Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Grey Mouser

Macca caught a mouse. She's been sitting out the back door with her face pressed up to the (locked) cat door saying: "Hey, look, I caught a Mouse. Can I come in? I can show off this Mouse I caught. I'm sorry, I can't talk so clearly right now, what with this Mouse in my mouth."

I think it was just a baby, and it looks suspiciously limp, so hopefully she killed it quickly.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Hanging with the Queens of New Zealand

So my job hunt is ... progressing and I'm getting bored hanging out at home. The obvious solution is to volunteer for something and so I signed up with the Cat Protection League. It's staffed by the kind of people my sister likes to call Queens of New Zealand: sensibly dressed women of indeterminate middle age quietly holding the world together. This morning was no exception - in between washing cat dishes, changing litter boxes, cuddling the residents and all the other things you need to do to keep 50 odd cats living together amicably, I was plied with much tea, fed biscuits and updated on gossip. Quite a lot of fun, actually.

EDIT: If anyone is looking for a large and active cat, they could try visiting the CPL and asking for Crookshanks. They say he's been there for two years and is driving himself crazy pacing around the run. Wanna go ooouuuuu-ouuuuuuut etc.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Wot I Did This Weekend...

It was rather busy.

On Friday I graduated. My sister Cat says I looked super cute, although most of the photos didn't come out so well, so I can't prove it to the disinterested observer. It was pretty standard as graduations go, sore feet, marshalls who have the operation planned out like a war, getting to see professors in their extremely gaudy party clothes. Also, one of mine came up to me just as I was leaving the reception and said lots of nice things which is always good for my ego.

Some pictures that did come out well:



On Saturday morning we had a birthday breakfast with my John, Mum's John, Cat and Ed, which was a lot of fun. I got a good present haul, mostly involving books and homeware stuff (I asked for egg beaters, but also got a nice set of coasters and some kind of weird food processing implement called a Whiz Stick.) I think I've reached an age where I really want to nest, although it might also be the effects of moving house a month ago.

On Saturday afternoon and Sunday I was the assistant editor for a short film entered in the 48 Hours Furious Filmmaking competition. We made a superhero film about quarreling flatmates who haven't realised that they've been fighting the other one as a 4 colour hero/villain for some time now. This was my first go as an editor - on Thursday night I was given a hasty lesson on the editing software and the means to capture and log footage, and apparently exceeded expectations by working out how to insert title cards as placeholders while I was doing a rough cut. And I had the pleasure of seeing some of the shots I selected make it into the final work, although overall it was much changed by the work of the senior editor.

The screening is tonight. Yay!

Vivid Dreaming

One of the unusual things that's been happening this past few months is the strength and intensity of my dreams. Usually, when I'm aware of dreams I'm in what's called the lucid state, where you know that you're asleep and can choose to stay in the dream or wake up. Lately, though, I think the dream is real and sometimes after I've woken have to stop and work out what has really happened. Or, for instance, when my partner has woken me up because I'm snoring, I get surprised that I hadn't heard it, because the transition between the dream and awake was so smooth. Strange.

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy

It's quite fun. With added stormtroopers.