And now we're moved

Huzzah!

All the heavy stuff got shifted back on Saturday, thanks to help from Repton's parents and Mashugenah, plus little stuff and Lots of cleaning. Seriously, I don't think our old flat looked that nice at any time in it's life before. There's more unpacking still to do at this end, but we're going to spend the night for the first time instead of visiting with ReptonMum and ReptonDad, and the cat's moved in, and we have internet, so I'm calling it done on points. And with any luck I won't have to do this again for Very Many Years. :-)

Merry Christmas everybody!

Habemus aedem!

Money has been paid, keys handed over, and a kindly chap has gone round measuring the rooms. Repton is fiddling round with floorplans as we speak, and the move starts tomorrow.

Oh god.

Making things go Boom!

We just got back from Guy Fawkes Night, which happened to be going out with PurpleSparkler, her husband, and a bunch of miscellaneous geeks to light a bonfire on Petone beach and let off fireworks. We got rained out from the bonfire, but perservered into setting off one defiant firework that morphed into half the box, much to my joy. :-)

Then we ran off to a pub, I had my first ever Irish Coffee, and a smaller subset of the miscellaneous geeks realised that it had stopped raining and was 3 minutes to the big display that WCC was putting up from their barge in the harbour so we sprinted back out to the beach to watch. My conclusions: I'm very unfit; and making things go boom is fun.

G'night!

Super Sparkle

I am doing a rerun of my Chimera larp, Super Sparkle Action Princess GX!

Thrill to the gripping cliffhanger!
Gasp at the horrors of the script!
Laugh at your friends' horrible horrible acting!
Will they get the episode done in time? Find out, in the next installment of Super Sparkle Action Princess GX!

(It's all Catherine's fault, really.)

Damn you, Stephen Moffat!!

I finally watched the last two episodes of the latest Doctor Who series.

Gah!

Things I never thought a National government would consider supporting...

Introducing a compulsory savings plan.

I can't wait to hear the howls from the libertarians and the Property Party (ie Act).

The start of a new campaign

My long term roleplaying group got together tonight to do character creation and the opening session of our new campaign, described by our GM as 'brightly coloured portal fantasy kind of like Thieves & Kings, Castle Waiting and Narnia.' (Our previous campaign was truly made of The Awesome, and included the most heroic character I've ever played, a severely delusional 10 year old girl. It made sense in context.)

We started off playing evacuees climbing on to the train to leave London and after a very long day realised that we'd been forgotten about in a siding - or had we? And then we went looking for our teacher, found a man with no shirt, a helmet with horns on and very furry trousers (clearly a gypsy), another man in a dress, a talking cat, and some nice people who took us in for the night. Devon is a very strange place, but it's much more interesting where the cats aren't as stupid as they are in London.

There are however some warning signs:
- we defaulted to an angsty backstory for at least two characters
- our backstory is the Evacuation and our first encounter includes a satyr (I kept expecting the Secret Police to turn up and arrest everybody for being humans)
- the final scene showed NishaTalitha switching awareness back to Mundane World, then flicking back to Fantasy World when she got scared by a rat. In our last game, the delusions of our children characters turned out to be very scary and very important to the overall plot. Eep.

Travel Photos

For those that are interested, Repton put his travel photos up here for our edification and education.

(See, no mandatory slideshows or anything.)

I'm on my way

From misery to happiness todaaaaay, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh...

Actually, this has been a really good trip, although I am in bouncy halfway home mode at Singapore Airport. Have had limited internet access this past several days, so the short version is we went to Manchester to visit Repton's Gran, aunt and uncle, who all turnd out to be both lovely, and really interesting. (1) We also lit out for a day to Windermere, one of the town's in the Lake District, because I felt like it (had to talk Repton into it, and really glad I did.)

Repton is currently collapsed in a heap at the gate looking interestingly pale, either from air sickness or a stomach bug, and I'm about to go back and deliver some anti-nausea meds [fingers crossed]. (2) I did some wigging out on the day of our flights (in the evening so we did some wandering around shoe shopping first, and Central London on a Saturday afternoon is an intimidating experience, not to mention the airport) but am now feeling perfectly fine if a little spacey, which I guess is the difference for me between a bit tired and wading through noisy noisome crowds, and a lot tired but quiet and calm. Each to their own I guess.

Anyway, off to the gate! See y'all soon.

(1) I'm still in Public Transport Envy mode, mind. When we got train tickets they said "Just take any train, they leave every twenty minutes. It'll take a couple of hours or so." To Manchester.
(2) Interestingly, I get a little bit sick often, but hardly ever very badly. Repton is healthy as a horse until he's sick as a dog, and unfortunately right now it's the latter. Hopefully he'll be feeling somewhat better by the time I get back.

London's Burning...

Actually, London's pretty neat, although this feels like the epitome of the flying visit - we've been doing a certain amount of wandering around looking at famous things from the outside, then going into a few Really Neat places and enjoying them in more depth. The highlight today was visiting the British Museum with a friend from Auckland whom I hadn't seen in a couple of years in spite of, you know, living on the same island and all. We're in the Friends and Family Zone with a vengeance - there was a family reunion for my dad's side of the family on Sunday, and John is seething with relatives (all nice.) Tomorrow we go to Manchester for a few days (and more relatives.) Hope to get to visit the Lake District on a day trip, as well, perhaps. (Short post, internet on a timer.)

Arrived in London

We've made it to London, and are staying for the next couple of days with my cousin Jot, who is as warm and kindly as I remember, and in very short order we were gossiping about family as if we hadn't seen each other for a couple of months, instead of the seven years it's actually been.

We're in Islington right now. I'm being a total geek, and every time I see a place name on the tube map I keep thinking of one of the characters or horrors in Neverwhere. Eh well.

It's also a good 10 degrees cooler than on the continent, which means that I can wear long trousers again and go for a walk at a reasonable speed without risking an asthma attack, both of which I've missed. (It's very frustrating when you want to go out and have an uncomplicated good time finding out about the new exciting place, except it's physically exhausting just getting from A to B, and that's before you've even started looking at stuff.) Anyway, I suddenly have bounce, vigour and vim, and feel like I've ended the 'being cultural' part of my holiday and can move onto the 'relaxing and seeing what happens part'. Today, we're off to a family reunion with a bunch of Sells (relatives through my greatgrandmother on my father's side.) We shall be the Distant Cousins From The Southern Hemisphere. Will let people know how it goes.

Last full day in Berlin

Found a swimming pool. It was lovely.

London ho!

In Berlin

Iäm quite liking it here - the city has a very open architecture and layout, vast areas of greenspace, and the people seem pretty laidback and friendly. There have been complete strangers who smiled at me or started conversations who weren't even other tourists! (Or shopkeepers.) I'm glad I visited Prague, but Repton's comment to some other frisbee people we happened to run into that it was 'impressive but also oppressive' strikes me as pretty valid.

This place also Does public transport underground train lines, overground train lines, trams, buses, and they#re also pretty friendly to cyclists. And dogs. Iäve seen a whole bunch of dogs around, always on leads or close control of their owner, and they go on trains and buses and bicycles (the latter in carry baskets) just like anyone else. (In Prague, too - one theatre we went to had a sign saying that dogs were welcome to come into the auditorium.) Iäve yet to see a single solitary live cat that wasnät on a poster or a pottery mug - I assume they#re liked, or they wouldnät show up in advertising, but only as apartment pets, maybe?

Itäs still Hot, although a bit easier to catch a breeze. I got my first sunburn yesterday on a bike tour despite three applications of sunscreen, because I just kept sweating it off. Today has felt a bit easier, although that may have been because we went out to Potsdam, a smaller nearby and highly decorative town that used to be chocful of 'royal residences# and we hung out on a boat tour and the truely enormous park of the Sanssouci palace. My current goal is to find a swimming pool that is open in the evening and nearby, and hopefully wonät do that nude bathing thing (first place I checked, does, and Iäm shy.)

Apologies for the horrid typing, am using a European keyboard and some of the keys arenät where I expect them and messing with mz touch typing.

Take care,

Stephanie

Moving on

It's Tuesday morning (Tuesday I think?) and we're about to move on. It's been a good visit, except for the stinking hot bit (Mad Dogs and Englishmen have nothing on it - walking home from the supermarket yesterday at 6.30pm felt like being hit by a brick.) Repton's pretty glad to move, he says he has language fatigue and figures he'll feel a bit better in Germany where at least he's studied the language some.

It's been pretty interesting to be here. I mean, there's stuff that's supposed to be the Official Tourist Experience, both the putting the city's best foot forward like going off to look at important buildings, and concerts as 'cultural experiences', and being shown places that were significant to famous people that lived in the city, and then there's the worst foot, like being a target for pickpockets and sellers of smutty playing cards (hasn't been a problem, actually, but was in Athens), but there's also the experience of just being in a different city and seeing the way things are different, like the buses and trams always start with a terrific jerk and you never talk to the driver (they're actually in a little cabinet with a door to further discourage importunate tourists), and the way the tap water tastes really good, and the standard font on official signs is a bit different - not Arial, but a slightly wider sans serif font, and that the street signs are plaques on buildings and never have an equivalency for "St", it's always things like "Melanouva 2".

Anyway, we have to go get on our train soon. Looking forward to the scenery, but also being able to put my feet up for 5 hours. :-)

Beginning of Day 4

Day 4 since I started travelling, I mean. So far it's been two very loooooong days (from around 6.30am to around midnight, and that's before you count the timestretch from switching time zones), one night of intermittent sleep, and a day and a night that were rather more reasonable, sleepwise. Despite that, since I've gotten here I've been waking up about 5.30am when the morning light starts seeping in around the curtains - yesterday I was able to get back to sleep and conked out until 9.30, but today that just isn't gonna happen. (I think this means I've adjusted timezones. Yay!)

Fun with Trams
Prague really does public transport. The most common building type is 5-6 story tenements that may cover an entire block, and the population density means that it's very cost effective to put on a lot of public options (trams and buses and three metro lines.) You're supposed to buy a transport ticket and validate it when you first get on the bus or tram or whatever, but this is not very well signposted for Us Crazy Foreigners, which is paired with a non-trivial number of locals who do not like to talk to strangers - the conversation "Can I buy a ticket from you?"/"No."/"Where can I buy a ticket?"/"I don't know" is one I've heard several times between a tram driver and a hapless tourist. I've also met some very lovely and patient people, just that there's been a certain amount of reactions ranging from a bit panicked, disdainful, or stolidly answering the question as asked and moving on without volunteering any further information. I don't think people are hostile, exactly, just very very self contained. This kind of marries with the way the buildings are set up - our hotel is part of a big quadrangle built around the block with an interior courtyard, which I think is very common in the Old Town (with lots of frilly decoration). The newer buildings tend to be very stark orthorhomboids, and graffiti at ground level is very common, but you'll often see some very beautifully manicured parks and gardens, at least some of which belong to specific buildings, and the balcony gardens and window boxes I've seen are absolutely gorgeous. So, yeah, I think it's very much a city of people minding their own business. It's also a lot emptier than I would have expected, there's lots of room on the streets to walk around, and usually room in the buses, which makes me wonder if a lot of people have taken off on their summer holidays. Also, despite occasionally seeing signs warning about pickpockets, this place doesn't set off any of the threat triggers I got in places like Athens or even Market St in San Francisco. (In Joburg, I wasn't actually allowed out of the family house we were staying at without an escort, so we won't even use it as an example.) As a f'r'instance, the day before yesterday we came home around midnight and got off at the wrong stop so did a fair amount of walking to get home - on Friday night in the old town, there were people out and about but they were almost all inside cafes and restaurants - no drunks, no people spilling out of bars, no people that you think you should really keep your distance from.

On Tourism
For the last couple of days we've basically been doing wind up of the tournament stuff. After I left the hotel on my first day I went off to find Repton at his tournament ground (lots of getting lost on trams for which I blame jetlag) and hung around with his mates, and walked through a green park, and then we went to this big End of Tournament party. Sadly, I just missed Repton's final game (they won, and came 17th in their category). The party was very full on, with a boat ride on the river - twas nice, although I was too tired to get the most out of it, I think. Yesterday we went and watched the final games for each category (some scarily athletic people, my yes) and did good byes with Repton's team, and today the official tourism bit starts. :-)

(Reading back through this post, it's a bit jumbled, but oh well. Take care, all.)

Arrived in Prague

But feeling very weary and a bit spacy. Looking forward to getting into my room (not available for another three hours) and really hoping my luggage turns up today (checked in bag has been mislaid.) Am feeling philosophical about it. Am going to venture out to lunch and maybe see if I can find the stadium that John is at this afternoon.

It is very hot (about 30 degrees) and doesn't have nearly as many people wandering around the streets than I would have expected - maybe people have cleared out for their summer holidays? The bits of the city I've seen from the taxi were interesting - a big jumbled up mix of old, frilly buildings that are kind of rundown, smushed up against more modern and better kept architecture, but it's not like they have zones where it's one way or the other, it's all just mixed together. And the people here are very fond of green tree-filled parks, which looks like a pleasing attitude to have.

First leg done...

Have made it to Singapore - very long day, am deliberately ignoring the time in New Zealand because I figure it will make it a bit harder to switch time zones. Is now 7.30pm, and have to stay up until 11.30 to catch next plane, hopefully will be tuckered about and able to sleep by the time I get on it. Heard rumours about a rooftop pool, but haven't managed to see any signs yet - may be in different terminal. Have that very hazy feeling you get from being up too late, with no intention of going to bed anytime soon - onward to the shower! (Have I ever mentioned that I really like Changhi Airport?)

Up, up and away!

Am off to go travelling. Huzzah!

To Good Timing

A couple of days ago, we got the plumber in to fix a hot tap that had recently gotten very stiff. So he pulled it open, fiddled with the spring, and all that which returned it to regular operation and all that, but it's important that it was the hot tap, because it meant that he had a look in the hot water cupboard.

"Did you know your hot water cylinder is leaking? A couple more weeks and it could burst and flood the flat downstairs..."

Meep.

So he had a word with the landlords and was around again today with a brand new water cylinder. Some things I found out:
- we have a neighbour who will take the time to check if she sees something strange like a flood of water coming out of the drain pipe
- my cat was seriously unimpressed by the proceedings (still hiding under the bed when Repton got home)
- the plug that connected our cylinder to the mains electricity was Very Hot. (I think it was maybe replaced in the process, as it feels a good temperature now.)

Double meep.

To good timing! Huzzah!

Super Sparkle Action Writing

I've spent the last two weeks on a major larp writing jag, in conjunction with my Evil Co-writer (TM), Cat. No seriously, on Monday night of Queen's Birthday Weekend she was sending begging emails saying "Please make it stop! I can't sleep becaue it's all going round and round in my head!"

Things have been going pretty well, and fortunately we've worked most of the way through that horrid dry patch where it's no longer easy but it's also not yet done - still a couple of characters who don't have quite the zing I want, but on the other hand six are at proofreading stage, and there are another nine in pretty good shape. Also, we've had some pretty fun moments in there, as well as this wonderful bit where we realised that fixing a problem with one character could at the same time act as the key to making another character really interesting and also make some of the stuff we put into that person pretty much at random look like we'd planned it all along. I love it when that happens. :-)

Should really finish the player pack background stuff and send out the casting emails...

(Tomorrow, my regular group gets together again. We're going to play a horsepunk game.)

I think my cat is pretty smart

So the background is this:

In the middle of the night, Macca can get very enthusiastic and bouncy, like really bouncy, and it's a pain in the neck. As a method of last resort, I can spray her with a water mister, which judging from her appalled body language she hates and despises with every fibre of her being.

The thing is, setting up negative associations with pets doesn't always work the way you expect (a friend told me a story about someone who tried to train his cat not to jump on the bench, but instead trained his cat to jump on the bench and cringe), and she hasn't really made the connection that certain behaviour will get her misted, and that it would be a good idea not to do the behaviour. But she has worked out that if the water mister is pointing at her, it's a good idea to find something else to do, so I've only actually had to spray her a couple of times.

That's not the smart thing. The smart thing is that in every day life she doesn't give a toss about the Water Mister of Doom, and will happily sleep next to it, and happily watch me pick it up and move it around. It's only when she sees me move my hand to the trigger that she feels at risk and hightails it. Pretty neat, huh?

(Yep, I know that talking about cats is horribly cliched and I've reached my quota for the year. As you were, etc.)

To good planning

Dear Diary,

Today I successfully gave a book back by figuring that the person who owned it would probably be on the same bus into work as me. They were. :-)

In other news, my birthday was really nice, this week I signed a new contract to go work for Kiwirail Network/Ontrack, the weather is bad, and a Larp I wrote for Chimera last year is having a private rerun because someone thought it would be a nice way to celebrate her birthday. How cool is that!

Have also started to write my Larp for next Chimera in August. Is it a good sign that I'm sniggering as I type?

Going Out With A Bang

My regular campaign game just ended, after running almost every week for well over a year (nearly a year and a half maybe?) It really does feel like the end of an era.

It was huge. Ivan originally billed it as a 'troupe-style' game, not quite in the pure Ars Magica sense where people take turns GMing, but we all had multiple characters, and the storylines spread out over many worlds and, through the art of flashbacks and time skipping, an extended period of time. As you can see from the character map below, the phrase 'a cast of thousands' isn't far from it:*

It was a pretty big rollercoaster in terms of play style, too - we went through silly comedy, intense character drama, political machinating, with every now and then a mountain blowing up.** In the end, though, it turned out to be a horror game, which given that the plot had done a lot of meandering surprised us a lot. We realised that the turning point had been when we invented some fun child characters, one of whom was our imaginary pirate friend (with a Sinister Background), who was both totally evil and wanted to eat everyone on the ship, starting with our friends and family, but also really liked us and wanted to be our friends - resolving Cap'n Pi's plotline made for some complete WTF moments. (I hadn't realised that ransoming our family back from the completely real military coup with an imaginary hat could be topped, until today, when we rescued the Guys Who Could Save The World from an armed base by means of a song and dance routine, and a flower.) I think, by the end of the game at least, Cap'n Pi really loved us, and it was us who had to kill him in order to save humanity, by fighting our way to his centre of power and giving him a 'gift', an infophage antivirus that manifested as a treasure chest overflowing with gold. I still feel really sad about this, two hours later. Thank heavens we get to debrief with liquor tomorrow.

Great game, Ivan!


(*) This is actually still incomplete - I realised earlier today that we were still missing some characters like The Bruces, the dirty lawyer, and most of the imaginary characters.
(**) Later in the game this included 30,000 crew spaceships and entire planets. By the end it got big.

Losing the vote

Actually, having it cancelled. Is that a good description? Maybe "from it's mother's womb untimely ripped" is a better phrasing.

To explain, the Region Council of Canterbury (ECan) just got fired so a new bunch of National cronies could be appointed in their place. This process took one day. New elections are going to be who knows when, certainly not this year when the local authority elections are meant to take place. Possibly not ever: the National/Act philosophy seems to be summed up in the phrase: "Keeping Democracy As Far Away From You As Possible."

Yeah, I'm kind of pissed about this.

For your viewing pleasure, some rhetoric from one of the MPs opposed.

Round Trip

Today I had to go to Palmerston North to spend a day talking to some people. Since the office was 50m from the train station, and I refused to drive the work ute offered to me, I took the Overlander train there and back again. Observations: train crew were massively good value,* the food has upgraded to Wishbone meals, and spending an hour waiting for the train at Palmerston North station is very tedious. Had a very productive day, and am now quite thoroughly tired.

G'night.

* I mean, seriously, they weren't just maintaining a cheerful good temper on a 14 1/2 hour round trip that had to stop for an hour part way there because of a serious incident on the line (nothing to do with train or track operation, a people thing) they did it with style, looking out for little old ladies and offering to carry the bags of a mother with a young baby and make calls to check there were rides for people.

Tonight, we shall make Calzone!

From scratch. It was yummy.

There's this thing about me. Baking, I'm fine with, I've been doing it since I was a kid. But anything to do with yeast hits my Advanced Science buttons and I feel like I'm tinkering with a chemistry set wondering when it's going to explode.

No explosions, just tasty tasty goodness.

Amazing Technicolour Dream Bruises. Or Something Like That.

This is the most ghastly looking image. The bruise on my left leg, I think, is from the rail of my bike; the scratches on my right shin are from the pedal.

Also impressive and a bit sorer, this was also from the bike rail (basically got broadsided and got more damage from being tangled in the bike than hitting the ground.)

Least impressive and most sore (although the bruise has developed some since yesterday.) I think this is where I got hit by the van. The sore area is all around the big muscle at the top of my arm (deltoid I think) and has been making raising my arm above a certain point difficult. This has been getting better over the course of the day.

Anyway, if you're going to have a major accident that you lived to talk about, you might as well brag about it, right? Went cycling again today, hopefully will feel less gunshy in a bit. A pox on drivers!

Dear Diary

Today, I got run over.

Collision on the Hutt Rd heading to Kaiwharawhara with an idiot driver coming out a drive who was checking for cars, but not cyclists who might be nefariously cycling along the cyclelane, minding their own business. Suddenly realising that you're lying on the road with your legs tangled in your bike, with oncoming traffic, bleeding, is Not Fun. (Am basically alright, but feeling sore and sorry for myself, with some exciting looking bruises.)

Fortunately, am now at home, showered, pyjamaed, and eating dinner. Pictures of the glorious technicolour bruises and accompanying grazes to follow when I get them off Repton's phone.

Updates

So, first of all, I've rejoined the ranks of the employed, courtesy of a four month (ish) contract with Ontrack, the organisation that owns and maintains the railway tracks. They needed someone in a hurry, and I got a call at Thursday close of business from a recruitment agent I've been dealing with, saying that I had an interview at midday on Friday, and if they like me it starts on Monday. I turned up, guy doing the hiring asked if I'd eaten and we went off to the nearby cafe for an interview. He seems a good guy, seemed to like me, and I do start on Monday. :-)

Secondly, it's the something or other anniversary of when Repton and I started dating and he took me out for a suprise dinner. I knew about the dinner, but he didn't say what we were doing after - as we were going for a walk in between times we looked at the big board advertising the Arts Festival gigs. "Ooh," I said, "Shaolin Kung Fu monks. I went to see them once in Auckland" and burbled a lot about the cool things that Shaolin monks can do involving spears, acrobatics and sharp edges. Then we went to the theatre - yep, Shaolin Kung Fu monks. Except this was a very nontraditional performance, basically an arty minimalist ballet done in kung fu, and awesomely well done. (Although there's a wicked part of me that kept remembering a roleplaying game I was in once where we were putting on a retro minimalist production of Iolanthe, and Nisha Talitha's character kept insisting that "You can have three shades of grey. The fairies are the lightest shade of grey!" These guys also had black and some plywood boxes they had a lot of fun with. Written down, it sounds weird, but it was a seriously cool production.

Thirdly, I got a provisional grade for my St Margaret of Antioch essay, by dint of emailing the alternate marker and asking him. A+ for me, plus lots of nice comments about what I'd done (although he also pointed out a bona fide mistake I'd missed in revision and pointed out some areas I could have done more on.) Which makes the whole thing done and complete - huzzah!

And today, to celebrate, I'm doing a heap of housework like vacuuming out my room that I've been meaning to do for ages. Death to hayfever!

This has been a good day

Am a bit afraid I'll jinx something by talking about it.

A good day.

My Cat has a Cold

She's been sneezing and is now curled up under a blanket looking Sorry and Sad.

She's eating ok and was out and about exploring the linen cupboard earlier, so I'm not too worried, but I do feel sympathetic about the headache I figure she has.

Cooking Stuff

So a couple of days ago, Repton and I were wandering through Moore Wilson's wondering what the difference is between a boutique grocery and a regular supermarket. Then Repton asked how you cook goat meat. I didn't know, so we went home, looked at some recipes, decided that we could do that, and next time he went past the shop he procured some.

It turns out that goat meat isn't good to fry or roast because it shrinks like billy-oh, and most of the recipes out there are for curries or casseroles. I don't have much experience with curries, but casseroles I do, so this is what we went with (adapted from here.)

- some flour (about half a cup?)
- various dried herbs (we had rosemary, thyme and oregano)
- about 500g of goat meat
- two small onions chopped into large chunks (I guess one large would do)
- two cloves of crushed garlic
- one cup chicken stock
- half a cup red wine

Season the flour with the dried herbs and coat the goat chunks in it. Fry briefly to brown it and place in a casserole dish with the onion, garlic, chicken stock and wine. Add some extra rosemary.
Cook at 150 degrees for three hours. (Every hour or so I stirred the mixture.)
Served with basmati rice and grilled capsicums.

It smelt _really_ nice, and tasted pretty good too. We also ended up asking the obvious question of: so how much does it cost to run an oven for three hours, anyway? which Repton worked out from first principles and I looked up on the internet. Turns out to be about a dollar fifty, or less than the cost of the cooking wine, but even so, we made shortbread as well.

My Body Clock is Seriously Messed.

As in, I go to bed at a reasonable hour and find myself wide awake and staring at the ceiling by midnight. Not even a 10km walk today, which should have exhausted me, has done the trick.

(Actually, was pretty wobbly when got home, but dinner and tv watching with a friend fixed that, and now I'm disturbingly wide awake again. Gah!)

I am allergic to bee stings.

Not deathly allergic - no running around with adrenalin shots for me, but still, 30 hours after the fact, I have an extremely swollen, extremely itchy foot which the wonders of modern chemistry are not doing much for. Have given up trying to be staunch about it (not much sleep last night is not helping.) Hijacked Nisha Talitha from the Larp picnic, and we went to Sherlock Holmes instead. It was fun.

Am also trying to rerun my Kapcon game and finding this a very difficult task what with all the people who are interested but can't make particular nights, and the two people who said that they could make a particular night, then changed their minds after I set that night as the date. Am grouchy and wondering if it would be easier just to cancel the thing entirely. [/grumble] Will probably feel better tomorrow morning.

EDIT: Went to the doctor and got a better grade of Better Living Through Chemistry (steroids! woo hoo!). (Haven't worked yet, though.) He laughed when I said I was there about a bee sting, I insulted his typing - it's nice when you get to have a regular doctor, it's much more informal.

EDIT2: Still itchy, but the swelling has gone down a lot. This is a Good Thing. Have spent much of the last few days with my foot ensconced in a bowl of water - would be nice to be able to put it away.

Awake Too Late At Night

Stupid blocked runny nose. Better living through pharmacy is probably helping some, but not enough for comfortable sleeping. :-(

EDIT: Also, when I did go back to bed, my Significant Other decided that I was breathing too loudly and kept poking me until I quietened down (i.e. woke up.) Spent the rest of the night on the couch. Cat happy, me feeling hungover.

The Braggity Post of Bragging

So, I'm back from Kapcon, with the news that the game I sent in to the Scenario Design Contest (with considerable input from my sister Cat) won. This means that we can now truthfully call ourselves Award Winning Writers. Hee hee hee.

OK, normal programming to meet industry guidelines for modesty will now resume. Second day was lots of fun: a restful stint helping run the admin desk in the morning, a PTA pilot where we were reality police, and Cathulu. It's like Chthulu, but you're playing cats, and I killed the main bad guy, despite being an utter coward. (Got lucky on a dice roll when I had his head in a death grip trying to rake his face. But he was a bad person with a three eyed demon cat, so it was OK really.)

Two final notes: that with the typos I'm having to correct I should really give up and go to bed, and the obsevviseness with whtich my cat is begging for attention is getting distrubing.

Good night!

EDIT: Am concluding from the green slime coming out of my nose that I'm officially sick with a virus, instead of the hayfever/dehydration combo I thought I was sporting. Feel a bit better about feeling massively hungover as I'd been trying to drink lots of water and go to sleep at a reasonable time and was annoyed that that wasn't working. Also, drugs for the win!

Huzzah!

I ran my game at Kapcon, The Book Club, and it went really well, thanks to my player group who totally brought the awesome. (I'm still somewhat boggled about how much time we spent talking about the phallic implications of carrots versus the idea of cockleshell as a symbolic Holy Grail. It worked in the game!)

St Margaret Redux

And it's now handed in. One. Two. Three ... Huzzah!!

Feeling a bit spacy right now, owing to disturbed sleep patterns this week, but coping a lot better than expected. Nice weather and getting Repton to come out to Manners Mall and have crepes with me helped a lot.

And I just want to say that the standard Margaret legend offers remissions of sins, a place in heaven, and no children born who are blind, deaf, lame or crazy to anyone who reads or writes a copy of her life. Her and me are like that. :-)

March to Ship

I'm currently staying up late trying to finish off my Margaret of Antioch essay. Eye eye eye. I've been on a Search and Destroy mission for //TODO place holders and trying to tidy up poorly written sections, and have been making progess with one section still to do and a mere handful of placeholders left to roust out. It's also massively overlength (like nearly twice as long as it ought to be.) This is not my fault - every time I pointed at a section and told my supervisor I was thinking of cutting it he said 'No, no, keep it in, I like it.' Bah humbug!

In other news, I have until tomorrow to decide if I'm going to do Masters this year. Pros and cons both ways and I'm being infernally indecisive about it.

EDIT: Finished all the writing about half past midnight, now can't sleep. Double bah humbug! Proof reading tomorrow. Just checked scholarship docs and actually have another 10 days to dither - probably best not to make decisions when I'm tired and stressed about essays. :-)