The Countess

Shorah! A Myst Island Birthday Cake

My birthday is in five days, and I want a Myst Island birthday cake!!! I have been a major fan of the entire series of Myst games for over ten years. That would be Myst, Riven, Exile, Revelation, and Uru. I have an account on Uru, but I haven't played lately. Gotta start that up again, now that Uru Live has been resurrected.

This is such a cool-looking cake, and it has the island down pat.

[Via Boing Boing. Also check out the CakeHenge post on Boing Boing.]

Uru Live Is Coming Back!

Shorah, my Uru friends!

The Count sent me an article this morning that has informed me that one of my favorite games, Uru Live, is coming back!!! I'm very happy. I had played Until Uru until the computer crashed. I haven't played in over a year. I've been in touch with my old Uru friends, and they're glad I'm back. Shadowcats gave me a very nice hello.

Fans of Myst, of which Uru is part of the universe, are very loyal and friendly. I'm not surprised that they kept interest in Uru alive so that Uru Live will once again become a reality.

Mysterium this year will be in July in Spokane, Washington. I wish I could go. I can't afford it this year. I'd love to see all my old friends.

To my Uru friends, please visit my Uru category on my blog and feel free to visit my a href="http://trishwilson.typepad.com/photos/uru/">Uru photo album. The Uru icon on my left sidebar takes you to my photo album. I played the beta version of Uru Live, and I have lots of great pictures.

Until Uru

Shorah, Uru fans! I just added Tehl Nava's gorgeous banner to the top of my blog. I found it at the Guild of Greeters forum. I'm not ready to take down the other Uru banner yet.

I just found out about Until Uru. I'm going to back up my old game before I attempt this. I am so excited to have the chance to play Uru with my friends. I'll hook up with everyone in the forums once I'm set so we can journey to Ae'Gura again.

This is exciting. To have Uru back, almost live.

I'm Off To Mysterium!!

Shorah, Uru and Myst fans and my blog readers!! I'm off to Toronto in a couple of hours and I won't be back until Sunday. I am very excited about Mysterium, a convention for fans of the games Myst, Riven, Exile, and Uru. It'll be a small crowd but I know it will be lots of fun. I'm staying at a very nice bed and breakfast which I hope will still have coffee available when I walk through the front door. As a matter of fact, I'm drinking coffee right now out of my Myst mug.

I'm glad so many people are enjoying my blog. I just wanted to wish everyone a nice weekend in advance. I'm cutting Lucky a break this week. There won't be any Friday Cat Blogging. It would probably be another shot of Lucky chasing and eating flies anyway. He's been on a fly-eating binge all week.

If you want to follow me to Mysterium, Atrus has kindly created a link book to the convention. Just place your hand on the book from your computer. You should link there momentarily.

If only that were true. :D

Painting A D'ni Design

Shorah, Uru fans! After seeing Rivenchan's photos of her gorgeous journey cloths, I decided to paint the wall drawing at the bottom of the cave in the cleft. Here are pictures. I used silver paint on the design to make it sparkle. When I return from Mysterium I'm going to pick up some glow paint and touch it up.

I've also decided to track down some burlap and make my own journey cloths - and a Relto rug. I already know where I'm putting the rug. Once all of that is done I'll post pictures here.

An Uru Journey Cloth For Sale On eBay?

Yeesha would not approve.

I seriously doubt the journey cloth has the blessing of Ubisoft and Cyan. I'm sure there are some serious copyright infringements here. The picture looks great but there's no guarantee the actual item is going to look that good. Pirkleations Productions, which supposedly made it, doesn't exist. Nothing comes up on a Google search.

It started out at $4.00. Bidding has already gone to $76.00, and there are two days left.

Cyan should pay attention. There are people that would spend a tidy sum on Uru artifacts if Cyan and Ubisoft talked to Museum Replicas. Museum Replicas already sold approved-by-Cyan artifacts from Riven when that game came out. I own two of them - the Riven hunting sickle and the D'ni dagger.

Uru: The Path of the Shell

Shorah! You know that banner that's been above my text for the past couple of months? It's for the game Uru: The Path of the Shell. It finally arrived in stores yesterday, and I picked up my copy. I ordered it in advance. I am so psyched for this game.

I'm going to be in D'ni for the next few days and probably won't be posting much. At the end of the month, I'll be at Mysterium in Toronto. That's a convention for fans of Myst, Riven, Exile, and Uru.

After Uru: The Path of the Shell, I'm going to buy Aura: Fate of the Ages. Two other games in production that I'm waiting for are Dark Fall: Lights Out (Dark Fall II) and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (The Longest Journey II).
and The Longest Journey II.

It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day. Nice and sunny. I'm going to read some blogs and other stuff on the Internet, go to the beach or read in my garden, and then play Uru in the afternoon next to my husband who will be playing Dark Age of Camelot. We're having lamb roast for dinner. Yes, this is going to be a beautiful day.

Mysterium and Other Uru Interests

Shorah, friends from Uru. I haven't been on the boards since U. S. Tax Day, so welcome back to my Uru Category on my blog.

As far as I know, I'll be going to Mysterium. I'd also like to hold a mini-Mysterium in August. There has been some talk on the boards about the mini-Mysteriums, and I think they sound like fun. I'm in Massachusetts, right by the ocean. If anyone wants some sun, fun, and cool swimming water (we are a bit north...), you'll like it here.

What I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

Shorah, Uru fans and hello everyone else. I don't know yet if I'm going to Mysterium. I haven't been to Toronto in over ten years, so it would be a nice vacation if I decide to go.

The garden is about as set as its going to be. I've already spread mulch and fertilizer. I've sprayed Round-Up along the brick walkway around the house to prevent weeds and grass from encroaching. I had to scrape old dirt and roots from the surface with a shovel. That was more work than I thought it would be.

All I can do now is wait for the garden to wake up. Once the bamboo sprouts, I can move it. I want to transform a section of the yard into Eder Kemo, from Uru. I'm sure fans of the game just went "wow!," and everyone else just went "huh?" Never mind. It's a Myst thing. Here is a photo of the Uru bird house I mentioned in my previous Friday Cat Blogging post. I painted the carvings found in Bevin on the side of the bird house, but they are hard to see. If I can get a better shot of it, I'll post it later. The shot to the right is a birdfeeder I painted a couple of years ago, obviously inspired by Riven. The D'ni number 5 is in the center. The D'ni lettering doesn't translate to anything. If you try to translate it, it'll probably sound something like "iggyphmormph thwapdoodle eh gator kmflot r."

I'm working on some short fiction. The novel needed tweaking, and I'm still tying up the loose ends. An anthology is in the works as well. I won't go into much detail (not appropriate here), but I need to get caught up on various articles. Hopefully, the manuscript will be ready by the Christmas holiday season so that it can be sent to a publisher in early 2005. That project has some serious promise.

I've also stumbled upon 100 Movies That Deserve More Love, at the C.H.U.D. web site. C.H.U.D. stands for "Cinematic Happenings Under Development." Gee, all this time I thought it stood for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers...

That delightful piece of dreck starred John Heard, Daniel Stern, and John Goodman. They must have desparately needed to pay the rent that month. LOL

Anyway, because of the C.H.U.D. web site I finally got around to seeing "Jackie Brown." I didn't know it was based on Elmore Leonard's "Rum Punch." If I'd have known that I would have seen it sooner. I also watched "In The Mouth of Madness," a fun little flick starring Sam Neill. I haven't seen that one in years. It was a bit lame but I enjoyed it. The Spanish horror film "The Devil's Backbone" was number 2 on that list. That impressed me, because that underappreciated film is a scary gem. I highly recommend it. That web site comes in handy when you want to catch some good movies you've missed over the years but you have no clue what to watch. It's a list of 100 underappreciated but fun movies. "Deep Rising," "The Peacemaker," "Mouse Hunt," "The Taylor of Panama," "Contact," "The Ref," "Shadow of the Vampire," and "The Iron Giant" made the list. Then again, so did "Alien 3." To each his own...

Uru Photo Album

Shorah, Uru explorers!

It looks like the first expansion pack is going to be released at the end of the month. I had hoped it would have come out by today, my birthday, but that wasn't to be. I'd rather wait for a finished product than get one full of bugs that aren't those fireflies in the Nexus.

I've created an Uru Photo Album that includes shots of my final hours in the Safety First and Uru Obsession 'hoods. There are also shots of things we probably won't get in the expansion pack, such as the "Happy New Banner," Sharper's Xmas tree, and the menorrah on the table in the DRC office on the roof. I threw in lots of close-ups of Shroomie. There are a few strange bugs as well.

I invite you to check out my Uru Photo Album. I'm not finished adding photos to it. I plan to attend Mysterium in July, so I may create another photo album of the convention.

I included a link to my blog's Uru category on the Photo Album, so any comments or questions may be written here. My e-mail is here, too.

See you in the forums!