Blogger Finally Set Up

Right. Call me crazy but I just spent six days transferring my Livejournal to here. And it's not even my entire Lj - it's not even half of it. The posts only go back to 2006, where my Lj goes to 2001. But with 500-odd posts taking this long, I don't even want to think how long 1600 would take.

And how did I do it? Why did it take so long? Because blogging services hate each other. I had to use wordpress as an intermediary. But it all worked out splendidly - tags and comments came over, which is pretty cool. I'd been willing to settle for posts alone, but this is way better.

So, farewell, Livejournal. We've had fun, you and I. But you've lost your way. You want to be a social media outlet first and a place for lowly writers to rant about their lives second. I can't say I won't miss you, but at least now posting updates is fun again. And I'll still be checking my friends page, and I may even set up some kind of auto-post-to-Lj when I post here thing, if I can be bothered figuring it out.

Weekly News (or something)

For the first time in 11½ years I cleaned up my friends page. Anyone whose name I didn't recognise is gone (because if I don't know your name it means we didn't interact much). I also got rid of a bunch of old communities that hadn't had activity in 3 or 4 years. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. My profile page looks so much lighter now.

Anyway.

What news? I made caramel squares on Friday night. They are delicious. The caramel is more like toffee, but it is absolutely yummy. They come out of the fridge and they are so hard to bite into. I've taken to leaving them warm up for a bit. They are also horrendously bad for you. I think they are the most fatty sweet I've ever made. So I have to seriously control myself and only eat 1 per day. Yesterday I nibbled away on one square for the whole day and it was great. A nibble is all you need, really, to get the taste and satisfy the desire for yumminess.

What else? I'm back playing Skyrim again and after one day I was totally addicted. I just want to play all the time. I started with a new character (a destruction mage) and she is so much fun to play. I always thought stealth was the most fun way to go, but there's something delightfully chaotic about laying down fire runes (which are like magical traps that set off an explosion when they are triggered) and waiting for foes to walk into them, then shocking them with lightning as they stumble around on fire. That sounded so evil. But it's so much fun. Bethesda are really good at making games. I don't think I've stumbled into any of the same quests as last time and I'm doing things completely differently.

River went to the vet on Thursday to get 3yearly injections. She was fine afterward.

Ooh - last weekend we went tubing on Salt River. It was so much fun. They give you rubber tubes and a bus trip up to the start point, then let you off to drift back to the main area. It sounds really boring, but every so often the water gets shallow and fast and that is when it gets really fun. And just watching the desert drift by was great too.

We went to see Prometheus on Wednesday. I really enjoyed it. There were some super gory bits in the middle, but overall it was a fun story about a girl whose faith is challenged.

Writing Troubles

This week has been slower than most. Usually by Wednesday I've picked up my pace after the weekend, and things start to get written. Not this week. I'm only a thousand and a bit words into this chapter (and my 5,000 per week). I have a lot to get done tomorrow and Friday, and I'm just not inspired by this scene at all. It's fine, but it seems so forced. It's a way to get from A to B. I've changed things around a bit and it's better than my original idea, but still.

I like Lj's spring banner. It's bright and cute. And it suits the rest of the site.

It got down to -11 last night. There is ice on the inside of the window again. I went out for a bit today (about 5 minutes) and my nose and fingers were freezing. It was -9 at that stage. It's -10 now. Brrrr. But it's sunny and the snow is melting. Wait... the snow is melting at -10? How does that work? The forecast is giving -20 for tonight. -20. Seriously.
I put an extra blanket on the bed last night - it was doubled over so that was two extra layers, and I was toasty, but not roasting. So if it's going to be double what it was from 0 last night tonight (writing how you speak doesn't really work at all - just focus on the next few words), I'm going to have to put on 4 blankets or something.
Earlier this week the forecast was giving 17 for later in the month. That's gone now. 11 is the highest. No, wait. It's 14.

Can you tell I'm just wasting time now?

What other news? We went walking on volcanoes on Saturday. It was good. The climate here is amazing. It's like being on another planet. The grass is yellow and the sky is the deepest shade of blue.

Right, so. I'll go now.

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.

my journal

ok - this is wierd. livejournal says my journal was created on 4th october at 7am, but my first post was the 3rd at 3pm. that was 2001, by the way. i can't believe my journal is 8 years old. that's 8 years of writing daily happenings, random thoughts, just plain randomness, good things, bad things, journeys, changes - you can practically see me grow up on the pages of my journal.

anyway, because i more than likely won't be online over the weekend - happy birthday journal. i love you :)

equinox missed

ok, wierd. i was all set to get a new Lj theme because my current one had stopped doing the tag cloud, but i just looked before writing this post and it's in a cloud again. very odd.

in other odd news, i missed the equinox by ages. i just realized it had gone past when apod posted a picture about it today. silly me.
so the nights are officially longer than the days now. roll on march. it's not that i don't like winter, its just that i love when the sunset stretches for hours and the sky is still holding onto the last dim glow of day at midnight.

my cold is getting worse. i'm thinking today will be a recovery day where i sit on the couch and play mini-games in fable2. chopping wood - very therapeutic. i started a new game last night (since to play my old game i need to log in as lordkilljoy on the xbox, go to downloads, re-download knothole island, log back in as me (riarua, if anyone's interested in friending me on xbox) and then i can play). i hadn't realized how the effects of stealing and killing had effected my first character - my new girl looks so fresh and innocent in comparison.

my 16 week plan is shaping up well. i have a good plan done out (only that i actually have 20 chapters, counting the pro- and epilogues. (i now have a chapter 1.5, as well as a chapter 11.5 - chapter 1 was 11,000 words. i think that's just a few too many for the first chapter.)

the little sick mood guy should have an option to have a smiley face on - i'm really not that miserable.

me and yoshi went sunbathing today

we took yoshi to the vet yesterday evening. i just got too worried about him. his colour has steadily turned more and more brown and yesterday even his stomach was a pale shade of brown. so i bought him a hot water bottle and we drove him over to leixlip to see the vet. the visit was good. she proclaimed him well, and that he is probably about to shed, which is causing his skin to change colour. but she's going to test his poo as well and get back to us if anything turns up. hopefully it won't. but it's such a relief to know that there is nothing fatal wrong with him.
i need to learn how not to worry. i tried so hard not to worry yesterday - and even managed to convince myself that i wasn't worried, but it was all an intricate self-deception. once we came out of the vet, i knew i had actually been really worried. i felt one hundred million times better. peace of mind is such a good thing.

i went into the mind, body, spirit festival on sunday. it was good - loads of things to look at. i got some turkish apple tea, a little angel wind-chime and a book: "the animal healer." it's interesting to read - all about dealing with animals in a way that is least stressful for them.

ugh - i just closed down firefox by accident. i'm so glad Lj has a post-backup thing. ok - the reason why i closed firefox is because i was going messing around with some photos in photoshop - making them post-worthy.






the pic of yoshi has had some major cosmetic surgery done to it. i removed a branch and a wire and made the colours more tonally unified (aka, hid the brown skin on his back). but this is a slightly old pic and it wasn't nearly as bad then.

news for today

The xbox came back to us today. well, actually, it was a replacement, all clean, new and shiny. and my fable game isn't working. something about downloaded content being different. i'm very sad. i'm totally not starting a new game, so i'll never get to play again. awh :(

i have no news. yoshi isn't eating crickets. he's going to get malnourished if we keep feeding him mealworms.

a quad-core does 3ds renders very quickly. i need something to render.

right - i'm going to go find some blue-prints or something.

i have a new user-pic :)

it's lashing outside and i have to walk to work. all i can say is - thank god i have a good water proof coat. and water proof trail shoes. but i'll be wearing jeans down and changing into my work pants and shoes when i get there. i hope i don't get too wet.

not a whole lot else going on at the moment. jaarius, lordraath and the_kannon are coming up this weekend. that should be fun - and possibly a bit crazy.

the only reason i'm really updating is to see the new last.fm music link thing, but i can't see it here. oh, wait. i have to put in my username on my profile first.
awh - it dosn't look like it's working. oh well.

the quandaries of life and finding a job

i changed my style again. this time, it's one of the default Lj ones. i generally don't go for them, because they are too generic, but at the same time i'm way too lazy to go work on a style myself. anyway, we'll see how long this one lasts. it has a good chance of lasting a good long time, because the tags appear in a cloud, the page summary gives numbers of comments and the main entry text is constrained to a certain line length. so it has the things i like, the only problem is the colours, but it was the best of the pixipets ones.

i applied for more jobs today. dull, dull, dull sounding ones: secretarial and admin. i tried to just go for companies that sound interesting, in fields like music, printing, IT. i did apply for one customer service job, and one software testing job (whatever was i thinking? but it is an entry level position and they give you training, so why not? (the voice in my head says "because you have no knowledge of the industry." shush voice in my head))

i did this funny career test yesterday to help me figure out what kind of job i'd really like to do. it had this to tell me: Creative Expression, Aesthetics, Time Freedom, Job Tranquility, Change and Variety, Knowledge, Excitement, Moral Fulfillment are all aspects of a career that i would find fulfilling.
so:
_ i need to be exercising my creative drive, ok;
_ everything needs to be beautiful and inspiring, this is where i generally get let down;
_ i want no pressure, yea - good luck with that one;
_ again no stress or bother, so important it happens twice;
_ nothing boring and routine, never going to happen;
_ i want to learn new stuff and be using my brain, this one is a possibility but probably not without stress and responsibility;
_ can't be boring, i think we had this one already too;
_ and finally morally fulfilling, what on earth does this mean?
so in other words: my dream career is one that dosn't exist. well, ok - i have just cut off any ideas out of hand... ok - actually thinking of jobs that have all of these things: the no pressure thing is the real difficult thing to get around. you know, apart from the stress bit, games designer fits into all of these. i imagine it would get kind of routine after a while. writing a fantasy novel got routine - come up with idea, find good words, structure words into a sentence, come up with more words, structure them into a sentence that dosn't follow the exact same structure as the last sentence... yea. it's really hard.

anyway.

my 3d girl model is coming on. not exactly well, but we're getting there. i re-appled the biped because her hands weren't cooperating.
penelope_stone took me and davidnarby on a road trip looking for a car yesterday. it was quite successful. she found a car that suits her.

right. i think i've said enough.

into work

usually, i'm a very punctual person - early for things even. except for work. work was always the one thing i could never motivate myself to get in early for. i'd usually get in a few minutes before the hour - just enough time to get in and get organized (like take my coat off and sit down). but now i've started being 10 minutes late. and this dosn't bother me, but each time i walk in the door to the office i think of the scene from the matrix where neo gets called into his boss's office and the boss says "you think that somehow the rules do not apply to you" (well i'm not even sure if his boss does say this - smith could say it at some stage, but anyway).
yea. this little story doesn't really have a point - i just wanted to write it here, becuase these are the little things that i miss writing in my journal. you don't get to write this kind of stuff when you just stay at home all the time. you don't have these little random thoughts because everything is mostly similar all the time.

yea. i'll go do some work now.

sometimes my writing really sucks

ah. livejournal. how i love your procrastination ability. i get annoyed with my lack of ability to make sentences sound good so i turn to you and write something different, something normal, that sounds like speech, not like some 12 year old trying desperately to sound like a published fantasy writer.

i watched the mummy last night. it's such a good film. and i watched it on my computer. the last time i tried to play a dvd my dvd drive refused to cooperate. i wonder was it just trying to remember how to work after a year of not doing anything. but i'm happy that i know i can watch dvds in my room again.

i really have absolutely nothing to say, i'm just writing here, because it's one of the only forms of procrastination that dosn't make me feel guilty about abandoning my novel.

a morning in the countryside

i just had a wonderful cycle with penelope_stone. The sun shone for us, the countryside smelled of summer grass and summer wind. We headed for farran, through the village and out on the footpath beside the bypass. the footpath was concrete with regular divisions, the kind that are really fun to cycle over because you get a funny kind of massage. as i raced down the hill, i smiled for the joy of the wind in my face and the feeling of the footpath and i whispered to myself "i'm a train" and my smile broke into a grin of wonder. it was brilliant.
after that came the awful slog up farran hill, but it was worth it for the speed down the other side. if i hadn't been cycling, i would have closed my eyes. feeling the speed and the wind flying through you and the sun caressing you; it felt like flying.
we took a break in farran and did the obstacle course. i even managed to get most of the way across the high-bars, usually i can barely hold on to the first bar. then we headed home and i was almost dead by the time we got back. i couldn't even make it up the stairs - i had to have the bannister help me. and getting back down the stairs was just as painful. so i think i'll be really sore tomorrow, but i had fun today so it will be worth it.

dave's game last night was fun. we found out that we went totally wrong last week and that we made the adventure twice as long as it was supposed to be. ah well, we had fun interviewing / raiding the rooms of every character linked to the story.

at the taleweaver's meeting the guys made me realize that i need to make some changes to my child fiction. like the character dosn't act her age and the writing style doesn't suit the character, so i think what i'll do is tweak my character a bit and change the writing style to omnipotent narrator. i've never really done that and i've been wanting to try it for a while, so i'm not really sure how it will turn out. but it's and it's about doing things you've never done before.

i also think i'll change the way i do my location when i'm updating. i think i'll put the place the post is about, rather than my current location.

sunday afternoons

I watched ocean's thirteen and blood and chocolate last night. good movies, ocean's thirteen was more of the same - still fun. blood and chocolate was a love story wrapped up as a werewolf story - nothing ground-breaking, but still fun to watch.

i'm off to taleweavers later this afternoon and then to dave's planescape game this evening. i'm looking forward to that - my character is quite cool. she's the portal expert of the group - i'm looking forward to doing funky things with portals.
and for taleweavers - we've all decided to take part in genre-challenge and do a piece of child fiction. mine involves alternate realities and wierdness. i'm not sure if it will actually tie together properly - right at the moment it feels totally disjointed. more like a collage of scenes than a coherent story. ah well. i still have a few weeks until the end of may.

not much else news - i think i've just about exhausted my stockpile of post-worthy stuff. 2 posts a day for the last few days was kind of phenomenal spurt of random chatter, though. i think i'm just happy to be home :)

making changes

bear with me while i create a new style for my journal. this could take a while. i'm re-learning css and trying to figure out how Lj does it all at the same time.

my life as it stands right now

wow - this is a bit wierd, isn't it? ahhh - gak. the fon't isn't clunky courier anymore. noooo - bring it back, bring it back - i can't write in ariel. i hates it. (pagan / trickster moment there)

i have stopped writing. i am re-plotting. i have come to the bit i stopped writing at in my original plot and i am stuck again. this bit has some kind of internal flaw but i'll be damned if i know what it is.

i downloaded the prince of persia two thrones soundtrack yesterday. it's really good. i had most of it already on the trilogy ST, but i now have the music from the lower tower, which (in my opinion) is the most meloncholy, lonely, futile, disillusioned but persevering 'cause you have nothing else left to you, dramatic, weak / strong music ever. it is really cool in the game. Farah has been kidnapped by Cervan and you have to get to the tower to stop him - the dark prince has almost taken you over and nothing is going well. so you go on, because you love farah even if she thinks you are helplessly evil. yea - its good. damn, those games are so good.

i'm still playing thief: deadly shadows too. garrett as invaded my dreams. how does he manage to do that? i start playing thief and within a few days i'm dreaming of garrett. no other character features so strongly in my dreams - even all the hours i put into the elder scrolls games or prince of persia. none of my writing characters have been in my dreams, so what is it about garrett? hmmm - oh well.

indeed. that is all i have to say right now. bye.

new userpic for a bad day

today has been bad. the weather is awful (depressing) and i've not even looked at fall (working title for my nanowrimo). i'm doing a snowflake (this'll make sence to those few friends who read the nano community) and i've decided to do a paragraph on all 13 members of the archassembly of angels and i'm also thinking i'll have to do one for all 13 members of the devils' council. anyway: i don't want to face it today, i'm not in the mood.