Safe Area

Welcome back, take your seats, here are your complimentary peanuts, can I get you a drink?

I'm not making any promises, but I do feel guilty about what turns out to be a four-month lapse of service, so once more unto the blog-breach, dear friends (assuming you haven't died of impatience), and once again shall the Jaysmiths Hit Canada.

So, 2008 edition. Well, I sense a Blog TARDIS or two - or four, or eight - will be required to cover major events up till April, so we'll move forward with current affairs.

ITEM! Gil's work proceeds apace. The game I'm working on will hopefully be announced soon and then I won't have to pretend no-one can guess what it might be. Work itself has varied from mildly to extremely stressful, but a great stonking wodge of the stress was relieved last month, when I received a great stonking wodge of money in the form of a pay rise plus a superstar-sized bonus, which I suppose I must have been advised would occur every year based on performance, but frankly I'd forgotten all about it, and my understanding of most game-related bonuses is that they are literally game-related; Radical apparently just pays out bonuses regardless. The advantages of being owned by an evil multinational corporation, I don't doubt.
Anyway, this was just what our bank account needed; we cleared the credit card, cleared the bills for sorting out our house in Littlehampton, bought some treats, and had a few meals out. We had both been worrying our asses off about money, it turns out, and moments before our heads spontaneously exploded in unwitting synchronization, the problem solved itself. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, or in this case the chequebook.

ITEM! Sarah has been keeping herself busy with various things, including a play, plenty of music, some voiceover work and the role of Musical Director at Broadway Chorus.

ITEM! We bought a Wii! Definitely a Blog TARDIS entry to cover this.

ITEM! Gil turned 38 in March. I've decided to deal with this by focusing on the important part of that age, namely '3'. So I regard myself as being 3.8 of the new 'large' years, and I can stay like that for another couple of years, and even then I'll only be '4'.

ITEM! We're attending a songwriting course on Thursday evenings... i.e. that's where we've been tonight. This was the second week. It's somewhat scary. Actually, it's very scary. There were ten of us last week including the two instructors... tonight, eight... next week, in theory, ten again thanks to some replacements. So far it's been useful in terms of supplying tools for creativity. The results when it comes to writing lyrics have so far been (at best) poetry, but on the other hand I've been analyzing how poetry is used as a choral text in some of the songs we sing at High Spirits Choir, and I can see how poetic lyrical ideas (which probably don't rhyme) can be a source for a condensed, considerably treated, and hopefully rhyming lyric. As for the music, well, I still lack heavy music theory, it's all aural with me, but as Sarah has observed, I've listened to a whole lot more pop and rock music than her, and I have a better grasp of what works outside of the classical domain, even if she can write better chords than me (let alone the ability to write any chords at all). Anyway, the exercises are kinda interesting, and I might go into details about them sometime.

ITEM! The building's swimming pool and hot tub, out of action for over six months, have finally been repaired, repainted, and refilled with water... and then drained again, apparently. We may have found this apartment in an excellent location for a bargain rent, and we may not have particular grounds for complaint, but: we've missed our swimming pool and hot tub! And so the thought that they're so close to becoming available once more is driving us nuts. Grrrrr! Sarah scrabbles the responsible people with her bunny-claws. Perhaps next week, we hear on the sour-grapevine.

ITEM! We've been watching the absolutely dreadful remake of The Bionic Woman. Dear God. This is one of the worst TV shows imaginable. I could spend all night listing its flaws. Suffice to say, when you wish the villainess would show up and are deeply unhappy about any episode when she doesn't, you know you've got a miscast heroine. The script is often atrocious - we've adopted "just merely" as a catchphrase thanks to a line from an early episode. The continuity is often completely missing - a town's inhabitants all died three days ago, but the wheels on a fallen bicycle are still spinning and a girl is in a basement cleaning her teeth and wondering where her granny is? An important character seen in jail in the first episode is reported in the second episode as having escaped - off-camera? Oh god. Make it stop. It's so much fun to mock it, though. Plus, it was filmed in Vancouver, so we've been spotting locations. Jan will be pleased to hear that it features the Morgans (of Space: Above And Beyond) as executive producers and consultants. I can't help but think that these people are a danger to TV SF...

ITEM! Vancouver is still an adorable place to live. The view as we cross the bridges into town, the greenery, the breeze on Alberni Street on a Sunday, the shining water, the protective mountains... "the sparkling streams, the bracing air, the therapeutic salt"... it feels very much like home. On which note, we've started the process, through Radical, of applying for permanent residence here. They pay for all of my fees and half of Sarah's, and it takes months to accomplish, but thereafter I will be free to stay in Canada even if I leave Radical... although (a) there's still nearly a year to go before I could leave without having to repay Radical our relocation expenses, and (b) I should emphasise this in case anyone at Radical is reading: I don't actually want to leave (yet ;-).

ITEM! The Twines are coming to visit in July, and so are Burge and his girlfriend Ginny. And their visits overlap by three days! It's a Posse rave! Absolute Vancouverage for the Posse! This will be so much fun.

ITEM! I think that's enough for tonight. See? We do still love you. 'night all.