Dinosaurs with Laser-Guns

- Embrace the fact that my typing over IM is always terrible and there’s no need to give an excuse for it in every single conversation.

- Figure out solution to the logistical problem of wanting to learn to play the drums when your flat is too small to fit any drums into.

- Learn to play the drums.

- Try not to shout at anyone who mentions the alleged upcoming Mayan apocalypse.

- Try not to be too sarcastic at anyone who mentions the alleged upcoming Mayan apocalypse.

- Ah fuck it, they probably deserve it.

- Continue to get better at the stuff I want to get better at. (The only way to lose is not to play.)

Mirrored from The Random Planet.

What has happened to the year? I’m not really sure what I’ve done in the last three months. I did NaNoWriMo, and although I didn’t win, writing turns out to be a huge amount of fun and I’m going to keep doing it. Maybe my ~creative energies~ have recharged, or maybe I’m just getting my act together, but I’ve got a lot of ideas lately and I’m drawing again, and getting a start on some other things I’ve been meaning to do in my copious free time.

Endless leisure is still not my favourite situation to be in, though, and so far there’s been no success in the jobsearch. I am doing some German > English (and the other way as soon as my test gets approved) translation on MyGengo, and as usual it’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately the jobs aren’t really pouring in so far; in the last week I’ve done two, one of which was only a sentence long. Made almost $30 on the other one, though, and requested a payout (to make sure it actually works). I hear the experience from the customer side is pretty good, so if you need a translation you should consider them. And consider doing it via this banner, because then I get referral money. ;P

Something that has raised my unemployed spirits is that the library they’ve been building near our flat since before we moved in has finally opened. I still think it looks kind of like an ominous looming spaceship.

The non-fiction section is a little lacking, but the fiction selection is good — they fit a lot more books into that building than it looks like there’s room for — and they have a nicely sized graphic novel section, too, so I’m finally getting around to reading all of those comics people have recommended to me.

The first time I visited last week I took out volumes 1 to 3 of Fables. It’s fairly good so far. The writing seemed a bit stiff to me at first, but I think I’ve gotten more used to it now. They get points for having their ladies drive the plot a lot, but I haven’t been able to really get into any of the characters, and I’m not sure why. They just seem a little obvious to me; it’s like they’ve taken fairy tale characters and turned them into the cast of a soap opera. Or maybe it’s because most of them are rich and US American that I get that vibe. The premise interests me enough to get the next few volumes, though, and maybe when more of the back-story is revealed I’ll become more invested in the characters.

I also got out a few volumes of Hellblazer, which is always fun in a creepy way. (Although the hippies in The Fear Machine annoyed me a lot, for various reasons.) I have no idea of what order they are meant to go in so I just got out two at random. That Wikipedia article probably has the publication order in it, doesn’t it. Maybe I’ll go with that from now on.

What other comics should I check out? I have a long list somewhere from various Eastercon panels, but I am always happy for more, since I know you guys have good taste.

Mirrored from The Random Planet.

I have made a to-do list and am attempting to structure my life now there is no more school to do it for me.

Last weekend, Tim and I went to Hay-on-Wye to celebrate handing in my dissertation. It's a tiny village in a lovely countryside, and filled to the brim with bookstores. So basically heaven on Earth. I'd love to come back for a week sometime and mix the browsing with some hiking around the Welsh countryside, but for now I had an amazing time wandering from store to store.





I thought I was being relatively sensible with my book-buying, until it came to packing up everything for the bus and train ride home. Here's my pile of loot:



Including some that sounded cool, some I'd heard of and been meaning to buy, some which had pretty covers or interesting titles, and a few that sounded too hilarious to pass up. Like Less than Human by Charles Platt, featuring a cover illustration of a floating, glowing man in an Elvis-esque outfit, and the following blurb (in part):

HE WAS MANKIND'S LAST CHANCE. AND THEY WERE GOING TO KILL HIM FOR IT. Burt is a trillion dollars worth of robot — with a ten-minute gap in his programming that renders him virtually useless to his creators. Still, since coming to Earth, he was managed to find a snappy new set of clothes, a cure for cancer, and a sixteen-year-old girlfriend.

How could I not give that book a loving new home.

I also picked up a few pick-your-own-adventure books, what appears to be a prehistoric fiction novel that isn't the Earth's Children series (always on the lookout for more of those), and a very intreseting-looking volume of literary theory/criticism called Strategies of Fantasy. I didn't intentionally stick only to SFF — I was looking for more non-fiction of various kinds, too — but somehow it worked out that way.

Well, I've been procrastinating on writing a cover-letter for an application to an archaeology fieldwork job... so I'll probably go do something else from my to do list.

Tim got me a little whiteboard and it calms my troubled mind.

I decided the other day that when I've handed in my dissertation, we're going to Hay-on-Wye for a weekend in celebration. Yeah, this place. It's going to be amazing.

I also finally saved up enough to buy my own 3DS, and this awesome decal so we can distinguish between the two that exist in this flat:


(I had this gif here, but looking at it makes my head hurt.)

Just one bossfight away from beating Ocarina of Time! And then I'm going to get A Link To The Past Link's Awakening (EDIT: I can't be expected to remember names at 1am after a day of dissertationing) from the download store, and I won't stop until I have all the Zeldas.

You've probably heard that there's been rioting all over London, as well as some other cities. Just thought I'd post a quick note to say I'm alright. The shopping centre near us was looted (Tim, who stayed up all night watching the news, had a look around earlier and tweeted about the damage) but otherwise it was quiet.

I'm really pissed off, both at the people looting, and at all of the people commenting on this on the news harping on about what "pure, senseless criminality" it all was. No-one is excusing the people burning, stealing, and mugging, but just because it wasn't a political protest doesn't mean there aren't political and social underlying factors. Looking at the reasons doesn't make the things going on any less horrible and stupid, or the people perpetrating them any less at fault, but it means that maybe we can try to make people's lives better and make this less likely in the future. The demonisation of youth, poor people, and ethnic minorities people jump to so quickly make me rage.

Anyway, I'm going in to uni for a bit. I need to go to the library, and I want to visit Gay's the Word to buy a book in support after they had their window smashed in over the weekend. I'm going to head home around lunchtime, though, in case there are any transport disruptions later on.

Links that I've been getting my news from:

• Google map of incidents
• Live BBC stream
• #LondonRiots hastag on twitter
• Guardian live blogs for last night, and from this morning (haven't read the latter yet).

cobweb_diamond has some more links, as well.

Obviously be suitably sceptical towards any unconfirmed rumours.

I feel almost guilty about how much attention is being paid to this, when there's war and famine and other worse things elsewhere, and I'm not even affected apart from having to walk to a different grocery shop, but man. This is where I live. Feels weird.

First of all, there are some extremely important orders of business to discuss:

Look a this!
Ouran is getting a live-action drama! I am pretty excited about this. They could keep making adaptations of Ouran forever and I'd be happy.

Also this!
You really need to watch this one in HD, trust me. That hair. I am definitely seeing Brave in the cinema when it comes out.

And now for something that's already happened: some friends of mine and I went to see Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" at the Globe last week. I highly recommend going to see it if you get the chance! The acting was great, especially the two main characters (played by Paul Hilton and Arthur Darvill), and the sets, costumes, props etc were all just right for the atmosphere. (Hurray for eerie hell-creatures!) I was a bit... not wary exactly, but unsure going in, because although I knew the basic story I had no idea if I'd let myself in for a comedy, a tragedy, or a heavy philosophical treatise. In the end, though, it turned out to be the prefect balance of (generally slapstick) humour and dark creepiness and dread.

And walking out of the theatre we all agreed we wanted a BBC TV series of Faustus and Mephistopheles's wacky adventures.

[Image: an A4 piece of paper taped to a chest-high wall (someone tell me what these are actually called) pointing the way to the SlutWalk meetup.]

I went on the London SlutWalk last Saturday! Which was not, as some coverage would have you believe, an excuse to dress up in sexy clothes, but a protest against rape culture and the notion that only sluts get raped/all people who are raped are sluts, and the way people's clothes, background, and sexual history are used to let their abusers off the hook and I am not feeling very eloquent today GO READ THE WEBSITE. (I also liked this article about it in the Christian Science Monitor. No idea what the exact purview of the Christian Science Monitor is, but this is a really good article.)

Mainly this post is to show off the cool banners I managed to get pictures of:

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Also some of my favourites that I didn't get to take a picture of but managed to find on the internet: "I'm a bitch if I say no but I'm a slut if you rape me anyway!", You need permission to Slytherin to my Chamber of Secrets", and "River Song wouldn't stand for this shit!" The rest of the Flickr set is really good, too.

I intended to leave after the walk and get back to my dissertation work, but the speeches in Trafalgar Square, although I disagreed with one or two speakers on one or two points, were so good. I hope some of them end up online, because they were sogood. It's a good feeling to reaffirm that a lot of people who agree with you on things exist, sometimes.

A lot of great-sounding organisations were involved which I must find out more about the future, like Women Against Rape and GAPS.

I am 100% sure I will find a lot of spelling mistakes and weird sentences in this tomorrow, but I'm going to bed now.

I went to the health centre today to get a new pill prescription, and I took a short-cut (or at least a nicer route) through Russia Dock Woodland. And I found this awesome thing, which made my geeky heart sing:


[Image description: a large metal compass rose is embedded into a concrete square in the middle of a path. It is divided into 16 sections labelled with the cardinal directions (N, NNE, NE, ENE, and so on). In the centre is an engraving of a bird, possibly a sparrow, but I don't know anything about birds. Overlaying the rest are a number of lines radiating out from the centre, each labelled with a location, the distance to it, and a list of commodities. The subsequent images show smaller sections of the compass.]

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This would be me: "Ooh, can we go to Ugarit? And Uruk, and I want to see what's actually going on with the cemetery at Ur. Oh, oh, and then I want to find some people who are related to me. Do you have a way of finding everyone I'm related to in a particular time? How many ancestors would I even have, say, 4000 years ago? How many generations is that? I think I read somewhere that a human generation is considered to be 70 years, but that seems kind of long for this kind of calculation, I bet I can find an equation to use on the internet, let me see... what do you mean, saving the world? I'm not done with the past, and I haven't even started on bits of the future I want to see yet. Oh, and other planets..."

I just need a TARDIS and a chauffeur, to be honest.

P.S: I've been looking into charities that are active in Japan at the moment, and I found ShelterBox. They put a tent and a bunch of necessities in a box and give it to people. How cool is that? High five, ShelterBox! And 頑張れ、日本！

 

The pig is there for luck. Apparently pigs don't symbolise good luck in England, as I learned yesterday when Tim asked me why it was there. This is weird and interesting and makes me want to do a survey! I’m pretty sure four-leaved clovers, chimney sweepers, and possibly horseshoes (with the legs pointing up so they look like a bull’s horns, according to my grandmother) are shared, as well as all the unlucky stuff like walking under ladders and breaking mirrors and so on. (I suspect those were popularised by films and cartoons.) My mum brought me bread, salt, and a penny when I moved into the flat -- for plentiful food, wealth, and good luck, respectively, though we had to look that up -- and when you find a penny on the street you’re meant to (pretend) spit on it three times and keep it in your pocket for luck. That’s all the folkloric traditions and superstitions I can think of off the top of my head. Do you have any?

I think pigs are pretty cool animals, regardless.

So, in the time since I last blogged I’ve been having really nice Christmas and birthday/New Years times. Hung out with my family, baked cookies, ate delicious food, and played card and board games (everyone seems to be coming around to my point of view that board games are for cool kids. My dad even enjoyed Settlers of Catan, after initial scepticism – “You can’t kill anyone?”). Everyone seemed to like the presents I got them, too.  :D (Paintings for my parents & brother, and a pair of Hello Kitty headphones for Tim.) My parents got me a new keyboard and screen, which I asked for intending to attach to my laptop, but then Tim got me the parts of a computer to go with them. :O! I am coming to you at this very moment from my super sexy new desktop PC. ( I got some other really great stuff, too )

On New Year’s Eve, Tim and I went out to see the London fireworks. The travel guidelines said the viewing areas start filling up around 8, so we went out for dinner and ended up on Westminster Bridge around 7. And then we sat and read books for five hours while Radio 1 played really lame music. It was totally worth it, though: the fireworks were spectacular. I adore fireworks. Pretty bright colours and loud noises are just viscerally satisfying. Fuck yeah, watch us light up the sky! I didn’t want to waste any of that feeling on trying to take photos, because photos of fireworks are never as good anyway, but I did tear myself away for a couple of seconds because the sea of cameras and phones that went up in front of me when it started was too amusing not to document.

Everyone on the internet already knows what fireworks look like, guys.

I was thinking yesterday about whether I should make a resolution this year. I usually don’t, because I think about my goals and how to achieve them pretty frequently anyway, so I don’t feel the need to do it at new year’s specifically. My life has been going really well in the last few months. Everything feels like it’s rolling in the right direction. I like where I live, my relationship is really good, I’ve been making some cool friends at uni and being social, and I got my first essay back before the holiday and got the best grade of my academic career so far holy shit. Of course this is a dangerous moment and I can’t rest on my laurels and stop pushing to keep rolling in that direction, so I’ve decided that my resolution for 2011 is: “Take all necessary steps to ensure the continuation of awesome good times”.