August Status Update

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August was a month of books, boardgames, and “back to normal”.

I’ve been posting here a lot less than what I’d like to recently, and the main reason for that is that things are finally going “back to normal”. With lockdown fully eased in Scotland (wear your damn mask please), shops are open, schools are open, and I’m now back at work, five days a week. It’s good to get out of the house and do things a bit more regularly again, but the whole thing so far feels a lot like a dream: honestly, where the hell have the last few months gone? I’m finding the days having a similar effect, and after doing not much for so long it’s bizarre suddenly having responsibility, appointments, and an actual sense of time again. Night times are a crazy spin of dinner, TV, bed, and days are frequently over before they feel as if they’ve even begun, my energy levels mysteriously depleted. I’m hoping this will all balance out soon.

With businesses, places, and venues opening back up, this month I went for a few lunches, got a haircut, went shopping, and even later in the month, went to the cinema. The first outing was on a sunny Sunday to Forse of Nature, where we sat outside to eat, sat on the (sometimes wet) grass, and had a wander round the grounds. Lunch and company were great, we saw ducks, and I may have fallen in a ditch in the woods, but the best feeling about it all was just how relaxed and normal everything felt- some very long overdue reassurance for me and my doom mentality the last few months. Equally great was getting to drive to Inverness and go shopping later in the month, buying lots of books, having lunch, visiting friends and then heading home. It feels good to break up things again with such days, but arrows, facemasks, and distancing in shops are of course a constant reminder that things aren’t perfect quite yet, and might not be for a while.

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This month -and year, if i’m honest- I’ve been trying to read a lot more than what I would normally. After reading the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy late last year -Northern Lights- this month I jumped into the follow-up The Subtle Knife. Against consensus, I found the first book in the series as just okay, but could see the enormous potential of both the world and the series. The second book opens up a lot faster and vastly expands the world(s) of the series by introducing some really great characters and concepts from the outset. With initial world-building and introductions from the previous book out of the way I far preferred it’s pacing and focus enormously, and got through it with enthusiasm quite quickly. The third and final book in the trilogy The Amber Spyglass which i’m reading now expands with possibility and wonder, but so far it’s taking me a lot longer to get through. The other book I read this month was On Writing by Stephen King, and after reading plentiful amounts of his work over the years, I found this incredibly rewarding. There’s a lot of good advice in here for aspiring story tellers -I have post-it notes on pages to prove it- but I far preferred the more autobiographical sections and passages, which were often just as interesting.

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In August I continued playing in two Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with my two very different characters. Panwick the Pilfer is an agile and sneaky heist Halfling extraordinaire trying to stay alive while Henk is a Half-Orc Barbarian who often misses the point and lacks subtlety. I enjoy both characters and games, and next month i’m looking into starting some solo rpgs and journalling on the side, for even further escapism. With us largely house bound these last few months there’s been frequent online D&D sessions but my partner and I have been playing lots of boardgames too. This month I bought Santa Monica for us to play together, and initial impressions are pretty good. The game is an easy breezy card drafing operation where you build a beach front and then attract tourists to gain victory points, mini engine-builder style. We need to play more and especially as part of a group but so far I can safely say I LOVE THE THEME AND ART SO MUCH.

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While I know lockdown, and Covid, and 2020 are all far from over it’s good to be feeling a lot better about things, and optimism is something I’m feeling a bit more now both mentally and physically. The year, and holiday, and all the weddings we were going to and so much more are written off, but I’m feeling creative and ambitious and have plenty of ideas and projects lined up for the coming months and winter ahead. It’s time to try and get things back on track!

August Links

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Some interesting stories, thoughts, and ideas i’ve discovered throughout August, rounded-up.

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Microplastics have moved into virtually every crevice on Earth - this sounds like a horrible nasty plot from a Doctor Who episode, but it’s actually happening right now (and for a while obv given findings), under our noses. Absolutely terrifying stuff.

The Unravelling of America - this is an immensely fascinating read by anthropologist Wade Davis on the formation of the United States, the history there-of, and it’s place now in a post-pandemic post-truth world stage. America now is where it’s been heading for a long time, and it’s a fall that’s happening real-time. Of note, “Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent”. Really recommend giving this a read.

‘We Are the Guinea Pigs’: Hollywood Restarts Its Blockbuster Machine - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is probably one of the worst sequels in a while, but it’s interesting reading about the development and filming of it’s upcoming follow-up, and how they’re committed to continue filming safely, despite that whole 2020 Global Pandemic thing.

Fall Guys is Pure Saturday Evening Television After a hundred different first-person shooters, third-person shooters, and even Tetris, the Battle Royale genre finally gets the game it was invented for- I played it for a whole saturday night this month, LOTS of fun.

Bella Mackie: Is It Really A Bad Idea To Give Into Rose-Tinted Nostalgia Right Now? - I can relate to this so much, particularly about “the good old days”, taking things for granted, and honestly, just having happier times in general. 2020 has been incredibly awful- this year more than any other has just made me thankful for everything I do have.

The Matrix as a Trans Allegory - I haven’t seen The Matrix in a decade plus, but here’s a great Twitter thread by Netflix breaking down the connection between the cyber sci-fi action film and some of the transgender themes that it contains, compiling lots of links to supporting pieces in the process. Rewatch due soon.

What Dungeons and Dragons Taught Me About Politics - D&D is a game all about rolling for success, correct dialogue choices, and working well as a party, so this is an apt comparison. Travelling to Barnard Castle and rolling for an Intelligence Saving Throw isn’t something I remember in my adventure, however…

Get Happier by Rereading Your Favourite Books from Childhood - 2020 has been hellish. I’ve still got a massive backlog of both children and now adult books to catch up-on, but dipping in to familiar favourites in any media can be comforting. I rewatched a lot of my favourite films in lockdown.

Is It Possible To Have A Healthy Relationship With Social Media? - Why is disabling social media or leaving your phone at home so hard to do? I’ve been very guilty of doomscrolling these last few months, and some of these tips really helped me. It’s good to switch off.

Video

“This Is...” A Personal Ode to Going to the Cinema by Matthew Mulcahy/Little White Lies is a lovely short full of cinematic nostalgia and the memories created from cinema trips. I haven’t seen many of the films in the video so my own one would be quite different, but the sentiment here resonated with me a lot.

How a Last of Us Part II Level is Made - The Last of Us Part 2 is probably my game of the year, and narratively, one of my favourite stories ever. This is a great video by the always excellent Game Maker’s Toolkit/Mark Brown examing some of the environmental design and development. [SPOILERS]

The Batman - DC FanDome Teaser - You know, maybe it is time DC branched out a bit with their films and roster of Superheroes, but when there’s still so many possible interesting stories/casting/and set-pieces yet to happen, maybe more Batman isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This trailer really nails the character.

Audio

Kermode on Film: Christopher Nolan Special - my favourite film critic discussing films by my (probably?) favourite film director. This is a big two and a half hour ranking of every film directed by Christopher Nolan with lots of interesting consideration and discussion about each one. My favourite, still, is The Prestige.

2020 Best Of - Just a very loose WIP playlist on Spotify of my favourite music this year so far: i’m going to add stuff as I discover it!

Other

Would You Search Through The Lonely Earth For Me - a one page, one player, journalling rpg, that focusses less on the quest and the adventurer and more on the treasure or artefact itself. I’m hoping to play a lot of solo-RPGs over September to get something creative going, this one is probably going to be the foundation.

Ailpol on Instagram - i’d be remiss if I didn’t link this, but my partner has been working hard and posting a lot of really great art on her instagram recently, go have a look!

Adventures in Lego Photography

I’ve been a fan of Lego for a long time. Building, buying, collecting have been huge aspects of it as a hobby, but though I enjoy it elsewhere as an interest, the photography side of it has never been the one i’ve enjoyed. When I’ve been publishing MOCs and build pictures online the photography part of it has always been my least favourite compared to the building and designing itself, and 15 years later as an AFOL, this hasn’t changed. Truth told i’m probably underselling my builds when I’m presenting them as a result, but a quick search on social-media will quickly reveal an expanse of both varying skill and quality amongst fans. I’m okay-ish, I think? Instagram in particular is a hotbed of competition and people having accounts dedicated to just uploading Lego photography. I should probably do a link list of the best ones fully at some point, but these four really jump out.

I recently bought a cheap light box off Amazon to dabble in a bit of it myself and get some sharper images. It’s a simple pop-up box with USB-powered LED lights and a range of coloured backdrops that folds away easily afterwards. I planned to take big minifig cast photos with hundreds of medieval knights and spacemen explorers, but the particular one I bought is a bit on the small side for that and bigger builds, and much better for individual minifigs and pairings- so that’s what i’ve done initially. These are very rough, unedited shots from my phone, but I think the box and set-up has a lot of potential for future better calibrated photos (and posts here, let’s be honest). I might actually seeing about getting a bigger one too for, like I said, bigger builds. At some point I would like to a list about all my favourite minifigs that I own and photos of them but that would require the ardous task of actually sussing them out to begin with. More experiments required!

Always Love (write.as/richardam/)

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On it’s website, write.as describes itself as “A place for focussed writing…with no distractions to interupt your creative flow”. It’s a personal space for writing and publishing away from all the noise of social-media that immediately reminded me a lot of early days Tumblr, with it’s minimalism and customisation. Simpler times. Through recommendation, as creative writing practice, and as a result of recent ongoing meh-ntal health problems, I decided to sign up and give it a shot.

It feels odd doing so and even starting it as another blog effort because while I plan to natter away and be very much here, there’s an opportunity to do something different there as well. My thinking is it’s going to be (mostly) daily updates and a log full of positive ideas, happy feelings, and good memories. Just optimism. Always love, like the title suggests. You know, the stuff the internet doesn’t *really* favour. Obviously with 2020 in full effect it’s been doom after doom, so I’ve enjoyed trying to pick out some pleasant experiences and thoughts each day, and reminisce accordingly. What is happiness? Well, it’s hopefully a collection of some of these concepts. As a project I’m not sure how long i’m planning to run it, but if anyone wants to check it out or follow for some vibes (ugh?) give it a look. It’s all a bit experimental and looser than what i’m hoping to do here, but I like that sketchbook feeling of it, and crucially, I’m finding it helping with both the mental health and creative sides of things at the moment.

Films watched during UK Lockdown

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I’m back to work properly tomorrow, I’ve had a haircut, and I’ve been out for lunch- I guess that’s lockdown fully over?

It’s been a really difficult few weeks that I’ve moaned about plenty already but in in that time I’ve missed having nights out/dinner, seeing friends, and most surprisingly of all: going to the cinema. I’ve missed the new film build-up, the hype, trailers, just the actual event of going to the cinema. The Coronavirus made for a nice backlog later in the year and next year as all the studios delay and postpone releases, but with all the stay-at-home practices in full effect, the last few weeks I watched a lot of films at home instead. Some of the films were new watches, but a vast majority of films watched were big, easy, familiar comforts instead, films sometimes just as rewarding even for the Nth time.

We watched The Dark Knight “trilogy”, all the Daniel Craig Bonds, The Hobbit/LOTR franchise (without ROTK, odd), lots of Taika Waititi, and more horrors than usual. 64 films in total, including plenty of my faves. I made a big list of everything I watched on Letterbox’d- it’s maybe not the most important film listing ever, but as we move further away from Lockdown (and hopefully Covid_19) it becomes worth remembering and tracking more. All those lost months. I’m having similar thoughts with my diary as we go through it, with the optimism that remembering all this in a year’s time will be a surreal, distant dream. We’ll see.

My own local cinema is still currently closed until the end of the month. I’m not sure if i’m quite ready to attend opening weekend of any film going forward, but it’s good to start taking steps “back to normal”.

AFOL: Adult Fan of Lego

Lego fans, generally, all go through a transition.

There is the childhood “Lego is fun!” beginning, the awkward “I’m too old for this” teen years, and then the eager submission and acceptance as adults: “I have money now”/”that looks cool”/”I wanted that when I was younger”. I’m at an age now where the phrase “when I was younger” is becoming more and more common in my daily life, but nonetheless, when I was younger… I was absolutely mad for Lego. Castles, and Pirates, and so many Helicopters. I had other toys but for me, there was always Lego and excitingly buckets and buckets of it. Birthdays and Christmasses were involutarily small-scale Lego events. Trips to hospital would always be rewarded with Lego. Pocket money would mean, of course, Lego. I don’t think I really had many of the big sets of the 90s when I was growing up, but there were hundreds of smaller sets and vehicles, minifigures and adventure bases, and it all massed itself into quite the respectable collection, enough for years of some pretty sweet imagination and building.

When I hit puberty I became susceptible to the same societal cool/lame (AND GREASY) pressures and problems as everyone else, and stopped collecting and playing with Lego outright. This would’ve been around the early 2000s at some point. I suspect computer games, music, and the internet played a huge part in that echoing that entire generation of children, but Lego, and the company itself were struggling at the time, with some bizarre set design choices and very questionable innovations. The Lego Group faltered immensely in the early 00s (and not just because of me, silly) dabbling in CDRoms and Webcam film-making tools, and producing absolutely hundreds of Bionicle sets, very different sets and ideas to the classic, common brick. I still don’t know what the fuck a Bionicle is. I never want to find out.

Lego fans commonly refer to their time away from Lego as “Dark Ages”, and it usually occurs at the same age for all builders. Boys are cool, right? My Lego Dark Ages lasted for several years -mostly High School, (hell) which would then of course gave way to some actual Dark Ages: my own mental health doubt, depression et al for a few years after (actual hell). I wasn’t interested in Lego any more but for years it felt like I wasn’t interested in anything any more. I didn’t do much of anything, creativity was a foreign concept, and I just really moped around for years while studying part-time. There was a lot of late nights, tv repeats and internet scrolling. Sometimes there were family dinners. While I was off The Lego Group were very much still on, and they kept producing and releasing sets throughout the noughties. Up until the early 2000s Lego as a product had only been original themes and in-house IPs, but in the turn of the millenium two franchises dominated the entertainment -and subsequently toy- industries: Star Wars and Harry Potter. I was a fan of both at the time but the actual Lego sets relating to both IP garnered no interest from myself- something something not as good as my childhood etc. Soon after this was exemplified: on a random rainy afternoon’s internet trawling, I stumbled upon LUGNET, The International LEGO Users Group Network.

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Let's Talk July 2020

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July was a month of days out, ‘Dark Knight, and deactivating Facebook.

With quarantine and working from home this past month I’ve still found myself a bit up and down mentally but during these “strange times” I’ve accepted it and I’m okay with it. Physically my right leg is still sore as hell, i’m definitely less okay with it- lets continue the stretches. Mood swings are expected, it’s normal to have them, that’s what i’m self- reassuring. What has helped lots however has been less daily social media. I wrote at length previously about why I deactivated Facebook but four weeks later this is something that’s stuck. I’ve deactivated before for a day at a time, so i’m a little surprised, but this has been so liberating, and not nearly as FOMO-inducing as I had worried. Who knew!?! Definitely a win for my 2020.

Lockdown is easing, and with better weather these past few weeks we made an effort to go out and about a bit more. On a very sunny saturday we headed out West a bit and went to Armadale Beach Bay and Strathy Point, packing swimming gear and towels. Despite good intentions this was mistimed, and wind (and rising tides) meant that we weren’t really able to get swimming at all. Ailish tried all the same, but standing in the sea with waves that go up and overhead is maybe all the indication and warning anyone needs. Nonetheless we walked and explored lots, and I took far too many photos and videos as usual: is 300+ too many? Definitely.

Two weeks later we headed to Latheronwheel Harbour to visit The Fairy Glen. Ailish and Wes had been here previously, but despite all my time in Caithness, I had never been. When we arrived the harbour was full of people picnicking, diving from height and swimming -we *really* shouldve brought our own gear- and the walk was a good hour of wandering. Over the bridge, up the hill, and finally down again through the trees to the Fairy Glen itself. Full of trees, rocks, logs and stumps with small decorative doors, windows, and paths, it’s a miniature woodland town with plenty of imagination, heart, and craft skill. We didnt get to see any actual fairies while we were there, they were obviously having a lockdown quarantine of their own. It was inspiring though- I left wanting to make a Fairy House for myself/garden.

This month we rewatched The Dark Knight trilogy. Batman Begins is a shocking 15 years old this month so it made sense to go back and watch them all. The franchise introduced me to director Christopher Nolan’s work, and while I loved them all at the time, it’s now really easy to see their faults/limitations/plot holes. I think for what it’s worth Batman Begins is easily the best Batman film ever with some of the backstory choices and narrative thematics, but The Dark Knight is without a doubt the best film film of the trilogy for just how damn stylish and tightly plotted it is. Dark Knight Rises is fun, but overdrawn, and really not the send-off the trilogy needs. Watching them all back to back now the trilogy feels very uneven in both pace and tone, with some very loose connections, but I still prefer them by far to all the other Batman films. We also watched The Conjuring and Hereditary this month, scary shit. The former was fun and felt relatively trope, the latter was…well, i’m still thinking about it at large, twenty days later. It’s a really bold film, it’s mastercraft slowly unravelling and scaring me the more I think back to it. What a film.

With things in the UK “going back to normal” I made a final push on what i’m building at the moment. I started landscaping for a Lego Castle back in April by building a waterfall but it sat mostly stagnant after realising that due to everything else, it wasn’t going to be at any of the exhibitions/shows later this year I had planned. I spent a few days this month getting good work done on it however and i’m very happy with how it’s coming along, if still somewhat daunted at everything I now need to do to finish it. I *might* have had this feeling before at just…everything i’ve done creatively? The picture below is a bit crap but the potential is there! I’m hoping to have this finished and forested by the end of next month. We’ll see.

This month (and hopefully going forward?) i’ve been posting here, and so far it seems to be going okay. Reflection, and writing are quite important I think, and i’ve found it good while everything the world over turns to shit, no irony. It still seems selfish to put so much focus and energy on myself, but it certainly feels like it’s been working. I made a 1 Second Everyday this month as ever, i’m still really enjoying doing that. Trying to embed it as video here, i’m enjoying that less so.

Phonetically, the word “month” is weird, right? MUN-TH.

Armadale Beach Bay

I took lots (read: far too many) photos and videos when we were out at Armadale Sutherland last week. Ill get a post for it sorted properly soon, but here’s the three I recently posted on Instagram. It looks warm and sunny, but those waves were COLD, definitely not as much swimming as we hoped.