Explosions

I watched this show on explosions last night. I love explosions, and it was pretty cool to see real life ones (even if they were on tv). real life explosions are way bigger than anything hollywood can do.

anyway. last night i dreamt that i was in a car with a bunch of people (family - there was someone like my cousin louise there). the car was full and we were driving down a small road. out the window i could see a rocket launch tower, and a rocket ready to go. it got up about a hundred meters and exploded. there was a small explosion first, which knocked the car off the road. i shouted to everyone to get away, and we tried to run, but a few seconds later another explosion blasted through the air.
next thing i remember is ambulances and doctors all around us. i'd been injured badly and was brought away to get fixed. i warn them that i don't want any drugs. next i remember, i'm up and looking for penelope_stone. i can't find her anywhere and i'm dead scared that she was killed in the explosion. i look around for ages - up the beach beside her house (not like it is in reality, the house was next to a road which curved around the shore - it was all flat, and there were loads of trees; it was a nice place). i get back to the house and look through all the rooms. not-quite-louise is there, and she's badly injured. i try to reassure her that she'll get better, and she's a bit talkative, but really scared.
after a while i remember that penelope_stone wasn't in the accident. she had to go to college and couldn't come on the trip with us. she's being held in college, because they don't want her getting in the way of a bunch of injured people.

it was odd, and not very nice.

Strange Day Today

Woah, it's snowing outside. That's unexpected. In a few minutes the ground went from ground coloured to white. The wind is strong, too - the snow is almost horizontal (it's at about 27°) and its zooming down the wash (i wonder does the wash itself help with making the wind faster).

I had a really wierd dream last night. I can only remember bits. davidnarby was in it. and my bike got put in an oven. i can't remember why, but there was a reason, and i expected everything to be fine - it was to fix a problem... melt grease maybe... expand metal... anyway. the tires melted and i was very upset, especially since my tires are only a month old.

I think i'm finally getting a hold on book 2. i have the three acts set (act 2 seems a bit short), there's a conflict (you'd be surprised, but it didn't really have any conflict before today), the outline has me excited. i know how it ends, but i need something to get me from the start of act 3 to the end of it. and it has to be adventuresome.

It stopped snowing again. I'm going to go now.

Snow Cycle

I want to post about my cycle, too, but cycles and airport security do not go together at all, so this gets its own post.

It was 0°C at 9am this morning. I wasn't really inspired to go out for a cycle. So I waited a bit and the temp went up to 2. Still cold. I was cold, I really didn't want to go outside. So I had the bright idea that if my body was a bit warmer going outside wouldn't be so bad. A quick google and a few seconds later I had a youtube of warm up exercises open.
Yep - I did warm up exercises for the first time ever going out for a cycle. I'm glad I did, too. It was freezing outside. The first minute of cycling was so cold. I was only wearing a long sleeve wicking top and I could feel the cold air hitting my chest. There's a long hill pretty much first thing once I get out of the 'estate' so that warmed me up nicely. I got cold again on the way down the other side of the hill, though. I couldn't feel my fingers.
Sort of half way around my circle (it's more of a very lob-sided pentangle) it started snowing. Just a flurry, but it was snow all the same. I sort of wondered what I was doing out for a cycle, but I didn't go out at all last week (it's amazing how the cold makes me want to stay inside), so I felt if I didn't force myself out today, I wouldn't go for a cycle until February.

I got home, and penelope_stone's warning about re-heat pains was loud in my memory. So I did some cool-down (aka warm your body up again after being so cold) exercises (using the same youtube as I did for warm ups). It may have helped? I still couldn't put the shower as warm as usual, and my core was still cold after the shower. It's still cold now (a little, only). I'm wearing fleece pants and warm socks and it's wonderful.

About the cold (my brain goes samui wa (寒さ)), it's set to get colder though January. It should start to warm up a bit in February, and should be lovely by April. Woo. Bring on the spring.

airport security

So, on the way home from Vegas, McCarran airport was sending every person through the full body xray machine. I've read up on these and I made a note to myself that if I had to go through one I would opt out. So I opted out. Now, I've read that opting out isn't that great because you get a full body pat down, but I figure the bruises from even the roughest pat down will heal, while the radiation from the xray will stick around.

Anyway. I opted out and the next thing i hear is 'female opt out' shouted across the security area. Not sure if they do this on purpose to make you feel bad, but I didn't let it affect me. Anything is better than radiation. I also think I was too tired to get worked up. So I was brought to a different area and a woman came over and explained exactly what she would do. She was polite, and caring in an 'I have a job to do' way. The pat down was fine. It didn't hurt, she was gentle and talked through the whole thing - 'I'm going down your back now. Now the legs,' etc. It was like a gentle, quick, full body massage.

So, on lordkilljoy's advice I'm posting this to let everyone know that the pat down wasn't that bad, for me anyway. And now that I've been through it once, I won't mind getting it done again.

Christmas in Las Vegas

Christmas for me this year was totally different to any christmas i've ever had before. first off, it didn't feel like christmas, and second off, i spent it in vegas with lordkilljoy. Vegas is... bright, colourful, loud, amazing, ott, beautiful, seedy, silly - as lordkilljoy described it, it's a theme park for adults. so many of the hotels are designed around a theme - just like disneyland or something. in disneyland they have little cafes and snack bars that look like they should be in the jungle, or a tropical island, or a fantasy city - vegas is the exact same, except that, instead of selling burgers, pretzels, and sweets, they sell wine, beer, and top of the range meals.
i think the most impressive places were paris (pretty, pretty, pretty, nothing more needs to be said), the venetian (they have indoor canals, with gondolas), luxor (it's a pyramid, and the whole inside is hollow) and the bellagio (that place is like a palace - a real one).
what's really funny, too, is that it reminded me of glastonbury. i think the crowds had something to do with that, but it was also the lights, the atmosphere, everyone looking for a good time; it felt like a permanent festival with permanent gigs (all the hotels have acts that play every night - the same act every single night). it also reminded me of a cross between bangkok and hollywood boulevard. there are people dressed up as all sorts of mad characters, from superman to jack sparrow to angels and devils. but there are also people out trying to get you to go to their strip clubs and they slick flyers at you. not quite as bad as asia, and they were easy enough to ignore. at least they didn't chase after you.

we went to see Penn and Teller, two magicians. Their act was good. Some of the tricks were brilliant, and they alluded to how they were done, which made you wonder just how, exactly, it was done.
That's how we spent christmas night - we got a wonderful christmas dinner in Rio (where the show was on) of fish. I had tilapia and it was amazing. it had a parmesan crumb coating what was delicious.

we stayed at the mgm grand. it's massive, and one of the busiest places. it has a bar called centrifuge that does the most amazing cocktails. they have one (appletini) that tastes like a red apple. but what's amazing is that it tastes like a red apple with the skin on. what else is cool is that every hour, the bar staff jump up on the bar and do a little dance. it was funny.
we saw lions, too - acting like bored cats. their trainers were trying to interest them in toys and they weren't really going for it. we saw tigers, leopards, dolphins and a guest mouse. the mirage has a miniature zoo. what we didn't do was see a pirate fight or go on a rollercoaster. but we couldn't fit it all in. we did see the bellagio's fountain (during the day, but it was still impressive). what i wasn't expecting was the sound. shooting that much water into the air sounds like shooting a tiny cannon.

what else, what else... we went to lush yesterday. there's a lush in vegas. i was the happiest person ever. lordkilljoy bought me my christmas present there. i got two gift boxes (because it was after christmas, it was 2 for 1). now i have loads of yummy lush stuff and will have wonderful showers for the next year. I have (ready for the list?) happy hippy shower gel, ice blue soap, too drunk emotibomb, sandstone soap, each peach massage bar, whoosh shower jelly, snow globe soap and squeaky green shampoo. the emotibomb smells lovely (all of it smells lovely) and i don't want to use it, because it only lasts for one shower. i might use it to smell up my sock drawer or something... :P . i also got porridge soap as a sampler. it smells interesting.

i don't know what else to say. on the flight to vegas, we flew over the hoover dam. it is impressive, even going by at 200mph or whatever pre-landing speed is. leaving last night, we got to see the strip from the air. it's amazing - all the lights and all the shapes.

yea. so. i'm going to go now. have a shower and use all my lush things - maybe not all of them.

Solstice Eclipse

Happy Solstice everyone. I hope ye all enjoyed the lunar eclipse last night. You'd think a dessert would be the perfect place to see it, but no. it was cloudy here. fate does not want me seeing an eclipse, ever. I'll just have to wait 'til i'm 112 to catch the next one that happens on the solstice.
Anyway. Tomorrow, we will have 1 second's more light than we had today.

I don't really have much else to say.

word 2010

Oh my god. For all the cool features word 2010 has, i can't find anything. I'm so annoyed. I'm trying to edit my custom dictionary and i haven't a clue where it is. i asked word help and it's in the most obscure place ever. really, word? file -> help. no one in their right mind would think to look there. i am very disappointed with the dev team. why inspired you to put the options in the help section? it makes no sense. it was like ye just said, where should this go? we have a space here, let's just put it here. ahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

It's Raining

This is mad. Rain. I saw the clouds move in yesterday, and my first thought was, those look like rain clouds. Sure enough, everywhere is wet today. It's not really rain so much as a drizzle. I totally want to go out in it - I was out in the balcony just there and it's not really cold. And it smells lovely - like wet concrete. I thought that just happened because of heat, but it guess it's the dry more than the heat, because that's what it smells like outside.

So, other big news: we're off to Vegas for Christmas. We both decided it would be a bit depressing / just like any normal day to spend christmas here. And lordkilljoy had joked about christmas in Vegas ages ago. I guess jokes have a way of taking root and becoming reality. I'm excited though. Christmas is all about lights and spectacle and I don't think there's anywhere in the world that has more of that. We're staying at the MGM Grand - it's got lions (not sure if it has a real lion, but it's got massive metal ones).

So yea. I just wanted to update quickly.

first cycle

I went out for my first cycle in Albuquerque. It was amazing. The temperature was 4°C, but it was similar to 16 in Ireland. I love cycling in the sunshine. As I neared home, I didn't want my cycle to end. But I told myself this is my first cycle at altitude and I didn't want to overdo it. But really, I felt fine. I did struggle up the hills a bit, but that's partly because I'm used to cycling on flat ground. I didn't run out of breath; but I was being careful. There's nothing worse than that my-lungs-can't-breathe-in-enough feeling. I saw two birds, ground birds, i think. They live in the hedges around here (when i say hedges, of course, i mean sand / pebbles with bits of dry-looking plants growing around them).

Yea. I haven't much else to say.

bike's super healthy

So, instead of going and pumping up my tires, i just brought my bike for a service. it tuned out one of them was blown, anyway. so i got new, thorn resistant, tubes and they tightened all the wires and things. so my bike is perfect, and i didn't get to go out on it today. awh.
i will tomorrow, hopefully.

i had a fun video chat yesterday. got to see loads of family i wouldn't get to see, even in normal conditions.

i don't really have much else to say...

XPS

My XPS arrived yesterday. I screamed and danced when the fedex man arrived with it. Everything about it is lovely, even the box was totally sexy - black, streamlined, elegant, beautiful. Much like the laptop itself.
It's amazingly fast. It's kinda funny, because ever since Dell announced the XPS line I've wanted one. And now I have one. I guess when they first came out, I made a secret promise to myself that my next PC would be and XPS. And here I am.

I spend last night sorting out itunes. I went from 4 to 10 without losing any playcounts or ratings. I did lose a few tracks, but hopefully I'll get them again. Sigur Ros was amongst those lost, so that will be my motivation to get them.

The first program I installed was Chrome. The second was Word. Then came im clients and social networking apps. That's about it. Dropbox, too. I must get photoshop, then I'll be mostly set. I haven't installed any games, yet. I think Fallout New Vegas will be the first. I'm not that bothered because I've got loads to play on the Xbox.

The speakers are amazing on this laptop. I'm listening to Takk (the only Sigur Ros album that made it) and it's like listening on proper speakers. Okay, the bass is a tiny bit less whelming, but still. It's not an issue. The keyboard is backlit - very funky. Even though i have my own (logitech) keyboard hooked up to it - to make typing easier and stave off strains and stuff. I'll have to take a picture of the set up. It's pretty cool. I have my desk, computer, mouse, random things for personality.

We're heading out tonight for dinner with a few people lordkilljoy works with. They are cooking, so I'm kind of looking forward for that.

I don't think I have much else to say. I got my nano all set up with itunes. It has lots of music now, which is good. I was getting a bit bored of the radio (they have about 5 songs).

Right so.

hat

do you remember last week, when i said i lost my hat? well, i couldn't live without it and i've ordered a new one from the company who make them :) i'm happy. i hope it gets here, though. the address had UK instead of US on it. i emailed them about it, but they didn't reply. i'm sure someone in the postal system will be good enough to change the k into an s...

i don't have much other news. i moved all the furniture in the apartment around today. i didn't like the way it was before, it wasn't cosy at all. and there wasn't room for my computer desk. i still amn't sure about the location i found for the desk, but the sitting room is vastly improved from the way it was. we'll see how lordkilljoy reacts when he gets home. i'm sure he'll like it.

it's wonderful to have my keyboard again. i love this keyboard. typing on it is so easy. i have my mouse too. mice are so much more efficient than a trackpad. i also shipped a temperature sensor / clock thing. so now i have a clock that tells me what time it is in ireland without having to do any addition. lazy, i know, but there you go.

right, i think that's mainly it.

bikes

I just put two bikes together. I've never put a bike together before. I was sort of making a haymes of it, and then got the internet to help me. The first instruction was turn the bike upside down so it is resting on the saddle and handlebars. Sometimes my lack of common sence amazes me. I console myself by telling myself, if i was a d&d character, i'd have high int (intelligence) and low wis (wisdom). Yeay. But they went together easily after that.

Now the only problem is that my handlebars are loose and I don't have an allen key to tighten them with. And my tires are flat, practically falling off the wheels. I did lordkilljoy's bike too. So we'll have to bring them both for a service on the weekend. I just want to go for a cycle, though. Ah well.

Oh, yea. If you hadn't read between the lines, the fact that i had bikes to put together means our shipment arrived. so i have loads to sort out. i should do that now.

sea monkeys

i totally forgot to mention. i got some sea monkeys (closest relative is brine shrimp) the other day. they hatched on sunday morning. they are so cute - so far i've spotted about six if them - they are small as a bit of dust, i have to look really hard to see them. their 'tank' is set up like a martian landscape, it's cool. i can't wait until they get a bit bigger and i don't have to watch intently for half a minute to see them.
they kind of puff around in spurts, they make me think of little tug boats (i have no idea why, it's not like tug boats go in spurts). right at the moment they can't swim up more than a centimeter, or maybe it's a defense thing - predators can't get them if they are that close to the ground.
anyway, when they get a bit bigger i might try to get a few pics of them.

a trip to corrales

Woo, writing procrastination. I've been back writing 2 days now and already i'm on here writing in my journal instead of plotting book 2. well, i've hit a snag and i've been meaning to write in here since sunday, so it all works out.

we went to corrales on sunday afternoon. it's a five minute drive from our apartment. it's really weird actually, you drive along the main road and it's all built up and american looking. then you cross a street and go around a corner and all of a sudden you are in the country. there's this sign that says 'welcome to corrales village' and that's it. it's fields, trees and narrow roads from then on. corrales did not disappoint. the moment i learned we were moving to albuquerque, i went online to find the best place to live. after a few minutes research i centered on corrales. it's got adobe houses, farms, horses, greenhouses, grass, trees - all sun bleached and wind worn.

All our stuff should get here this week. I can't wait to have a variety of clothes to wear. I've had the same few tops for the last month and i'm a bit sick of them by now. I also can't wait to have my bike so I can go slightly farther afield than i can now. And I can do fun things like bring a picnic down to the river and stuff. whey.

the drawbacks of living at altitude

water doesn't boil properly. i've got the slow cooker on (doing enchilada chicken) and it's boiling like a mad thing. slow cookers are meant to simmer gently, not boil like a mad thing. it's kind of annoying because there is a lot of steam coming from the food, so much that it is forcing it's way out under the lid. this means that the food will dry out and not cook properly. not to mention that the lid is clattering and spitting all over the place and making a dreadful racket. hmmmm.

I also want to add that our oven doesn't work properly either because of the altitude.

pandora internet radio

there are definite benefits to living in america. access to stuff on the internet is one of the major ones. before pandora radio got blocked in ireland (around 2005, i think), i used listen to it a lot. it was one of the things i was looking forward to about getting here. and it hasn't disappointed.
pandora is very cool because it tags each song with things like 'electric rock instrumentation,' 'subtle use of paired vocal harmony,' 'repetitive melodic phrasing,' 'heavy syncopation,' and 'minor key tonality.' i have no idea what some of these mean (syncopation?) but it's cool, because it means that when i like a song it makes a note of that on my profile and uses the collected information from the songs i like to pick songs it thinks i will like in the future. it takes a little while to build up a proper profile of what you like, but once it does it is amazing.
it is choosing songs i have on my itunes, but the songs it chooses are my favorites from whatever album. for example, it just played a song by team sleep. the song was 'ever,' and that is my favourite team sleep song. and that wasn't a once off thing. it's done it with a perfect circle, muse, ian archer. and the songs i haven't heard before i generally like. it's great. and the awful thing is that you can't get it in ireland.

i bought a laptop today. it was a bit of hassle - getting the money through from ireland was a bit of a pain. first i had to reactivate my internet banking, then get all the details to transfer the money. transferring the money took 3 days, and today i finally got to order it. it's a dell xps 15 laptop. the 15 stands for 15", which should be a good size. it's an i5 processor, nvidia GT 420M 1GB gpu, 4gb ram, 500gb hd, backlit keyboard (which i'm a little excited about). it should be here by the 16th. yes, that is a terribly long wait, but at least i'll have it for christmas. and because it's coming up to christmas and dell want to encourage people to buy early or something, there was $50 off. so dell paid for the sales tax, excellent.
of course, once i get it i will be wiping the drive and reinstalling windows with just windows. i can't stand all the extra junk they put on new computers. i don't need an antivirus chosen for me, or any software to help me get online, or any other random program dell has decided i need. really, the xps systems are for advanced users, dell should know better.

trip downtown

It was freezing today. This is the coldest it's been since we got here. It didn't get above 3 today. It was -1 early this morning. And I can now report on the temperatures accurately, because we got a little temperature sensor for outside.

I finally made it to downtown abq today. What a disappointment. It was more like south mall, where i was expecting patrick st. there was just the courthouse, city hall, the library and some other official places. I got the bus in - it was mainly straightforward (except i put all my money into the little box at the same time (as you do in dublin) and the driver had to take it out and put the coins in one by one) and the journey was short enough. $2 gets you unlimited bussing for the whole day. Not bad at all.

I joined the library. Got out a random trilogy. It was the only intact (as in, all three books on the shelf) set they had. I may have to do a bit more research into which branch has the most sci-fi / fantasy books, because the main library was sadly lacking.

And the most awful part of the day was losing my hat. My lovely warm, long, cool, ultra-complimented hat went missing somewhere in the library. I think I left it down when I was filling in my application form and someone else must have picked it up and walked away with it. :( It wasn't in the lost and found, but I asked the librarian to ring me if it turned up anyway. I'm really sad. I had that hat for ages (8 years or something) and it had a few close calls, but I always got it back. Let's hope I get it back this time too.

Being a Tourist

We made it to Old Town Albuquerque on Saturday (I think, the whole four days of the weekend have blurred into one. Edit: it was Friday). Once again I didn't have my camera, because it was kind of spur of the moment. We'd been out getting some things and just decided to head on to the old town. My main comments were, it's so pretty, and (about one building in particular), I want to live in a house that has a courtyard entrance just like this. All the houses were made of orange stone, but this one in particular had narrow walls leading to a little courtyard. Plants and cacti lined the walkway. A little (tiny) fountain / well stood at the centre of the courtyard - made of the same materials as the walls. It was all so cute and pretty. Each of the rooms (converted to shops) were small and cosy. None of the walls were straight, there were no corners in sight.
We sat on the lip of the fountain in the sunshine and it was just lovely.

In random other news: There was a rabbit hopping in the grass outside our apartment the other day. I think they live in the dune that's next to us.

I had the wierdest dream last night. I can't even focus on this post because it's so in my mind.
I was in a big house somewhere and some kind of gathering / party was just over. People had headed away and I was looking for a bed to sleep in. Or something. I was looking for something. It may have been my shoes so that I could leave too. Yea, I think that was it.
Anyway. I thing I found them and was on my way out when I looked out a window. The sky was bright and clear and there as a planet hovering just above the sky. It was at crescent, so half the sky was visible and the other half was a white mass of cratered planet. I couldn't move I was so frightened. I knew this planet was here to destroy Earth. And if it didn't destroy the world, the force of its mass so close to the planet would.
I knew just what that meant. Tidal waves - huge ones. As the thought went through my head, a mountain of water crashed against the window.
lordkilljoy and I leapt for cover, praying that the window would hold against the water crashing against it. Water covered it, covered the whole house, and a second later the window cracked. Water spewed in from the crack in the corner, but a second later the water receded.
We ran, checking to make sure everyone else was ok. I knew it was futile. I knew this was the end of the world.
I can't remember what happened after that. There was some kind of battle. There could have been mechs involved. There was definitely some kind of flying robot on our side. But I think all that happened before the tsunami, or we were defeated or something. I definitely woke up thinking, I don't want the world to end.

the last few days

we went to santa fe today. like a silly girl, i forgot my camera. the drive was amazing. through desert and mountains and things that looked like sand dunes. you could have imagined the sea was just over the dune. but it wasn't. there was just more desert. santa fe is at 7,000ft. we drove up 2,000 feet in under an hour. we were at twice the elevation of the highest mountain in ireland. mad.

once we got there, we went to an outlet centre. not very exciting, or touristy, but lordkilljoy wanted to look around at the sales. i got a big towel too, so i was happy. ooh, and a new wallet. it's smaller than my old one and i can sit on it without it poking into me.

yesterday was quiet. i made dinner. the stuffing was amazing. the turkey was nice too. the potatoes messed everything up though. i roasted them and after an hour they weren't ready. so everything else was done and we had to wait for the potatoes. so everything else was a bit cold by the time we got to eating.
i watched discovery channel for about 5 hours yesterday. mythbusters was on. and then i watched this crazy thing called punkin chinkin. there's this championship that happens every year to see who can chuck a pumpkin the farthest. but teams are allowed to make machines (catapults, trebuchets, air cannons, etc) to throw the pumpkin. it was kind of cool seeing the machines people had come up with.

ooh, we went out for a walk in Rio Grande Valley State Park, along the Paseo del Bosque trail yesterday. we saw a squashed snake (or possibly a very intact snake skin). that was cool. the walk was nice too. it was cold, though. but it seems like a good place for a cycle.

dry air is painful

i decided to test the altitude this evening by running across the car park. it wasn't that bad, really. what was awful was the dry air. my lungs and throat were burning from cold and dry. i was coughing for about 20 minutes afterwards.

i'm going to have to be really careful when my bike arrives and i go out for a cycle.

familiarity

today, i forgot where i was. it's cloudy, i'm doing stuff i used do at home, while reading about places in Germany, and going: that would be a cool place to visit (there's this converted coal mine somewhere near essen). then from outside i hear an american accent, and i remember that Germany is a lot more than a three hour flight away.

right so. i'm off to get dinner (salmon,yummy)

quiet day today

We found a park today. We are lunch there, I had sushi and lordkilljoy had doughnuts. it was lovely, but windy. it reminded me of being at the beach in june or something. the sun was warm, but the wind was kinda cold. the park has a grass field (with mostly green grass), a pool (closed), playgrounds, tennis courts and a bowls area. the field looked kinda cool for kite flying. it's on top of a hill and on a windy day, there's loads of wind.

We did a food shop today as well. Got the basics mostly, meat and staples. We have three spices in our press - cajun, 21 spice and salt. they will probably be the spices we use for everything. we did chicken and rice for dinner. the chicken breast was big, i only ate a little over half of mine. our rice cooker is amazing. it has a chip in it that monitors the heat in the pot and regulates the temperature accordingly. the rice came out amazing. there were no burndy bits at the bottom of the pot.

i'm kinda tired now. ten past eight and i have to stay up until 11 tonight. i only got about 7 hours sleep last night, though, so i'll be uber tired going to bed.

yea, we didn't really do much today. we checked out our local organic grocery shop (sunflower). it's really cool. they have a huge fruit and veg section, and have some nice natural / heathfood products. and it's not expensive at all.

when we came home, i watched a few random nature documentaries. i found out that our cable-box has this cool thing were you can browse what's on by theme (or channel or something else). so i was just looking at all the documentary / interesting stuff.

my brain is quickly shutting down, so i'll go now.

i'm getting used to the place

I was just looking up a shop in streetview and it's really funny that everything looks familiar now.

we went out for dinner last night and it was lovely. i'd forgotten that lordkilljoy had changed his mind about where we were going and we ended up in a new mexican restaurant. it was lovely. lordkilljoy got fajitas and i got a chicken chilli bowl. it was like a big bowl of soup with a kind of barley type thing and chicken and little nacho strip type things. it was quite spicy, but in a good way. the building itself was all decorated with old-timey stuff, all wood and bronze. and it was done up with lights for christmas.

i just had a wonderful idea for the kitchen. i should put fairy lights around it. they will give it a wonderful light ambiance.

not really sure what we'll do today. i was thinking of getting a string top. i didn't bring any with me and i think a string top and cardigan would solve my 'not used to the warm weather / need something for the cool evenings' problem.

as we were driving around yesterday, we came across some of the other places we could have been living in. we definitely picked the best place. the other areas were kind of old looking, or not quite the most desirable place to live. where we are actually seems rather upmarket. it's actually funny, because it makes you realise how high the quality of buildings / roads / neighbourhoods in ireland are.

right so, i'll go now. lordkilljoy wants to get breakfast. i already ate (i had granola).

today we went exploring north abq

it was 18 degrees today. i was out in a t-shirt all day and i was warm. the car was boiling. we bought a sat nav and went on a trip across town. we went to rei and i got a camel back hydration thingy. it's 1.5l, and is a nice little bag at the same time. penelope_stone will be happy to know that we signed up for rei membership so she can buy as much as she wants when she comes over. members get discounts on bike services and stuff, so it seemed like a good idea.
we also went to tj (tk) maxx and got a bedside radio / ipod charging / dock thing and some nice foaming hand soap (tk maxx is the only place you can get random things like that). we also stopped in a 7 eleven for water. lordkilljoy's comment was, smells like 7 11. he worked in one for a few months ages ago.

the mountains around here are amazing. they look so rugged. there's kinda rock bits sticking out of the edges. i wonder how anyone goes hiking around them, they look really steep. maybe the trails are somewhere else.

did i mention dinner last night? it was lovely. the potatoes wen't done well enough though, so today i fried them for 20 minutes and they were so yummy. i fried them in the oil i'd used to brown the meat last night and it was delicious. it's so weird the way left overs are better than the real thing.

anyway, this was just a quick update. we're heading out for dinner now. i'm all for making something here, but lordkilljoy wants to try a steak place. oh well. i'm sure it will be nice anyway.

Living Conditions

Our apartment is nice, but quite dark. There's one massive window in the back wall, which is supposed to light an 8 meter long room. Now, that might not be a problem for the sun, but we are north facing, and the sun doesn't shine in. So it's dark. And the lights are not cosy. The kitchen has a fluorescent strip and it is cold light. Compounding this problem is the dark wood stain on the presses (of which there are loads - that is good). Even the two lamps don't really do much to make the place nice at night. I may have to invest in lamps (lots of them).

Today is the first day with clouds since we arrived. Actually, I just looked out the window. The clouds are mostly gone. It's funny going out first thing in the morning here. It's absolutely freezing and I bring my coat, but by an hour later, I'm wondering why I brought my coat at all. I also need to get my layering right. I've been too hot most days. I think i have to just wear a t-shirt and a vest or something. but then i'll be cold in the morning and evening. i guess i should just wash my jumper. i packed it dirty, like a silly person.

I think I'll just go check out the hobby shop down the road, see if they have any things that will make our apartment brighter.

Right so, bye.

moving in continues

Loads happened today as well (as yesterday). We opened a bank account, got a tour of the area, looked at sat navs so that we could drive into town, but then just worked off a map.

we went to trader joe's and got dinner. we went to the apple store and i got an ipod nano. it's red, and small, and insanely cute. it plays the radio. i love it. i don't have a computer yet to sync it with, so at the moment radio is all i have. but it's cool, you can do live pause of the radio. lordkilljoy got a macbook air, but that's not nearly as exciting.

smackdown is on right now, it's a little distracting. lordkilljoy just turned on the tv to watch it (figuring it would be on at 8) to find out that it is just ending. it started at 6. that seems very early to me.
anyway.

we cooked dinner at home today. we had stuffed chops from trader joe's with sweet potatoes roasted with oil and spices. we bought canola oil in trader joe's too. and lemonade and chocolate and crisps and salsa. yummy.

we're trying to get our tivo working. after 2 calls to comcast and a trip to their shop about 15 minutes away, we still don't have it sorted. lordkilljoy might have to do it from work. we missed burn notice last night. we remembered it was on too late, so we really need to get our tivo working.

right so. i don't really know what else to say. i'm kind of tired. 8 o clock is sort of fading time. i managed to stay up until 9:30 last night. i'm going to force myself to stay up until 10 tonight. 10 is okay. 11 would be better, but i'll never stay up that late.

american ads are funny. i watch them and laugh.

right - i really have to go now.

I don't think I've done so much shopping as I did yesterday. We went to the mall first, had a look around and bought a bed set. They don't have duvets here, just comforters. I was expecting to be cold, but I actually work up hot during the night (it doesn't help that we forgot to turn off the heating). Then we joined costco and bought a bunch of appliances. We still needed bits and pieces, which we got in walmart (towels, knives, forks, dishes, etc). Then back to costco for other random things. After that if was off to best buy for a wifi router (it is an essential that needs to be bought day one). Then back to costco for some food bits (bread and cereal mostly). Then back to walmart for shower curtain rail hooks and breakfast things (i got the biggest carton of rice milk ever). Our final purchase of the day was a tivo. Yea. Lots of buying.

Our kitchen is a mess now - full of boxes and packaging. We still have more to buy. Little towels for the bathroom, we have to do a proper food shop.

We also need to get a sat nav. We tried very hard to get lost yesterday, and even though it's kind of hard to get lost around here, in the city centre, I imagine it's a lost easier. And since we want to go to the city centre today, we need something to help us not get lost.

Right, I'm kind of hungry now, I'm going to get breakfast (granola), and have difficulty pouring rice milk from the super-massive carton.

thigs i'm curious about

so, the things that keep me awake at night these days arn't worries about moving or getting through the airport or stuff. no, the things i worry about are: what will supermarkets be like? will food shopping be weird? is costco as enormous as everyone says? will i like the clothes out there? will i actually have the confidence to walk to the shop? will the central heating in our apartment we warm? will i find feminine products i like (this is kind of a big worry, because i'm very particular)? will my lungs freeze if i go cycling at minus temperatures while it is sunny? will i get dehydrated quickly in the dry weather? just what does 20% humidity feel like?
lesser worries are: what if i get bitten by something poisonous? what if i don't meet any nice people? will paying for things be difficult? what if i get fat because there is so much sugar in everything? what if i develop a sugar addiction? what if lordkilljoy has to work all the time and i never get to see him?

the one thing i'm counting on is the sunshine. sunshine will make everything good (as only it can). it's the easiest thing to worry about these things when you've seen one day of sunshine in the last three weeks or something, and when there's a gale blowing outside and it's wet and miserable.

so here's the things that keep me awake at night from excitement: sunshine, every day. blue sky. patchy clouds. daylight for 10 hours (that's 2 hours more than i get now). new things. having time to write (i kinda miss zachery). exploring. cycling around. shopping in places like trader joe's and whole foods. getting a laptop that will play modern games. playing d+d in the local games shop. snowboarding (this is kind of mixed excitement and worry. snowboarding is kinda scary).

so yea. the waiting is the worst part. at least if i was there all my questions would be answered. ah well. only 6 days to go.

edit to add - it's actually hurricane force winds outside (120kph).

moving

Hats are amazing. I should remember to wear my hat more often. The french doors are all open, letting in the bitter November air and letting out the smell / fumes of carpet cleaning chemicals. My hands are freezing, but the rest of me is actually warm, thanks to my hat.

As well as the apartment smelling of carpet cleaning, the bathroom smells of silicone sealant. I have it all over my hands, too. It's really annoying because it doesn't actually rub off a surface, it just rubs around and makes little plastic balls of stickiness.

Only a week left in Ireland. The place is coming together nicely, though. (I'm getting sealant plastic bally bits all over this keyboard.) Most of it is clean. The kitchen presses are the main thing left now. And the tv stand / cabinet thing. The press in the bathroom needs to be emptied too. Friday will be devoted to taking apart the consoles and sound system and packing them in the car (along with everything else that will be packed into the car to go to cork.)

Wow, I love auto save. I just hit some random combination of keys that closed firefox. Thankfully, I didn't loose my post. Okay, I'm beginning to lose feeling in my fingers, so I'm going to go now.

Right. Bye.

Dinner with Denise and Eamon

We went over to Denise and Eamon for dinner last night. I made a slightly melty chocolate cake. Aoife made dinner, which was yummy. It was so good to just hang out and chat. We got to see skittles (the hamster) too. I totally want to have a hamster now.

Today, I wrote a story for Louise. I've never written a story for a 7 year old before. I don't think it was exciting enough, but I have no idea how much tension a 7 year old can handle.

I don't have much news. The apartment is mostly empty. All our stuff is gone. The tv and consoles are still here, but most of the games are gone. The shelves are empty. The walls were bare until today, when we went to ikea and got some paintings (or printed canvases, really) to replace the art prints we had put into storage. We also got a stripy rug, so the place doesn't look quite so bad any more.

I did some mad cleaning today, too. I went all around the skirting boards, hoovered under furniture, pollyfilled holes in the ceiling. So I got a bit done. Still need to clean under the appliances in the kitchen, and clean the presses, and wardrobes. God, it makes me tired just thinking about it.

Anyway. It's the weekend now. I might go to the cinema tomorrow and we are off to galway on sunday.

Moving Day

The shipping people are here at the moment. I think they weren't expecting the amount of stuff we have. Not our problem, because we showed everything to the surveyor. There is a slight worry that we won't have enough room to ship everything. Ah well.
After the mad rush of getting everything sorted over the last few days, today seems dull. We are just sitting around letting the guys work.

I don't know what else I have to say. Only 2 weeks left in Ireland. Actually, this time in 2 weeks, we'll be in the air. Mad.

Winter

I declare it officially winter. The first frost appeared this morning. The house was at 12C (even after the heating had been on for 40 minutes) so I put the heating on for another 2 hours. It's 19.5 in here now and the sun is doing an excellent job of warming this room. It's such a pity this is the only room with a south-facing window. But at least we have that much. We could have no south-facing windows.
I brought a hot-water bottle to bed last night and had it at my feet the whole night. It was lovely.

We went over to Sheila's for dinner last night. It was good to see them all. Dinner was good, desert was good. They are all well. Laura is a mad little thing.

I can't think of anything else to say. I think I said everything yesterday (or whenever).

I replaced the ram battery in my PC. It wouldn't boot properly yesterday, so I didn't have a choice. that was ok.

right, bye.

Loads of news

I need a new CMOS RAM battery for my computer. I knew this day would come, I expected it to come years ago. Problem is, I'm leaving in a month (not bringing my PC with me) and I won't be using my computer for 2+ years. I'm not really sure if it's worth getting a new battery.

mulkabu was up for the weekend. We had fun, went to see Fozzy (wrestler, Chris Jerico's band) on friday night. I haven't had as much fun in a long time. Chris Jerico really knows how to get a crowd going. Everyone loved him. Our group even managed to get a shoutout from him. :)

I'm tired now, though. It doesn't seem to matter what time I go to bed, my body wants to be up and about at 9am. So I've been getting about 6 hours sleep for the last few days. The kitchen was a bit of a mess too, and I managed to tidy it, but I only got half the dishes washed. This seems to be a new strategy for me. Washing half the dishes isn't nearly as daunting as washing all of them. So I washed the plates and knives and forks and left the pots, pans and bowls for later. Or tomorrow.

The building energy rating guy comes tomorrow. I wonder should I turn on the heating for him? Would it make the place seem better insulated if it was warm? I don't bother with the heating when I'm here on my own, because my little room gets nice and warm anyway.

I ate one of our peppers today. It was nice, as peppers go. They are not my favourite ever fruit. I have four cherry tomatoes beside me, which I just picked. I want to eat them right now, but I don't feel like them. (Yes, it is an odd sort of way to be.) I made hummus on friday. There was too much lemon juice in it. I've eaten about a third, but I'm not sure if I'll eat any more; it's really sour.
Wow, I just looked up what the difference between sour and bitter was (because I wasn't sure which my hummus was) and sour is acid while bitter is base. Isn't that interesting?
I also made chocolate cake again. It is totally yummy.

I'm addicted to a new (old) RPG. It's old, but I've never played it before, so it's new to me. Arcanum (of Steamworks and Magick Obscura). I'm enjoying it. I like the setting and the character system. The main plot is a little slow and there aren't enough side quests (or they are really hard to find), but apart from that, it's fun. I'm playing just to level and make my character better. I want to be master of firearms, lockpick and prowling. I also want to have a bit of magic and be able to make some stuff. I also want a new gun, but they are expensive. So, maybe by the time I get to 40th level, I will have all these things. I'm at 13th now. And my team and I managed to take down a 30th level jellyfish looking thing. We lured it away from its friends and ambushed it in the forest. It was expertly executed (the plan, not the jelly. I think it (the jelly) died from lead poisoning after I shot it with about 20 bullets).

Right. I'm going to go now.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake (makes loads, I half all ingredients)

Ingredients for the base

200g plain flour
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
40g best quality cocoa
175g soft unsalted butter (I used dairygold, it made no difference)
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
150ml sour cream

Ingredients for the frosting

75g unsalted butter
175g best dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
300g icing sugar
1 teaspoon golden syrup
125ml sour cream
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
(optional: sugar flowers, for decoration)

Method to make the base

1. Take everything out of the fridge so they can come to room temperature
2. Preheat oven to 180C and line and butter two 20cm sandwich tins with removable bases
(This wouldn’t be a ria-special recipe if I didn’t write my own comments all over it. Anyway.
I used half the ingredients and it fit nicely into one 14cm diameter by 7cm high round casserole dish.
Also, I didn’t preheat the oven. I baked it in the slow cooker. More on that later.)
3a. The rushed- or lazy-man’s way.
Put all the base ingredients (flour, sugar, baking power, bicarb of soda, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream) in a food-processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter.
3b. The person who enjoys the experience’s way.
Mix flour, sugar and leavening agents in a large bowl and beat in the soft butter (I have no idea what ‘beat’ means. I mashed it with the back of a spoon) until you have a combined and creamy mixture.
Whisk together the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla and eggs and beat this into your bowl of mixture.
4a. Oven method.
Divide this batter, using a rubber spatula to help you scrape and spread, into the prepared tin(s) and bake until a cake tester or thin skewer comes out clean. This should be about 35 minutes, but it is wise to start checking after 25 minutes. Also, (if using two tins) it might be wise to switch the two tins around in the oven halfway through cooking.
4b. Slowcooker method. (You cannot use this method if you used the full amount of the ingredients. It won’t fit into your dish.)
Pour all the batter (if you used half the ingredients) into the dish. Put it in the slowcooker and cover the dish with a lid. Put the lid on the slowcooker and cook on high for about 3 hours. Check with a skewer. Each time you lift the lid, add 20 minutes to the cooking time.
5. Once cooked, allow to cool for 10 minutes. Remove the base from the tin onto a wire rack. Don’t worry about cracks. They will be covered with icing.

Method to make the frosting

1. Melt the butter and the chocolate together in a good sized bowl, either in the microwave or suspended over a pan of simmering water. (If using the microwave, check the melting progress every 10 seconds.) Go slowly, either way, you don’t want any burning.
2a. While the chocolate butter is cooling a little, sieve the icing sugar into another bowl.
2b. Put the icing sugar into a food processor and blitz.
3a. Add golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla. When combined, whisk in the icing sugar.
3b. While the food processor is running, pour the mixture down the funnel onto the icing sugar.
4. When all is mixed you may need to add in a teaspoon or so of boiling water, or more icing sugar to get the right consistency. It should be liquid enough to coat easily and thick enough not to drop off.
5. (Skip this step if presentation doesn’t matter too much.) Choose your cake stand or plate and cut out four strips of baking parchment to form a square outline. Place the base on the parchment.
5.5a. If you made two bases, spoon about a third of the icing onto the centre of the first base and spread until it is covered evenly. Sit the other base on top and press gently to sandwich them together.
6. Spoon the icing all over the cake.
6.5a. Spoon another third of the icing on top of the cake and spread it in a swirl. Spread the sides of the cake with the remaining icing, then carefully pull away the strips of baking parchment.
8. (Optional) Top with sugar flowers, or other decoration.

random thoughts and photos

I was washing the dishes today and as i washed the inside of a pot, going around the rim in a very ordered way, i began to think about the "arrow never gets there" concept. for those of you unaware, it's this thoery, i have no idea what it's point is, but it goes something like: an arrow is shot towards a target. it gets half way there and it still has half way to go. then it gets half of the distance between the half way point and the target. it still has half that distance to go. the arrow always has half of some distance to go so how does it ever reach the target?

i was thinking about this, and a new thought came to me. it's because of the fourth dimension. the target and the arrow are both moving in time. the arrow never even gets half way to the target, because by the time it's flown the smallest fraction of a particle, everything has changed. time has moved forward. the target has changed. the arrow has changed.

and that's how i could get my pot washed and not worry about being stuck on smaller increments forever.

yeay.

anyway. does anyone remember when i mentioned my chocolate cake? well, i finally got around to putting up the photo of it. and while i'm at it, i decided to put up a few others too.



yummy!


this is a small representation of my perfectionism. yes - i did sort and chop all that dried fruit and line it up like that before i added it to my granola.



i found a microscope and took a pic of some dust on a bit of fabric.
no i didn't. i wish i did.
this is mould growing on some sour cream.

I ate a home grown tomato

I really wanted to post about something this morning, and now I don't remember what it was. Anyway, some cool stuff happened over the weekend.

My cherry tomatoes are getting properly ripe. I put the heater on in here (so it gets warm when the heating is on in the morning) and closed the door to keep the heat in (the temp was averaging about 21C, it was 24 all Saturday afternoon). I ate the first tomato that ripened. It was good, but the skin was really tough. I don't like tomato skin at the best of times, so I had to spit it out. I might try peeling the next one I eat. There are three red tomatoes and four orange ones, the rest are green.
The peppers are also almost ripe. They are a deep shade of red, which I assume will get brighter over the next few days. They are small when compared to shop-bought peppers, but that's okay. Only two peppers grew. I had a bunch of flowers, but none of them turned to fruit. Maybe my pepper knew that I'm not the biggest pepper fan and only made two small ones so I wouldn't have to eat loads of pepper.
The goji is still growing like a maniac. I have no idea how I will transport it down to cork.

We went to see Back to the Future in the cinema last night. It was brilliant. I think I've only seen it once or twice before, so I enjoyed it even more because I didn't know what was going to happen.
The mingle market was on in town yesterday too. It's a vintage, art, clothes, costume fair. It reminded me of some of the fairs that happen in the humanitarian church. We didn't get anything; all the clothes were large sizes. But it was fun to look around.

I read 250 pages yesterday. I finished Mistborn and started The Well of Ascension. I'm really liking Brandon Sanderson's writing. His magic systems are amazing. They are so different and imaginative.

Right, so. I think that's all my news.

Albuquerque

Yea, so. That other news. I got interrupted writing this post by an international shipping surveyor arriving at the house to catalogue our stuff. And that's really what this post is about. Earlier today, our US visas arrived. In 6 weeks, we will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and we will stay there for at least a year and possibly up to three years.

:)

I'm pretty excited. lordkilljoy's company is moving us, so we don't know where we'll be living or anything. So that puts a huge damper on the excitement. It's hard to get excited about a place if you can't make plans about where you will be living and what you will do there. But i'm sure things will work out fine.

Yea. So, i don't really know what else to say.

PS - it takes me about 5 minutes to write albuquerque. who would give a place a name that's that hard to type? or even just get straight. there is far too much room to get letters mixed up.

writing problems

I think i just figured out what's wrong with the start of chapter 1. The first bit of action doesn't come until 350 words in. It's all very abstract description up until then. I think that's why the people who have read it have had trouble placing themselves in the setting and sympathising with Zachery. Hmmm. I'm glad I realised this.

My query letter is going through draft after draft. It's just not engaging enough. It's been described as boring, and that's definitely not what I want.

In completely other news... Actually, this news should get it's own post.

facebook

Yesterday, penelope_stone signed me up to facebook. She gave me a username and password and was like, 'okay, now you fill in the rest.' Yeah. I'm going to keep it to real-life friends and family, which is why I'm not posting my user name here.

But, just as when I joined twitter, I will still be posting here. In fact, this journal will be 9 in 5 days. Isn't that cool. It will be 10 years old next year. A whole decade of random posts on stuff that happens to me.

In other news: I get to cycle into Intel today. That'll be fun. I've always wanted to cycle into Intel.

I went into the kitchen today and was at the sink looking over at a blank space where Nymph used live. And when I went into the kitchen last night I was still worried about turning on the light and making noise that I'd wake him, even though he's down in Kerry now. I'll get used to it in a while. Sure, in a few weeks everything will be completely different.

Yeah. I don't think I have much else news.

I'm trying to read four books in a month (good luck to me). The first is Elantris, and I'm about a third of the way though. I may actually get it finished by the weekend, because Sanderson's writing is not complex at all. In fact, i'm finding it a little too simplistic, but that's okay. It definitely reads more like a YA (young adult) than an adult fantasy.

Right so. I'm going to go now.

Living in Kerry

I'm in penelope_stone's house and Yoshi is looking at me from the corner of the room. Yoshi and nymph live in Kerry, now. We brought them down last night and I set their tanks up today. They seem ok. Yoshi is doing his usual (ask - just hanging out. he doesn't seem stressed). Nymph seems a little more stressed, but he should be ok once his filter clears up the water.

I made chicken jalfrezi for everyone last night. it was yummy. but even better - i made chocolate cake. i have photos at home and will post them when i get back. i kept the recipe so i can make it again and this time (as if the cake wasn't rich and decadent enough, i'm going to add chocolate chips to the base mix. mmmm. yum.
we brought the remains of the cake with us (there's half of it left), and it was all i could smell as i was doing stuff in the kitchen today. i just wanted to eat it. but i'll save it for dessert.

i don't think i have much other news. well, none that i can think of anyway.

things

yesterday we got our gas boiler serviced. today my shower was scalding hot. like absolutely roasting. so, i guess it was worthwhile getting it done.

also in the shower this morning, i was listening to phantom and i realised that it is a pretty high quality station. dublin recently got a new rock station and it is appalling. the djs are terrible. they seem totally immature. i listened to it a bit, but the poor production quality has made me realise how good phantom really is. yes, sometimes the music gets a bit too indie / pop-rock, but at least the djs act like respectable people. or they act like they respect their audience.

happy birthday davidnarby

davidnarby's birthday was last weekend. i made icecream cake - it was fantastic. i think everyone had a good day. dinner was lovely, dessert more so. there were balloons, and a ribbon around the computer.

here is a photo of the cake (mostly eaten):


i also made french toast for the first time on saturday. it was yummy, and simple. whisk an egg with sugar (or salt). coat the bread. fry. what could be more simple? i made it for penelope_stone on sunday, and again today for breakfast today (we ran out of cereal).
this afternoon i got around to making my own granola in the slow cooker. i think it may be burning slightly. not sure. i'll see when it's all done (in a few minutes).
i have a small tip, if anyone's interested. if an egg floats on the surface of water it is gone off. if it does not, you can still eat it. this morning, my eggs' best before date was 26 august. i floated them, they sank, i used them and they were fine.

in other news: i'm drafting my query letter at the moment. it is very hard. i kind of have what i want to say, but saying in a way that is concise and engaging is hard. draft 3 is off being read by people, so i'm kind of at a loose end at the moment. i find myself spending time on absolute write reading other people's queries. yea - it's hard trying to spend all day on one query letter.

ps - i am wearing a vest for the first time this autumn today.

Printing

Oh my god, what is it with me and page numbers? Why can I never remember to put them in before I print? Draft 3 had just started printing and after the 4th sheet came out, i was like, "Gah - page numbers." I even have a table of contents and everything, with page numbers, but what use is it, if none of the pages are numbered.

I'm waiting for it to print while writing this and I just got the smell of hot paper and hot toner. Yum. There's probably something bad for you with this smell, but I love it. I love all smells associated with paper. Except some glossy paper, actually. Like glossy magazines - they smell awful.

I don't really have much else to say. I forgot to say that we were at Mark's wedding on Satuday. It was good. The little ceremony was amazing.
But what was kind of cool was that we were staying in a room over a pub. It was so fantasy-ish. Staying in the tavern. Renting rooms. Too good to sleep on the common room floor.
Then, the next morning we went for breakfast and the restaurant was in a big hall with unicorn and dragon sculptures on the walls. It was totally surreal.

a5 paper

i have come to the conclusion that kitchen sinks were not designed with women in mind. this doesn't surprise me, because they were probably designed by a man. every time i wash the dishes my back starts hurting me and i have come to the conclusion it's because i'm forced to hold my arms (and therefore shoulders and back) at an angle that isn't suited to my height.

yea, that's all i wanted to say. i'm hanging out here letting my back chill out a bit before i go cutting paper.
i've spent the last few days looking for a5 printing paper. my book binder is a5 sized and i wanted the paper to align perfectly. but it turns out that no one stocks a5 printing paper and so i was forced to cut a4 in half. the reason i didn't want to do this is because i can never get a sharp enough knife (that stays sharp - paper has this magic ability to blunt knives, it's really annoying) and after i've cut 20 sheets or so, the edge starts getting ragged. this gets worse the more sheets i cut through. i have a knife sharpener beside me this time, but it's still hard to hold a straight line as you cut down through 200 sheets or whatever.
i guess the good thing about doing things this way is you get double the paper from one ream.

right so. back i go to cutting paper.

Catching Flies

You know the way, in children's cartoons, they make a fly catcher out of a bit of stick and a cobweb? Right - keep that thought in mind.

I have a problem with little black flies on my plants. I think they may be gnat-flies, but their larvae are little round white things, not little wormy-looking things. So I’m not sure. Anyway, the flies have been annoying me over the last few days, especially. I think a bunch of them just hatched, because there are more than before. So today, I decided to do something about it.
I cut the top off a plastic cup to form a hoop, stuck a stick onto the end of it, brought it outside and swiped it through a cobweb (carefully). Voila, a perfect fly catcher. (You may now release that thought you've been holding, if you haven't done so already.)
The only problem is, it's not a perfect fly catcher. It catches flies, but they get away. They don't stick to the web. I don't know how spiders stay alive at all. Clearly, their webs are inefficient at trapping flies.

Anyway - I have a photo.


In other news: there are now two tomatoes, with possibly more on the way.
And: I have a strawberry plant. Putting it in the fridge for a month totally worked. It’s about 3mm tall at the moment :)

Addendum

I totally forgot to say: I made quinoa for dinner last night. I did it in the rice cooker with chorizo, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. I used chicken stock, Cajun spice and rice vinegar to flavour it. It was yummy. And to prove how good it was: I have a photo.



I also have a photo of the book binder in action.



Doesn't it look way better than the photo I posted a few days ago of the original? (The answer to that question is: yes.)

Book Binding

It seems drafts are not good only for books.
My book binder draft 1 didn't work out. The clamp bar was too small and the drill killed it. Book binder draft 2 is amazing, however. It’s 20 billion % better, in fact. It’s a nicer colour, it works, it looks cool. Woo! I spent the morning working on it. I kept two pieces from the original and sawed out new pieces from an old bit of shelf we had lying around.
Yea. Book binder cost €3.50 (the price of the carriage bolts and wing nuts - all the wood came from scrap). The glue was €4.50, and whatever paper costs, and printing costs, but it's definitely less than getting novel drafts professionally printed and bound. I haven't glued anything yet. I’m a bit scared about how that will turn out.

I’m not sure if I’m allowed tell the great wide public, but it looks as if me and lordkilljoy will be moving. More on that in the next few weeks. People who know what I’m talking about can't say anything in their comments (except lordkilljoy. If he says it's ok to mention it, then other people can talk about it).

Oh - I totally forgot to say: I finished draft 3. Well, I need to go back removing all the 'arounds' and 'backs' and sentences starting with 'and', but that doesn't count.

Yea. I think that's it.

DIY day

it's my birthday and i've gotten hardly any writing done. first thing this morning, i walked to the shop to cash the lotto tickets mammy and daddy had gotten me (i got €40). then i sat down for a bit of writing. then i looked up diy book binding. i found a very cool article:
http://www.persistenceunlimited.com/2006/03/fun-and-easy-how-to-guide-to-binding-your-own-paperback-books-at-homefast/
and then i spent the rest of the day making the 'jig.' That involved a trip to barrett's to buy gorilla glue. i was very surprised they had it. and now i'm thinking of going back to get wingnuts and carriage bolts. and possibly a bit of wood for the clamping bar. i couldn't be bothered sawing out two lengths. sawing with a pen-knife-tool thing is really hard.
yea... it's possibly a bit premature, considering i've not finished draft 3.1 yet, but i hope to have copies to the people of taleweavers on the weekend. it's no big deal if i don't get it done by this weekend, though. i'll be around the next weekend as well.

and because this is a day of procrastination: here are some photos i've taken of stuff over the last few weeks.




i made banana bread in the slow cooker (aka crockpot). it turned out yummy.

the book binding devise. half finished. i couldn't wait to paint it - perhaps i should have waited. anyway.

my tomato is taller than me.

the pepper a few weeks ago.

this is not zoomed in - this is them grown.

tomato flower.

River Cottage

I watched the first two episodes of river cottage on 4 on demand last night. It made me want to run off to the country and buy a small farm. if i had a garden, i'd dig it up and plant beds with fruit and vegetables. i even have a little book on self-sufficiency, which tells you how to do all this stuff.
but for now, i have to be happy with my windowsill vegetable patch.

i think i just have to get rich and live 6 months in the commuter belt and 6 months on my mad farm. hmm. that wouldn't work. i'd have to hire someone to take care of the farm for the other 6 months.

:) anyway.

i'm super excited for some reason

i just used the sewing machine to sew the button back on to my watch strap. before you get confused about a button on a watch strap - i made it myself out of shoelace and a snap button. i'm very proud of it :) the only problem is that the constant pulling open and closed wears out the thread quickly and i have to sew it back on again. but that will no longer be a problem, because it takes about two minutes for the machine to sew it back on :)
woo! i'm really happy now.

in planty news, the two peppers are about half the size of a full-grown, store-bought pepper. the tomato has reached the top of the window. it has loads of flowers which i'm hoping will turn into tomatoes. the goji is massive. it's almost as tall as the tomato. i had to tie its branches up because they were falling over.

my novel is going well. i'm on chapter 28 of draft 3.1 (which is the proofread of draft 3). chapters 25 to 28 are a little slow and i don't know how to spruce them up. but then penelope_stone tells me i need some down bits in the book. i guess it's tense, which i want i wanted. i want edge-of-your-seat for the whole book. woo! fantasy thriller! no. not really. it's not a fantasy thriller. i like to call it a fantasy adventure. lots of stuff happens.

i think that's all my news. :)

D&D

Barry's game was on yesterday. It was a lot of fun (I can't type a lot any more without thinking of the alot: cute monster who has many variations). We played with a group of lads in America over Skype - the group Barry used play with. It worked out surprisingly well. It was a little hard to hear them at times, but the game went smoothly (enough). The issues we had were character issues, not gameplay issues. Don't put a magic hating barbarian in a group with seven caster-types. We had to violently subdue the barbarian. Even going so far as to kill him and raise him again. Hmmm, that could make an interesting form of torture.
We were playing 2nd ed. I absolutely do not know that system at all. I automatically went to roll initiative with a d20 and got laughed at. Oh well.

I don't have much other news. There was a giraffe in my dream last night. I don't think I've ever dreamed of a giraffe before. So odd.

posting drought

i really have to start updating my livejournal more. i suppose i don't because most of my days are the same: get up, write, play games, read, sleep. i don't update when i'm writing because i'm writing, and too caught up in it to do much else. i turn my computer off in the evenings, so that's why i don't update then.

excuses, excuses.

i think my main problem is that posts about what i'm doing seem so self-centered, and boring.
like: i went for a cycle on saturday, which was brilliant, even if i am a little unfit (i got over that after about 10 minutes, though - went about 12km).
does anyone really want to read about this stuff?

it's kind of funny, because i update my site every week without fail - i have an alarm set to remind me. maybe it's because those posts are so informative and inspired. i just find writing here so... mundane.

i suppose i just have to wait for something interesting to happen.

weekend in cork

a post of points, because i don't feel like writing much.

i went down to cork for a school reunion, which i went to. people are 10 years older and have families. weird.

i bought a goji berry tree. woo - healthy berries. my tomato is huge and i think it has just sprouted the first shoots that will be fruit. i also think the pepper is about to produce fruit.

hmmm. it seems i didn't actually have that much to say.

Pearls of Life

so, news, news, news. quite a lot happened since last night.

ok, ever the last few days i've been really apathetic. i spent most of yesterday morning staring at the wall. i am not kidding. i had my computer off and was just sitting, looking. and thinking a little.

since davidnarby's last post i've been having synchronisity things happen all over the place. first, will wheaton posted about how a computer crash gave him the opportunity to watch a humming bird out his window. it hit a nerve inside me, made me think, "this is right." then steve pavlina posted about living in the moment, seeing everyone in his world as an extension of himself. he wrote two (or three) posts about his new state of mind, and every one of them had to do with listening to what the world is telling him.
so i think, maybe, that's what i was doing yesterday. listening to the world. or more, i was listening to the fact that i wasn't inspired to do anything at all, and i wasn't fighting it. i went with the apathy.

anyway, whatever it was, it was amazing because of what happened today.

i've been having trouble coming up with a good ending for my novel, or maybe not a good ending, any ending at all. i scrapped the ending i had, based on bad feedback and my personal feeling that it wasn't good.
so last night, i had a dream. as i do most nights (actually my dreams for the last few nights have been all over the place, but when i wake i can only remember a few images). but last night i dreamt about zachery and someone called the mentor. i spoke with the mentor and when i woke up this morning, i had the inspiration i needed to write the new ending.

so i got up, all cheerful about my day's writing. and then i went into the room and the first thing i noticed was my pepper plant. it's better. it's leaves aren't wilted any more. it seems my plant first aid worked. i texted penelope_stone at 8:45 to share the good news. then i sat down and started writing.
between 9am and 2pm i wrote 2,500 words. and most of them are good words, i think. i'm almost finished. i just have one scene left to write (maybe two).

today has been a good day.

ps, the cherry tomato is almost as tall as the pepper, but it's not as big, yet.
pps livejournal's new tag select means i put way more tags on my posts. mad.

right - another synchronicty - i was inspired by a dream, and the chosen theme on phantom was dreams.
another cool thing, i randomly found jennifer jackon's blog, right here on Lj. it came up as a recommended on my google reader, but mentioned nothing about ms. jackson. i looked at it based on the coolness of the name alone (et in arcaedia, ego). as i was reading through it, a thought came to me: this could be jennifer jackon's blog. i clicked through to the user info and sure enough, it was. amazing. for anyone interested, she is arcaedia.

right i'm really going now.

it's time for the news

i just finished a full week of work (not novel work). amazing. today feels like saturday, except that i'm at my computer getting ready to write the third draft of the end of my novel. but first, an update (and then i'm going to go and update my website).

i think my big news is that i broke my pepper plant. :/ it happened during its transplant, i turned it upside down to get it out of the pot and when i righted it, it had snapped in two. i tied it back together with electrical tape... the leaves are all wilted, but the flowers are still blossoming. i have hopes that it will heal, but i don't know.
i successfully transplanted my tomato. its getting really big too. no sign of fruit, yet, though.
i put the strawberry in the fridge, in the hopes that it will start to grow.
i also planted jalapeño seeds in case my pepper does die.

so that's my plant-y news. in other news, i'm off to the zoo on saturday with liam, catherine and the boys. that should be fun. not related to that at all, we got a new phone.

ooh - i went to see inception on sunday. i want to go back and see it again, it was so good. i've been thinking about it since i saw it - scenes keep jumping into my head. i love when films do that.

it seems i have lost the ability to write varied sentences. most of the sentences in this post started with i. hmmm. oh well.

that is all.
(oh, yea - if anyone's interested, i'm playing forgotten sands at the moment. it's good, but i miss elika. forgotten sands feels very lonely.)

my beef with bioware

yet another procrastination post. i'm rewriting the end of my novel, again. what is it with beginnings and endings with me? the whole middle is fine, but i'm not happy with chapter 1 or chapters 33 to 36. hhuuuuuum.

to plants:
the pepper grows about a centimetre a day. it's gotten huge - it's about 2 feet high now. my tomatoes are also growing madly, one of them is really getting big - it's about 12cm tall with 5 leaves. no sign of the strawberries yet. the sun vanished just after i planted them, so i expect they will be a while. the kale isn't doing so well since i thinned it. i have four plants left. one seems to be wilting. two are ok, but don't seem to be growing. the last one seems to be growing ok, but it's the smallest of the lot.

to games:
i finished jade empire. it was fun enough. i figured out a neat fighting style that meant the bad guys couldn't get a hit on me. i don't know what that games problem is, but it seemed horribly unbalanced. the regular enemies could be taken down in about 5 seconds; if they hit you it wasn't a problem - their couldn't do much damage. they were pretty easy to beat. the bosses, on the other hand, were impossible. two hits from a boss and my character was dead. and it took about 5 minutes to beat a boss (that's 60times longer than a regular guy - that seems a bit extreme to me). anyway, i did finish the game, but i won't be rushing back to play it any time soon.
i played through dr ned and got half way through general knoxx in borderlands before i started playing mass effect. it's a fun enough game. for some reason, it seems to lack something. like, i'm kind of just playing it to see what it will present me with. i don't really feel much for any of the characters (my girl is pretty looking - that's about it) and i don't care much for the story so far. in fact, i don't really know what the story is yet. and i'm about 6 hours in... maybe. so i'll stick with it to see where it goes. jade empire was kind of similar - really slow to start and then it got going towards the end. but they spent too long on set-up and by the time the story got going i hadn't fallen in love with the characters. and then it was too late - i was too worried about staying alive.

in fact, i had another gripe with jade empire. it was supposed to be an rpg, but only the first two chapters had quests and stuff. after that, it was all fighting. there weren't even any puzzles or stuff, it was just, 'go here and kill this guy, then kill that mob of assassins, then kill this boss, then kill this mob of ghosts, then kill...' yea - you get the point. yea - schizophrenic game.

so, i kind of hope the bioware guys learned thier lesson from jade empire, and mass effect is better, but so far i'm not seeing it.

penelope_stone is up for the week (or two). it's fun having her around. we're thinking of going to sheila's for dinner some night - we really need to tell sheila about this.

right - it's ten past ten, i really need to get down to writing.

tomatoes

tomatoes is the oddest word ever. the plural has an e while the singular doesn't. that confuses me.

anyway. one of the tomatoes has sprouted. it has two tiny leaves. some others are pushing their way up out of the soil. i planted five pots and only two have shown any signs of life. sure, i'll see how they do over the next few days.
my kale is doing excellently. i have a little kale carpet in the pot. i kind of wish it would stay like that forever. it looks really cute and soft. (like tiny green butterflies on stalks.) now i have to watch one or two plants take over and kill all the rest of them. boo.
the pepper is also growing.

that's all my plant-y news. now back to writing. the scene in the middle of the book - the one that has annoyed me since day one - is almost fixed. yeay. just a small realisation and off we go. i also now know how science works in my book. woo for making up science - it's almost as good as making up magic, except it's way harder, because you have to have some basis in reality. anyway - back to it.

(it's a little disturbing that i'm comfortable wearing a t-shirt at 23 degrees (and not a string top). i am going to freeze when winter comes. my skin doesn't even feel warm. if i was wearing a light hoodie, i'd be just as comfortable.)

edited to add pictures:

fairytales for adults

my birthday present from lordkilljoy arrived today. it's somewhat of a tradition for me to get birthday presents at the start of the summer. it was so that i'd have all summer to play with them, rather than getting birthday presents and then having to go back to school the next day. so i couldn't resist opening it and reading it.
and what was my present? i hear you ask: the adventures of the princess and mr whiffle; the thing beneath the bed by patrick rothfuss.
i read the whole book in about 15 minutes. the art is super-cute, the story is a little disturbing. You can read my review on goodreads: princess and mr whiffle review

that's all i wanted to say, really. my kale is growing. the shoots are about 1mm in diameter now, and about an inch high, with leaves that are about 5mm wide. they are cute, and there are billions of them. i think i'll let them fight it out amongst themselves for who gets to grow and who doesn't. i think i may have killed my cherry tomatoes. one of them has mould growing on it. that can't be good.

right so. bye then.

Plants (but no Zombies - they are alive)

Golly geepers, I'm learning stuff about plants. This is amazing. My pepper wilts in the afternoon, and I just learned this is because it can't draw enough water from the soil to keep up with what's evaporating from its leaves. If it recovers by late afternoon, it's fine, but if it doesn't that means it needs watering. My dude is recovering already (the sun's gone in). This is so cool. I never imagined plants were so reactive.

I just wrote the title of this post and it made me wonder what an undead plant would be like. I'll bet you could write a weird sort b-movie about it.

More Plants

I now have a whole little garden happening on my windowsill. The pepper plant is doing well and has been joined by scarlet kale and cherry tomatoes. The other two haven't grown yet, though. I only planted them yesterday. I keep looking at them though - in the hopes I’ll see a shoot. I think it might be another while yet before I see anything. They get direct sunlight from about half 12 to 5ish. I don't know if that's enough to warm the soil and let the seeds know to start growing. Sure, we'll just have to wait and see.
Bad news, though. I found a greenfly on the windowsill today. I just hope I killed it before it got to lay any eggs. I'd hate to have to throw all these plants outside. I cleared away the plant graveyard yesterday - threw them all in the bin.

I'm starting a new scene in my novel today - as in brand new. I got 500 words in before I got distracted with music. Oh well.

I'm playing Jade Empire at the moment and am quite enjoying it. I've wanted to play it for a long time, but never got around to it. And then lordkilljoy started a game of it on the xbox, and I thought it looked really clunky. So that put me off. But it's not clunky. Well - it is a little. The combat system does have it's annoyances, but as long as I toggle between targeting on and targeting off, it does ok.
I finished Borderlands on the PC. It is such a brilliant game. I may go back to it when I'm finished Jade Empire and do playthrough2. Or maybe lordkilljoy will want to play something on the PC by then.

I don't have much other news. I'm settling into my new work well enough. And still getting time to write, which is good.

Right, so. I'll go now.

planting procrastination

procrastination post. yeay. i haven't done one of these in ages.

i defrosted the freezer last night. it was kinda fun - going with the hair dryer, watching the ice melt away and fall into the little collecty bucket at the bottom. the freezer has significantly more space now, and you can actually see the metal bits that conduct the cold around. all the compartments open properly now. it was so bad, actually, that the ice had shoved some of the shelves off their rails. but they are fixed now, too.

the little pepper plant is still alive. the fern is also still alive. the dracaena got put out in the corner of the balcony reserved for dead plants. we can call it the plant graveyard. i put them out there in the hopes that the weather outside will bring them back to life. i suppose it's kind of a silly viewpoint, but it's always what used happen to dead plants at home. none of them ever came back to life either.
i think the bonsai might be making it way out there soon. poor plant just keeps on loosing its leaves, and when they grow back they are yellow and weedy. i took the dead bits off the other dracaena. it's looking good again. all green.
all this planty goodness has me wanting to plant the seeds from a cherry tomato. and we have black kale too. i could have a whole little garden happening on the window sill in here. it's a weeny (meaning small) windowsill, but it's the only one in the whole apartment that gets sunlight.

right so. i don't have much other news.

just to note - dinner is on (yes, before 10:30am). and all the windows and doors in the apartment are open in an effort to cool the place down. it was way too hot last night.

kerry

go visit three corner square, my website. It has two posts now, one containing some advice about writing different drafts for a novel. i must write a new post soon. i'm thinking of doing something on making the editing process more efficient, but those kinds of articles are rather prevalent on the net already.

on to the regular news.

i have spent the last 5 days in the wonderful company of ms penelope_stone and liam. we went for walks on the beach, flew super-powerful kites, wandered in the forest, watched glastonbury coverage.

in between that, i attended the beach wedding of mytholder and emopod. it was pretty amazing. the weather was perfect, the sky was the lightest shade of blue, the sea was the deepest shade of turquoise.

the weather stayed pretty good for the whole time. we had a barbecue last night and the only bit of heavy rain in the whole week fell as we were lighting it. ah well - it stopped as we were cooking and we got to eat outside. the sun even came out again near the end.

not much else happening. i'm heading home tomorrow. i'd love to just stay here for a month. but it will be fun to go home to borderlands. i'm sort of worried about what kind of state the apartment will be in, though. ah well. i'll be taking a pepper plant home with me, and a renewed vigour to treat my plants with care and kindness.

june

Right so. I've been ordered by penelope_stone to update, so I am updating. However, I don't really have anything interesting to say. I'm half way through draft 3. It's going quite well. I get kind of caught up in the story and forget to edit, and then I have to go back over what I just read and I find loads of mistakes. It's kind of funny.

Speaking of funny, I am realising that writing humour to lighten tension is exceptionally hard. I've tried to find places in my novel to add in humour and I have failed. I might make a blog post about it at some stage.

I guess it's time I mentioned that I ported my website to wordpress. Wordpress is a great tool, and so easy to use if you have a little knowledge of HTML and PHP. The website isn't 100% done yet. There are a few quirks to work out and I don't have any proper posts yet (working on that - should have one this evening, maybe).

I'm playing Borderlands on PC at the moment. It is such a good game. This is my third full playthrough, and my sixth partial playthrough. lordkilljoy also got Fallout3 and Burnout Paradise on PC, so I've been messing around with them too.

I'm reading Retribution Falls at the moment. I'm really enjoying it. Non-stereotypical adventure fantasy is so hard to come by these days. In novels, anyway. Or maybe I just can't find it.

Yea. So that's been my life for the last month.

weekend joys

the weekend was great. i got to meet more cousins i've not seen in about 10 years. everyone was in great form.
then on sunday my whole family came over to the apartment and stayed until today. it was cool.

we went into town yesterday and i bought some plugs for my ear. it's at 6mm now - has been at that for the last few years. i always figured i'd put in the effort to get it to 8, but i was just never bothered. so it's staying at 6 forever. i bought three really cute plugs - i have photos.





yea. they are the motivation behind this post.

i spent today (after everyone left - that really feels like yesterday, or last week or something) editing draft 3. chapter 1 is considerably different now. a little more action packed. penelope_stone tells me the book is too action packed as it is, but i'll sort all that out when i get to it. for now, the start needs more action.

hmmmm, yea. i got a bit sunburned over the weekend. lordkilljoy is off in australia and we are getting better weather here. it's mad. but good. nothing like a bit of warm sunlight.

deadlines

oh my god, i hate tight deadlines. always in college i'd get stuff done a week or a few days before the deadline so there was never last minute stress.
i just finished an assignment and was editing up to the last 10 minutes. i got it uploaded with 8 minutes to spare on the deadline. phew! what a rush. and not really in a good way. it wouldn't really do to miss a deadline on my second assignment.
ah well, it's done now. all i can do now is wait for feedback on stuff i got wrong. hopefully not that much. i spent ages going over it to make sure it was ok.

i kinda feel like i have loads to do and no time in which to do it. hmmm. i should make out a list. that will definitely help to de-abstractise things. :giggle: i just made up a word. it's amazing how this still entertains me :)

Yea. i think i'm tried. i get to the end of a paragraph and my brain just goes: stop, no thoughts here.

yea. i'm going to go now.

washing randomness

i put two white sheets into the wash today. one came out light blue, the other came out a dull sort of purple. (yes, i do just chuck everything into the same wash regardless of colour, because the only non-coloureds we have are sheets, and it's not worth putting on a whole wash just for them.)
and i wouldn't even mind, but it's not like we don't have colour catcher sheets. and they do work. oh well. that's what i get for assuming / hoping stuff won't run. the blue sheet looks kinda good, though. it died very evenly. i even had to ask myself if we'd actually been sleeping on a blue sheet. but no, we hadn't. the other sheet is pretty evenly died (a little darker in the corners) but it's not a very nice colour. it can be the spare room's spare sheet.

so yea. they are now drying in the sitting room. they don't really fit on the clothes horse and now that lordkilljoy is gone away, i can put the clothes where ever i like.

i've been listening to deftones' new album, diamond eyes. i'm enjoying it. beauty school is my favourite so far, followed by the title track. it's very deftones. but i love their sound, so i'm good with that.

i went to see robin hood yesterday. it was an engaging 2 hour 20 minute diversion. but that's all it was, really. a fun thing to watch to pass the time.

afterwards, i went out to dalkey quarry, and ran up the hill to the top (there are stairs). it was good. the views from up there are spectacular - you can see way out into the irish sea on one side, and over dublin on the other.
then me, penelope_stone and liam went to nandos. yum. and then we went home and watched gladiator (skipping over all the boring bits). heh. i could call it a ridley scott afternoon.

typing myself into oblivion

news, news, news.

i did my first assignment over the week. i ended up typing over 10,000 words in 8 hours. my hands were a bit sore afterwards. typing up voices takes an incredible amount of time. and i don't really think it matters how fast you are, because you get to a bit where you can't hear and you spend about 20 minutes just trying to decipher it. anyway - i had fun doing it. people speak really weirdly when you actually listen to them.

penelope_stone is coming up this weekend. that will be fun. i was going to go to carlow, but that's not happening now.

i'm back playing oblivion again. :scratch head: yea. i didn't think that would happen either, but i decided to play it on the xbox - just a quick run through of the main quest (and possibly the thieves' guild quest line, because i never finished it) and i got hooked. i'm going thieves, mages, main and deadra quests (and some random stuff). and once i get better at killing stuff, i'm going to join the dark brotherhood. hmmmm. i was only going to play for a week or something... oh well. (oh yea, my character is kind of pretty too. not as pretty as her in my icon, but pretty enough.)

i'm messing around with wordpress at the moment too. it's incredibly flexible with designs and layouts and stuff. you can design it any way you want. it's brilliant.

lordkilljoy is in singapore at the moment. i had an awful dream last night about being at home on my own, and all these men got into the house and were chasing me around the place. i tried to hide in the bathroom, but they broke down the door. it was awful.