The Blog - The Archive

*yawns*...

You can expect a proper blog post tomorrow, in which I report on the excursion to the nuclear power plant, but for now, have a handful of random links and then I'm going to bed. Oh, and I should report that I got around to entering my awesome sampler of awesome in the Easter Show in category 43: embroidery of a modern design. There's $10 I'll never see again, but perhaps I'll make some poor soul laugh. Pattern notes now available.

• More British passengers died on the Titanic because they queued politely for lifeboats.
• Apparently someone tried to kill the Queen back in the 70s when she visited. No one knew.
• Snakes eating other snakes!

Labels: crafty-Cat, linking all over the place, news, Radioactive-Cat, snakes, Spider-Cat, tired

Having a bad day, but I'm blogging anyway...

Actually, while I'm throwing out the occasional random thing I want for my birthday, I want to go see The War of the Roses (link only to the first part, because they don't have a combined page). Because 8 hours of Shakespeare sounds simply wonderful. Also, Cate Blanchett as Richard II. (And under 30s get tickets for $30/part, which is cheaper than the student rate...)

Also, I found this article, Men's bra stimulates otome (girlish) side in men and felt I had to link it here. Oh Japan. ("Otome" is more commonly used to mean "maiden/maidenly", so it's not just blokes getting in touch with their feminine side. They're getting in touch with their frilly princess side.)

Labels: birthdays, fire pretty, japan, shakespeare, theatre

A Short Note About Booking Accommodation...

If you reply to my enquiry with:

Dear Catherine,
Thanks for the email.
We do have an Ensuite Cabin with air-con available for the Sat & Sunday nights for a total tariff of $230 for 2 persons.
If you require any further information or wish to made a reservation, please call our helpful reception staff during office hours on our free call number.
Kind regards,
Loneen

Easts Beach Holiday Park Kiama
"Where great memories are a holiday away”

I should not have to reply with:

Dear Loneen,
I was sorry to hear from the helpful reception staff that it's not available after all, as you apparently don't make Sat/Sun night bookings, preferring instead to keep them free for Fri/Sat nights.
Thank you for your time,
Catherine

Honestly, Easts Beach? That's just cruel, and what the hell? You don't want my business? Even though the cabin is available and empty? On the off-chance that someone else might want it on both Friday and Saturday night?

Fine.

There are plenty of other places around there that actually want my money. I'll stay at one of them, I'm sure the customer service will be better.

To prove that there's more to life than complaining, have a couple more fics to read:

• His Dark Materials: The Teethmarks of Time by Thevina - Will's life after the adventures of the books. Poignant, it made me cry.
• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Like Love in the Movies by Jan - "In which Kyon's life becomes an indie movie. Sort of." Love it. Kyon's voice is just perfect, I love the way he shrugs off all the weirdness around him.
• Titanic: The Last Dance by shewhoguards - The band played on.

Labels: easts beach holiday park, haruhi suzumiya, holiday, kiama, long live the revolution, my pagerank is higher than yours and I'm not afraid to use it, review, urge to kill rising, yuletide

An oft-delayed blog...

So I'm still a little sick, but the antibiotics are kicking in and all of a sudden I'm very sleepy. Fortunately on Wednesday I worked a full work day and thus was not on the train that derailed. I did get to see the train as my late-running train made it's slow way past, but I didn't have my camera out because I thought it would have been cleared up by then. Two carriages were off the tracks, as far as I could tell, and I can only imagine it was rather scary. I don't know how it could have happened, given that the train would have just stopped (or been about to stop) at the station and no one goes fast through there. I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was foul play.

Another link: On the whole 11th doctor casting news fiasco

And one more, from my new favourite blog, Fuck You, Penguin: A snake and a hamster that are friends.

This is what I'd want for my birthday, if my birthday were in March and not January: The greatest Doctor Who toys ever. (If anyone is after ideas, Kinokuniya has the first Gunnerkrigg Court book in stock. Also Absolute Sandman volumes 3 and 4, but they're out of most people's price range.)

More yuletide stories!

• Addams Family: Because We're Addamses by calliopes_pen - a story told from Wednesday's point of view, more or less set around the Movie. Deliciously in character.
• Fairy Tales: Once Upon a Dream by bookesque - a reworking of Sleeping Beauty, told from the point of view of both the prince and the princess, in which both are aware of their places in the story, and both don't necessarily want any part of it. Lovely.
• Merlin: Know Thine Enemy by Isabeau - Mordred's story, so sad and poignant and tragic. I love him here, and the way she's written this.
• Nethack: Another Sad Death Written In The Book Of Tyr by kastaka - Reads like a really fun session of the game.
• Tokyo Babylon: Memory -- A Save Tokyo City Story by Psyienna - This is Tokyo as I remember it, and the characters as I wish I had been able to write them. Beautiful.

Labels: fairy tales, nethack, public transport, sickly-Cat, Tokyo Babylon, toys, trains, yuletide

Well oops...

I probably shouldn't be spending my first hour back at work planning my next vacation.

Labels: holiday, losing sleep, uni

More linkies...

I swear to God that the next time my father tells me one more time that working a 60 hour week isn't a real job because I don't earn a real salary I will slit my fucking wrists. Nothing is worth this shit.

In more positive news, I'm up to 'J' in my quest to get scores on every song in DDR 8th Mix with only a few skipped, in Light mode. I'm hoping I'll get a few more of them before bed tonight. ETA: 'K', with only two skipped and eight scored 'C' or lower to improve upon.

Since I finally made it through the rest of the draft posts waiting for me in blogger, have the last of the great stack of things I needed to blog about:

• The Hyped Panic Over 'War of the Worlds' - This is somewhat disappointing, but also fascinating. In short form: the panic we were all told about was faked up by the media.
• Dispatches from Planet Zog - A discussion on aliens in New Who and why RTD sucks as a writer.
• Why We Deserve Better Villains — And How To Get Them - All the flaws of modern villain writing, and how to make them bad guys again. Every writer needs to read this, or something like it (I don't even like io9, but occasionally something good is linked to me).
• ALW's pick for playing Phantom II. Actually, while I'm linking to Cleo, everyone should read the The Phantom of the Fiction Workshop, which makes me laugh out loud each time I read it.
• Pink go-go boots and matching rocket-launcher - I can't even remember the first time I read this, but it's been in my to-post list forever. I love everything2.
• Kermit Bale - A rather large collection of images of Christian Bale and Kermit the Frog, showing just how much they have in common
• Yet another story about John Titor - I always wanted to spend more time reading up on this plucky time traveller. One of these days I will.
• Fragmentary Knowledge - A fascinating article about the Antikythera Mechanism.
• 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do - yet another TED talk, but a short one by Gever Tulley, and I agree with most everything in it. Note the parental supervision part.
• This Johnny Wander comic makes me happy. I can relate.
• Park Hall Poesy - the story of a hand truck, lost in an English department, told through poetry.

Further Yuletide recommendations:

• Gunnerkrigg Court: Possession by Person - Zimmy is crazy for Gamma. But we love her anyway.
• M*A*S*H: Dear Trapper by Rinkle - both funny and poignant and horrible. I love this story.
• Wall.E: All There Is And More by silksieve - After the movie, the robots build a new life on earth.
• William Gibson - Neuromancer: Mercury Scatters by Northland - a lovely short piece about Molly.
• Winnie the Pooh / Discworld: In Which Worlds Collide and Eeyore Investigates a Terrible Crime by torch - A crossover of awesome. With footnotes. *swoons*

One last thing before I leave you, just because I love you.

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Not my idea or coding, sadly. And I know marquees are evil, but that's not the point.

Labels: dangerous things, DDR, doctor who, family, muppets, science fiction, the Phantom of the Opera, time and space, writing, yuletide

Owning Up...

So, I'm at home today, enjoying my last real day off uni and wondering where the hell everyone else has gone to. I'm still sickly, but am working on it by spending all day in my pyjamas and otherwise lazing around. I suppose I ought to update everyone at this point by linking to all the fanfiction I've written in the last month, just in case you want to keep up with that:

• Yuletide: Spilling Milk and Falling Stars (Tokyo Babylon) - written for Kenshinzen's request for a Supernatural crossover. I haven't seen more than a few episodes of SPN, so I couldn't write that as the primary story as requested, but I did my best at sneaking the boys into the background of the story for them. No word back from Kenshinzen, but I'm sure they'll eventually tell me they loved the gift I worked for so many days on. Anyway, this is a fairly basic Tokyo Babylon fic about Subaru, Hokuto and Seishirou as a family, going for lunch and fortune-telling.
• Yuletide treat: Roly-Poly Boxbot (Gunnerkrigg Court) - written for Iseult Variante's throwaway line about a Boxbot story in her request. It's terrible, but then so's Boxbot. I wrote this one while Tony was napping before James' mum's Christmas party, but it was just too much fun.
• PHYS2512: Suddenly Silenced (Star Wars) - written for Sarah, who didn't have particulars in her requests. I'm not sure why, out of a list of many fandoms and with all the freedom in the world, all I could finish was Alderaan blows up fanfic, but that's how it works sometimes. I really love this story, it's probably the best-written story I've done this month, and I wrote it all in longhand before typing it up.
• PHYS2512: The Early Flamingo Catches The—What Do Flamingoes Eat Anyway? (The West Wing) - CJ's morning routine, written for Kat. I couldn't quite decide on a particular period of the show to write in, other than pre-series 6, and my American politics is sketchy at the best of times, but I love CJ, and something about this voice appealed to me. I'm surprised at how well it all came together.
• PHYS2512 bonus: Hermione's Revolution (Harry Potter) - written for Sarah, since no one deserves nothing but a depressing story for Christmas, and I'd started this one first. For some reason I had trouble finding the rest of this story, basically everything after she gets into Dumbledore's office, but with a little bit of help from Rinkle I got it done only a little bit late. :)

Phew, that's a surprising number of words, all of them for fandoms I haven't really written before (I know I've done SW, but never the OT for some reason. I tend to write in the Old Republic, for better or worse). Now all I have to do is get myself back to writing in the past tense.

I found this snippet of what I had called Tachikoma Diaries when I was deleting the old draft blog posts. I ought to write more of this, as it's cute and I want a pet tachikoma. I think it was a vague idea for last year's yuletide fic.

"Monday: v. v. unhappy. Batou gave natural oil to noisiest of Tachikoma thinking it was me again. I know our memories are synchronised every night but how he can believe that thing when it says its his favourite is beyond me. Lonely and miserable and wishing noisiest of Tachikoma be blown up in next action."

I think I need to read Bridget Jones before going on with that though. *grins*

Labels: 1000 words, damn you CLAMP, fanfiction, Gunnerkrigg Court, Harry Potter, I am a fanfic whore, I don't want to live on the moon, star wars, tachikoma, the west wing, Tokyo Babylon, writing, yuletide