Gentle Reader, you're back. Or perhaps I am, some days it's hard to tell.

Drag up the remaisn of a chair and hurl yourself unceremoniously into it, I'll go grab a bottle of port and a little cheese. Sod the biscuits, let's do this properly.

I am, for no easily explainable reason, exhausted. Not from excessive physical activity, nor from lack of sleep, nor even from anything the doctors can trace as a lurgy. I'm just plain tired.
Were I a squirrel I'd be getting set for hibernation. Watching the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer before curling up someplace warm with someone extra snugglesome and setting the arlam clock for half past april.

It's a tempting plan, anyone care to join me ?

See what your brotehrs and sisters are up to, shocking...

http://www.wireless.is/projects/crows/

The official site
http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/

Rule7 forums
http://forums.rule7.co.uk/

The "rule 7" Forum for maelstrom
http://forums.rule7.co.uk/Forum37-1.aspx

Take a peek, see what you can see.

Today is a day of contradictions. A day which swings from one end of the pendulum to the other at a frequency which should by all common sense lead to an overall sense of an average day.
Alas common sense appears to have been on holiday since late summer* resulting in a day which is both hectic and tedious at the same time.
I have a great desire to be elsewhere, to be curled up on a sofa with someone snugglesome and lovely** watching a daft film and letting our hearts beat closer.

Later I shall be heading towards the frozen north where smescrater and malteser will welcome me with open arms, an open door, and an open bottle.
At that point life will be sweet.

Until that time, I shall be asleep at my desk. Talking, Typing, doing things, but asleep nonetheless.


*I'm suspecting a "too good to pass up" deal for a small villa on one of the lesser known greek islands
**You know who you are

Lookit me Ma, I'ma typin'...
Which means I've actually crawled out of bed to play with my toys.

I'm still sweating like some kind of mutant sweating machine and my breathing feels, well, "fragile" is the best word I can think of to describe the way I have to be careful with every breath so as not to trigger a crippling coughing fit. But I am up and about to some extent.

Many thanks for all the good wishes you've sent in my direction. I'll do my best to put them to good use and get myself running properly again.

Clarithromycin is a Horrible drug. A very effective antibiotic, but its side effects are vile and unpleasant. Blinding headaches, auditory and visual hallucinations, the rather understated "aterations in taste or smell" which really go well with the nausea and vomiting by making everything smell rancid and taste of copper except fresh water which tastes almost undrinkably sweet.

Mango juice however. Lully...

Unfortunately rather than a slightly sniffy nose, or a sore knee* I seem to be Proper Ill**
My temperature is all over the place, but staying resolutely on the high side of 37c.
My appetite, a reliable indicator of my well being, is nigh on non existant. Any physical exertion, for instance walking downstairs to put the kettle on, causes me to tremble like leaf in a high wind that's currently being pounced on by a kitten with ADHD.

When your major acheivment for the day is remembering to tell the people you're supposed to be spending the evening gaming with that you won't be there, and you count that a fine victory, it's time to go back to bed.

Sweet dreams all.


*hi lursa_esk Yay for the in jokes that only the cool kids understand, yeah!...
**Again

There are things in my life which are not going to plan.
One of them has gone wrong enough to actually be hurting me pretty badly. This one isn't going away soon.
Owwie.
One of them can probably be fixed by giving an osteopath large sums of money.
One of the smaller ones can be fixed immediately by getting out of these wet trousers.

Other things are going just fine, or even better than fine.
Of these I shall say little.

One side weighs against the other, affecting my mood from moment to moment, the balance swinging gently back and forth as I give more or less weight to each triumph or disaster.

I could watch the needle swing, oscillating between small values of delight and despair*, or I could dump a great chunk of mass on the good side of the scale and order pizza.

Can you guess which, children. Can you ?


*I have always considered myself built from fragments of Dream, Desire, and Delirum

Gentle Reader, I am significantly less chipper than I was yesterday morning.
Vastly less chuffed with the world and rather more miffed than I might otherwise be.

I'm not yet angry, though I may choose to become so.
I am not despairing, though I may reach despondant later today.

I know what's causing trouble, but I don't know why, or what the motivation is.

Soon comes time to pick up the phone and find out.

Gentle reader, I am, as ever a little strung out from caffiene and opiates.
Such appears to be my way.

Do come in, relax as best you can amongst the filth and squalour, and enjoy whichever of the stale and dusty biscuits still appeal...

I have been Busy, Busy with a capital B and damn close to being written in captials entire. Most of this has been the good kind of busy, the kind that has you randomly stopping in the street, the world becioming a mere grey background to the glorious cathedral of brightly coloured thought that's just spiralled into your cortex as if blown on a lover's kiss.*

A number of the Us Lot went to Polyday. We had various levels of fun in various ways and thoroghly enjoyed the company, the beer, and the opportunity to make new friends and cast our lacivious eyes over those we might like to become new lovers.
Best Beloved may write further on this subject or may just smile her secret smile and leave everyone guessing.

We're both hoping to entertain a certain young Laaadyee, who I suspect is Without Livejournal, but the logistics still need a certain amount of finialising, and may not actually solidify for a while yet.

Also, Duct tape, it is all the win. Especially for holding your indicators on after one of them gets clipped by a chap pulling a trailer that's just a few inches wider than his shiny white van. Bah.

*I blame downybearded1

Jonathan Coulton, better known in geek circles as "The guy who wrote the Portal song" is playing manchester on the 12th of November.

But that's not important.
Because he's playing London on the 13th.

Be there or you will be... missed.


http://www.jonathancoulton.com/shows/

There are perks to the job which every so often go beyond Dress Down Friday and the appearance of doughnuts in the office.

For various resons, including a big handful of random, yesterday was an unexpectedly good day.

The morning, dull, tedious and predictable. Wake up, Brush teeth, wear clothes, feed kitten cat her sore face pill. Boring tube, Work Work Work. All tinged with a faint layer of delight and the ainticipation of meeting downybearded1 for lunch.

At last, the bell rang, the warder unchained us from our desks and we scurried out shielding our eyes against the daylight. I headed swiftly to London Bridge where after a minor amount of faff I saw the dear girl tripping* lightly down the steps towards me.
Long purple skirt, smile like sunrise over the sea, and beautifully beribboned blue boots with heels that brought her up to just the right height to be kissed.
Ye gods she's pretty.

Once I'd recovered the ability to speak we wandered about a little. Firmly intending to find a comfortable place to have lunch and talk the special brand of nonsense that lovers are wont to prattle at each other in the course of forming a relationship. the kind of utter tripe that is unutterably precious to those involved and either irellevent or actively sickening to everyone else on the planet.
The posh burger place in Borough market served us well on both accouhts. A few green leaves thrown artfully atop a large tasty hunk of real cow with a smattering of colton basset stilton encased in a huge brown bun and devoured whilst sat on a slightly dingy sofa at the back of their more than slightly dim and beshadowed eatery.
With kisses** for added spice.

Talk, trade kisses, eat tasty foods, and the time flies by like a flying thing that goes Zoom!
All too soon we had to start the distressing stroll back to my office where I would once more be chained to my desk and downybearded1 would wave and head back to Stratford and lokeon.
But even before we reach the straightjacket confines of my place of unremitting toil we run across a random budle of workmates who inform us, with no shortage of glee, that the power is out. Not just for our office, as would have been normal in the old building, but for the entire street. Come back in an hour say the bosses.
So we giggled, grinned like ninnies and sat in the park for an hour, trading more kisses, relaxing on each other in various pretzel shapes and talking utter nonsense for the requisite 60 minutes. Popped back to the office to discover the power still out, the servers and their UPS shut down and everyone packing up to go home.
Rah!
A wander, some sticky sticky cake, a cup of coffee, and a lengthy relax on a bench next to Southwark Cathedral where we outraged public decency with more kisses massaging the poor girl's toes after so much walking in heels. Also giggling and a rather frank discussion of what is and is not fun. I may have to make a list, possibly with annotations.
Alas too soon came the time to head back home. Back to what passes for the real world after a few hours of unexpected freedom. Coupled with the utterly delicious sense of unreailty created by snuggling up to someone you can't quite believe likes you this much, but very clearly does.

Damn fine day, must do it again, and soon.

*Not quite literally, uneven steps and heels make for some hairy moments
**containing just a hint of mustard.

Back from Maelstrom late last night.
Spent most of today asleep aside from a brief chat with downybearded1 and now I'm awake and buzzing with buzzy buzz.
Tomorrow looks like being a bit fragmented.

But you're not here to read about my malfunctioning sleep patterns. You're here to be entertained, enlightened, to see your name, or the name of someone you know in print.
To gain some vaildation and the reassurance that your existence has been noticed by someone other than that irritating chap in the mirror who keeps mockingly copying everying I do but making it look stupid.

Well then, for some of you this is going to be a dissapointment since I've just had a mostly damn fine weekend and far too many of you weren't there.

The Bitter Moon Teahouse oncemore provided All Kind Tea and Yummy Yummy Cake in the middle of a field, and it was good.
Approximetely 135 litres of various kinds of tea, a metric shedload of cake, a smattering of tasty fruits, and so much melted chocolate that we had to give out more strawberries.
Nom.

There were many episodes of good, including:-
Melting one chap's head so badly that he actually fell over with laughing.
Running a large party at almost no notice and doing a damn fine job of it.
Having two of our more regular customers escort a debtor to the bank at pistol point so he could take out a loan to pay us.
Unexpected flattery followed by unexpected kisses.
Kampai night.
Inventing "bloody tea" for some gnolls who requested "just bloody tea" It may become a regular feature.
Not getting rained on once.
The lass doing a stunning job of being Busty Bar Wench, mouthwatering and efficient at the same time.
Using a tea towel as a peace flag and negotiating an OoC ceasefire between two groups.

Bad bits:
Some people being stupid, amplifying some bad feeling, thus having to negotiate an OoC ceasefire at all,
It was bastard cold for the first night, really very unpleasantly "oh crap, I think I'm going to get hypothermia" cold.
The couple who didn't realise that tent walls are thin and the moans of your marathon shagfest are stopping everyone for 150 yards getting any sleep. Either hush or invite us in.


Now that's my frothing done. I'm going to go and glue some LEDs together and see what happens.

Saturday. Party, party good.
Speak to chums, see old chums, see new chum, fail to convince new chum that they are wonderful. resolve to try harder. Drink Punch.
Watch new chum clearly being wonderful to old chums, old chums also fail convince new chum of wonderfulness. Dink Punch.
Escape gravitational pull of ravenrigen's cleavage by the narrowest of magins. Drunk Punch.
Escort new chum to transportation, endeavour one last time to get a through the layer of demons. Possible modicum of success.
Head back to party. Drunk pnch.
Am informed by chums that new chum is wonderful, and should be dragged to more parties.
Drunk. Taxi home.

Sunday, barbequeueueueue at some chums of Best Beloved's
Guitars, songs.
Songs in the style of Bob Dylan.
A low lilting ballad with a delicate haunting tune, beautiful until you realise that the lyrics involve a chap slicing out his girlfriends organs and eating them.
Squid!
Cherry Pie.
Home.
Gather strength, marshal cleverness, breathe deeply, and call lokeon and downybearded1 cross fingers that nothing bad happens. Still not sure if something bad has already happened.

Use up resudual adrenaline to beat up goblins, Sleep

So there really is very little point in me bothering to take my damn phone to work.
Or carry it with me, or indeed do anything other than dunk it in my coffee.
Blasted thing has stopped working.

It's still a decent address book, even a passable alarm clock, but what it is not, is a phone..

Roll on customer support waking up tomorrow morning.

Grr, Snarl Stamp feet etc...
[Edit]
And of course this morning the thing works again...
[/edit]

Gentle Reader please come in, relax and, well I would offer you a biscuit but I appear to have run out.
Possibly I've forgotten to have them delivered, possibly I've ust forgotten where they are, try the library it's a good place to find biscuits I'm told.

It seems it's the season for forgetting things, a cloud of short term memory glitches drifting slowly over the country causing bus drivers to take the wrong route, stockbrokers to accidentally wipe millions of the value of their portfolios, and your struely to leave his damn phone at home.
Again.

People trying to call me will find a delightful voicemail cue and a rare opportunity to mock my foolishness without any fear from my rapier like wit.


*May not contain actual rapier.

My apologies for a certain slap dash feel to this entry, a distinct lack of style or elegance.
But I'm tired, weary beyond the ken of mortal man and I'm going to slump down with a beer and the remote and watch some deliberately trashy television. Top Gear perhaps, maybe even When good explosions go Bad!, but not Big Brother, I'm not sunk that low...

So Friday, or "eat your own bodyweight in sushi" day, or something along those lines.
Good food, good company, and as maviscruet will attest, the occasional mouthfull of salty goo.

Saturday, Dice rolling, trying to work out which one of our party is going to get lynched first.
The thief, the other thief, the reciever of stolen goods, or the princess in the pink dress and ballet slippers.

Sunday, more sushi, with a subtly different set of chums including the ever lucious downybearded1 and her best beloved lokeon followed by a swift pint in the nearby pub, a brief chat about PC configuration with some random geeks at the next table and a significant amount of booze induced falling asleep.

Monday, a morning of nothing utterly phenomenal* and an afternoon shading to evening spent talking utter nonsense with wraithwitch as we wandered around greenwich and concocted a ludicrous comic opera from the faint sounds emmanating from what appeared to be a music college.

Today. Work. Better than it has been for a while, but still, when you have only half a dev team it's hard to produce stuff that's good, versatile and on time.
So we don't.

Until tomorrow then gentle reader, when I shall have been to the frozen north for the most sombre of reasons.

*Aside from an all too brief chat with downybearded1 who deserves kisses for so many reasons

Curses curses!

It looks like my new machine at work is being too clever for its own good.
It's pre-emptively grabbing all my email off the server an keeping it ready for me to read at a moment's notice.
Alas this means my email is no longer on the server so I can get at it from the machine at home.

(sigh) Re-configuration time comes on tuesday.
If by some astonishing chance you have an urgent email to send me between now and then, Alexander Graham Bell's Electric Telephone, or a brief missive on these very pages may well be the best plan.