Archive for November, 2006
Lopsided but carrying on
November 30th, 2006 | 
Author: Despite my bitching last night, incidentally, I'm not seriously injured. Some raw and complaining skin down my side, but that'd semi-recovered already by this morning, so apparently I am just a wimp.
Good to know, I guess.
One-handed typing's both harder and easier than it sounds.
I seriously need sleep, I think.
Also. I've been hoarding a long drawn-out easy coding/donkeywork task and was expecting to spend most of the afternoon on it, but I finished it before lunch. *emotes 0.o frantically, though one of hir eyes is usually wider than the other anyway, so the effect is lost*
What on earth am I gonna do for the rest of the day? I should've dawdled! Now I'll have to try to make our prayer calculator accept arbitrary latitude and longitude! (Most interesting thing on my to-do list at first glance, anyway… since it'll require me to pick through Perl, about which I know approx. three jots of nothing.)
Offwhite City's dialect decided it wanted consonant harmonies. It decided this last night when I really just wanted to go to bed, not grab my notebook. I double-despair.
Now off to blenderise some powder. The stiffness and clunking in my right thumb is already improving since I started using my left instead, so looks like I was correct in my suspicion that it was the violently humming little stick blender causing it.
(One of the things about having insufficiently diverged manual laterality, not to mention low dexterity, is that you can retrain yourself to brush teeth/spread marmelade/etc to the same standard with your other hand within days. Writing's harder, but I go through the odd whimsy for practising that with my left too. In the event I lost my right, I'd be back to my current cramped and painful scrawling technique within weeks. Note, not an invitation.)
Posted in 
A glass and a half in every bar.
Colleague sent me this link to a great Xmas gift for you all (sadly now out of stock – still, what are Christmas miracles for?): Holy Toast maker.
In case your memory for silliness and trivia isn't the strongest, here's a reminder of what holy cheese toast is worth in the US.
And here, to explain it much butter, is some 'Nightwish' that I wrote way back then because I'm evil.
Now kitten, you're talking too loud about sales
Uuuurgrurughrhgghgh.
Anyway.
Because my colleagues were looking their Chinese signs up, I have today discovered that Slen shares his birth sign (Fire Tiger) with Queen Elizabeth II and Hugh Hefner.
random Water Dog blather Read the rest of this entry »
I am sure you are not as innocent^W stupid as you look. Nobody could be.
Finally, a definitive answer on Weft and his boy toys!
Me : your giggles as vampire : blood. Raaar!
Well, got some/most presents wrapped, but out of two of the things I had earmarked for someone, it turns out they already have one of both. Good thing I had three things for this particular person, but I'll have to get hold of something else. Also need something for a December birthday, and I used up all my inspiration on the other thing I've already got the subject for Xmas, so… help?
(I've come to the conclusion that the reason I enjoy getting people stuff and amusing them isn't because I'm a nice person. It's because I'm controlling and evil and enjoy being the cause of gratuitous happiness and laughter. Whatever works! Now let me buy you something nice, bitchuz.)
Slightly retarded one-word-answers meme from Erin, which was quite hard since I usually qualify my answers with lots of waffle:
Matrix!
"Do not try and thread the needle," the young monk said, "that's impossible. Instead, only try to realise the truth."
"What truth?" asked Mio.
"There is no needle."
Mio picked up the needle, stared at it and then stabbed the novice in the head with it. "Yes there is," he said, sounding hurt.
Gobble gobble
Thanksgivers and anyone else who has a public holiday today (as opposed to my private, booked-time-off-work-because-they-made-me holiday), have a good one.
Sitting around shirtless, drinking water, happy
Cutest and most wonderful co-conspirator ever, and before he kills me, I mean cute in the "wickedly sharp mind" sense.
Also, the costume partygoers're unmasking at last. I hope at least a few people will be surprised.
(You'll have to read it in order, to get the full specialness: page one/page two/page three. I'm 'Baskerville', in case anyone doesn't know. Toni = Wyldsong, and I think everyone else writes under their own names.)
News: Hahaha!
Mother, father, have I ever got a bone to pick with the two of you!
What is bravery and can animals do it?
Uh, well, if bravery is "feeling the fear and doing it anyway", of course we bloody can. I can't believe there's still a debate about whether a non-human animal can show altruism, or make a decision against its immediate instincts1. So, were there supposed to be any other (special/'human') dimensions to bravery?
(Incidentally, getting a medal for being parachuted behind enemy lines against your will isn't the best example of courage.)
1 Piper was frightened and hiding under the kitchen cabinet on Firework Night. But I called him out and he obeyed, quite obviously against what he considered his better judgment.
To take another example, Piper's immediate instinct when someone comes home is to run into the kitchen, there to beg for food. But he comes to me in the opposite direction if I call him. This is subtle thought (Mutt rewards me eventually if I act obedient) overriding simple thought (kitchen is where my food is).
And he's a cat, so you can't use the "intelligent domesticated animals are different" excuse.
I lawst my innocence, the day I became experieeenced (meme, not a juicy confessional)
A "bold the things you have done" meme. I can't remember the scoring, but if you don't get more than me you're probably either under five or a blind cave fish.
Quaint and ancient crackdom.
The Knighting of the Sirloin of Beef by Charles the Second
Anonymous (written pre 1907)
Wizz for blenders
I've had two women, each on a separate occasion, come up to the woefully inadequate kitchenette area in which I was mixing my lunchtime no-cal shake and admire… my stick blender.
"Isn't that clever?" they've both said, or annelids to that aftermath.
I decided not to tell them of my secret evil plot to wash the paraphernalia in one of the lavatory sinks afterwards, in case the overwhelming admiration should quite sweep them off their feet.
Day Seven: Hope (aka Come Back To Me)
This is one of my favourite songs anyway, but the video really gets to me.
Sometimes, seeing friends – honest-to-grace companionship and laughter – hits me so hard it hurts.
(In other words, slash be damned, my only 'ships are friendships. And proud!)
Blah de blah, falalalala!
I'm not used to being blindsided by my own characters doing something unexpected. Hardly ever happens. (I suspect I'm no good at thinking outside the mould.) In reacting to someone else's post in co-operative storytelling/RP, I'm quite used to staring at a text input box for a while, wondering how the damned critters would realistically react to whatever it is.
Guess it's no surprise that I admire other people who can spring an unexpected but somehow wonderfully apt twist, then. I wasn't intending to name examples, but say instead of succeeding at something tricky but within its capability, a charrie particularly prone to wild twists of luck critically fails and knocks itself out in a terribly funny way. See, I'd just never have thought of that. Mine would have just missed or something (granted, that'd be more in character for the one of mine in question, but still not as funny).
I'm happy whenever I get the chance to learn surreptitiously, because even on my own I've been steadily discovering that the way out of "argh, I don't know/can't seem to write what happens next" mode is usually to take a step back and see where I've made a bad assumption; and throwing in something off-kilter fits in well with that.
I can get no sense out of my monk. Someone said (I paraphrase, but this is how he interpreted it) "Weft's the scariest thing I can think of and I trust him", and not only is he now preening, for a few special moments he doesn't even want to kill things.
In other news, it's mid November, the Christmas-Winter-Yule party's scheduled to start at the beginning of December and we're still mid Halloween party (you know… the one where the unmasking was going to take place on 31st October and all). I'm glad people are taking their time and enjoying it, but daaaamn. XD Still, I'm enjoying it too, and I lack the capacity to stamp my foot and herd them all outside. (It doesn't help that I'm currently working on Christmas pages at work. It's giving me a false idea of how close the day is, succeeding where the entire retail industry has failed.)
CIA, MI6, take note
Anke (00:19:10): Interrogation method # 1934752: Have the suspect concuss himself and hope he'll accidentally compliment you. Use the ensuing embarassment for a question.
current mood: dazed sort of squee
The Tadpoles of Retard Island!
For your amusement and edifiction, a legend that's been turning up in my head, along with assorted others. Snog and Anke've already seen this.
And you'll need to read this first. (Just the god descriptions, not the bit marked 'spoilers'.)
