Wednesday 24 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Tiny amounts of snow last night, so I was worried there wouldn’t be many dancers. But in fact we had a fair few. Indeed, this time both of the really cute girls brought their boyfriends with them. *sigh*

I keep promising myself that one of these days I’m going to find out what all these people’s names are. Last night I only suceeded in finding out that the tall friendly lady is called Mandy. (I’m almost blogging this if only so I remember!)

As is traditional, I spent most of the night dancing by myself. I got to play with Linda a few times though. Particularly while demonstrating… the Double Bunny Hop. This is considerably harder than it sounds; while the regular Bunny Hop is fairly easy (provided your partner knows what she’s doing), the double is considerably more tricky. In particular, it involves swapping hands quite quickly, at just the right moment. I’m still not 100% sure what’s supposed to happen here.

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Monday 22 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

So I’ve completed Psychonauts for the second time now. There aren’t too many games where I’d bother, but this one’s worth it.

The first time around, I didn’t do much exploring. This time I had more of a look around. (I also knew before hand about the various points of no return.) I managed to find almost everything on the treasure-hunt. (I think I missed the foscil, the glass eye and the golden acorn. And I’m pretty sure I found some of those the first time around.) I also got a few extra lines of dialog, some of which was pretty humourous.

“Hey, do you happen to know the way to Sasha’s secret lab?”
“Secret? It’s printed on your map, dummy!”
“Oh, uh, yeah, I knew that. I just wanted to if you knew that.”
“Yes.”

It’s interesting that you have a map with objectives printed on it, but it only works for, like, the first quarter of the game or so, because the rest of it is spent in mental worlds or in just one single physical location. Actually, when you think about it, the whole game is fairly short. Which is a pitty, because it’s such a nice game. And the ending so heavily foreshadows a sequal…

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Monday 22 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Lesley informed me that she wasn’t feeling well, so I got to go to class alone. But when I got there… where the hell is everybody? I counted 5 couples and 2 spare men (obviously one of those was me). So I spent the whole evening dancing with Mavis. Obviously she’s the best dancer in the room. But unfortunately it means I constantly get nagged; you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing that wrong, pick your feet up, etc.

Most of the evening was spent concentrating on the rise and fall of the Foxtrot and the Waltz. Suffice it to say that I can’t really concentrate on that many things all at once. I guess I just need practice or something, but last time I tried to step forward on a heel, I took a chunk out of the dancefloor and nearly flattened myself. As if that wasn’t enough, Mavis decided to insert a few turns in the Waltz, including the Reverse Turn which I’ve only ever attempted, like, once.

We also learned a snazzy new move in the Mambo. Normally there’s a move where the man raises his hand, and the lady does a twirl. This move is the same, except you don’t let go with your other hand. The result is the lady getting her arms twizzled around herself; a few steps later you untwizzle her. Simple in concept, mildly tricky to actually pull off. (What am I talking about? I just do the same steps as always; it’s hard for the ladies.) Man, you girls get all the hardest steps.

Oh yeah, and I walk around the lady in a circle. Ooo, difficult.

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Monday 22 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

I stumbled across an article entitled Assasin’s Creed II PC’s DRM sounds as pleasent as a stab in the neck.

This apparently applies only to the PC version, not the various console versions. (Because it’s impossible to pirate those, right?) The gist of it is that if you lose your Internet connection, you get booted out of the game. This is supposedly meant to make using an illegal copy of the game impossible. Because, let’s face it, nobody can crack DRM, right?

Right??

WRONG, morons! I have yet to see a “copy-protected” game, film, song, whatever, which hasn’t been copied anyway.

Now let’s be clear on this. Piracy is a crime. I do not own any pirated works. All my stuff is legal. Because if I like something enough to want to own it, it seems fair to me that I should pay the people who worked so hard creating it. (There’s also the small matter of getting the geniune article and not some mutilated, low-quality copy — or just a computer virus…)

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Wednesday 17 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

You may recall that last week my Rock & Roll class consisted of 4 people including me. Well, this week the total was more like 12 or so. I don’t know what the hell happened last week, but this week it seems everything is back to normal. Yay!

We did various dances (like you do). I muttered to one of the ladies “if you’d been here last week, you would have learned the Bunny Hop”. She looked at me and said “Bunny Hop? What on Earth is that? Hmm, that sounds fun actually!” Well, a few minutes later, we did the Bunny Hop!

I actually thought it was quite an easy move, but a number of people seemed to be having trouble with it. But none the less, while we practiced it there were lots of giggles and smiles. I think just about everybody was smiling. This is a really fun move — provided you don’t break your partner.

We spent most of the class practicing our Bunny Hop, inserting it into various parts of other dances. I think most people more or less nailed it by the end. We certainly had a lot of fun trying!

Also in this single evening we danced a Stroll, a Baby Workout and even Tiger Feet! All in all, it was a very good evening.

On the other hand, I think I might have been a little too enthusiastic with Tiger Feet. My left foot seems to be bruised now. (Only my left foot, mind you, which is slightly odd…)

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Monday 15 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

So on Friday we danced. No sign of Lois or Steven. Les has apparently crashed her car, which did her back a lot of good. Nothing much to report on the dancing front. We danced a few dances, and then we practiced the Foxtrot. (And Les still can’t walk in a straight line!)

The big news is of course Saturday night and the Valentine’s Ball. It’s true I’m not really sure if I actually want to go to this thing, but there might be some dancing, and I get to wear my new shirt, cufflinks and waistcoat one more time, which can’t be bad.

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Friday 12 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Last night I spend an hour chatting to Mr The Organist. (Unfortunately the church floor has collapsed, so we can’t actually go in there right now.) Tonight I’ve got a Ballroom & Latin class, and tomorrow night is the Valentine’s Dance. It’s all good!

In other news… my mother returned home last night, so that pretty much ruined my plans. Oh well, you win some you lose some…

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Thursday 11 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Heh, last night I borrowed a CD from my dad. It says on it “The Very Best of Mud”. I think you can all see where this is going…

We sat and listened to it, and track 17 cracked us up. There’s a little intro, and then there’s a drum fill, and in the background somebody yells “ooo my bloody finger!” WTF? LMAO!

In other news, today’s QC comic has the dancers the correct way around. Apparently they heard me. (Or perhaps the 25 million others who probably said the same thing. I presume QC has some forums somewhere…)

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