My Journal Recent
Profile
Calendar
Friends
Memories

Roleplaying
LARPS
Traveller
Mage

Comics
Grimjack

SF&Fantasy
My Work
Lord of the Rings
Reviews

Site Info
The Owner
Links

Munden's Bar->My Journal

My Journal

older entries

I was woken this morning by a cat bashing open my bedroom door. The creature did, however, have enough sense of self preservation not to come anywhere near me after entering the room and meowing at me. It is now sitting smugly by my right shoulder, after having demanded biscuits. No, I am not one who serves my cat masters gladly.

Having been forced out of bed way too early I found a baby weta on the kitchen bench. This was a baby weta, so it wasn't scary. I went to get my camera to capture it, but by the time I came back it was gone. That's a little scary. Ninja baby wetas infest my kitchen! Sounds like a Frank Zappa song title.

I did find tt most endearing that the cat also insisted on cuddles prior to biscuits. The forms must be followed. The cat gives you grins and snuggles and purrs and rubs, and then you give it biscuits. The cat is most put out if you just give it biscuits and can't be bothered accepting payment.

Speaking of payment @trentreznor has added the following to his great post about how to make it as a media star in the current climate :

Heh! Meet the Singularity folks..

Just after reading that I noticed this exchange between @warrenellis and some followers, which starts at the end of a long twitter rant about how there are no good large capacity portable miuisc players on the market now becaue they're all trying to look like the iPod Touch. Remember this is Twitter, so start reading from the bottom :



I had a succesful CD ripping session last night, reaccquainting myself with Billy Joel and his early SciFi-ness, such as Miami 2017 (lyrics).




That's one of the songs that makes me wish I could play piano. This was written before SciFi was cool, before Star Wars. The original has a synthesizer at the start, evoking air raid sirens. It seems to have taken on a whole new meaning to a lot of USAians since 9/11, the financial crash, and the drug cartels in Mexico. Just look at a few of the "related videos" on it's YouTube page. I hope Joel survives long enough to play it in 2017!

OK, must now hoover, and do other chores.

A brief round up of tabs I'm closing and stuff

So Serenity Adventures won Best Role-playing Supplement at Origins.

Kumi pointed me at Vex who do some interesting men's clothing

I've been doing chores all mornning, but that means the kitchen is clean and tidy and most fo the things are done.

Friday I worked at home due to the huge train fail. I spent the day writing image manipulation software in Javascript. Or should I say, finding examples of how to do varous differnt things on the web and trying to generalize them  and join them together into a single package that does everything my customers require, and works on multiple images on a single page  (which no single package out there already seems to do.) I now know more about differences in Javascript engines than I ever wanted to know. 

Now to get washed & dressed & down to the bakery for some nice bread and baked things. 

Last night I was sitting here thinking that I should probably empty all the dead insects out of the light shade in the lounge. The problem with these new-fangled long-life low-wattage bulbs is that you don't get to remove the shade as often as you would with normal bulbs, and thus the dead insect collection becomes massive long before the bulb wears out.

I was surprised to receive an email from Avaaz recently with the title : Nuclear weapons: the only solution. You see, Avaaz are this liberal action group, and while I would fully expect to receive such an email from "Christians Wanting To Hasten The Rapture" or from a science fiction mailing list when discussing aggressive alien planetary infestations, I was intrigued to see what Avaaz would think that nuclear weapons were the only solution for. Solving the water problem in Saharan Africa perhaps?

But no, unfortunately I was disappointed. It was yet another call for "elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide". It's depressing that otherwise smart people still believe that it's possible to put the genie back in the bottle.

There have been a number of things I have run into on the web recently that I want to record as being memorable.

I would have been more excited about FilthyGorgeousThings based on it's premier issue had it not turned out to be a teaser for a horrendously expensive monthly webziine. $19 a month ? Come on! Still it's got some good writing and some nice arty erotica, and is pretty styley for porn.  

There are these visualizations based on Twitter  from Mashable. I especialy like the "Just landed.." one. Then there are these pics of the Aurora Borealis from space.

There’s seamen here in front of me
And seamen in the rear
My God—there’s even seamen
Hanging from the chandelier

There’s seamen on the windowsill
And seamen in the yard
The seamen even left a stain
Upon the Saint Bernard

Although I am a patient wife
‘Tis more than I can bear
To wake up in the morning
With your seamen in my hair

There was fog in the Hutt Valley this morning, turning the approaching train into a shoggoth with lights. I didn't blame the driver for being a few minutes late if his visibility of the line was anything like our visibility of the train.

The fog seemed to seep into my brain though, everything from turning off the alarm till the first coffee at work felt like I was running on autopilot. This was perhaps due to certain amount of sleep disturbance.  It was comfortable sleep disturbance, but nevertheless I would have preferred to not get up this morning.

Probably due to the sleep disturbance, I dreamed a lot. The one dream I can remember details of was about attending  a NiN concert. NiN had a new line-up, which consisted of Boy George (yes, the Karma Chameleon one) on an impressive array of keyboards, and Oscar Keightley on guitar, and Oscar's sister on drums. IRL, I don't even know if Oscar has a sister, but in the dream he did.  

Speculation between audience members centered on whether it was Boy George, Oscar, or Oscar's sister that was making Trent Reznor happy at the moment. 

Finally finished watching Dollhouse last night. Beautiful little twist in the second-to-last episode around the identity of Alpha. Found the end of the final episode poorly constructed and didn't quite follow what was going on. It felt like it had been edited to the point of removing the important bits. Would say more, but am trying to avoid being too spoilery  for those that haven't watched it. 

I'd seen pictures of this Korean designer's work before, but it wasn't until @neilhimself posted this link that I realized that the guy who designs cthulhoid furniture like this

is named Chul an Kwak.

I think it would go very well with these concept yachts that @SallyMclennan and I will be running away on.



Any  women willing to wear bikinis are welcome to joins us, because, well, if one has such a yacht, one has to be a Bond villian, and have multiple bikini-clad women lounging around. Bonuses available if you are also a ninja assasin.

Speaking of which,  @SallyMclennan and I have finally been getting to the end of Dollhouse, and i have been enjoying the parallels between the Dollhouse and a geisha house. The characterization of the series is very anime-like anyway, the doll's favourite phrase "be your best"  is more Japanese than English, as is the design and structure of the Dollhouses. The drive of the boss lady ( De Witt?) seem very close to that of the geisha house mistrss in Memoirs of a Geisha. 

Also watched new True Blood.

Your result for The "Ten Most Famous Tori Amos songs" Personality Quiz...

( Read more... ) Fuck, that has to be the wordiest meme result ever!  Pretty close to the mark, though definitely not my favourite Tori song.  

Again it's Warren Ellis' fault, though this time via his Saturday Night Open Mic .

Those who don't like sex with octopi should not click on this link. Those that do*, should.

* You know who you are. Yes, there's more than one person on my flist who likes this sort of thing. Now you can all start speculating. Except for those who already know, who can cringe in fear of discovery, or bravely out themselves, it's up to them. .

Recorded for posterity :

One suspects the completion of that twat should be "...ne with hot boy"

On Twitter things go by too fast, and unless you tweeted them yourself are often hard to find again. So I'm gonna store a couple of links I picked up today, and if anyone who didn;t find them on Twitter, finds them here, then so much the better.

Firstly, via @warrenellis (y'know, the Transmetropolitan guy) , is the lovely steam-punk jewelery and design work of Molly Freidrich. Scroll through her gallery, there's some lovely stuff in there. @warrenellis is also responsible for pointing me at this BDSM Dress-Up Jesus paper-doll.

On the other hand I found this sequence of Sascha Baron Cohen's "Queen's Guard" all by myself.

Then via @neilhimself is an article from China Mieville about things he would like to read that other people have to write:. Speaking of @neilhimself, his last blog post contains a beautiful piece of prose.

I am currently doing my yearly (or thereabouts) sort out of all the paper bills I have. I've kept some for far too long. Also doing washing of bed linen, and airing-out of mattress in advance of the arrival of my love next week.

Just got back form doing some shopping and bought some bakery goods to spoil myself. Steak & mushroom pie, chocolate donut. Nom. Now for a coffee, and back into the sorting.

Addenda : More stylish erotica in magazine format : F/lthyGorgeousTh/ngs - Modern Love

Two songs have gotten stuck in my head due to the riding of trains. Last night I decided that Nick Cave's Loverman is absolutely the best lyrical representation of male lust.

This morning I decided I really like AFP's Delilah. Primarily because of the ancillary vocals that are almost a yodel. And because of the ending line. "Let's see how fast this thing can go", it seems like a perfect musical segue into New Model Army's 125mph, or something similar.

And now I has some True Blood Season 2 crack. Will I be able to wait to watch a nude Anna Paquin with my lady next week? May be I can instead catch up on Dollhouse and Supernatural. I'm way behind on TV watching.

Your result for Which Woman of the X-Men is Right For You? Test...

Emma Frost

Take Which Woman of the X-Men is Right For You? Test at HelloQuizzy

How appropriate!!

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/450355.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Another thing dug out of the piles reminded me of a certain friend :

Just downloaded Witch Girls Adventure Star Creation Guide for free! Will make myself some Witch Girls now. Just a minute... half of the girls I know IRL are witches... maybe I shouldn't make more of them?

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/450164.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Had an easy wake up this morning. Two people picked up TradeMe auctions they had won, and I did some tidying and sorting. Indulged myself writing some XSL to display various magazine databases I'm slowly compiling in XML. Such things are incredibly simple as web-apps, all XML, XSL, a touch of CSS. Add a directory of cover images if you want to be fancy.

Sorting through old magazines led me to discover an ancient 1981 issue of Rip It Up. Looking at the magazine was both nostalgic, and to me at least, interesting.

I discovered that in April 1981, Split Enz had just released Waiata, U2 were still pushing their debut album Boy, Phil Collins was selling his first solo album Face Value, Elvis Costello had just released Trust, and The Knobz had released their debut album Sudden Exposure. John Lennon had both the number one single with Woman, and the number one album with Double Fantasy even though, or possibly because, he'd been killed the previous December.

Split Enz were touring New Zealand prior to their first really big world tour, but Madness' tour was bigger news, taking up several pages of the rag.

What was really interesting though, was that the hot new Split Enz album cost $7.99, and you could get a free t-shirt with it if you bought from one retailer. This was before CDs, that was actual pressed vinyl we're talking about. So how did the cost of a hot new album, now sold on technology that is cheaper to produce, rise from just $7.99 in 1981 to a RRP of between $29.00 and $32.99? Well, inflation, which was at at 15% in 1981, hit the dizzying heights of 18% in 1987. Though it dropped dramatically at the end of 1987, and has been below 4% since about 1991(source), a little bit of calculation shows that, when adjusted for inflation, the latest hot album costs almost exactly the same now as it did in 1981.

That doesn't take into account technology changes, of course, and one can buy most albums for less than that as a download, or by hunting for a deal. Back then I used to buy sale vinyl for $2. I still have some of those, I got my copy of David Bowie's Space Odditty in a Woolworth's sale bin back in about 1976, and played it on a Columbia "portable" record player, that cost me $15. A couple of days ago OffTheBack was selling a half gig iPod-alike for $17.

Back then, we got to see Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange (but only if we were over 21!) after it was reclassified and finally allowed to be shown in New Zealand. Now I'm looking forward the new Bruce Willis Surrogates.

Finally, as promised for jennitalula, here's the Bollywood rip-off of Europe's The Final Countdown

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/449850.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Your result for The Steampunk Character Test...

Diplomat or Spy

Take The Steampunk Character Test at HelloQuizzy

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/449755.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I've been really slack in updating over the last few weeks. This is largely due to the amount of things that have been going on. If you follow seraphs_folly you may have picked up on some of what has been going on.

Basically, of the last month or so, much of it has been away from home, and much of the "away" was with seraphs_folly. But I want to try and capture some of it while I can still remember it, so here goes, an attempt to capture over a months worth of life in a single post. Note that it is huge, and has pictures!

( Read more... )

Phew that'll do me for now, I still haven't covered our adventures looking for houses while seraphs_folly house-sat for tyellas, or Conscription last weekend!

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/449006.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I'm currently reading Angel's Blood by Nalini Singh, largely coz she was a lot of fun at Conscription.

It's basically a "paranormal romance" about a female vampire hunter who gets involved with an angel while hunting another angel. While Nalini can write, and I'm enjoying it as I would a TV cop show, the book is as cheesy as you might expect such a thing to be, very much in the Laurel K. Hamilton style (except less actual sex).

The book also could have done with some better proof-reading, there's a couple of places where the flow of the book stumbles, and it looks like words are missing. The latter is a little disappointing seeing as Nalini is on the New York Times best-seller list, you'd have thought the publisher could have afforded to take appropriate care.

Nalini really does understand how power is sexy though, and although it's cheesily over the top, if the things she described were real, the actions of those involved are highly appropriate. I could imagine being any of the male characters, who, except for the hero's father, are either angels, vampires, or hunter, and would take the same actions they do were I playing that character. In fact, that's the feel the book gives me, of playing a classic, (cheesy), high level, Masquerade game.

Having stopped reading to walk from train to work, I turned on my iPod and the oracle gave me the Macy Gray/ Fatboy Slim collaboration Demons. The chorus line seemed appropriate to the point in the book where I'd stopped :

All of your demons will wither away
Ecstacy comes and they cannot stay
You'll understand when you come my way
'Cos all of my demons have withered away

The oracle followed this with Depeche Mode's I Feel You

I feel you, your sun it shines
I feel you within my mind
You take me there, you take me where
The kingdom comes
You take me to, and lead me through
Babylon

Which also seemed relevant, especially if, in both cases, you do what my mind does and assume that the word "come" is being used in it's orgasmic sense. I like how my random music reflects my reading of soft-porn with angels in it. Actually I've always thought that so-called random (or even pseudo-random) processes are the most likely to be affected by woo-woo mind powers... damn now I'm channeling my old CoX character.

This book makes me want to play a nastily sexual vampire again. I think I haven't been doing enough role-playing lately...

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/449006.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

A video of seraphs_folly torturing writer/actor/social media trainer Tee Morris at Conscription has been posted on YouTube.

The White House has issued a press release stating release that Tee Morris obviously deserves it, and that the USA will not be sending the Pacific Fleet to nuke New Zealand in retaliation. They also hope that this will distract people from those other torture videos they don't want to talk about.

(posted here so that those who missed it on Twitter get to see it, and so that I can find it again more easily!)

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/448604.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Scorpio Horoscope for week of May 21, 2009

It's your choice, Scorpio. You could be a creative dynamo who changes the course of local history -- or you could be a plain old boring sex maniac. What'll it be? We here at the Free Will Astrology Libido Management Center encourage you to at least partially sublimate your unruly mojo into beautiful works of art, innovative business solutions, and brilliant strokes of collaboration. You don't have to stop boinking altogether; just make it the second most important thing you rather than your raison d'etre.

Heretics! How dare they suggest making something more important than sex!

Not to mention, didn't someone prove once that the concept of "sublimation" doesn't work? That in fact, the more sex you have, the more creative/effective/whatever you are?

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/448329.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

If you were upset about the assault on civil liberties represented by s92A you should be absolutely livid over the current proposal for "cease & desist" orders, designed for use against "boy racers", but of course perfectly usable against anyone who ever drives or rides in or on a motor vehicle.

No court, no hearing, no evidence, just a single police officer's suspicion. You don't even have to be suspected of committing a specific offence - being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough. In fact, it's quite clear that you can be punished for the offending of others, without any requirement to prove or even allege that you were involved.

Also any breach of the notice becomes a summary offence (3 months imprisonment / $2,000 fine). Meaning that effectively, you can be put in jail for three months without evidence of a crime, and without a hearing, at any time on the word of a police officer. Because of course they will also have the power to decide if you are in breach of the order, possibly within seconds of issuing it.

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/447883.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

While waiting for my morning coffee to cool, I started cleaning the laundry.

I often work that way, need to fill in some time so start something, and then find that the time has become more than filled. Had to force myself to sit down to drink the coffee before it got cold.

Anyway, I was cleaning and I realized that the Frigidaire dryer we have has been amazingly long-lasting. It's older than my eldest son ferrouswheel. I know that because Little Nan bought it for Ele and I while Ele was pregnant, saying that we would need it for the nappies.

This, as reminiscing often does, led me to think about Little Nan, and her partner, Big Nan, both of whom have now been deceased for many years. Big Nan was the one who was my actual grandmother. She was a huge woman, who did all the manly things, like drink., smoke, chop wood, etc. It was Big Nan who first taught me rudimentary woodworking skills when I was staying with them over the school holidays. These days, I'd call her butch, but I didn't know that term back then. It was merely the name of a dog in a cartoon. She was Big Nan because she always towered over me as a child.

Little Nan, however was "my size" as a child. She had grown chubby and roun, in her old age, but she must have been one of those tiny , elfin, size ten, women when she was younger. She, like the classic boggan, made the tea, cleaned house, and brought us breakfast in bed. When I had been a good boy and gone to bed nicely, or when I had woken from a nightmare* and they had taken me to bed with them to comfort me, I was allowed to eat breakfast in bed with them.

Little Nan and Big Nan slept together in what I remember as a wonderfully fluffy and warm bed, that caught the morning sun. My memories of that bed are of the safest and warmest place in the world, bright and white in the morning. At the time, the fact that the two nans slept together in that lovely bed seemed like a perfectly natural thing for a pair of nans to do. That there were two of them, and that Little Nan wasn't really my grandmother, I sort of understood, but they were the Two Nans, and they did what the Two Nans did.

Interestingly no-one else, at least in the memory of this child, made any comment at all about the potential oddity of this relationship. Now I look back on it and tend to assume that they were a lesbian couple, but one has to remember, this was England, and last century. The concept of pairs of women "companions" though potentially providing a cover story for some lesbian couples, was a strong one, and just the fact that they lived and slept together, and that one of them was tiny and feminine and the other large and butch, would not be considered enough evidence to pronounce them as lesbian to the world.

Now I wish I knew whether they were or not. Actually, it doesn't really matter if they were lesbian. They loved each other and me. They gave me some of the best memories of my childhood.

*I remember one such nightmare was triggered by the cop show Hawaii Five 0 in which a criminal was using special effects to make it look like the godess of the volcano, Pele was responsible for his murders. I dreamed of angry volcano goddesses.


This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/447560.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

older entries