What I did in October 2017

[squirmelia]

I played on the swings in the Tate Modern. I started off swinging on a 3-person swing alone, and then a person named Cathy asked to join me, and we swung together for a while, legs moving in time, and that was more difficult and scarier somehow.

In the Sadie Coles Gallery, I saw a giant inflatable head kite and a sculpture made of old camcorders. I also visited an art installation, which was a replica of a Chinese grocery store, but all the boxes were empty. You could still buy them though.

I also visited a gallery where I watched VR porn with partners continually changing gender, race and shape.

I ate a tofish burger and miso caramel pecan ice-cream at the Hackney Vegan Market one Saturday.

I saw The Night Is Short, Walk On Home Girl at the cinema. This was a fun anime film with guerilla theatre productions, amusing dances, drinking competitions, and general weirdness.

I saw Blade Runner 2049 at the cinema.

I gatecrashed ewan's birthday party, but then the pub flooded and we had to evacuate to another pub!

I saw Daniel Kitson's work in progress, A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order. Although I enjoyed his act and it was amusing, he hadn't actually written much of it by that point!

I sang Johnny Cash's Hurt at the Noughties night at Marioke (karaoke about video games) and it was about getting RSI and injuries from playing games. It was a fun night and there were excellent songs about subjects such as Pac-Man ghosts, Gillen, and being in love with Civilization. Next Marioke is 10th November, and you should all join me!

I went to the Pembury for a stag do and we ended up at Slimelight. It was the 30th birthday celebration and I danced a lot and ended up getting home at 6AM.

I listened to talks about monsters at Senate House and found out that the same monsters have been around for thousands of years and that monster creation tends to be conservative. You can also 3D print your own monsters by altering designs from Thingiverse.

I went to Design Lab London with colleagues and learnt about Poka-yoke design, which involves error proofing.

I had drinks one evening with jacquic and verlaine.

verlaine and I are designing a game!

I took a trip on a boat to Greenwich with my mum and wandered around the market and the park and ate cupcakes.

I went to a Science Museum Late on Gaming and attended an event on the Evolution of Gaming, which included Jon Hare.

I wandered through the new Bloomberg arcade and looked at the tangled river sculptures.

I took part in Dark Earth, which was an amusing immersive audio experience, which involved following a woman with a yellow backpack, pretending you were going to a picnic (at night) (yay for fake picnics!), secret corridors, a bit of history, and ending up somewhere interesting.

I walked from Royal Oak to Westbourne Park on a tube walk. We walked along the canal for a bit and I stared at the reflections.

I went to a London Demoscene meet up and met some sceners, who create demos for various platforms, such as the Amiga, and even the Atari Lynx!

I solved a mystery at work - how to make the lights come on! I appeared to have super powers! One colleague asked if I wanted to join their detective agency.

Vaguely Ingress related:

I did the Kew Gardens Ingress banner, walked along the treetop walkways, looked at sculptures, imagined sitting on a lily pad, wandered through the greenhouses and looked at various plants and that made me want to visit a rainforest again. I also walked inside the Hive, which has lights and sounds triggered by bee activity.

I met gnommi and friends for food and then later went to the Ingress monthly social.

I ended up with an injury – splint shins, which curbed my Ingress playing this month. Luckily I have recovered now, as I got very frustrated with not being able to walk very much.

More about Ingress:

The magical Ingress portal van came to London! NL-1331E, the enhanced mobile XM detection and manipulation vehicle. It was a cross-faction event and it was great to catch up with people I hadn't seen for some time.

I also got the platinum Pioneer badge for capturing 5000 unique portals, and also the EXO-5 badge for creating 100 fields during a certain time period.

Comments

[miss_newham]

Tate Modern has swings? I must investigate.

Glad you can walk a lot again. Hope the extended coda to the Tube Walk didn't have any ill effects. It was such a long walk that I had to eat a cake immediately when we got to Victoria station!

[squirmelia]

They are strange 3-person swings. There are also swings outside, round the back.

I think the tube walk must have helped! My legs were fine afterwards. Being able to walk is excellent!

[swaldman]

Marioke sounds like fun!