Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Megaupdate (the kitchen sink post)

So what exactly has been going on around here and what's with the general abandoning of the blog?

Well, as I'm largely writing this for my own diversionary amusement, it's fallen by the wayside in the wake of more important things. I still want to write here, I'm just having problems finding the time--it also turns out that small children are capable of consuming limitless amounts of spare time, though admittedly delivering the goods in the emotional rewards department.

The MAME cabinet work stalled out a while ago--the intent is still to finish it. I've got the back door installed and on, the TV shelf is there, holes are cut for fans, coin door, etc. The light fixture is installed and working, though the lamp is back out pending final assembly.

I also cut the plastic for the front and for the marquee area. For mounting the marquee, I've got the marquee retainer as mentioned previously. For the front glass, I bought some quarter round moulding with 90-degree edges and installed it with one flat edge attached to the cabinet, and the other flat edge facing the front of the cabinet to make a perfect resting place for the glass. I'll probably caulk the left and right edges to reduce noise and vibration and then maybe use some more marquee retainer at the top and bottom.

There are a few reasons for the stall-out though--the next step is going to be lifting the TV up there and adding supports in the appropriate places. However, while I have a spare, heavy 27" Sony television that I could use there, it's not the ultimate TV I want in the cabinet. That would be the (much lighter) 27" Toshiba I purchased a few years ago, currently in use in the living room, the only area of the house suitable for TV watching right now. But now that the finishing of our basement rec room is likely to happen before the cabinet gets finished, I'm holding off fitting the Sony into the cabinet, in anticipation of getting a new TV in the rec room and then upgrading the MAME cabinet to the Toshiba.

So yes, the basement finishing is the other part of this equation. We decided to finish the main rec room area rather than tackling the whole basement at once. That's one giant 16x30 area where the eastern 16x11 will be designated the kids' playroom, the western 16x11 the TV area, with a handy 16x8 DMZ in the middle. I'm debating some sort of invisible barrier that will keep children from wandering over into and otherwise messing with the TV area and the suppositional new TV. I'll post pics as soon as the barrier is installed so you can all look at it and echo R2-D2--oops, I mean Fidgit from Time Bandits by saying, "Oh, so that's what an invisible barrier looks like." Sorry for the mistake. Fidgit is only played by R2-D2. Apparently, it used to take several hours for R2-D2 to get into his Fidgit costume before filming, and of course, all R2's dialogue was redubbed...

The DMZ is also going to be the location of the roleplaying table. Not precisely KoDT though--although the table in question did indeed live a former life as a dinner table, we're playing pulp Rolemaster, so everyone's an investigator, not a knight.

I'm using a mix of homebrew adventures, CoC adventures and even some Shadow World modules for any sequences involving translation to alternate dimensions.

Finally, in order not to give the lie to the title of the post, I'll just have to mention the shortsighted construction of the kitchen sink. Firstly, the left hand sink drain comes down and joins the drain for the right hand side, but it does so at a nearly horizontal level. After several years of washing in the left sink and stacking for drying in the right sink, this horizontal part of the drain was clogged with all manner of really disgusting things. One stomach-churning cleaning later, and we now wash in the right hand sink, with its vertical drain, and dry in the left hand sink. The other daft thing about this sink is that the trap is placed so low that there is zero clearance from the bottom of the trap to the floor of the cupboard, meaning that the U-bend can't even easily be opened let alone easily drained/explored/etc with any kind of bucket underneath it. Frustrating.

Monday, June 02, 2008

WSO & LOTR, VVG

So I went to watch the North American premiere of the score to The Fellowship of the Ring (non-extended), with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. What happened here was the film was played on a high-def screen at the MTS Centre while the score was played live by the WSO.

It was absolutely incredible. The music was superb and seeing the film again with a large crowd of Tolkien fans reminded me of how amazing it was to see it in the theatre as a communal experience. The dynamic range was awesome, and blew away listening to it at home.

It was also really neat, as a lifelong Tolkien fan, to be sitting there in a packed concert hall (well, arena) and listening to a choir sing in Elvish.

I also wasn't the only one impressed with the whole... mission... quest.... thing.

I'm now all a-gog waiting for TTT and ROTK to be given the same treatment.