Author: Purple Wyrm

Been a while ain’t it?

I’ve been busy getting settled into the new place, that’s my excuse. But now things are just about right, so I should start making updates with a bit more regularity. You never know.

I spent a few enjoyable (enjoyable to me that is, anyone else would have been bored paralytic) hours this weekend redrafting my map of the entirely fictional English city of Tackleford. Tackleford (for those not in the know) is the setting of John Allison’s most excellent webcomic Scary-Go-Round (and his most- excellent- for- the- time- but- now- looking- somewhat- dated- webcomic-Bobbins). My motivation for undertaking such a task is that someone on the Scary-Go-Round forum asked if anyone had a copy of it so he could add it to the Tackleford page on the new Dumbrella Wiki.

So I redrafted it, neatening it up generally and adding a few extra details like the Keane End golf links and the suburb of Copper Edge (it’s nice there – they rob you, but then shoot you so you won’t feel sad :). The next logical step would be to reply to the forum post, BUT in order to do that I’d have to sign up. And while I have considered it from time to time (it’s a fairly entertaining read – if you’re into the comic that is of course*Which I am. Not just to the extent of forking over good money for tea-towels and printed collections but to the extent of forking over extra money for such fripperies as getting my name published in the back of first editions and having John A. do personalised sketches inside the back covers. I probably badly need a life but I reckon it’s worth it for a hand drawn sketch of Amy and Friend Bat 🙂) but I don’t think I will. I don’t know exactly why, maybe it’s because everyone on there seems to know everyone else so well – that kind of thing tends to intimidate me. I guess I’m just a natural lurker 🙂

So I’ll just post my map here, and sooner or later someone may stumble across it and feel inclined to add it to said Wiki. Hmmmmmm I guess I can increase the odds of that with a few well chosen key words on the actual map page…

Apart from that I’ve mostly been just settling in to the new apartment. I did a major furniture reshuffle yesterday with the result that I can now use my computer without having to have the main curtains drawn (the perpetual gloom was depressing me) and the TV is now in range of the remotes while I sit at said computer (having to stand up and walk a metre forwards whenever I needed to adjust the volume was getting to be a serious pain). The new location has the added advantage that I can no longer hear the drug-addled thugs downstairs going around their business, which is fantastic. Unless they’re being really loud that is.

You know I don’t think I’ve mentioned the drug-addled thugs before. They inhabit the unit underneath mine and seem unable to hold a simple five minute conversation without some kind of shouting/screaming/swearing match breaking out. And that’s just their day to day routine – if something happens to annoy them they ramp the volume up to deathmatch levels.

Like the other day for instance. Apparently one of the other residents had the temerity to complain about one of them damaging her car. The resultant discussion about this went something like this…

This (and variations thereof) went on for about two hours while I was trying to sleep. I did consider leaning out my window and pointing out that if he was innocent of damaging her car, then putting a brick through her window would be highly illogical (making oneself guilty of one criminal act specifically because you weren’t guilty of another), however I decided that they might not appreciate my input 🙂

The only time they seem to calm down is when they sit in their garden (ground floor units have a small fenced garden in lieu of a balcony) and smoke massive quantities of the wacky-tabaccy, the smoke of which blows up into my unit, giving me a headache. Sadly the calming effect doesn’t seem to last very long as soon afterwards they start up again with the yelling, screaming and dog kicking.

(OK, they don’t kick their dog that much).

When I first moved in here their continual fighting terrified me, but now I’m getting used to it. The trick is to view them as an interesting anthropological case study of Very Angry People, or as a cautionary example on the dangers of too much pot and alcohol and too few brain cells. If they carry on the way they are, I figure they have to get kicked out of the complex eventually – or at least I hope so at any rate. With my luck they’re owner-occupiers.

Ah, there they go again! Something about someone paying someone else with $20 and a foil. Everyone in Geraldton’s talking about it apparently. Well I never!

Anyway what else has been happening? Oh yeah, I almost found a diamond on the street. It was at the bus-stop on Hampden Road, just lying there between the brick paving. I carried out some preliminary hardness and spectroscopic tests on it (ie: I tested to see if it would scratch glass – it would, and I held it up to the light to see how sparkly it was – very sparkly) then took it in to a jeweller. The good news is that if it was an actual diamond it would be worth about $15,000. The bad news is that it’s not an actual diamond, it’s a cubic zirconia and worth maybe $6.00. Oh well. It was worth checking out, $14,000 would have been very useful for the mortgage.

(Why only $14,000? If it had been a real diamond I would have gone into town and blown $1000 on books and CDs. I’ve always wanted to just walk into a store and start throwing things into a basket without bothering about how much they’re going to cost :D)

Naturally a lot of other stuff has been going on, but that’ll do for an update for now. After all, I’ve got to figure out where to put my printer and scanner before CSI starts 🙂

Am I the only person in the world to notice that the maps of Middle Earth used in Peter Jackson’s films incorrectly label the Adorn as the Swanfleet?

Am I the only person in the world who actually cares? 🙂

Reasons Moving Sucks

1. I’m horribly stressed.
2. I’m in a strange new place with strange new people (unlike back at the Gables where I knew and was comfortable with all the strange people).
3. All my stuff is in boxes and crates where I can’t find it.
4. I have no phone line.
5. My computer is still at the Gables waiting to be moved.
6. My rubbish bins are still at the Gables waiting to be moved so I have to put my garbage in a plastic bag on the side of the sink.
7. My stereo is still at the Gables waiting to be moved so I can’t listen to music or the radio.
8. My clock is still at the Gables waiting to be moved so the only way to tell the time in the mornings is to turn the TV onto Sunrise with David Cosh.
9. My toaster is still at the Gables waiting to be moved, so I have to have cold bread instead.
10. My condiments are still at the Gables waiting to be moved, so I have nothing to put on said cold bread except margarine.
11. I’m out of margarine.
12. My bed and mattress have been moved and shaken around and possibly put back together the wrong way – so they don’t feel like my nice comfortable bed and mattress anymore.
13. There’s no benchtop or surface of any kind to put things on in the bathroom.
14. My TV was dropped during the move and has a big ugly scratch across the screen.

By themselves they’re all fairly minor things (apart from maybe point 5) but put them together and I’m not happy at all 🙁

You know it’s times like this I can really see the advantages of having a relationship. It’d be nice to have a girlfriend in this kind of situation – I could whinge about it all to her (instead of to this blog) and then she could roll her eyes, give me a big hug and tell me to stop being such a wimp and pull myself together. Oh well, I’ll just have to buy some margarine, re-arrange my bed and hope things improve.

Moving sucks.

I started moving on Friday afternoon, it’s now Monday morning and I’m still going. Obviously I own way too much stuff -it took most of Saturday to get my books over alone. But while the end is not yet in sight, the point from where the end will be in sight is within sight. If I haven’t gone blind from prolonged heavy lifting in the meantime.

Ummmm, don’t know that there’s a lot else to say. Well not in my life anyway. There’s been a bit going on in the world. Like the Kyoto Protocol. Finally it’s come into effect. Of course the world’s largest polluter (the USA) and the world’s largest per-capital polluter (yes, that’s us, the Australians) won’t have anything to do with it. Hopefully carbon trading will turn out to be such a major economic force that the Government will see sense. Hopefully.

Talking politics there’s been a major diplomatic row with New Zealand. Helen Clarke (the NZ Prime Minister) has had the temerity to declare that she’s never heard of John Farnham! It’s unbelievable! The leader of a foreign nation has never heard of an outdated and mediocre Australian musician who’s never had any kind of musical career or success outside of Australia?!? It’s an outrage!! We should invade immediately!! Or at least that’s the attitude some segments of the media have been taking, I’m sorely tempted to suggest they all get a life.

Hmmm, JJJ is playing a song at the moment (the name and artist escape me) whose chorus features the line Are you hoping for a miracle?. The thing is though that is sounds like Are you happy for a moo-cow? which frankly is a much better lyric. There should be more songs that pose nonsensical questions about moo cows if you ask me.

Oh yeah, Tang. On impulse I bought some Tang the other day as a backup for when I run out of orange juice, and on Friday I actually ran out of said orange juice and mixed some up. What can I say except wow! It’s really good! It tastes like real, fresh orange juice, but without that bitter quality that I can’t stand. I can see why Homer was harrasing President Clinton for some, I’d be doing the same. It’s going down as a permanent item on the shopping list from now on.

OK, I’m going off to shift heavy furniture. sigh.

Once again it’s the dreaded 14th, but I’m too tired, stressed out and sleep deprived to be bothered being all bitter and cynical. Valentines can go hang as far as I’m concerned, I’ve got too much to do.

On a completely different note I forgot to mention yesterday that the characters in Battlestar Galactica seem to follow a religion based around “The Lords of COBOL”. Having studied (and been forced to program in) COBOL at university I can safely state that it is NOT a good foundation for any kind of religious faith whatsoever 😉

Just finished watching part two of the Battlestar Galactica mini-series which I taped last night. Not bad really, although you’d think that if you’d figured out FTL space flight, articial intelligence and spacecraft able to take direct hits with nuclear missiles then a little thing like cancer wouldn’t be a problem. But it’s nice to see a spaceship that doesn’t have the Captain sitting in a fancy chair in the middle of a gleaming bridge Star Trek style. The whole look, feel and terminology is that of a battleship or aircraft carrier – even a World War II battleship or aircraft carrier. All dark with flickering screens and a big chart table, great stuff. I’m looking forward to watching the actual series – for as long as Channel 10 deigns to show it in a regular, resonable timeslot that is.

The reason I had to tape it is that it was Katie’s birthday party last night. I was actually under the impression that the party was next Sunday for some reason – so it was just as well I phoned Katie yesterday afternoon to say I’d be going. As parties go it was OK – you know, keeping in mind that I don’t really like parties very much at the best of times, and the best of times party-wise generally involve me actually knowing people who are there, which I didn’t. But that was OK, I just found a dark corner and lurked – which is what I’m good at. A few people talked to me which was nice, a girl named Charlotte particularly who seemed slightly concerned that I didn’t seem to be having a good time. But she was nice about it, so that’s OK.

Also in attendance was Katie’s friend Claire – actually it was her party too, Katie and her having birthdays very close. Happily the mad crush I developed on her the last time we met didn’t re-manifest, even though she was still insanely cute, or at least short and hyperactive.

Hmmmm, there’s not really much more to say. I went, I lurked, I left. Oh, and I missed an opportunity to be cool and funny when a bunch of cool and funny people (including the aforementioned Claire) started doing rather poor impersonations of the insane Scotsman from Little Britain. I mean my impression of the insane Scotsman has received much praise and critical acclaim (well, Ryan and Justin said it was very good :), so I probably could have blown them all away. But their impressions were so far off the mark that I didn’t realise what they were doing until it was too late to join in. Oh well, c’est la vie.

Anyway I’ve got to go pack. Moving next weekend. Ugh.

PS: JJJ just played I Am by Airlock, and it is quite clearly the best song ever in the entire world. BEST SONG EVER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! (Songs always sound so much cooler in French 🙂

Oh great, North Korea has nukes.

Anyone feel like throwing together a Korean version of Let’s drop the Big One?

Sigh

Well it seems my Mortgage Broker – for reasons best know to his tiny little mortgage broker mind – decided not to send me the forms to fill out to apply for the Government’s First Home Buyer’s Grant. Which means I won’t be getting it until I track down said forms, fill them out myself, and wait for the slow rumbling bueracratic machine to process them, which usually takes a couple of weeks. Which would be fine except I was sort of counting on getting the grant and using it to pay the Settlement on my new flat – which is due next week.

So, anyone care to loan me $7,000 before Wednesday? >:-|

Cool! Helen and Rob did end up giving their hamster the name I suggested! This discovery leaves me with a sense of power and importance completely out of proportion with something as un-notable as supplying nonclamenture for a Syrian rodent 🙂

(At least I think hamsters come from Syria, I should probably look it up).

By the way – this is brilliant 🙂

“Shall we duel with Death Machines?”

“No.”

“With Whistlers?”

“I’ll drink to that.”