luckykaa

A weekend to myself (sorta).  How unusual. 

Been toying with Greebo ear design.  Some success.  Still not 100% happy.  I'm possibly too fussy here.  Should have been more careful with that soft toy fabric. 

Successfully watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog.  Oi!  Watch it, those of you who haven't. Turns out it was only available for free streaming until yesterday:(  You'll have to wait for the DVD. or get it from itunes. 

Saw Tink and medium_jock.  Was planning to meet them in London and mill around there, but Jock was feeling a little unwell, so I went with Tink for sushi in Kingston.  Had pizza and Saw Ratatouille and the Simpsons Movie.  Both films I missed when they were on at the cinema (really need to do better with catching these films when they're actually on).  Both pretty good. 

Been a busy week.  Finally got around to updating.

Friday
Took a day off work.  Was so pleased I did as well.  Really wasn't in the mood for working. 

Instead I went to London. Met squirrel_dreams and tictactoepony in London.  Also met up with the_smut_fairy and raygungothic for lunch.  Had a nice baguette in Soho.  Saw an impressive wheelchair walk up some stairs.  Then they went their own way and we went shopping.  squirrel_dreams wanted to go to the Finnish shop, and squeed impressively on actually meeting some genuine Finnish people. And left a nice message in the visitors book about how much she likes Finland. 

Strange girl.

After stocking up on Finish goodies and noting the times of key events in the social calender such as the twangy guitar music festicval and the wife carrying championships. 

Went to a bead shop.  Really can't quite get this female obsession with beads.

Then went to Camden.  Haven't been there for a while.  It's always a nice place to visit even if it has turned a bit emo.  They seemto be rebuilding a large chunk of it though.  This worries me. 

And we went to B&B7.  And boosted attendance by 150%.  Was a little disappointed by the turnout.  People went their own ways so I joined multiclassgeek at the Buffy meetup.  And there was much loud music...  Nice crowd.  Shame I can't really function well in loud pubs. 

Saturday

Helped my dad shift some wood up to the loft.  Got fed.

Strange incompetence with ordering.  12 pieces of 2x4, and 9 of 2x3 came back as 13 pieces of 2x4 and 15 pieces of 2x2.  I guess they could have got the order more wrong if they tried but it was still pretty impressively wrong. 

Sunday

Had friends round.  Watched firefly.  Watched Neverwhere.  Listened to music. 

People mock my music far too much. Yes, I do have an mp3 of YMCA, and plenty of other rubbish.  This is because I rarelyt delete na mp3.  You never know when it might come in useful.  It's thrown in with all the other rubbish that nobody would actually want to listen to unless they were in a silly mood but I still got mocked for it. Do people really not have a load of old rubbish in their mp3 collections? 

Because of a really quite small number of crimes committed using imitation samurai swords, the government wants to ban thousands of collectors from owning them.  Which personlly, I don't think is going to have any effect on the crime figures at all.  I know a lot of you enjoy a bit of thrusting, so sign up to the petition against it here.

Other linky stuff...

Anyone doing any of the Sci-Fi london stuff?

Personally, I think the pub quiz could be fun.  So could 28 weeks later., Much as I thought the original was a bit silly,  and the sequel sounds dafter, I'd still be vaguely interested. 

Given that I was in a non-smoking section of a not very smoky pub, why do all my clothes smell of smoke?

Now, there was someone I was planning to add to my friends list other than Emperor-Zhark.  Wish I could remember who.

Chaviest guy I've ever seen reading The Sun.

The headline:

"King of the Chavs"

the_smut_fairy was in town, so saw her and omylouse, and raygungothic.

Drank coffee. Ate cake. Went to Waterstones. Wandered round London. Looked around Waterstones. Was dragged into Topshop (I don't object to this as much as most guys. Am I less straight that I thought I was?). Found bar. Drank wine. Found restaurant. Ate Pizza. Drank more wine. Drank coffee. Haggled for more chocolate. Still owe Raygungothic for pizza. Forgot to drink lots of water. Surprisingly little in the way of hangover.

I am unable to comprehend this female obsession with beads.

Spoke of many things, largely involving Science Fiction.

Infodumps were mentioned (in the context of The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester). Made methink of these.

The art of the info dump . rft died a death so this is only available in the intternet archive:(

If all stories were written like sci-fi novels

I don't like trendy lounge bars. They charge so much, the staff are useless and usually deaf, the choice sucks (trendy bars only serve trendy beers) and they play music all the time. Still, someone I met online wanted to meeet up, so I figured why not. Beats staying at home moping about being single on Valentines day.

So I met Pikkle. Nice girl. Slightly goth. Likes Sci-fi. Took out a mortgage on a kidney and bought a couple of drinks. Chatted about Sci-fi, people, places, university, and so on. No sparks or anything, but I think I made a new friend. And she suggested we should go to Slimelight sometime. I think it was a success.

Went to Hamleys.

Lego is still doing the whole deal where you have peices that can only possibly be one thing. Once upon a time, you had to actually build things, and you could build other things with the same pieces.

The new Dalek toy has curved wires around its main gun. This is wrong. Old daleks did, but that's because stage hands used to grab the gun to move it around.

What is pretty cool is Hornby's range of steam powered locomotives. Most cool. Electricity heats up water. Water drives a steam engine. Controller can then use the controller box to drive the engine. I want one! And a scalectrix. And enough space to put this stuff in!

Seems I did rather well, too. They liked me and made me an offer pretty much immediately.

So, it's a better job in many respects. It's located in posh Notting Hill area rather than tatty Caledonian road. It's working on 3d action games (for mobiles) and involves some much more low level stuff. And the pay's better.

Trouble is - It's all only a slightly better. It's still an inconvenient journey. It's still London. Notting Hill is nicer than Caledonian road, but still not perfect. And while the pay's better, it's not that much better. Plus I'd be pretty much stuck there for a while. I'm just worried something better might come along.

Oh - decisions, decisions...

So I thought I should join some people on a march against Climate change. It's a noble goal, friends are going to be there and it's nice to get out for a bit.

I really need to be less cynical about this sort of thing. But still - Aspects really really bug me. Socialist worker have no justification to be there. Climate change and socialism have nothing to do with each other. Socialism isd not the answer to all the world's ills. The war in Iraq - while not exactly being an ecology measure - is not the point of the march. Grr. Stop hijacking these events.

and lots of people wanted me to sign a petition against nuclear power. Now - I'm a little conflicted about this issue. On the plus side - nuclear power causes no atmospheric pollution, while it can produce hot water pollution, this is something that can be avoided easily enough, so the only significant issue is the radioactive waste.

People don't quite understand the nature of radioactive waste. Most of it is not spent fuel. Most of it is things like pipes, radiation suits, and will only remain radioactive for a relatively short time. There are various ways of dealing with this, but what I want to know is what are the plans?

On the plus side, some people were handing out flyers that had nice ideas. One of them was to reduce energy usage, the other was a wind farm cooperative. I like that idea. I'd like to be able to claim ownership of a few hundred watts of wind power.