The Game Masters

Hello! Back again this December, I didn't know if I would post again before the year was out. I have been super busy working and my days off have been busy too, so this is the first time I have had a chance to actually sit down and post about what we have been doing.

It was my birthday not long ago now and we had some pretty excellent plans, firstly Dixon was going to make me breakfast, but we went out the night before. And boy were we hungover! So we went out for breakfast! We were planning on trying a new place for it, but they stopped serving breakfast at 12, ridiculous! So we went to an old standby, Pappi, and I of course got waffles! They had their new coffee machine installed now, and the coffee was amazing! I didn't get a photo for you of breakfast but you get the idea if you have seen them before.

After eating I for one felt a whole lot better, I think Dixon was putting on a brave face.

Afterwards we went to The Game Masters Exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland, you got to play everything from original Donkey Kong and Pac Man on the Arcade machines, to The Nintendo 3DS, Computer games like Warcraft and Starcraft, PS2 with Shadow of the Colossus, which I have wanted to play again for ages. All the way to indie games for the iPad, with loads of info about their creation and concept art for some as well. It was really cool!

I was hoping to take a lot of photo as we weren't told you couldn't when we went in and there are no signs posted, but my flash went off and this guy came hovering over and said, "You can't take any photos in here" So I was totally fine with this and said sorry and whatnot. Apparently, I didn't sound sincere enough because he felt the need to come closer and say, "If you take any more I will have to ask you to leave" I don't know if that was necessary, but he wasn't on the job too much when other people were snapping away and he was playing Mario 3 on the SNES.

Anyway that didn't dampen my spirits too much, and I had a lot of fun, though Dixon almost had to drag me away from Sonic 2. And he got me a wee souvenir from the exhibit, a Pac Man ice cube tray!

We did also plan to head down to the Christmas market, and get some Mulled Wine, got ice skating and go on the big wheel, but my hangover had not gone away as much as I though it had when I was in the museum. So we just went for a bit of a walk through and then home again to see Gail Gordon and Hayley.

Alan Cumming

I have made frequent trips lately to the bookstore, only to notice that Alan Cumming wrote an autobiography, part of which details his experience on Who Do You Think You Are? the British version. Caryn had already recommended watching the episode as she is a bit of a Who Do You Think You Are? addict, so I did because I really wanted to read the book.

Not only that but I found out that he was coming to Edinburgh to have a talk about the book and do a bit of a reading, I really wanted to go. Now I have said before, I am not good at doing things by myself, I really psych myself out of doing loads of things that would probably have been really cool if I only had a few more guts and actually went.

Not this time, I used my fail safe double motivators, I told Dixon and Caryn that I wanted to go, and then they pretty well made sure I got a ticket and went, and I am really glad I did. 

Now not to say that I wasn't still awkward, I waited in line, patiently, to get my book signed, I decided to get a wee line below if I could, and when it came to me, I was pretty nervous. Not because I thought he would be mean, I knew he wouldn't, and not because I thought it was silly what I wanted inscribed, I knew it was. But he was really nice when he saw PIFF PAFF POFF, written in pencil just below my neatly written out name. He said hello, and said "its actually just the one 'f'" if I was better armed I could have replied "Oh, dearie me" but I just smiled hugely and thought of wonderful things to talk about but scampered away saying thank you, as the assistant took a couple photos.

Now all of this interaction will make much more sense if you watch The High Life, just go do it now, its brilliant. But at that very least watch the clip below, which explains Pif Paf Pof and in the book there was a piece about the Eurovision Song Contest, which reminded me and had me pif pof pof-ing all week.

Caryn and Jackson in Cramond

On my last day with Caryn and Jackson, we took advantage of the good weather to have a walk down to the shore, and up the River Almond. We had a spot of lunch at the cafe and took pictures of ducks and ponies, classic walk to the shore for me. It's something I like to do with my family when they come over, because its one of my favourite places to go for a walk in Edinburgh! I hope they enjoyed that walk as much as I did. 

So that was basically the whole trip of Caryn and Jackson being over, and it was a lot of fun it felt like we got to do a lot of things, but it felt like it was going by really fast.

The Camera and The Gallery

 Sorry for the brief hiatus, I should really stop apologizing, we all know I am not very consistent at this blogging thing.

Anyway, where were we... well Caryn and Jackson took the day to do a day trip on a distillery and mini highland tour, round Glengoyne and Stirling Castle, it looked like they had a pretty excellent time together. Its a tour my dad and I had done before, at least four years ago. They did that while Dixon and I had the day to just chill out together. So the next day they had break while both of us were working. That catches us up to the Tuesday where we did the Camera Obscura and the World of Illusions and then we made our way over to the National Gallery where they were having a free Generation exhibit of 20 years of contemporary art throughout Scotland.

The camera obsura was very cool, as I hadn't ever seen that before even though I have been to the actual attration before, we came too late and didn't get to see that but got to go through all of the floors of illusions. It was a lot of fun all round.

And at the gallery as you might be able to suss out there was a particular exhibit that I really liked. It was all pretty cool though.