1873: PAX East, Day One

Day one of PAX East 2015 today, and we had a pretty good day, though my legs haven't ached this much for a very long time. It's been quite some time since I had occasion to stand up for the vast majority of the day, let alone walk around a whole bunch, and consequently it's been a bit of a shock to the system!

We've seen plenty of cool stuff, though, and we exhibited our pro-1337 Final Fantasy XIV skills in public by expertly taking down Shiva in a single attempt in front of everyone, then getting a T-shirt and a patch for our efforts. We also got a brief look at Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, which is looking lovely, but we didn't get close enough to have a play because the line was too long. (In fact, the guy manning the line pretty much gave us posters to get us to go away.)

I got to see my former colleague Cassandra over as Ysbryd Games, too — she didn't recognise me at first as, I quote, "there are a lot of white dudes with beards here", but halfway through her sales pitch for the excellent VA-11 HALL-A she realised who she was speaking to and whisked me behind the booth's curtains for a private look at the demo build without having to wait for people to finish playing it on the show floor. VA-11 HALL-A is looking wonderfully promising, incidentally; one to keep an eye on, for sure, as I noted when I last took a peek at it over at MoeGamer.

Then this evening we sat in on a Giant Bomb panel which was pretty entertaining — though, I must confess, not being a particularly regular viewer of their content, some of the references went right over my head. They're a charismatic, entertaining bunch, though, and clearly comfortable dealing with the public even when they ask awkward questions.

Tomorrow will probably be slightly more laid back. We're getting there reasonably early in time for the Final Fantasy XIV panel, which will reveal some of the first concrete details of the upcoming expansion Heavensward, and from there… well, who knows.

For now, though, bed is calling. Very loud.

1764: An Outing with Owls

It's our second (and final) full day here at Center Parcs. We both woke up extremely stiff all over after what was a pretty busy day yesterday, so we had a relaxing morning. We headed over to a cafe in the main plaza area to have some breakfast — a pretty magnificent Eggs Royale (Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon instead of ham) accompanied by spinach and some really nice if slightly salty crispy potato bits.

After that, we had a little wander around the shops in the plaza, which we hadn't really explored a great deal. We paid particular attention to the sweet shop, which offered the typically overpriced pick and mix, a selection of American sweets (including Nerds, Runts and Gobstoppers, the latter two of which I haven't seen for years), some nice looking ice-cream and a selection of fudge that would put Cornwall's finest to shame. We came away with a box full of fudge of various flavours and have been enjoying that over the course of the day. Pro-tip: chocolate fudge with Oreos in it is proper delicious.

Our main activity for the day was "An Outing with Owls", which we signed up for largely on the promise of being able to see some owls, since owls are pretty cool. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the session, but it turned out to be a lot of fun, with everyone getting the opportunity to get their falconry on and let owls of various sizes land on their (leather glove-protected) hands while they nommed on bits of chicken. These well-trained birds swooping from person to person is an impressive thing to witness, and not a little disconcerting when one comes flying straight for you before perching politely on your hand until it's had something to eat.

We got to see a selection of owls, ranging from a barn owl to a Great Grey, which, true to its name, was both grey and massive. (And dubbed "Clock Owl" by Andie and I, due to the fact that when it was sat on its perch prior to the session, it had the size, shape and appearance of a rather feathery mantelpiece clock.) There was also a South American burrowing owl, which was kind of adorable, too; rather than swooping around as the larger owls did, this tiny little thing preferred to scurry around on the floor, then occasionally leap and fly up onto anywhere that took its fancy — knees, hands, shoulders and even, on one particularly memorable occasion, the top of a gentleman's hat.

We came back to the apartment for a well-earned rest after that, and we're shortly to have one final night-time session in the Subtropical Swimming Paradise before grabbing some dinner.

It's been a very pleasant — if quite expensive! — couple of days away, and I predict it will be quite tough to go back to reality on Tuesday! Such is the way with holidays, though; good times have to end at some point and we all have to make our way back to the humdrum nature of our daily existences.

Still, for now, there's still more to enjoy, so we're going to make the most of it.

1762: Minibreak

It's Andie's 30th birthday soon, so I wanted to do something nice. Rather than taking the "present" route, however, I decided to book us some time away at a place I've been wanting to come back to for many years now: Center Parcs.

For the unfamiliar, Center Parcs is a chain of holiday villages scattered throughout the UK and across Europe. They have that holiday village "thing" of being largely identical to one another, regardless of which one you go to, so the fact that Andie and I have come to the much closer Longleat Forest incarnation of the chain rather than the Elveden Forest one I went to several times as a young 'un is still filling me with a certain degree of nostalgia — plus, I won't lie, a pleasing amount of feeling that I'm a "proper" adult for booking something like this and my parents not being involved in any way whatsoever.

Anyway. I have very fond memories of my various previous visits to Center Parcs. They're situated in idyllic forest locations, and provide plenty of opportunities to walk and cycle around without having to worry about cars — cars are only permitted on site on Fridays and Mondays, which are also the only days you can check in or out. The accommodation is good-quality, too, taking the form of either small apartments (which we've gone for) or, if you're in a larger group, villas and log cabins of various sizes. All of these are furnished very nicely, kept in good condition and set up in such a way that you can self-cater your holiday if you so desire; those feeling lazy and/or flush with cash, meanwhile, can take advantage of the various restaurants available in the main plaza building — which, this time around, we're conveniently about a minute's walk from, which is nice.

There's a wide variety of different activities on offer at each Center Parcs, although on previous visits I didn't partake in that many of them. This time around, we're going to try some archery tomorrow and spend some time with some owls on Sunday. I predict we'll probably be spending a fair amount of the rest of our time at the "Subtropical Swimming Paradise" — the huge pool complex that forms the centrepiece of each Center Parcs plaza, and a place that I fondly remember as one of the best water-based experiences ever.

The Subtropical Swimming Paradise is pretty great, for numerous reasons. Firstly, it's huge, providing a large swimming pool-cum-wave machine pool for actually swimming properly in, a slow river to get caught in, several excellent water slides (a long, slow flume, a short fast flume and a large white straight-down slide) and a white water rapids to fling yourself down with enthusiasm. Secondly, it's warm — that "subtropical" bit isn't an exaggeration, since the whole place is deliberately made warm and humid to feel like you're really on holiday while you're in there; it also allows various tropical plants scattered around the area to thrive, giving the whole place a really nice look, particularly when compared to your usual municipal pool. Thirdly, it's kind of beautiful at night-time — there are several outdoor pools lit by coloured underwater lighting, and the warmth of the water combined with the cool night air makes for a very pleasant experience. Going down the Rapids, which is largely outdoors, is also a lot of fun at night-time.

Today we've had a fairly relaxed day getting here, doing a bit of shopping for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's breakfast (though we forgot eggs and oil — back to the shop tomorrow morning!) and booking our activities for the next couple of days. Tomorrow, as previously noted, we're going to shoot arrows at things and probably spend a fair amount of time in the pool, then the day after we're going to hang out with some owls. Exactly what we're going to do with the owls remains to be seen, but Andie likes owls so it seemed like a fun thing to do.

Anyway. Being away from home means being away from my Mac, Comic Life and Paintbrush so no comics for a few days, I'm afraid. I'm sure you'll survive, though. You'll just have to read my thrilling prose instead, huh?

1216: Hometime

I am writing this to you from English soil. Boooooo!

Yes, that's right; we're back home. Apologies to those of you who are in the Toronto area who maybe wanted to catch up and we didn't get the opportunity to — turns out we filled two full weeks pretty nicely with Stuff to Do.

A very public "thanks" to Mark and Lynette for putting us up for two weeks at their lovely house with its regular squirrel visitors, and thanks to our mutual friend Jonathan for providing us with some board and card game entertainment on more than one occasion. It's a shame we didn't have more time to try some games a little more than we did — I would have liked to play A Touch of Evil again, and I'm bummed we didn't get time to play Mice & Mystics — but we'll just have to save those for next time, I guess!

The flight back was uneventful, and unusually for me, I managed to actually sleep for most of it. This was perhaps at least partly due to the fact that we had to be up at some ungodly hour in the morning to actually catch the plane, but perhaps it was also a case of the prior two weeks catching up with us somewhat. It wasn't the most hectic, chaotic holiday I've been on — thankfully; I'm not a big fan of holidays where you're constantly doing stuff and never get any time to just kick back and relax — but it had enough stuff going on to keep things interesting while wearing us out somewhat. To be honest, my main priority for the trip was to see my friends rather than do the "tourist" thing, but I'm glad we had the opportunity for a jaunt around the ROM and the zoo while we were there.

I think the highlight of Toronto for me has to be the board game cafe Snakes & Lattes that I mentioned the other day. If there was such a place here in Southampton, I think I would probably spend a lot of time there — so long as I could find people to go with, of course.

There actually is a regularly-meeting board game group here in Southampton, but I have held off attending thus far due to my own issues with social anxiety and meeting new people. I have little doubt that I would probably have a good time if I just went along and met some new people, but it's getting over that initial hurdle that's the tough bit. Of course, if I lived in Toronto and attended Snakes on a regular basis, I'd probably run into the same issue, so… well. That's something to contemplate another time.

It is both nice to be back and sad to be home. We both had a great time, and I hope we get the chance to do it again sometime soon. For now, however, I think it's probably time to get some sleep!

1215: Zoology

Andie and I took a trip out to Toronto Zoo today. Getting there from Mark and Lynette's house was quite a trek on public transit, but it's eminently possible. (For those curious, you ride the subway all the way to the east end of the green line — Kennedy station — then catch an 86A bus to the zoo. Said bus stops approximately every 100 yards on the way, lengthening the journey by a considerable degree, but you do get there eventually.)

I've been to the zoo here before, but Andie hasn't. (Obvious, really, since she hasn't been to Toronto before.) Like much of my wanderings around the city in general over the last couple of weeks, I was surprised by quite how much I remembered. A few things have changed since I last came — some exhibits have opened and closed, and we were just a day too early to get a chance to see the zoo's newly-acquired giant pandas — but for the most part it was pretty much as I remembered.

I'm generally not particularly big on "cultural" trips. Museums often bore me if there's not much in the way of interactivity, and my appreciation of the visual arts (or lack thereof) limits my enjoyment of an art gallery. I'm not even a huge fan of live music in many cases, despite being a musician myself, because I'm more interested in the music itself rather than the performance more often than not. (The exception to this rule is live performances of jazz/soul etc, which often have a lot more "personality" than live performances of art music. But I digress.)

Where was I? Oh yes. I'm not generally that big on "cultural" trips, but I must confess to having something of a soft spot for a good zoo. I think it's the simple fact that animals are interesting and unpredictable to watch, and it can be fascinating to discover a creature you were previously unfamiliar with. Particular highlights today, for example, included a "tree kangaroo", which looked rather cat-like; the discovery that bats can and will climb around like monkeys as well as hanging there being boring and/or flapping around wildly; that tigers actually do say "rawr"; and that somewhere in deepest darkest Africa there's a ridiculous-looking bird with an enormous beak that would apparently rather jump between tree branches than actually fly.

Toronto Zoo is a good zoo if you enjoy looking at animals (derp) because there's a lot of them in a variety of different environments. It's quite a trek to get around the whole thing, but it's a worthwhile experience, as you'll have the chance to see all manner of different things. Although today, being a weekday, was relatively quiet, it was clear what the "highlights" for the general public were — the polar bears were winning by a long shot, though I suspect once the new panda exhibit is open to the public it will prove similarly popular, if not more so.

We also took a ride on the "zoomobile" electric car tour thing. This initially appeared a bit steep at $8 each, but after riding it all the way around and being taken into some "zoomobile exclusive" safari park-style areas with free-roaming animals, it proved a worthwhile experience, so be sure to check it out if you're in the area.

Oh, and also we saw a horny male zebra with a gigantic dong trying to boff a female who wasn't having any of it. Poor chap.

1211: I Want A Place Like This

Toronto is in possession of an establishment that I very much wish was a more widespread "Thing", particularly in the U.K. Said establishment is known as Snakes & Lattes, and you can probably guess from its name what sort of place it is.

Or perhaps you can't, since it's sort of an unusual establishment.

Snakes & Lattes is a board game cafe. That is to say, it's a cafe in which the playing of board games is not only welcomed, it is actively encouraged. How, you ask? By the fact it has an impressively huge selection just sitting there on its back wall waiting to be played with, ranging from well-thumbed copies of popular card games to the hardest of the hardcore Eurogames and everything in between. It costs just $5 (plus food and drink) to hang out there for as long as you like, and that price gives you access to the establishment's impressive collection of titles as you please.

Snakes, as it tends to be known, is not just a place to go and play board games, though. It's also a great place to go and learn new board games. The staff on hand are all ready, willing and able to recommend new titles to you, and even to teach you how to play. If you're looking for a particular kind of game and you're not sure what to try, chances are someone at Snakes will be able to recommend it to you.

The other thing that Snakes is is a place to buy board games. A healthy proportion of the games that it has available for play are also available for purchase at the front of the establishment, and for very reasonable prices, too — I picked up a couple of games myself today on the recommendation of a Snakes staffer. Specifically, I grabbed a copy of Zombie Dice, which is a very simple game I've heard a few people recommend recently, and a copy of Smash Up, a very entertaining and chaotic card game that rewards being a complete dick to your opponents — I'm looking forward to introducing this one to my friends back home.

I'm certainly going to be taking at least one more trip back to Snakes before our holiday is over, since there are a number of games I've had a chance to try that I'd like to take back with me. Specifically, King of Tokyo and Flash Point are two that intrigued me a great deal — King of Tokyo for being an excellent, fun and quick game with simple but enjoyable mechanics, and Flash Point for being a great cooperative game with enough differences from Pandemic — and a similarly short play time — to be worth a look. There are also a bunch of small games that I'm keen to introduce to my friends back home, too — stuff like the color-matching card game Coloretto and the thoroughly silly Ghost Blitz and Anomia, but I haven't decided which of these, if any, I'm going to pick up my own copy of. I did also try and snag a copy of Love Letter to take home, but that game appears to be like gold dust at present.

Anyway. No idea what's on the cards for tomorrow daytime, but I believe we're going out to a comedy club tomorrow evening to see an entertaining-sounding improv and sketch show on the subject of Internet memes. There's a subject that could easily be cringeworthy, but the comedy club in question is apparently rather highly regarded in the area, and thus I'm looking forward to it quite a bit. Doubtless I will be splurging my thoughts on the matter over these pages tomorrow evening, so look forward to that then.

For now, good night!

1209: Further Adventures in Fudz

As I noted the other day, one of the fun things about our trip to Toronto is that we've had the opportunity to sample some of the city's more colourful eating establishments. Mark and Lynette both know the places that Torontonians (I bet they hate being called that) visit on a regular basis rather than the inevitably much more expensive touristy places in touristy areas. Consequently, we've had the opportunity to eat well for relatively reasonable prices — Mark and Lynette refer to a $20 bill as a "yuppie food stamp" and it's easy to see why, since the vast majority of meals we've had while we've been here have come out somewhere in the region of $20 each.

We've had a lot of Asian cuisine of various descriptions since we've been here, as I noted the other day. Today I added to the range of Asian foods that I've experienced by having a taste of okonomiyaki. I had no idea whatsoever what okonomiyaki was prior to today, but I had at least heart of it — the character Kirari in the visual novel Kira Kira (which is eminently worth your time, by the way) is obsessed with it.

I was half expecting okonomiyaki to be something similar to takoyaki — the small fried rice flour balls filled with octopus meat and other goo, then drizzled with Japanese mayonnaise. Okonomiyaki is, as it turns out, absolutely nothing like takoyaki. No; rather than being small bite-sized thingies like takoyaki, okonomiyaki is instead somewhat akin to a cross between a potato cake and an omelette, with lashings of a rich barbecue sauce-style substance slathered all over the top of it. I forget exactly what the omelette-type-thing was made from and am far too tired to actually research it at this hour in the morning, but it was quite tasty. Like an omelette, it could also be made with a variety of different fillings, ranging from beef to shrimp or squid. I had a squid one to make up for the fact I didn't have a squid taco at Banh Mi Boys the other day, so I now feel suitably guilty about devouring some of Ika Musume's relatives.

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make of okonomiyaki, as I was aware going into it that it was made with onions, which those who know me well will know are a vegetable I despise with a great passion. (I had terrible trouble growing up convincing my parents that I really genuinely didn't like onions, despite actually retching at the dinner table when I could taste them on several occasions; the fact that being able to taste onion today still makes me retch makes me feel somewhat vindicated that I wasn't just being an awkward child about them.) Fortunately, however, the onions were shredded up to such a degree (not to mention having had the shit fried out of them) that they were inoffensive to my palate's delicate sensibilities, and consequently there was no retching.

Actually, I enjoyed the okonomiyaki very much. I'm pleased I tried it; I'm not sure it's my favourite of all the Japanese food I've tried to date, but I am happy that I've tasted it and now know what to expect should I find myself ordering it again.

Now all we have to do is complete the "Japanese trifecta" by having sushi one night this week and we'll be all Asianed out.

1207 Part 2: Food Travels

Here's a full update to make up for the pitiful effort last night. Apologies for that, but I was in far too much pain to even contemplate writing more than a couple of sentences at the time. I was even sick. You really wanted to know that, didn't you? Of course you did. BLAAAARGH.

Anyway, what I actually wanted to talk about in last night's post was one of my favourite aspects of travel: food. I'm not necessarily talking about sampling local cuisine — which here in Toronto would probably be poutine, I guess — but wandering around and having a chance to sample some local eateries, and eat some interesting food that you might not be able to get back home.

Toronto is particularly good for Asian eateries of various descriptions. Yesterday we sampled two of them: the Banh Mi Boys sandwich shop, and Kinton Ramen.

Banh Mi Boys is a pokey little shop that often has queues extending out of the door. They serve a variety of Vietnamese-inspired food that includes Asian-style tacos — floppy rather than crispy — and steamed rice flour buns known as bao. They also do Vietnamese-style baguettes, the titular banh mi, which are a decent meal in themselves. We tried the tacos and the bao, both of which were delicious. I had pulled pork in my bao and some sort of spicy beef in my taco — there were several different options on offer besides these, including squid tacos, which I sort of regret I didn't try now, even if eating them would make me feel a bit guilty towards Ika Musume-chan.

Kinton Ramen, meanwhile, is fairly self-explanatory. It's a ramen shop. All they do is ramen and a few side dishes. They do do several different types of ramen, to be fair, but if you don't want ramen this is probably not the place to come. I must confess to not being overly familiar with ramen, as it's something we don't seem to get all that much of back in the U.K., but the couple of occasions I have had it in the past have been thoroughly enjoyable.

For those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine, eating "ramen" generally involves getting an enormous bowl full of broth made from pork bones (with the amount of fat used in it determining how "rich" it is) which is then filled with ramen noodles, vegetables such as beansprouts, nori and various other bits and pieces, and typically topped with a lump of pork. Some also have a whole egg in them — sometimes this is served chopped, but at Kinton, there's just a whole egg dropped in it, which is quite amusing. You then proceed to consume the whole bowl using a combination of chopsticks and a wooden Japanese soup spoon. At Kinton, they take your photo if you finish the whole thing, which is actually quite an achievement — there's a lot of food there, and due to the way it's structured, it often looks like you're not making any progress with it for a very long time. Like the Persona 4 beef bowl, if you will.

Anyway, that should hopefully make up for last night. And hopefully my headache will fuck off and die now.

1204: Torontonia

We went out and about for a bit in Toronto earlier, primarily to pick up some computer bits for my friend Mark to build his "Steam Box" PC but also to get some dinner and have a little wander. Again I was struck with this city's enormous diversity.

It is, for me, one of Toronto's most defining characteristics, and one which you can notice very quickly upon spending some time downtown, or even out in the greater Toronto area. Go for a walk and you'll be in one distinctive district one moment — perhaps Chinatown — but then you'll round a corner and suddenly it'll be suburban-style houses with lots of greenery. It's quite disconcerting at first, but you soon realise it's part of the city's character.

Today we had a wander in the Kensington area, which is fascinating to walk around. It's difficult to describe exactly what it's like, but there's a definite sort of Latin/Central American vibe going on, with lots of pokey little shops, many of which have their wares strewn all over the street outside them.

We happened to find an amazing video games shop in the middle of all this. From the outside it looked like just another crappy used games store, but inside it was like a treasure trove of Every Game I Want To Play Ever. Seriously. I have either played or very much want to play every title on the back wall of that place. It even had some rare offerings, such as the original Persona games for PS1 and rare stuff like Dracula X, Chrono Trigger and Mother 2 for SNES — all of which cost a pretty penny!

It's very warm here at the moment, which makes going out and walking for too long a little uncomfortable. I think I might invest in a pair of shorts while I'm here as I feel like wearing jeans is suffocating my legs!

1193: London Calling

I went to London today. I do not like going to London. I do not like London generally, in fact.

Fortunately, my trip to London today meant that I didn't have to go very far, as in I didn't have to catch the tube or the train or the bus or anything like that. We got a coach in (which, yes, did require getting up at 5 in the morning, but which was a relatively painless experience) then were able to walk to where we were going (the passport office, if you were curious) and then walk back, catch the bus home and not have to piss about with Londoners and their attitudes towards other people.

For many, living in London appears to be some sort of ultimate goal, some sort of Ultimate Cool Status. It is, of course, certainly true that a lot of industries make their home in the nation's capital — the UK video games industry barely acknowledges that any other city exists, for example — but I cannot possibly imagine ever living there. It must be hellish. And expensive. Why would you want to pay a fortune to live somewhere that is hellish?

I had a job offer a while back that would have required me to move to London. I've thought back on my career path since then, which has been entirely working from home for American companies, and I wonder if I might have been better off taking that one as it was a more inherently "stable" position. The conclusion I inevitably reach is "no", incidentally, with a large contributing factor to feeling that way being the fact that I don't have to live in London. (The others being that I wouldn't, by now, be living back in Southampton near my friends and with Andie, which are all awesome things in my life that I'm happy about.)

I'll tell you why I don't like London. Well, some of the reasons, anyway.

The weather is never right. When it's grey and miserable, it's really grey and miserable, and the dirty streets and oppressive, cramped way in which all the buildings are crammed together just emphasises how grey and miserable it is. When it's hot, meanwhile, like it was today, it's really hot, and humid, and the thickness of the dirty air from the hordes of cars who inexplicably think it's a good idea to drive around Central London (hint: it's really not) just makes it all the more unpleasant to immerse yourself in. Particularly when, yes, you've been up since five in the morning.

As I said above, thankfully I didn't really run into my other London bugbears today as we were pretty much "in and out" — or as close to "in and out" as is possible when riding a bus from a couple of hours' drive away. For the record, though, said bugbears largely revolve around people who have to be wherever they're going faster than you getting wherever you're going. This most commonly shows itself on the Underground escalators, where the left lane is the "dickhead" lane of people who think that barging past people who are often carrying large, heavy suitcases and/or bags will get them where they're going a bit faster. (Hint: it probably doesn't, given that when you get to the bottom you all have to wait for the same train.) It also shows itself on the street, where if you dare walk anywhere except smooshed up against a wall, some jerkoff in a suit will come charging past you on Important City-Boy Business and make you — just for one, single, blissful, homicidal instant — consider pushing him into the path of the open-top tour bus that is coming around the corner.

As I say, though, thankfully I didn't encounter any of these issues today, and instead we saw some ducks, geese and other unidentified (well, someone has identified them, obviously) birds in St. James' Park. Which was quite nice.

I still hate London, though. Even with its "nice bits".