The Thessaliad Redux

I made French toast brunch. Go, me! I even managed not to screw up the sausages. I'm generally bad at sausages. Or at least, I think I'm generally bad at sausages. I'm always afraid I'm going to undercook them. However, it all seems to have worked out fine, except that our deeper frying pan sucks rocks, thank you. Still, I am tweaking my recipe for the egg-milk mix and it seems to be going well (now I add about 2 teaspoons of sugar, a half-teaspoon of cinammon and maybe a quarter-teaspoon of vanilla extract; gives nice layers of flavour). So yay!

Now I am going to have some fun with my Sims, who I have been neglecting lately in favour of Millennium and the joys of having to hand iMisc over to dodgyhoodoo because the software for the wireless whatsit is screwed and constantly generates really stupid IP addresses instead of, I dunno, the one that works. So dodgyhoodoo tends to have to tweak it so it works again.

Right. Sims. I don't know if I should go back to work on the Silent Hill Sims 2 project or just faff. Hmm.

Yesterday was ... well, yesterday was.

We pootled off to Holloway around about midday, got vaguely lost, but at least wound up outside the pub that l0stmarbles and his entourage (I can't think of a better word, really) had holed up, so stopping for lunch seemed an idea. So we did so, and wound up sitting off to the side a bit during the typical rampant rollicking conversation with me still bitching about the whole Tony Blair calls on God thing. Then we went to the convention.

I'm told that this is the first time that this particular event has been held, so it's probably not all that surprising that things seemed a bit ... limited. Don't get me wrong, but the lady who calls herself Scorch who does something called Pyrography had some really interesting stuff on offer (more's the pity, we didn't win the neat herb chopping board that she offered up for the raffle, but we can buy one at another point) and dodgyhoodoo bought a rather nice t-shirt and a nice bit of wall art for me - stuff about the rowan, the tree that apparently rules Aquarians, from the birthdates, and so technically me if you believe that sort of thing. I'm just chuffed when it's accurate. Also, there was a neat demonstration by a bunch calling themselves "The Hedgewitches' Kitchen" on how to make almond face scrub, which has reaffirmed my desire to start making my own soaps and things. Still, a vast number of the books on offer were pure wank, I was rather leery of some of the actual talks and I will never understand the point of having a "book of shadows" with all that silly shit stuck to the cover given that, if you're using it the way you're supposed to be using it - constant reference, revision and hard use generally - all the gemstones and silly bits are just going to fall right off within a week and a half. Give me a nice plain leatherbound thing where you can wipe off the oils, scrape off the candle wax and carry it around in case of inspiration. Also, they kicked out early to ensure that things were completely clear for the Gospel group that were giving the next bunch of talks and general convention stuff. From "Blessed Be" to Christian rappers in half an hour; it was kind of impressive.

Anyway, we gave up on that fairly quickly and sat in the pub for awhile, being eventually joined by l0stmarbles, Maria and a few others from the whole pagan set. We had a good time, though big bottles of cider, while looking really nifty, are too much for people who shouldn't be drinking at all. (I blame Maria; she was the one who encouraged me to pull a Marilyn...) At least I realised that it would be too much and shared the cider out with dodgyhoodoo. The talk ranged from theatre productions to costume balls to torturing staff at the Dungeons to mishaps at gigs to Sisters of Mercy and then just all over the place. Definitely entertaining, but I still wonder if there's ever going to be one of these things where I can actually talk to people about crafty stuff, exchange ideas and learn something. I'm also wondering where the people from the Pentacle forums that l0stmarbles said wanted to 'say hello' went, as I met almost no one yesterday. Sam I think I already knew, I only got Pete's name as he was leaving, I talked to Caroline briefly but only got her name by eavesdropping on the conversation she was having at the next table and the only person to whom I was properly introduced was Neil.

On the plus side, Neil had the Changeling source material that he and Michelle borrowed a year and a half ago. So week after next, Changeling is go! dodgyhoodoo has already come up with his character, and I know weaselbitch wants in, but still have no responses from the rest of you. lokean? neonchameleon? Hello?

Afterwards, we tried to go to the Japanese place at Finchley Central for dinner but it was packed out (a good sign) so we moved on to Two Brothers, a somewhat swanky fish restaurant. Very nice food, though; we must go back when it's less crowded. I swear, half the reason we go out to dinner is to get new ideas for our own cooking endeavours. (Admittedly, the other half involves being too tired or just plain not arsed to cook or wash up.)

So today, I will be playing Sims 2 and cooking duck for dinner. Also getting the last bit of rest I can before ... *sigh* ... work tomorrow. Bleh.

It went okay. I want to throttle Mum, but only a little bit. She was fine about the whole pagan thing, but only because I apparently have more sense now. She tells me that her reaction of "Oh, don't be silly; of course you're a Christian" was part lapsed Catholic guilt, part not thinking I'd thought my decision through and part ... oh, this sounds ridiculous but she said that, because of the violent stuff I read when I was a kid and teenager (stuff that, for the most part, came from her bookshelf, I might add) and the stuff I listen to, she was afraid that I was going to tell her I was a Satanist.

My mother is an unbelievable doof sometimes. But at least there was no fighting, and I restrained all impulses to give her an earful about the whole "You listened to and read violent horror so of course I thought you were going to wind up worshipping Satan" thing. Never mind a) she read all that stuff and hasn't gone Eeevil and b) the eventual fate of most of the demon-worshippers in those things. Either the demon double-crosses them and either eats them or tortures them for all eternity, or some hero comes along and hacks their head off. And besides, she doesn't even really know what Satanism means. I'm more exasperated than annoyed, really. At least she doesn't think I'm insane.

I got some great birthday presents, too. The Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils by Julia Lawless, which is a fantastic book from the brief look I've had at it, and Thirteenth Step, the one A Perfect Circle CD I didn't have anymore and desperately wanted. (Mum's comment on the cover art: "I thought, 'Oh, look. That girl has a slug on her face. That's ... pleasant'..." Also a fridge magnet (madness hamsters), a very tiny comedy book about cats and some Body Shop products from David, who obviously didn't get the memo that I make my own now but did remember that I like bergamot, so that's nice. Of course, I also got clothes, and even that was more funny than anything else, because the first thing I unwrapped was a black linen calf-length A-line cut skirt ... which was an exact replica of the skirt I was wearing tonight, the thing I bought for work with Kier Islington. Of course, it's also a size too small, so I have to return it anyway, but I'm not going to turn into Seth Brundle. There are also a couple of tops, and those are nice and in my size and I needed new work tops anyway. She also says she wants to renew Yuki's pet insurance as a last present to the household, which is nice. One day, when things are a little more settled between me and her, I'll have to invite her over so she can meet Yuki.

I also must remember to try to write down my recipe for sticky ribs; she likes ribs and I don't think she really knows how to cook them so, despite the fact that I cook by instinct rather than measures, I'll give it a go. I can make approximate guesses on how much of everything goes in, and it'll mean I cook them again sooner than I ordinarily would. She's offered to take down a list of stuff I want from North America, too -- maple sugar candy, A1 sauce, Season-All and Lipton chicken noodle Cup-a-Soup. (Saltines wouldn't survive the journey, more's the pity; Saltines crumbled into Lipton chicken noodle Cup-a-Soup was one of the great comfort foods of my childhood.) Might have to ask for Swedish Berries too; some of the gaming group really does like the gummies. Speaking of, must go to the Canada Store tomorrow and get some Canadian sweeties. Yum.

When I went shopping, I also got a new DVD for the house and a PS2 game for dodgyhoodoo. The DVD's a Korean flick on the Tartan Asia Extreme label called Whispering Corridors; I spent some time explaining to Mum the deep abiding love for Asian horror films in this house. The game is more Asian horror, but Japanese this time, and based on Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos: Forbidden Siren. Obviously right up dodgyhoodoo's alley, and I had £10 to spend in Virgin on my Addict Card anyway. When I gave it to dodgyhoodoo, it turned out that it, like Project Zero, was one he always meant to pick up but hadn't got around to. Go, me.

Last day of my being 28, and my birthday's not going to be overshadowed by Mum-fight-aftermath. Huzzah!

Last night's dinner was fun. Getting there was not half of that fun. Actually, strike that: getting there was just not fun, full stop.

It should have been so easy: get the 46 from High Holborn directly to Swiss Cottage. However, when I got to King's Cross on this stupid overcrowded single-decker monstrosity, I found that the road we should have been taking past King's Cross, and several roads nearby, had been roped off by police. The traffic around King's Cross at 6 pm on weekdays is pretty severe at the best of times. This? This was stupid. This was "Everybody Hurts", seeing people's thoughts in Courier New font, abandon your car and bloody well walk home traffic. Well, nothing was blown up or on fire, so I suppose it wasn't too bad.

Got to pub, sat and chatted with dodgyhoodoo and weaselbitch for awhile, then we went for food. The food was stellar as always, but I think we got a new guy manning the hibachi. These suspicions arise from a) the fact that he did very little in the way of flashy stuff and b) the fact that there were stone-faced Japanese people watching the poor guy every time we turned around. Seriously, I thought that the one little guy in the suit who all but had a big neon sign reading MANAGER over his head was going to do the thumbs-down thing and have a bunch of bus-boys drag him off and throw him to the lions or something. The guy cooking for the next table was flashy, though -- bit of a pyromaniac, too. He made this little hollow conical mountain out of carefully arranged onion, filled it with cooking oil and set it on fire. Then played tribal drumbeats with his salt and pepper shakers while the onion volcano burned. It was neat.

Fading Suns, though. Yay. I'd sound more enthused, because I am enthused, really ... it's just that I'm tired and depressed and hacked off. And it's only Tuesday. *sigh* Roll on, weekend. Because after that, it's only a week until I have my holiday. Maybe I'll get some decent rest during said holiday.

I have gone completely into childhood mode this Christmas. 7:00 in the morning and I was awake and poking dodgyhoodoo going "Presents! *squee*" I am not generally a morning person but what's Christmas without getting up at the crack of dawn and badgering your loved ones to get up and open presents? I got told "You're making the coffee"; no hardship, particularly since it has to be instant at the moment because our coffee machine blew a serious gasket last weekend.

So we got up and dodgyhoodoo and I got to the unwrapping. From him, I got yet more anime (Boogiepop Phantom disc 3; we are getting there with the anime collections), some sci-fi/fantasy Book-1-of-a-Trilogy thing I hadn't even heard of and the new Lynne Truss (Talk to the Hand, all about how the rude people are taking over). For his part, he seemed quite happy with the Etherscope RPG sourcebook, the graphic novels (the last Invisibles TPB, Y: The Last Man and 100 Bullets -- volume three in both cases) and the Doctor Who version 9 and Twilight Zone S1 (original) box sets. He has seen first-hand the Neilson motto when it comes to Christmas: "If in doubt, go overboard. In fact, just go overboard anyway".

For corroberation of this, my mother's gifts were similarly fantastic this year. As well as the Buffy box set, the household got a set of very good Japanese kitchen knives; there's also a RHPS DVD, a PWEI CD and some nice little pieces of jewellery. This was not unexpected.

What was unexpected was getting something other than chocolates and little mad things from dodgyhoodoo's slightly mad Nan. There was the usual complement of crisp packets and chocolate bars, but when I opened the "tree presents" (presents to be scattered around or hung on the tree) labelled with my name, I found little porcelain cat figurines, a small cat-shaped keychain (someone has evidently heard of Yuki) and a turquoise-and-silver cross pendant with chain. Also a pair of frighteningly Emily-like gloves -- all done up in rainbow stripes -- and of course, chocolates. There's also a fair bit of wine, cheese I can't eat, ale I don't want, mustard that will break me out in a rash and other kitchen-related gear. Mrs Hoodoo has latched onto the fact that we are a household of foodies, evidently.

Fab Christmas. There will be brief relaxy and then I will make breakfast as a sort of a consolation prize to an early-woken Hoodoo (French toast, bacon, coffee). Then I will roast the duck and do the veg and generally we will have 'lunch' of some hugeness while watching Doctor Who.

Hope everybody's having as good a Christmas as I am. Happy holidays, all!

We're being all organised about the Christmas grocery shop. dodgyhoodoo is going to go out and get a whole buttload of stuff, then I'm going to go and pick up what he couldn't carry. So far the division is going something like, he gets the alcohol, the root veg and the cake fixings and I get the cola, the bath stuff, the cleaning goo and various herbs. Probably also some fruit bits for me. We already have the duck, so that's fine, and there's a pork roast for the Boxing Day feast. There are going to be enough leftovers in the house to choke a small yak. Maybe I should pick up some containers to store them in while I'm doing the shop today.

There is a certain amount of planning being done for the week ahead. Not much, admittedly, but general "What are we doing for New Year?" and "When are we going to have the horrorfest?" (I was thinking the 29th). Most of the rest of the time will be spent relaxing, faffing about with Sims, and watching Buffy whenever dodgyhoodoo isn't using the TV. However, there will be a certain amount of work getting done; I never finished the NaNoWriMo story and then there's the Bloodlines stuff, which is actually coming along rather well on a text basis considering that I've only been working on it for two days. Given my not being a numbers person, I'm actually dealing with the whole "making up a dice system and RPG rules" thing rather well, all things considered.

Speaking of RPGs, I was going through my Amazon wish list and doing a browse for Werewolf: the Forsaken stuff (because when Mage finishes up, I think having a shot at new Werewolf would be fun), I happened to notice that a whole lot of the old Apocalypse stuff is still in stock at Amazon. Well, it says so, anyway, despite it being the same principle under which I was waiting for the Vampire clan sourcebooks ('4-6 week' delivery probably being their euphemism for 'when hell freezes over'). Either way, there are other spots where one can get it second-hand that I might try. Things like Book of the Weaver would be seriously useful in the current campaign, not to mention Book of the Wyld and various of the Changing Breeds sourcebooks that I know weaselbitch has but would like to own myself. So I've updated my wish list and will have a good old hunt around.

Probably after my birthday, though. In the wintertime, I just can't buy myself anything because my birthday's just over a month after Christmas. Well, I kind of feel good about that despite the fact that it meant no amusement park outings as parties. The reason for that is that anyone buying me presents can take advantage of the after-Christmas sales. Yes, I actually think about these things.

Anyway, despite the lack of Bing-Crosby-in-Christmas-musical-extravaganza, I think it's going to be a good Christmas. And when we've got the Boxing Day relax done, I can have a think about how I'm going to address some comments in a recent vampadvocate post...

The office is so quiet. I think the latest edition of the Journal's been put to bed, so there's not a whole lot going on in editorial. On my end, after yesterday's frenzy of doctors trying to get their submissions in before the holidays (seriously: just before the holidays), it's also pretty quiet. Well, except for the renovation work taking place on the two floors below us, which occasionally bursts into a cacophony of power drills and hammering. Oh well, a week off is fast approaching and it makes me smile.

We have jam doughnuts this morning, purchased from Sainsburys to be shared around the office. I had one and commented that Sainsburys should be done under the Trade Descriptions Act, because the 'jam' doughnuts actually have very little jam in them. This prompted Michael to tell me a story about his life during WWII, when the baker down the road made these little puff pastry things that he called "p'rapses" because 'perhaps' they had jam in them and 'perhaps' they didn't, depending on whether said baker could actually get hold of any jam. I think that's really neat. Just another reminder that the people in this city (and country) are very good at laughing in the face of hard times. Everything's rationed? The Germans are blowing up your city around your ears? No problem; just apply a generous coat of wit to the whole thing and laugh it off.

Christmas is nearly here and I'm being such a kid about the whole thing. I'm squeeing at the big pile of presents on the sideboard and shaking all the boxes (including ones not meant for me) and grinning madly about the fact that dodgyhoodoo can't guess what I got him and contemplating what I'm going to do with the bloody great duck we bought for Christmas dinner. It's my turn to cook the actual food for this year's Christmas dinner so it's left to dodgyhoodoo to do Mystery Pudding. It's going to be such a lot of fun; just curling up in bed or on the sofa, watching DVDs, laughing over the odd things that dodgyhoodoo's Nan wraps up as Christmas presents, eating too much and watching Yuki play with the wrapping paper.

I am such a kid about the holidays. It's a thing.

And yet another office learns the joy of Pocky.

Being somewhat skint at the moment, I decided to pack lunch today (so in case dodgyhoodoo is wondering, that's where the noodles went). While I was at it, I brought along the much-neglected pack of Pocky that's been sitting on the dining table being ignored in favour of chocolate-covered espresso beans. Morning necessitated coffee and I broke out the Pocky at the same time; being the generous person that I am, I passed the Pocky around to the three people who are actually in today. Everybody blinked at it in a "WTF is this?" sort of way but everybody tried it. And, as you might expect from the first sentence, everybody liked it. Michael's comment was actually, "Mmm, these are gorgeous! Where'd you get them?" Since he knows North London fairly well, he was familiar with the general concept of Colindale and knew precisely where Atari-Ya is. (Not sure we're talking about but if they both have Pocky, does it matter?)

It's amusing, given the limited number of people in the office, how many of them actually live in my area. Michael either lives or used to live around the Finchley / Barnet area, and Udoka gets on the tube a stop after I do, so we run into each other either on the initial Northern Line leg of the trip or on the platform at Tottenham Court Road on a regular basis. This is not the nice event it seems. Not that I don't like Udoka, don't get me wrong. It's just that ... well, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't commute well with others, at least not first thing in the morning. I'm not fully awake, I don't want to be as awake as I am, and all I really want to do is drown out the world of Other People with iStress and either read a book or doze off for a half-hour while the train takes me to my destination. Other People needs to wait until I've had my second dose of caffeine. I am not a morning person.

Trying to distract myself from the daily slog, I find myself in the process of considering Dragonmeet. Well, it is less than three weeks away now. Mostly this is to do with practicalities:

Booth set-up: oh gods we're gonna need at least one sign, and I'm trying to work out in my head what 6' looks like so I can contemplate the best lay-out for displaying the items that doesn't leave the leftover space looking like some vast wasteland.

Demo game scenarios: they've already got the games listed on the Dragonmeet site and I'm taking it I have to send scenarios to the appropriate people if I want it to be included so I guess I should start working on scenario now... Agh!

Timing: Two demo game runs on a system no one's used before -- this may take awhile. Between games, I'm going to have to take my turn at the booth to give the others a break. However, I am not -- repeat, am not going to miss the opportunity to go shopping at Dragonmeet. I need new dice, for one thing, and I can say that with all honesty because now that we're RPing in the house, Yuki keeps using the dice as cat toys and now I can barely find any so it's back to the Bucket o' Dice and I need a few sets of d10s because I don't have one matched set to my name at the minute. Anyway, the point is that I'm going to have to perform dazzling feats of time management to get it all done.

The proofs should be with us in a couple of days. Gleep. I don't think I want to see proofs. Well, there's no point in stressing about it now. Proofs will be forthcoming, time will tick on and Dragonmeet will happen, and I cannot hide under the duvet and wait for it to go away, much as I'd sort of like to.

Today's missions:

1) Bank
2) Travelcard
3) New nightshirt, bra, possibly knickers
4) iTunes card (iTunes Music Store now has a Machine Head album!)
5) Affils work

I didn't get the clothes shopping done on Monday because I was busy with other shopping, which is why we have Audition, the remastered director's cut of Night of the Living Dead, the second 100 Bullets TPB and a Silent Hill TPB. Oh, and dodgyhoodoo has now tried the Tokyo Diner. Next time, he's having the donburi and I'm going to have the soup udon.

However, I'm not going to start this until 11, because I want to play Sims 2 at least once over my holiday.

How do I say this without being impolite?

I don't. Okay. I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm sure I'll be seen as confrontational. I mean this in as nice a way as possible.

Remember when I said that spoilers for Serenity would be met with ritual torture of the messiest kind I can envisage? Well, the same goes for in-depth personal opinions about the film. I haven't seen it yet. I don't have an opinion. I don't want my eventual opinion to be coloured by your in-depth opinion. Tell me you loved it. Tell me you hated it. Tell me you thought it was okay but not fantastic. That's fine. Just don't tell me why you came to that conclusion. Let me work it out for myself.

Okay, so that wasn't very nice. Sorry. I can't think of a better way of putting it. Please just wait one more week and then I can discuss it with people. I can't discuss it from a position of complete ignorance, and I don't want to go into the cinema thinking of, for example, Annie's review. I don't really know Annie, but she's not some faceless reviewer either, so it's harder to completely ignore her views than it is to ignore those seen in the paper. It could be seen as a compliment; I refuse to dismiss that out of hand, however much I want to so that I can go into the film with completely uncoloured judgement.

Anyway.

Signed up for NaNoWriMo at long last. Already contributing on the forums. Work is slow today, and James is not in. I should do more Affils work. I'll save that for the afternoon. This morning, I just need to veg. There are no words for how hard it was to get out of bed this morning. I desperately wanted to curl up and sleep for another hour. The next two months are going to be very, very hard. However, I am trying to improve my physical health -- well, my diet anyway. I've taken to buying fruit juice and a light healthy breakfast before I get to work (this morning was orange, mango and guarana smoothie thing and some mango chunks), and I have been forcing myself to finish the fruit juice before I start on coffee. See, I tend to get sick when I overwork myself, so I'm hoping to reduce my chances of the illness hitting by increasing my vitamin intake. It's a workable theory, as weaselbitch is wont to say. My next step is healthifying my lunches. Bah. Healthy eating can be boring as all hell, you know.

And I have zombie-induced headache. Whee.