Five Emotive Tunes

Music can deliver an eclectic range of feelings, emotions and memories for the listener. It has been with us since time began, and has the capacity to endure beyond most things we, as humans, like, cherish and love.

I present to you, five of my (but not my ultimate) favourite tracks and the reason/s why.

StumbleUpon

Image from: searchengineland.com

My writerly friend and very talented author and poet, Deborah Walker (who, by the way, has had a revamp of her blog and it looks fantastic - I seriously urge any writers and poets to nip over and have a gander!), kindly directed me to this great site: StumbleUpon. If I had to describe it I would liken it to a web site version of Pinterest.

On this site you will, at first, find it a bit confusing, but once into the swing of what the site is about, what it does and how it works you will find a wealth of brilliant sites at your finger tips. The site enables you to create profiles of sites you deem most interesting. You can either tag them as a favourite or create a profile to store them in for yourself in order to save having to search for them.

Basically, you have some of the best websites at your finger tips all under one virtual roof. A great source of reference material, music sites, photography, astronomy, household tips, you name it, it's there. You can even add your own website/blog into the mix if you so desire.

Once again, a big thanks to Deborah for sharing this with me, and now I'm sharing it with you. Hope you enjoy :)

Art Spot - Mihai Radu

Today, for your viewing pleasure, it gives me great pleasure in presenting to you the work of a very talented artist: Mihai Radu, a young gentleman hailing from Bragadiru, Romania.

I stumbled across his blog back in the early part of 2012 and was so taken by his work that I added him to my growing list of digital/concept artists. His work covers traditional and digital formats, and I particularly like his freehand work, especially the figure drawings. Mihai can also be found on Twitter, FaceBook and DeviantArt - the latter being a great source of artistic works from all round the world.

To view Mihai's excellent works, click on his site name here -> e n i x t m - go visit, look and enjoy, and if you like what you see there then leave Mihai some comments (we all love comments :) ).

The Usual Suspects... A GWs2 Guild Member Line Up

Copyright © ArenaNet 

Although all the players from my Guild Wars 2 guild have now left the game, either from overkill game time, boredom, disillusionment or real life taking centre stage, I thought I'd share with you the player character portraits I did for our guild when it was at its busiest.

The screen shots have been doctored in Photoshop to give the images a sense of portrait rather than screenshot, so forgive the odd lack of clarity - also are missing several guildies whom I didn't get round to taking screen shots of, as they had decided to quit the game beforehand.

The Elder Scrolls Online is coming...

Copyright © 2013 Bethseda.
All Rights Reserved.

Can't but help feel a rush of excitement when I see these video updates as to the progress of what (I so very dearly hope) promises to be the new king on the MMORPG scene: The Elder Scrolls Online. Even better, we now have a release date/season of Spring 2014.

After the major disappointment that was Guild Wars 2, so many MMO players were left disillusioned and feeling somewhat betrayed, myself included. So the nerd/geek inside me is clapping with glee at how this 'old world' is being given a new lease of life in proper massive multiplayer online format. The only fly in the ointment is the prospect that it will be a monthly fee driven game *sigh*.

So watch the video below to see what the fuss is about - and you never know, we might end up bumping into each other in the world of Tamriel. How? Because those wonderful people at Bethseda have opted for the 'one world server', so no matter where you are playing from in the real world, you can hook up with your buddies - no more individual servers for US, Europe and Asia. Nice one :)

Art Spot Re-visited

Some blogs are just worthy of a re-visit, and the Cake Mix is a fine example.
I first introduced this blog to you all in last year's A-Z, in fact it was the day before my birthday, 12th April 2012.

So, without further fuss and pomp, I re-introduce to you and the blogoverse, Kekai Kotaki's: Cake Mix - a fantastic showcase of all his digital and traditional artwork and concept designs for the gaming industry. You will be blown away. Enjoy :)

The Art of the Character Sheet

Copyright ©  2013 Mark Kelly

With over 20 years of running role playing games under my proverbial belt the character sheet has seen many forms and incarnations during my campaign and scenarios, but one thing remained constant - character sheet art/graffitti (the above image being a prime example, though I have coloured it in Photoshop, it was scanned from a tatty equipment sheet from a long-since dead character of mine).

So, in the spirit of nostalgia, and the guilty feeling of neglecting the true essence of my blog's origins, I've ventured into the attic and crawled through curtains of silken web, choked on clouds of dust and suffered impaling of many splinters to rummage through numerous boxes for old character sheets of yore.

Music While You Work

Original image created by
Mark Kelly © 2013 All Rights Reserved

All good things should be shared, and the site I'm about to share with you is no exception. I discovered it via my iPad in the app section. It's basically a streaming site for online DJs to strut their stuff and you can also do 'live requests' via the chat window.

There are two channels: ambient and beats - needless to say, I'm always on the ambient channel, especially good when writing.

So, without further ado, here is the link to the site concerned, so click on the name and add it to your browser bookmarks: it's called RePlayScape.com - I hope you enjoy :)

Zombie Plant Life

Copyright © 2013 Mark Kelly

Couldn't resist doing this when I saw it in our garden this morning. Gave me a giggle :)

Reconstruction and a Face-Lift

I have mentioned this once previously, but left it alone due to the uncertainty within my mind (and heart). But now I feel the time is right and my blog needs a complete 'make-over'.

What I'd like to do is throw this out to the blogoverse and pick your erudite brains on the matter; should I go white? Keep it dark, but not as dark as it is now? Change the whole blog theme for something less 'fantasy'? Different layout scheme? Rename maybe? Arrgghh! I promise, I'm not like this about much else, I... just... don't... know?

I'm at a loss as to what would be best - so I asking you guys 'n' gals... HELP! Any and all suggestions/ideas are gratefully received :)

Training Day

Copyright © 2003 Randy Glasbergen
www.glasbergen.com

This afternoon I decided to mix it up a bit, with regards to my 'training'. Why the italics? Well mainly because I'm limited to what I can do functionally due to the fact I have two tears of the right meniscus and a rotator cuff issue - my knee is awaiting a surgery date, and the shoulder is awaiting a scan date before surgery. So the old routines  are off the menu.

But today is gloriously sunny, everyone is out - including the neighbours - so I thought, what the hell, and plonked 'The Very Best of Euphoric Dance BREAKDOWN ' on the ancient boom-box I have, and cracked on with a heart-pumping session.