The Blog

GRUMBLES!...

You know, the correct next thing to say to this conversation:

You: What are your plans for today?
Me: Just cleaning up. The place is a mess.

is not "Okay", followed by a rousing three hours of street racing on facebook, and then an affternoon nap.

Labels: brothers suck, family, middle class mediocrity, random, rant

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.

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

   Dear Family...

The whole "using my bathtowel and toothbrush" thing has gotten really really old.

I will buy new ones tomorrow, and if it happens again, I'm throwing all of your toothbrushes in the bin, regardless of who it was that committed the crime.

Labels: family, going to flip out and chop off someone's head

   You don't even remember, do you..?

I'm really tired of feeling like I don't belong.

Labels: family, I want to go home now, phd, sending our love down the well

   300 posts later...

...and I still want to do this blogging thing. Who would have thought?

So, in the personal news, Minako is back! Woo! *does the happy laptop dance, which sounds much dirtier than it actually is*

James bought me some stickers from MOO with my flickr photos on them, and I've been gleefully sticking them all over my once immaculately white iBook. I'll post photos later, I imagine.

Actually, on the subject of photos, the other week I knitted a scarf in three days for my dear friend Nilanka's birthday. It was the short row rib from Magknits, knitted in Vintage Hues by Cleckheaton and it was really fun to knit something fun and simple for a change. Which is to say something other than my jacket of doom (last seen in this blog post by my mum), which is coming along nicely, but the last stages (knitting the collar and sewing it up) are going very slow.

As a part of her birthday present I also promised to teach Nilanka how to knit herself, and so last Sunday I went to see her and taught her how to both knit and purl and she's now the proud creator of the first 15cm of a scarf in a 3 rows knit, 3 rows purl rib (much the same as the one I knitted for her, but without the short rows). It's very pretty and I hope she enjoys knitting from now on. I may have to go back in a week or two to teach her how to cast off.

I've also knitted a scarf for Heidi in the last few weeks, but I forgot to photograph it. :(

I'm currently at 6 pages on "Skirting the Paradox", for those who care about my fictional works. I'd love to have this finished soon, but I'm really bad at writing fight scenes, and when you get right down to it the whole story is one long string of fight scenes. *sighs* I kinda just want to skip them and get on with the fun mystery stuff, because that's really the point of the story, but the violent setting keeps getting in the way.

Oh, and I suppose you want to know about the PhD. Well, I think I finally made a breakthrough today. I'm still not going to finish anytime soon, but I feel like I know what's going on and where I'm headed. I'm sure that'll only last a day or two, but right at this moment, I'm feeling good about it.

James has started a new job today. That makes me inordinately happy. I imagine he'll be blogging about it soon enough. In the meantime, everyone should go and read his post where he points out the uncanny resemblance between the latest iPod posters and screenshots from Battle Royale. Because it's awesome and while I believed him when he first told me that was what they look like I didn't realise just how similar the imagery was.

My sister has packed herself a "go-bag" in case of terrorist attack during the APEC summit next month. We're reasonably certain she's being ironic, since it primarily consists of her St John's Ambulance first aid kit (which she keeps in her car anyway), a change of clothes and a packet of timtams (which will someday run out), but you can never be too sure.

My grandmother on my father's side is currently in the Sydney Eye Hospital (she had the cataracts removed from one eye last week and it promptly became infected) and yesterday she had an operation which was apparently successful. She's in the room next door to Anthony Mundine, who's got himself a horrible eye infection because he noticed a speck on his contact lens and licked it to get it clean. The good news is that my nanna will be fine, the bad news is that no one is sure about "the Man".

Actually, while we're on the subject of Catherine's relatives, my grandmother on my mum's side recently loaned me her collection of newspaper clippings about her father (my great grandfather), Edward Michael Boland. My mum took the time to scan them all into a pdf file for posterity, and it's available for download if you are interested in my family history. He was a great man (even the Queen recognised it, giving him an OBE *smiles*), being Apprenticeship Commissioner in NSW for more than 20 years, known for being fair minded and working with Liberal governments in power despite him being a Labor man through and through. Grandma informed me that the Liberal government actually changed the age of retirement laws so that he could stay on longer in his job.

My favourite quote from the collection reads:
The Commissioner is not concerned that his OBE puts in the same order of chivalry as the Beatles with their MBEs. But he commented wryly: "I still prefer youths with hair short back and sides."
- (We think the Sunday Telegraph), 27th June, 1965


Moving on to the world outside my circle of peoples, we have a couple of great bits of news to discuss:

Giant Lego man washed up on Dutch beach
This is just amazing. Both for the quotes ("I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England.") and for the thought that maybe he was made to walk the plank on a giant Lego pirate ship. Or maybe he was just washed overboard. We may never know!


China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
You read that right. The Dalai Lama must now ask permission (no doubt in triplicate) before he reincarnates.
And while that sounds amusing at first (and indeed, those of us here in the office laughed when we first read it), it's also terribly sad when you think of the Chinese government using this power to corrupt the beautiful mysticism of the Tibetan people.

Skipping away from depressing news, the new iMacs were released today. I think they're pretty ugly, what with the giant black border around the screen (which is really a quite clever way of hiding the fact that you can't actually fit a computer in the space behind the screen alone), but they're better than the mockups James showed me last week and still reasonably sexy. And I'm sad to say that I want one like burning. Good thing they haven't released Leopard yet, or I'd be in trouble. Bloody Steve.

And this story about Magic has just made my day. I must wire some of those switches into my life.

So, this is the end of my 300th blog post. Was it good for you too?

Labels: crafty-Cat, Domus Prime, family, history, iCatherine, knitting, lego, longest blog ever, magic, never going to graduate, news, old photographs, phd, reality distortion field, web stuff, writing

   Jedi Tim-Tam's Sekrit Hot Lemon Drink Recipe...

Actually, it was my great grandmother's (the more I hear about her, the more I regret that I never really had a chance to know her: she was apparently something of a monty python fan among other awesomenesses). Anyway:

Put the juice of one lemon (or as much as you can manage to get in the mug), less than a teaspoon of honey and a slurp of rum in a mug. Then add about 150mL of warm water (not hot, you don't want to cause evaporation of the good stuff).

Then drink.

PS. You don't have to be sick to enjoy this.

Labels: family, recipes, sickly-Cat, yay vodka

   I have a cold and am in no state to blog...

so here's a photo my mum put up on flickr:
I think that is her on the left, with my grandmother Eileen, Aunty Cathy, and then my great grandparents, of whom Granny Ruth is the only one I knew.

Labels: family, history, old photographs, sickly-Cat