Well, I’ve finished inking chapter 5 and 6, and is now currently toning chapter 5 and making some corrections. As usual, I’ve been lazy about informing folks of my progress, partly because there’s been a revival of old DOS gaming at this end of the spectrum and THIS person happens to be playing old DOS games while toning. Which is the best thing about computer toning – I exercise my (and the computer’s) multi-tasking skills in full force. Either way, “The Dreaming” will definately be completed by the end of July, and until then, the release date is tentatively set for Jan 2006.

 

Great Site for Old Games: Try Abadonia, which is a GREAT site full of old DOS games. There are many of them out there, but Abandonia includes a message board, a rating and a review facility and the page just looks alot more professional than the other sites out there. And it has… HTTP downloads!! One game I can really recommend is a fan-made game called 5 Day a Stranger, which is a horror-based game that is quite impressive for a one-person venture. It’s a short adventure game about a gentleman thief called Trilby, whose purpose was to liberate an empty mansion of it’s riches after it’s owners mysteriously died. However, after going in, he finds himself trapped within the mansion, and oddly enough, there are also 4 paranoid people trapped there under the same circumstances as him. Some nice scripting and use of music – it’s also got a sequel called “7 Days a Skeptic”, which I’m going to download later.

 

Reading Fun: “5 Days a Stranger” unsettled me because I have been reading a collection of HP Lovecraft’s stories, called “The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories”. I really do love his stories – he really IS (one of) the best innovators of the horror genre (and the Edgar Allen Poe influence). Oddly enough, Lovecraft’s work is really difficult to find in this country. Can you believe the librarians and book sellers I spoke to haven’t even HEARD of him, and can’t spell his name properly (“Lovegraft?”), let alone know what I’m talking about. Meanwhile, there are enough Isaac Asimov books filling the shelves of libraries and bookstores everywhere to the extent where I don’t actually need to buy any of it. I’m thinking of buying “Robot Dreams” though, since it has some of my favourite stories in it, but for now I’ll stick with Lovecraft. I haven’t been able to find “The Illustrated Man” anywhere though, or any of Roy Bradbury’s work. Maybe all those volumes of Asimov’s work ate them.

 

Sydney Film Festival: Ahh, ofcourse I went. “Howl’s Moving Castle” was the Closing Night bonanza, and it sold out in a flash so I had to settle for other good movies. I’ve seen one feature out of the three I booked – namely “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”. A fantastic documentary about the Rise and Fall of Enron, which as far as corporate scandals go, is probably the biggest scam in history. I’m also set to see “Kindergarten”, another documentary-style film, and one African film I’ve been dying to see called “Moolade”. Most of these films got good reviews elsewhere, and it seems that “Howl’s Moving Castle” has been released in the United States – if rottentomatoes.com is to judge. The barometer of the critical response is mostly positive, though top critic Roger Ebert had an unfavourable review. This is not surprising – the man is a HUGE fan of Miyazaki (and animation in general), and his disappointment in Howl’s storyline, which I share, is palpable in his review.