Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Took a little train ride into central Belfast today. Gorgeous day, if a little bit warm with all the walking. Saw city hall and other sights, had a pint of better-than-I-have-had-before Strongbow, took an informational tour giving some political history, and went to an indoor market. Good day. Sunlight taking getting used to - farther north here. Heading north s'more tomorrow.

Delayed out of Chicago by about 4 hours. Arrived in Dublin near noon, local time 7+ hour flight there. Almost 24 hours of travel, if you include time zones "lost." Stopped at a Neolithic ruin, Knowth, on the way to Lisburn in Northern Ireland, which is "home" for a couple nights.

Albuquerque safe and sound. Flight out tomorrow a little after noon. All seems on track so far.

I went into this movie with some mixed feelings. For me, the nostalgia factor was actually against the movie. I've been a pretty big X-men fan, but I knew this interpretation changed some major points, including dropping Rachel "Phoenix" Summers (who was a favorite character of mine for quite a while) from the story, nevermind Nimrod (though the future Sentinels are clearly a design nod in that direction). On the other hand, I'd been hearing good things about it. The bottom line is: It works. There are some things that felt clunky to me. Kitty's ability to facilitate the mental time travel doesn't even get a "well that's new for you" comment. The excuse for having Wolverine as the one to go back feels a bit heavy-handed. Also, ratcheting up the tension in the future seemed a little hollow to me because the whole point is to change the timeline. But while things like this bothered me, none of it really bogged down the movie. On the other han

Getting a little bit antsy at work, given that I have the next three weeks off. That's a little bit mind-boggling. I think I've really not taken more than about two before, so it's quite a stretch, but I think ducks are as in a row as possible at work. Wednesday the 28th, we'll be going down to Albuquerque to catch a flight the next day. Then it's off to Dublin with a stop at Chicago. From there, the plan is to make our way up to Northern Ireland and see various sights, mostly staying at bed and breakfasts. The flight back is on the 9th, and depending on how things go we may be back up home the 10th or 11th. During the trip, I expect to have some wifi access, but keeping up with the internet is not at all a priority. I will have a cell phone, but it's going to mostly be playing camera and music-player as I'm not getting any sort of international calling/data plan. We'll probably pick up a "disposable" phone simply for calls over there, but

Dark Souls 2 naturally has a lot in common with the prior one . It takes place in the same world, though an indeterminate amount of time later. This seems to assume that the First Flame was rekindled at the end of DS, though you could argue that the other outcome might be valid as well. While Dark Souls presented a world on an inevitable downward spiral, the sequel repaints this same setting as one of unavoidable, fated cycles. DS offered a history starting with the First Flame and the Lord Souls taken from it, giving all indications the flames would eventually die and the world fall to darkness. DS 2 strongly indicates the Flame has been rekindled many times over since then, and the Lord Souls collected and passed on some number of times. Certain boss souls reference their origins, and some bosses show obvious influence from bosses of the previous game. And the ending of DS 2 is even more ambiguous as far as what happens after other than the implication the cycle will occur again

Heh. All this talk about returning to Draenor and garrisons and such, and it's the idea of my paladin getting a visible libram that makes me perk up more than almost anything else I've heard about the game in the last year (though the new character models are up there). Alas, it's still in the concept phase and not planned for Warlords release, or any time frame they're willing to announce.

I'm wary of getting my hopes up about movies. It's so much easier to be let down than impressed, and where expectations are set can really have an effect on the experience. Still, the new Guardians of the Galaxy trailer fans my little ember of fanboyish (not that I followed the comic) hope. A few clips and some music could be used to mask the real experience of a movie, but if the end result can hang on to the sense of irreverent fun mingled with action and adventure, I'm gonna love this one.

Always a question of what to say... Work's work, but not bad. I really should get off my duff and do some cleaning around the house at home, though it's hard to find the time and motivate for my own sake. I've gotten out for some weekend hikes, which is good, though the abrupt veering of the weather this last weekend blocked me on that. I'm a couple weeks away from vacation time, so that's on my mind as I try to get ducks in a row. Guild Wars 2 is about the same. We shifted ARIN play nights to Saturdays, but the last couple weeks I've logged on to no one there. Perhaps my timing is off. Not that there's a lot to do with that guild anyway when it amounts to a group of two or three people running around. AW still does Sunday afternoon missions. I actually made my first piece of ascended armor - ooo, ahhh - and I'm not sure if I'll keep the look or not, longer-term. Apparently we get some rebuilding of Lion's Arch content next week. I know it h

I've used the term "spark" in discussing characters and roleplaying games in progress - usually in reference to something that's lacking. Maybe it's the initial spark of inspiration that leads to a plot/story or maybe it's the spark of chemistry between characters that makes them feel like there's more between them than just carrying out actions in the same location. What still eludes me is how to light those little embers. It's a lot easier to see something is lacking than to fix it, especially when it's something so ephemeral. And though I've pondered it some of late, I don't feel any closer to epiphany either in a specific case or in general. How do you make characters and stories that really "click?"

Okay, the family lines on Furryfaire are pretty screwy. That's what happens when you get a relatively small set of players playing multiple characters over several generations and many of those characters range from "long-lived" to effectively immortal. I never really planned on the conception of Wren (via Arion and Dove) and Ashley (via Shaden and Fireheart), but it had at least a few interesting possibilities. Given Arion's a deity and Fireheart is an avatar, it made sense that the pair would be raised by Shaden and Dove in Drachenkeep. It was a stretch from my current baseline hybrid philosophy, wherein I generally take the physical species/form of one parent and fur patterns or specific minor traits from the other. I had a little image in my head when I started thinking about it of a pair of princesses with enough of a mischievous streak to occasionally impersonate one another. So I split the difference, went with the mothers' vulpine species and settled on