Well, a little year-end status report seems appropriate.

Way back in December 2007/January 2008 I thought I'd have a stab at writing a poem a week throughout the year. I made it to half the total, 26. You can read them here. That total includes some I'm genuinely proud of, such as the sonnets (Railing is my favourite; here are some kitties too) and Wefty's little apology/self-hatred/guilt trip/mourning poem (I don't care that it met with general apathy and criticism; I'm proud of it), as well as some lighter ones I wrote to amuse colleagues and others.

Plenty about dogs, too. A late favourite of mine is Country Road Meeting... not exactly light, but definitely enjoyable to write, and hell, I find it funny.

What did surprise me, and is one reason I'm laid-back about the poetry target, is that I suddenly started artsing again. I honestly never expected to use my Wacom tablet for anything serious again, after going through a particularly horrible time of hating my 'art'—and this was serious; I can't tell you how severely without scaring you—and generally thinking I'd never make another visual thing. I can't explain why I was able to pick up the stylus again, or why I did so, but it's been fun. The first thing I painted was a giant crow made of insects, which won me pictures of Weft as a furry in return. (It's impossible to explain to those not in the know how incredibly funny this is.) I laid into some huge projects, too, including a parrot, an elf (half) and a grandmother.

Other artwork included owl, dog with furry (I like this one a lot, probably because of the boar piglet), red panda (I should definitely do more of those), dog jumping, dog-in-costume, Egyptian wolf, sketch wolf, inky-style sceptical demon and human (warning: human).

Here also are some (sort of) kitties for you cat-loving epic(fail)ures.

A lot later in 2008, we set a deadline for "the end of the year" to start our epic Profusion project, formerly the 'Great War', which we've now retitled to 'The Twine Wars' to make it a little more distinctive. And all right, I left it until the last minute, and yes, technically it was 2009 in NZ already, but nevertheless, for readers in any time zone west of Finland's, the very first Twine Wars posting did indeed go up before the end of the year.

Which is nice, very nice. My major characters aren't yet in play this early in the storyline, but I can already tell I'm going to have fun with Paraskive Taxidies ("parra-skeevuh tax-ee-dee-ess"), my viewpoint character for this region, who is also one of my comparatively rare female characters.

If Weft would stop cuddling Sweetoff and get in character, I have prequel short stories to write for both of them, long before they met. I might even have yet another stab at drawing one or the other of them, too.

I'm also fatass again after going nuts over the holidays (sigh), but that is soooo temporary. Diet starts tomorrow. Well, technically today by now, but I'm finishing this can of lychees before bed, because DUDE LYCHEES. OM NOM NOM.

Work Christmas lunch yesterday, at a place in Castlefield called The Ox. It was tasty, the place was not crowded and the service was good. Also, apple and melon J₂O is too delicious (albeit a bit too sweet) and should be banned.

So. BBC Backstage/GeekUp party on Saturday at the Pitcher and Piano in Deansgate Locks. A great deal of fun. I helped out with BBCish stuff for a few minutes, but I was really there as a guest and had a good time. There were drinks paid for by Cubic Garden (yay!) and food laid on by the Beeb. There was a Wii that a room full of geeks couldn't get working properly (oh how I LOLd) and a Skype/Twitter link-up to London, where the other Backstage bash was happening simultaneously.

We were also invaded by Santas in the form of a fancy dress charity pub crawl.

edit: Pictures here. I don't see any of me, thank dog.

So I hung out with GeekUpprs and had free non-alcohol cocktails (Apple Mint, MMMM) and life was good. I sneaked my GeekUp Secret Santa gift/s in and left them by the food, anticipating that this would get them found quickly. The main gift was a picture of the recipient being mauled by Gemma's polecat, which apparently really happened. I found the details in the GeekUp archives. (I do my research, you see.) I didn't go over and introduce myself, but I saw the picture being passed around to general amusement, along with the little rhyme I wrote for the tag. I had help laminating these beforehand, which was a wise precaution. Plastic-wrapped is good when alcohol and free food are flowing.

Speaking of free food, yes, the diet is on hold and I am back in the grip of Brute Hunger. :-/ Have already bounced back up to 80kg. I must carry on the rest of this week as though I'm still on the sachets/green veg regime, or, knowing too well the raging animal that's under my skin, I'll just balloon. And that would be shit. Very, very shit. Because, to be honest, I like being less fat. I like it a lot.

My Secret Santa also gave me my gift on Saturday night, anonymously delivered in a jiffy bag by one of the employees. It is a Diet Coke bottle top and a roll of Mentos. XD If you don't know what happens when you put Mentos in Diet Coke, YouTube it.

Also, my hair is now short again. A bit shorter than I'd intended, even. That doesn't matter. It'll grow back - all too fast, no doubt.

What else? Finishing off birthday present for father. Almost all other presents are done. It's just the ones coming from overseas that I've still to receive and wrap.

Change of plan: breaking diet today instead of tomorrow—our team Xmas lunch has been moved because we expect to be frantic with work next week.

I rather like being frantic with work. I suspect this is entirely a tribute to my manager, but I never seem to be gien more than I can handle, even on rushed projects like this one will be (down to delays over budget or paperwork elsewhere, AIUI), and I like helping out on different things as needed while we get a site on its feet. I like being called in to troubleshoot. I like being complimented on my canis ex machinae swoops and general quickness and attention to detail. I'm vain. ;)

I like it less when there's confused loyalty, during times when (say) more than one site is fighting for my attention. Although I do find that flattering and privately gloat about it quite a lot.

Anyway, I'm not stopping the diet completely, only moving to one meal a day and two sachets.

I'm drinking my first ever cup of coffee, in effect. You can add coffee to these shakes and drink them hot, and I'm cold, so I did.

It's sort of vanilla-coffee-ish tasting. I think a bit less water and this sort of proportion of the powders would taste pretty good. I like coffee flavouring, just not drinking the stuff as a hot drink.

(Still hate tea. I fail @ British.)

Cold today, indoors and out (less so indoors now I've complained to the appropriate person and she's apparently fixed the overzealous air con). The Metrolink was buggered earlier today; the machine they use to clear ice off the tracks was broken, according to t'radio.

I haven't been in a very good place mentally since Slen moved out. Things have been tense at best: not an improvement, and I'd say overall worse. Frankly, I've felt bullied on a number of occasions - nothing a normal person would consider omg awful, just being forced into stress situations (eg loud noise) and suppressive atmospheres (eg "shut up or you'll get extra chores"), and generally belittled (eg "oh, complaining again are you").

Perhaps I miss him, too. I won't know that until next time I manage to interpret a hint of emotion in my thoughts. It's a bit awkward being autistic. Rather than one day feeling "man, I miss so-and-so", you have to wonder "do I miss so-and-so?" and wait until you find yourself thinking of them, perhaps try to estimate the ratio of positive and negative thoughts you have towards them, and then work out what that means. (For example, when I miss someone I don't idealise them; I remember irritating things about them and fantasise about telling them exactly what I think of them. I also remember irritating things about people I am glad I don't see any more, and fantasise about telling them exactly what I think of them. You see the problem...)

I hadn't got to see very much of him recently anyway. It's still a bit of new girlfriend syndrome, and she seems every bit as obsessive and disorganised as he is. (She is only relatively young, though.)

Paul's off in Ireland for most of this week, too.

Lost hardly any weight over the last week, which was expected because I've been trying eating green vegetables as well as the sachets and imagine I've put plenty of weight of chlorophyll and water into my formerly empty innards. However, if I don't lose much during this week I'll know something's going wrong. I have to admit that eating until I'm satiated is a relief. I'm eating once a day and as much as I feel like (because, come on, it's cabbage, sprouts, spinach and green beans, could we get any more lapine?). Plus hot food is definitely helpful, because I'm so cold all the time. I wish I could still wander outside barefoot in the snow, but that's evidently the price for losing so much of my body weight over the last couple of years.

I feel like nothing much is moving on other personal fronts. Everything's stalled. Oh, except that I awkwardly 'came out' as neuter-critter on a mailing list. One or two of the people on there met me IRL, so I thought it wise to take the opportunity when the subject (of gender options on forms) came up on-list. As usual, I think I made a pig's ear of it, but am most heartened that nobody much has reacted.

At least writing stuff feels like it's going better. Laffent Ferrl's brother introduced himself to me properly this morning and offered his services as an occasional viewpoint character (i.e. I like him and he'd be fun to follow), and I even remembered what I had been planning to call him. I don't always write this stuff down, because I come up with it at random moments, so I had known his first name at one point and then forgot it.

Laffent is a seven-foot, beautiful, blue, curvy, longbow-wielding, soldierly, proportionately muscular woman. (A very nice specimen of orchood, if you happen to like that sort of thing.) She got the looks and the brains in this family. Her brother's the charmer - and a bit of a redneck, if one can use that word about people whose skin colour is determined by their literal blue blood.

1.5 kilos down this week. Hurry up, man! I wanted to be under 80 by now. (I'm 80.45, so very close really.)

Seriously though, meatcarcase, can't you find more fat to drop? Because let me tell you I don't need an atlas to find several handfuls, if you know what I mean.

Ha. Also, I am going to start eating greens and protein. I'm too desperate for them¹, and if you're careful you can do this and still stay in ketosis (aka mega weight-drop area, aka starvation). So says a friend of the family who has flirted with this diet several times. (I could draw sarcastic conclusions about its long-term efficacy in her case and her resulting qualification to give advice, but she successfully drops weight every time, and that's all I need to do. I don't do the yoyo thing too badly, not judging by holding steady for almost a year in this interval.)

Oh, and I finally have my prescription refilled as of this morning. Luckily my mother and I are on the same dosage of the same med, so there can be intercaninenecine pill-scrounging. The delay, as it turns out, is that they wanted to speak to me before refilling it, so I need to make an appt. Which means getting there and taking time off work, both of which cause me bearable anxiety.

I spent all weekend gaming round at my unbrother's house and I have surprisingly few regrets about that. Although I'm ready to make myself some art and code now. Speaking of Art with a capital A, aka Tet, I think his deadline on the art exchange is today, so I may or may not bother doing the quick sketch I'd planned. He's popular because he admins the server, so lots of ass-kissers will have given him pictures. ;)

More microformats today. I've finished converting a huge "useful contacts" table from bad HTML into better HTML plus lots of span class=vcards. My eyes are now crossing. And I've forgotten what I was actually supposed to be changing about it in the first place. Wahoo!

¹ At least, let's optimistically assume that the sustained intense urge to rip apart people/trees/Quorn roasts and gorge on their insides signifies a craving for protein and roughage. Let's have no more gentle games of rough-and-tumble with the cat only to pause and realise I'm chewing his scruff rather enthusiastically, or anything like th...
...not that I've ever done that, you realise. It was a random example, haha. Erm.
Plus, maybe I can finally stop dreaming about food. The whole "oh noes I broke my diet by accident" stress dream archetype was never cool or original, and it's looking pretttty hackneyed by now.

MASS VANQUISH continues! I'm below 82kg this morning. I'm only overweight now, not obese, according to this.

It'll be a long, cold road to Xmas, but I have the willpower. It's just rather annoying that this isn't as easy as last time. I'm ravening and my cravings are flickering over the range of caninely-edibles faster than plasma tendrils in a little glass ball.

I don't know how much of the problem is depression, mind. I always was a comfort binger.

As long as I have enough electronics to keep me distracted I'm ok. The problem comes when there isn't an internet connection, console or video recorder, and I'm alone with my cold, unhappy mood and no dog. That's when I want to attack a point cabbage/bag of cashew nuts/Quorn roast/pot of natural Greek yoghurt...

I could combine the first three with some onion and be a very very happy alpha. Nevertheless, I do have the willpower. Good to know I still have, I suppose.

The plan remains! 60kg or until so ill I'm told to stop! Woo! (Actually, mid-60s is more sensible, because 60 is on the low end for someone as short as me. Either way, like all right-minded people, I want to bid the 70s goodbye.)

Art for Vinchers on the Jack forum art exchange.

It's an attempt at her style with a little bit more realism, which I don't think was very successful. You still can't tell he's a raccoon, but if I'd been much more realistic you wouldn't be able to tell it was Vinci. So much for characters with very defined styles. I considered pulling back and showing the tail too, but went for a closeup on the breath instead. The idea for the fog and nose smears comes courtesy of Piper. (That cat is surprisingly helpful with ideas. I just recently used his typical eating habits as a model for Yavu, a starved street boy.)

I've already lost a decent chunk of weight (around 4.75kg, depending whose scales you use), which I'd expect in the first week. It helps being an old hand at this. I can tell myself from experience that the hunger (on Saturday I informed my bro I could dismember and eat a cow) disappears rapidly. And I'm detecting the bad breath, which means the hunger has indeed gone. *pops Listerine Active breath strip things*

An unwelcome return of the random discomfort down my right side that shows up whenever I'm walking, which I'd forgotten about. And I do want something to chew. They make flapjacks as well as the shakes. I may get some next week.

Been craving fruit in particular and other sorts of food, but I am maintaining a pretty philosophical outlook: "there'll always be quiche, there'll always be onion rings, there'll always be grapes marked down on special offer and there'll presumably always be stalls full of pomegranates and custard apples and figs oh my gods I am going to kill all humans". I'm taking B12 this time, as well as keeping up with vitamin tablets and some oil capsules, so I think I'll be fine nutrition wise.

Also enjoying informing certain parts of my body that they are to be "mass vanquished". Whatever gets you through the day.

Self-googling meme:

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I'll probably start privlocking these update posts, don't worry. I know diets are terribly boring for those who aren't involved.

But I was either 86.4 or .6 this morning, can't remember now, and thinnnnngs can only get better.

I think the reason I do well with the shakes is that not eating at all is, to put it bluntly, a rock hard thing to do... whereas eating salads is the realm of pansies, girls and metrosexuals, none of which I am, at least full-time.

(Actually I like salad—or salad components eaten separately, depending on the component—but the canteen at work changed hands and the food there is rubbish now.)

Now, fun with anamagrams.

Herm Baskerville:
"Leash Verb Milker"
"A Berserk Hell Vim"
"Barks Eviller Hem".

Herm Diogenes Baskerville:
"Barking Redeems Evil Holes"
"A Berserk Helldog, Semi-Vein"
"Barking Heeds Eviler Moles"
"Love Lies, King H B Redeems. Ar!"
"Hell Rover Debases Mike. Gin!"
"A Helldog Ember Rives Skeins"/"A Helldog Ember: Knives Rise"
"Hell Rover Singed Iambs. Eek!".

My favourite: "Hell Rover Bandies Geekisms".

(Weft suggests "Tutor is Achieve" or "I Teach Vitreous" for Ice. Ice suggests "T' Few" in a Lancashire accent for Weft. Weft suggests "alien stab" for Basaltine. Basaltine suggests "Fake it twisty" for Weft. Weft is now not speaking to Basaltine.)

Italy recycles seized Mafia assets

Hey Anke, ICE CHICKENS!

God, politics and the Kennedys

Gay blood donor appeal rejected

Fellas, seriously, campaign to change their minds by all means, but don't give blood anyway. Yes, I know it's dumb, because (unless I misremember) they test every donation for HIV anyway.

Supermarket campaign for ugly veg and ugli fruit

Christmas postage stamps, some without god-stuff

I'm back on the Lipotrim sachets as of this morning.

This time I'm breaking 60kg... or getting so ill trying that I have to stop.

I'm feeling quite happy about the choice, which was made last night under circumstances to which we'll come shortly. I've kept steady at 85kg, which is where I stabilised soon after coming off the diet last time, for—however long it's been. *looks it up* Since July last year. Just recently, though, it's been creeping up and I've found myself unable to lose those stubborn 2kg, 3kg... 4 this morning.

I think part of it is the cold weather, made worse at work by evil air con and at home by evil non-working boiler. Coupled with carrying a lot less weight than I'm used to, this is making me hungry for very much the wrong things. My willpower's also crap recently, which is annoying because I've been damned good for a year.

But yeah, the weekend was double plus ungood. A doubly bad day on Saturday cost me most of a tub of Häagen-Dazs (never let it be said that I deal with my problems in a mature, head-on, adult way) and on Sunday, although better than the previous day, I just hadn't the heart to cook up a mess of vegetables, and then the brothers were getting pizza and yeah. "Fuck the diet," I said to myself, "the diet starts tomorrow."

And so this morning I nodded affably at the scales that so rudely told me 89.0, strolled along to the pharmacy I pass on the way to work, and sweet-talked them into letting me start right away. Cha-ching.

Also, Slen has moved out and now has a house of his very own! (Well, rented.) This deserves more than a footnote in an entry that's all "me me me", so I'll give you the skinny, pun intended, later on.

"Me" questions in this meme refer to the person you got it from. In my case this is: Charlycrash.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
I have lots of serious familial and friendly relationships, thanks.

02) What was your dream growing up?
I've never had any idea what I want to Do With My Life, only what makes me happy moment-to-moment. And that's weird to say, because most people for whom it would be true live lives completely opposite to mine. I don't bungee jump or go clubbing or take drugs or anything.

03) What talent do you wish you had?
I was thinking the other day of something I wished I could do... I can't remember. Maybe accents. Or general hearing acuity; I'd like to be able to tell what a schwa is or when something's out of phase. Hell, just not falling asleep to the sound of certain specific people's voices would be most handy in meetings and presentations...!

04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
How would I know? If you know my drink preferences, it'd be something like grape juice with peach, lychee juice, melon juice or things of that nature, although I'm quite happy with apple. A virgin strawberry daiquiri if you're really trying hard. Please talk me out of ordering the carrot juice; I keep forgetting I hate it.

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DragonForce concert was great. My feet hurt from all the bouncing up and down. Afterwards we were thirsty and found a shop that has not only lychee Rubicon (a range of exotic-fruit carbonated drinks, generally sold in Asian shops) (I'm British, so Asian = South Asian) but also cartons of lychee juice! It is my new favourite shop evar—and very close to my work.

So far I've been very lazy this weekend and am thoroughly enjoying the break from arts and other stuff.

After posting this I'll go to make smoothies (i.e. shove lots of marked-down fruit in a blender. YUM!) with the bros and play more Resident Evil 4.

I was complimented by so many people on Friday... lots of them liked my tie. I have eccentric rules, such as "if I wear the black shirt on a Friday I wear a tie with it" (my office's dress code is jeans and t-shirts, as a rule; I overdress because the novelty of fitting into reasonably-priced shirts is still a new one on me). Apparently the shiny light grey/silver tie is popular. My favourite is a shiny dark slightly-blueish-grey.

If it wasn't so very clichéd I'd go and paint myself as a metallic dark-grey-blue dragon* now for the lulz. Or a large shaggy grey dog. Or one turning into the other. Sexxxay!

Also complimented on my work, which was even better. I win at graphic design, proofreading and site-building and two people have asked why I'm not a CSD yet.

* Classic Western, four solid legs, canine teeth, four fingers and opposable thumbs, all claws but dews semi-retractable, hard scales, ridges and fins, no spikes, good solid tail rather than snake-whippy, no tail blade and good solid wings rather than tiny hangbutt membranes. Energising/inspirational breath gift, blue flame breath weapon. Probably shown hunting wild lychees, pwning cats and followed by cute animals.** Now you can all pretend I drew this already and save me the trouble. The dog is pretty much an Irish Wolfhound.

** edit: in dragon-geek-ese, since Vespy asks: DC2.Dw Gn L W T+ Phfwlt C"Dark metallic grey-blue" Sks B"Blue flame; breath gift: energise/inspire" A- Nu M—! O/ H+ $ F+f/v R—! J+++ I+ V—! Q- Tc++ E—!# but my description above's more accurate.

Mum eventually got the nice cat food I wanted yesterday because Slen still couldn't be bothered (and the pet shop closes before I can get home in the evenings). So Piper has had his birthday present, and very insane he went over it too. The stuff is called Applaws and they must put kitty-crack in it or something. It's catnip squared; no, cubed.

Piper only has to see the tins (presumably he can smell the contents, really) to go mad, and when the ring pull is opened enough to make a small puncture in the seal, there's no getting him off the tin for long enough to open it. Paw! Paw! Miaow! PurrpurrPURRPURRPURR-GASP-PURR-GASP-PURR-GASP paw paw PAW paw miaow! He doesn't go this crazy over cat food or even real meat.

They only come in tiny tins, mind. After having been given the chicken and cheese before I got home, because there was clearly no way this cat was going to wait, he sat guard over the other two tins—until, that is, I cruelly put them in a cupboard.

A success, I feel. Sadly now everyone knows the secret of my near-supernatural control over the great Piper-beast. Or ONE of my secrets, at least.

Dawn to dusk?

For a month?

Pansies.

Also, this.

I'm so boring! I'm vegetarian, a non-drinker and don't like tea or coffee.

If I ate meat I'd be open to trying a lot of this stuff. Except fugu (because DEAR LOKI, ARE YOU PEOPLE INSANE) and the cruel stuff.

Edible and inedible meme. Bold what you've tried, italicize what you'll never eat again, strikeout what you won't eat, asterisk for you haven't had a chance, question mark what you don't know.

(I looked everything else up. I'm curious.)

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Look what ThinkGeek has just started selling.

Sound familiar?

Sound like something certain large sweetening interests who shall remain nameless are believed to have leaned on the US FDA to kill in 1974?

Also, ThinkGeek's page has a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory joke, which makes my day.