luckykaa

I went from having no clue that there was a live production of Jeff Wayne's War Of The World, to really wanting to see it in about 2 seconds flat after flickums told me about it.

Of course, getting tickets this late was a little tricky. I could have got good seats, but they would have been expensive and involved sitting several rows away from each other on different sides of the theatre. Fortunately lastminute.com had tickets still. Up in the rafters, on the back row, but there's actually a pretty good view still.

So, the plot. I will mention that there may be spoilers, but I think the statute of limitation there has expired for a book released in 1897. Aliens invade late 19th century Surrey and London, set against the backdrop of Symphonic-Rock, with a very late-70's early 80's synthy feel to it. Lots of people are killed by death rays, which are represented by pyrotechnics. Everyone dies, and people sing about it. Then someone sneezes and the aliens all die.

Is very cool to see it on stage, and see a live orchestra, with all the funky light effects, plus a giant animatronic Martian tripod. And apparently there were some very famous people there that seemed to get a lot of applause at the curtain call. Also pretty awesome that Jeff Wayne was conducting.

Afterwards we went for Chinese food with multiclassgeek and zoeiona. I had Dim Sum. And it was awesome seeing those guys and their little one again.

Huzzah! Exciting wekend with flickums, fireworks and other things beginning with f.

Shame the weathers so grotty. Feeling much of the weekend may involve snuggling in the warm.

Fireworks tonight. Hope it dries up a bit by then,

Today was a bank holiday.

A friend was visiting Brussels on the way back from the Netherlands, so contacted me to see if I was available for a drink. Its a bank holiday so I was. Went to lunch in St. Gery. Lunch took an exceedingly long time. But we got free beer for it.

Friend was interested in the armed forces museum so we went there. Sadly it's a bank holiday so it was closed. Seems pretty crappy to close the place on a bank holiday. Went onwards to the Parliamentarium. That looked more promising. open 7 days a week. Except May 1st. Apparently Belgians don't visit museums and public exhibitions on bank holidays.

Essentially most of the day was spent strolling around Brussels and chatting. Not a terrible way to spend the day but it would have been nice to see things. Oh well. Did visit the obligatory Grand Place and Manneken Pis. And the weather was nice. Also tried out the salon du the near Brussels Midi.

So, lordofthewheel's sister does this Wolf Conservation thing.  I nabbed a flyer because I thought omylouse  would be interested.  As it happened she already knew lordofthwheel's sister.

This sort of thing happens a lot. I know that beermat  knows a fair number of people in Brighton and a lot of them know various people in the Brighton Tribe.  What was more of a surprise was when he mentioned the name of a school friend of mine.  And there are a couple of people who know everybody in the greater geek community.

I'm still of the opinion that there are actually only a few hundred real people, and I know most of them. Everyone else is a computer controlled NPC with a very limited stock of random meaningless phrases about football to prevent me from trying too hard to talk to them.

There's a theory that any two random people will have on average six degrees of separation between them.  I suspect in the UK geeksphere, this is closer to three people.

5 years ago, I went to my first Worldcon. 

It was a good convention.  Lots to do and see and loads of cool people to talk to.  I had a lot of fun.  Here's why I remember it.

At the time I had something of a self esteem problem.  I suffered a lot from shyness.  Basically my life was in a rut, and I didn't have the efficacy to pull myself out.  My job sucked, and I was feeling horribly single and lonely and simply didn't think I was remotely attractive.  nayela was quite vociferous in her disagreement on the last point.  And we stayed in touch and remain friends.  She was solely responsible for getting me into LARP.  It's entirely her fault.  As a result I met loads of other really really awesome people.

Then I met tinkerbell1980 . She was and is a force of nature.  And she really seemed to fancy me.  The fact that she told me, repeatedly, was the clue there.  Tink was like nobody I'd ever met.  For every bit of shyness and introversion I had, she was outgoing and extroverted.  She had no social fears.  She'd just dive in and start talking to people.  And it works.  People talked back.  And these days I'm happy to do the same.  For some reason, until meeting Tink, it simply hadn't occurred to me that you might do that.

So, as a result of going to a convention, my life changed in some small but significant ways.

My world is a much better place having gone to that.

Been looking at old entries.  A year ago I was on something of a high.  Lots of nice things had happened.  4 groups of friends had just got married.  Managed to enjoy lots of LARP stuff.  Hooked up with an absolutelt fantastic girl.  Sadly nothing came of that last one, and it seems I got rather stressed.

Two years ago I was totally buzzed.  Had just returned from a party in Sheffield, met loads of the geeks.  Things only got better since I decided to pop in to visit wolfie_sara  on the way home.  And a short but enjoyable relationship with lots of travelling followed.  Shortly after, work got really stressful.

Checking back that's not actually a regular pattern. Shame.  I was hoping to meet someone.  OTOH, I could do without suffering from severe stress shortly afterwards.  Hopefully I'm going to be stress free. 

Actually my social life is pretty much non-existent during the week.  I will chat a little to my landlady and occasionally other lodgers but this place doesn't really lend itself to that.  As an introvert this isn't a huge problem for me but I used to have such a busy social life.  I do prefer to do something than sit around on the internet or watching telly.  It's all a bit lonely really.

Part of the problem is that since I'm only going to be here for another 9 weeks I don't have a huge incentive to start anything.  Another problem is that it's not that easy to find something I want to do.  I could do with finding a board gaming group.  Roleplay would be fun but I prefer to know the people I'm playing with or at least have some idea of how they play.  I do feel I should try something completely different.

This collection of random disorganised thoughts was brought to you by luckykaa .

I'm simply not able to come up with any actual directed theme for LJ entries recently.  Anyone have anything they want to ask me? 

Is anyone still around even or am I talking to myself?

So, after heading up to Bedford, Down to a convention, over to Cheltenham, I'm now back.  Even managed to make it to trapeze class. 

Found a nice place to stay for the next 3 months.  Bit pricey but the landlady is lovely, the room is large and nice and clean and has a desk and aerial socket and other human beings,  and the kitchen has a gas cooker! 

Work has been tedious so far.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of direction.  It's a very bureaucratic organisation.  Today my line manager got permission to talk to someone in another department about work related stuff.  If I want new software I'm out of luck because I won't get approval until after the contract ends. 

I have a regular drive to and from Cheltenham for the next few weeks.  This takes me not too far from:

Reading.
Oxford.
Bath.
Bristol.

By a staggering coincidence I know people in all these places. 

Unfortunately I don't think any of them actually keep up with my LJ.  Will have to bug them more directly.

Went to London because I hadn't been for a while.  Met up with scotiva , failed to see the Darwin exhibition because it ended last week.  Ooops.  Had a look around the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.  Met up with some anonymous weirdos.  They were nice.  iPod disappeared.  iPods owner was stoic about it.  Caused drama later on.  Most annoying. 

Pub seemed to have trouble sorting out Steak and Ale pies. 

Left far too late.  It was fun but I did end up getting home too late.  Meant I edned up grumpy all day.

Cleaned up flat.  Made me feel better. 

multiclassgeek was surprised I knew scotiva . 

There seem to be a lot of unexpected mutual friends. 

pickwick and tictactoepony both know purple_pen .

Loads of convention types know purple_peril , which is only to be expected. Somehow, so does meiliung .

Am I only 2 people removed from everyone on LJ?

It was tinkerbell1980's birthday party. 

I really love the fact that Tink lives about 2 miles from the highest concentration of Korean immigrants in Europe.  I'm addicted to Ginger Honey Tea, you see, and there's nowhere else to buy it.  Except Korea - obviously. 

Anyway - there were 4 of us - Tink, medium_jock and their sporty friend.  We went swimming.  Great fun.  I love being in the water.  Don't go swimming nearly enough.  Although lane swimming is a bit dull and messing about isn't really possible without friends.  We were going to go bowling but there was way too long a wait, so we raided a sushi bar (well, Tink and I did anyway.  The others aren't so fond of sushi), had some of that lovely iced plum wine they do, and randomly chose things that looked unfamiliar. 

Played with a candy floss vending machine.  It played sugar sugar while making the candyfloss. 

Then we went shopping.

Then we went to eat.  I was a bit overfed on sushi at that stage, so I only had my own meal...  Beef and Lamb skewers with chips and a rather drab Caesar salad.  It was a ribs, steak and seafood place.  They really didn't do salads very well. 

And finally we returned to Tink's place for some chilling out, and a cup of tea, and some flirting with sporty-girl (only minor flirting though - she's seeing someone and really far too young for me).

It was fun! 

And now I have a day off from my busy social calendar which involves cleaning the house from bottom to top.  This will be easy just as soon as I get some inertia going.  Then I just need more storage space.  Where do people keep all their little things like blank DVDs, juggling clubs, Lego, and old 3D graphics cards?  Maybe I should go on a trip to Ikea sometime next week, and buy some storage.