I've only just unpacked my bags from the larpconvention I attend almost every year and now I'm packing again. This time to go to Bologna with my mom. We usually take a trip together every other year and this time we decided it'd be to a place with a bit more sun and heat than Norway (even though we're not complaining about the spring weather here, after all it is pretty awesome as well). In my head I'm already drinking coffee at a small sidewalk cafe and writing on my laptop. Which I think I'll bring. I didn't bring it to the convention and I bitterly regretted it, and I think I feel inspiration calling (or it could be the wine, I never can tell) so I might actually get some writing done even though it's my vacation.

So this is it folks *waves* See you next week!
martinemonster: (hp people person)
( Mar. 3rd, 2009 05:11 pm)
Comment and, if you so desire, I will list 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

[livejournal.com profile] 3ff3ct3r gave me these:
1.Homosexuals
2.writing
3.sex
4.larping
5.clumsiness

it's all about me! me me me! )
martinemonster: (me pink)
( Jul. 14th, 2008 09:11 pm)
So, I was at this larp set in Britain 1792. I played a desperate woman who needed to find a fiancee by Thursday or the control of all my money would go to my uncle. In addition, I was a lesbian and madly in love with one of the servants, a lovely woman named Gabrielle. During the larp I not only found a fiancee, made a lot of important friends and gambled and drank to my hearts desire, I also became the queen of the masque ball. And, as I´m sure you all know, even though we all say that it´s not important to be queen of the ball, we all secretly want it...

pictures!!! )
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martinemonster: (the universe)
( Jul. 3rd, 2008 05:57 pm)
I went to work today. In hindsight it might have been a bad idea since I'm still feverish and I probably infected everyone at the office, but it was really nice. [livejournal.com profile] sjokoladepiken was there too and we smuggled coffee into the back room and drank it in the slow moments(my boss has a crazy idea that the smell of coffee might give patients headaches or something). I ended up staying too long though, and when I got home at 3.30 I was completely beat. And I'm still beat. My head is splitting and I just got out of bed. I'm wearing pajamas and trying to muster the energy to get my stuff out of the basement so I can pack for this larp I'm going to tomorrow morning while watching tv and trying to help [livejournal.com profile] sjokoladepiken fix today's till. So far I've been on the phone with her for 22 minutes and we still haven't figured out why the stupid system doesn't want to let us change the tiny tiny little fucking mistake that we pinpointed. Gah! So annoying.

I think I'm going to make dinner before I start packing. Pancakes with soy milk. It could be a good idea, right? (hoping desperately that pancakes without milk will be good) Only 12 hours to go before the larp...
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I'm getting a cold. Or, to be more precise, I've been getting a cold for more than a week now. I'm fighting it in the old-fashioned way of the Svanevikian clan; by ignoring it and going to work of course. And it's been working out pretty good. I'm dead tired, my throat is sore and I have headaches and dizzy spells all the time, but I'm not completely dead yet. But I'm not completely recovered either, and now, there's only a few days left before the larp I've been looking forward to for ages and I really don't wanna be sick while I'm there.

So what should I do?

I'm a strong believer in the helpfulness of working in stressful working environments so I'm going to continue doing that, but I need more good tips. Right now, the only thing my body seems to be telling me is that I would get massively better if I eat an enormous amount of chocolate and wasabi peas. I kid you not, I have an intense craving for dark chocolate and wasabi coated green peas. Preferably together. And I cannot shake it. Should I listen to my body? Is it telling me the truth, or is this some sort of sick joke where I eat everything it tells me to and I still get sick? It seems like something my body would do... Do you guys have other good tips on how to shake a cold that does not include resting ('cause I really don't have time for that guys)?

*fingers crossed*
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Me and [livejournal.com profile] aj_stalin have a running gag on what would happen if we were part of the Fellowship of the Rings. It's great fun to think about how we'd complain about how our shoes were wet and how tired we are. But yesterday, I got to test out how it would feel to climb Charadharas (you know, that mountain with all the snow on it), and well, not to put too fine a point on it, I would politely decline to join the Fellowship of the Rings. But the world is ending and if we cannot bring the ring to the fires of Mount Doom, we will lose, you might say. Tough, I'd answer. I'm still not gonna go. Let the world burn.

Now, I will tell you the story of how this decision was made. I will call it The Story of Hatred of 45hasle and his Idea of a Good Trip )
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I just quickly checked my flist this morning before work, and suddenly, I was mentioned in somebody else's lj (and that always makes me happy). Not only that, but I made someone's day. That made this shitty start of a day ever so much better.

In other news, the work with KP09 -the Nordic larp festival, has started and I've managed to no longer be the chieftain. Nope, I'm head of the info committee. And I'm okay with that. It would be nice to have even less responsibility, but this is something I can do and that I like doing, so I think it'll be fun. Now, to pick my team of info-people *rubs hands together*

You make my day:

[livejournal.com profile] aj_stalin
[livejournal.com profile] sandchigger
[livejournal.com profile] sortkatt
[livejournal.com profile] 45hasle
[livejournal.com profile] a_stoolpidgeon
[livejournal.com profile] sjokoladepiken
[livejournal.com profile] lurvelille
[livejournal.com profile] abigor60
[livejournal.com profile] dm_hpcrazy
and Guri! My little anonymous commenter! :D

You guys are duly invited to pick the people who make your day and post it on your journals.

And just for fun:

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martinemonster: (the universe)
( Jan. 18th, 2008 11:25 am)
I'm going insane here. I was supposed to get my ass down to the National Library today to get some actual paid work done, but instead I decided to stay home and do other stuff. Again. How do I motivate myself to actually get started on my work? I'm a week behind already.

Also, I'm panicking due to the fact that I called the first meeting of the Knutepunkt 09 committee, and nobody can actually show. I know it's probably just a coincidence, but it feels like making this conference is suddenly up to me, and I can't actually do it. Not while working 200%, making a larp and doing other stuff. It's just not going to happen. I don't think this is a problem my amazing list making skillz can help me with, so I'm asking you guys. How do I get out of this arrangement?

Martine
I went Fabler, Frender og Fiender (Fables, Friends and Foes), a one night larp with a little more than 25 players and a lot of food yesterday. Set in the fables comic universe we were in the Norwegian fable town to celebrate Rememberance Day. I was Briar Rose from New York and was part of the American group of fables come to secure good friendship with the Norwegian fables. So far so good, right? Now comes the problems:

1. I was invited along by Prince Charming, who at the time was shacking up with me, and the other people in the traveling party was Bigby, Snow White and Cinderella. The problem with this is that they all have functions, they have plans and they have reasons for being there. My character is a side kick in the comic, when she's there at all, and the character they gave me was little more than that. She was secretly in love with Prince Charming and she wanted to live happily ever after. That's it.

And of course that worked at this one night larp, but the rest of my known players had plots and schemes and reasons for being there, while all I had was a love-sick side kick character with no job and very little personality. I decided to make her very interested in politics, which was fun since all my heartfelt sentiments were taken up and incorporated in Prince Charming's political platform so suddenly I was standing there defending him and helping him win the election of Fabletown North. And I made her smart, but idealistic. All that was fun to play, but again, if I hadn't been larping for more than 8 years and known that basically, if you don't have a character that works you've got to develop it by yourself, I would have been bored.

Now, instead, I threw tantrums whenever someone tried to use me as a pawn in their scheme (which happened surprisingly often), demanded to speak with whomever I wanted to speak to, discussed stuff that wasn't supposed to be openly discussed, and forced my way in on secret meetings.

2. The second problem is a much more general one, but still important for me as well: The problem with larps with big players, secrets and plots is that the people in charge; Snow White, Bigby, Askeladden and a few others, ended up locking themselves in a room and doing the important stuff, leaving most of the larp in the dark as to what was really going on, and amputating the game for most of us. It happens often, and it hardly ever works. The game seems important for all the people in on the secret meetings, and kinda dull and annoying for the people who have to wait for someone else to decide what they're supposed to do and what's going on.

3. The organizers decided to throw in the adversary and his men in black. I think it was a problem because it led to much more of problem 2, and it made everybody else's very real and, prior to the attack, important plots uninteresting because we were all going to die. Also, most of us weren't even let in on the important conversations of how we were going to defend ourselves and were stuck in the room outside. Basically, it crippled the game for me, and I think for a few others. I thought it took away more than it gave back to the game and would have liked it better without the big scary bad guy showing up at the end and killing us all (more or less).

When that is said: I had a lot of fun. I got my heart broken, I was betrayed by all my friends and I got to fall asleep and take most of the larp with me. Oh, and I got to say stuff like "I demand to be here. I'm the real victim here!" or "Cindy, I'm not talking to you right now. I'm just telling you, so you'll stop trying to make me feel better." and "I want you out of my house! Out of my life you bastard!" and of course: "Even when I get pricked in the finger, causing everyone to fall asleep it's not even about me. I'm fucking tired of being used all the time!"
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I'm trying to read a weeks worth of lj-posts from my friends here, but it's going to take me a few days. To be completely honest, it's the only thing I want to be doing right now, but since I'm leaving for a larp in 1 hour, still haven't packed, showered or dressed (or eaten) I guess I'll be leaving you guys again. The larp will be awesome, I hope. I'm playing Briar Rose from the comic Fables.

meme )

Edit: I did it! I am now up to date on everything posted here the last week. (Still didn't have time to comment though, but what can you do?
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Yesterday I went to the start up meeting for Knutepunkt 09, a Nordic larp conference that is hosted once every year. I has about 200 participants and is a great way to meet the übergeeks of the larping community. And I might have said that I could possibly be the boss of the 2009 conference in Norway. And I kinda want to. I have a lot of ideas on how to make it awesome, and if I get the people I want to join in and make it with me, it could be great. But on the other hand it is a daunting task, and it's kinda chilling that none of the big bosses from last time want to ever do it again. Also, it doesn't really work well with my new rule of never doing too much, since it's going to be a lot of work. And with a budget of 200.000 Norwegian crowns, it is scary to be the main girl behind it.

I can still back out. Should I?
So, this weekend was good. On friday I went and saw Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie.

rant )

After we saw bond, we went out to Maiden, a place everyone I know have chosen to love, but where I have yet to have a nice night. The music was so loud we couldn't hear each other and we ended up in relative silence drinking Ringnes (bad Norwegian beer). Then the standing in line for the taxis that took an hour. And then, finally, sleep.

On Saturday, on the other hand, [livejournal.com profile] mirazandar came to Oslo, and we crashed the yearly guys-talk-about-larp meeting (Guys, booze and dead animals). it was really nice and we talked the night away drinking whisky and discussing. Very good night! (Only problem was that I asked [livejournal.com profile] aj_stalin to come, and she didn't like it so she sat there bored and went home early...felt a bit bad)

Sunday was a day of intense watching of the tv. First we re-saw some episodes of Carnivale, then half of "Field of Dreams" and lastly "Party monster" which turned out to be a great movie! Must see everyone! :) Especially those of you who like gays cause they are so over-the-top queens!



meme )
So, this Friday I went to see Nils Petter Molvær with [livejournal.com profile] mirazandar at her suggestion. And it was the best concert I've been to in my life. When we entered the concert hall, the place was half-full and we got two seats down on the dance floor. Slowly the place filled up with the young and hip crowd of Norway and the two of us felt slightly out of place. The sound-guy insisted on playing what turned out to be a sort of beat in the background instead of music for about an hour and a half while we waited for the band. But, just as I thought I was entering hell, it turned out that this was done to make the concert experience all the sweeter. Not that we needed two hours of hell to feel the absolute sweetness that is Molvær, but it didn't hurt. They entered the stage, lights dimmed and suddenly this amazing techno beat started, the light shows behind the band was spectacular in a Zeromancer-style and the music, the music made you forget where you were, who you were and how much time had passed. It was an experience I'm not able to describe in words without sounding melodramatic, so I will quit trying.

Unfortunately, when me and [livejournal.com profile] mirazandar exited the concert we decided to go out and meet people. Giddy from the experience we entered a small pub called Cacadou, and let the magic of the concert be replaced by the questionable "magic" of watching extremely drunk old men attempt to hit on us, with loud music banging in our ears and with too many people crushed into to little space. Redeeming factors: [livejournal.com profile] lazerjulie and [livejournal.com profile] aj_stalin. Safe to say we went home a little early (2 am) and talked into the night. But parts of me wished we'd gone home straight after the concert.

Saturday was a lovely day of Jenter, øl og sigarer (Girls, beer and cigars) an arragement this year hosted by me where larp-girl go to chat about important things with pizza, chocolate, chips and obscene amounts of alcohol. Safe to say it was super.

Sunday I spent waking up, enjoying my headache from the day before, then cleaned up after it and went to [livejournal.com profile] aj_stalins mum's place where we watched Carnivale and drank whisky till the early hours of the morning. Or, that is what we would have done if I hadn't thrown the first glass of whisky of the evening on my computer much like chicks in chickflicks and soap operas throw on male characters. My computer luckily mostly recovered the next day and so it works, if parts of the screen is irredeemably damaged. The world sucks! Instead we drank a smaller amount of whisky and watched old Friends episodes till the early hours of morning, so it was still nice.

Why is this the ultimate weekend post? I don't know, maybe because it includes drinking on both Friday, Saturday and Sunday? Or maybe because it is so long? I don't know, you tell me. Still tired...

Oh, and look at my new icon. Isn't it smashing?
[livejournal.com profile] chesire_monkey gave me this thanksgiving greeting that totally melted my otherwise ice-cold heart:

Thank you martinemonster for your adventurousness and zest for living life to its fullest.

You are just the cutest! *hearts*

In other news, my feet hurt like hell and I´m only halfway through my day. The reason for this is that I went directly to Holmestrand after work yesterday, to travle on to Tønsberg and do some shopping with my mom. Naturally we stayed up late drinking wine afterwards (and oh,did I get some really pretty clothes), and then I had to get up an hour earlier this morning to get to work from Holmestrand instead of from Oslo (the city where I actually work). And now I´m really tired...

I did, however, find a really interesting Australian article about larping that on several occations referenced the book I have published an article in (Dissecting Larp from 2005). Even though my article never got cited directly, that means that someone studying larping and game-theory will be more likely to pick up that book of articles and then also read mine. So hurray for that.

And the article is actually interesting in that, "this is a new field of study and we need to lay the groundwork for further study"-kind of way!

Read the article here:

http://gac.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/1/3/252.pdf
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martinemonster: (Default)
( Aug. 25th, 2006 03:05 pm)
Remind me to never ever be economically in charge of anything ever again. I am so bored...also, I'm stuck with a fictional surplus of 5200kr, when in fact we're lacking 1000kr. Some of this is due to the fact that I lost some of the recipts, but most of it is due to the people who didn't give me their recipts. I wanna be done with this, but gooooood am I bored.
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So, after a day that went by quickly due to lots of lifting, carrying and driving, I think this year's project, building a town, is well underway. Already I've stopped eating and started smoking twice as much. Surprisingly enough though, I'm not too worried. Sure, I've never built anything in my life, except that treehut when I was little, but then I only helped a little and took credit afterwards, but I'm sure this time will be different. After all, I am surrounded by people with more experience in building than me. Then again, your average house cat probably has more building experience than me, and since one of my great hopes in this building project, [livejournal.com profile] 45_hasle just confessed to never having built anything larger than a bird house, maybe we really are doomed. But I'm not too worried. After all, I am invincable. Building a bar, how hard can it be right?

Btw. this means that I'll be gone from lj more or less for about 3 weeks. Will try to check in, and hoping you all will wanna comment and talk to me, but mayorly busy, sure you understand.

See ya!
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martinemonster: (kaylee)
( May. 13th, 2006 12:11 pm)
Yesterday I and arne finished the Konstantinopel-page. It is now operative. http://home.no/frosken/events/konstantinopel/ Go see! And don't forget to sign up for the game... ;)

btw. I'm at work and the cutest old man just asked me for a dildo. He said: I need a dildo, isn't that what they call those things shaped like male organs? Rather roundish, old, whitehaired, smiling and in need of a dildo. I'm charmed!
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So, it turns out that it was only me and one other bloke who were driving to Stockholm, that 10 hrs ride. Alone. Together. In a rather small car. But it went okay. We talked for about 7 hours and then had nothing more to talk about. The silence streched out, enveloping the car, it was raining and we were in the middle of nowhere. Literally. I was expecting a sign saying: You have now reached the middle of nowhere. As it turns out, driving dark roads at night through large forests and no housing can really make you feel like you're not moving at all. It felt like we would never get there. Then I called Britta, who was already there and asked how we could most easly drive to the conferance, and she told me they didn't open till the next day. Bummer! Of course, she did point out that we should come to the party she was at outside of Stockholm instead and spend the night there, so we stopped by a gas station. Bought a hamburger, feeling like we were part of an old time horror movie because it was filled with weird locals who kept staring at us like we had invaded their turf or something, got the beers and got out. Then we drove to the party. Which kicked ass! I realized that I was several hours late on the drinking, and that everybody else were already way drunker than I usually get, but they all helped me get as drunk as them, and gave me a bottle of "Fisk" Fishermans friends liquer. The next morning I regretted it, but that night was really shiny.

Me and Ole Ma, the guy from the car, then travled in to Stockholm to get more Fisk and to see the sights. And promply forgot where we parked the car. We had to walk for hours to find it. After that we just went right up to the convention.

The convention, however, was the best one yet! My lecture went great with a big turn up of people, the other lectures were really interesting, we had sauna parties every evening, and I had long drunken philosophical discussions with this guy, Kristoffer, every night. The food was magnifizent and everybody were really nice. I'm so glad I went!

On the way home we visited a saint's (Birgitta?) prayers cave. It was quite cool. Apperently she was some big-shot political/religious woman from the 12th century in Sweden. And then I slept in the car all the way home.
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Limbo

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Limbo was a larp where you played someone who had died and was caught between life and death in Limbo. A white being would come in occationally and offer the eight characters tickets to different places like the gates of heaven, or reincarnation. Other than that we were in a 25. squaremeters room with weird music in the background. Oh, and you could choose to either play a character or a future version of yourself.

Limbo was a larp I was afraid of entering. I felt that the idea of sitting alone in a room with seven other people, just talking, would be difficult to do for 2.5hours. No input from the outside would make us fall out of character, I thought.

My experiences however, was that the physical size of the room, the music, the intro and outro, and the white being together helped drive the larp forward in a wholly different way than I had expected. The other players, asking questions and starting conversations that made me ask other questions, and find other answers than I thought I would find.

I chose to play myself, something I realized after the larp had started was a decition I maybe should not have made. It was difficult and the feeling of spilling your innermost fears and feelings to people who were playing fictional characters on a larp was both hard and painful. On the other hand I learned a lot about myself and the way I view life/death/the afterlife. I entered the larp thinking I had all the answers, but by the end I realized that I had found a whole set of new ones. It was both interesting and painful to realise. At the same time I'm having a guilt/sorrow reaction because of the larp that I can't really shake. I think the reason why it hit me so hard was because I played myself. I don't know if I could have done it again, at least not on a larp where other people played characters.

It was one of the hardest things I've experienced ever, and I'm not done grieving yet, but I would not have missed it for the world.

I posted this on "terningkast på forum" Marthe, so get your ass over there and post as well! :)
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martinemonster: (malserene)
( Mar. 25th, 2006 11:06 am)
I feel like all my entries get posted from work lately. I guess it means I work too much, or spend too much time on the computer at work. Naw...I'd like to think it means I work too much, at least it feels that way. Three days a week...not my favourite thing to do.

Went with "Enhetsfront"-people (larpers) to see the movie version of Gymnaslærer Pedersen (High-school teacher Pedersen?) yesterday. I'm discouraged and kinda sad. I feel like the magic was missing, like they'd taken one of my favourite books and tried to make a movie of it, but failed. I guess it was an okay movie, but Pedersens love for AKP-ml (a Norwegian communist party from the '70ies) was missing or made fun of, and thus a wholly one-sided tale of AKP-ml ensued, leaving the most interesting aspect of the book, Pedersens "indre splittelse", his reservations and yet intense love for the party, untouched. The fact that after a decade of being in the party he paints on the one hand a rather negative picture of it, but on the other hand a picture of a decade filled with dreams, hopes and intense feeling that he still longs for and that he will always love. The fact that Gymnaslærer Pedersen really believes that that decade was the best of his life, is totally missing in the movie. And that is after all what makes the book so beautiful, so how could the movie be beautiful without it? I'm disapointed.

This weekend I'm going to a larp called "Limbo" where I'll be playing myself in a few months. I've had an argument with my fiancee, a big one, and I ended up in my car, driving away to get some air. I was speeding, since I was so angry. Suddely a boy walks out in front of the car. I swirvle to get away from him and end up in the other lane. The last thing I see is head lights. I wake up in limbo and have to decide whether or not I can live with both the responsibility of maybe having killed one or more people, and the fact that I could have become disfigured or handicapped from the crash. Will my fiancee really love me if I'm totally disfigured? And would I be able to live with myself if I was? Would I be able to face the fact that I'm responsible for all the other people involved in the crash, and could I live with their lives on my concience? I'm kinda scared to go, and yet exited. I hope it'll be fun.
.

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