art – dangermouse.net

An ex-PM, Scythe: Expeditions, and scanning photos

Friday I did my usual set of online critical thinking classes, picked up groceries, the usual stuff.

My wife left at one point to head into work, and she messaged me back that as she was leaving, she saw John Howard, the former Prime Minister, also leaving our apartment complex. He was with another younger man, chatting as they left the premises. My wife overheard the younger guy say to Howard, “I’ll find out for you.” I don’t have any idea what this is about, but my wife thinks that maybe Howard is planning to buy an apartment in our complex, perhaps to downsize from his house as he grows older. There’s any number of logical things he could be wanting to find out about the complex, if so.

It’s not that unusual to see Howard around here—his house is just around the corner and up the street a little from us. He often goes for walks around the neighbourhood. It seems reasonable that if he was thinking of downsizing, he’d choose a place nearby. There are a few apartments for sale in our block at the moment. Including the one directly next door to us. Wouldn’t it be freaky if the ex-PM moved into the apartment next door? There’s also a ground floor apartment in our building with a courtyard/garden currently for sale, which might perhaps be more his style. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

On Friday evening I had board games night with friends. We assembled at one guy’s home, and six of us began a new game: Expeditions, which is a thematic sequel to the very popular Scythe, set in the same world: a dieselpunk 1920s alternate history Europe.

It took a little bit of learning, but once we got going it was straightforward enough and we were enjoying it. The game is supposed to run up to 1.5 hours long, but we took longer as we were learning it. With a break for pizza, it ended up being the only game of the evening, and then we just chatted for a while before heading home.

Today I went for a 5k run, then after showering and changing I went for a walk with my wife and Scully. We picked up coffee for her at a cafe and went down to Bayview Park to sit and enjoy the view. I sketched part of the view:

I think I got the leftmost cormorant right, but the other two didn’t quite turn out! We also saw an illegal waterskier. Waterskiing is banned in Sydney Harbour, but apparently someone decided to give it a go.

In the afternoon I spent a couple of hours scanning old photos of my wife’s. She has a bunch of old photo albums, including lots of photos of her as a child and up to when we got married. She decided that in the spring clean before we repaint the place she wanted to scan the photos and get rid of the physical albums. She’s going to keep significant photos in boxes, but toss a bunch of others after they’re scanned, which will save a lot of space. We scanned three albums and made a significant dent, but there are still five more albums to go.

For dinner we drove over to Four Frogs, the French crêpe place. We like going there occasionally as the food is very good, but it’s not walking distance so we don’t go too often.

Gaming and sketching

Friday was planned to be me running my Star Wars roleplaying game one-shot adventure but I had to postpone it as previously mentioned. Instead we did a regular board games night. I offered to remain the host, but another friend volunteered his place so he could attend – he had to look after his kids, so couldn’t leave home, but he was fine to host board games. SO we had an extra player that way.

We played a new game for me: Bark Avenue. It’s a dog-walking game, played on a map of upper Manhattan, around Central Park. There is a deck of dogs, who live in various neighbourhoods and need different amounts of walking, come in three sizes (small, medium, and large dogs), walk at different speeds, and have different favourite activities (sniffing hydrants, playing ball, or splashing in water).

You need to pick up dogs, walk them around, perhaps picking up other dogs along the way, and then return them home after they’ve been walking for enough turns. Each dog walked is worth a varying amount of cash, plus you can get extra tips for taking a photo of the dog while out, letting it engage in its favourite activity, or making sure it poops. You have to be careful planning a walking route, because you need to pick up and drop off dogs in the right neighbourhoods, and various blocks have different activities available. Here’s a close-up of Darwin the beagle, showing the poop token to indicate it’s done its business.

It was pretty fun, though I came dead last! After that we played Codenames, and by that time we were done for the evening. Also on Friday I did the usual grocery shopping and teaching five online classes.

Today I made a Darths & Droids comic, and went for a 7.5k run. It was warm and sunny, not my favourite weather for running, but I managed it.

In the afternoon, my wife and I went for a walk over to Greenwich Hospital, to do some sketching of an old building there. Pallister House is an 1892 Late Victorian Filigree country home, which was later used as a girls school, then a girl’s orphanage, before finally becoming part of the hospital. When we got there, we found it very conveniently had several wicker chairs scattered around the area, so we grabbed two and set them up in front of the building to sketch it.

Later in the afternoon and into early evening, I started cleaning things up. We’re engaging in a huge spring clean prior to repainting the home in late October. We started weeks ahead because we have a lot we want to do. My wife has gone through a bunch of her stuff and cleaned it out, freeing up a stack of storage boxes, which I moved a lot of my Lego bricks into, which in turn freed up some plastic storage drawers. Into those went all of the tools from our under-the-skitchen-sink toolbox: screwdrivers, a hammer, spanners, hex keys, various plumbing tools and spare parts, screws and nails, tubes of glue and other stuff, and so on. The space freed up under the kitchen sink we’re planning to use for a new, smaller kitchen waste bin, to save space currently used by the large waste bin which stands on the kitchen floor. We still need to clean it out and rearrange things for optimal storage and then we’ll buy a new bin to fit the space.

Sketching at The Rocks

Friday night was online board games with my friends. We played some games of Jump Drive, Knarr, Can’t Stop, and Just One. Nothing really big or long, as people were popping in and out with things they needed to do. I made pizza for dinner in the middle of a game, another guy took his dog for a walk, and so on.

During the day I did my usual critical thinking classes.

After lunch we had a painter come in to inspect the place and prepare a quote for repainting our apartment. We’ve decided to bite the bullet and get that job done. It will be a big job, requiring packing a lot of things into moving boxes and storing them in the garage so we can move the furniture into the middle of rooms to allow access to the walls for the painters. The guy said it would take a full week to do the job. We’re planning to do this some time in October or November.

Today I did a 5k run in the morning. The day was very cold and very windy. A cold front system is blowing up from the south, bringing a lot of cold air. We were supposed to get snow on the Blue Mountains west of Sydney overnight, but I don’t know if that actually happened or not. It only snows up there about once every three or four years.

Scully had a vet checkup to follow-up her tooth extraction last week. The vet said she’s doing well and can go back on crunchy foods. Then after that we dropped her off at the groomer for a full cut and wash. While Scully was at the groomer, my wife and I took the Metro into the city and used the opportunity to go places where we can’t take Scully. We got off at Barangaroo and walked over to The Rocks.

We browsed around in a art supply shop and bought a few things. I found some fillable brushes with actual bristles, that you can fill with ink or liquid watercolour. I’m going to try them with ink for drawing. Then we stopped at La Renaissance, a French patisserie, and had some pain au chocolat. I did a sketch while sitting at the table outside the patisserie.

We moved to a bench seat by the street across from The Garrison Church, and where we also had a view of the Harbour Bridge. Mt wife sketched the Bridge, while I started work on the church. Unfortunately, about a quarter of the way finished, a bus pulled up and parked right in front of us, entirely blocking our view! The driver turned the engine off and got out, having a break. I had to walk around the bus and stand on the other side, next to the traffic, to finish drawing the church.

After heading back and picking up Scully from the groomer we went out to our local pizza place for dinner. Normally I have pizza, but tonight I tried a fettuccine with lamb ragu and mushrooms, which was really nice.

Games night and sketching day

Friday was online board games night. We played some Jump Drive, then Space Base, and Just One.

We finished early and then I watched KPop Demon Hunters on Netflix. Some of the kids in my critical thinking classes have been talking about it and said it’s good, so I decided I should give it a go. It was pretty good, an interesting blend of modern K-pop songs and traditional Korean demon folklore. I describe it as the sort of thing you’d like if you liked Frozen but thought it could use more K-pop and demons.

Today I did a 5k run. I started thinking I could do another 7.5k, but decided to cut it short towards the end as I’d had enough. I cleaned the bathroom and shower thoroughly. Worked on some Darths & Droids comics.

After lunch my wife and I took Scully for a drive over to Balmoral Beach and we sat and did some sketching. Here’s the rotunda:

I kind of ran out of room at the top of the page so I couldn’t fit in the top of the roof! And here’s a view towards the water.

While we were there we popped into the Bather’s Pavilion to make a dinner booking for our wedding anniversary later in the year, to make sure we can get a table. This is our favourite fancy restaurant and we’ve had several other anniversary dinners here.

Back at home, my wife took Scully out for a toilet before dinner… and got stuck in the lift! In all the time we’ve lived here, we’ve never got stuck int the lift before. She used the emergency phone inside the lift, but they said it would take about an hour for someone to come. She called me on her mobile phone and I found a member of the complex’s executive committee, and fortunately she had a key to get into the lift motor room in the garage and knew how to put it into an emergency mode that made it descend to the basement and open.

She was stuck in there with one of our new neighbours, and a new new neighbour, living in the same apartment. She was moving in today as a flatmate in the other bedroom. So they got a good introduction while stuck in the lift together.

For dinner I made a chick pea korma. I adapted this recipe for chicken korma, replacing the chicken with chick peas, and I served it with some broccoli on the side for greenness. It turned out pretty well, but next time I think I’ll blitz the cashews and onions with the Bamix stick blender instead of the food processor, because as soon as I turned it on the whole sauce smeared onto the sides of the processor and the blades didn’t have much chance to turn it into a smooth paste. So it was a little lumpy, but still tasted good.

Rainy running and Pathfinder session 3

Friday night was games night, and although this week was scheduled as face-to-face in the fortnightly rotation, we played Pathfinder online as it was a good day for all of the players to attend. This is the campaign my friend began running back in March, with the second session in May. In this third session we continued exploring the underground complex we’d been led to by a map last time.

We entered a chamber with an ominous skull-shaped platform above surrounding water, with an ominous statue looking down at it. Here manifested what we learnt to be a projection of a demon-like figure, with horns and wings. He was talkative and tried to cajole us into signing contracts for power in an ominous-looking floating book. In exchange for this power, we were to spend eternity in his servitude after our deaths. We spent enough time looking at the book to notice that Nana Slimebristle seemed to have signed such a contract, although with many crossed out parts and emendations added in. This was the Nana whose grave we’d found in session one, empty, with the dirt pushed aside as though something within had climbed out.

With this puzzle piece falling into place, and the demon thing starting to threaten us to sign the book or else prepare to die, we noped out of there quick smart, basically turning tail and running. We managed to get away without being caught, so that seemed a sensible course of action. While deciding what to do, we felt a force drawing us north, where we found a cave and decided to camp for the night.

Orcs attacked during the night and we had to fight them off. Partway through the battle an old, haggard, kinda undead looking woman appeared and helped us. Yup… it turned out to be Nana Slimebristle. We talked and she seemed teed off at the demon Vrasted, so we offered to help her. She suggested we travel north to the mountains to retrieve a magical thingy of hers that she’d lost there or something. And there we ended for the night.

Earlier in the day I’d done the usual grocery pickup and critical thinking classes. After completing my morning batch of classes, I drove with my wife and Scully over to Mix Deli, the new outlet for Lil’ Mix bakery, where we got some lunch: cream cheese filled Jerusalem bagel and a mushroom pie, and some blueberry banana bread for sweets. It was incredibly busy, I think because we were there at the lunch rush, which we might not have been before.

It rained heavily overnight and showered on and off all day today. I tried to pick a dry period to go for a run, but failed dramatically. It began raining almost as soon as I left the house and was heavy for most of the run. Nevertheless, I exerted myself and did 7.5k today instead of my normal 5k. It felt longish, but I didn’t feel too bad afterwards, and completed the distance in just over 43 minutes.

This evening I did a sketching challenge with my wife. We both started on a drawing at the same time of this old photo I took at Bronte Beach:

I just used a 2B pencil and here’s my effort:

My wife is still working on adding watercolour to hers.

Sketching at university

This morning I had the last of the ethics classes on the Sharing topic. After that I walked Scully up to my wife’s work to drop her off. Then I ran home on the 5k route. The weather was a little warmer and the rain has finally stopped, mostly.

I went into the city for tonight’s Image Processing lecture and I decided to take my sketchbook with me. I stopped in first at Roadhouse Burgers and Ribs for dinner. This place looked good when I walked past in the last couple of years, but it opened at 6pm, and the lectures I assist with start at 6, so I was never able to try it. But now they’re open at 5pm, so tonight I finally had the chance. I chose a basic cheeseburger and chips.

It was pretty good. This place is highly rated on Google reviews, so I figured it must be decent.

On the way from there to the university I snapped a couple of scenes and then sat and sketched them. This is the original tower building and the adjacent new Building 2:

And this is the old clock tower with the new building of UTS College behind it, and some surrounding buildings and streetscape.

The lecture went close to 9pm and then I came home. A busy day!

The iron grip of jetlag

The ongoing jetlag just won’t let go. I went to bed about 10:30 last night. I was very tired and fell asleep quickly. I woke up, after having several dreams, and felt like I had slept a good long time and it must be about 06:00 and time to get up soon.

It was 02:30. And I was awake and couldn’t get back to sleep. I turned a light on (dimly) and read for about half an hour to see if I could get tired and sleepy again, but it didn’t work very well. I went back to bed and mostly laid there awake counting the hours until dawn. It’s been pretty much like this every night since I got back from Europe some ten days ago now. Meanwhile during the day I am tired and my brain is foggy, making it difficult to concentrate on much. I’m hoping at some point my body will just flip into the correct time zone and sleep through the night properly.

I’ve been getting some exercise to try and help convince my body that it’s daytime during the day. I took Scully on a couple of walks (with my wife). We did a long one down past the harbour and she suggested taking our sketchbooks. So here’s my sketch of Oyster Cove and the HMAS Waterhen naval base:

Tonight I had three more ethics classes. The topic on Junk Food is a really good one, and there is some very interesting discussion by the kids on the ethical question of whether it’s okay or not that companies make profits by manufacturing food that is unhealthy for us. And what, if anything, can be done about this state of affairs, and whether any solutions would be better or worse than the status quo.

Games milestones and sketching back home

Friday was busy with ethics classes. I added a new class to Friday at 11:00, so I had even less time in between than previously. I did pick up groceries in the morning before my first class though.

In the evening was online board games night. There were only three of us participating this time (normally we can have 4–6). We played Jump Drive, Knarr, Splendor, Luxor, Cat in the Box, and Nova Luna, all on Board Game Arena. I won the game of Splendor, which is unusual—I’m normally very bad at this game. But I was surprised when Board Game Arena popped up a triumphant dialogue informing me that it was my first win ever at Splendor. I didn’t realise I’d been that bad at it!

And then later when I won another game—I forget exactly which game it was after—BGA informed me that I’d just won my 50th all-time game on the platform. Which I also found a little surprising, given how much we use BGA and how many games I’ve played overall. Honestly if you’d asked me how many games of just Jump Drive I thought I’d won, I would have estimated about 50. Clearly my estimations of my own competence are too high!

Today was a combination of trying to be lazy and staying at home, and actually going out for long walks with my wife and Scully. Before lunch we walked out to the kitchen shop because I wanted to buy a steel steamer tray for our pots, not necessarily to steam anything, but rather to use as a spätzle maker. I’ve been inspired by our trip to Europe to make spätzle at home, and I needed something with holes in it to push the dough through into the boiling water. I found a steamer with multiple stepped sizes on the bottom that could fit either our smaller or larger cooking pot. I also bought a silicone bowl scraper to use to push the dough through.

This afternoon we went on another walk, over to the Flat Rock Brew Cafe, where we sat and both did some sketching. I had a beer while doing mine, and my wife got a coffee. Here’s the outdoor seating area where we sat:

For this one I used the new coloured brush pens that I bought in Vienna, for the first time. So it’s a bit of an experiment. I wanted to colour the faces of the people, but the pens are too dark and I realised I should have left them blank instead. Oh well, live and learn!

And here’s the front of the establishment:

Tonight I used the new steamer to make spätzle, and we had it with vegetarian sausages, fried mushrooms, and sauerkraut. A real central European dish! And the spätzle turned out really well, so I’m very pleased with my purchase.

European sketches scanned

Today I worked on my new ethics class for the new week, on the topic of Junk Food. I have some interesting questions to get the kids to think about what junk food is, such as whether a single small piece of chocolate counts as junk food, or only if you have a lot of it. How much junk food is okay to eat and how much is too much? Why do companies sell food they know is unhealthy, and should there be rules or laws to restrict junk food sales or advertising? Who should be responsible for getting people to eat healthily?

I also worked on a new Darths & Droids strip. I need to get ahead and build up a buffer again, after exhausting the one I’d built up for my trip.

And I completed touching up the scans I did of all my sketches from Europe. I filled my book of 60 pages, so there are quite a few. Here are some that I like:

Bonvivant Cocktail Bistro in Berlin, where we had that marvellous vegetarian 5-course meal:

The Astronomical Clock Tower and Old Town Square in Prague:

The Graben square in Vienna:

Buda Castle, in Budapest:

The steps we had to climb to reach Bratislava Castle, in Bratislava:

The view over Salzburg from Salzburg Castle:

And the Karsltor gate in Munich:

If you want to see all 60 sketches, I’ve put them in this album on Flickr.

This evening I did my first class on the Junk Food topic, which went okay. I had a scratchy throat at the beginning and for a while I thought I might have to stop the class because I couldn’t talk any more, but it seemed to get better as I went on. I’ve been sneezing a lot and having a stuffy nose the past few days, which I’m not sure if it’s a cold or just being run down from the jet lag and lack of sleep. Hopefully I’ll sleep better tonight and recover quickly.

After the class I made a couscous salad with beetroot, cucumber, feta, and walnuts for dinner. Very quick and easy, after I chopped and boiled the beetroot earlier in the afternoon.

D&D prep minimisation; planning to sketch

Tomorrow I am running the next session of my current Dungeons & Dragons game, so I used some time today in between teaching online ethics classes to do some prep work. I’ve recently read a friend’s copy of Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, which I found really awesome. It gives advice on how to prepare for a D&D session in a very fast but effective way, concentrating on things that will have high impact at the table and not end up being wasted effort. I liked the book and its advice so much that I went and bought my own copy.

As it turns out, I didn’t need to do a lot of prep anyway, as the party are currently partway through a dungeon, and I have the remainder of the adventure to get through, which will probably take up most or all of the session. But I also did a bit of work on codifying my own variant of Dungeon Crawl Classics‘ Mighty Deeds of Arms that I mentioned two days ago. And I glanced at another adventure which I’ll be ready to run in case the party gets through the current one in quick time (or potentially chooses to flee in fear and seek out something easier to do…).

The weather continues cold and dry. Scully was very insistent about lying in my lap for most of the day to keep warm. Normally she’s content to do her own thing, but not today.

I also talked with my wife about getting a sketchbook to take on our trip to Europe. She’s taking a watercolour book and some watercolour pencils and paints to do sketches and paintings, as she’s come to love her new hobby. I thought I may as well take a sketchbook and do some drawings of scenes in Europe while she’s painting – we can spend some time sitting al fresco at cafes or whatever and draw our surroundings. I said I could go to the art supply shop and buy one for myself, but she had some suitable A5 size books and gave me one. It’s 150 gsm cartridge paper, not watercolour paper, so is not ideal for her work – she uses 200 gsm watercolour paper now and has bought a book of that for her travel workbook.

I haven’t done much sketching in the past, but I think I’d be at least semi-okay at it. I guess we’ll see! Better to try things rather than die wondering. I’ll share some of sketches, maybe during the trip, or maybe when I get back home.