19.11.08

Update, in the manner of an unhelpfully-titled pile of generic.

Posted in Fun, General, Work at 11:41 am by Mister JTA

Been listening to a lot more Billy Joel lately, especially at work (not least because I keep forgetting to take my MP3 player to work, so I’m using the N95 instead.).

I do concentrate better with music in the background, as long as I know it relatively well (otherwise I have to keep breaking concentration to listen to the words!), so it’s nice to have an office where nobody minds on the grounds that ‘it does help you concentrate, especially when you’re doing something repetative.’ Colleagues WIN, I think…

…On the other hand, there’s something very, very wrong-feeling about playing Red Alert 3 while a background copy of Winamp belts out, uh, Leningrad.

On the plus side, every faction in RA3 seems to have adopted the traditionally Soviet policy of only employing women with tight-fitting costumes as their chosen military liason to the Completely Untested Commander With No Experience Of The Week…

Back still hurts. Knees still hurt. Left elbow seems to be setting up to hurt on a regular basis, the bastard. If I’m snappish that’s possibly why. The backache is a sod because I don’t know what will set it off, and the elbow is making me really irritable because it’s never happened before, so I’m not used to it giving out knee-style pain, which is making it much harder to ignore the damn thing than it would be if it was just a knee, and only doing what I expect of it. /whinge

Upside: field trip to the archives today, I’m looking forward to that!

I think that’s everything, for now, though.

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22.10.08

Updates! Woo, &c.

Posted in General, Work at 10:50 am by Mister JTA

OK, so I went all quiet again. Profuse apologies.

On the other hand, I came down with Fresher’s Flu good and hard, through my usual tactic of stressing out, sleeping badly and consequently waking up with an immune system that saw an infection and went in like the US Marshalls*. Consequently I got pretty well slaughtered within a day.

By last Wednesday, however, I was up and about a bit more, so I came into work, for which I am entirely made of grateful, since I got to attend a little lecture about the awesome books they have over at Lampeter (featuring my personal highlight: getting to touch a book printed by Wynkyn de Worde in Caxton’s workshop in 1470, also a book of hours from the 1490s) and go on a Field Trip to the town library, which was also really good fun.

A downside of that, however, was that it comprised my usual overstretching-myself-while-ill routine, with the result that by Wednesday evening I felt so lousy I couldn’t even be bothered to play CoD4 & just went to bed. On Thursday a doctor told me I was horribly infectious and banned me from work, so I went home and proved her right by infecting everyone in the Uberflat. Hm.

Finally feeling better, apart from the cough, which is still a real pain, but which I assume is going to clear itself up a bit presently.

Assuming I can be bothered I’m starting to think I may have to do a review of the re-release (basically) of Colonization. I’ll have to see if I can grab some time when Ruth isn’t using the laptop next week.

Am currently looking into the Masters-ness. Hmm. Looks expensive, but I’m booking a meeting with a chap out at DIS, so it’s possible. Although since I never even had to do an undergraduate dissertation I look at phrases like “not more than 15,000 words” and my head hurts. But, meh. Continued vague postings as events warrant.

It is getting colder and darker, once more. This means two things:
1. We need to light fires to coax the sun back to us so it doesn’t go out.
2. It is waistcoat-wearing season again, huzzah! (For, incidentally, about the 7th year in a row).

In consequence of 2 (and the addition of my Drizabone, a nice gusty wind & my hat) I got described as “Looking very steampunk,” the other day. So that was nice.

Think that’s everything. Enjoy.

*Cite the source (where, who says it, and to whom) “Go in like the US Marshalls!” for a free pint at the Ship & Castle. Jimmy, I’m particularly looking at you, here.

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02.10.08

Well, since you’ve all stopped guessing…

Posted in General at 10:57 pm by Mister JTA

Fascinating set of responses to the Name The Song meme. I will do it again, when I have a moment, but I’ll do it by Random-from-a-specific-set-of-MP3s, not Random From All, which I think is why a few got missed, because even I reckon they’re hard.

Still, for those of you who may’ve wondered, the unsolved songs are the following,with full first verses for context.

1. Veracruz / Warren Zevon:
“I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns /
“I heard Maria cryin’ /
“Late last night, I heard the news /
“That Veracruz was dyin’”

2. Body of an American / Pogues:
“A cadillac stood by the house /
“and the Yanks they were within /
“and the tinker boys, they hissed advice /
“‘hot-wire her with a pin.’”

3. I don’t need this pressure, Ron / Billy Bragg:
“What was that bang, it was the next big thing /
“Exploding over out heads, and soon the next generation /
“Will emerge from behind the bike-sheds. What’re we going to offer ‘em /
“The exact same thing as before, with a different way to hear it, and the promise of a whole lot more.”

6. Time will show the wiser / Fairport Convention:
“My mind keeps on tellin’ me that this is no good /
“And my heart is aching, and tells me I should /
“But only time will show the wiser.”

7. 7-year bitch / Slade:
“You’re going round the circle /
“Through another phase /
“Your temperature rising /
“You’re wining and dining /
“A girl who’s half your age”

8. Low / REM:
“Dusk is dawn is day /
“Where did it go? /
“I’ve been laughing /
“Fast and slow”

Sins of the family / Oyster Band:
“She had a bad childhood while she was young /
“So don’t judge her too badly /
“Had a schizophrenic mother, who worked in the gutter /
“Woulda sold her soul to the devil gladly.”

…And that was it. You got all the others. And out of those even I doubted people would get 3, 8 & 9. Congrats!

I’ve just noticed a really weird thing. Lyrics don’t actually look as good if they’re written down than when someone says ‘em. Huh. Still, if’n any of them appeal, you’re welcome to come over and have a listen. Unless I’m feeling antisocial, in which case don’t.

And now I’m going to bed.

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Multiple Things.

Posted in Fun, Memes, Reflective at 1:57 pm by Mister JTA

Haircut:
Well, first up I’ve just had a haircut. Was surprisingly quick, and fairly painless. I don’t get on with haircuts, as a rule. Unless I know the barber I never have anything to say, and I just sit there gawping at my own reflection and wondering if I’m moving my head too much.

The barber in Hadley was a decent guy, once I got to know him, and Gino in Newport is the only chap I’ve met who knows what I mean when I say “Er, well, a general trim, I guess. Sort of a short-back-and-sides, but short on top as well, and I don’t want a fringe*”.

Also, of course, the hanging about while the queue depletes before your very eyes can be pretty lame, especially if you’ve not got a book. This haircut only took twenty minutes, though, thus getting me to the “really uncomfy feeling of hairs stuck down the back of my collar” even faster than I expected. Whee.

My face has mysteriously become oval**, and my eyes seem to have got bigger. Like I say, I don’t get hair.

On the plus side, I shouldn’t need it cutting again before the Spring, which means it should be able to grow to a nice warmish sort of length before the frosts come, thus providing me with further insulation. Win.

Supreme Court meme:
Sarah Palin has famously (in America, that is, over here we didn’t notice; I got this from zoethe) been asked to list some Supreme Court rulings, and came up with a grand total of One (Roe V. Wade, natch) before descending into silence. This pleases me, because that means I know more about American law than a prospective Vice President of the United States of America***. I can name two Supreme Court rulings, only one of which is Roe V. Wade.

Anyway, there’s now a meme. It goes like this:

Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historical to your blog. Any decision, as long as it’s not Roe v. Wade.

…then there’s some stuff about spreading the fun, but you all know I’m just showing off my dubiously-aquired knowledge.

Anyway, I pick the Only Other Supreme Court Ruling I’ve ever heard of (not bad going, really; I didn’t even hear about the Supreme Court until I was 19 or so).

I pick Hustler Magazine, Inc. V. Falwell.

Background to the ruling is as follows:
- Jerry Falwell is one of those famous TV Fundies.
- Campari is an alcoholic beverage, which in the 1980s ran an ad campaign where famous people “talked about their first time” (drinking Campari. See what they did there?)
- Hustler Magazine is a porno mag, the kind men read “strictly for the photos of the naked women.”

…y’can all see where this is going already, right?

Back in the early 1980s Hustler printed a mock Campari Ad wherein Falwell “talked about his first time.” The clever twist was that it was his first time having sex. With his mother, while they were both drunk on Campari. In an outhouse.****

Falwell wasn’t too pleased about this, and sued for libel, and hurt feelings, and what have you. Very long story short: it went to the Supreme Court in 1988. The Supreme Court had a think and then, by 8 votes to 0, came up with the following ruling:

The creators of parodies of public figures are protected against civil liability by the First Amendment, unless the parody includes false statements of fact made in knowing or reckless disregard of the truth.

Since the Ad in Hustler was listed in that edition’s contents as “Fiction; Ad and Personality Parody,” and since the fake Campari ad said it was a parody, and they didn’t actually think Falwell lost it to his mother whilst drunk on Campari [I'm paraphrasing], the ad wasn’t made in knowing or reckless disregard of the truth, but more in a spirit of fun.

Basically, “It’s OK to say such things about famous people, just as long as you don’t try and pass them off as being actually true.”

Given that Sarah Palin is a prospective Vice President of the United States of America, I’m growing really fond of that ruling… I mean, dinosaurs. Ffs.

Well lunch is nearly over, and I’ve got hairs all down the back of my neck. Guess I’ll leave the post about the N95, and the Answers to the bits of the meme nobody got yet for another time, huh?

Enjoy…

Footnotes:
*I’ve never worked out what a fringe is for. It spends three months growing into my eyes, gets chopped off, and then starts all over again. Why?

** Still, pudgy, but oval. Less moon-like, anyway, which is a start.

***For a given, and mainly wrong, value of “know,” anyway.

**** I honestly don’t know which bit of that paragraph I find more disturbing.

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27.09.08

I’ve been good and not uploaded a meme FAIL.

Posted in Memes at 11:53 pm by Mister JTA

But, y’know. I figure this will interest / infuriate at least, er, three of you. So there we go.

It’s one of those memes that has Rules, which I’ll chuck up for your benefit at the start, so you can work out what you’re doing, even if that turns out to be “thumping PgDn good and hard.”

1. Put your music player on random. (having first loaded all your MP3s into it, I assume)
2. Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. (Unless it’s spoken word, or entirely instrumental, or has a first line which consists entirely of the title of the song, in which case I’ve skipped it, as it’d be unfair on yez.)
3. Let everyone guess what song and artist (or musical) the lines come from. (Comments enabled. Knock yourselves out.)
4. Embolden the songs when someone guesses correctly. (Uhm. Kay.)

Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING! (In capitals, an’ everything. Must be serious…)

I’d just like to point out that 20 doesn’t seem like very many. I mean that’s, what, 1 song opening per 3 Gb of MP3s? [62Gb/20=3.1; please correct me if that doesn't make sense.]

Still, let’s see what kind of a mood the RNG’s in, shall we? (& nuts to Popular Culture.)

1. I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns / I heard Maria cryin’
2. A cadillac stood by the house, and the Yanks they were within
3. What was that bang? It was the next big thing / exploding over our heads
4. They passed me by / all of those great romances

–One of us / ABBA


5. I’m dancing on the White House lawn / sipping tea by the Taj Mahal at dawn

–Life is a minestrone / 10cc

6. My mind keeps on telling me that this is no good / and my heart is aching, and tells me I should
7. [large quantities of saying "Woah"] You’re going round the circle / through another phase
8. Dusk, is dawn, is day / where did it go?
9. She had a bad childhood while she was young / so don’t judge her too badly.
10. Turn away / if you could get me a drink of water / ’cause my lips are chapped and faded

–Cancer : My chemical romance My chemical romance


11. Everything has a beginning / everything comes to an end / Take it or leave it, you’d better believe it / be my lover, be my friend

–Hero (Sweden ; Eurovision, 2008) / Charlotte Perrelli


12. O is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel? / Ah, just twenty thousand people standing in a field?

–Sorted out for E’s and whizz / Pulp.


13. Michael wears his tan like a flasher wears his coat / he’s full of mad adventures, he’s full of anecdotes

–Dangerous / Fairport Convention


14. Isaac, nice chap / died of cancer / I gigged with him / many times

–Death song / PBH


15. I tried to come down from you / tried with your voice in my head, knocking me back, every inch I moved

–Curve of the Earth / Matt Nathanson


16. I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me / I still feel your touch in my dreams

–Every time we touch / Cascada


17. Papers in the morning / bowler hat on head

–Cardiac arrest / Madness.


18. A malady / has taken him over

–London lives / Blur


19. It was eyes down at the bingo / on that lucky Friday night

–Tux on / Marillion


20. Ron and Nancy got the house, but Sid and Nancy rule / I died eight years ago, I’m still a legend at my high school

–Alleluia / Dar Williams

… Hm. I’ve erred on the side of verbosity there, because I think the RNG is in an Obscure mood. Well, I say obscure. What I mean is “Things I don’t expect you people to know.”

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16.09.08

Service Announcement

Posted in General at 1:29 pm by Mister JTA

I would strongly reccommend that, excepting those few of you who may have reason to believe I’d go out of my way to help you, you all do the sensible thing and keep your distance.

Otherwise, I’m sorry to say, I shall be very much responsible for my actions.

That is all.

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16.08.08

“Pretty much spot on”…

Posted in Fun, General, Work at 2:24 pm by Mister JTA

…and other good ways for an optician to describe the glasses you’re wearing.

Buzzed over to D&A this morning (I say “buzzed;” I was there until the bank shut, which is going to slow everything down a bit). It seems there’s been some very minor shift in my left eye, but the difference is “less than half a lens” so it’s not actually worth changing my prescription. Win.

On the other hand, since they had a sale on, I’ve got some new glasses, because the frames on my normal ones are now three years old and getting a bit fatigued-looking. That and it’ll give me two pairs of glasses that have the anti-glare protection, which I anticipate being useful in the event that I get any insurance, ever. Which, to be fair, I will, it’ll just cost me lots.

It’s not the “costing lots” that I object to, per se, it’s more that the reason it costs lots is because they think I’ll use the car to get drunk and try and impress girls by doing dangerous things. I find that insulting; it’s like they think I’ve got to be 23 without realising that there are better ways to waste petrol than trying to make women fancy me. Pouring it down the drain, for instance, or into the water supply. Bah. I shall cough up nonetheless, and then fling the damn machine off the road when I fail, yet again, to tell my left from my right, I expect.

Anyway, I’m getting new glasses. More encouragingly, the optician woman seemed to think I was likely to stay on more or less the same prescription I have now for the forseeable future, which is a big step up from the last time I went and had lights shone at me.

I’m still finding work fun, and I’m still finding work tiring; come Thursday mornings I’m really having to struggle to get out of bed which, when I’ve got a reason to get up and start doing things, is unusual for me. I think, however, that I’ll get back into the swing of things relatively well; I’m still getting more sleep than I was when I was commuting from Wallingford, so I think it’s just a matter of adjusting to having a routine that revolves around more than “when the CoD4 servers are least busy.”

In other news, I was listening to, er, something, on the Radio yesterday, and caught a fabulous quote, viz:

“The Potteries, in the North of the West Midlands, are an unlikely setting for a revolution…”

Yes, that’s right, there’s never been a Revolution in the Midlands. All those integrated kilns and transport networks are just an example of a cottage industry that was allowed to get out of hand.

Well, it made me laugh. But then I had to slog though an entire Geography project on How The Industrial Revolution Changed The Area*. It seemed to involve a retail-cum-business park, but I could be remembering a different trip.

Ah well. On with the Weekend Tasks of Everything I Didn’t Do This Week…

*I didn’t actually do the project, I think I just handed in a few scrappy sheets of A4. But I was meant to do it, which is good enough for me.

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13.08.08

“Some kind of harmony…

Posted in General at 6:02 pm by Mister JTA

…is on the rise.”

D’you ever get one of those days where everything seems to be going well, and then it all goes arse-over-tit? (Usually, we call these ‘Thursdays’)

This isn’t one of those days.* Rock!

Indeed, having Passed My Driving Test, and had someone buy me a beer during a working lunch, I’ve come home and found an official-looking letter.

Reading the sender’s address I concluded “But I don’t know anyone in Worthing!” and chucked it to one side while I rang Charlie, the mechanic, who is “doing some work on the car,” which sounds expensive (although it didn’t feature that scary backwards whistle, probably because he knows I’m pretty broke).

Having then got rid of my coat, switched on the tower, and found there’s no Mountain Dew in the fridge, and that, therefore, I have to crack open the Thatchers, I opened the envelope.

Inside the envelope was a pamplet and a letter.

The letter explained that, after I sent my P45 off to the tax, they didn’t just send it back without looking at it (which is what I’d assumed they’d done, when it turned up again three days later). Instead they got to work Doing Maths And Things.

Basically, I overpaid on income tax last year, so they’ve sent me a cheque. A nice cheque. And, also, a really quite large cheque. Hell, if I cash this thing, I can probably pay for whatever work is getting done on this bloody car. Or else insure myself for three days, or buy petrol for six.

Although, having written this entry, I’ve discovered that Thatchers take orders for cider over the Internet… Hmm…

*Well, it is, I’m sure. But not for me, which makes for a nice change.

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“I cannot believe my eyes…*

Posted in General at 2:05 pm by Mister JTA

…is the world finally growing wise?”

I have passed my driving test. Huzzah!

Over slightly-more-than-40-minutes-because-the-traffic-in-town-was-horrible, I got no majors (obv), and lone minors in:

• Footbrake control (coming through the massive jam in town),
• Moving off control (thank-you right turn out of Waunfawr),
• Following distance (down, I suspect, Penglais Hill),
• Undue Hesitation, and
• Junction Observation (I have no idea where this was, because if I had, I’d not have clocked it.

Win. I can now go out and start causing real accidents!

Mike seemed glad to see the back of me, an’ all. Examiner was a nice guy, quieter than the last one, and with an intersting habit of marking the sheet only when he thought I’d not notice (eg, not immediately after I did something wrong, but some time later, which was damn unnerving when I realised that was what he was doing it). Friendly enough, though. And I got to find out what it is they say when you haven’t failed. Which was shiny.

More work with cataloguing this afternoon, which is good; I’ve enough experience of that for the lunchtime celebratory Spitfire kindly bought for me by my colleagues ought not to cause much of a problem…

This evening, I must ring Charlie Next Door and ask if that car of his is still knocking about. And the I can goconfusedsupermarket.com and be asked to present my nose for the purpose of offering payment…

’s a nice day, innit? :-)

* I came up with this post title yesterday evening, as I was trying to go to sleep (”Quote, Unquote” gets rare points for sending me off faster than chloroform). The point being, it’s from “On the Rise,” the song from Dr. Horrible where Dr. Horrible concludes the line “The world’s filled with filth and lies,” and Penny’s line is “Is the world finally growing wise.”

I figured this would be a nice any-eventuality title for the post. Yeah, I think about these things too much.

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11.08.08

Hyper linkage*

Posted in General at 11:28 pm by Mister JTA

For those of you some way behind the news, it was widely reported earlier this month that a frankly crazy woman in the USA had spent frankly crazy ammounts of money to get five clones of her dead ugly dead dog, which once, er. Bit a sheep, or did something heroic.

That’s the bulk of your background. And then the Daily Mail, of all things, did a bit of digging into her past, which prompted further enquries and a hotly protesting denial and I find myself confronted, on my nightly-before-I-go-to-bed check of El Reg, by the following headline:

‘Yes! It’s Joyce McKinney, admits Joyce McKinney,’ which made me laugh so hard I spilled herb tea in my lap.

It’s a shame that I desperately need to go to bed; It’s suddenly occured to me that this is a really good reason to watch Orgazmo, and it seems a shame to waste such a once-in-the-history-of-anything occurance.

On the other hand, I’ve got a warm bed, and pillows, and Tomorrow, Today! is about to start on the radio…

SHOCKER as JTA listens to Radio 4. Because it’s only been happening for the past twelve years. G’night.

* Winner, ‘Best Internet-related Pun of Summer 2008.’

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10.08.08

Another weekend gone

Posted in General, Reflective, Work at 8:21 pm by Mister JTA

But I have to say I’m enjoying the weekends a lot more now that they’re an interlude of time off, rather than just another part of the vast expanse of nothing that forms the bulk of my existence.

Of the five people I’ve spoken to on the phone this week, three have said how much more cheerful I’m sounding (and the other two aren’t people I speak to often enough for them to know how I normally sound anyway).

I discovered yesterday that my little tinny electonic alarm clock, which gets me out of bed by cunningly playing a very tinny, monotone, rendition of one bar of Lone Ranger-y finale bit of the William Tell overture until I stumble out of the duvet and thump it, doesn’t actually require re-setting. I’ve been dilligently making sure it’s primed to go off at 07:30 in the morning every time I’ve gone to bed this week, but it turns out that it automatically re-sets as soon as you hit the ‘off’ button.

That spoilt my plan to lie-in yesterday, but it did put me into a nice shallow sleep full of cool dreams about the Crimea, narrowboats and assorted awesomeness, so I forgive it for waking me on a Saturday.

So far this weekend I’ve had Yet Another Driving Lesson, in preparation for Another Driving Test on Wednesday (*sigh*). I’d really much preffer it if they’d just hurry up and give me a pink liscence now; I’ve been learning since 2004, and I know for a cast-iron fact I’m a damn sight better than some of the bloody clowns on the roads these days. Frankly, by this point, the question of whether or not I pass the test seems to be pretty much coming down to luck.

(F’rinstance, the reason I failed last time, on paper, was “Bad observation on a parallel park.” But the reason I displayed bad observation was that I was parallel parking after starting to move out from where I was pulled up to be told to parallel park, and paused while moving out, to let a cyclist go by in the opposite direction. Which meant I was very slightly on a wonk when level with the parallelising car. Ordinarily that’d not bother me, but since this was The Test I fretted over it¹, and was thus gawping out of the back window like mad, trying to make it work out OK. That was Bad Observation, which was a definite fail. Although it would’ve also been just as Faily a Fail if I’d gone out and caused a nuisance to the bloody cyclist. I’m not trying to say I didn’t deserve to fail for the badness, I just think the fact there was badness was due more to chance events than a lack of technical comptence on my part. Actual competence, yes, but I knew what I was doing. It’s not my fault the hypothetical Boy Racer had to potentially slow down a bit.)

Well, ’s give it another shot when we get to that, shall we? Although “Shot,” in the context of Penparcau might be an unfortunate choice of words.

This afternoon I’ve been doing further ironing whilst watching Firefly, which took me a mere two episodes, instead of last week’s four, so I seem to be speeding up as my arms remember what they have to do.

That doesn’t include the extra 30 minutes I spent trying to force the new ironing board cover to attach itself to the ironing board, though (Paul: we have a new ironing board cover, the old one was manky and wearing thin). Thank-you Woolworths, for your generously providing a one-size-fits-all that doesn’t until you take a Swiss Champ to the bugger (Paul: we have a new ironing board cover. Do not attempt to unpick the string binding it to the underside of the iron-rest. It’s a right pain to sew on with a Victorinox).

Meanwhile I’ve played through the whole of S101 [Link to S101 at Abandonia, a site where a large number of the screenshots seem to be from the Island of Horny Women. Hmm. A better link might be this one...], and am now started on S201, which, though I’ve been playing it for, hmm… *does maths* sixteen years I’ve only finished once, and now I can’t remember much of what to do.

O, and I’ve done all the washing up, although I’m about to create some more, unless I decide to just go hungry. That would be less effort in the long run, I suppose…

Still, given that I did pretty much zilch yesterday, and only really got round to Being Domestic today, I’m fairly pleased. I like having a structure to me life. Even if it does involve getting up at 07-30 and coming back home at 18-00 (and, actually, that’s a big step up on when I was commuting to Oxford, where I’d generally spend at least twelve hours from every day outside the house).

Going to go shower the bathroom in little bits of beard trimmings, now; trying to keep the thing to a respectable, summer-y length, rather than the usual “Neglected Russian Bear” I’ve been touting since October.

Apologies for the minor Meme spate yesterday; I was trying to write this, but it didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, at the time!

2. Yeah, an actual HTML-ed footnote for a change. Pretty snappy, eh reader? Doesn’t work in the LJ version, though. Lack of external linkage, presumably.

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Mansbridge, I await challenging!

Posted in Memes at 12:10 am by Mister JTA

Astonishingly, I did actually find myself having to think for this one. So I’m unecessarily pleased with my result.

Your result for How good of a Calvinball player are you?…

Your Grade= A++ Amazing Calvinball knowledge and strategy!

91% Game_Knowledge and 89% Game_Skill!

Take How good of a Calvinball player are you? at HelloQuizzy

In other news, today I have not been very productive. I bought a new ironing board cover from Woolies, which is good, because the old one is tatty, and then proceded to put off everything else I need to do until tomorrow, in favour of commencing a playthorugh of Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls (Spoilers!).

I’d forgotten how much of a pain the Island of Lost Soles can be. And still I love the thing.

Bedtime now, though. Some of us are having one Hell of a time adjusting to actually getting some work done.

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09.08.08

There we go, then. The hair proves it!

Posted in Memes at 1:53 pm by Mister JTA

Your result for The RPG Class Test…

Mystic Theurge

Take The RPG Class Test at HelloQuizzy

What? I wanted something to do quickly, while the kettle boiled.

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07.08.08

I’m getting up again in the morning…

Posted in General at 12:44 am by Mister JTA

…Which is why it’s a damn shame that I’m really vey drunk right now. *sighs*

I know I’m very drunk because I just walked back from Spar, with a bag of delicious pork scratchings in one hand, and a loaf of indifferent Spar bread in the other (for breakfast) and singing (just about under my breath, I’m not a complete spanner), singing, as I say, Fairport’s Time Will Show The Wiser, which my Zen dug out for me, which I can promise you I’ve not sung along to since, uh… well, the VIth form, I guess.

The problem here is entirely my failure to say “No” to other people (I can say no to myself like a demon, for what that’s worth). In this case, the fault lies with Dan, who not only bought me further beer so as to be able to tell me more about Midori (I asked. Damn you, El Reg!), but then also kept pouring his beer into my glass, so as to speed the Drinking Up once the Ship decided they wanted to go to bed.

(Ship and Castle: Draging JTA out of Sobriety since 2003.)

Work continues to go well, and be fun, as I’ll expand upon in a proper sober post (when I’m not just killing time by drinking water and trying to get the QWERTY keys to stay in their appointed places), although I’ve got Manual Handling training tomorrow,which I did not 18 months back with my previous employers (note how carefully I don’t say it’s the Bod, there; this morning’s training on Data Protection evidently held right up to the start of these parenthesese*), so I anticipate a certain ammount of feeling like I know this already. Probably can’t hurt to do it all again, though. At least, I think that’s the idea.

Anyway, it’s getting StupidLate(TM). Metabolism that Won’t Let Me Be Hungover, don’t fail me now!

Night guys.

Edit: 7th August 2008; 08-02
O, and we got given cake. That was cool.

MMM, tea. ’s All Good.

* Yeah. Drunk, but not completely mortal.

Permalink 4 Comments

29.07.08

From old men to axe accidents : I’ve been keeping busy!

Posted in General, Tech, Travel, Work at 1:08 am by Mister JTA

First things first: there’s now (at long last) an explanation of why this is called ElectricQuaker anyway. If you’re one of the ten or so that ever wondered about that, feel free to go have a read.

Admin over, let’s get this mammoth post done, shall we?

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, if I’m honest, so it makes some sense for me to try and get everything written down, or I’ll only forget it all.

A good deed goes around the town
Way back on Monday the 14th of July I was keeping myself busy with a whole pile of things to do, most of which involved Being Domestic, which I’m still getting the hang of. Annie was due in by an afternoon train, so I was scurrying over towards Morrisons around noon, with the intention of getting some actual provisions before she turned up and got the impression I’d given up food until Lent, or something.

Anyway, I was just crossing the Taxi Rank when I realised there was an old chap in one of those odd little electric scooters struggling to get it up the pavement, and with a similarly old lady trying to give him a shove. I went over to see if they needed a hand (not, I have to say, without some reluctance, because people can be funny about you if you imply that they’re not coping with this) and it turned out the scooter was busted; the battery was full, but the power wasn’t getting to the wheels.

I ended up wheeling him down Cambrian Street, so he could leave his shopping with the woman, and then up Great Darkgate Street to his flat near the ship. I’ve never before realised how bloody steep Darkgate is. It’s uphill all the way!

The Ruins of Rhodesia
He was a really nice guy, happily, and was a policeman in Rhodesia (as it then was). He’d been out on patrol, with some of his fellow officers, looking for rebels in the jungle, I think, and he was driving the lead Land Rover and sent it over a landmine. Killed two of his friends and messed up his back so he can’t walk properly. They pensioned him off and he’s come over to Wales to retire. Fascinating chap to talk to; although he’s not at all pleased with the way the old country’s been going lately, which is understandable enough, when you consider that if he lost his legs in a bid to stop the populous getting gunned down and then some nutjob with a toothbrush ‘tash took over and is gunning ‘em down without even the decency to sneak about and act ashamed of it.

Apparently back when we owned it there used to be tourist-garnering posters that read ‘Come to Rhodesia and see the ruins of Zimbabwe.’ After they got independence they changed the wording to ‘Come to Zimbabwe and see the ruins of Rhodesia,’ which, he pointed out, “Was bloody right.”

I really liked the guy; he honestly was a gentleman, and you don’t get many of them to the pound, these days. He tried to give me a fiver, and we had some little fencing of sensibilities where I was refusing to take money, and he said he’d feel better for having furnished me with a beer, but as it happened he didn’t have any cash on him, so everyone’s honour got satisfied by default, and we shook hands. Derek, I think his name may’ve been. Derek Cox? Not sure; I’m bad with names at the best of times, and it was a couple of week’s back.

It was exhausting work, if I’m honest, but it was nice to be on the giving end of some Aber Effect rather than just the bloke saying “Well that’s very nice of you, cheers!” (And I cashed in a whole bag of Karmic Points later, as we’ll come to presently). Anyway, whilst that did set me back by several hours, it all balanced out because Arrive made such a mess of the trains that Annie didn’t make it into town until the evening, anyway.

Gainful Employment
Tuesday the 15th was the first day of Graduation, which resulted in my alarm waking me up at ten to seven and chivvying me out of the airbed so I could take myself up the hill to work for Campus Clothing, which involved an exhausting ammount of standing up, and a lot of fun Selling Things (I really did like the Selling Things bit; quite appart from the fact that there are actually people out there who carry fifty pound notes in their pockets, every sale I made felt like I’d won, somehow. I don’t think I could do it full-time, because the only books involved are the nasty sort which require maths to be kept in line, but it was really good fun.

Cider and Conviviality
Limped back down the hill in the evening, and then everything goes into a blur for several days, because it’s been a couple of weeks now, and I’m not quite sure what happened when. But there were at least two days of getting rid of the mammoth beer stockpile, and on another evening Annie Soup-From-A-Stone-d me into cooking a pasta sauce (’Can you just chop the onions?’ and ‘Some mushrooms would really help this sauce’ and ‘If you just fry the mince I’ll see if you have any stock cubes which would help the flavour…’).

Matt and Paul seemed to spend a lot of time about the place, which was nice, and helped contribute to the speedy demolition of the Beer Stockpile, and there was some good Playing Classical Music At Two In The Morning, which I’ve always meant to do, but which is easier with people shouting out requests. And I’ve finally learnt the name of Night on Bald Mountain, which ought to save me asking Ruth what it is every single time I hear the damn thing, which is almost certainly a Good Thing.

Striding to the Soundtrack
Less of a Good Thing was the habit I developed of staying up until the small hours of the morning and then forcing myself out of a nice warm sleep as soon as the alarm began to bleat at me, but it turns out I do a damn good line in Willpower when I need to, and I was actually in the Arts Centre by the appointed hour every day. Go me, huh? I confess to only making it up the hill with the help of a very loud song on loop from my Zen, and that I do remember, because it went something like

Tuesday: ‘Myzsterious Mizter Jones,’ — Slade (with clearer audio & a plain background here)
Wednesday: ‘Protect & Survive,’ — Runrig (This version has much clearer audio, but static saltire instead of the actual video).
Thursday: ‘This Darkest Winter,’ –Runrig again. (I’ve worked to it for a decade or more, I can have ‘em twice! Fuzzy audio, I’m afraid, but the kickass lyrics are over here.)
Friday: ‘Hell March,’ — Red Alert (I suspect you can establish how tired I was from the extent of my need for hefty marching tunes. Hell March is the only thing to have ever got me from the Bodleian to St Aldates in under five minutes. Damn fine march.)

Anyway, I wasn’t just soundtracking myself; I was also selling things like crazy, with occasional breaks to go off and try and photocopy my expenses slip (in the process of which, I lost a tenner, because the machine ate it, and the people at the Issue Desk in Hugh Owen were not pleased when it transpired that I didn’t have (with me) my written permission from Ruth that I could use her card. Awkwardness. Also, dammnit, that was my tenner, that was!)

We sold out of all of the things we were attempting to sell, and got a lot of mail orders in, to save people from having to be dissapointed, so I’m anticipating some species of bonus from that. Mind you, the basic cheque would be nice; I think Charlie is due some more rent today and, whilst I can lay the money out, it would be nice to watch it coming straight back in again!

Commodore Cinema: Because you can only watch one screen at once, anyway.
Saw The Incredible Hulk at the Commodore, which was fun (and dear God, I loved that ending!), so thanks, again, to Paul for not only reserving us some seats, but also for showing us the projection engine and the telephone. I shall come and see that film that has a live-action arrow storm as a thank-you.

Annie didn’t leave on Friday as previously planned. I wasn’t actually there at the time, but there was something about Paul and Matt ambushing the train as the level crossing in Llanbadarn and hauling Annie off, and stealing all the US Mail, and things. Or, at least, that was what Paul’s text contrived to imply, so once we were done taking mail orders and the last of the graduates had dissapated Carrie got Rhys and I to pack away the stall, and I came back down to the Uberflat, and Paul made me a cup of tea that promptly went cold whilst I bemused every girl in every chemist in town looking for some hair dye that doesn’t exist in Wales.

There was hair dyeing, and ratatouille, and considerably more drink. And Matt somehow put a huge dent in my bottle of whisky, but I did say he was allowed, so that’s OK. The bath is not purple, either, so it is All Good.

Exodus
Come Saturday the 19th of July, however, pretty much everyone was due to be leaving, and I was up early (yet again. I swear I don’t know how I manage it) to pack, ready for the Hour of Leaving, at 09:30.

I think we actually got away at a little after 11, or possibly 12. By that point I was also carrying a vast saucepan, srtapped to the back of the rucksack, and a monitor, whose cables I forgot to untie until Dan actually turned up, leading to some infuriating last-minute banging my head against the underside of the desk, and trying to work out what went to the monitor, and what went to the old SVGA CRT that lives under my desk, and has, of course, exactly the same connector, when they’ve both been disconnected from a tower and are lolling about on the floor and getting one another in knots. Never attempt to untie technical goods in a rush; it just leads to undignified grunting and periodic curses.

I got fairly well jammed into the back of Claire’s car, which, though God knows how, actually had the power to haul everything we’d loaded into it, and then I went to sleep, which is my ususal strategy for preventing travel sickness, and which does, actually, work pretty well (although it does require a talent for sleeping pretty much anywhere, which I sometimes worry I am losing, but which seems to be sticking with me so far.)

Arrival in Cumbria
We made fairly good progress up to Cumbria, although I think Ruth would’ve preferred it if she could’ve slightly fewer hours attempting to entertain herself with the scant supply of entertainment provided by Penrith while we slogged up the M6 and dumped the contents of the car at the cottage in Mauld’s Meaburn and left Dan to work out how to turn the electricty on, and build a computer network for the code that was due to get hacked up over the week.

On the way along the A66, on one of the Dual Carriageway bits just after Temple Sowerby, we spotted a small child’s bicycle lying in the right hand lane. Slap bang in the middle of the carriageway. It was very surreal; I half expected Ogri to wheelie over it and yell “Oi!” at some deadhead in a Volvo…

Anyway, we pulled over in a convenient layby, and I got to use one of the Emergency Phones. 62B, it may’ve been. Very friendly woman on the other end, who didn’t seem cross that I wasn’t actually broken down, and she said that they’d send someone out to shift it, which can only have been a good thing.

We collected Ruth outside Penrith station, where she was standing and looking fed up with the whole damn dorp, and made our way to Morrisons to provision up (for there is, of course, no shop in Maulds Meaburn).

No, knot my thumb!
We’d all settled in fine, by Sunday morning, and had even got the Rayburn working (I, as a Hadley lad, had something in the way of an affinity with the thing, which pleased me, and it was good to be working with an actual fire again; ’s been too long!)

By Sunday morning, however, the fire in the Rayburn was out, which I’d expected to be the case, having damped it down the night before, and so I was attempting, with the aid of a small hatchet, to create some post-kindling sticks from some seasoned offcuts of pine planking (which I’m sure you know are the kind of thing you need once you’ve got the actual wood alight, and before you start to throw in big logs and coal).

All was going well. Basically a standard “You begin chopping wood with your axe. You cut off some dry firewood” repetition. And then things went kinda wrong, viz:

“You continue chopping wood with your axe. But wait! There’s a knot in the wood! The axe bounces! The axe hits you! You drive the axe into your thumb!”

Happily, and presumably as a direct trade-off against all that positive karma I mentioned stockpiling over the previous six days (which, let’s face it, was certainly worth a thumb, and probably a limb or two) the hatchet slammed into my thumbnail which, being a tough bugger, deflected the angle of the blade such that, instead of going clean through to the bone, I cut the fleshy tip of my thumb off, and missed all the major veins.

Panicked Ruth by stumbling inside, with my thumb in my mouth, mumbling through the blood, and with a great splodge of gore on my shoe, and going upstairs to get some toilet paper whilst refusing to tell her what was wrong (which, in retrospect, is the kind of thing that would make you think things were very seriously amiss). Tom, it turns out, doesn’t really believe in first aid kits, but he did have bootlaces, so I caught hold of one of those and Claire tied a tourniquet round it, as they tend to ask you not to do, nowadays, and that reduced the pulsing spurts of blood enough to get some healing going on.

Cue the tea, svp
Once the immediate bleeding had got sorted out I came down with the shakes and, for some reason, stayed pretty whacked out of it for the next few days, which was a pain. Although the fact I kept nodding off in the middle of the afternoon could also have been because of all the Not Sleep and Not Sitting I’d put in whilst selling things to Graduates, I guess.

Anyway, Ruth gave me some sugary tea, which fixed the shock reaction by politely pointing out that the British don’t kick up a fuss over trivialities like barely-missed mutilations, and we all piled into the car and went to Appleby in search of a chemist with a bandage.

Morrisions inexplicably comes up with the Goods
Appleby, however, is a town of decent, law-abiding citizens, many of whom were playing bowls when we arrived, and the chemist was consequently closed, because it was a Sunday. So we went back to Morrisons in Penrith instead, and a lovely woman called Geraldine patched me up, and the chemist came over and, upon being told “I did it cutting firewood,” replied, brilliantly, “Ah, yes. Well, we’ve all done it,” as if it was the most common injury in the world. (And, to be fair, you can see how it could, at least, be the most common injury in Cumbria…)

They gave me a nice packet of painkillers, as well as the usual stuff like tubular bandages and melanin pads, and things and so I was able to keep out infection and still make myself useful by sorting out the fires, and things (although Ruth hid the hatchet, and, as it happened, there was a whole bag full of just the kind of wood I’d been attempting to create, hidden away in a cupboard. Hey ho.)

Everything Else
[At the time of writing, it's close on one in the morning, and I didn't get too much sleep last night, either, so I find I am losing the will to add to the 2,800 words I'm told I've already got down on paper. Not much happened for the rest of the week, anyway...]

I’ve been learning some Ruby, and can now puts things like a demon. A demon who’s got a definite feeling that there ought to be more to coding than that, sure, but a demon nonetheless. Who knows, I might get beyond the ‘Writing a sarky DOS prompt’ stage that I managed with QBasic. Shall have to see, would probably be good to do something useful!

I do think more things may’ve happened, and there was a fascinating return journey that involved mountains and cliffs and a lot of running on petrol fumes, but I think that can wait until I’m not faced with a paltry six hours sleep! This has gone on quite long enough already; I’m sure most of the Internet doesn’t have this kind of attention span, anyway!

Dan, indidentally, has photos of the injuries, and things. I suggest the rubberneckers amongst you apply to him!

Am about to attempt to tag things. Hm. Wish me luck!

Goodnight!

Permalink 8 Comments

28.07.08

Praise the Lord for Mountain Dew!

Posted in General, Memes, Tech at 2:13 am by Mister JTA

A proper post with details on the last couple of weeks tomorrow, assuming I can find the time. Everything seems to have gone a bit hectic, lately, but I reckon after crashing out this evening I’ll be able to get something like a proper post done (in between running about and getting the airbed back of Dan and Claire so I can chuck it + pump at my sister when she turns up on Tuesday).

I think everything that I wanted to get working should be working, by now; looks like I’ve got Wordpress v. 2.6 up and running, at long last (It all broke horribly, and I couldn’t work out what on earth I was meant to be doing with it, until I looked at my watch, cursed the fact it was midnight, and cracked open a Mountain Dew to keep me going, whereupon my brain took a massive hit of caffine and realised that I should probably try commenting out the random security key they made me splice into the wp-config thingy. I am ashamed to have spent three hours trying to fix the sudden breakage of everything, and yet never once thought to try undoing the last change I made. Pitiful. Evidently you should all fill me up with caffinated drinks on a regular basis to stop me from becoming The Stupid.)

It also looks like I’m successfully exporting new entries on this blog to my old livejournal (which being the case will make that link go interesting, over there). I am Pleased about this, because if you go down a few entries on that site you’ll find the entry prior to today was made on the 11th of September 2005, and says “No I haven’t fixed the RSS feed [to make blog posts automatically appear here] yet. At some point, I’ll get someone good with computers to do it.”

Turns out that person was me. Whadda y’ know?

O, cool. this version of wordpress appears to come with a built-in word counter and an autosave. That actually almost makes up for the Many Hours I have spent looking at FAQs and then getting dispirited and going away and messing about with silly quizes, and things.

For some reason, the upgrade has eaten all of my old categories (specifically, it deleted all the names, which made them impossible to edit without manually changing the edit URL) so I’ve had to patch them together with guesswork. The ‘memes’ tag took a direct hit in the process, when I tried to convert things to tags, and then deleted both the tags and the category, so I’m afraid the memes will have to start again.

On the plus side, they can start again right now! Woo, and yay, and (quite possibly) horrible breaking of everything. I don’t know if I’ve done these before, because all memes feel the same and, of course, I no longer have a speedy indexing system, which prevents me from checking without effort. Still, let’s see if these things confuse the cross-poster, shall we?

Meme the first:

Permalink Comments

Back?

Posted in General at 12:34 am by Mister JTA

Seem to have updated to the latest version of WP. My control panel is all bubbly, it is absolutely foul.

And the categories have all vanished.

On the other hand, it’s taken me three *hours* to get back into the admin panel at all, because I am retarded, and run off and follow complex troubleshooters instead of undoing the last change I made when attempting to fix things.

Touch wood, it’s All Good again. Bear with me.

Permalink 1 Comment

27.07.08

?

Posted in General at 9:37 pm by Mister JTA

…

Permalink Comments

breakage

Posted in General at 8:48 pm by Mister JTA

or, at least, there should be breakage.

(I will explain what’s going on to RSS people, once I’ve got this all to work, I promise. Meantime just bear with me.)

Permalink Comments

Testing, testing…

Posted in General, Tech at 8:43 pm by Mister JTA

Sun, dock, trog?
…
Sun, dock, trog?

Permalink Comments

10.07.08

Ah, Hell, and I really thought that was going somewhere!

Posted in General at 1:00 pm by Mister JTA

Bloody stupid Master Mind Flayer.

I’d got past Vlad, and everything, best bloody game I ever had (although I have to say that vast piles of Amulets of Life Saving I kept running into didn’t half help. Tyr never gave me an artefact, though. Stingy git.)

[Incidentally, I know this is a massive long post, but, meh. I'm damn proud that there's such a long list. And I've cut out most of the inventory, and the entire vast contents of the happy Bag of Holding. Deal with it.]

Farvel Brunhilde the Valkyrie…

Killed by Brainlessness, 2008. Hp 126 [126]

Weapons
The blessed +3 Grayswandir (weapon in hand)
An uncursed thoroughly rusty thoroughly corroded +5 longsword
A +1 dwarvish mattock

Armour
an uncursed thoroughly burnt +0 pair of speed boots (being worn)
a blessed +2 grey dragon scale mail (being worn)
An uncursed thoroughly rusty corroded +0 helmet (being worn)
An uncursed thoroughly rusty corroded +0 pair of gauntlets of power (being worn)
A blessed fireproof +0 cloak of displacement (being worn)

Rings
An uncursed ring of regeneration (on right hand)
An uncursed ring of Slow Digestion (on left hand)

Tools
The uncursed Candelabrum of Invocation (7 candles attatched)
An uncursed bag of holding
The bell of Opening (0:3)
The blessed Orb of Fate (1:2)

Gems
6 cursed Emeralds named Em
4 Uncursed rubies
3 Uncursed diamonds
3 Uncursed luckstones named luck.

Final Attributes:

You were piously aligned.
You were fire resistant.
You were cold resistant.
You were sleep resistant.
You were shock resistant.
You were poison resistant.
You were magic-protected.
You resisted hallucinations.
You saw invisible.
You were telepathic.
You were warned.
You were displaced.
You were stealthy.
You aggravated monsters.
You had slower digestion.
You regenerated.
You were protected.
You were very fast.
You were extremely lucky.
You had extra luck.
Good luck did not time out for you.
You are dead (5th time!).

Vanquished creatures:

Juiblex
Medusa
3 iron golems
5 storm giants
a glass golem
a balrog
5 purple worms
a silver dragon
a red dragon
a black dragon
2 blue dragons
4 green dragons
4 yellow dragons
11 minotaurs
3 jabberwocks
Lord Surtur
4 baluchitheria
2 demiliches
Vlad the Impaler
6 stone golems
4 Olog-hai
2 Nazguls
2 pit fiends
3 sandestins
2 titanotheres
5 trappers
a baby yellow dragon
4 disenchanters
18 vampire lords
3 skeletons
an aligned priest
5 captains
4 shades
6 liches
a clay golem
6 nurses
3 ice devils
6 lurkers above
10 frost giants
2 ettins
a golden naga
4 black puddings
14 vampires
7 lieutenants
a watch captain
24 ghosts
a cavewoman
a queen bee
5 winged gargoyles
7 mind flayers
4 giant mimics
4 zruties
30 fire giants
5 ogre kings
6 ice trolls
8 rock trolls
6 umber hulks
a flesh golem
an Elvenking
3 doppelgangers
15 hezrous
7 bone devils
4 large mimics
a wumpus
7 long worms
5 stalkers
8 air elementals
5 fire elementals
5 earth elementals
5 water elementals
a hill giant
5 giant mummies
a black naga
6 xorns
17 giant zombies
11 elf-lords
22 sergeants
2 water demons
4 barbed devils
12 vrocks
a salamander
17 wargs
2 winter wolves
3 hell hound pups
4 small mimics
2 glass piercers
3 warhorses
5 steam vortices
16 xans
8 ettin mummies
6 ogre lords
8 quantum mechanics
24 trolls
5 wood golems
2 erinyes
4 sharks
6 electric eels
4 gelatinous cubes
6 pyrolisks
7 large dogs
3 freezing spheres
8 flaming spheres
7 shocking spheres
a large cat
6 tigers
8 gargoyles
a dwarf king
a tengu
11 ochre jellies
11 leocrottas
4 energy vortices
5 mountain centaurs
5 stone giants
7 elf mummies
7 human mummies
7 red nagas
3 green slimes
3 pit vipers
5 pythons
3 cobras
32 wraiths
3 carnivorous apes
12 ettin zombies
3 leather golems
9 Grey-elves
84 soldiers
2 watchmen
4 horned devils
3 succubi
6 incubi
3 chameleons
2 crocodiles
15 giant beetles
9 quivering blobs

17 cockatrices
23 wolves
9 winter wolf cubs
3 lynxes
a panther
6 gremlins
5 spotted jellies
25 leprechauns
3 orc-captains
2 iron piercers
17 giant spiders
7 scorpions
6 horses
3 ice vortices
5 black lights
12 vampire bats
5 forest centaurs
4 gnome kings
7 orc mummies
2 dwarf mummies
4 ogres
3 brown puddings
8 rust monsters
15 owlbears
8 yetis
3 gold golems
4 werewolves
18 Green-elves
4 giant eels
17 lizards
6 chickatrices
4 dogs
7 dingos
9 housecats
7 jaguars
3 dwarf lords
7 blue jellies
3 gray unicorns
4 black unicorns
2 dust vortices
13 ravens
7 plains centaurs
6 gnome mummies
12 snakes
9 water moccasins
14 apes
18 human zombies
4 rope golems
8 Woodland-elves
24 soldier ants
87 fire ants
7 bugbears
3 imps
3 lemures
6 quasits
2 wood nymphs
7 water nymphs
7 mountain nymphs
31 Mordor orcs
9 Uruk-hai
3 orc shamans
12 rock piercers
a rock mole
3 ponies
2 fog clouds
9 yellow lights
a shrieker
2 violet fungi
20 gnome lords
11 gnomish wizards
3 kobold mummies
a red naga hatchling
3 black naga hatchlings
a golden naga hatchling
2 guardian naga hatchlings
6 gray oozes
4 barrow wights
15 elf zombies
15 ghouls
5 straw golems
5 paper golems
5 jellyfish
2 baby crocodiles
21 giant ants
4 little dogs
9 floating eyes
4 kittens
16 dwarves
a homunculus
4 kobold lords
4 kobold shamans
6 hill orcs
24 rothes
a rabid rat
2 centipedes
4 giant bats
6 monkeys
12 orc zombies
19 dwarf zombies
7 wererats
2 werejackals
9 iguanas
49 killer bees
5 acid blobs
5 coyotes
5 gas spores
9 hobbits
11 manes
2 large kobolds
7 hobgoblins
5 giant rats
6 cave spiders
5 brown molds
4 yellow molds
2 green molds
3 red molds
76 gnomes
12 garter snakes
9 gnome zombies
9 geckos
19 jackals
4 foxes
3 kobolds
3 goblins
7 sewer rats
12 grid bugs
13 bats
12 lichens
8 kobold zombies
10 newts

2024 creatures vanquished.

Voluntary challenges:

You genocided 1 type of monster.
You never polymorphed an object.
You used 5 wishes.

Permalink 2 Comments

08.07.08

Wot? No extra credit?

Posted in General, Rants, Work at 1:23 am by Mister JTA

So, aye, I had me a driving test on Wednesday. An actual proper driving test, not just a common-or-garden DSA Driving Theory Test.

All things considered, it went very well, apart from the bit where I got a Serious Fault and failed. O, and apart from stalling the bastard machine turning right at the top of Mill Street three minutes in, but that wasn’t really a big deal.

The man made me do an Emergency Stop, which, to be fair, is not a maneuver I object to. Doing it on a one-in-four gradient, mind, is something I’ve never had to do before. I think that deserves extra credit.*

*sigh*

I am booked in for YAST in about a month.

Meantime, however, I have finally been given a cheque for compensation after some crazy woman slammed into the back of my mother’s car, shortly after she’d collected me from the train station in Telford, on the 22nd of December 2006, and gave us a whole bundle of painful whiplash. (She got out of the car and said “I’m so sorry, I was thinking about the shopping.” I notice she got a poxy driving license. *sulk, sulk*)

Still, a year and a half is a pretty good response time for an accident settlement, at least, as far as I can tell. And I had to do less of the bleedin’ legwork this time round, so it is all good.

Charlie, the guy who takes care of my mother’s car, and who saved my life when a five-year-old proto-JTA stood on the drive and tried to choke to death on a softmint, has managed to find a reasonable species of car, so it looks like I can actually buy a vehicle with my getting-crashed-into money, which I like. I’ll have to register it off-road, of course, until such a time as I manage to take a test that doesn’t involve being asked to do a parallel park, but at least it’ll be there when I need it.

Other news… Not much, really. I shall presently be spending less time in Trefachan, which is good. I shall shortly be spending an awful lot of time standing up behind a desk full of awesome merchandise, though, so if any of you Class of 2008 types get to read this on Abnib (unless it’s still broken come the 19th, of course) then do check out the Campus Clothing Website and encourage such relatives as you might have coming to stump up some cash for the goods.

The reasons you ought to do so are First, because it’s a comfy keepsake, which is rare in an age of Dresden Sheperdesses.
Secondly, that all the products come with your name on them, very small, and you can see all your friend’s names, too.
And, Thirdly — which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier — because I get a bonus if we sell everything.

On the other hand, I shall be working something like proper eight-hour days, and my sleeping pattern appears to be busted, at present. I flag until I take coffee at 20:00, and then I can’t bring myself to feel tired until gone two in the morning.

Happily, I suspect that a good constitutional hammering of the “up at 07:00, out at half-past, home by 19:00″ variety ought to sink any notion of not being sleepy by lighting up time and, co-incidentally, quadruple sales of Red Bull in the Union Shop.

For now, however, I need to go make myself a camomile tea, and catch up with what the World Service is doing. (Good news about Metropolis, wasn’t it? Caught that on the 02:30 news last week.)

* If that sounds familiar it’s because I’ve been banging on about it at every opportunity since Wednesday. Sorry.

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11.06.08

Self sufficiency : it’s laziness, but OK-ed by society

Posted in General, Reflective at 7:53 pm by Mister JTA

Seriously, I think I’m devolving into a slob. Well, no; I’ve never really had the drive to do anything but live slobilly, but I’ve always, at least, made an effort. However, it’s been a week and a half since Ruth vanished off to Oxford (that little? Scary) and I’ve spent most of that week and a half putting off the tidying up that needs doing until Wednesday. I even managed to keep that up when last Wednesday happened, so today it has got Beyond The Pale. Something Must Be Done, possibly including the laundry.

On the other hand, Rome wasn’t built in a day, so I might play a little Colonization first. (Yes, I know it would be funnier if I said Ceasar, but the balance of that game is all wrong. You cannot seriously tell me that an actual Roman city in the province of Fictionalia would really be full of citizens demanding a third hippodrome. Bah.)

I have come to the conclusion that I need a valet. On the money I’m making, however (and given the total lack of spare bedrooms and handy places to retire to of an evening) I do not think that’s very likely, so I am contenting myself with reading P.G. Wodehouse and sighing wistfully into the port. (By way of an associated train of thought, I have just realised that, back in September ‘97, my family found a fantastically large log in the former grounds of Apley Castle, and were unable to take it home for firewood because we’d walked out there. I think we hid it behind the wall of the layby. Damn thing is presumably still there, circumstances having intervened to make us forget all about gathering firewood. Bother.)

The neat little “circumstances having intervened” euphemism there happens to act as a segway to my mentioning the death of my Aunt Joan (great aunt, technically). I think she was 87, but the copy of the Shropshire Star with the obituary in it is somewhere amongst all the other discarded pages of the Shropshire Star, and I’m not sure how to go about digging up the relevant thing.

In spite of the best efforts of time and clumsy fat shits, I do actually have rather a large family, scattered about the place, and I tend to contrive not to see them, which is a shame. Of my Grandfather’s generation we’re now down to two; my uncles Jim and George, of whom the former had a severe stroke a couple of years back and is now stuck in a home in Oakengates (which I can’t help but feel must come as a nasty shock after living your entire adult life in Edgmond) and my uncle George, who has Parkinsons, poor sod. I think it must be a very odd thing, to watch the numbers get whittled down from the top end. (I’ve seen it from the bottom, of course, and it’s pretty damn lousy then, but I think being at the elderly end of the scale and seeing everyone dwindle away must be a deeply unenviable experience).

Ah well. I am going back for the funeral, which is happening at Lileshall, which is where her husband was buried. The fact that she divorced him, and went off with some other chap who is buried at Wombridge (and, from the very little I know of the arrangements) probably expected Joan to be buried with him, seems to be getting ignored because she changed her mind once they were both dead. One can’t help but feel that’s going to lead to some very pointed silences and awkward questions come the last trump, but I suppose that’s not really my concern.

The blame for my having done another meme is something I place squarely in front of Annie’s blog, but never mind. Apparently (and I am rather surprised by this) I’m good at social and spatial things. The spatial doesn’t give me much surprise, of course, but the notion that I’m good at reading people came as something of a shock. I suppose it must be a skill I’ve subconciously developed whilst sitting in the corner and wishing there were fewer people about so I could have a really decent conversation with any of the other people remaining, but it could just be that I’m a curmudgeon in spite of everything.

Weirdly, it thinks I’m better at Maths than I am with words, which is patently nonsense. I suspect the actual case is something more like “After working in a shop for months, you are now better at working out what combinations of purchases round up to a hundred pennies than you are at doing word-searches against time,” which wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I liked the “Fill in the gaps” quiz, though, in spite of the fact that it returns results like “Dank is a really rare word to have picked.” Less common than “Dark,” probably, yes. But rare? Doesn’t seem very likely. Not compared to proper words nobody uses anymore. Sirly, for example, that’s a good one.

Anyway, I probably ought to get on, rather than vanishing off into Tangent City. That second run through of Eternal Darkness isn’t going to play itself, either. Although, since it would be astonishingly creepy if it did, I think I’m fairly glad of that.

In point of fact, it’s taken me so long to remember I had this tab open, it’s not the evening, and I’ve done all the laundry and everything. I can tie things back into the general context of the post, however, by saying how I think I’ve played too much Eternal Darkness in the last week or so…

I’ve just finished cooking. I’ve still not quite got the hang of stirring things properly, and I ended up, whilst turning to get the pepper, knocking the stirry-thing in such a way as it catapulted some sauce up the wall, which I forgot about until I looked up from my pepper-grinding and saw the sauce dribbling back down over the paintwork.

At that point I tried to work out where I’d put the D-pad so I could cast a quick Restore spell and fix my sanity level. I feel like that reflects poorly on my abilities not to be a recluse, but I don’t really think so; I’m only waiting inside at the moment because my sister wants me to take a look at her draft Personal Statement and see what I think of it.

Anyway: Food.

Edit:
On the subject of Memes (still) I’m really quite impressed with how well I did on this actually quite good one one (good in the sense that it’s all literally textual questions, not interpretative ones); there’s actually a lot of really tricky ones in there; I was reduced to extrapolating from “which option most fits with the double commandment, rather than sundry dogma” so I throw my result up here by way of being a Smug Puritan. As per.