The Roost of the Purple Chicken

Beware the deluge from sqbr!

2007-02-20T16:05:00.000+09:00

To anyone still subscribed to the feed for this blog: I'm going to have to move over the google or whatever, which may mean ALL my posts will suddenly appear on the feed. Given that I don't post to this blog any more, I'd say the best thing to do is unsubscribe from the feed.

Go friend my livejournal if you haven't already :)

My heart is wrenched in two

2006-01-23T12:19:00.000+08:00

Well...I've decided to do it. The realtionship was stable and happy, and I thought I could compromise on our differeneces but in the end...I had to leave.

That's right, I'm saying goodbye to Blogger and moving over to livejournal. This makes me very sad, since I won't have as much control over the layout (no more tiny chickens! No more spirally dividers!!) and I won't be sqbr any more :( But despite all that lj has suckered me over with it's commenting system (specifically notifications on replies for people other than me) and the fact I won't have to deal with the feed/blog dichotomy(*).

I'm don't know what I'll do with this blog now (I'm sure I'll think of something) but for the moment it will lay idle, so you should ignore http://sqbr.blogspot.com/ and http://syndicated.livejournal.com/sqbr/ and instead direct your attention to http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/.

Before you complain that the sidebar is unreadable, I'm going to fiddle with the colours some more later(**). You may notice that some of my old locked entries have been unlocked. Those of you not on my friends list may be happy to see you weren't missing much, I just wanted to keep things neat. Also I'll port over the more interesting blog entries when and if it feels necessary.

So, goodbye old friend. The Roost of the Purple Chicken is dead. Long live the Roost of the Purple Chicken!

(*)That's right, people who comment on the feed, you broke my spirit. Are you happy now?
(**)In case any of you are wondering, I chose this layout becuase it allows a very small amount of css, meaning I could make my own header and set the background.

Two requests (no blargle)

2006-01-21T17:15:00.000+08:00

Please:

can anyone suggest a good place to get ones ears pierced? I have no idea what a good price is and keep putting off looking around.
Don't Post On The Feed. I realised all the comments were getting lost so have started copying them over here manually. But I don't guarantee I'll always be bothered. You Have Been Warned.

Part of me is tempted to swap over to lj, I am kind of sick of Bloggers skeletal comments system.

A link and some blargle

2006-01-21T14:23:00.000+08:00

I have made a website compiling information on wedding stuff, for anyone who's interested. I haven't put everything on there yet, but I can feel the enthusiasm for the project is temporarily drained so I may as well post it now.

With any job, I have two priorites. First, do it well. Second, don't look like an unproffesional idiot. With the Siemens science school, I managed the first ok, but failed miserably on the second. Oh well, at least the kids went home happy and educated.

And now, it's time for some... I need a word for "longwinded babbling about only marginally interesting bits of my life". Like many people I do it a fair bit and it would be nice to go "God! Enough with the blargle!" or "blargle under the cut" and people would know what you meant. Assuming I could work out Blogger cuts. Anyway.

Recently I decided to rejoin the Brights forum. I left about a year ago, partly becuase I was using it to procrastinate on my Phd, and partly becuase I felt rather conflicted. I joined to be able to explore my opinions on religion, philosophy, ethics etc with lots of different people with whom I could assume the starting position that there's no God(*). Which is exactly what I got, but only in between lots of the sort of stupid crap that goes along with a religious discussion forum on the interent. And by gum atheists can be smug. Also the forum theoretically exists to help organise pro-Bright causes and I eventually realised that I feel about Bright-rights the same way I do about womens rights(**): Yes, they're a worthwhile cause, but there are others that feel more important/neccesary to me personally, like the environment. But then I was invited to be a facilitator (like a moderator, but more so. Or something) which I felt would be an educational experience which it was. Also really frustrating, with the trolls and the idiots and the fact I'm not naturally suited to being a Figure of Authority. Still, in amongst it all were some cool people (mostly the other facilitators :)) and interesting conversations. But it wasn't enough, and I left, saying I'd come back when I was done Phding. Which I did (but resigned as facilitator) and... I don't know. Still, I've friended some of the cooler facilitators, and apparently they all left around the same time as me and are also pondering if it's worth the pain.

Also, if you think the Brights are kind of wierd and up themselves, well, maybe a little bit. But they are nothing to the Universists.

(*)No offense to all the religious people with whom I've had discussions, they're great too, but I wanted to get into the real nitty gritty of my views on the nature of the universe etc, and interfaith conversations tend to be rather vague and universal.
(**)Only more so. Much more so.

In sickness and in health

2006-01-18T19:13:00.000+08:00

Well! This week(*) has been a rollercoaster of of emotions. I got a job at the Siemens Science Experience starting Monday and so was rather upset to wake up on Sunday with absolutely no ability to talk for no reason (at least with a cold you know it'll go away) I was sufficiently better on Monday to go to training but then couldn't find anyone which made me Very Sad until I was cheered up by this lovely first year I tutored last year who happened by. Which is kind of embarrassing but never mind. Anyway, I eventually found everyone (including my replacement: Anil!) and then saw a doctor (Reflux?? It was reflux?? I got medicine and a no-caffiene rule) and after a slow start with me in a daze all Tuesday things have gone pretty well. I was a little worried about keeping 23 14-yr-olds under control but they're mostly well behaved and enthusiastic. Zero interest in maths or CS as far as I can see, but today we had a talk on physics and afterwards I talked about the twins paradox and wormholes etc which was fun, some of them were adorably enthused :)

The doctor says the reflux is probably a long term thing, which makes sense given the list of foods which cause reflux bears an uncanny resemblance to the list of foods I avoid becuase they make me feel like crap.

Oh, and we had a rent inspection tommorrow I was kind of worried about and have been preparing for over the week, and got home today to find a note saying "From your calendar you obviously didn't realise it was today. 'Scool."(**)

Finally, if anyone cares and has gotten this far, I and Cam's current "settled" plan for the wedding (haha) is to rent a hall and get in caterers, probably Temptations.

(*)For a certain definition of week
(**)Not what it actually said :)

Inklings

2006-01-04T21:17:00.000+08:00

Briefly:

I've done a new comic.
Pavla rocks because she gave me free vegetables from her supernaturally wonderful garden (it's like something out a book or gardening program)
Oliver rocks because he gives me lifts and thus has been awarded the Giving Lifts Medal of Honour.
I'm bored.

EDIT: Is it just me or does Henry from this Decemberists clip look like a muppet, specifically the host of Buzz!? Maybe it's just cos I watched Smile Time (SPOILER!*) recently.

(*)For Angel Season 5. In case anyone cares...

HAP-py new year

2005-12-30T18:59:00.000+08:00

DISCLAIMER: This was writen at 1am on too much caffiene.

Well! And so it is 2006. I really wanted to go to Dave and Karens and/or Shay & Fe's parties but Fate (and me not grasping at oppurtunities quick enough) intervened, and I ushered in the new year with a group of Live Action Vampire Roleplayers and engineering Phds I didn't know from Adam. Which was ok, I geuss.

Some things I intend to do this year (prefereably this month) which you, my minions, can help with:

Hang out with people I really like(*). If you're not sure this means you, offer me lifts and it will :)
Get some red fishnets. This means giving someone else the not-quite-red pinkish fishnets mum got me for xmas. Any takers? Largest size.Though I may decided to keep them when I'm more lucid.
Get my ears pierced. Any recomendations for places to get it done? I'm just going for bog-standard lobes.
Give stuff away. Some sort of people-swapping-stuff-they-don't-want remains-to-charity day(**) sounds cool but complicated. Not sure I can be bothered.
Set a date for the darn wedding.
Throw (low-key) party for my set of units. (Inspired by my friend Alex Nayef who did this for her large set of units, as well as inviting all her friends and family. It was cool)
Part of me like's Alex N's mum's idea of a non-fiction book club (stuff like "Guns Germs and Steel" which coincidentally is on telly on Monday) but I have been BURNED on the whole book club thing. So maybe not. Burned I tells you!
Rasberries soaked in peach schnapps. Given how nice rasberries in vodka is (had at party) and I hate vodka and love peach schnapps.

Watched final season of Angel. Was ok, rather predictable (with one or two exceptions ;)) and did indeed have a somewhat crappy ending. Better than the last episode ever of Farscape, though. Cam showed me the last 5 minutes and..gee. Also the loose ends from season 4 (angel again) which had bugged me were tied up.

Finally, I'm sure Sheldon doesn't read this, but hopefully at least one of Margaret or Lily does: I checked, and the only ingredient of garlic powder is...powdered garlic. Hah! (This stems from me saying I sprinkle it on stuff when I crave that fast food taste and them saying it's probably just as unhealthy and not really made from garlic) Nerr!

(*)Since I kind of like pretty much everyone :)
(**)a la Mrs Schlock Mercenary(***), though I was thinking it before.
(***)The description isn't archived or I'd link it. Wife of guy who does Schlock Mercenbary does something like that every month.

The Circle is complete

2005-12-30T14:48:00.000+08:00

Well! Thanks to Phlebas expressing enthusiasm over my last update I felt inspired to draw the last two panels of the page I was working on, and now.... Chapter One of A Circle Of Stars is complete! Woohoo!

Yes, 21 pages over five months isn't exactly lightening speed, but it's more than I've done before so I'm happy. I still need to fix up some inconsistencies (Velasco's coat gains a fluffy trim somewhere between pages 16 and 18, for example) but eh. I'm not sure I'll ever do Chapter Two, since while I have several pages of scripts written out, they refuse to coalesce into a plot per se. Maybe I'll draw them up anyway.

I'm actually feeling pretty cruddy today. I got complacent about the times I've eaten cheese at parties and not felt bad the next day so ate a bunch at lilysea's afternoon tea and now my throat's gone all swollen. Noone to blame but myself...

Also, Cam's parents gave us an electric organ, yay! I'm having heaps of fun playing chords to songs I like very badly.

Bah Humbug

2005-12-25T19:38:00.000+08:00

I've had an ok christmas, though as anyone who has witnessed will attest it is not wise to make me eat a meal late. I get cranky and am less prone to pretend I like candles. (Candles! Again with the candles! Why?) Also my mum (bless her soul) managed to get all three things she bought off the gift registry just a little bit wrong, which I stopped being annoyed about the moment I remembered she got me a big day out ticket for my birthday :) Also Classic FM played an Oscar Wilde story which made me cry becuase I'm a big sook. Anyway! Enough festive angst, time for a festive comic!!

Finally, for anyone not on my friends list here is my first attempt at an animated icon gif. I've decided it's perhaps a bit impolitic for it's intended use.

It's not supposed to be about terrorism or anything topical, by the way, it's just a pun. Also, anyone else who expresses surprise at me having a mean sense of humour gets me imagining me hitting them on the head repeatedly. (Yeah, that'll show 'em. heh heh heh)

EDIT: FINALLY! Have put up next three pages of ACOS. Also updated cast page and created "deleted scenes" section. Sleep now.

Zonked ramblings

2005-12-11T11:15:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was Raes birthday, and in celebration the cactus flowered. Today, it's purpose finished, it committed suicide:

Also in celebration, there was a very cool, very shiny party. Though I must remember that while I have huge chunky ankles I have moderately tiny wrists and should take this into account when making bracelets for people. Also, I am going to have to take things more easily next weekend when I (hopefully) go to 5 parties in four days because I feel like crap. (Thus I cannot be bothered retaking the photo) Finally, thanks to Liz I now realise I am on the first page of Google Image results for "origami sun". Why? Oh well.

Big Big Day Out Table Day

2005-12-09T19:40:00.000+08:00

I have put all the bands at the big day out in a table based on how much I think I'll like them. Given the extreme annoyingness of the actual big day out website I thought people might like to use it themselves. No judging me by my choices though, I haven't heard much of most of these bands and was getting pretty sick of the whole process by the time I finished.

Oh yeah, I'm going to the big day out, did I mention that? Yay for my parents :) Oh, and I eventually decided on Turing, though I seriously pondered Tesla (but I don't understand electricity, to my eternal shame) or Lovelace (but it sounds kind of girly).

Bizarre Aria

2005-12-08T22:17:00.000+08:00

I've been meaning to take a photo of this since we moved in 4 years ago, but it's just far enough away that I can never be bothered walking there with a camera.

Also, made a page about doing a Phd in which I intend to put all the stuff I wish someone had told me, or at least as much as I can be bothered before I get bored of the idea :)

Did I mention my paper got published at last?

I am finding the influx of Very Delayed lj replies kind of disconcerting. And do I respond to them or not?

To clear my good name

2005-12-07T14:40:00.000+08:00

I'm going to be a leader at the Siemens science school this summer and need to choose a scientist to be the name of my group. I'm thinking Newton (well known, easy to pronounce, did important maths) but am a little paranoid there's some much cooler name I'm not thinking of, can anyone think of one? The other group names are:

Carson
Darwin
Dr Karl (pfft)
Einstein
Franklin
Hawking
Mendel

EDIT: We're doing all sorts of science, I just chose a mathematitian out of loyalty to my calling :)

Will the madness ever stop?

2005-12-01T10:31:00.000+08:00

Well, thanks to the ever wonderful Cam I have a comics blog. Yes, that is three blog type things I have now (four if you count the lj-feed) but I got sick of how crappy comics look in this blog but still wanted to be able to add comments. I actually made it a little while ago but waited till I drew something new. It's annoying, I really want to finish a circle of stars but I've been all headachey and un-draw-y which makes it tricky. Anyway, any time I add a new comic (and given that I could only find 22 comics online drawn over eleven years this shouldn't be that often) I'll mention it here. In case anyone is panicing at the possibility of missing one of my Great Artistic Expressions :)

Also, "Brothers Grimm" was...flawed but interesting. Enjoyable if you go in expecting large sections of it to be incredibly crap, but probably really annoying if you don't.

So very, very old

2005-11-23T11:13:00.000+08:00

Well, it's my birthday again. I woke up this morning feeling all grumpy and antisocial and tired (possibly a result of doing a LOT of walking yesterday) so am planning on having a quiet at-home day. Maybe buy myself a sorbet later. I have cheered myself up with hot chocolate made from 80% cocoa Lindt plus sugar and milk. Mmmm....so I may be a little erratic in that sleepy-but-on-caffiene kind of way. Also longwinded, and I haven't gotten the hang of how blogspot does "lj-cuts". Tough, it's my birthday.

As I said I'm feeling antisocial today, but on the whole would like to spend more time with people. Three things I would like to do are:

Have a craft day, though I'm not sure how this would work.
Have a bunch of girls get together and swap clothes (I've just gone through my wardrobe) Mine are mainly 12s but as long as we have at least two of any given size it should be ok :)
Go into the city and use up my free Hoyts ticket.

I'd prefer to do these durting the day on a weekday since my weekends seem to always be pretty busy and I'm not a night sort of person, but I'm flexible. Any takers?

This morning Cam and I were discussing the significance of ages, and while 25, 27, and 28 are all cool numbers (being a square, a cube, and a perfect number) we couldn't think of anything cool about 26. But he just emailed me with a bunch of ways 26 is Deeply Significant. Most importantly: it's the number of sporadic simple groups(*). Best fiance ever :)

The cactus has not flowered for me this year, instead it's been "about to flower" for ages, I think as a (so far successful) ploy to avoid being pruned.(**)

Went to the wedding/formal dress shop Penny reccomended yeserday (and thus much walking, since it's in Joondalup) which was indeed pretty good. I was reminded that I don't like satin, though. Which kind of makes things difficult. I went into a nearby scrapbooking shop which was both inspiring and horrifying: it saddens me to think of all these women spending so much on supplies and putting in so much creative energy to make horrible twee monstrosities out of their photos. Still, the woman there was very helpful, and advised me to buy a $40 scrapbook, $8 photo corners and $1 card. Instead I went into officworks and bought a $1.50 folder (ringbound plastic sleeves) and $10c card, and then used these instuctions and the punch I got from Anna for my birthday to begin to make a postcard album (thanks to lilysea for the idea). This one was a trial run, I may redo it using a ruler and better colours :) I would just put them into a photo album but they're too big. This should be fun, anyway. I have quite a few postcards, since its cheaper than buying prints. Also I have a bunch of historical ones from my grandad (Perth in the 70s etc) which is cool though looking at them reminded me that I'm a Bad Grandaughter for not visiting him more often (he's in a tricky-to-get-to home with Alzheimers)

My birthday party went very well and the registry was a success (modulo my incompetence) I've already eaten much of the confectionary, drank some of the peach schnapps (So Nice!!) used the fabric pen and punch, read some of Anansi boys (good, though the plot is a bit like a cross between "Theif of time" and that Buffy episode with Xander's twin) used both loofahs and reorganised my jewellry using two of the containers presents came in.

Well, I'm hungry, so..that's it! ...wait! I'm not sure if this counts as an edit since this stupid entry hasn't shown up yet but anyway: Note the new interesting posts page I've added to my links section. I don't know that anyone but me will use it, but it's there if you care :) Now I'm off to get some sorbet (the cafe a block from my house has started selling Gelati gelati. Don't they know I'm trying to diet and save money?)

(*) This may not mean much to you, but they're the main focus of my thesis. I can't believe he had to tell me :)
(**)I don't know if you're supposed to prune cacti but I do anyway becuase otherwise putting out the washing would become an extreme sport.

BOOKS!

2005-11-13T08:17:00.000+08:00

I have decided to attempt to read all the books that have won a Hugo(*). Since of the 30 I've already read I only actively disliked one,"The Snow Queen" by Joan Vinge, and really liked most of the others, this should be fun :) Read "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" by Kate Wilhelm (after Lily reassured me that the 70's author from unisfa is the same as the 90's author I read during my exploration of the W's of Freo Library) which was pretty good if a little old-fashioned (Asimov not Dickens :) ) in style. Currently reading the winner from the previous year, "The Forever War", which actually comes across as more modern and a Real Book. It manages to convincingly and interestingly extrapolate war of the future while including the sort of gritty, satirical take on what war is really like that "mainstream" fiction has been exploring since WWII (and even more since Vietnam, think Catch 22 or MASH) but doesn't seem to make it much into s.f.

I got this really strong sense of deja vu reading "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang", all those rather cold but not evil not-quite-human children reminded me of something I've read, I think Beggars in Spain. Which then combined with this blog entry on attitudes to the poor to help me realise that's exactly what bugged me about "Beggars..": while it was made clear that the poor and stupid needed looking after, it was implied that that's becuase they are incapable and uninterested in looking after themselves. I got the strong feeling the author had never had any lower class, ill-educated friends and tends to view them as a Scary Other.

Next week, the Postgrad Careers fair! Good timing, eh? Oh! And "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is great, I'm very glad Phlebas managaed to persuade me to see it.

Finally, a link for Katie and Penny :)

(*)I'd do the Nebulas but I can't find a decent printable list with just the novel winners. I may have to compile my own from here.

Squeezing out sentences like..stuff...from a ..thing

2005-11-10T10:08:00.000+08:00

The last week or so it's felt like I keep saying Exactly The Wrong Thing, and I am reminded why I used to be terribly terribly shy. Oh well.

Ok, according to Cam a reasonable number of people have now reserved/bought stuff on the registry without hassle (as far as we can see). I realise it could come accross that I want everyone to buy me Muchos Gifts or I'll get all offended and think you don't like me, when really I just wanted beta testers and was getting all paranoid that it was All Going To Go wrong. I get really paranoid about parties, it's the main reason I don't do them very often. Anway, noone should feel obliged to get me anything big (or anything at all) if they weren't going to naturally. Also the reason there's So Many Gifts is that I'm using it as a general repository for things I want, including christmas or just to buy for myself at some point. *is probably being unneccesarily paranoid in the opposite direction but never mind*

Saw "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" yesterday, which was pretty good for a spin-off from an animated tv show but I'm not sure if I agree with the people who think it's the Best Batman Movie Ever. Also I've given up on "Game of Thrones", I think I should avoid long fantasy for a while it doesn't seem to be my genre at the moment. It is very good for what it is, but what it is is fairly run-of-the-mill politics-and-epic-family-history in a moderately interesting but not extraspecially original fantasy setting. The fact that all the characters are fairly well drawn and 3 dimensional, rather than the usual mildly characterised hero plus cardboard cutouts, is certainly a plus. And there was no point where I went "Oh come on that's just STUPID/cliched etc" On the other hand after a few chapters I got a feel for the rhythym and general direction of the various storylines so there was no surpise or interest. That and the way he keeps killing/maiming the main characters meant I didn't let myself get too attached :) Still, I reccomend it to anyone who likes fantasy unless they only like the super-happy light stuff.

Death by Strawberries

2005-11-06T21:31:00.000+08:00

** EDIT:Ok, ok, I take it all back, plenty of people have signed up for the registry, just noones reserved anything. Which in the light of day probably just means either you don't want to get me a present and were just curious (acceptable) or you haven't gotten round to it yet (also acceptable, unless you all do it at the last minute and the system breaks). So...not sad. Happy :) **

A reminder about my Party weekend after next. It seems noone is using the registry. This makes me sad. Do you want me to be sad? *sniffs piteously* (People who simply aren't coming are exempt, though if NONE of you come I'll be extra sad )

After much research into cat species (read: some searching through wikipedia and google to find breeds that look anything like the characters do in my head) I redesigned the character Celeste to look more like more like this (though not really). Who's Celeste you ask? Why, you clearly haven't read my new pages in A Circle of Stars. You have, and you're still confused? Why not try the shiny new cast page.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the plot between pages 14 and 17 to flow nicely.

I've finally figured out why people kept sending me emails thinking I was Isobelle Casrmody despite the huge, bright red banner saying I'm not: where it now says "webmaster" it used to say "me", and people somehow managed to miss the banner not to mention my name underneath the email address, and assume "me" meant her. I geuss I help weed out the less intelligent fans leaving Miss Carmody more time to FINISH HER FRIGGING SERIES.

Finally: after eating a LOT (no really, a lot) of plums and getting hives, and then eating slightly less strawberries in a shorter period of time and getting hives again it seems the "eat lots of fruit to feel healthy" theory has some drawbacks. If I turn out to also have an intolerance for carrots I may have to start living off a pure beef diet.

Easy sausage rolls

2005-11-01T18:59:00.000+08:00

Yes, another recipe. Also possibly an indication why it is I need to lose weight :)

Ingredients

1 square puff pastry
a little bit of milk

filling

250g pork mince
3/4 piece of bread finely chopped or grated
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
about a tablespoon of herbs. I use 4 leaves fresh sage and a dash of dried thyme.
a dash of chicken stock
salt and pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 200 C.
Cut pastry in half.
Mix filling ingredients. On each piece of pastry, place half of the filling mix in a long sausage and roll up. Use wet fingers to secure the edge. Cut each roll in half.
Place rolls on baking paper on an oven tray and brush the tops with milk. Bake for around 20 minutes until browned.
Makes 4.

I find they always go a bit soggy on the bottom, you can either put up with this or do something like drying them off and putting them in upside down on a new piece of baking paper. Some recipes call for dried breadcrumbs, that might help. Other recipes call for grated zuchinni, this does not help.

The uncooked rolls can be frozen, and the cooked ones are quite nice cold.

Also, for many years I have harboured the secret desire to put this up in the maths learning centre :)

I walked to perth today!

2005-11-01T15:30:00.000+08:00

And thus, now I've sat down, I am trying to come up with as many things as I can do without getting up from the computer. Still, that's like 5km! I reccomend walking down Beufort street for anyone wanting a fun little street to walk down. Though it was difficult not buying food from all the little shops (I have resolved exercise more and eat less in an attempt to be healthier and thinner)

I have become rather taken with the idea of Patience with all the aesthetes replaced by goths. Now all I need is my own band of operatta singers to perform it for me...(Or I may draw it. I suppose) Googling to see if anyone had already done it I found The bizzarre adventures of Gilbert and Sullivan, indicating that I'm not the first person to note that it's pretty gothy as 19th Century comic operas go :)

Also, I just came across Alan Moore prodying Frank Miller via Linkmachinego.

EDIT: On my walk I noticed that

Planet Video is selling off many of their videos for $4, including some anime/star trek. I got "La Cage A Follies" (subtitles) plus "Divorcing Jack".
"Memory Lane" costume shop sells coloured fishnets for $10!

Also I seem to have gotten mildly sunburnt.

My teeny little thoughts all lined up in a row

2005-10-27T21:25:00.000+08:00

At a party last weekend I bumped into haute_kitten, my first ever friend from highschool who I haven't seen since like 1998. (partly because she moved to England, where she lives in a co-op and is training to make corsets, because she's just that cool :) ) Anyway, after looking at her lj I had a look at my blog, thinking about how it would look to someone who doesn't know me-as-I-am-now very well and came to the conclusion that I have been influenced by spending so much time around teenagers and use a smidgeon too many smileys.(*) The fact that I care about what my smiley-usage stats say about me got me contemplating the way I put a lot of effort into not being an unsuccessful try-hard and what that says about me, and all in all I got so self-concious about what I do and why I couldn't post anything!(**)

So..*cough* for no especially deep or significant reason, another list of things.

Still not depressed (oh noes!), but the fact I'm letting myself do all the stuff I avoided during my phd becuase it made me sleepy (chocolate, late nights etc) is making me, suprise surprise, sleepy.
"Y the last man" is a brilliant graphic novel you should all read. I nearly recomended it to my mum and then remembered what happened the last time she read something of mine where someone dies horribly in the first scene. Anyway, the first issue is online so..go!
Garden state is a pretty good movie.
I love the new Pride and Predjudice becuase it is a thing of beauty. Well, in terms of actual physical prettiness and swooniness of leads the BBC version wins hands down, but the movie makes it feel like they're actually real people instead of pretty Romantic Archetypes.
I have given up on Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel. However I did read "Peace" by Gene Wolfe, which is absolutely nothing like the book I remember reading in highschool. I wonder what book it was, I know it was from the W section and had a tree on the cover. Oh well.
My loyalties are somewhat divided between White Dwarf Books and Fantastic Planet. On the one hand Tim was friends with Cam in highschool (and gave me a free romance novel to give Cam's mum), on the other hand I've known Stephen much longer and he's written some pretty funky books. Also he doesn't swap "horrible child abuse stories from when I was in ER" with Mandragora :) Of course it's not like I spend any money on new books anyway.

(*)The footnotes, italics and brackets are juuuust right.
(**)Also I've been kind of sleepy, see the first entry on the list :) ....oh no! A smiley! I lose at the internet!

Paaaarty!!

2005-10-20T08:27:00.000+08:00

Yes! To celebrate me entering my late twenties and the handing in of my Phd, a party. Since my house is teeny, it's at Jocelyn's.

What: Sophie's 26th Birthday Party
Where: Jocelyn's house. Email/comment etc for the address (I forgot to ask her if it was ok to put it online :))
When: Saturday 19th November at 7pm (I may change the time)
Who: Joc is a little paranoid about her house getting full and exploding, so I'd prefer people who actually know me to a a reasonable extent and are coming because it's my birthday, rather than because they're bored and want to go to a party.
Theme: Things you never get a chance to wear. Clothes/accessories that have been sitting in your cupboard forever and you can't bear to get rid of. Anything from ball dresses to that hat your grandma made you :)
What to bring: A present. It's not set up completely yet, but I'm trying out a gift registry Cam wrote for the wedding. Please use the registry, there will be lots of Very Cheap gifts.

If you have this marvelous idea for the perfect present that's not on the list, that's ok :) But if you buy something on the list without registering for it, so I get two, well that's not so good :P

My email address is sqbr, and the registry one (for getting an account) is account, both at distantwisdom dot net.

Behold the tiny chickens!

2005-10-16T21:25:00.000+08:00

I've been having fun fiddling with my blog layout. Since anything I design from scratch is likely to

look crap
not work

I used the "Scribe" template and fiddled with things a little bit at a time. Hopefully I can eventually make it mainly original content with only the basic layout stolen :) It doesn't work on low resolution IE but as far as I can tell that's becuase of the big comic a few posts down, not the template. So, if it doesn't work for you/is unreadable let me know! I'm super proud of the little chickens. Next step: replace the "Links" etc pictures with a better font.

I've gotten very sleepy all of a sudden (why I stopped cssing) so my deepest apologies if this entry makes no sense. Assuming you can read it at all :)

What I had for breakfast

2005-10-16T10:02:00.000+08:00

I'm not normally into public introspection, but since I've been wondering how I would feel once it was All Over I thought I'd share my thoughts, briefly. I feel... like the mental equivalent of when you do a bunch of exercize and then stop, so your muscles ache and you want to rest, but at the same time you feel like you should be doing something. "Luckily" we have a rent inspection on Tuesday, so I've been cleaning which is easy but keeps me busy. My brain basically said "That's it!" around mid-Thursday, I'm hoping it recovers soon, there's Stuff I Want To Do. Still, I've not yet fallen to the dreaded Post-Thesis-Depression people keep talking about. Maybe this is beause we bought a playstation yesterday. I feel more joy about getting it than I do about finishing, since the former has a definite benefit but the second has yet to really sink in.

Planning on organising a birthday party around the 26th of November, unless people have Strong Objections I haven't thought of. I'm actually quite busy this week (probably a good thing) but come next week I'll almost certainly be Utterly Bored so anyone who wants to hang out is free to give me a buzz. Hmm..the main side-effect of not being a student seems to be an Excess of Capitals.

One of the things on my List Of Things To Do In My Holidays which I've actually done is to go through my "Unsorted links" folder. So, here's a list of interesting links I've collected since the last time I sorted through it which are too cool to delete but not cool enough for my links page. Apologies if I've linked to some of these before.

Longmore does Romance Novels Very amusing retitling of romance novel covers.
Purple dots Stare at the centre cross. Really, it's cool :)
Baby name wizard plots popularity of names in real time.
Warptera Models little machines made from levers and spinning thingies.
Intelligent falling With apologies to any creatoinists :)
Gallery Serpentine A sydney shop that sells coats and stuff which are Very Pretty.
The Foglios draw the begining of "Good Omens" Found when I was about to draw it myself then went "I wonder if this has been done.."
The Gravity Discovery Centre A new museum! Just a bit far away...

Oh, given the title I geuss I should add that to celebrate I bought "Crunchy Nut Clusters" cereal and made some Cadbury Brownies, both of which sounded like they should have been great but were actually pretty dissapointing. Also watched Solaris which was somewhat interesting and Very Slow. Oh! And thanks to all the people who gave congratulations :) even the ones who commented on the lj-feed. BAD people, you know lj doesn't allow email notification of comments to feeds. (Or at least you do now)

Unemployed at last!

2005-10-14T16:22:00.000+08:00

You know, if someone told me they gave you a mug when you submitted I'd have been done ages ago.

I'd do a shot of me in the matching shirt I got from Phlebas and Enforced Equanamity but Cam isn't home yet.

Woot! *Does happy dance* *is.....speechless* :)