Grudging

Waitrose is selling acorn squash now -- 'tis the season, I guess. So dinner last night was the infamous party pork chops, golden vegetable rice and acorn squash (which, for those of you upon whom I have foisted butternut, is less sweet and not served in chunks; instead, you cut the squash in half, cook, and then scoop the squash out of the skin like balling a melon). Turned out quite nice, if I do say so myself.

Then we watched "The Grudge" (American version starring Sarah Michelle Gellar). Well, actually, I popped in and out. While I don't entirely agree with vampadvocate about it not being scary, I see what she means. The main character looked, sounded and dressed too much like Buffy for it to be remotely believable that she wasn't going to rise up and kick some paranormal arse at any point. They really needed someone who could do more the vulnerable, freaked-out look; Gellar was never any good at it. It's harder to suspend disbelief when you're already going, "Why isn't she doing anything?", and without the suspension of disbelief, it's just another ghost story that has the unfortunate habit of following you home. Would've been different if they'd had Emily Perkins in the role.

There's too much social at the moment. weaselbitch wants to get together for lunch and I'm not 100% sure if I'm up for it but if I am, I don't want it to be O'Neill's because they put cheese on everything so there's remarkably little on the menu I can actually eat. However, dodgyhoodoo says it's a shame because O'Neill's is the cheap option all 'round. Maybe I just won't go citing desire for cheap options and dietary limitations. At least I'll get some work done. Though now dodgyhoodoo is also complaining that if I don't go to lunch there's no guarantee that I'll eat anything but Doritos and gummy things today. Which is vile slander. We have chocolate-covered coffee beans; I'll eat them, too.

[Edit: That "Which Film Director Would Direct Your Life Story?" quiz? I came out with Hitchcock, of all people. And funnily, no one is surprised. Hell, I'd have expected people to think more Burton or Craven.]

Edit

Filled out my registration form for Dragonmeet -- that goes into an envelope with a cheque and then gets shipped off Recorded Delivery, just in case. At least I know where the post office closest to my office is, having to go on post office runs every so often in the course of my job. Sasha was very nice and, even though I'd missed the deadline for early bird registration, the fact that I'm a new vendor seems to allow him to lock the pre-October price for me. So my £30 (I read £20 at first, but having a closer look at the pricings...) isn't going to be lost to my own stupidity after all! Yay!

(Oh, incidentally, weaselbitch? Don't worry about getting a ticket just to help li'l ol' me with the stall. We get two free vendor badges and then it's £6 for any extra, so I bought you an extra. Least I can do.)

Apparently, Sasha will get a laugh out of the fact that I went into total Secretary Mode when writing the "Can I have some information please?" e-mail and referred to him as "Mr Bilton". To my embarrassment, dodgyhoodoo caught me calling him "Ms Bilton" -- well, the only Sashas I know are girls! Anyway, Mr Bilton, while apparently funny for reasons I don't get, has to be preferable to Ms Bilton. Kind of reminds me how, when I send e-mails to authors and referees at work, I occasionally get replies referring to me as "Dr". I state very clearly in my signoff that I am an admin assistant, and yet I get Doctor. Can you get a doctorate in secretarial work?

Anyway, after a long boozy lunch with dodgyhoodoo and weaselbitch, I came home, ate dinner and got to work. I've done a fair few of the GM's Guide NPC bio things, editing a lot of the old stuff I had for those characters while it was still a work of narrative fiction. There are some I'll have to write from scratch (Eco, Scar) but that shouldn't be too bad. I can bullshit something, anyway. I'll do the Merritt NPCs tomorrow, I think; at least going through those reminds me of what head shots I still need to get done; at least there aren't that many. But I can't just forget Fett and Asuka.

I dread editorial. The stuff I'm doing on Word is fine, but I fear what's going to happen when it turns out that the carefully not-quite-one-page I've been limiting myself to on the NPC bios turns out to be just-over-one-page. I don't know what else I can cut! *sigh* Not to mention the fact that we're now apparently thinking of dicking around with a new font, if we can find one that's not so 'busy'. Argh. Well, so long as the search doesn't take too long and the new font isn't serif (which is always a bitch to read at the best of times), I suppose it won't be too bad, but it's just hard, is all. I liked the original layout and now things are changing and ... argh. I'm probably being too much of a control freak. Still, argh. There are days when I really wish I hadn't even started this, but as weaselbitch says, the game does have legs.