The armies have returned home from the 25th Estrella War! The digital cameras many of you still haven't unpacked are undoubtedly full of amazing shots of battlegrounds, revelry and colorful characters.
So, what are you waiting for? Upload those babies to the photo sharing site of your choice and let's see the action!
I'll be updating this post frequently, as I find new galleries. If you'd like your Estrella War 25 gallery listed here, please email me at anachronista (at) gmail.com with a link to your photos.
#2 Here's another big gallery: 414 images in the Estrella War 25 set by Dame KoCH on Flickr includes Equestrian, rapier, lots of heavy fighters and boatloads of A&S images as well.
#3 Even bigger yet is the Flickr gallery called Estrella War XXV by Jeff/Godfrey. 761 photos and 7 videos. From camp setup, to merchants row, to lots of nice closeups - you'll probably see someone you recognize in this set...
#5 Another small (21 photos) but sweet set on Flickr comes from OliverDogberry, whose title A New Donning at Estrella War gives the new Don Todd from Atenveldt some love. Awwww...
#6 Wuuga (also on Flickr) has 165 photos in his gallery called EW25 Hardsuit, containing all heavy fighting. I can almost hear the clash of steel!
UPDATES:NOW WITH VIDEO!
#7 Simon Drake emailed me a link to his 02.09 EstrellaWar gallery, containing some great shots within a handful of subject folders...and one stands out named 'Stake Your Garage'. Good times. Yeah, always bring nice long stakes.
#8 A YouTube video channel by adrianas6 captures several moments (18 so far) of battle and Grand Court. Explore her videos further and you'll find many other SCA events, too.
#9 And now back to Flickr, where an Estrella War XXV group has been created, just for shots from the War! As of now, there are already over 1,300 images. To post images, you must join this group through Flickr, but anyone can view them.
MORE UPDATES!
#10 CombatChris was kind enough to email me a link to his Estrella 09 gallery full of great portraits, buxom ladies, camps, fighting, fencing and equestrian. There's over 400 shots, and I see a LOT of people I know in this set!
#11 Darius Coligny has reediculous amounts of images up at his Estrella XXV 2009 gallery. The navigation to the 14 pages of images is all the way at the bottom of the page, so make sure you scroll all the way down. There's even a bunch of Estrella videos down there too! He's covered most aspects of War quite well, expect Rapier, but there's a great explanation for that about five pages in...
Surf on over to Got Medieval - Why is This Woman Smiling? to check out what I believe is a huge photographic find. A slew of LIFE images on Google of how medieval re-enactment looked in the 1950's. Wow, this is like a reverse anachronism!
Ah, Pennsic! The mecca of the SCA experience. Nay, I did not attend, being that the cost to fill my chariot sends me into a berserker rage. Pennsic will ever be wishful thinking until I win the lottery or something.
A few of my fellow Outlanders came back from War with glorious stories, and many good gentles from all over the Known World attended the event with cameras at the ready! Huzzah to all of you shutterbugs for the rest of us who were left home pining away while you danced, battled and shopped at the largest, craziest SCA event ever.
Without further adieu, here are links to what image galleries I've found - all in all, a great way to kill large amounts of time wishing you were there. *I'll update this post as I find more...
Flickr seems to be a great place to start looking, so...
First up is the Pennsic XXXVII set by LiamStLiam. A profusion of candids and battlefield action shots occur within this 750 image gallery. Chances are good you'll see familiar faces in this one!
Michail's Pennsic 37 Photos contain 185 images, which include some courtly awards, some battle shots and some nice candids.
Get your Japanese on with Clan Yama Kaminari in erink's Pennsic 37 gallery - this is the first I've found to incorporate the new video feature that Flickr rolled out recently...so if you are scrolling through his photos and a you hear the sounds of battle do not be alarmed!
There's a Flickr user named pennsic37 who has uploaded some rather interesting photos: What starts out as portraits of tribal dancers quickly slips into incriminating partial nudity shots and flying spaghetti monsters. Be warned, some of these are probably not safe for work. Oh, Pennsic debauchery, how I miss thee...
*Want your Pennsic 37 gallery listed here? Just send me a link (email to anachronista at gmail.com) and I'll check it out!
**UPDATE 10/05/08
Alaxandr MacLochloinn has created a huge set of Pennsic XXXVII galleries (mostly fighting) that can be found here. The landing page is very pretty (it looks like a medieval book!) and many, many links will send you off into Pennsic-land for hours, so settle in for a spell and don't surf this at work...
I learned a lesson today: one should not clicketh too many interesting links whilst at work. Especially ones that involve SCAdian museum visits.
I teased my eyeballs with just a few images from Racaire's beautiful Flickr museum gallery earlier, and counted the clock until I could leave. Now that I'm home, I'm sitting down for a long spell.
Here's one of her many galleries full of amazing artifacts, objects and images of the past:
So, my old digital camera, being plagued with a recurring memory stick error up until a couple of hours ago, would not relinquish its bounty of images to me. This device needs replacing very badly, as the percussive maintenance I have discovered that fixes the problem briefly will likely only work for so long.
Here, contained in this slideshow, is what I expect to be the swansong of my trusty Sony Cybershot F707; the saga of my garden. These images start around the end of April and end July 6th. For a few moments today, it seemed to work perfectly - I wasn't going to waste the opportunity that the camera Gods have granted me!
If you click on the little 'speech bubble' in the lower left of the slide viewer, you can read my comments.
A short but sweet slideshow of Crossroads in the Canton of Hawks Hollow:
Just look at all that space! And what great weather, though I admit I missed Friday, which had gale force winds. At less than an hour east of Denver, this event has become my choice for SCA events occuring over Memorial Day weekend. I simply cannot afford to drive all the way to Grand Outlandish (400+ miles) just to get sandblasted by the Al-Barranian desert winds.
Apparently it was quite wet and muddy at this years' Estrella War, which shall now be known as Mudstrella War.
I have now heard numerous horror stories about losing boots to a giant sucking mud hole that literally engulfed an encampment overnight, slipping and falling into an unclean port-a-potty, (which could not be cleaned as the suck-trucks couldn't get down the muddy paths to service them) and trying to lug a 20 pound breakable ceramic drum from camp to camp whilst avoiding the slimy spots, and the constant falling, slipping and sliding that made fencing near impossible.
I am glad I did not spend the money and time to go to Estrella War. My red tent is floorless, and let me tell you how much fun it would have been scraping mud off my carpets. Not.
But then another part of me is jealous of all the fun everyone had in spite of the leaky tents, mud-soaked hems and rusted armor. Aye, I would have liked to have browsed Merchants' Row, checked out the A&S competition and listened to some bawdy bards.
I shall have to content myself with the photos and videos that several of you are starting to post online. I shall gather videos in another post, as there are many photos to list:
A set titled Estrella War 2008 by blindtraveller contains a nice mix of shots. Included is a photo of the nefarious mud in question, taken at such an angle that I suspect the photographer may have been slipping and falling at the time.
A bunch of battlefield images are what cjacobs53's Estrella War 2008 gallery contains - plus a rather chilly girl in a white chemise doing some fruit-bearing. No, I'm not linking that one, you'll have to find it yourself. He has also managed to snap a photo of the rare Loch Mess Monster, who looks about ready to eat a poor little rubber ducky. Swim for your life, ducky!!
More heavy fighting images have been compiled by wodeford in this Estrella XXIV 2008 set. Armor and persona of the far east seem prominent for you samurai spotters.
A couple of smaller sets by iaincaradoc include Estrella War XXIV (2008) and A Knight in Atenveldt. Great photography technique where 'short focal length' causes the background to blur makes some of his images really pop out at you.
These works are only what I've been able to find so far on Flickr. If you know of other Estrella photo galleries on other photo sharing sites, please send me a link and I'll include them here. Keep checking back on this post for updates! ***Updates Below!
Geillis inghean Poil ui Sirideinfrom Citadel of the Southern Pass in the Outlands wishes to share her Estrella War 2008 gallery, which contains many Outlanders, the War Wagon and an obligatory mud shot. Not much mud on this swanky couple, though. She also has a video channel on YouTube with all SCA-realted videos. None of Estrella yet, though...
See lots of nice up close battle action! Beothuk has started adding his War shots into his Flickr page, which as of this writing, contains 37,874 images. Yeah, let that number sink in a bit. Chances are good if you've gone to Estrella War, you're in there. That's like one image for every paid member of the SCA. And is THAT the coolest helmet ever or what??
For years I've pored over amazing photography of faraway lands, people and objects unimaginable to me. Each time I opened magazines like National Geographic, or flipped through Polaroids of someones family trip, there was another tiny little peek at a different world, which seemed to only create the desire for more.
I've already accepted that there are some places that I will just never get to travel. This is one of the reasons I love virtual reality. It's not the real thing, but it's better than nothing at all. But lately what has been really impressing me are these amazing 360 degree panoramic QTVR's (QuickTime Virtual Reality). I've put together a list of few of the coolest ones I could find. These make me want to strap on a pair of those geeky VR goggles and pretend I'm really there...
For our virtual tour you'll need Quicktime installed, a good graphics card and a fast internet connection for these to view correctly. First stop....Denmark! Apparently, there are around 600 medieval churches in Denmark with visible paintings. There are untold numbers of undiscovered paintings, as many were whitewashed over due to controversial images. These three Danish Medieval Church Frescoesfrom Elmelund, Marie Magdalene and Sulsted have been restored to near original condition.
Moving on to Slovenia brings us to the Erasmus Knight's Tournament, held every year at Predjama Castle. There's quite an array of activities for the historian! "Everything has been designed according to documented models from the 16th century," quotes a foreign travel website. Yeah, except for those cabaret bellydancers. That's just plain funny to an SCA'er like me.
Maybe you've always wanted to stand in the ring of standing stones, with nary a soul to be seen. At Callanish, on the Isle of Lewis, you can do just that. I appreciate that the photographer has positioned himself so that he casts no shadow. You really get the feeling you are alone out there.
Last but not least, let's travel to Turkey for an amazing view of the inside of the Bayezid Mosque. The ceiling is stunning, and I suspect it would cause vertigo in real life. Don't forget to look down - the photo is so good you can see crumbs on the carpet!
World of Warcraft is one of my favorite guilty pleasures now. Two of my main characters are now in the 30ish level range, which means the next milestone is getting my mount at level 40! Hey, get your dirty mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about an animal you can ride instead of having to run from place to place. Geez. Get up to speed with the terminology/slang of Warcraft already!
Well the purpose of this post is to show off some screenshots I've taken recently (having just learned how to do this) to show all my readers just what I do with all my gaming time.
I'm not totally impressed with the mapping system. While this photo looks a whole lot better than say, the Oblivion Map, the more local terrain maps seem to leave out large obstacles that I'm constantly needing to find my way around. Maps inside most large cities still confuse me, as there appear to be walls and tunnels where there are none, and vice-versa. I have not yet found a way to make my own permanent map markers, but that is a feature WoW sorely needs.
The Barrens. Much could be said about this place, but the less the better, really. The Barrens Chat channel here is unbelievably juvenile and peppered with obscenities and strange references to Chuck Norris. My God. At least it's not David Hasselhoff. Barrens is a pretty good area to grind on critters for stuff like skins and meat though, if you are trying to pump up your Leatherworking or Cooking skills. Takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to run across, hence the desire to hit level 40 to get myself a nice mount to ride.
One of my favorite things in WoW is the 'public transportation system' of boats, zeppelins, bats and griffons. For the price of a few coins, you can hop a scenic flight through all the amazing terrain, while watching the critters and mobs below in real time. For the longer trips, a boat or zeppelin can travel with a large group of people at once. Since your character is usually safe from harm during travel, it is a common occurrence to take a break from the computers at this time to go to the bathroom (called 'bio break') grab some food or step out for a smoke. However in PVP areas, Rogues have been known to hide down in the hold of the boat, to appear in mid-flight and kill other players, so watch yourself...not that I would ever do such a thing. I'm perfectly visible in the photo above. See? No stealth here. Nope. Just minding my own business...
Here's me and my raiding partner. I'm the Undead one on the left. Scream casts the spells, I backstab and eat the corpses. It's a great relationship, really. If it weren't for my raiding partner (who I think should start a business coaching WoW n00bies) I would still be stuck at level 1. And check out those fashionable shoulder pads! And here I thought that 80's clothing was never going to make a comeback. If I see a Troll in legwarmers, I'm going to get really worried though.
While helping my raiding partner mine pearls the other day, I had to laugh - it reminded me of the Daffy Duck cartoon where he jumps inside an oyster, wraps himself around the pearl and cries "I'm RICH! I'm WEALTHY! I'm a happy millionaire!" Mining pearls takes awhile, with all those giant crabs and underwater beasties to defeat. Thankfully, we both had water-breathing spells so that we wouldn't drown. Yes, even the Undead can die from drowning.
Death is a common problem in PVP servers. Not only do you have the NPC monsters trying to kill you, but other players can gank you as well. Thankfully, there's no real punishment for dying, except than sometimes you have to run a great distance from the graveyard to your body so that your ghost can reanimate your corpse.
On that note, it's time to resurrect and kill some spiders or something.
Just when I thought it was safe to stop posting about Estrella War, here come two more galleries of lovely photos taken by those lucky enough to attend!
A Yahoo user named wodeford had created a gallery of 38 shots that are mostly of battle, but there's some hounds and a few beautiful sunsets too. And there's that same samurai from my first post of Estrella galleries. He must be a ninja or something - I've seen him in so many galleries that I'm starting to think he cloned himself for war.
Now that is a great idea. Sending clones to War. Can you imagine? Take a few copies of yourself and you'll never miss a party! Go to merchants row and fight at the same time! Send a clone into town for ice or libations, and you won't miss that blackwork embroidery class. Leave one at home to work so your boss doesn't get upset that you are taking yet another 5 day weekend off for an event. Man, clones sure would make the SCA more fun. And the membership dollars would just skyrocket!
But I digress....
Baroness Bridget Lucia MacKenzie of Caid has crafted a fine Estrella gallery on the Blazing Sword website where all the photos are sorted by day. There's lot's of battle shots, some Court, some arts & sciences, but my favorite so far is this portrait of some of their younger fighters. A few more photos down the list is a great image of the kids boffer battle! These are theKnights of tomorrow - look on them well, for they may be standing over your old, broken body in Crown Tournament someday.
Last, but not least, is the latest Estrella video to hit YouTube - the title is BATTLE!!!!!, but it's really just that waiting period before the horn goes off. You really get a good sense of the scale, and the large number of fighters fielded that day. This video is clear evidence that Atenveldt has the dayball set on kill. Ow! My eyes!! The light - it burrrrrnnnns.....
OK. Seriously. There should be so many Estrella War photo galleries online by now, that I should have my hands full keeping up with posting about them. As it currently stands, I fear this may be the last installment of Estrella photos and videos on my blog ('til next year, of course) because you were all having too much of a good time to remember to take your cameras out of your tent!
At least the two recent sources I have managed to find are both fabulous! The first is by Esmeralda of the Lakes. Her snazzy galleries include Faces and Other Images of War, Parties (where you can see a few Gentlemen drinking from a bucket!) and Arts & Sciences (which has some amazing photos of this years' entries). She has several unfinished galleries (Fighting, Boffers and Coursing) that should be equally as wonderful, once she gets all of her photos uploaded.
Annny time now. Not that I'm trying to rush her or anything...
The next gallery of Estrella images comes from fellow Flickr user Beothuk, which contains 1,491 images. I repeat: 1,491 images. Fighting, fighting and more fighting! Pages 8-12 contain some 'traveling to and from the site' imagery that can be skipped in the interest of time management, but pages 13-25 return with a vengeance with images from merchants row, passersby, and you guessed it; MORE FIGHTING!
But what about the videos?
There would be a couple of videos from YouTube here, except that the guys who made them pasted a bunch of fighting scenes together and used some of the worst background music, which I will not expose my readers to. But in the interest of promoting all things SCA, if you'd really like to see them, click here (this song is NOT safe for kids) and here.
Slowly but surely, hundreds of Estrella War photos are making their way onto various photo-sharing sites all across the internet. While I'm a fan of Flickr, there are other services like SmugMug where good gentles like Martin of Rivenstar have crafted fine galleries containing both battlefield images and people of the West Kingdom!
I know, you are really here for the video. I'm still waiting on the hours and hours of footage I just know was taken at War this year, what with the proliferation of cell phone cameras now.... Has my plea for the sharing of such digital masterpieces fallen on deaf ears? Or have all of you fighters just been hit in the head too many times to retain information? Hellooooo? Bueller? Bueller? Ah, a lone new video hast revealed itself to me by the glory of the 'search bar'! A YouTube user named theblackaceofspades has posted his view of some spearmen in battle. From a pretty close perspective, I might add! Do step back a bit next time!
Though it is not a very long clip, here is YouTuber Latikono's capture of our beloved Outlands War Drums...
I've only been able to find a few videos of War online. So what's the holdup, everyone? I mean, you've been back two whole days by now! Get those clips uploaded to YouTube or MySpace so those of us who missed it can watch! I'll post more as they surface from the murky depths of the internet...
On the photo front, Flickr already has a plethora of pictures to peek at!
Iaincaradoc has some great photos! The very first one is a beautiful rainbow over the event! Check his gallery for a bunch of battlefield shots.
Ririsyncyr's Estrella War gallery has only a few photos, but if you have a far-east persona, you'll want to take a peek at the remnants of the Chinese feast, complete with i-Pod for music. Now if that's not anachronistic, I don't know what is!
If you like late period costuming, check out this batch by Dorinda2212. Boy those look like an awful lot of work - both in sewing time and in 'getting yourself dressed and undressed' time.
Now, Wilgar's Estrella War photos should appeal to some gentlemen out there who appreciate the fine art of bodice-watching. Lots of shots around merchant row makes me almost think I'm there!
Another small batch of photos comes from foreverforlorn, who has managed to capture a few Outlanders gathered by the battlefield. And who is that? I spy with my little eye - a samurai!
******************************** UPDATE: More links!!
********************************
My Estrella galleries are online as well -- please feel free to use and enjoy.
- Simon Drake
Oh, thank you Simon, these are truly fabulous! A whole gallery just for Darbuka! Outlanders should definitely browse ALL the galleries - you will most likely see someone you know!
Be warned. This is an extremely long, image heavy post!
While I understand this may not appeal to the pure SCA folks that read my site, I've got my virtual readers to think about as well. Someday this site may have to break up into two or three separate blogs to accommodate those opposing interests. But until then, this will still be a confusing mash of the past and future.
Back in the 1950's, authors like Issac Asimov literally created the science fiction genre. Many of the things created in their imaginations (like robots and space travel) became real, years later. In the 1980's it was authors like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling creating worlds where 'cyberspace' and virtual reality co-existed with the real world.
The future, I believe, is here.
I've found some free time lately (or would that be escapism?) to visit the vast and amazing world of Second Life with my avatar, Anahita Veil. I started Second Life, waaaay back in 2004, when it was a mere babe in comparison to the overwhelming world it is today.
You can't help but hear all the media hype about "SL" now, what with so may big companies jumping on the virtual bandwagon as fast as Linden Lab can keep pumping out new SIMs (a 65,536 square meter region) for them to plant virtual headquarters and massive corporate logos on. One SIM (which is not yet open to the public) can be seen from the map feature in the SL user interface and is one big GIANT Red Bull logo.
Even CBS is getting in on the latest machinima craze, by making a promotional clip for "Two and a Half Men" from within Second Life.
In its infancy, SL had no outside advertising. Any resident of SL could create whatever logos and advertising they needed to promote their own content. Of course there were a few who ripped off 'real world' logos, but the most successful residents generated completely original virtual content for other residents to buy.
Every time I return, I stare in open-mouthed amazement at the creations of some of these residents. Unlike online games like World of Warcraft, where you can 'slightly' tinker with your appearance or make items (based on the game) to sell, Second Life is completely created by the users, all based on the underlying script language, LSL. Anything and everything is completely customizable. What follows is a photo show of images taken in just the last few weeks.
I was minding my own business, just flying around looking for interesting builds, when I noticed the Bat Signal. Further investigation proved that there was no cause for alarm.
I wandered a bit more, to find a movie theater that shows real-life streaming movies, all in a very convincing theater environment. Complete with concession stand!
I couldn't get any of the movies to play, so I investigated the projection booth, thinking maybe the camera needed to be activated in some way. And lo, I find Tom Servo. Ah, there's the culprit!
I can watch movies in 'real life' any time I want, right? I thought a better use of my time would be to keep looking for more cool stuff. So I visited a cluster of SIMs dedicated to reproducing New England. Having lived there in real life for 11 years, all I can say is WOW! Nice job! Now all you need is some virtual seagulls dive bombing you for your fish and chips and it's perfect.
After growing tired of New England, I figured I'd search around for another historical genre that interests me, that of the Old West. I guess watching HBO's Deadwood has rubbed off. Now, this is where SL gets really deep. There are SIM's that require you to dress in 1900's turn of the century garb and you have to wear a special badge if you only wish to observe and not role-play. That is because they have gun fights in the streets of town and Indian tribes that will kill you if you mess with them. Just like other online MMPORGs, there are health stats, weapons and bad guys. I figured I'd find the local Doc just in case a stray bullet came my way.
Maybe it was the occasional gunfire, but the finest SL RPG in the virtual west, Sigil, started to weird me out. Thought I'd see Al Swearengen come around the corner any minute. So I packed up my virtual bonnet and left for 'modern' virtual life once again. Searching for pirates ( another favorite pastime ) found me a beautiful virtual model of a pirate ship. There are so many good ships in SL now that I could do a whole post just about them.
The Venture: she flies the banner of Caledon, the name of the SIM on which she's anchored. Inside her hold, I came across a wonderful virtual invention: a real-time global projection of the whole Second Life map. It rotates in time with the game clock and updates as new SIMs come online. Fully user-generated, the Venture is outfitted for virtual travel, but sadly, the oceans do not yet interconnect, so sailing the virtual seven seas is not yet a virtual reality. Yet I am still awed by this feat of virtual cartography...
Heading over to Dublin SIM I found they've built virtual Trinity College. There's even a room where, just like in real life, you can see the Book of Kells open inside a large glass case. I've always wanted to see this in real life, but at least virtual is better than nothing.
Second Life is now being used by architectural firms, marketing agencies, presidential candidates and environmental and activist groups. At Friends of the Urban Forest, you can buy a virtual tree that will grow, and the real world foundation will plant a real life tree in San Francisco.
Remember, all of this was created by the residents, who are real people like you and me. How long will it be before the virtual world starts having a measurable environmental impact on the real world?
At least economically, it already has a foothold. Goldfarming has been around for years, and people have sold virtual magic items and countless other virtual goods on eBay. Virtual game economics are about to take a dive though, as eBay has recently announced that it will ban virtual goods from auction. Thankfully, they are exempting Second Life, which they do not consider 'a game'.
Well, I don't know about you all, but I sure seemed to cram a whole bunch of stuff into this last weekend. Yes, I know I missed a good Crown. Oh, yes - and congratulations go to Duke Artan and Duchess Aziza, the new Outlands Crown Prince and Princess! This will be Duke Artan's 6th reign as King of the Outlands. When he steps down, will that make him the Duke Cubed? (Duke3)
Speaking of Crown Tournament, don't miss THL Robert Marchet's website, where there are gloriousphotos of the day, such as this 'moment of reflection' shown here. There are several wonderfully captured moments you'll want to see. I've taken the liberty of coming up with some catchy titles for a few of my favorites: 'just like whack-a-mole', 'nice dodge' and 'oooooh, that looks painful.'
But seriously. I only jest so much because I love them. They're really, really that good.
Another great photo gallery (and SCA historical reference) is Vintage SCA Photos! It's a Flickr photo page where you can upload pre-1986 SCA photos. And just look who is already in there...pre-Outlands, I'm guessing.
Flickr is a free service if you have any old incriminating photos of the Dark Ages you'd like to upload...
No, I didn't miraculously get to go to Pennsic for the last weekend. I wish. Being back in the motorcycle industry means it will be like pulling teeth to get time off in August. Sturgis and Pennsic just happen to fall across the same dates. Well, with all the overtime I've done lately, maybe I'll have no worries about Estrella War in 2007...
Anyway, being an SCA blogger of some repute, AND moderating a 3000+ member SCA group on MySpace, means I get many links sent to me, and I collect heaping spoonfuls of sweet sites to pass on to my readers.
This being the end of August, all those Pennsic photos are now making their way into online galleries all across the internet.
Though I missed Saturday of Outlands Coronation, on Sunday, the Protector of the Queen's Heart Tournament was wonderful!
Having not entered the tourney myself and with nothing pressing to do, I bore fruit to the weary fighters on the list field. I got a little exercise, and of course the opportunity to ask everyone to 'sample my melons' was just too juicy to resist.
I got literally ringside seats, and witnessed Don Charles overtake Baron Sir Chronos in the final round. Both fine men, and I was torn during their last fight as to who I thought would best the other.
A good surprise of the day turned out to be the new Queen's choice for the Rapier of Chivalry - Darbuka's own Marcos. That, my friend, is a damn fine sword you are holding there. Mabrouk!
And now for something completely different.
It appears that Secret Jedi Fencing Techniques are being learned somewhere in the Northern Outlands. Evidence of this was accidentally captured with a digital camera. Clearly, The Force is strong in this one...
I can't even get point control. Now I gotta do MIND CONTROL to keep up?
....ooops....almost forgot! Photos taken by Aleksi with Caoilinn's camera...
Mentioning Sam Tynker's birthday a few days ago reminded me about so many Tynker Tales. I have so many, many memories of Clan Tynkerat events in the Outlands (and other Kingdoms) for the last 13 years. I have been privy to the finest of sights, like the famed Casa Bardicci performances. I have even been 'on stage' with them, getting juggling pins tossed around my head. And never once did I get nicked.
The Outlands WOULD NOT be what it is today without so many Tynker Tales. Nor would Pennsic.
My favorite one is hearing a little boys' comment to his mother on merchants' row, after witnessing a midday juggling performance. "Mommy, remember when I said I want to be a Knight when I grow up? I want to be a Tynker instead."
Happy Birthday (ooops, May 4) to Sam Tynker!You are 21!I am now officially OLD because I remember when you were 8 years old, performing tricks and tumbling with the rest of the clan on merchants row out in front of the family business.
I also remember a certain Gladiator from a few Outlandishes ago. Ahem. My, how you've grown.
Now that you've reached 'adulthood', that makes ALL of the Tynkers legal adults now. But please, don't grow up or anything...
Where is the time going? It's almost summer! Event season is almost here. Looks like only an act of God will allow me to get to Grand Outlandish this year. I may as well just plan for Crossroads instead.
It's all about the income. Or lack thereof. Especially when the 'experts' are predicting that the price of gas will be $3 a gallon at least over Memorial Day weekend. Seeing as how my poor old event van gets only 17 miles to the gallon, well...you do the math. It's too depressing for me.
Long gone are the days when I could use my disposable income to fund my SCA life. Now it's the choice between event money or groceries. I really need a job that pays more than $12 an hour.
Sigh. You know you have too much disposable income when you trick out your car with oriental carpet mats. Personally, I would if I could...
By the way, if you haven't visited my MySpace profile lately, I added a slide show of Estrella War photos.
Also of note on MySpace is the SCA group I started waaaay back when MySpace was just a teeny blip on the radar screen instead of the social networking behemoth it is today. More than 2000 SCA'ers have joined the group and are, for the most part, behaving themselves. Knock on wood.
In other news, I've just gotten Sid Meier's Pirates for PC, and it looks like it will suck away many, many hours of my precious time.
At least I'll be able to pretend I'm accumulating disposable income by looting ships and plundering ports.
