introvert, whose personalities are 'turned inward'.)
Ambivert - I read this and thought of a lot of people who are ambiverts. This makes sense, as an ambivert's personality is like the personality of most people. They're at neither extreme, and have introverted and extroverted tendencies.
Misanthrope - hates people (including themself?). Thinks they're all no good immoral *insert bad word*s.
Misogynist - hates women. Likely was wounded/scorned/crossed by one in the past and thinks they're all bad.
Misogamist - against the commitment of marriage, and thinks it's an institution rather than a freedom.
Ascetic - like a stoic. Thinks everything that glorifies the flesh - e.g. makes you feel good - is bad for you. Abstains from pleasure.

Those all fascinated me. I really like personality types. I'm insanely easy to define most times, but they're fun anyway.

~Sil

"I have Irish heritage."
"I have Ukrainian heritage."
"I'm part mushroom."

05 September 2007

GIMP!

For lack of anything else to post (that's really of much interest) I am going to, alas, brag about myself. It's sad fact.

Anyway, to elaborate, I have been playing with GIMP lately. It's, like, something Image Manipulation Program. I forget what the G stands for. So this basically means that I can make graphics. Or, heh, try to. So far I've only really been doing avatars, which are small 100x100 px images and therefore easy to work with. You use avatars on MSN, AIM, forums, message boards...that kind of thing. So far I've done:

Aragorn
Arwen
Eowyn
Frodo
Galadriel
Gandalf
Legolas
Sam

I am personally of the opinion that they're not half bad, though there are far more experienced graphic makers out there. I'm also attempting Haldir, but he's not really done, and he's not cooperating so far. And I haven't exactly progressed to banners yet, but maybe I'll get there.

School = good. Life in general = nothing to report.

~Sil

Reindeer: "I'm shaking the desk, I'm laughing so far."
*pause*
Reindeer: "Hard. Not far."
PotR: *envisions Reindeer sitting at desk and laughing while it bounces away down the street*

04 September 2007

The legendary first day of school

I've never really understood the hype about the first day of school. For me, the first day of school means we're out of holidays, and nobody's really ready to have them stop, but we set to with probably more energy than we have for most of the rest of the year. So that's kinda different from what I assume it must be like in public school - you know, you're seeing friends again, you're figuring out what your teachers are like...um...stuff? I totally have no idea, but it's interesting to examine the differences.

What's looking like being my most interesting subject currently (unless I do end up doing a University of Athabasca course in English) is a Study of British Literature. I'm currently on Beowulf, which is fascinating, especially considering how you can liken it to LotR. I expected it to be sorta dry but it's actually not. I can't say I'm quite sold on Beowulf himself yet - though admittedly, I have a liking for characters who don't proclaim their own virtues quite as widely as he seems to - but maybe he'll grow on me. Interesting things I picked up on include the use of the word mearas in Old English, which means horse. In LotR, the Mearas are legendary horses gifted with speed and beauty. Shadowfax is called the Lord of the Mearas. I also recognized a parallel between the Golden Hall of Meduseld in Rohan and Hrothgar's hall Heorot in Beowulf. Yes, Hrothgar is the name of a dwarf king in Eragon. I suppose it's a nod to Beowulf, but it feels a little pretentious for Christopher Paolini to have it in there. Perhaps it's just my general skepticism for Paolini - when I write a book, it will be better than his. Also, Old English sounds a LOT like Rohirric. I think Tolkien had quite a lot of influence from this particular source.

Haven't started piano or youth yet, and we're just getting into quizzing, but I'm sorta not as depressed about school starting as I was. Which is good.

~Sil

"The Balrog wouldn't be so scary if he didn't have little beady eyes and horns and those big hooves and a long tail."
"You mean if he looked more like a bunny rabbit?"