This was a short week, due to the Summer Bank Holiday.
Tuesday I started looking after the cats of a coworker. They are pretty nice, and one lets me give it belly rubs.
On Wednesday I took Archer to the vet to have them look at his front broken tooth (from when we moved to the UK and he snuck under the bed while I was moving it). They said it didn’t have to be exctracted immediately, but sooner is better than later, as it would probably just get more and more painful, and the older he is the harder it will be on him. Otherwise they said his teeth look great, so the brushing seems to be paying off.
I took a class on riding Penny Farthing bikes, and they were a ton of fun. I did well pretty quickly on them, and we took a ride to Buckingham Palace.
I also saw some shows while Steph was away, including The Book of Mormon and Les Miserables. I also walked through some parks since the weather was amazing. I went to Primrose Hill and Battersea Park.
This week Steph was getting ready for her trip to Mexico for Science Week with the cave diving group.
I had a call with Kim and Grace on Tuesday, and Grace made a story using the Story Machine. Wednesday I helped Steph to the train station, then took the afternoon off to go to the Hampstead Heath ponds with a coworker. The weather was perfect and the pond was cold at first, but as long as I stayed moving it was a great temperature.
Thursday evening I went to the ABBA concert with coworkers and I was impressed by the tech they used. It made the digital representations seem pretty real, but they still had points where they were uncanny valley. The sparkle effects were especially amazing.
Friday and Saturday I worked on a game for the Brackeys game jam with the theme “Diving Deeper.” I chose to make an interactive story about Steph cave diving in Mexico, Scuba Steph. I was happy with how it turned out, although it isn’t much of a game.
Sunday I climbed with Punit and then had lunch at Canopy Market with him, Nancy, and a few of their friends from the states.
I mainly did chores for the rest of Sunday until 6pm. Then I played some Grounded with Michelle and Michael. We completed the pond lab, and got the chip from the anthill after getting ant armor.
Monday I did a long hike at the end of the Metropolitan line. The weather was pretty good, and the views were great. The berries were all over the place, and delicious.
Monday evening I went to a musical, A Strange Loop. It was good, but I’m sure there were tons of references that went over my head. I saw Oskar, a coworker, there.
We didn’t do much because of the sickness, which we tested for and wasn’t Covid. Friday was our anniversary of 5 years, and we had a lovely dinner and went to a bar afterwards with a Chocolate theme.
Steph and I weren’t 100%, so we kept the weekend mostly quiet. I went by coal drop yards to listen to the London Opera perform, then Steph and I went to listen to a musical choir, which was pretty good. I’ve joined the fall term of the West End Musical Choir, and I’m really looking forward to it. I also took another long walk in the nice weather. This time I went to Mile End and then through Victoria park, up through the marshlands and ended at Blackhorse Road Station.
It was a pretty calm few week before Edinburgh Fringe (yes, this is out of order).
Steph and I played a few rounds of Frosthaven. The four character group is fun, but the sessions take about 3 hours each.
I went on two long walks through parks, since the weather was so nice.
The first was through Islington. I walked through Bernard Park and up to Highbury Fields. I saw a cute pub that looked like it was covered in Wisteria called The Albion. It wasn’t blooming at the time, but still looked like a great spot we will need to go to when it is blooming next. I also saw a fox on this walk, as it was ducking into a park.
The second walk was a long one. I walked through Russel Square, then down to St. James Park. I continued through Green Park, then Hyde Park. I stopped by Little Venice and then went to Regent’s Park. I walked along the canals home from there. It was the perfect day, and there were tons of birds in all of the ponds.
Steph and I caught a morning train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverly, which was amazingly convenient. The ride was pretty smooth, with power outlets and wifi. Although the wifi was spotty and terrible.
We got to Edinburgh around 1:30 and checked into the Airbnb, just a 12 minute walk from the station. We had a few shows lined up for that day, and we made our way to the first one, which was actually an escape room. The escape room with Agent November was pretty good, although it also had a murder mystery element that we weren’t as interested in, and failed at. Our small team did find all the clues, we just didn’t have time to piece together the mystery.
We then went to some parks, got some boba, and had some ramen for dinner. We walked over to The Meadows, where our next show was. Steph wasn’t feeling well so she went home. I went to the show anyway. The show was Clique, a burlesque circus show. In line I met an older woman and her daughter. She was very talkative and they followed me after I had my ticket scanned and I went to the ‘sirloin’ line. We got front row seats and it was more than worth it. The show was exactly what I was hoping for from Fringe. They had some normal acts of pole dancing, rope/silk dancing, and skills of balance. The blade swallower did one blade, then two, then six. She also swallowed what was effectively a lightsaber and the glow could be seen through her neck.
The strangest act was a woman handing out popcorn wearing a helmet with a popcorn maker on top. After handing out all the popcorn bags she got a bunch of kernels and put them in the machine, then plugged it in. She started hula hoop dancing some while the kernels were heating. After the first kernels started coming out she took her top off and covered herself in butter. Then she did about twenty hula hoops at once while the kernels were really popping. After that she made a sign like she needed salt. She crouched down and pulled a salt shaker out of her vagina and danced while spreading salt everywhere. It was the strangest performance I’ve ever seen, but really well choreographed and paced.
Some of the other performances were strange, if not as strange as the popcorn performance. One woman had her hair around a clamp that was used to hang her from a wire. She then did a dance while hanging from the wire by her hair. On the same wire they hung a coat rack that a guy did a pole dance like strip routine. Another woman danced with an eight foot tall balloon, which she slowly climbed into, then she stripped inside and popped it from the inside.
The last group of performance was a man/woman team that did comedy skits. They did a quick change skit where the woman changed outfits really quickly, then the guy went in and came out nude. He then climbed around the audience for a bit, while she convinced an audience member to give her a sock. The guy came back by and grabbed the sock and used it as his only clothing. Later they had another bit where they were biting off bits of banana and spitting it back and forth, they got an audience member to try as well. The guy did some juggling/spitting of the banana bits, and then it got too strange for me to record here…
I went to a sexy circus show later, around midnight, as Steph was still tired. I sat in the front row again, as these are mostly small venues and I’m showing up early to many of them. I’m also wearing my Captain America shirt, so I get called out a lot. The MC of the sexy circus called me up to the stage to help with the juggling and spinning objects show. He had me put on a bowtie, then a sequin hat, then a pink strap-on. He had me lay down and he used the strap-on as one of the things to hold spinning soccer balls. I then handed him more and more knives as he juggled.
The second day we slept in and went to the Audio Deepfake exhibit at the university. Then we went to an amazing a cappella concert put on by the student group Norther Lights. The beatboxing was especially impressive.
We found some good gelato and then took a rest for a bit. After resting we grabbed dinner, and I tried to go to a sing-a-long pub quiz, but it was full.
Friday evening Steph and I went to Showstoppers, the Improv musical where they did a great performance. They had the theme of a puppet convention titled ‘No Strings Attached.’ They had musical numbers based on Queen, Sondheim, Annie Get Your Gun, and Avenue Q. A few of the songs were decent, but most were surprisingly good. They lost the plot for most of it, focussing on characters, but it actually came together in the end. The way the director broke in to make people do different things was great.
Saturday, our third day of Fringe, started out with sleeping in. Around 10 we headed out to another escape room experience, which was a lot of fun and we did really well on it. This one was out of a case, which was pretty well done. We had about 2 too many people I think, but they managed to get some parallelization in the case, which was impressive.
We grabbed some Thai for lunch then I found a few shows I wanted to see.
The first was a pirate themed comedy show, Max Norman: A Pirate’s Life For Me. The guy running it was one of the best improve comedians I’ve seen. He kept the narrative together and had wonderful pacing and timing. He had lots of audience participation, asking for a word from random audience members.
Steph went to the Little Black Dress exhibit at the Scottish National Museum and I went to a show called Lane Kwederis: Sex Job. It was well done, with lots of interesting information and views that I had never been exposed to. I thought the mindset that she has is far healthier than those I’m normally around with regards to sex and sexual desires.
Steph and I met up and headed to Aloft for some more circus like performances. They did some hula hoop dancing, and more of the silks and pole dancing. One of the most unique performances was a poetry reading while juggling.
The last even Saturday was too late for Steph, Bubble Show for Adults Only 2. It was a fun experience where I could tell the performers were loving it. I got pulled up on stage and they made a giant bubble penis on me. They then had one of the bubbles with vape inside on top they they put the wand over and popped the bubble inside the wand, which made the vape gas come out the top. She also had me pop lines of bubbles with vape in them with my nose off her chest and leg. They had a few other funny sections, one with shadow puppets, and another with bubble guns.
Sunday Steph and I went to the castle in the morning, then had a nice lunch at a Spanish tapas place. The afternoon started off with Steph taking a break while I went to the show Calling in Love. It was strange and interesting, but it was certainly the worst show of the weekend. The performer did a great job performing, but the jokes took the self deprecation too far and it made it more sad than funny.
We then went to another improv musical, but this one wasn’t nearly as good. It was done by students, and the format they chose for audience suggestions made it much harder to get characters that were interesting. They had the audience give the setting, title, and two characters. The first musical did setting, title, and musical genres; leaving the characters to be created by the actors.
We skipped one show, to relax for a bit, then headed to the AI Improve show. It was hilarious, especially because I could understand what they were using and doing. I talked to the organizer afterwards and will reach out to him, as he works across the street from me.
We had a lovely dinner at a Japanese restaurant, then saw the last show of our run, Sex Ed: Revisited. It was the first show the actor was putting on and she did a really good job. I think the science she was presenting could have used a bit more rigor, but the points she was making and the parts she did present were great. I learned something, which I wasn’t expecting.
We caught the train back to King’s Cross the next morning and it was a smooth ride the whole way home.
Archer was soooooo happy to see me when I got home. Here is a video of him showing his love:
Here is a collage of the promo images for the shows we saw:
Steph had a work trip to Zurich, and I ended up hanging out with some people from work more this week. On Wednesday the finals for the Beat Saber competition were being held. One of the finalists, that everyone expected to win, Connor, was in London. They had set up a studio with a green screen. We had dinner with him in between the semi-finals and finals. The semi-finals was a five song competition, and the finals was eight. Connor ended up having a clean sweep, winning every song in the competition. We chatted about it for a while and agreed to do a Beat Saber dance group, like I had done before in Burlingame.
The weekend was pretty chill as well. Saturday we went climbing in the morning. During the day I worked on my story machine project. Then we went to see the Barbie movie with Nancy and Punit in the evening with a stop by Vegan Planet for dinner. The fake meats they had were pretty good, but I think the tofu dishes were still my favorites.
Sunday was also pretty relaxing, with us playing some Frosthaven. In the evening we played some Grounded with Michelle and Michael.
We had a low key week. We played some Frosthaven, and I worked some on my side projects. I went to the cave club meeting, and the dive club meeting. The plans for diving over the weekend didn’t end up happening because the weather wasn’t good. It was mainly that the winds were too high, as they were causing lots of waves, and blowing in a direction that would sweep us out to sea.
Instead of diving we went climbing on Saturday, then went to the Spitalfields Market, which was a lot of small shops and food stalls in a large open air building. We were saying goodbye to Roel as he was about to move back to The Netherlands. It was interesting to wander around, but everything was the typical mix of knick knacks. I misplaced my backpack, but the janitorial staff were kind enough to find it and take it to the lost and found.
On Sunday we went to Draughts in The Vaults under Waterloo station. We went with the group from the cancelled dive trip, and had a pretty good time. I think for games going forward it would make more sense to do it at people’s houses, so that we don’t have to worry about times and what games fit. We also would be more able to hear each other. The vaults make for loud echo chambers. It was an interesting area, and one I’d been wanting to go to for a while. It was more commercial than I had expected, but not that bad. The main graffiti tunnel was still amazing to see.
Xiaomeng and I participated in a game jam for Hugging Face. One of the requirements was that we had to include Open Source AI in some way. We did great in my opinion, and did way more than was required. We ended up 7th out of 87 for the mutual rankings. For the top 10 three of the Hugging Face employees will be judges. We’ll see how that plays out next week.
I was feeling out of it and had a low level headache all week. I did a pool test of my dive equipment and it all checked out, but I skipped the pub meeting. I managed to get my work done, but not to the level I would have liked.
We made it to the weekend, and met up with Nasir to head out to Wales for a caving trip. We were really looking forward to this trip. The first night was a little rough and we camped in a tent in the pouring rain. It had a few leaks and we got a little damp. Overall we did get decent sleep. The caves were amazing, and the club is really well kitted out. We did a tour with Jack as our guide and were joined by Floyd and Lauren. We got to see some amazing formations, and I had a blast climbing up the cracks. Most of the cave was about a meter across and four to five meters high.
The trip was a great success. After that we had an amazing group meal and them people got drunk and started a fire in the backyard. It was a nice time, even it still cold and wet. The second night in the tent was much better and we got some good sleep.
This weekend we didn’t do much, as Steph got back on Saturday, and I was still recovering from getting back from the US. Sunday we went to the BSAC party and had a great time hanging out with all the people there. We headed back and had a great discussion on the book “Of Boys and Men.” I think there was a lot there to unpack, and that some of the fixes are things we can do, but it wasn’t obvious in the way the book presented it.
Steph and I played some more Frosthaven this week, and we added in the second character each. I’m the Frozen Fist, while she is the Blink Blade.
We hung out with some of the people from the Westminster Speleological Group on Tuesday, July 4. I was calling it ‘Uppity colonists day.’ We met a few of the people that were going to be on the trip to Wales.
Thursday we had a vet come over the check on the kitties and they are doing well. Lana is putting on a little weight, but not fat yet. Archer’s tooth isn’t a problem now, but we should get it taken care of before it becomes a real problem. The vet recommended that I look into getting it fixes soon, as the lead time of getting a surgical appointment might be a while.
Friday morning Steph and I went to a special exhibit at the British Museum, which was ok. It had some good items, but the main exhibits are just as good and free.
I took most of the weekend to make a game with Xiaomeng, which I’ll describe more in next week’s post.
The best part of the weekend was getting to have high tea with George and Clarissa, who were in London after a trip around Europe. It was great to see them and I love the discussions George and I can get into around AI, ownership, and rights.
It's an Exciting World 