Nimbos.net

Back in the spring, myself, Mr 0tralala, Miss Nyssa1968 and Miss KB put together a weekend event – a session of fun and games for a group of chums like a weekend-long pub quiz.

One of the games I put together for this event was a version of the old TV gameshow Wipeout.  Rather than leave it languishing on my hard-drive forever more, I have put it up here for anyone to have a go.

Just like the gameshow, the player must choose a grid of clues to try their luck against from a selection of cryptic topics.  Then, once faced with the grid, decide how many correct answers they can see amongst the red-herrings.  Picking a single wrong-answer wipes-out their accumulated score.

Obviously, here, it’s difficult to reproduce the full gameplay of the TV show but it’s possible to have a go.

So try your luck against the categories below.  Click the letters in the answer-squares to make your choices:

For anyone interested in the technical details.  The game was put together in Adobe Flash CS4 and using Actionscript 3.0 for the logic.

I did say when I came to relaunch this blog last month that it would also be an excuse to re-post some thing’s I’d made in the past.  This is one I was always particularly pleased with:

I made this in October 2006 soon after the new BBC One identities were launched.  The video was shot using my Sony Handycam in DV with the animation formed from several elements created and animated in Flash.  The BBC ONE logo was created in photoshop and the whole thing assembled and edited along with the music (from a genuine BBC Ident) in Pinnacle Studio.

With some of the usual suspects headed for Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries yesterday – another photo opportunity and a guided walk-around.

This is rather smaller than the Magnificent Seven ring of better-known Victorian burial grounds.  It still has it’s charms, though, with a smattering of local luminaries, poets, musicians and, of all things, anarchists.

Despite the weather a highly enjoyable walk, even if it is a little alarming to hear that there are probably two or three unexploded German bombs somewhere there!

If you want to see the pictures I took, you can find the set on my Flickr pages.  I can also recommend the public Flickr group.

84 year-old goes for a quick drive

Yesterday was the State Opening of Parliament – the one time in the year when all three parts of our legislative system are all in the same place at the same time.  The commentators tell us that there are symbolic messages behind the ceremonial and serious political debate follows.  However, as it promised to be a gorgeous late spring day, and a good photo opportunity, I took the day of work and met my Dad to point and click.  You can find the results on my Flickr pages.

This was always going to be a more promising opportunity as the ceremony normally happens in November with November weather.  The only time it is set at other times is the Opening immediately after a general election.  Assuming the new bill to give us fixed-term Parliaments goes through, then every five years we’ll also have a nice spring day to watch.

A few weeks late with this but once again The Middlemen assembled to take part in the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour film challenge.  The idea is to write, film, edit and all-together produce a 5 minute film in one weekend.  Each team is issued with a randomly selected title for their film along with a prop to use and a line of dialogue.  Our selection can be seen on the left.

This being our second year taking part certainly helped.  This time we managed to include music and far more in the way of special effects.  I’m particularly pleased we managed to get some decent green-screen shots to work just using a DIY lamp I picked up at Class Ohlson to light it and a lot of patience.

Then last weekend we assembled again to take part in the screenings at the Apollo Cinema, Lower Regent Street.  It’s always a thrill to see yourself and your name on the big screen.  The other audience members seemed to laugh in all the right places too.

Mission Earth:

If you want to see last year’s offering for comparison then here it is: