Extracts and Excerpts

I just published a game!

2012-02-02T20:55:00.000+13:00

(And I'm telling everyone. :-) Apologies to the people who've seen this in multiple places.)

The Bell is a science fiction suspense live roleplaying game inspired by The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky), Five-Twelfths of Heaven (Melissa Scott), Vacuum Flowers (Michael Swanwick) and the works of Cordwainer Smith. The Bell is intended to be an emotionally intense game that pushes moral dilemmas. It draws on a trope of science fiction which treats space travel as a spiritual journey. It doesn't make assertions about any particular religion, but it does examine metaphysical themes and ethical issues.

Dear Diary...

2012-01-03T12:51:00.001+13:00

What did I do today?

- I hung all the soft toys I keep for sentimental reasons up on the line (it's supposed to help kill dust mites)

Also, Xi Shi, the lovely doll my sister made me, out for an airing:

- I sipped coffee while Repton and Repton's Dad (TM) did constructiony type things on the garden. (I've had prior involvement in this bit helping to clear away the mountain of stones some clown put on our nice garden, and digging the drainage trench (now filled in with the same bally stones + compost mixed with clay and gypsum, and faintly visible on the left.)

- Possible casualties of war - two rose bushes which had their root balls trimmed like billy-o to fit them into their temporary holding pots. (Not these ones, which we got hold of today, rather smaller ones.) Well, they may survive.

And I'm shortly off to visit Cat. Christmas holidays are great.

Please take the time to vote...

2011-11-25T21:06:00.001+13:00

My Gran once told me about when her father was very old and sick and living in a rest home, the election came round, and when she went to visit he told her that he'd announced that morning that he wanted to vote, and the Matron had pooh poohed the idea. But he insisted and made a fuss and after a bit some of the little old ladies that lived there also announced that they'd quite like to vote, too, so my Gran had to go out and arrange a special booth to be set up there so they could have a turn. Later, after all the fuss was over, my Gran asked my Great Grandad who he'd voted for, and he said: "That's my business!" and went to sleep, and he died later that night.

Please remember to vote! It's important and you don't have to deal with an obnoxious Matron or anything - just go down to your local polling birth and take ten minutes out of your Saturday.

National Party promotes crime, prostitution

2011-11-15T18:34:00.001+13:00

Here's another bit for the 'law and order' ticket: make it harder for people with problems to get benefits, specifically people with drug addictions and who are in trouble with the law. I assume this is intended to be a big club that will magically make everyone who lives on the margin suddenly law abiding, fragrant smelling, and all round wonderful citizens, but I don't think that's how it's actually going to work. I think people who fit in these categories are mostly going to slide away into the other ways to get money if you've got problems - and those are going to have worse societal effects.

But I'm going to give people who disagree with me a G. K. Chesterton quote, because G. K. Chesterton is cool:

"It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them."
-- G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, Rockville, Maryland: Serenity Publishers, 2009.

And a happy election to you, too.

Politics 101

2011-11-15T18:12:00.001+13:00

Y'know, I get that people care a lot about politics. I also get that some of the rhetoric out there right now seems... rather less than honest. But I'd like to put it out there, that if you live with someone who works for a political party, doing ethically dubious acts like defacing billboards isn't going to help your cause. In particular, it's going to cause big problems for your loved one/flatmate (I'm including that Young Labour guy with the secret tapes from last election in the doofus category), and make the party you like look bad. It's even worse when they're trying to build a reputation as being more ethical than the others.

Dude. Don't do that stuff. Even more - don't do that stuff and get caught. The only thing worse than being unethical is being incompetent at it.

For the other bit of scandal that's in the news right now, I think it passes the sniff test of being an accident - no politician should seriously expect a conversation to be private in the middle of an election campaign, in the middle of a crowded cafe in which a large number of reporters were specifically invited to film him drinking a cup of tea. And for all Our John is posturing about having suddenly acquired principles and making threats of police action, it just makes me more curious about what was actually said. Just a thought.

Spring is here

2011-10-31T19:44:00.002+13:00

And in spring, at least every three years, a young politician's fancy turns to thoughts of the election.

And some of the rhetoric is getting kinda ridiculous, particularly the automatic pooh poohing of any idea of another party's, even when you're pretty sure that the naysayer secretly thinks that it's a good idea. Like, for instance, Labour wants to raise the retirement age and National claims that it's a bad idea. Isn't this the wrong way around according to their core values?

And another bit of weird logic - John Key has been saying for a while that NZ really needs to sell off half our core infrastructure assets, in order to "pay off debt faster". Today, we get told that, hey, really it's to build up other assets, like schools and stuff! Really? Future spend on school buildings is either:

business as usual spend that was going to happen anyway - in which case the Future Investment Fund is a meaningless gesture, or
it's building up new assets, in which case the government debt problem isn't nearly so bad as the National Party is making it out to be.

So which is it?

Another thing that came up on Saturday was political chitchat at Fright Night, after our game finished a bit early and people were hanging out. One of the guys running the D&D for MMP campaign in and offered to take requests (I totally bought a couple of politician zombies to afflict the party with. Yay!), but we also had several people there who are either in the Green party, or sympathetic to its ideals, and we got talking about their decision making model. The thing is, a friend had told me a while ago that policy has got to be set by consensus - everyone has to agree before it goes ahead, and I was curious about how that actually worked in practice. (Everyone's had an experience of a committee that goes around and around a subject for ever, or That One Particular Guy who always argues, just for the sake of arguing, right?) So the party member talked about some of the checks and balances that they've got - you can choose to disagree but not block consensus, perhaps for something that you don't like but don't feel like dying in a ditch over; or you can choose to block consensus, and if it's a really important issue, then and only then will the caucus move to a conscience vote. So it sounds like it could be a slow system on a contentious issue, but also that the group has to at least consider everyone's views before it makes a decision. And if a group of people have got liberal views, well, there tends to be a lot of diversity of opinion.

So how are the Greens doing, given that their natural constituency is inclined to have many different opinions, and they want everyone to agree? Well, you've got to admit that for a small party they've got staying power - their first MP was elected in 1999. In that time, the Alliance unallied, Winston Peter's personality party got knocked out (but possibly back for another round this election), and ACT, the party for argumentative people, can't manage to keep any of its line up of MPs in the first election since they officially became part of the government. And the Greens are polling at 10%. So that's worth thinking about. The other thing - they seem to have a really good knack at getting their policy into law. The anti-smacking law, the weatherproofing fund, and making youth rates identical to minimum wage are the three things that come to mind immediately, but there are others, and the now-in-Mana Sue Bradford holds the record for private member's bills by a backbencher to be passed.

Maybe it's worth thinking about consensus more often.

Halloween

2011-10-31T19:07:00.000+13:00

Repton and I now live in a nursery suburb - I've lost count of the parks, playgrounds and, above all, childcare centres. It didn't occur to me before Repton mentioned it, but kids do that trick or treating thing now, so we stopped at the supermarket on the way home, not even really sure if anyone was going to turn up. (But hey, we could always eat the lollies ourselves, right.)

But hark! 10 minutes ago there was a tromping on our doorstep, and Spiderman, a fairy, and something or other turned up asking for sweets. Yep. Nursery suburb.

The Dark Underbelly of the Internet

2011-10-17T21:56:00.004+13:00

There's this project I've been doing some research on, which basically involves setting up a database to take writing content, then spit it out in prettified nicely designed PDFs (with various constraints and design patterns and required features involved - I haven't seen anything that will do what I want straight out of the box yet). I have a technically knowledgeable friend who's been giving me advice on what's possible, but nonetheless, I've spent a lot of time trawling around the 'other' internet. Not Warez sites, or anything skeevy like that, but the bit that doesn't care so much about nice graphic design, where the links may not be unbroken, and the technical specifications are detailed and confusing, and have comments like 'last stable release' and a date from two years ago. I haven't spent this much time reading this kind of content in years, and, in fact, I guess I must have subliminally figured that everybody had been carried by the rising tide of increasing prettification and tools intended for non-internet literate idiots. But no, it's always been there, I just wasn't looking in the right places.

I'm doing it old style, baby.

A brief plug

2011-09-30T22:31:00.000+13:00

For my brother's website, TrailHunger. It's basically a website that takes uploads from GPS watches of its members, then spits them out as routes for other people to use. Because it's getting 'real' info, it shows all the little side trails that may not get on official maps. Ed's really into trail running in the Vancouver area, so that's where most of the maps are, but it's configurable for anywhere, I think.

Illegal Search and Surveillance

2011-09-28T22:31:00.001+13:00

The police have been doing a lot of it. More specifically, they were called on this by the Supreme Court, and now want a bill passed to declare everything that they've done legal, with no oversight, retrospectively.

But you can tell the Government what you think about it! http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/MakeSub/5/0/e/49SCJE_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL11056_1-Video-Camera-Surveillance-Temporary.htm

What I said:

1. I oppose the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill and ask that it not be passed in its present form.
2. This bill is a kneejerk attempt to counteract a decision of the Supreme Court. As such, it is a challenge the entire legal system, in which Parliament creates laws and the courts enforce them. This is a dangerous precedent to create.
3. This bill is unnecessary. The NZ Police claim that it is needed to protect 40 current investigations of serious crimes in which they have acted illegally to obtain evidence - the Evidence Act already permits the admission of illegal evidence where the crime is sufficiently serious. Where the crime is not sufficiently serious, it is clear that the NZ Police's failure to obtain appropriate warrants is egregious.
4. The speed with which this bill has been presented is unnecessary. There has been a Search and Surveillance Bill being debated by Parliament for over a year; if it were truly urgent the Government would have brought it up the order paper as they have done for other bills. Issues of surveillance, particularly how to deal with changing technology, are significant and need to be properly examined before being passed into law.
5. This bill is retrospective and thus immoral. Acts that occurred in the past should not be declared either legal or illegal for the sake of convenience. As a country, we would condemn this behaviour in any other nation.
6. The court case which raised this issue, Hamed & Ors v R [2011] NZSC 101, found that the Police had knowingly broken the law while obtaining evidence - this bill attempts to reward them for their appalling behaviour. It will serve to encourage them in further abuses of power.
7. I note the NZ Police's past history of paid informants to report on legitimate and legal political protest, particularly the Rob Gilchrist case, where the informant sent prurient photographs of the protestors that Gilchrist was spying on to the Police. This is not an institution which has moral high ground - encouraging the NZ Police to break into people's house and leave hidden video cameras with no oversight is an invitation to more abuse.
8. This bill lacks any requirement to prove necessity. It encourages the Police to embark on 'fishing expeditions' to find evidence of a crime caused by someone simply because they hold unpopular opinions. I note that most of the human rights advances that New Zealand currently holds were brought about by people who held 'unpopular opinions.'
9. I respectfully suggest that this issue be shelved until after the General Election - whatever government is elected will need to live with the outcome, it is only right that they make the decision.
10. I do not wish to make an oral submission.

More info from No Right Turn here: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/09/submit.html

It's 7 in the morning...

2011-08-29T07:01:00.002+12:00

...the day after Chimera, and I'm wide awake and have been for some time. Not really what I expected, given how tired I was last night. Also not what I expected: sleeping in the spare room and wandering around the house disinfecting doorknobs and cleaning the toilet at 11 o'clock at night. Best Beloved has come down with some kind of stomach bug and is looking miserable. Poor Repton...

Chimera was great. The game I ran with Cat went well, barring a few technical hitches, and we got an Honourable Mention in the awards for best game at the end which is total egoboo. Thank you very much for coming and giving your all in the game, guys. (And again, apologies to the two players that it didn't work out for.)

I also had much fun running around in the forest as a witch queen, manipulating my family (including sizing up Asterix the Gaul as a potential son-in-law) and collecting marriage proposals, being Very Silly in Monty Python, and coughing over everyone as the very artistic embodiment of Tuberculosis. Heh heh.

Snow Photos

2011-08-19T20:40:00.003+12:00

View from the car at a rest stop. I was trying to show the valley, not the fence, but it got flattened out in the picture.

Me, in styley construction orange and steel cap boots.

General prettiness.

Snow in Taihape

2011-08-17T18:48:00.003+12:00

So everyone's got a snow story, right?

Mine was driving up to Taihape yesterday on a work trip. And there was some snow in the trees, and a bit in the flowerbeds, enough to do a token snowball and that. By this morning there was a heavy blanket everywhere, and soft falling flakes all over, which means a lot when you're out and about at 6am talking to people, and driving around hanging out in the rail corridor, and stopping by the road just so we could kick about in the snow - so light and fluffy! It really did feel like a fairy tale, and being just a bit out of time.

Oh yes, and second leg of my trip got cancelled because the roads were closed out to Taihape, so I ended up back in Palmerston North for the rest of the day. Seriously. Worst Week For Site Visits. Ever. On Friday I go to Christchurch, I hope things are a bit more passable then.

Photos to follow when I get them off the guy with the camera.

The bottom of my house is fluffy

2011-07-30T18:58:00.003+12:00

With some occasional wisps caught on rose bushes in the garden to boot. (We had people come in to install insulation on Thursday.) It's a bit soon to tell how much of a difference it will make, owing to the weather suddenly coming on unseasonally warm...but I notice that I haven't been wanting to turn on the heater as soon as I get home, so there might be something in it.

In other news, today I went for a bike ride for the first time in months, and quite enjoyed it, although getting home was rather a chore. And visited the Affordable Art Show with Ivan and Repton - always a lot of fun.

Oof

2011-07-03T15:41:00.002+12:00

Today I spent a lot of time crawling around under the house, hauling stuff. (Repton got to crawl even more, and drag things out from the bowels of the house for me to take the rest of the way outside.) People leave the cruddiest things behind them, when they move, don't they?

There is actually a goal in sight - underfloor insulation, once the nice people can get access and a smooth surface to put down polyethylene and all, but right now I have the most astonishing headache (stooping + dehydration + unspecified fungus?)

Best to all.

Huzzah!

2011-05-22T19:45:00.000+12:00

Just spent the weekend being one of the editors for a 48 Hours team. Really like how our film turned out (road movie called "Sunset Road"). Now very tired. [yawns hugely]

Self Publishing is Fun

2011-05-15T21:05:00.006+12:00

I've just turned a couple of live roleplaying games that I wrote with Cat into published PDFs on an online roleplaying store. First sale went through about 5 minutes ago. Yay!

Adventures in Fairyland

2011-03-31T22:34:00.002+13:00

My long term roleplaying group has been playing a campaign that was billed as "brightly coloured fantasy reminiscent of Narnia and Castle Waiting". We started off as a bunch of refugees sent to deepest darkest Devon going through a portal to a fantasy world called Carinthia, had a bunch of adventures, skipped forward in time 25 years to have a look at What Happened After, and have now picked up a set of alternate characters who were slaves in a factory on the fairies' side of the river (Bessie the Changeling, Aster the Cat, Bludo the Troll, and Greengage the Griffin (Greengage was named after his father's favourite kind of jam. He has five siblings, and they're all named after their father's favourite kind of jam.))

Last week, we were a gang of desperadoes staging a jailbreak, creating vast amounts of mayhem, and discovering that Bludo has an oral fixation (quite good for intimidating hobgoblins, we found. Particularly when he spits them out.) This week, we ended up deep in enemy territory with the goal of assassinating the enemy queen. First steps: go to school, and set Bludo up with a date.

Omigosh!

2011-03-05T21:47:00.003+13:00

Yesterday I got a new pair of glasses. Before New Glasses Day, I was figuring that it would be nice to have a new set of frames with yellow racing stripes. After New Glasses Day, I'm really really really noticing the change in prescription.

See, I have one eye that's somewhat longsighted, and another that's very longsighted, and my previous pair only corrected the good eye slightly to make reading easier - the optomotrist I saw back then, and I guess the one I saw as a child figured that correcting the bad eye would give me double vision. This new one, however, declared that my brain was already turning off that visual feed enough anyway, and amped up the lense as much as she could. This means that I can now actually read a normal print book with just that eye if I have to (still not easily, but at least possible), and another little soupcon that the optomotrist didn't warn me about:

Walking home yesterday was very much being in an Imax theatre, or looking at a Gustave Caillebotte painting. I'm suddenly looking at things and realising that they're farther or nearer without having to calculate from relative sizes. It's great. I spent most of my walk home yesterday poking Repton to prove that I could do it without having to guess and adjust like I normally do. I'm still not going to rush off and play frisbee or go for long drives yet (moving my head quickly makes for a feeling of vertigo right now), but still -

Omigosh.

Things not to do when sealing a raw edge:

2011-02-27T17:42:00.002+13:00

Sewing through your finger.

It actually didn't hurt that much, but y'know, leaving a ritual libation of blood in things you make is only cool when you're a blacksmith.

I have the most astonishing headache

2011-02-14T18:28:00.002+13:00

I'd be trying to sleep it off, except lying down makes it worse.

Ow ow, oh, ow.

[poor posture, you come back to punish me]

In much better news, my Super Sparkle game ran on Saturday and seemed to go well. My favourite line: "Don't do drugs - they make you ugly." "And they shorten your calves!"

Death by Gelatinous Cube

2011-01-01T21:35:00.005+13:00

So today I tried a new cooking experiment - marshmallows.

The results were ... well. They're basically a heap of suger boiled in water with some gelatine, and then having the snot beaten out of them before they set. Then you get to add some flavouring and roll them in coconut or icing sugar or whatever takes your fancy. The problem is the gelatine which turns the mixture into something, well, gelatinous (which gives me mouth feel issues in spades.) This was the first time ever that I haven't wanted to lick out the bowl when I was baking. There's also this point when you're beating the mixture when it suddenly changes colour into this bright unnatural white colour. I think ultimately it tastes OK, but the final texture is just gooey and I'm going to stick with bought ones - assuming that I haven't been put off for life.

On the other hand, I have enormous respect for all the people that prior to the mechanisation of food production, used to do this by hand, all the time. Give them all a cheer!

Happy New Year!

And now we're moved

2010-12-24T19:56:00.003+13:00

Huzzah!

All the heavy stuff got shifted back on Saturday, thanks to help from Repton's parents and Mashugenah, plus little stuff and Lots of cleaning. Seriously, I don't think our old flat looked that nice at any time in it's life before. There's more unpacking still to do at this end, but we're going to spend the night for the first time instead of visiting with ReptonMum and ReptonDad, and the cat's moved in, and we have internet, so I'm calling it done on points. And with any luck I won't have to do this again for Very Many Years. :-)

Merry Christmas everybody!

Habemus aedem!

2010-12-17T20:51:00.002+13:00

Money has been paid, keys handed over, and a kindly chap has gone round measuring the rooms. Repton is fiddling round with floorplans as we speak, and the move starts tomorrow.

Oh god.

Making things go Boom!

2010-11-05T22:12:00.002+13:00

We just got back from Guy Fawkes Night, which happened to be going out with PurpleSparkler, her husband, and a bunch of miscellaneous geeks to light a bonfire on Petone beach and let off fireworks. We got rained out from the bonfire, but perservered into setting off one defiant firework that morphed into half the box, much to my joy. :-)

Then we ran off to a pub, I had my first ever Irish Coffee, and a smaller subset of the miscellaneous geeks realised that it had stopped raining and was 3 minutes to the big display that WCC was putting up from their barge in the harbour so we sprinted back out to the beach to watch. My conclusions: I'm very unfit; and making things go boom is fun.

G'night!

Super Sparkle

2010-10-26T19:24:00.004+13:00

I am doing a rerun of my Chimera larp, Super Sparkle Action Princess GX!

Thrill to the gripping cliffhanger!
Gasp at the horrors of the script!
Laugh at your friends' horrible horrible acting!
Will they get the episode done in time? Find out, in the next installment of Super Sparkle Action Princess GX!

(It's all Catherine's fault, really.)

Damn you, Stephen Moffat!!

2010-08-15T12:10:00.002+12:00

I finally watched the last two episodes of the latest Doctor Who series.

Gah!

Things I never thought a National government would consider supporting...

2010-08-15T12:07:00.002+12:00

Introducing a compulsory savings plan.

I can't wait to hear the howls from the libertarians and the Property Party (ie Act).

The start of a new campaign

2010-08-05T22:13:00.003+12:00

My long term roleplaying group got together tonight to do character creation and the opening session of our new campaign, described by our GM as 'brightly coloured portal fantasy kind of like Thieves & Kings, Castle Waiting and Narnia.' (Our previous campaign was truly made of The Awesome, and included the most heroic character I've ever played, a severely delusional 10 year old girl. It made sense in context.)

We started off playing evacuees climbing on to the train to leave London and after a very long day realised that we'd been forgotten about in a siding - or had we? And then we went looking for our teacher, found a man with no shirt, a helmet with horns on and very furry trousers (clearly a gypsy), another man in a dress, a talking cat, and some nice people who took us in for the night. Devon is a very strange place, but it's much more interesting where the cats aren't as stupid as they are in London.

There are however some warning signs:
- we defaulted to an angsty backstory for at least two characters
- our backstory is the Evacuation and our first encounter includes a satyr (I kept expecting the Secret Police to turn up and arrest everybody for being humans)
- the final scene showed NishaTalitha switching awareness back to Mundane World, then flicking back to Fantasy World when she got scared by a rat. In our last game, the delusions of our children characters turned out to be very scary and very important to the overall plot. Eep.

Travel Photos

2010-07-31T15:02:00.001+12:00

For those that are interested, Repton put his travel photos up here for our edification and education.

(See, no mandatory slideshows or anything.)

I'm on my way

2010-07-25T23:08:00.002+12:00

From misery to happiness todaaaaay, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh...

Actually, this has been a really good trip, although I am in bouncy halfway home mode at Singapore Airport. Have had limited internet access this past several days, so the short version is we went to Manchester to visit Repton's Gran, aunt and uncle, who all turnd out to be both lovely, and really interesting. (1) We also lit out for a day to Windermere, one of the town's in the Lake District, because I felt like it (had to talk Repton into it, and really glad I did.)

Repton is currently collapsed in a heap at the gate looking interestingly pale, either from air sickness or a stomach bug, and I'm about to go back and deliver some anti-nausea meds [fingers crossed]. (2) I did some wigging out on the day of our flights (in the evening so we did some wandering around shoe shopping first, and Central London on a Saturday afternoon is an intimidating experience, not to mention the airport) but am now feeling perfectly fine if a little spacey, which I guess is the difference for me between a bit tired and wading through noisy noisome crowds, and a lot tired but quiet and calm. Each to their own I guess.

Anyway, off to the gate! See y'all soon.

(1) I'm still in Public Transport Envy mode, mind. When we got train tickets they said "Just take any train, they leave every twenty minutes. It'll take a couple of hours or so." To Manchester.
(2) Interestingly, I get a little bit sick often, but hardly ever very badly. Repton is healthy as a horse until he's sick as a dog, and unfortunately right now it's the latter. Hopefully he'll be feeling somewhat better by the time I get back.

London's Burning...

2010-07-21T03:49:00.002+12:00

Actually, London's pretty neat, although this feels like the epitome of the flying visit - we've been doing a certain amount of wandering around looking at famous things from the outside, then going into a few Really Neat places and enjoying them in more depth. The highlight today was visiting the British Museum with a friend from Auckland whom I hadn't seen in a couple of years in spite of, you know, living on the same island and all. We're in the Friends and Family Zone with a vengeance - there was a family reunion for my dad's side of the family on Sunday, and John is seething with relatives (all nice.) Tomorrow we go to Manchester for a few days (and more relatives.) Hope to get to visit the Lake District on a day trip, as well, perhaps. (Short post, internet on a timer.)

Arrived in London

2010-07-18T19:38:00.002+12:00

We've made it to London, and are staying for the next couple of days with my cousin Jot, who is as warm and kindly as I remember, and in very short order we were gossiping about family as if we hadn't seen each other for a couple of months, instead of the seven years it's actually been.

We're in Islington right now. I'm being a total geek, and every time I see a place name on the tube map I keep thinking of one of the characters or horrors in Neverwhere. Eh well.

It's also a good 10 degrees cooler than on the continent, which means that I can wear long trousers again and go for a walk at a reasonable speed without risking an asthma attack, both of which I've missed. (It's very frustrating when you want to go out and have an uncomplicated good time finding out about the new exciting place, except it's physically exhausting just getting from A to B, and that's before you've even started looking at stuff.) Anyway, I suddenly have bounce, vigour and vim, and feel like I've ended the 'being cultural' part of my holiday and can move onto the 'relaxing and seeing what happens part'. Today, we're off to a family reunion with a bunch of Sells (relatives through my greatgrandmother on my father's side.) We shall be the Distant Cousins From The Southern Hemisphere. Will let people know how it goes.

Last full day in Berlin

2010-07-17T03:17:00.001+12:00

Found a swimming pool. It was lovely.

London ho!

In Berlin

2010-07-16T04:52:00.003+12:00

Iäm quite liking it here - the city has a very open architecture and layout, vast areas of greenspace, and the people seem pretty laidback and friendly. There have been complete strangers who smiled at me or started conversations who weren't even other tourists! (Or shopkeepers.) I'm glad I visited Prague, but Repton's comment to some other frisbee people we happened to run into that it was 'impressive but also oppressive' strikes me as pretty valid.

This place also Does public transport underground train lines, overground train lines, trams, buses, and they#re also pretty friendly to cyclists. And dogs. Iäve seen a whole bunch of dogs around, always on leads or close control of their owner, and they go on trains and buses and bicycles (the latter in carry baskets) just like anyone else. (In Prague, too - one theatre we went to had a sign saying that dogs were welcome to come into the auditorium.) Iäve yet to see a single solitary live cat that wasnät on a poster or a pottery mug - I assume they#re liked, or they wouldnät show up in advertising, but only as apartment pets, maybe?

Itäs still Hot, although a bit easier to catch a breeze. I got my first sunburn yesterday on a bike tour despite three applications of sunscreen, because I just kept sweating it off. Today has felt a bit easier, although that may have been because we went out to Potsdam, a smaller nearby and highly decorative town that used to be chocful of 'royal residences# and we hung out on a boat tour and the truely enormous park of the Sanssouci palace. My current goal is to find a swimming pool that is open in the evening and nearby, and hopefully wonät do that nude bathing thing (first place I checked, does, and Iäm shy.)

Apologies for the horrid typing, am using a European keyboard and some of the keys arenät where I expect them and messing with mz touch typing.

Take care,

Stephanie

Moving on

2010-07-13T18:13:00.002+12:00

It's Tuesday morning (Tuesday I think?) and we're about to move on. It's been a good visit, except for the stinking hot bit (Mad Dogs and Englishmen have nothing on it - walking home from the supermarket yesterday at 6.30pm felt like being hit by a brick.) Repton's pretty glad to move, he says he has language fatigue and figures he'll feel a bit better in Germany where at least he's studied the language some.

It's been pretty interesting to be here. I mean, there's stuff that's supposed to be the Official Tourist Experience, both the putting the city's best foot forward like going off to look at important buildings, and concerts as 'cultural experiences', and being shown places that were significant to famous people that lived in the city, and then there's the worst foot, like being a target for pickpockets and sellers of smutty playing cards (hasn't been a problem, actually, but was in Athens), but there's also the experience of just being in a different city and seeing the way things are different, like the buses and trams always start with a terrific jerk and you never talk to the driver (they're actually in a little cabinet with a door to further discourage importunate tourists), and the way the tap water tastes really good, and the standard font on official signs is a bit different - not Arial, but a slightly wider sans serif font, and that the street signs are plaques on buildings and never have an equivalency for "St", it's always things like "Melanouva 2".

Anyway, we have to go get on our train soon. Looking forward to the scenery, but also being able to put my feet up for 5 hours. :-)

Beginning of Day 4

2010-07-11T18:00:00.003+12:00

Day 4 since I started travelling, I mean. So far it's been two very loooooong days (from around 6.30am to around midnight, and that's before you count the timestretch from switching time zones), one night of intermittent sleep, and a day and a night that were rather more reasonable, sleepwise. Despite that, since I've gotten here I've been waking up about 5.30am when the morning light starts seeping in around the curtains - yesterday I was able to get back to sleep and conked out until 9.30, but today that just isn't gonna happen. (I think this means I've adjusted timezones. Yay!)

Fun with Trams
Prague really does public transport. The most common building type is 5-6 story tenements that may cover an entire block, and the population density means that it's very cost effective to put on a lot of public options (trams and buses and three metro lines.) You're supposed to buy a transport ticket and validate it when you first get on the bus or tram or whatever, but this is not very well signposted for Us Crazy Foreigners, which is paired with a non-trivial number of locals who do not like to talk to strangers - the conversation "Can I buy a ticket from you?"/"No."/"Where can I buy a ticket?"/"I don't know" is one I've heard several times between a tram driver and a hapless tourist. I've also met some very lovely and patient people, just that there's been a certain amount of reactions ranging from a bit panicked, disdainful, or stolidly answering the question as asked and moving on without volunteering any further information. I don't think people are hostile, exactly, just very very self contained. This kind of marries with the way the buildings are set up - our hotel is part of a big quadrangle built around the block with an interior courtyard, which I think is very common in the Old Town (with lots of frilly decoration). The newer buildings tend to be very stark orthorhomboids, and graffiti at ground level is very common, but you'll often see some very beautifully manicured parks and gardens, at least some of which belong to specific buildings, and the balcony gardens and window boxes I've seen are absolutely gorgeous. So, yeah, I think it's very much a city of people minding their own business. It's also a lot emptier than I would have expected, there's lots of room on the streets to walk around, and usually room in the buses, which makes me wonder if a lot of people have taken off on their summer holidays. Also, despite occasionally seeing signs warning about pickpockets, this place doesn't set off any of the threat triggers I got in places like Athens or even Market St in San Francisco. (In Joburg, I wasn't actually allowed out of the family house we were staying at without an escort, so we won't even use it as an example.) As a f'r'instance, the day before yesterday we came home around midnight and got off at the wrong stop so did a fair amount of walking to get home - on Friday night in the old town, there were people out and about but they were almost all inside cafes and restaurants - no drunks, no people spilling out of bars, no people that you think you should really keep your distance from.

On Tourism
For the last couple of days we've basically been doing wind up of the tournament stuff. After I left the hotel on my first day I went off to find Repton at his tournament ground (lots of getting lost on trams for which I blame jetlag) and hung around with his mates, and walked through a green park, and then we went to this big End of Tournament party. Sadly, I just missed Repton's final game (they won, and came 17th in their category). The party was very full on, with a boat ride on the river - twas nice, although I was too tired to get the most out of it, I think. Yesterday we went and watched the final games for each category (some scarily athletic people, my yes) and did good byes with Repton's team, and today the official tourism bit starts. :-)

(Reading back through this post, it's a bit jumbled, but oh well. Take care, all.)

Arrived in Prague

2010-07-09T22:38:00.001+12:00

But feeling very weary and a bit spacy. Looking forward to getting into my room (not available for another three hours) and really hoping my luggage turns up today (checked in bag has been mislaid.) Am feeling philosophical about it. Am going to venture out to lunch and maybe see if I can find the stadium that John is at this afternoon.

It is very hot (about 30 degrees) and doesn't have nearly as many people wandering around the streets than I would have expected - maybe people have cleared out for their summer holidays? The bits of the city I've seen from the taxi were interesting - a big jumbled up mix of old, frilly buildings that are kind of rundown, smushed up against more modern and better kept architecture, but it's not like they have zones where it's one way or the other, it's all just mixed together. And the people here are very fond of green tree-filled parks, which looks like a pleasing attitude to have.

First leg done...

2010-07-08T23:49:00.001+12:00

Have made it to Singapore - very long day, am deliberately ignoring the time in New Zealand because I figure it will make it a bit harder to switch time zones. Is now 7.30pm, and have to stay up until 11.30 to catch next plane, hopefully will be tuckered about and able to sleep by the time I get on it. Heard rumours about a rooftop pool, but haven't managed to see any signs yet - may be in different terminal. Have that very hazy feeling you get from being up too late, with no intention of going to bed anytime soon - onward to the shower! (Have I ever mentioned that I really like Changhi Airport?)

Up, up and away!

2010-07-08T06:23:00.001+12:00

Am off to go travelling. Huzzah!

To Good Timing

2010-06-25T19:25:00.002+12:00

A couple of days ago, we got the plumber in to fix a hot tap that had recently gotten very stiff. So he pulled it open, fiddled with the spring, and all that which returned it to regular operation and all that, but it's important that it was the hot tap, because it meant that he had a look in the hot water cupboard.

"Did you know your hot water cylinder is leaking? A couple more weeks and it could burst and flood the flat downstairs..."

Meep.

So he had a word with the landlords and was around again today with a brand new water cylinder. Some things I found out:
- we have a neighbour who will take the time to check if she sees something strange like a flood of water coming out of the drain pipe
- my cat was seriously unimpressed by the proceedings (still hiding under the bed when Repton got home)
- the plug that connected our cylinder to the mains electricity was Very Hot. (I think it was maybe replaced in the process, as it feels a good temperature now.)

Double meep.

To good timing! Huzzah!

Super Sparkle Action Writing

2010-06-13T21:50:00.002+12:00

I've spent the last two weeks on a major larp writing jag, in conjunction with my Evil Co-writer (TM), Cat. No seriously, on Monday night of Queen's Birthday Weekend she was sending begging emails saying "Please make it stop! I can't sleep becaue it's all going round and round in my head!"

Things have been going pretty well, and fortunately we've worked most of the way through that horrid dry patch where it's no longer easy but it's also not yet done - still a couple of characters who don't have quite the zing I want, but on the other hand six are at proofreading stage, and there are another nine in pretty good shape. Also, we've had some pretty fun moments in there, as well as this wonderful bit where we realised that fixing a problem with one character could at the same time act as the key to making another character really interesting and also make some of the stuff we put into that person pretty much at random look like we'd planned it all along. I love it when that happens. :-)

Should really finish the player pack background stuff and send out the casting emails...

(Tomorrow, my regular group gets together again. We're going to play a horsepunk game.)

I think my cat is pretty smart

2010-06-05T16:14:00.003+12:00

So the background is this:

In the middle of the night, Macca can get very enthusiastic and bouncy, like really bouncy, and it's a pain in the neck. As a method of last resort, I can spray her with a water mister, which judging from her appalled body language she hates and despises with every fibre of her being.

The thing is, setting up negative associations with pets doesn't always work the way you expect (a friend told me a story about someone who tried to train his cat not to jump on the bench, but instead trained his cat to jump on the bench and cringe), and she hasn't really made the connection that certain behaviour will get her misted, and that it would be a good idea not to do the behaviour. But she has worked out that if the water mister is pointing at her, it's a good idea to find something else to do, so I've only actually had to spray her a couple of times.

That's not the smart thing. The smart thing is that in every day life she doesn't give a toss about the Water Mister of Doom, and will happily sleep next to it, and happily watch me pick it up and move it around. It's only when she sees me move my hand to the trigger that she feels at risk and hightails it. Pretty neat, huh?

(Yep, I know that talking about cats is horribly cliched and I've reached my quota for the year. As you were, etc.)

To good planning

2010-05-28T21:11:00.002+12:00

Dear Diary,

Today I successfully gave a book back by figuring that the person who owned it would probably be on the same bus into work as me. They were. :-)

In other news, my birthday was really nice, this week I signed a new contract to go work for Kiwirail Network/Ontrack, the weather is bad, and a Larp I wrote for Chimera last year is having a private rerun because someone thought it would be a nice way to celebrate her birthday. How cool is that!

Have also started to write my Larp for next Chimera in August. Is it a good sign that I'm sniggering as I type?

Going Out With A Bang

2010-04-25T18:41:00.005+12:00

My regular campaign game just ended, after running almost every week for well over a year (nearly a year and a half maybe?) It really does feel like the end of an era.

It was huge. Ivan originally billed it as a 'troupe-style' game, not quite in the pure Ars Magica sense where people take turns GMing, but we all had multiple characters, and the storylines spread out over many worlds and, through the art of flashbacks and time skipping, an extended period of time. As you can see from the character map below, the phrase 'a cast of thousands' isn't far from it:*

It was a pretty big rollercoaster in terms of play style, too - we went through silly comedy, intense character drama, political machinating, with every now and then a mountain blowing up.** In the end, though, it turned out to be a horror game, which given that the plot had done a lot of meandering surprised us a lot. We realised that the turning point had been when we invented some fun child characters, one of whom was our imaginary pirate friend (with a Sinister Background), who was both totally evil and wanted to eat everyone on the ship, starting with our friends and family, but also really liked us and wanted to be our friends - resolving Cap'n Pi's plotline made for some complete WTF moments. (I hadn't realised that ransoming our family back from the completely real military coup with an imaginary hat could be topped, until today, when we rescued the Guys Who Could Save The World from an armed base by means of a song and dance routine, and a flower.) I think, by the end of the game at least, Cap'n Pi really loved us, and it was us who had to kill him in order to save humanity, by fighting our way to his centre of power and giving him a 'gift', an infophage antivirus that manifested as a treasure chest overflowing with gold. I still feel really sad about this, two hours later. Thank heavens we get to debrief with liquor tomorrow.

Great game, Ivan!

(*) This is actually still incomplete - I realised earlier today that we were still missing some characters like The Bruces, the dirty lawyer, and most of the imaginary characters.
(**) Later in the game this included 30,000 crew spaceships and entire planets. By the end it got big.

Losing the vote

2010-03-31T22:11:00.003+13:00

Actually, having it cancelled. Is that a good description? Maybe "from it's mother's womb untimely ripped" is a better phrasing.

To explain, the Region Council of Canterbury (ECan) just got fired so a new bunch of National cronies could be appointed in their place. This process took one day. New elections are going to be who knows when, certainly not this year when the local authority elections are meant to take place. Possibly not ever: the National/Act philosophy seems to be summed up in the phrase: "Keeping Democracy As Far Away From You As Possible."

Yeah, I'm kind of pissed about this.

For your viewing pleasure, some rhetoric from one of the MPs opposed.

Round Trip

2010-03-16T21:08:00.003+13:00

Today I had to go to Palmerston North to spend a day talking to some people. Since the office was 50m from the train station, and I refused to drive the work ute offered to me, I took the Overlander train there and back again. Observations: train crew were massively good value,* the food has upgraded to Wishbone meals, and spending an hour waiting for the train at Palmerston North station is very tedious. Had a very productive day, and am now quite thoroughly tired.

G'night.

* I mean, seriously, they weren't just maintaining a cheerful good temper on a 14 1/2 hour round trip that had to stop for an hour part way there because of a serious incident on the line (nothing to do with train or track operation, a people thing) they did it with style, looking out for little old ladies and offering to carry the bags of a mother with a young baby and make calls to check there were rides for people.

Tonight, we shall make Calzone!

2010-03-14T22:19:00.003+13:00

From scratch. It was yummy.

There's this thing about me. Baking, I'm fine with, I've been doing it since I was a kid. But anything to do with yeast hits my Advanced Science buttons and I feel like I'm tinkering with a chemistry set wondering when it's going to explode.

No explosions, just tasty tasty goodness.

Amazing Technicolour Dream Bruises. Or Something Like That.

2010-03-10T18:54:00.003+13:00

This is the most ghastly looking image. The bruise on my left leg, I think, is from the rail of my bike; the scratches on my right shin are from the pedal.

Also impressive and a bit sorer, this was also from the bike rail (basically got broadsided and got more damage from being tangled in the bike than hitting the ground.)

Least impressive and most sore (although the bruise has developed some since yesterday.) I think this is where I got hit by the van. The sore area is all around the big muscle at the top of my arm (deltoid I think) and has been making raising my arm above a certain point difficult. This has been getting better over the course of the day.

Anyway, if you're going to have a major accident that you lived to talk about, you might as well brag about it, right? Went cycling again today, hopefully will feel less gunshy in a bit. A pox on drivers!

Dear Diary

2010-03-09T21:02:00.003+13:00

Today, I got run over.

Collision on the Hutt Rd heading to Kaiwharawhara with an idiot driver coming out a drive who was checking for cars, but not cyclists who might be nefariously cycling along the cyclelane, minding their own business. Suddenly realising that you're lying on the road with your legs tangled in your bike, with oncoming traffic, bleeding, is Not Fun. (Am basically alright, but feeling sore and sorry for myself, with some exciting looking bruises.)

Fortunately, am now at home, showered, pyjamaed, and eating dinner. Pictures of the glorious technicolour bruises and accompanying grazes to follow when I get them off Repton's phone.

Updates

2010-02-27T11:07:00.004+13:00

So, first of all, I've rejoined the ranks of the employed, courtesy of a four month (ish) contract with Ontrack, the organisation that owns and maintains the railway tracks. They needed someone in a hurry, and I got a call at Thursday close of business from a recruitment agent I've been dealing with, saying that I had an interview at midday on Friday, and if they like me it starts on Monday. I turned up, guy doing the hiring asked if I'd eaten and we went off to the nearby cafe for an interview. He seems a good guy, seemed to like me, and I do start on Monday. :-)

Secondly, it's the something or other anniversary of when Repton and I started dating and he took me out for a suprise dinner. I knew about the dinner, but he didn't say what we were doing after - as we were going for a walk in between times we looked at the big board advertising the Arts Festival gigs. "Ooh," I said, "Shaolin Kung Fu monks. I went to see them once in Auckland" and burbled a lot about the cool things that Shaolin monks can do involving spears, acrobatics and sharp edges. Then we went to the theatre - yep, Shaolin Kung Fu monks. Except this was a very nontraditional performance, basically an arty minimalist ballet done in kung fu, and awesomely well done. (Although there's a wicked part of me that kept remembering a roleplaying game I was in once where we were putting on a retro minimalist production of Iolanthe, and Nisha Talitha's character kept insisting that "You can have three shades of grey. The fairies are the lightest shade of grey!" These guys also had black and some plywood boxes they had a lot of fun with. Written down, it sounds weird, but it was a seriously cool production.

Thirdly, I got a provisional grade for my St Margaret of Antioch essay, by dint of emailing the alternate marker and asking him. A+ for me, plus lots of nice comments about what I'd done (although he also pointed out a bona fide mistake I'd missed in revision and pointed out some areas I could have done more on.) Which makes the whole thing done and complete - huzzah!

And today, to celebrate, I'm doing a heap of housework like vacuuming out my room that I've been meaning to do for ages. Death to hayfever!

This has been a good day

2010-02-26T23:00:00.001+13:00

Am a bit afraid I'll jinx something by talking about it.

A good day.

My Cat has a Cold

2010-02-22T13:03:00.002+13:00

She's been sneezing and is now curled up under a blanket looking Sorry and Sad.

She's eating ok and was out and about exploring the linen cupboard earlier, so I'm not too worried, but I do feel sympathetic about the headache I figure she has.

Cooking Stuff

2010-02-22T09:40:00.003+13:00

So a couple of days ago, Repton and I were wandering through Moore Wilson's wondering what the difference is between a boutique grocery and a regular supermarket. Then Repton asked how you cook goat meat. I didn't know, so we went home, looked at some recipes, decided that we could do that, and next time he went past the shop he procured some.

It turns out that goat meat isn't good to fry or roast because it shrinks like billy-oh, and most of the recipes out there are for curries or casseroles. I don't have much experience with curries, but casseroles I do, so this is what we went with (adapted from here.)

- some flour (about half a cup?)
- various dried herbs (we had rosemary, thyme and oregano)
- about 500g of goat meat
- two small onions chopped into large chunks (I guess one large would do)
- two cloves of crushed garlic
- one cup chicken stock
- half a cup red wine

Season the flour with the dried herbs and coat the goat chunks in it. Fry briefly to brown it and place in a casserole dish with the onion, garlic, chicken stock and wine. Add some extra rosemary.
Cook at 150 degrees for three hours. (Every hour or so I stirred the mixture.)
Served with basmati rice and grilled capsicums.

It smelt _really_ nice, and tasted pretty good too. We also ended up asking the obvious question of: so how much does it cost to run an oven for three hours, anyway? which Repton worked out from first principles and I looked up on the internet. Turns out to be about a dollar fifty, or less than the cost of the cooking wine, but even so, we made shortbread as well.

My Body Clock is Seriously Messed.

2010-02-18T23:50:00.002+13:00

As in, I go to bed at a reasonable hour and find myself wide awake and staring at the ceiling by midnight. Not even a 10km walk today, which should have exhausted me, has done the trick.

(Actually, was pretty wobbly when got home, but dinner and tv watching with a friend fixed that, and now I'm disturbingly wide awake again. Gah!)

I am allergic to bee stings.

2010-02-07T18:42:00.005+13:00

Not deathly allergic - no running around with adrenalin shots for me, but still, 30 hours after the fact, I have an extremely swollen, extremely itchy foot which the wonders of modern chemistry are not doing much for. Have given up trying to be staunch about it (not much sleep last night is not helping.) Hijacked Nisha Talitha from the Larp picnic, and we went to Sherlock Holmes instead. It was fun.

Am also trying to rerun my Kapcon game and finding this a very difficult task what with all the people who are interested but can't make particular nights, and the two people who said that they could make a particular night, then changed their minds after I set that night as the date. Am grouchy and wondering if it would be easier just to cancel the thing entirely. [/grumble] Will probably feel better tomorrow morning.

EDIT: Went to the doctor and got a better grade of Better Living Through Chemistry (steroids! woo hoo!). (Haven't worked yet, though.) He laughed when I said I was there about a bee sting, I insulted his typing - it's nice when you get to have a regular doctor, it's much more informal.

EDIT2: Still itchy, but the swelling has gone down a lot. This is a Good Thing. Have spent much of the last few days with my foot ensconced in a bowl of water - would be nice to be able to put it away.

Awake Too Late At Night

2010-01-27T00:46:00.002+13:00

Stupid blocked runny nose. Better living through pharmacy is probably helping some, but not enough for comfortable sleeping. :-(

EDIT: Also, when I did go back to bed, my Significant Other decided that I was breathing too loudly and kept poking me until I quietened down (i.e. woke up.) Spent the rest of the night on the couch. Cat happy, me feeling hungover.

The Braggity Post of Bragging

2010-01-24T21:55:00.004+13:00

So, I'm back from Kapcon, with the news that the game I sent in to the Scenario Design Contest (with considerable input from my sister Cat) won. This means that we can now truthfully call ourselves Award Winning Writers. Hee hee hee.

OK, normal programming to meet industry guidelines for modesty will now resume. Second day was lots of fun: a restful stint helping run the admin desk in the morning, a PTA pilot where we were reality police, and Cathulu. It's like Chthulu, but you're playing cats, and I killed the main bad guy, despite being an utter coward. (Got lucky on a dice roll when I had his head in a death grip trying to rake his face. But he was a bad person with a three eyed demon cat, so it was OK really.)

Two final notes: that with the typos I'm having to correct I should really give up and go to bed, and the obsevviseness with whtich my cat is begging for attention is getting distrubing.

Good night!

EDIT: Am concluding from the green slime coming out of my nose that I'm officially sick with a virus, instead of the hayfever/dehydration combo I thought I was sporting. Feel a bit better about feeling massively hungover as I'd been trying to drink lots of water and go to sleep at a reasonable time and was annoyed that that wasn't working. Also, drugs for the win!

Huzzah!

2010-01-23T21:46:00.001+13:00

I ran my game at Kapcon, The Book Club, and it went really well, thanks to my player group who totally brought the awesome. (I'm still somewhat boggled about how much time we spent talking about the phallic implications of carrots versus the idea of cockleshell as a symbolic Holy Grail. It worked in the game!)

St Margaret Redux

2010-01-08T16:16:00.002+13:00

And it's now handed in. One. Two. Three ... Huzzah!!

Feeling a bit spacy right now, owing to disturbed sleep patterns this week, but coping a lot better than expected. Nice weather and getting Repton to come out to Manners Mall and have crepes with me helped a lot.

And I just want to say that the standard Margaret legend offers remissions of sins, a place in heaven, and no children born who are blind, deaf, lame or crazy to anyone who reads or writes a copy of her life. Her and me are like that. :-)

March to Ship

2010-01-07T22:51:00.004+13:00

I'm currently staying up late trying to finish off my Margaret of Antioch essay. Eye eye eye. I've been on a Search and Destroy mission for //TODO place holders and trying to tidy up poorly written sections, and have been making progess with one section still to do and a mere handful of placeholders left to roust out. It's also massively overlength (like nearly twice as long as it ought to be.) This is not my fault - every time I pointed at a section and told my supervisor I was thinking of cutting it he said 'No, no, keep it in, I like it.' Bah humbug!

In other news, I have until tomorrow to decide if I'm going to do Masters this year. Pros and cons both ways and I'm being infernally indecisive about it.

EDIT: Finished all the writing about half past midnight, now can't sleep. Double bah humbug! Proof reading tomorrow. Just checked scholarship docs and actually have another 10 days to dither - probably best not to make decisions when I'm tired and stressed about essays. :-)

Surprising Things

2009-12-31T00:02:00.003+13:00

So, a couple of weeks ago, Repton and I went to New Plymouth to watch the Fleetwood Mac concert (1) and, as you do, went for a walk up Mt Taranaki. We didn't make it to the top by any means, stopping at the transmitter tower just before the track gets really hard, instead of just really steep, chatted with the unicyclists coming down the path, that kind of thing. I'm not kidding about the unicyclists. One of them even had brakes.

It turns out that they were in the country for the World Unicycling Championships, one event of which, Freestyle Pairs, Repton and I went to see tonight. It was nifty, and pretty scary the amount of skill involved. There were dancer unicyclists, acrobat unicyclists, bishounen unicyclists, Swiss stripper unicylists ... pretty damn awesome. And I'm not kidding about the Swiss stripper unicyclists; there were other teams that took the opportunity to fling off a bit of costume at an artful moment, but these guys really took that idea to heart and were, moreover, wearing suspender socks (who the heck wears those anymore?). Despite my kibbitzing (and discreet leering), their performance was Awesome and they won that section. Good for them etc.

In other tramping news, my Christmas toy was a GPS so I can go geocaching. Dragged Repton out with me to find a couple of caches on Tinakori Hill which, even with getting lost for reading the map wrong at one point, was a pretty awesome walk. Also found a geocoin, which is trying to visit every cache in NZ and has a code deciphering wheel.

(1) Which was awesome by the way.

Corset Photos

2009-12-25T21:59:00.003+13:00

Ta da!

And a closer look. I got the silk for this at a fabric sale run by the Mary Potter Hospice, where you can get bits and pieces left over from other projects. So 1m of brocade silk was suprisingly affordable.

As you can see, the lacing was quite loose for my first session. Keira Knightley's opinions in the Pirate movies aside, it was quite comfortable, although it rather encourages good posture and restricts bending over.

Look! Cleavage! (Not something I can usually brag about.) Note that Cat put some little bumble bees and 'moonstone dew drops' as decoration - this is an outer wear fashion corset rather than one that discreetly stays under my ball dress.

The chemise I'm wearing under this is way out of period (made to an Elizabethan smock pattern and quite heavy linen.) My next project is to find some nice floaty lawn or muslin and make a semi-transparent shirt that makes people even more interested in my cleavage. It's a girl thing.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T08:02:00.001+13:00

I was woken up by two extremely enthusiastic cats this morning. One of them jumped on my face, the other one brought me tea and had a loud cellphone alarm. Still, I got to try on my new personally tailored pure silk Christmas present corset...

(Pictures to follow)

Wicked Thoughts

2009-12-17T19:45:00.004+13:00

I am writing an essay on St Margaret of Antioch.

It probably says bad things about me that I'm trying to subvert the structure of the essay so that I can have Jane Austen-ish puns in the subtitles. ("Pride and Public Exposure," "Sight and Sensibility," that sort of thing. Now, if only I can think one up for the section on the dragon and the devil...)

Adventures in Cookery, part something or other

2009-12-09T20:46:00.002+13:00

Today's new recipe was Hungarian Goulash, which to the uninitiated is a kind of casserole/stew made with paprika, black pepper and capsicums. The recipe I used also said to put in tomatoes, but I'm not sure how authentic that's supposed to be. And, er, apparently proper goulash is more like a chunky soup. But anyway, you get the idea.

It was quite nice, but took a while to make, what with having to make a trip to get some stewing steak because we didn't have any, spending rather longer than I'd like trying to get the can of tomatoes open and opting for puree instead (stupid can opener), and generally doing the messing about prefrying the steak, as you do. And the two hour cooking time, although we shortened it a bit because I was getting hungry. On the other hand, the recipe didn't quite use the last of the cooking wine, so I felt duty bound to finish it off while I waited for dinner to cook. I really am a cheap drunk. Whee!

On being a published author

2009-12-02T10:43:00.001+13:00

Er, kind of, so long as being a part of a Lulu collection counts.

Got some exam results back

2009-11-28T15:03:00.001+13:00

A+s for me! La la la. (Still got a research essay to finish up, mind.)

And so it begins...

2009-11-27T20:18:00.003+13:00

Christmas shopping has started. Granted, the first item purchased was of a utilitarian and modest nature, nonetheless - I've Started Being Organised!

Today I went to a book signing by Emma Hart and David Haywood. The former wrote a book called Not Safe For Work which Repton brought home a week or so ago, and he wanted signed since they were in town doing a joint book launch. She showed me her scar. (Read the book to find out why this is important, it's very entertaining. Not the reason why she has a scar, but the book in general.) I also picked up a copy of Haywood's My First Stabbing, which is not actually the book he's launching, but I'd heard about by means of the hilariously funny article of the same name, which someone had linked me to a while ago. Both authors were nice, friendly, and did readings of each other's books and then made each other do readings of their own books. A surprising amount of coercion was required.

Also, I got a long overdue haircut. This turned out quite short, owing to my hairdresser having a funny idea of what "Shoulder length, please" means. It still looks good, but I'm a bit sorry because Cat chopped off most of her hair recently as well, and we've been Cox and Boxing our hair cuts since forever. Eh well.

The Event

2009-11-19T22:07:00.000+13:00

And the last of this is done: http://theeventwellington.blogspot.com/2009/11/part-five-robin.html

Bwa ha. Ha.

Cooking

2009-11-15T19:39:00.005+13:00

Tonight's new recipe was Vegan Nut Rissoles, via a recipe in the paper. This meant an expedition to get tofu, which really doesn't taste of anything at all. Took quite a while to make - prime offenders are the precooked brown rice (which takes bloody ages to do its thing), and the imminent demise due to non-nonstickiness of our large frypan. And there were lots of rissoles. If we make it again, I'll probably halve the mixture. (And throw veganness to the winds and mix some cubes of cheese in, so there's something solid to chew on.)

Tiki Touring

2009-11-15T19:32:00.002+13:00

Yesterday I went for a walk along the Sanctuary fenceline up to the wind turbine. It's an interesting walk, because you spend most of it going uphill through bush, trees, and a steelmesh fence, until right near the top you break out of the bush and see the panorama of south Wellington. This really is a beautiful town to live in.

Also notable is that getting up all that way left me tired (but not exhausted), only 1 hour 10 minutes (less time than I expected), and with absolutely no asthma attacks (yay!) And today, the post walk stiffness isn't in my legs, it's in the muscles stretching across my ribs. Er. Some pilates artifact, maybe?

Other things for yesterday were meandering down to Brooklyn to look at the fabric sale there and going into town to have lunch with Repton. Interestingly, since I started up at Uni again, I no longer have to go into, through, or nearby town everyday, or even every week, and it's taking on a very exotic kind of Field Trip air.

More cooking

2009-11-10T19:17:00.002+13:00

Tonight we tried out rice risotto made from scratch. This entailed a shopping expedition to procure a bottle of wine (the first time I've been IDed in ages) and some saffron (which costs how much? Eep.)

The result was a bland looking glop that was really nice. Yum.

I went to visit Cat on the weekend and she made a point of making me deviled sausages and broccoli in cheese sauce, also made without the aid of premade assistance, in part because: "you made me such nice food last time I visited." I suspect there may be some cooking one-uppery in my near future...

Yet More Adventures in Cookery

2009-10-20T21:02:00.004+13:00

This time round we tried an onion tart. The recipe book rhapsodized about how nice and sweet white onions are compared to the normal kind. I'm not sure I've ever seen them as a distinct foodstuff in NZ supermarkets, and Wikipedia wasn't very informative, so we used shallots instead. 700 grams of them. (Took a while to peel and chop.)

The result was very oniony, but OK with cheese on top. Overall feeling is that it was OK, but I'm not going to rush to make it again.

I am very pleased with the performance of my kitchen knives after getting them professionally sharpened. Nice Sharpener Guy does dressmaking shears as well. Yay!

The True Tao of the Cheddar Monk

2009-10-20T11:48:00.003+13:00

is not the Tao that can be spoken. So you have to blog about it instead.

In other words, I'm taking part in a web competition called the Cheddar Monk Academy which is honouring the second anniversary of the Darths and Droids webcomic. I'll be narrating my quest for spiritual enlightenment, nifty outfits, and free cheese over here.

More Adventures in Cookery

2009-10-11T19:41:00.002+13:00

This time, we tried a Thai stir fry, although with some omissions and substitutions (no baby corn or tamarind paste because we couldn't find any, and no bird's eye chilli because we don't like it.) It was nice, but very very hot. Can the members of the audience who actually know how to cook give me some advice? The recipe said to take 7cm of ginger, grated and squeezed, "and the resulting liquid reserved." Does that mean to just put the liquid in? Or just put the ginger in? Or do both? I'm wondering if that was the cause of the very intense flavour...

Evidence Based Decision Making

2009-10-11T11:42:00.003+13:00

There's a dating website called OKCupid that, among other things, has had a lot of interest among my social group for its personality quizzes. You know, what's your dating personality, how would you survive in a zombie apocalypse, that kind of thing. They've also realised that they're sitting on an enormous pile of data of people talking about themselves and communicating with each other, and have started publishing statistical analyses. Some of them are pretty funny, others are practical, and still others head into the territory of a bit disturbing. (My gender and ethnicity is apparently one of the most stand-offish when it comes to replying to first messages from people on the site. Er, sorry?) Even with (or because of?) a self-selection bias out the wazoo, these articles are really interesting if you like thinking about what makes people tick.

Carpet Offcuts

2009-10-09T19:20:00.000+13:00

Does anyone want some? I've just rehabilitated Macca's scratching post, courtesy of a kind gentleman at Christie Flooring Ltd who gave me some free offcuts, and now I have a superfluity of same. Free to a good home.

Larping News

2009-10-06T21:28:00.003+13:00

So, things have been happening in the Larping world.

1. Chimera was awesome. I should probably have written a review at the time, but no matter, I highly recommend it. People who are interested in what it was like, might profitably check out 20/20 this Thursday.

2. Larpers in Wellington are getting organised, which is all good. There's still some paperwork stuff to do, but hopefully that will be cleared out of the way in good order and leave more time to make kit, organise games, go down the pub with agreeable company, and generally have fun pretending to be someone else.

3. As part of this, I'm running a game about a 5-year old's birthday party, But Nobody Loses An Eye! on Sunday, 18 October. I ran this up at Chimera, and it was quite well received, and I hope to see what Wellingtonians will do with it. There are still spaces left, so get in touch for some crazy silly fun.

4. I finally decided what game I want to run at Kapcon this year, The Book Club. It's going to be on the weird/eccentric side, and I'm worried that a) noone will turn up, and b) lots of people will turn up with high expectations and it turns out to be crap. This is pretty normal for me and running games.

Love to all,

Stephanie

Adventures in Cookery

2009-10-06T20:42:00.002+13:00

I've been trying to broaden my palette of vegetarian recipes, partly because dairy farming is, as is becoming increasingly apparent, quite environmentally intensive, but also because there's a heap of interesting food that I'm missing out on, especially as most of my officially vegetarian range of meals usually relies heavily on eggs/dairy. Also, I have several friends with lactose or gluten intolerances, so going vegan makes it a bit easier to serve them nice meals.

Anyway, tonight was an experiment into the arcane ways of the Cranks Fast Food recipe book. This has tasty recipes and swears blind that everything can be served up in 30 minutes or less (as far as tonight goes, ha bloody ha, but I digress) which limits the complexity. (Incidentally, I really like the spanakopita and potato rosti recipes it has.) Tonight's try out was Moroccan Potato Pastelles, which involves making a mashed potato and egg mixture, a separate filling with mushrooms, spring onion, egg etc and then wrapping the potato around the filling and frying. (Not yet up to vegan, but at least less milk.)

Everything was going fine until the wrapping the potato around the filling which turned into such a hideously mushy collapsing exercise that I ended up tipping the filling in and mixing it all together. It was pleasant, but the pastelle that survived my clumsiness and was made as directed was jolly nice - a lesson to me to try harder. If anyone reading this is of Moroccan ethnicity, I apologise sincerely for messing up your cultural foodstuffs, but I'm glad I had a go, because it tasted nice.

On pot plants

2009-10-01T19:30:00.001+13:00

In the front garden of the property where I live, there's normally a pot of daisies, which I put there. Sometime in the last week, it got stolen. Not the daisies, just the pot - whoever it was took the plant out and left it tucked in by a bush with the roots left to fry in the sun, in a glorious display of thievery, pettiness, and anti-environmentalism. We have horrible neighbours downstairs, and I'm guessing that they or one of their friends probably had something to do with it. Their tenancy runs out in a week and a half! Oh boy!

Death By Chocolate

2009-09-27T22:34:00.001+13:00

Is jolly good fun.

Am too hyped to sleep. Off to the secret website!

Because Drivers Are Dicks

2009-09-22T14:32:00.001+12:00

OK, not all of them, but the ones that pass with a bare inch to spare between their wing mirror and cyclists certainly are.

There is a cycling safety petition asking for a 1.5m passing distance written into law here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ridestrong/index.html with a press release here: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0909/S00251.htm

Dear Diary

2009-09-19T15:40:00.001+12:00

Today, I benchpressed Hazel. My wrists are sore.

Climate Change and the Attack of the Wet Bus Ticket!

2009-09-16T09:41:00.004+12:00

So, National and the Maori Party have finally come to an agreement about what they want to do with the Emissions Trading Scheme, which is to make a token nod at climate change mitigation while not actually doing anything that will cause behaviour change in the major emitters. Because that would, like, suck. (For them, anyway.) Instead of polluters being expected to pay the cost of their pollution, and the costs being passed on to the beneficiaries of the pollution, the proposed scheme is focused on how to raise money for Kyoto obligations with minimum impact on the people who are actually causing the problems.

Some key points:
- Agriculture, our biggest emitter, stays out until 2015, two years later than currently legislated, and five years later than everyone else.
- Intensity based allocation. Basically, if you pollute more, it's OK as long as you're also producing more and the average amount of pollution per unit stays the same. How this idea is supposed to combine with the need to reduce national emissions given the drive to always 'grow the economy' is beyond me.
- $25/tonne fixed price option. (Currently, carbon prices are currently estimated at ~$22/tonne, although this is likely to change a lot. NZIER/Infometrics considered scenarios with world prices ranging from $25/tonne to $100 and $200/tonne in their macroeconomic impact report to give an idea of the market range that's being considered.)
- 2 for 1 deal. There is a 'transition phase' until the end of 2012 in which polluters only have to pay for half of their carbon pollution. The rest comes out of the tax take (No Right Turn estimates this at $428.5 million/per year). That would pay for a lot of hospitals and schools. Or tax cuts.

And for fun and games, there's been no attempt at reaching consensus with the other big party, so next time Labour gets in, they'll probably change it. Hopefully, in a meaningful, environmentally friendly way. What's also notable is that, despite this being John Key's latest attempt to sell out the country, it's slipped off the headlines of the major newspapers remarkably quickly - because whining about lightbulb standards and the right to whack one's offspring is so much more interesting.

I doubt that those fellows in government actually care about what I think, but just in case: You Bastards.

The Event

2009-09-15T16:33:00.002+12:00

Gosh, it really has been a while since I posted an update. Stuff has been happening, I promise!

Anyway, part four of The Event is mostly up.

Andrew Edward Ross Pegg

2009-08-11T15:20:00.002+12:00

My brother recently reminded me that it was the 20th anniversary of our father's death a few days ago. That's almost two thirds of my life; more than that, if you count the years he was dissapeared geographically instead of temporally.

Salute.

My guy is in a cast again

2009-08-05T11:20:00.002+12:00

No crutches this time, because it's a broken scaphoid , which means that I'm going to be washing dishes for a month at least. Sigh.

Last night we had The Talk. Actually, two The Talks: one about the weight of his arm and how annoyed I'd be if I get accidentally clipped on the head with it, but the other one was regarding his congenitally cold hands and how to make or adapt a glove to keep his fingers warm. Will update with a progress report...

The Event

2009-07-26T13:57:00.001+12:00

Most of part two is up now.

The Child Beating Referendum

2009-07-23T19:45:00.002+12:00

I'll be straight about with my prejudices: I don't like Family First.

I don't like the hysterical tone of their press releases, I don't like their consistent painting of children as non-rational chaotic devils, I don't like that their list of instances where s59 has gone out of control turns out to be a series of incidents where concerned neighbours, CYFS workers and police officers took sensible and considered actions to protect young people. I do respect their right to raise their concerns in a civil referendum, and encourage everyone to vote in it. Preferably voting Yes, so FF will have to stop whining about the loss of property rights over their children, but just voting at all is an important thing: it's a public statement about the way you want the next generation to be treated, which makes it a public statement about what you want the future to be.

The Yes Vote campaign has a bunch of reasons on why you should agree with me, but I also note a handy flow chart for people who are as yet undecided.

Shared World Project

2009-07-20T15:07:00.004+12:00

So I joined a group writing project called The Event. The premise is that everyone in the writing group tells the story of a character on a regular day, during The Event, and in the days following. It has to be set in Wellington, and we don't decide what The Event is until everyone's written their first piece. Part One is here.

A bit more about Saint Margaret

2009-07-16T17:22:00.003+12:00

Y'know, the thing about the study of English Literature, is that the field is pretty damn huge, and people tend to pick periods and trends to specialise in. As an intergenerational note to all the Modernists, Post-Modernists, Post-Structuralists and Post-Colonialists out there, all of whom will find that the books they want to read are either still in print, or in a library in the same city as them - Hah! I sneer in your general direction!

I currently have a loan order in for one of the two microfilms in Australasia of the 1910 reprint of a book first published in 1480(1), and it's a work of criticism on my subject. Not to mention another key reference source published in 68 volumes between 1643 and 1940.

All those people who study books younger than they are - [Yorkshire accent]Luxury!!![/Yorkshire]. Although it's certainly being interesting pushing the limits of what the Vic library service can extract for me...

(1) Mombritius, B. Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum (Paris, 1910).

I Love the Smell of Interloans in the Morning

2009-07-15T18:26:00.002+12:00

So today was my last day at work. For various reasons, this has overlapped with my first week at Varsity, and I've been running around a lot over the last two weeks, both trying to get the last thing I was working on done as far as possible and handed over in good order, and get my courses sorted out. I'm currently working on the Chaucer paper that's continued on from the previous semester, started a course on Margaret Mahy and Maurice Gee (at 15-20 students, we're filling out the Honours common room like crazy), and have mostly finished my research proposal for a 489 on St Margaret of Antioch. She got et by a dragon.

Have finished my day by sitting in Cuba Mall for a bit watching people wander round, coming home to cinnamon toast and warm milk with vanilla, and have plans to expedition out to Burgers Wisconsin. Two things are pretty evident about this evening: I'm feeling very deflated and wiped out; I stress eat.

Love to all, etc.

The Sword of my Grandfather

2009-06-12T12:12:00.003+12:00

You know that story about someone who fetches down the sword hanging on the wall and says "This is the sword of my grandfather, exactly the one he had. Oh sure, we had to replace the blade a couple of times, and that's the third handle - but it's definitely his sword."

My 2-year old bike is starting to feel that way. I'm now on my second set of brake cables, my third back tire, my 3 1/2 set of brake pads and have been told that I should really change the drive train and chain by the end of winter. Interestingly, I've become familiar enough with it that my response to this last (along with "How much? Ouch.") was "My baby!" I also found out that the bike I got was at a certain 'price point' at which the parts that can be seen on the outside are good quality name brands, and anything internal is a cheap Taiwanese knock off. Hmm.

In other news, I am pleased with the service I've been getting at my Local Friendly Bike Store, Capital Cycles. I switched there from Pennyfarthing after being fed up with the consistently poor service, and found the new place a big improvement, like for instance: being called if the mechanic feels that servicing will require a large cost for replacement parts, staff explaining what they did to my bike and why as a matter of routine, and staff giving me advice on maintenance and care. And they're generally nice people, too.

Dedication

2009-06-07T17:06:00.000+12:00

Another update on 48 Hours:

Nice encode on vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/5035329

or if for whatever reason that doesn't work the rather crappy quality youtube standard clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ciB7RsLDk

Things to be happy about

2009-06-06T16:00:00.002+12:00

So anyway, I'm taking this Honours level course on Geoffrey Chaucer, and the first assessment of the year was due about 3 weeks ago. I'd known about it for months and been putting it off as only a master procrastinator can do, and finished with an end result that was really truly apologise-to-the-professor crappy. For which I got an A+! :-) Ahem.
(Seriously, scheduling the 48 Hour Film Festival for the weekend before an essay is due is seriously inconvenient - those organiser guys should totally do something about that.)

Other things to be happy about:
It's sunny.
My sister has been having grief in her dealings with a government department, which seem likely to be almost over, thanks to a snarky letter written by our stepfather. Go snarky stepfathers for the win!
Riding out to Johnsonville with my beloved, and obtaining an electric blanket and draft excluders for the windows in the process. Death to feeling cold!
Did I mention it's sunny?
Further to a previous post, yes, my job is now scheduled to evaporate like morning dew in about 7 weeks. Anyone looking for someone with good writing and analytical skills with a good background knowledge in technical fields is very welcome to get in touch. Plan A, which is to be redeployed at my current place of employment (assuming they find a place for me to go) is currently being investigated, Plan B is to spend 4 months finishing Honours and comes with a warm reception from previous lecturers who all remember me well and are saying welcome back. Will see how it turns out - feeling less depressed about it all, anyhow.

This post is brought to you by a cup of tea and the exclamation mark.

Ho ho ho.

2009-06-02T21:33:00.002+12:00

I won half of an award!
Operative bit is "Best Fan Publication, also presented by Russell. The winner is The Girl Who Asked for Wisdom and Other Stories, edited by Catherine and Stephanie Pegg." I feel I should be a bit cagey, after all a live blog transcript isn't exactly official, but still pretty happy.

Bwa Ha. Ha. Um.

2009-05-25T18:35:00.002+12:00

So, it's official, I'm now signed up to run a larp at Chimera, called But Nobody Loses An Eye! set at a 3 year old's birthday party. It'll be totally awesome! Now I just have to, er, do something about writing it.

Note to other Wellingtonian Chimera attendees:
Registration for the con is now open at http://nzlarps.org/chimera/2009/register.htm, I'm told that game selection will come a bit later.
If you're on the same flight home as me (7pm), you might want to arrange with Anna the Larp Goddess to trade in your hour of mandatory packing out of the site to an hour of helping in the kitchen or alternate cleanup.

Christmas Holiday Special

2009-05-19T20:44:00.003+12:00

You know how when a soap opera is getting ready to close down for the holidays they put in a lot of big dramatic unpleasant events so the the audience will be raring to start watching when it starts up again?

I'm having one.

The restructure fairy has turned up at work and sprinkled her little fairy dust around. They're not reducing head count, but my particular job is one of the ones deemed unnecessary. At this point, I can make a submission about how I think they should do their restructure instead, apply for one of the new jobs being created (seeing some job descriptions would sure be handy for that), wangle a spot elsewhere in Council, or leave. Things could be a lot worse, but yet I'm still feeling very uncertain about the future.

48 Hours Update

2009-05-10T09:38:00.003+12:00

Team got 90% of the footage in the can yesterday and I stayed up until about 2.30 doing the rough cut, while Svendelmaus, my fellow gnome, messed around with sounds and backing music.* Really liking what's coming through. (If anyone is interested, we managed to write a script that's valid for 3 of the 48 Hours Approved genres, plus one that isn't. And it works. Go team!) Looking forward to the screening on Thursday.

Am now in Sunday morning lounging in my pyjamas mode, trying to stay awake so I'll sleep alright tonight. Also, there's a builder coming in about 40 minutes to fix a window sill - should probably get dressed for that.

* Day not without frustrations, like working out to get the DOP to cough up the first tape so I could start downloading footage, then having a panic attack trying to work out how to get the camera I'd been given to work and remembering how to use the software and working out why the new import method we were trying to speed up data entry wasn't working. Ah. Good times. Happily, my fellow gnome watched me typing in the shot entries for the second tape, said "That's inefficient!" and whipped up a specialised data entry program that took the job from 30-40 minutes of fiddliness to done-before-someone-has-finished-making-me-tea. Go Svend!