It was my birthday yesterday, and it was a wonderful day. The day started by getting up relatively early and eating the strawberries that seraphs_folly had prepared for my breakfast me the previous evening. She'd removed the greenery from almost an entire punnet of strawberries, so I was unable to finish them all for breakfast!

I headed off to work and kept nicely busy, so the day passed quickly with a minimum of stress, and several happy birthday wishes via txt or twitter, and then it was down to Kazu yakitori where seraphs_folly had already started on the lychee chu-hai, and she began to ply me with beer (Asahi).

I was also surprised by a pile of presents on the table, topped off by a beautiful cat-shaped birthday card (I'll post a pic later). Even though she had already given me a birthday present (a watch), and there was another birthday present on the way in the mail (something naughty), and even though busy with her latest house project, my love had gone out of her way to pick up some presents for me to unwrap.

The wrapping paper was also memorable, possibly the richest wrapping paper I've ever received, thick heavy paper, embossed with gold glitter, etc. It was so beautiful I didn't want to damage it, so I very carefully plied it off to reveal...

Well, I was expecting a couple of little things, just to give me something to unwrap, more "stocking fillers" than real presents, as I'd already received, or had ordered, some lovely presents. What I got was presents that were in many ways more impressive than those I already knew about.

My love told me that she'd gone into Comics Compulsion and asked the guy there to show her "the prettiest things he had". She'd sorted thru these and made her choices trying to ensure they weren't things I already had. And so I ended up with the hard-back version of Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell's The Dream Hunters(1) and Absolute Death. I am very spoilt, and I'd say that these were the best presents ever, except I seem to be saying that every time about the things my lady gives me. It's wonderful having someone who knows you well enough to buy surprise presents that one really likes.

We ate and drank our fill, edamame, karraage, miso. In the process I discovered that the Kazu peppered steak is divine. We moved on to Cafe Eis for dessert. I had an ice cream that tasted like biscuits and coffee. From there we weaved a somewhat drunken way to Reading Central, and determined we had to wait a bit to get Gold Lounge seats for 2012 We filled in the time by trying out the iFeel (or some similar name) massage chairs in the lobby. It was a little disconcerting being held by the ankles, pummeled in the back of head, and anally-probed, by an intelligent chair.

The Reading Central Gold Lounge is not a particularly good deal these days, without the free drinks and popcorn, and with the seats being a bit worn and clunky after several years of use, but the seats are still nicer to relax into and we had some of the best ones. Based on the trailers, I now want to see several movies, from Sherlock Holmes (if only for the laughs) to Avatar (Even though it worryingly reminds me of the second Star Wars trilogy, combined with Matrix 2 and Starship Troopers the TV show).

As to 2012, well, as expected it was a big, dumb, special effects movie that was a lot of fun. It had many common Hollywood tropes, from reconciling a divorced couple with kids(it happens all the time in movies, I'm not sure it ever happens in real life) to killing all the people who have sex. But there were very few times that the pace got slow or there was unnecessary padding, the only places where I felt that was where some characters lingered a little long over their good-byes and kisses when there were important reason for them to hurry. I enjoyed several things, like the fact that the lead drove his Russian mafia bosses limo, which was one of those armoured, over-powered things, with bulletproof tires, designed for taking gunfire and for combat evasion, through the initial escape, giving at least some justification as to why the car survived that sequence. And then the Russian pilot found possibly the only aircraft that could have gotten them out of Las Vegas like that, an Antonov AN-124 Ruslan (NATO reporting designation 'Condor'). I also loved Woody Harrelson's character, and you could tell he was enjoying it too! The Yellowstone eruption sequence looked great, regardless of it;s technical accuracy.

There were so many enjoyable little touches, many of which made me LOL, I can't list them all and of course, the spectacle. Overall I think it's well worth watching in a big theatre while tipsy, probably not worth getting on DVD though unless you have a 60" screen and a really good sound system.

Waiting for the Gold Lounge showing meant we didn't get home until almost midnight. When I got home I found I'd received a lovely email from a close friend which really topped off the evening, and then when i remembered to turn on my phone this morning (having turned it off during the movie) I found more birthday txt messages.

And just a few moments ago, my love informed me that she had also purchased tickets to Neil Gaiman's talk next year for she & I.

A really great day that made me feel very loved and special.

Just finishing this at work while waiting to head of to BBC, followed by TNC.

All I need now is a day of relaxing at home to remove the shrink-wrap and really appreciate my presents!!

1. Not to be confused with Neil Gaiman & and Yoshitako Amano's The Sandman : The Dream Hunters. This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/458460.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Tui Ad  "Two girls kissing is technically the same as two boys kissing -  yeah, right! "

Not up to the usual standard , I don't see what the "yeah, right" is all about this time?  It is the same, at least in the sense that both are two people of the same sex kissing. What's the problem? Are the Tui ad writers homophobes??

Also saw a "Royal Wolf" container. I want one to live in. Or to store certain things in.

We left a class of school kids standing on the platform this morning, because their teachers had bought "economy" tickets, and they had to wait until after nine to use them.  

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. 

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

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.

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.

I woke up too early and lay in the still slightly unfamiliar spare room watching the morning light filtering through the Venetian blinds. Above me is a light fitting that looks like an alien space craft with three weapon modules attached at the best of times, it does so even more in the grey morning light.

Hearing birds and wind noise in the trees behind the house I start thinking about the back of the house. I realize that I, and presumably no-one else I know, has been up the back of the house in years. There is an entire hillside with a shed and various other constructions, footpaths, trees, etc, stretching several hundred metres to the ridge of the hill which has not been visited and viewed by anyone in several years.

This gets me to thinking. There could be an entire cannabis plantation, or a family group of gypsies, or a rent in the fabric of the universe, nestled amongst the trees on my hillside. I think the next fine day I am home I shall have to explore and check that there are no nefarious goings-on going on on my hill behind my house.

It strikes me though, that carrying out such an investigation alone is, if we take the example of video fiction as a guide, a very poor decision. It's almost guaranteed that I, as a lone discoverer of anything untoward, will be killed, probably just before I am about to pass on my discovery through which ever means of communication comes to hand, be it just as I am about to press the send button on a txt, or just about to call out to wasup_bro in the house below. Then of course my body will be dragged back into the lair of whatever creatures are responsible for my demise, and my death will not be discovered until someone wonders why I haven't been on-line in a while, or my company tries to discover why I am not at work.

If the nefarious creatures behind the house are clever, they will replace me with something that seems like me, but probably on closer examination, will be distinguishable, perhaps by it's lack of interest in sex, or overly calm demeanour.

Therefore, perhaps I should delay this exploration until such time as a proper expedition can be organized? Maybe complete with porters & bearers? But who has interest in exploring a couple of thousand square meters of pine forest on a steep hill? More importantly, is there anything that one can do with such a space? I suppose I can think of it as my personal carbon credit producer, but it seems that I could be doing more with it.

In other news, I just received an large collection of Victory Games' long out of print James Bond role-playing game, at between $4 and $5 per boxed set.

Having got this lot, it now makes me think that perhaps I should run a game. I remember the game system being simple and clean, with some lovely mechanics for chases and fame, and the game introduced the concept of "Hero Points" which were gained for good role-playing, and allowed you to adjust your chances of success in such a way that something that might be considered completely impossible in real life, might actually be achievable for your character, which is appropriate for a game based on a genre where the hero can fall out of a plane without a parachute and end up landing safely!

Also, by dose is running! I think I have ad a cold for a couple of days, but it hasn't got bad enough to do anything about. The dose is annoying tho

Yesterday I spent much of the day cleaning up the spare bedroom and cleaning and drying the furniture from the master bedroom, before moving my furniture into the spare bedroom.

The most fiddly bit of the cleaning was cleaning the venetian blinds in the spare rooom. They're quite trendy blinds, as you'll see below, but they take a lot of cleaning, and certainly needed it. I aslo cleaned windows, both the intereior and exterior, of all the rooms down the back of the house.

I'd just finished most of the heavy lifting when Ele & Ben turned up. This was good, as I needed a rest and some social time. I surprised Ben by pulling out Singstar and a lot of fun was had by everyone playing Singstar (Ele, being the only female present, was better than all the boys, with only wasup_bro coming close. I suspect panda_pitt may have given her more of a challenge.

Then I went out and grabbed Hell for tea. I had planned to do this anyway, given that I had a token for a free snack pizza and had to get some shopping done too. It was raining before I left, but while I was driving it became absolutely torrential. I got a little wet ordering the ppizza, and then drove to the supermarket. While wandering around the supermarket I got yelled at by an employee. He'd gotten my attention because one of the the milk containers in my trolley was leaking and I was leaving a little dribbly trail of milk all down the aisles.

Back to Hell to get the pizza and home. Unfortunately it was my day for dribbly produucts, and the Unearthly dessert pizza I'd picked up with the free token had basically slid of it's base. Was still edible though.

Ele & Ben left around 7pm and I got back into moving my stuff to the spare bedroom. The surprising thing is that the bedroom suite and other things go really well in that room. ( Here's a couple of piccies  )

Obvioulsy the crappy old pink carpet looks out of place, but with the additoin of some of the blue/gray carpet like in the downstairs bedroom, it would look quite good. We've found the final resting place of that bedroom suite.

I did all this moving to clear out the master bedroom so that I can get serious about re-decoratiiong it. So decorating decisions will need to be made at some time. But I'm not even worrying about those decisions yet, I'll need to get the all paper stipped, the walls plastered and sanded and undercoated, and the trim sanded and undercoated before thinking about what colour goes on top or which bed to buy.

I have to admit I am tempted by this bed. Or this one. But they are a bit out of my price range and suit English manor house better than my 1970's suburban house, regardless of how I actualy decorate it. I'm thinking of wooden flooring for the hallway, and am tempted to do the same for the bedroom, if only to make any cat deposits easier to clean and to reduce the dust.

I finally got to bed around half twelve last night, after having a shower. Last night was the first time I have slept in a room other than the master bedroom since moving into this house. In other words, until tonight, while at home I have slept in the same place for twelve years. I slept well. I even found it easy to sleep in the morning , though whether that was more because of the exertion of the day before and the cold weather, I'm not sure. But the room is smaller and thus seems a bit cosier. I quite like the blue and black, though I suspect it's probably a litttle cold as a colour, and maybe sleeping in the classic colours of bruising might be the wrong thing to do long term. Then again, maybe it would be good camoflauge? :)

Not sure I can be bothered doing any more today. Had good plans, but it's already after midday and I haven't really woken up yet. Weather makes me feel like curling up in bed with a book. There are those I'd prefer to curl up in bed with, but unfortunately none of them are here. Maybe a coffee will get me moving again...

(decades)

Yesterday I went on a cleaning binge. I hoovered and dusted most of the upper storey, removing several months worth of dead flies and other insects form the windowsills and environs of the lounge. I tidied away mountains of stuff that had sat out for ages, such as the props boxes which had sat spread out on on the landing since KapCon. There is much more floor space visible in the house now. I mopped the kitchen much more thoroughly than I had intended to, after knocking over ma bucket. I use leather cleaner restorer on the leather lounge suite. I cleaned the bath sink and toilet. I did and tidied away washing.

Last night was a long awaited Jarratt's Mage game, where I ate too much havarti and enjoyed everyone's company. I like the fact that exiledinpn is now considered a role-model for young children!

I still need to do a little more hoovering and washing, as well as filling the bin with garden rubbish, cleaning out some gutters and the like.

Today I went on a shopping binge. First I went to Mitre 10 Mega in Upper Hutt. I wandered around trying to remember all the little things I had planned to pick up. I now have a sieve, which we noticed the lack of last night. Picked up a new cover for the ironing board, something I'd been meaning to do for a long time, the current one''s ratty nature was one of the reasons I put off ironing things. I picked up polyfilla and sand paper to begin on the hallway, and a litre or so of moss & algae killer, as the decks and front door area are getting a little over-green and damp

Then it was to Farmers. I bought a new pillow, as I'd decided the old one was getting a little flat and Farmers had them on 30% off which, when you're buying a top-of-the-line duck down pillow, represents a significant saving. Lets see if I sleep better tonight than I did last night. Though last night did result in some interesting dreams which I may document separately.

While in Farmers I also picked myself up a new belt, as the old one had just about given way. I was pleased with my purchase, as when I approached the belt stand I looked at all the fancy belts on the front of the stand, which were selling for around $30 each, and were mainly made of plastic and cardboard. I wanted a leather one, and while I found one nice leather one it was in the $40 range, and wasn't quite what I wanted. The I realized there was a back to the belt display. There sat a whole pile of pure leather belts at just $14.95! I suspect they were ancient stock, but I just wanted a plain leather belt. It took me a few moments to find one in my size and in the style I preferred. None of this silly fake snakeskin look for me, nice thick and plain, good for a flogging as well as holding up trousers! :) I'm tempted to go back and get another one, that's a damn good price for a leather belt these days.

Unfortunately, I also looked at their clearance racks. So now I have a pair of plain white business shirts, and a couple of floppy wide-brimmed sun hats, all at $5 each.

having made it out of farmers without spending more money (I am always tempted to buy new towels and sheets when I'm in there) I went to Wendy's for a shake & dog, and discovered that my stomach has definitely grown smaller. I discovered I was unable to eat the entire dog as well as suck down the whole shake. I often treat myself to a Wendy's thing when I have the cash. Next time though, it;s gonna have to be something with that moccachino ice-cream they have.

Having failed to eat the dog, I decided to risk browsing The Warehouse, and ended up buying the Blu-ray edition of the two disc Dark Knight, as The Warehouse was selling them for $29.00, which IMO is pretty good for a relatively recent blu-ray release. Finally I dropped into Pak&Save and did the normal $100-odd monthly shop there. Now I'm siting down to a drink and a relax preparing mentally for the next lot of work. The problem with being (effectively) single, working, and having a house, is that weekends can be completely filled with household chores, especially when you spend a few of them away, like the last weekend.

Not that I'm complaining, last weekend was one of the loveliest I have spent with seraphs_folly. I arrived late and got introduced to her new car, a sexy CRV with heated seats (just the thing if you want to drive around Christchurch pantiless I reckon !) . Saturday, we began with Drexel's yummy spicy chicken quesidilla, some shopping for Obis and finished with Japanese delicacies manufactured by a Minx, in a Masonic lodge. Sunday, we drove to Hamner, having parmesan dumplings at the Nor'wester Cafe in both directions, and soaking in the hot pools in between. The Flying Quill flew several times as my lady sped down the Lewis Pass approaches, as we sang to the Simon&Garfunkel on the CD player. The evening was also very memorable, but I shan't go into any detail here. :)

Monday, which I'd taken off to make it a long weekend, we did the Drexels quesadilla again, and then we drove over to visit She Chocolaterie, and we had an interesting conversation about the set-up there, which went a long way to explaining it's ambience. Turns out it's a bit of a commune, and the staff don't mind their hours, because they live and work together there and in a couple of nearby houses. We'd taken Dougal with us, with the intention of either heading toward the Gardens, or the beach afterwards, or both. But the She experience had been quite long and slow, so we decided to head straight to the Gardens, on the off chance that boating was still available on a Monday, as seraphs_folly had never actually been on the Avon in one of the canoes. I was a little worried at going in the canoe with Dougs, but he was relatively well behaved, just insisting on barking his excitement at the trip loudly at times. Both the hound and the lady found the experience immensely enjoyable, so I didn't mind doing all the paddling. The Canadian canoe we had did catch the wind, so sometimes it was a bit of a dance keeping it balanced on the wind, to avoid being driven ashore. Afterwards we took Dougs for a run and swim and ball chase.

Next week is a bit full on, with a munch, Amanda Palmer, a TweetUp, and ferrouswheel's birthday, and somewhere in all that I'd like to fit in Watchmen as well. Ah well, back to work! Before I spend to much time looking as these nude porcelain dolls

Seems like I've gotten out of the habit of updating here. I mean I don't think I even posted about my last visit with seraphs_folly two weeks ago. This is partially because I often write from work, and I've actually been quite busy recently, developing a prototype for the Police, and consulting for a couple of banking industry modernizations. But it's a Friday afternoon and I have a slight lull over afternoon coffee, so a quick update.

The visit with seraphs_folly was lovely, going to some wonderful and expensive breakfasts, eating far too much, wading in the sea with my love and her dog, and having numerous odd things happen, that made me think of a term familiar to role-players - 'game bleed-through", where things that occur in game somehow inexplicably end up in the real world, except it wasn't a game that was bleeding thru.

Some of the examples I can't talk about in public, but one was that on the way back from Sumner I saw a sign for "Thai Food" something which is quite common, and though that maybe one might use the Thai for food or that even "Thai cuisine" might serve to distinguish one from the many signs saying "Thai food." I invented "Thai Kai" which might be an interesting Maori-Thai fusion restaurant.

seraphs_folly suggested that one could use "Thai Po", as it would be both a great little pun , and she thought that "po" meant a type of food somewhere in Asia as well. Then, that evening as we drove into town looking for food, we saw a new restaurant, labelled "Thai Pho", a Vietnamese-Thai fusion. seraphs_folly swears she hadn't seen the restaurant before, and I can confirm it certainly wasn't there the last time I was in that bit of Christchurch a few weeks earlier.

Things happened that were a surprise, as well as enjoyably painful, and there some photos made, of which lucky people have seen at least one, my love posing with her new drum. Overall it was a lovely weekend and it was a shame I had to come back, but being picked up at the airport by jarratt_gray (& evie_fae, who'd come to keep him company) was a ice way to ease back into being home. They picked me up because I'd been lending them my car as theirs was out of action, and I saw a lot of the Piwakawaka couple over that week, with jarratt_gray dropping me at the train station and picking me up, so that he could use the car during the day. This was all a cunning plan to get jarratt_gray cooking, and it worked well, with him cooking up a lovely Japanese feast for evie_fae and I last Saturday evening.

It consisted of karaagge, onigiri, fried onigiri in ponzu sauce, and soba noodles in peanut sauce (apologies if I've forgotten anything). Photos of the feast exist, perhaps the chef might deign to post them for your edification one day. The feast was accompanied by a dessert wine is only worthy of mention because of it's name, "O" . There were jokes about giving people a big glass of "O", and whether when one got tired of "O", you moved on to "P".

Sunday, I actually posted about the gardening I was doing, but I didn't mention that when pulling honeysuckle vine from places where it wasn't supposed to be, it slipped off my glove and I got a couple of nasty red burns on my wrist. For the next few days, whenever I was in a short sleeved shirt, it looked like I'd been cutting my wrists. Today there is merely a faded "Z" shape.

Tuesday wyldcard & I flew up to Auckland to see NiN. It was fun, and I don't regret doing it at all, especially since Trent said he wasn't likely to be back to New Zealand again, but it felt a little flat, perhaps because of the very small number of people there. The Vector Arena is not a large venue, and it was certainly not full. One suspects that they barely broke even on the concert, if that which might explain the lack of encore.

One thing I found amusing is that while I have no idea who the support act was, I knew their sound guy, James G. He was lucky, being flown up, and put up, and getting into the concert for free, and no doubt also being paid for it, but it's great to see that he's getting enough of a name for himself in the industry that they'd do that for him. It's good to be surrounded by such a lot of varied talent.

I missed out on meeting up with both amphigori & lamprey, and ferrouswheel, but did run into a number of other unexpected peeps, including one couple I think was from Dunedin.

As to the show itself, to me the first two tracks were nothing special, not being that familiar with NiN's more recent stuff, and I'd question the mix, which turned it all into a wall of indistinguishable sound to someone who did not know the songs. I found it didn't really get started for me until the third track, Discipline, which is a favourite, for reasons which will be obvious to those who know me well. :) From then on it rocked, with Trent switching between walls of sound and quiet ethereal airs. Hurt was especially good. I know some people were disappointed at the reduced lighting set, but I think it worked well enough for what was quite a small concert really.

Got back to work just after 11am the next day, after only just making our flight, even though we were less than ten minutes from the airport, largely due to elderly tourists.

Thursday was curry night, is everybody happy?

But not just yet! I've just removed several cubic metres of biomass from the drive and surrounding areas. I never intended to do this, I just intended to go out and throw some old carpet in the bin, and sweep up some leaves from around the front door. What is it about pulling weeds out of gardens and cleaning up drives that sucks you in like that?

Heck now I want to go and clean out the gutter and a number of things before it gets dark. Where did this activity come from? Maybe it was from the lovely Japanese feast jarratt_gray cooked for evie_fae & I last night? Or that it's the first reasonably cool bt still dry and sunny day we've had in ages.

But I had to stop for a drink, and spin off this post. The latest blog entry form Neil Gaiman links to some fun stuff! I suggest following some of the links!

Now, some food, a bit more drink, and out into the jungle again!

And yay! I just made almost another $150 on TradeMe, the NiN trip on Tuesday night is paid for! :)

...in the morning

Yesterday afternoon and evening I felt unduly warm, but passed it off as the general temperature of the day. Discovered this morning it was actually a fever of some kind, as I awoke to my alarm going off, hot, sweaty, with a pounding head, and a strong desire to fall straight back to sleep. So I did. There's little point trying to work through complicated programming issues when feeling like that, as it would just be a waste of time.

So I'm at home. Which means I'll miss out on all the Tuesdays happenings( UP, John in Macs, fire, etc.). Luckily, there'll still be time for a John at TNC later.

It seems like many people I know on LJ are starting WordPress blogs. I thought I'd point out for those people a couple of things, firstly, that they can import their LJ into their WordPress blog, and secondly, there is a great little WordPress plug-in LJXP, I just set up on Sally Mclennan's blog, which will echo your WorpPress posts to LJ, and also, if you so desire, direct people back to your blog for comments. Of course for the latter you need to have admin access to your WordPress installation to install it, like any WordPress plugin, but if you do have that access or know the admin and can ask them to set it up for you, I recommend it as very easy to install and configure, which worked as advertised, simply, and with no fuss.

A little late, this one, but time is full with things like saying bye-bye to fraser_by_proxy, and commiserating with my love over her car damage and other on-going issues, as well as actual work that drags me in and makes me forget time going by.

Tuesday night I went to see Leonard Cohen, supported by Sam Hunt, with jenni_talula & her parents. Prior to the show we ate at One Red Dog and were joined by Lee. They have bread that isn't quite as good as Valentino's (in Chch), but is still nicer than many, and Orangeboom on tap. I had a chicken, cranberry & brie pizza.

Getting into the concert was relatively painless, less queuing than Armageddon even, but then everyone had already booked tickets, so processing was fast.

A bit after 7.30pm Sam Hunt came out. I've never been all that impressed with Hunt, one of those more likely to refer to him as "Some Punt", to use the less naughty version. Still, he was entertaining enough, and it takes a certain amount of guts to stand up in front of such a large audience and read your own work to them.

I was surprised that Hunt read Yeats' The Second Coming, perhaps because it's so iconic and well known, and so apocalyptic, it seemed out of place amongst the home-town theme of his other readings. I was just as surprised finding that I could still recite it along with him. He also recited a well known Baxter piece, The Gunner's Lament, again a surprising choice seeing as it's been all over the NZ schools curriculum. But I quite enjoyed his translation of Hungarian poem by someone Hunt called Joe Attila.... I suspect that Mr. Hunt may have dissembled a little in his description, as the poem sounded far more like a classic Hungarian folk song than anything by Attila :)

There was a break in which jenni_talula bought an expensive t-shirt that seemed to have just about enough material in it to make a pair of panties. I didn't buy one, even though I quite like the pseudo-Celtic interlocking hearts design.

Then the man himself came tripping onto the Persian-carpeted stage, receiving a standing ovation from a goodly part of the crowd just for being there. I think it may have surprised him, he seemed quite moved by it. There was a little banter during the set, apologizing for the rails in the front row ("as if he was the sort of performer where people would try to throw themselves on the stage"), commenting on media reports of his "short stature" by saying he could barely be seen with the naked eye and that he would star alongside the Colossal Squid as the Colossal Shrimp. He spoke also of this being his first time on stage in fifteen years, and that last time he was just sixty, and "a crazy kid with a dream".

The backing band was awesome, the flamenco player from Barcelona was a virtuoso, and the wind instrument artist (saxophone, clarinet, oboe, you name it, he played it) really got into the songs. I really liked the way, when a player had a solo, the rest of the band, including Cohen, all pointedly directed their attention at the soloist, so that you would too, and how when singing harmonies or counterpoints they looked at each other to ensure they got it right. Cohen twice introduced the members of the band, once in the first set and then again in the second set.

At one point I got quite worried about jenni_talula, as she started shaking at the shoulders and breathing raggedly and hard. I was thinking "surely his voice isn't as effective as that guy on Black Books was to Fran...", because you know, if it was I'd have been taking lessons, but no, the lady had merely gotten so excited over listening to her favourites songs that she had briefly forgotten to breath.

Overall it came across as a "light jazz" concert, just with that voice. I listened to older Cohen recordings yesterday, and his voice is much more impressive now. In the past, while it had slightly greater range, it was slightly whiny and didn't have the current deep timbre. Now he sounds more like Richard Burton than Bob Dylan. Also in listening to recordings I discovered that the recorded version of the songs on the I'm Your Man album are all arranged in a light synth-pop style. The full jazz band makes them have much more depth and power. One track, Tower of Song, was done by Cohen in exactly the same way as it was done on the album, with just synth and vocals, and you could definitely hear the difference. I suspect that Cohen did that on purpose.

He read A Thousand Kisses Deep, an old man in a suit and hat, under a plain white spot, looking like Frank Sinatra playing a Humphrey Bogart detective under a street light. The link is almost what he read, but still not quite, it seems he changes it all the time.

The way Cohen moved on stage reminded me, oddly, of xenogram dancing.

I had to sneak out in the middle of First We Take Manhattan, the second encore, in order to get to the last train home, but was accosted in the steps by a Radio New Zealand reporter with a microphone asking me about the concert. I didn't come across well, as my mind was elsewhere, so I suspect I didn't star on radio.

I got to the train with a couple of minutes to spare, and then, oh Great Fail, I discovered I hadn't copied my Cohen songs on to my iPod yet! I thought I had, but no. So I listened to Nick Cave instead. But not for long, because an old friend got on the train and we did some catch up. Not enough though. Will have to invite him round.

Twas good to have dinner with the crowd last night, seeing fraser_by_proxy off to Qatar. Also got to wish Norman happy birthday, and here's a belated birthday wish to repotn_infinity! Am looking forward to wishing tyellas a happy birthday this evening. There was speculation on why there seems to be so many biorthdays at this time of the year last night. No conclusions were drawn.

Its been some time since I've made a post here, perhaps because I have been spending my time living life rather than writing about it. But this evening, the first evening I have had at home with an actual internet connection, and nothing more pressing to do since my post-Christmas post, I feel inspired to write.

Perhaps by Tori's Little EarthQuakes which I drove home to, and which I always love, with all those classic lines which sound like parts of my life, which is I suppose what the good songs always do.

Perhaps by the lovely hand-stitched book from the Sisters Pegg I found in the mail when I arrived home. I've been reading it on the train, and the thousands of gold threads in the weave of what appears, out of the light, to be a slightly shiny, but plain, brown cover, sparkle like a golden sea as the sun streams in to the carriage. It is a special book, and it feels special to read something hand-made and the ultimate of limited editions. It certainly gets some interested looks. The humour of the twins shines through and makes me giggle at times. Irreverent and evocative high fantasy describes much of it. But I haven't finished it yet!

I have to reiterate that one of things I love is knowing all these creative people and enjoying their opera. Last night I was myself a wee bit creative coming up with a way of having a nicely techy looking eye-piece for the Mafia 2017 LARP at KapCon on Saturday. I'm going with simple costuming, a wee bit of tape and some cool gadgets all bound together into something that actually still performs it's original function. Hopefully it won't look too quaint

Or perhaps I was inspired by the lovely night I spent in the Botanical Gardens at Garden Lights on Monday with bigby_wolf, jarratt_gray, evie_fae and another J. It was quite magical, invoking the spirits of Changeling games, and all got into the spirit of fun, there were fluttered eye-lashes, discovery of shared interests, boy hugs, climbing of ex-trees, doorways to other worlds, no pookah, monkey gargoyle ninjas on guard, and a lot of fun. The music in the sound shell wasn't entirely awful, and added to the mood, for me at least making the place feel like a mini Woodstock But the highlights were obviously the lights and the bubbles. Next time a camera is a necessity, as well as a little preliminary practice with low-light non-flash settings, because some of the visual experiences I enjoyed that night would surely have had people saying just how did you get that image. One view I had, of bubbles floating across a combination of bright green and purple plant materiel under trees toward a swathe of long grassed hill is likely to stay with me for a long time. As will the perfectly dressed little Asian girl jumping for bubbles, while her mother tried hard to capture what would surely be a lovely memory on her cell phone camera.

Then again, maybe it was the previous week spent more-or-less alone with my lover. The Paunui house has a very private courtyard, and the sun was bright, we found lovely swimming locations. We travelled back slowly, stopping for lunch with Mum in Tauranga, where we watched the conclusion of a harbour swimming race from the deck of a restaurant built over the water. We saw stingrays from the tower. Then it was on to Rotorua, down the lightly used, almost new, and very well constructed State Highway 36 via Pye's Pa. There we stopped off for a milkshake and to look at Rachel Spring.

When we arrived in Taupo we ran around looking for a motel, and seraphs_folly got a special deal on an executive suite with a thermally heated spa pool. We used the spa pool, went out to Dixie Brown's for dinner. I heartily recommend Dixie Brown's if you're in Taupo, the staff are great. after that we had a swim in the lake, and retired to the motel to watch the Dr. Who Christmas Special together, which was a lovely end to the day.

seraphs_folly has already posted about our decadent last day on the road, but for those who may have missed that, let me take you through it. We awoke and climbed into the spa pool to wake up. We dressed and packed, and went to Dixie Browns for strawberries dipped in chocolate, pancakes with bacon and fried banana, and coffee. Then we drove further down the road and paid $10 to ride some off-road Segways around. That was cool, almost managed to jump mine on one of the wee mounds, and they were even easier to control than last time, though off-road is a different experience, and not quite as safe-feeling, the gyro's react interestingly when only only one wheel is in hole in the ground, then we took off for Taihape.

Inspiration may also have come from the week prior to that spent with holding_pattern, grendel_khan, and the Canadians, relaxing, sleeping, eating, and drinking. There seemed to be an emphasis on breasts much of the time (grin) , B makes some nice Pizza, holding_pattern makes a very nice bean thing with taco shells (sorry, can't remember it's name! :) ) and rummikub is a fun game. There wasa frog. The fireworks on New Years Eve were spectacular, and due to the smaller harbour, much closer to us than they are in Wellington, I experienced lots of those "falling into the spread of fire" effects. I arrived the day after the others, and the next day we went around the rocks to the cave.

Phew, now for more Metal Gear Solid 4 - Guns of the Patriots.

I ought to do a post about Christmas, especially as from tomorrow I may be less able to post, as I'll be relying on Vodafone for my net connection, for at least a week. Also, I'll probably have to share it with seraphs_folly. I'll be going here to stay with seraphs_folly in her family's beach castle, along with holding_pattern, grendel_khan, and mellific, among others.

So, Christmas day was spent with the previous immediate family, Ele, Ben, wasup_bro, panda_pitt, and ferrouswheel. I received some great presents. Ele surprised me by getting me Tori Amos' American Doll Posse, I also got The Clash's singles collection and three DVD's : U2's ZooTV, a history of The Who, and the original BattleStar Galactica. ferrouswheel picked me up some amusing gaming clothing that will be debuted at Kapcon. And wasup_bro gave me this ork dreadnaught, or given what it is constructed from, perhaps it should be called a "can" :

    

Isn't that a cool creative thing? Must have taken him ages! :)

I would have posted sooner, however I have been hooked on playing Metal Gear Solid IV, and Grand Theft Auto IV on my new PS3. It was a breeze to set up, and I had it talking to the WiFi and connecting to the net pretty quickly, though it took over an hour to be usable, as it first insisted on downloading an OS update. The games are wonderful, especially on the Sony Bravia I picked up last year. Metal Gear Solid IV is especially good, really giving you the feel of being in a Middle Eastern battle with "irregulars", they must have employed some consultants! Though watching the lighting and all the things going on around you in Liberty City is also amazing. The humour is as good as ever too! When I managed to pull myself away from the games, I found I could easily stream audio and video from the media server on my PC to the PS3. Now I can watch the downloaded TV on the Bravia! If I got a good sound system for it, I could play my music through it too. That will have to be next on the list!

I am feeling quite flash and bedecked with the latest in consumer technology. I will be driving up tomorrow in my 2008 Barina listening to the music on my latest generation iPod. Appropriately, I am without any real money and will be living entirely on credit. Because that's how it's done! :) In the new year, I promise will become responsible and hold myself to the tenets of Thriving on Less, but until then I shall be a model of all that one should not be doing in this current climate, and a real consumer whore. It's like I feel I need to do all this now, while it's still possible.

Thriving on Less has made me think though. Especially about it's core of "focussing on the essentials - what you value and the love the most." It's an interesting exercise trying to sort out a short list of four to five "essential things". I'm afraid I'm coming to the conclusion that what I love most is collecting things, researching them, organizing, and displaying them. I suspect it is hereditary as it shows in my son Ben's continual happiness with sorting cards. I think perhaps, were I to have my druthers, I would be a museum curator, but of course I would have to be the owner of said museum so that I could chose the collections it would display and which I should archive.

I'm afraid the wording of the previous paragraph, and of this, it seems, is unduly influenced by the motion picture of which I am partaking whilst creating these sentences. I'm currently finding that I'm enjoying Lost in Austen far more than I should for such a fluffy Mary-Sue thing.

Ah well, as usual the country goes down the tubes, and I have a good time. It's rather funny really, although the election was won in almost the worst possible way, it will make me better off.

At least the cartoonists will have someone who is even easier to make jokes about than Helen, and those who have forgotten, or just aren't old enough, to remember what the current National team were like when they were in power eight years ago will get a reminder. Yes, other than the leader, the team is exactly the same, and basically pull puppet Key's strings. So much for voting for change, instead people have, probably without even realizing it, voted to have the government they hated eight years ago.

It may not be nice to laugh as New Zealanders fuck themselves, but large numbers have given their consent to be fucked, so who am I to judge their masochistic choices? Especially as it will give me more money.

Of course I didn't know anything about the election until a lady came into get the depression beaten out of her at the Fetish Ball.

I had a fine time, the performers were great, Mark & Fly-Girl making the most of our somewhat more relaxed performance laws to go all out, the Hellfire club team were great fun, borrowing our cross for their naughty sailor girl performance, evoking 1940's pin-ups, and Lady Xanthi and her pony Rivendell took pony-play into a new dimension, with some great costuming and staging. The show began with a fashion show from Thornapple Boutique, and the gear was yummy. I was pleased not all their models were slim people.

Said hi to lots of people including yonderman and J who told me how great ferrouswheel did at BM, and who encouraged me to come to Kiwiburn.

It was nice being in an atmosphere where sexiness was everywhere, and people wanted to be looked at. I had to smile at one lady in tight pink PVC hot pants as she slid her EFTPOS card down the front of them, about the only place she could have stored it! There were some great costumes, and many of the guy's costumes were as fun to look as the women. The burnt and shrivelled angel wings on the back of one guy were impressively constructed.

Much of my night however, was spent managing access to The Cage. It turns out many young ladies dream of dancing in cages. Often in pairs. And they were all very friendly and scantily dressed. I think I'll be having dreams of what I observed in or on that cage yesterday night for some time to come! And that a cage needs to be an accessory at any future party! :)

Next, to do it all again, but with less pressure, in Christchurch!

So, I've voted, picked up a parcel from the post shop, got fresh bread & hot pies, done a little shopping, and now I am relaxing with coffee and big chunky ginger-nuts. The sun is out, the birdies is singing, there is a bustle of activity around the township, as people do their Saturday morning thing. I'm waiting now till one, when a trailer and driver will appear to cart the cross and cage off to the Ball venue.

I feel happy and relaxed. I've had several great nights in a row, Tuesday was a great munch, good turn-out, lots of funning, then I was impressed by Obama's gravitas on Wednesday night with a luminous tyellas, followed on Thursday by a great TNC where I drank too much "falling down water" and reminisced about being in the military with the head of TUANZ, as well as hearing about a certain lady's exploits when she had a green mohawk.

Then last night argentbear had his pirate birthday party, which came complete with fireworks in a suitcase, courtesy of a crazy Australian, and I got to say hi to people whom I haven't seen in years. The night finished with the Bear, evie_fae, and I dancing to a medley of songs, from the Sister's Dominion/Mother Russia thru a recent cover of Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me, to The Clash's London Calling.

The others didn't seem to remember Cheap Trick, though in this case, it's not because of the age difference seeing as their first album named after that song came out in 1992. Oddly, they're currently touring Australia, and are in Brisbane tonight. But having listened to the original version again on their web-site , the cover is played faster.

Of course with all this goodness there has to be some balance and sacrifice, and this time it was the headphones of my mobile, an ear bud caught in the door of the car while I was picking up Pirate Beer from the New World, and ripped off due to my not noticing the snag soon enough.

So, now it's just the Ball this evening, then clean up on Sunday, and I'll be done with a week that will surely be remembered for a long time. Maybe I'll get a chance to pop into the Sexpo after set-up. Though I'm sort of avoiding it, as I really can't afford to buy anything and I'm afraid I'd run into Evan Stone and go all dribbly

Then it will just be waiting for four days in Christchurch including Southern Exposure, another Fetish Ball, and a birthday.

Well, almost. seraphs_folly could have not had the sniffles, and then it would have been nicer for her. Still 'twas a nice two days and three nights. My lady arrived late Friday, and we went straight home. In the morning we met up with jarratt_gray & evie_fae for brunch, then went home and prepped for tyellas' Mad Scientist party, filling it the remaining hour or so with playing with the new toy.

Without going into too much detail, we have come to the conclusion that all wars could be stopped by air-dropping pallet loads of said toy(with appropriate power supplies) into combat zones. Both cheaper and much nicer than cluster bomblet munitions, but providing more "bangs for the buck." I can see it now, the Valkyrie Air Corps in their DPM cut-offs and khaki under-bust-tied fatigue shirts, shoving pallets of HMWs out the back of a pink C130 Hercules with both boxes and parachutes marked with a big red "O" Thanks to those who managed to "liberate" one for us. They know who they are. And seriously, if you haven't got one, you should. As soon as possible. Really.

Then we picked up chinese and headed round to tyellas' place where she introduced us to chocolate & peanut butter ice cream, which was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, as I don't usually like peanut butter itself, except in sate. In fact, it was delicimus. The home made vanilla was lovely and tasty too, much better than commercial vanilla. Then people turned up to help prepare the party and I got chained into my "Igor" costume.

There were some pretty impressive costumes, T's aviatrix with aerial wings and mini-jet pack was perhaps the most inventive, though the aetherial energy effects of the wings would need to be added in post. It was a very relaxed party, except perhaps when khaybee decided to actually tie the arms of my strait-jacket together and seraphs_folly decided to feed me beer. Or when the bucket of dry ice started making dangerous noises. We did discover that dry ice hypnotises roomfuls of people, and that tyellas is a dry ice pusher, providing it free to neighbourhood kids, presumably in an attempt to get them addicted young.

Things wound up, and we went home to watch the first two episodes of True Blood. Yummy. Finally, a TV vampire show done right, with just the right amount of sex and squalor, and some stupendous dialogue, along with believably stupid characters, and nasty violence. Not for the faint-hearted or prudish though. I mean, a show that in one episode has a major sub-plot based around vampire blood-induced priapism isn't exactly kiddie materiel, is it? Lovin' it at the moment, the mixture of Southern tropes, heat, bigotry, sex, and the supernatural, reminds me of parts of Warren Ellis' Hellblazer run, tho it is based on the Sookie Stackhouse book series by Charlaine Harris, which, unsurprisingly, I haven't read, as the author normally writes Ellery Queen style mysteries. The series is produced for HBO by Alan Ball, previously famous for Six Feet Under

We finally, after lazy snuggling, fell asleep at around half three in the morning, awaking in time for brunch and a drive to visit seraphs_folly's publisher in Waikanae. Back home and a quick run to Piwakawaka to pick up more True Blood crack, which filled in time till dinner jenni_talula & Lee, whom we hadn't caught up with in ages. Afterwards I found it amusing that we spent much of the time talking about toilets. Such scintillating and appropriate dinner-time conversation! *grin*

Prior to dinner, I had shown m'lady the bed in Okooko which she had previously seen on the web but not in real life, and which she is in love with, and she showed it to our dinner partners.

Back home, more True Blood and early to sleep due to m'lady's early Tauranga flight in the morning. Shame we couldn't have caught up with more people over the weekend, but it was the first time we'd seen each other in almost two months. so there was need of a certain amount of alone together time.

The lady returns Thursday afternoon, and we will probably be going straight to JJ's for early BBC, followed by TNC, as she is going through Dawaat bhaji withdrawal. Later in the week I'll hopefully confirm the BBC, so if anyone wants to catch up, they can pop in to JJ's between five and seven, whether or not they're not currying.

Friday I'll be seeing her off in the morning again, so she can have a dirty (labour) weekend with argentbear, holding_pattern, and grendel_khan, while I go and play a cute wee dispossesed anime girl called Emba in grandexperiment's Lambs of a Nameless God at Fright Night, which is fast becoming Wellington's regular Halloween role-playing con.

So named by evie_fae with whom I enjoyed a surprise pookah train ride this morning due to her attendance at a conference.

The train trip introduced us to a red car on the motorway, with the words "this car is red" painted nicely on it's side. I think it also had a Westpac logo on the front. We spent the rest of the trip waiting to pass the car with "this car is blue" written on it. At least, until evie_fae noticed the faint, slightly reddish brown splatter stains across the ceiling and all down the wall behind our seat. Slipping into Dexter blood-splatter specialist mode, I surmised that the nightly train combat between the werewolves of Wainuiomata and the city vampires had not been properly cleaned up, or that someone had exploded, discarding the more mundane theories of coke bottle explosions or hydraulic fluid leakage.

Arriving at Wellington, evie_fae grabbed some Fuel, and the Fuel guys were quite bouncy and seemed disappointed that one could not buy coffee with Snapper cards. We left thru the main station entrance to be confronted by a guy in full dress black & silver charro (i.e.: like a Mariachi band member), with the full metal clasps down his trousers, and the big sombrero in his hands, singing his heart out unaccompanied.

The surrealism didn't end there though, after evie_fae peeled off to her conference I saw a large number of extremely vertically challenged people, all quite well dressed, and at least one in what looked like Moslem female clothing, but without a burkah. Was there a midget conference in town too?

Only ten hours till I see my love again! Yayyy!!!

It's Wednesday morning afternoon. Friday evening I shall be seeing seraphs_folly again, first time in almost two months. Looking forward to it. With this Vodafone Best Friends thing, I get to talk to her almost every night for as long as we feel like, so I don't feel like we are apart, but physicality and proximity, obviously, add something that electronic comms don't at this stage.

On the train this morning the Oracle of Random Music melted me into my seat, matching my thoughts well. I wonder if any research has been done on how easy it is to control cell phone software using one's bio-electric field and thought? Is it an oracle or merely a reflection of my mood, like a fancy mood ring? *grin*

So the trip started with Live's Dolphin's Cry, which I've quoted enough before now. Followed by U2's Luminous Times ( She is the avalanche, She is the thunder, She is the waves and she pulls me under ) which, along with Bass Trap and Bad are my favourite U2 songs , and then I reminisced along with Tori to a A Sorta Fairy Tale. Then Leonard Cohen's Tonight Will Be Fine ( Sometimes I see her undressing for me, she's the soft naked lady that love meant her to be, and she's moving her body so brave and so free. If I have got to remember, that's a fine memory). Which is quite upbeat for Cohen.

We had another minor ant invasion this morning. It seems that liquid honey is like crack to them, they risk almost certain death to wallow in droplets of it.

And a simple meme from bunnyshortages (the other one is too long for me to bother with right now)

Using band names, spell out your first name:
Franz Ferdinand
Rage Against the Machine
Armor For Sleep
NiN
KMDFM
Inkubus Sukkubus
EErasure