Lots of things happened today:
- I went to a pot luck picnic in New Farm Park with some of the translators at Red Hat.
- My mother told me she was two feet from stepping on a taipan or eastern brown snake yesterday, prompting an immediate and reflexive, What the fuck were you doing, trying to fucking ninja through the bush or something?! jkdshfasjdf. I am a charming and sympathetic child. Bless Chris and his reflexes; also, my mother is never allowed to bushwalk alone again.
- I cleaned. \o/
- I triumphed over a moodcrash. \o/

By far the most important, though?

I spent twenty minutes away from the computer this evening and now I know how Book!verse goes.



...well, okay, that's maybe not as important as mum nearly standing on one of the top three deadliest land snakes in the entire fucking WORLD, but it is the most important AWESOME thing about today. *clutches head* Mon dieu.

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( It was perfect - it really was. )

And now I have to go hunt avocados and roma tomatoes because there is not time to bake for this picnic, so I am making guacamole. Om nom nom. Not actually feeling too enthusiastic about the prospect of spending more time with a large group of people, but it's the translators, all of whom are awesome, so I'm sure it will be fine.

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No, wait, it is Thursday. How does this keep happening? :| Amazingly fast weeks are amazing. Today was all about release notes. Tomorrow will be all about release notes, and swearing while I chip more of my nail polish, assuming I can be arsed to paint them toda-- yeah, no, just release notes, and Mario Kart. Staying late so dad can pick me up straight from work, so I can afford to spend time in the Wii room. XD Despite release note flurry.

Of course, this means that at some point this evening I'm going to have to cram all the clothing I require for the wedding into a +20 Bag of Uncrushed Clothing which I... do not possess. Sigh.

For now, though, off to take care of Still More Website Problems Why Do I Do This To Myself.

[EDIT] Er, just went on a bit of a linking spree at Twitter and, um... now I really want to reread BTWIAC. But crying myself to sleep the night before the night before a wedding is probably not the best idea I ever had.

...

I told you both. I told you all the time. *ANGUISHED SOB*

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So today work crossed the line from hideous and stressful into so ridiculously bad it is actually hysterically funny territory. By which I mean this afternoon something went wrong which caused my boss to say, "...something's wrong," and which means that everything I did between last Wednesday and 4pm today?

Has to be started from scratch tomorrow morning.

So I basically started laughing around then and couldn't really stop. XD And since it's gone balls up this badly? I'm no longer worried about fucking all this important stuff up. Now I can just get on with doing the damn job instead of fretting about it. Hurrah!

Half of work is down with some dread flu or other, too, so it was very quiet today.

Went out to dinner for mum's birthday in China Town to a place Chris knows which is not better than Valley Corner and therefore matters not. :P

Now... well, now that I've written a little I've stopped being totally exhausted, but I should get to bed reasonably soon. They've put the meeting back by an hour so I can sleep in until 6.30 if I want, but I want to get up at 6 and be showered and awake since I'll actually have to talk. On the bright side, I can actually access work stuff from home now, so I won't have to flounder uselessly. Score!

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who's shown an interest in books and magazines for women, you might like to know that you can now get $5.00 off a subscription to O, the Oprah Magazine.

---

.............

[EDIT]

So my brother managed to download Windows PC Defender, which told him he had multiple Trojans and omg you should totally pay here to get rid of them. Here is a hint: DON'T.

An hour and a half later and I've called the WinVista command prompt all kinds of nasty things, and I still can't take ownership of the files to delete them. Hoping John can do something about it, but doubting it, since the last time anything like this came up I'm pretty sure he swore and gave up faster than I did. In fact, I pretty distinctly remember "[C:\] FUCK".

The point here is, people: if you don't know what it is, don't click on it. If you don't recognise it, Google it and find out what it is. This thing won't let him open Firefox or IE; the only browser working is Google Chrome. (Bless its little rainbow-coloured socks.)

Especially don't discover these things five minutes after Your Sister the Apparently-Tech-Support has gone to bed.

My father is watching rugby. His commentary can be compared, roughly, to me trying to play a video game I dearly love, but suck at.

Translation: This shit is bananas.

It was very warm today. The train out here was filthy, as in 'coated with filth'. I like visiting Dad's place because I never expect to get anything done here, so I really can just chill out on the couch without feeling hideous about it. XD If I manage something? So much the better.

In kind of a Conductor mood, but I blame that on seeing Cillian Murphy earlier in... something. He has very blue eyes and the soft, puppyish look that I associate with Chaz when he's not around his flat.

Also: you know you have reached a decent state of finances when your father inquires about the possibility of borrowing money from you. XD

Today was pretty fucking misery inducing. Oomee is pretty much raving with occasional patches of memory. The place she is staying at the moment is pretty much a prison. At least Oopee seemed chipper enough this afternoon; he had a pacemaker put in yesterday.

We have no language for times like this. Four or five times I thought, 'It's such a pity' or 'it's such a shame', but that's crap. Being sick is not a shame, to you or to people associated with you. Illness and accident should not inspire pity, it should inspire a little more fucking love. Sometimes I am angry with English.





The first time she looked at me today, she called me skatje, just like she always has. After that, she had no idea who I was, except when she cleared up enough to ask why the hell we were leaving her in this place with these crazy fucking people.

My stomach is really, really unhappy with me today. I probably should have listened to it at breakfast and lunch when it said, "Yeahhh, not actually hungry." Sigh.

Work was... well, we fixed things, and by 'we' I mean 'Darrin'. I just sat and :B'd like the n00b I am. Then we got to the end of the process and discovered I didn't actually have the permissions for it! Which was awesome. And by awesome I mean 'caused Darrin to headdesk and go aaaaaaargh very quietly to my left'.

Also, because I stayed later than I intended, I missed the bookshop. So Shadow Magic is about 150m away, locked in a shop I cannot get into until late tomorrow morning. This may not seem like a big deal but dammit, Caius Greylace is in that book.

But on the bright side, that's nearly sorted. XD And I did finish the Seam docs (again) in time for the second QE build. So, yay.

In the not-yay category, Oopee is still in hospital, mum keeps bursting into tears because Oomee is in a dementia ward, about four separate people died on Dad's side, and, yeah, it's been kind of a shitty week on the family front.

But it's the weekend now. I am going to install F11 and read Havemercy in preparation for Shadow Magic, and talk to mum about visiting Oopee after Chris has gotten her to calm down a little. There's only so much my cuddles and reassurances can do before I start Being Pragmatic, and that is not comforting in the least.

Oopie's staying in the hospital for observation for 3-5 days. They think the fluid in his lungs is because his heart's not working right; they think his heart's not working right mostly because of stress and dehydration. Mum and her sisters are doing shift work with Oomie and spending time at the hospital with Oop, and we think this should all sort itself out.

This weekend today, since I'm babysitting for Dad's anniversary tomorrow XD
- tidy room
- vacuum
- dry dark load #1
- wash sheets
- dry sheets
- wash dark load #2
- dry dark load #2
- wash dark load #3
- dry dark load #3
- fold dark load #1
- fold dark load #2
- clean shower
- clean bathroom
- wash towels
- dry towels

I need another washer and dryer during winter, I swear. XD

[EDIT] Next time Cats comes to Brisbane, I will have a shirt made ready, and it will say, THIS LAP RESERVED FOR: RUM TUM TUGGER. :)

List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you find any patterns.

( Okay, then. )

In other news, Oopie is in hospital and I nearly set my computer on fire this afternoon, but I did get to have pancakes with Wyrren and Maddie, and Maddie is going to make me an icon of the face Holmes made at the end of The Golden Beeches.

Now I'm going to bed because I'm tired and it's late.

Oh, Watanuki, please stop, you are breaking my heart it will be okay / Oh god Maru Moro come here babies I will make it better / Doumeki-kun is looking so manly this chapter!

Yes, those are all of my thoughts.

Also, Hook? Is the best movie ever. And still makes me sob. AND THE CHILDREN WERE SCREAMINGGG. THE CHILDREN... WERE SCREAMMMINNNGFGHFJH.
ME: *chokes back tears*
SIBLINGS: :O IT'S CAPTAIN HOOK.
ME: DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TRAUMATIC THIS IS DJFKS T____T

Other memorable moments:
- KILL THE LAWYERRRRR
- RUN HOME JACK. RUN HOME JACK.

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And now that I'm back... well, going to try to teach myself that coding trick before Monday! Because it's only language, dammit — how hard can it be?

- waited forever (and I mean forever) at the cultural center to get a bus out to Bellbowrie
- played FFVII on the bus and accidentally dropped a correct barrel, as usual. BLOODY AERIS, WHY ARE YOU SO HARD TO NOT-SAVE. D:
- got off at the wrong STOP dslkjfas
- spent like five hours doing a puzzle with Kyla and telling the children to go away and play quietly mummy and Laura were busy DON'TTOUCHTHAT
- became addicted to new game called Dynamic Systems on King.com T_T damn you, physics, why must you lure me?
- read very little of HBP because of aforementioned puzzle and game. :(
- argued with Dad over Gneil's (and fantasy's) literary merit
- wrote: NOTHINGGGG

[EDIT] Also, Hiru has been walking around naked in my head for several hours now, possibly in an attempt to remedy that last point. He should not do this while I am trying to read HBP, because holy god, what the HELL, mixed messages.

James' report card came in. I do not miss the days of my own report card coming in, and I am staying the fuck away from this one.

Spent all afternoon trying to make my book build. SIGH. Can start rereading it (to make sure that things are called the same thing/trademarked correctly throughout and replacing my idiotic literal tags) tonight and should be all done and built and uploaded with shiny new diagrams by the end of the week, and thank Christ for that. (It is not that the rest of the doc was hard it is just that I hate. building. things. askjdflsdhfajs.)

Lunch with Rage today, which was very nice. Bought my milk and then got back to the office to discover that our lovely receptionist had... put my milk on the order. ;_; She is so lovely!

I would like to go to sleep now. Just sayin'.

Like the idiot child, idiot parent relationship in Japan, there is also the idiot sibling relationship, which is what I have with Gina and Connor.

Today we did French knitting, and went to the park, and this, guys, is Gina copying what I drew:

( She is like Kate Beaton meets Picasso, at five. )

I really, really mean it when I say TGIF. |D; This morning was hideous and unproductive; this afternoon I went and hid in a conference room with Crowley, a cuppa, and a bar of chocolate, and I am not joking when I tell you I was a hundred times more productive there: the morning's pagecount was 0.25; the afternoon's was 22. Do not ask me how this happened, but fuck, I am glad to be home.

Chatted with Dad all the way here, and then sat down to draw with Gina. She showed me all of her stuff, and man, I kind of want to start a proper archive of it. >_>; She has a few that are REALLY INSANELY DETAILED for a kid her age - like, full-on backgrounds and everything - and, well, colour me impressed.

I taught her to make paper dolls tonight, and I fear I will regret it tomorrow. XD; Ah, well. At least we determined early that cutting out the dolls really, really hurts me. Fucking hands.

Also, Sarah Monette linked some really good reviews of the Doctrine of Labyrinths series (up on TOR.com, but linked from truepenny@LJ - I've been typing in XML all day, you can fuck off with your hrefs) and now I am kind of desperate to reread the bloody things, and gah. Mentioned it on Twitter this morning, but the entire DoL series is not an appropriate reward to myself for finishing a different novel. XD I keep reading something else, then floating gleefully back to DoL... I'm starting to think it's a disease.

[EDIT] Except now I've read the Corambis review, and man, it's not a country 'over the mountains'. Mildmay REALLY, REALLY SUMMARISED that journey. XD Like, really. It's practically fucking CHINA. [/EDIT]

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention - I probably did - I am produdfctititty at Twitter. (Oh, look, I could be bothered after all.) Just to make life really difficult for those of you unused to typing my catchphrase. ;D

[EDIT] OH GOD I CANNOT EVEN SCREAM IT WITHOUT SPOILING PEOPLE ( BUT )

*bawls*

Dear mother,

It is not cool to have your mobile off when you don't come home when we have previous arrangements and you've made no intimation to the contrary. For all I know you and Chris made fast friends with a stringybark on the side of the highway.

No love right now,
Rave,
who is mildly disgruntled and wishes the bloody woman would a) call or b) LEAVE HER PHONE ON.

---

Merlin was fabulously tacky, by the way. Now I need to go raid the fic comm again.

[EDIT] OKAY, SO I HAVE ADVENT CHILDREN COMPLETE, NOW. Flows much better than the original, except for the division between Tifa and Marlene getting to the church and the fight, so thank all gods for that. Also, my Girl With Pigtails gets a bigger part. As do the Turks and Yazoo. 8D And Zack! Who is still a puppy!

( Things I can understand without subtitles. )


'kay, guys, it's, uh, totally worth suffering through again. :"D

[EDIT] OH MY GOD GUYS COOLEST ADDITIONAL YAZOO AND INADVERTANT TURKS SUNSET SCENE EVER

ALSDJFKLSJDFKSDJF;SDFSD;FLSD;FJSDFASD

GUYS SERIOUSLY :"DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

If you call me and I don't pick up, it's because I am sick of hearing from fucking relatives who think they deserve any say in my fucking priorities.

Way to instantly fuck up my good mood.

This article, found by Tina, is really very interesting. Not least for the wry humour displayed by either police or the writer in the last paragraph. |D; I feel compelled to keep an eye on this.

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In other news, guys, I may not have been strenuous enough in pointing out how much you need to read Sarah Monette's work. I am going to link you to things now, and I demand that you give at least one of them a try. Okay?

For a start, she has a LiveJournal. Which is a good place to go just to read her thoughts on writing. Also, there are online short stories listed in her sidebar, some of which I will demand that you read below.

It is really difficult not to just link you to all of them, by the way.

Meta makes me glad I'm not always totally awful to my characters. (Shut up, Xolotl.)

A Light in Troy is one of those beautiful snippet-verses that make me long for the rest of the story and yet know that the lack of detail there is kind of the point - what makes this short so complete.

A Night in Electric Squidland makes me want more stories in this 'verse for a different reason - like the Booth stories, there's a lot more you could do in a world like this, and I sincerely hope she does.

Sundered is a beautiful piece on understanding, where once again I want more of the world but am satisfied because this story feels real.

Under the Beansidhe's Pillow made Chaz come out into the middle of my head and sit and wait while I read it and gained knowledge and understanding from it.

Wait for Me is one of the Booth stories, part of the short story novella called The Bone Key, which I love as a collection possibly more than I love The Doctrine of Labyrinths. This is the sort of thing I hope for in Squidland!verse.

The Watcher in the Corners is a brilliant standalone. I really, really liked this.

Absent from Felicity is a Hamlet fic. It goes by the tagline, Fortinbras is not Hamlet, and does, I think, what good fanfiction ought. I am very fond.

She also writes for Shadow Unit, which I've not yet read, but I plan to.

There's a full list of her writings at her website, but these are the easily accessible ones, the free ones, that I need you to look at before you discount me as a rambling loon. Just one, guys, one or two.

---

Big talks were had today. Mum would like to get me counselling for my social anxiety. I am not wholly against this, but I don't exactly feel anything positive toward it, either.

Now I'm going to go draw things so I fulfil my obligations toward stepstepjump and don't miss out on kuchibue's sculptures of my characters. Even though, having made a sand!Sanga on the weekend, I am remembering how much I actually like working things with my hands. XD;;; Fail, Rave. Fail.

I'm back from the holiday early for reasons best left undisclosed, so if you know, you're a rarity, and I'd appreciate a clipped lip. The rest of you, I'm not interested. Nothing personal. Sorry.

Was mildly productive in both writing and drawing, but am probably not going to be able to write a number of my more recent interests for a while. My mind refuses to connect, strangely enough. I will, however, have a completed no_true_pair prompt (Mildmay/Sephiroth) posted later in the day.

I made a Sanga in the sand at the beach yesterday. Well, his face and neck and the first part of his shoulders while Chris and James braved the bluebottles. His jaw is a Bastard, and you have never hated sand properly until you have tried to sculpt gills with it.

This afternoon I have to draw, although I can't say I feel like it. stepstepjump's challenge ends tomorrow, though, and I have a feeling I'm going to feel even less like drawing then.

Only half an hour earlier than my normal Saturday shift, which doesn't really count since we were open an hour longer anyway, but... I am home! Apparently my carpet has been devoured by moths! My mother has cleaned my room again and I don't really approve of this, but whatever! I have work tomorrow and Monday but I'm off Tue-Thu now so, uh, I am going to sleep. And hermit. Yes.

Also, wild Corambis appeared! I hope Pulp Fiction calls soon.

Of course, James's plot to keep playing the XBox while mum was at the football has been foiled, and his response to this is, "Well, I'm calling Dad, then, and I'm not coming back."

Awesome.

*facemash*

[EDIT] And I'm pretty sure mum just kicked James out of the house. :|

[EDIT] He's not kicked out yet, but he's banned from the computer and all games. So he's going to harass me to change the passwords and let him play all night. And if he harasses me, mum is going to take him back to John's tomorrow.