Looking for Food in All the Wrong Places
June's Pugsteady Update
Sorry for the late newsletter this month, but between moving house and UK Games Expo, I had a lot of work sitting on my desk that I had to unshovel before I could find the time to write the newsletter.
But now I have a private office! BEHOLD.
(Please note the autographed Nick Roche print of the More Than Meets the Eye cast at the top there. I’m very pleased to own that.)
That’s a new desk — we had two desks in the old flat and three people who needed work-from-home offices, so I decided to purchase a new one for my space. It also seems that the monitor I had at the coworking space survived the trip but something got knocked around and it won’t receive a signal now. I figured, since I was setting up a new space, I could wait and get a monitor that makes sense for where I work now rather than where I was working, which is why I just have the laptop on a stand.
At first I was unsure, as after I assembled the desk it ended up being the smallest one I’ve had yet. Combine that with the fact that this is the first time I’ve had a permanent desk that didn’t have some kind of monitor, and I thought I might have made a mistake. Would the whole thing feel less like a work space and more like something I just threw together?
But more and more I’m coming to like it, at least for now. I find I only need the extra monitor space once in a while, and having a relatively uncluttered desk is nice. I might get (or steal from my family) a portable monitor to set up only when I need it, instead of having a curved widescreen monstrosity that dominates my space. I might also look into a wall-mounted monitor that doesn’t sit on the desk at all and which could also serve as a TV set for the times when I need to watch videos for research.
Further, the smaller desk space means I can’t keep doing a bad habit I’ve had for years, which is eating lunch at my desk. I simply don’t have the room, so this week I’ve found myself eating lunch in the kitchen, which forces me away from the office. And honestly, one of the balancing acts I’m always doing when I have a proper office space is bouncing between enjoying the increased productivity and doing work for far longer than I need to, ruining my work-life balance.
While this isn’t the most amazing office setup I’ve ever had, it’s the first time I’ve had a private office all to myself in close to two years, and already I’m finding it’s helping in unexpected ways. For example, I don’t have to wear headphones when I listen to music or want to watch a short video of something — I can reserve that for calls and podcast recordings. And the light from the skylight is fantastic, and really helps keep me motivated. Even though I barely worked Monday due to travel, I’m finding this week to be productive. I’m sure over time the novelty will fade, but for now it’s really to have a small corner of the world that I can call my own.
The move itself was pretty straightforward, all told. We hired a service that packed up our flat one night, then moved the boxes and unpacked them the next. It was by far the smoothest and most pleasant moving experience I’ve ever had. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t stressful and exhausting — I think I was still feeling it a week later at UKGE — but at least nothing really went wrong aside from my cheap monitor proving how cheap it was.
News
So how was UK Games Expo? In short, it was great. It was my third time coming to the show, and my second since I moved here, and it’s rapidly becoming one of my favourite conventions.
The photo is of me running the first-ever game of Curious Cats of Mau, and it went really well. I had some problems printing the character sheets, which led me to ask my friend Matthew Dawkins to print them up, but his printer also had issues, so I had to scramble and get them printed at a print shop in Coventry for far too much money. Also we had a couple of small miscommunications with the convention staff, but honestly every convention has little problems here and there. What’s important is that all the players had a great time, and many of them were completely new to Realms of Pugmire, so I’m hoping they’ll consider pre-ordering the game.
One of the more entertaining issues we had was entirely unrelated to the convention, but rather the hotel. We ended up getting a hotel in Coventry, which was about ten minutes away from the convention by rail. All in all it was quite a nice hotel for a reasonably price, but on Sunday the hotel restaurant kept running out of food. Three times I ordered dinner, only to be told that they were out of something key to it. We then went to another restaurant, and when I ordered there, they were out of food as well! It turned out a different event had been in Coventry that weekend, so all the local eating places were massively down on supplies. I guess even eating away from the convention didn’t save us from that particular issue.
Next weekend I’m at a con again, but at least this time I don’t have to leave my house, because it’s Onyx Path Con! Our online convention will be on the Onyx Path Twitch channel, as well as other Twitch partners. Here’s a schedule of the panels below — I’m on about half of them, so tune in during the weekend, and odds are you’ll see me on there!
Although I won’t be running any games this year, I did run a game of Realms of Pugmire at last year’s convention. It just went up on the Onyx Path YouTube channel, so check it out!
Oh, and another game I worked on, Branch Riders, will be starting their crowdfunding campaign soon. Go check it the promotional video, and then sign up to be notified of the campaign’s launch!
My Media
A lot of the media I consume is planned. I find a book or comic or show or game that looks interesting, research it a bit, and then pick it up and put it in a vague queue of things I’ll get around to consuming when I have time. I rarely just jump right into something I’ve discovered or a friend recommends.
And yet recently, a colleague of mine (Monica Speca) pointed out that Netflix released a Chinese show about Judge Dee, who is an 18th century detective-slash-magistrate with strong Sherlock Holmes vibes. I looked it up, and found out it’s called Judge Dee’s Mystery. So while I was waiting for a contractor to show up at the house, I tossed on an episode and accidentally binged three before the contractor arrived.
It’s really good. The mysteries are a touch wobbly at times, but far better than most TV shows (and admittedly, some of that might be due to me not understanding cultural or historical nuances of the cases). The characters are engaging and fun, and the sets and costuming are fantastic. I ended up downloading a bunch to my tablet and watching a half-dozen episodes while at UK Games Expo.
Yes, I’m also caught up on the latest Doctor Who. So far I’m liking Ncuti’s portrayal. The episodes themselves are more of a mixed bag, but honestly most of Doctor Who is a mixed bag, so that’s not exactly a surprise.
Whew! That’s a lot, and I need to get back to work before I can finally take some time off for the first time in a few weeks. See you next month!