Jp Corkery

It's days like this I miss being a carnie. I'm looking out the window at the blue sky, and wishing I was in the dry inland outback where the warm breezes blow eucalyptus oil through the air and the car throws up red dust in your wake. No air-con, no airfreshener, just an open window and rock and roll on the radio, on the way to the next gig. Sleeping under the stars in a swag, up at dawn and brown from working outside all day.

So, anyone reckon that there’s a book in a girl quitting her job and deciding to travel all around and inland Australia on a motor bike?

*paws at window and pines*

Where would you rather be today?

* didn't write. In a good way. Not struggling, just taking a break.
* went to my Advanced Creative Writing dayschool. Creative Writing courses are rubbish. You can't teach someone to write. But what you can do is get them to sit in a room with a really talented writer for four hours and make them listen while the writer talks and talks and talks. Which is what happened today. My tutor really, really knows about writing and is a joy to listen to.
* went to see Mark Eitzel. Still stunned and bewildered. I had worried he might not be as good as last time. But he was better. The world remade through wise eyes. A great artist. Spoke to him briefly afterwards. Day = made

http://www.dorktower.com/2009/11/06/dork-tower-friday-november-6-2009-wow-coming-up-with-captcha-titles-is-hard/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4099

http://www.dorktower.com/2009/11/04/dork-tower-wednesday-november-4-2009-it-takes-a-thief-to-captcha-a-thief/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4097

* finished script. Oh good god. We basically took on a workload that would make most full-time writers balk. And we had to learn how to collaborate properly. But it's done, it's been DHLed off to the BBC, we find out on December 7th if we've won. I think we probably have too many rough edges to claim first spot, but you never know.
* redrafted 'Cot'. The infamous Russian Baby Lady story was eventually redrafted and sent off to On The Premises, who'll run it next week. that nearly killed me and all, but I'm really glad it all worked out in the end. I'm very fond of that story. In case you missed it, I also had something published in a wee zine called Southpaw. I've also just dashed off a wee story called "Indiana Jones and a Slice of Infinity", which you just know is never going to be as good as the title. It's not, but it will do for my Creative Writing TMA which is due on Thursday.
* saw Gordon and Niamh get married. What can you say? They came into the wedding in a storm (literally and metaphorically) and walked out in sunshine (literally and metaphorically). Love, life and happiness to the both of them.
* went back to Cork for the sixth time in five years. Didn't get to do a big social night, due to it being a fairly packed schedule so I will have to get back fairly soon and say hello to everyone. Wow. Cork. It's so strange, every time I've gone back recently I've been freaked out by the pace of change, and by the slightly bitter, materialistic edge that the Irish character seemed to be developing. And now... it's over. It's like the last five years never happened. The streets are dirty. The boutiques and lifestyle bars have shut down. The Polish have gone home, or been assimilated, or had something happen to them which stops them adding that feeling of Cork being a place that's connected o the rest of the world. Cork is now just the shitehole by the sea it always was; forgotten, crazy, lovely. Sorry. Emigrants always love to come home and find their homes untouched, but I know the people still there don't want to live in a museum. But trust me, Cork, this way is better.
* read half of Douglas Coupland's Generation A. A fine book, but when you start with a Kurt Vonnegut quote you're always going to be overshadowed. Here is the quote, which bears repeating:

Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.

-KURT VONNEGUT: Syracuse University Commencement, Sunday, May 8th, 1994

http://www.dorktower.com/2009/11/02/dork-tower-monday-november-2-2009-captcha-em-all/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4095

Crossposted from my writing blog at sadhbh.blogspot.com


KR, he says.

Right there at the end of the email he sent looking to introduce his PR firm. Just before his name. KR.

I have no idea what it means.

Keith Richards? Keep Right? Keep Rocking?

And then it dawns on me. “KR” is short for Kind Regards. This man, this abomination of a PR man who is looking to make a good first impression on me and my firm, not ONLY uses the most fatuous and over-gentrified closing since “Yours most humbly affectionate” bit the dust in the sixteenth century but he can’t even be arsed to write it all.

Kind regards is foul enough. Victorian and stilted in its vagueness and yet capable of starting an arms race of affection. Someone signs “Kind regards”, and then someone has to beat them with “KindEST regards” and the whole thing gets totally out of control with “My most kind regards” and “Yours with the kindest of regards” and “Prostrating my most humble self on your bidet to offer the very kindest of my kind regards”.

Or the person who tries to play the strong silent type and writes merely “Regards” with no indication of how kind they are.

And exactly how kind are the regards? Would you donate your house to me, or just a few bucks for a coffee? Do they have no monetary element redeemable? Are we talking pouring your cup of tea on me if I was on fire, or saying “I hope the burns get better soon” as I am carted screaming in agony into the ambulance?

Kind regards. Could you vague that up for me a bit?

For added Victorian style – because nothing says polite like a group of people who used to encase their privates in metal to prevent “self abuse” – you can for no apparent reason capitalise everything. “Kind Regards.” It’s especially good if you wrongly put a capital R on regards but forget to put a capital on your own damned name.

Or just dispense with the piddling matters of letter altogether and go with “KR”. How informal! How, well, how little like you even care slightly about the opinion of your reader.

In fact, why not just close your email with “Yeah, whatever”? I’m sorry, we’re being modern now - that mean disregarding the most basic of niceties and ease of reading – let’s use “YW”. Nothing says “can’t be arsed” like not bothering to finish your words.

Or not. Look, I have had it up to here with clever buggers from PR and marketing telling the world that correct grammar and capitalisation are “dated”, that we should be mixing it up with txtspk outside of texts. The first purpose of writing something is not to be funky, but to be readable. You are writing so other people can understand what you have said.

Ignore PR twatboy in the corner desperately trying to justify his consultancy fee by spewing turdery and write correctly. Have the courage to make it look like your company is smart enough to master basic communication. Capitalise correctly. Use punctuation. Go fecking crazy; care about your customers’ reading experience. Or prepare to have people take one look at your garbage and conclude you are morons who can’t be trusted with a keyboard, let alone a PR budget.

My response?

TL;DR*

Too Long; Didn’t Read

http://www.dorktower.com/2009/10/30/dork-tower-friday-october-29-2009-captcha-cha-cha/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4079

Gaming Down Under

It’s a dark and stormy night.

I’m in Sydney and lost in a maze of streets and closed malls. I have no idea what my contacts look like, what their real names are, or if they will turn out to be friends or foes.

Be there at nine, they said. And I am.

Two men walk out of an alley and towards me. One’s tall and blond, the other shorter; dark haired and dark eyed. They both wear long black trench coats in the Sydney summer night heat. That’s the giveaway. It has to be them.

Here goes. I shove on my friendliest smile. “Howya, I’m Sadhbh. The random new Irish gamer in town?”

And that’s how I met the Australian Camarilla, and Australian gamers in general.

While I’m from Cork (like), I’ve spent most of the last four years city hopping in Australia. It’s a bit bizarre to find yourself on the opposite side of the planet with no friends. How the hell do you meet new people? I’ve tried the drinking in bars alone thing and the putting ad’s online thing (and do I have some stories if you have three hours to spare and strong stomach) but by far the best method I have found is looking up the games clubs in every city you visit.

Finding a game in a city that I’m visiting makes my life a whole lot easier and lot more lively. The great thing about the gaming, and the thing that people tend to lose sight of when they start talking about gamers and types of gaming and frothing about cliques, is that gaming is generally a social hobby devoted to making people have fun.

Okay, for some people, fun is a quick board game and for others it’s a lengthy LARP bitch fest only slightly ruined by the fact that your fangs are making you lisp (a pint to anyone who can say the word “Priscus” with fangs without drowning everyone in the group in spit) but it’s still fun.

Both in and out of games, I’ve met people who have made me laugh and cry. I’ve been adopted by various gamers, and brought to games and convention and be shown around cities from Perth to Brisbane. I’ve joined in table top campaigns for a few weeks, and made friends for life. I’ve played D&D in Melbourne and lost my sanity in Canberra.

(Look at Canberra on a map and tell me that street layout isn’t a sigil to summon Cthulhu. Seriously. They even built a huge artificial lake in the middle of the place for the fishmen.)

I would cheerfully recommend being a travelling gamer to anyone. Okay, on the downside, you spend your entire time learning everyone’s names in character and then have to do it again OUT of character. And they have no Barry’s tea here for those long game sessions. Lipton is the brew of choice, which is to a decent cup of tea what the D&D movie was to playing the game.

Lipton tea leaves are what you get if you get a bald monkey, stuff him with caffeine suppositories, get him good and sunburnt and then scrap all the flakey bits of skin off into a bag. The stuff is foul.

On a slightly more serious note and non-tea related note, the generosity of the role-players in Australia has astounded me. I have been helped with everything from character creation to finding a flat and job. I have been given crash space and tips on how to get my apartment cockroach free. While we get together to game and merrily stab each other in the back, I have had nothing but friendship and friendly assistance offered by the various players I have met out of game.

And sometimes more than friendly assistance, but let’s not get into that. Although “Join the Camarilla, get a Hawt Australian free” could be a great advertising campaign. I’m just saying.

This approach did run into issues when I ended up 500 hundred miles inland in a place called Wagga Wagga but I am hopeful that someday there will be a Camarilla chapter or gaming society there. It certainly has enough local wankgst to start one off, although declaring yourself the Dungeon Master of Wagga Wagga may be a sure way to get your back yard dug up by very serious men in bio-hazard gear looking for missing backpackers.

Just try to remember not to ask them for a lend of their stuff as “props”. No matter how Steampunk they are.
Gaming in Australia isn’t all that different. Steampunk is big and heavily costumed, D&D has a loyal following, some people spend the weekend in fields hitting each other with rubber swords and some people spend the weekend war gaming.

There are conventions here, a great place to try new games and catch up, where people stay up all night and GM’s complain when no one makes the Sunday morning slot. There are Tuesday night role-playing sessions (regretfully without Barry’s tea). There are people carefully closing the curtains to block the light from their monitor to sit down and play World of Warcrack with friends. There are vampires and werewolves and mages, oh my!

And there’s me. On the opposite side of the planet and pretty happy that my hobby makes it so easy to meet people and have fun. If you didn’t think of gaming as a sociable hobby, come to Australia and I’ll show you how those skills and interests from home translate into fun when you travel.

Just remember to bring me some Barry’s tea when you come.



Sadhbh Warren is from Cork. Having done time on the WARPS and WARPCon Committees while in UCC, she has spent the five years having fun on several continents. Last seen in Sydney, she has variously worked as an EA, PA, travelling carnie and one of Santa's Elves, and occasionally drops in on gaming groups and Conventions and refuses to leave until all the beer is gone.

The weekend flew in, a whole year work and planning payed off.
The best comment made over the weekend to me was "Can we have 3 more days of that, starting tomorrow".
But all good things come to an end, until next year.

So what was your favourite moment at Gaelcon2009?

http://www.dorktower.com/2009/10/28/dork-tower-wednesday-october-27-2009-this-is-not-the-captcha-youre-looking-for/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4076