One Man's Notes

Hey, I’ve used the first of my LiveJournal invites. So, welcome semichrist. I don’t know him personally, but he’s been pulling together the very useful Pen & Paper site, which I linked to the other day.So, let’s all give him a big LiveJournal welcome and hang eagerly on his every word.

Or, errrr, not.

Up to you, really.

Well, the Queen Mother is dead.

All the radio stations I’ve tried are playing mournful music, or continuous discussions of her life and the impact of her death. Obviously, this is meant to be a significant moment in our national consciousness. I’m not sure if that’s the case yet. I’m not sure if it’s even affected me, and I’ve been listening to the coverage for the last two hours while I continue with the spring cleaning.

Adam’s RPG credits

The Easter holidays are here, I’m alone in London and it’s time to do my spring cleaning! Four days to get my life in order - let’s see if I can manage it!

Of course, my recent purchase of Black & White may have an impact…

Well, my deadline crunch has passed and I seem to be in one piece, more or less. One set of redlines are back and the developer seems largely happy. I’m slightly more nervous about the second set, but we’ll see what happens.

In other news, I went to an excellent party on Saturday night, pictures from which will be up on the web in fairly short order - no later than Friday, certainly. The highlight of the trip was my car nearly getting blown up. Lorna & I were sat in the car park of a service station off the M4, eating lunch. Lorna was on the phone to her Mum, and I was chilling out with a sandwich. A car pulled up behind us, with what appeared to be steam coming from under the bonnet. An elderly lady dashed out, grabbed her yappy little dog from the back seal and legged it.

By now, the steam was taking on a distinctly smoke-like-appearance. I prodded Lorna, who turned around, took one look and leapt out of the car. As I watched her run across the carpark, I decided that I probably had better leave, too.

Good call. By this point flames were licking out of the bottom of the car parked behind mine. About five minutes later, the front tires went as the smoke turned black. Yup, the upholstery was going. We had ten minutes at the outside before it hit the petrol tank (that’s “gas tank” for my american admirers). Lorna was quietly musing about the fate of the people who had moved closer to get a better look, and estimating how much of my car would arrive.

The service station were busy shooing people out of the area, and getting all the cars in a 10 metre radius, bar the three nearest the burning car. Yes, mine was one of those three. By now the whole of the front seat had gone. Minutes to go…

And the fire brigade arrived and put it out, just as I was rehearsing my “Ansis, you know that car you sold me a year back? Got anything similar?” speech.

What fun. Still, I’m glad I pay my taxes to pay those firemen..

Hi there. Long time no see. Sorry about that, but been kinda busy, you know? Lots of writing on at the minute. Took a special project that was close to my heart and most of my screen time was devoted to that. What else have I been up to? Well, I went to visit my Mum. She’s doing OK, although she has her down days.

I read a very interesting article in the paper at the weekend, though, which put forward the idea that we no longer know how to deal with grief. Once upon a time, there was a period of mourning, and you wore black or a black armband. Everyone could see that you felt like shit and that you were miserable. You were allowed a decent period of time to wallow in it and then you moved on. It’s been nearly six months since Dad died. I still miss him terribly, and I’m going through a bad patch right now. It’ll pass, I know, but how much am I allowed to let it affect me now? How much can I talk about it at the moment? The rules have gone. I’m confused.

And now we hand you over to our Strangely Appropriate department for this brief public message:

I could tell you why this was appropriate, but then I’d have to smite you.

Well, I’ve been busy sorting out an accessible photo album.

Adam’s Photo Album

Feel free to go have a peek into my life.

Typical. I’ve started a rash of Hitchikers quiz posts. I can’t even be consistent in my whining.

Now, I’ve got that deadline to hit.

Which Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy character are you?

I’m feeling rather confused, you see. Anyone know where I can get a nice cup of tea?

Am I allowed to whine that my friends page seems to be filling up with people’s tests, rather than them actually writing something interesting? Or will that just be interpreted as another step on the short, slippery road to middle age?

OK, I’ve been using LiveJournal long enough that I’ve decided it was time I stumped up some cash. I’m a great believer in supporting web services that I use, so the LJ people now have 25 bucks from me for a year’s use of the service. If nothing else, like gym membership, it’s an incentive for me to use it more.

I’ve been thinking about tenzil’s recent post about writing for himself versus writing for other people’s IPs. He also said some interesting things about motivations and deadlines. I’ve been accepting freelance assignments pretty much by rote of late. I suppose that I’m just enjoying having the free time to do it again. The fact that Lorna is so close to the end of her PHD makes it an attractive proposition, as well. If she’s in the lab, it gives me something interesting to do. However, like Jim, I would like to write stuff for other people, not just the magazine or the gaming company. Still, I don’t suppose this is a good time to make any final decisions. After all, this time next year, I might be upping and leaving London to go freelance full-time.

Oh, and I’ve made a decision about that friend I met up with last week - I am going to contact her.

Find out which Buffy villian you are most like!
By

I’m sure that’s not how you speall “reaking”.

There’s nothing quite as frightening as a doctor holding your eyelids open and saying “nurse, fetch the orange needle, would you?” This was how I spent my Sunday morning. The morning had started well. Mum wanted to go to church, so I was busy getting ready. I popped in my right contact lens, and then the left one. My eye exploded in pain. I couldn’t see properly out of it, but I could feel that the contact was there. Could I get at it? No. Could my Mum get at it? No.

So, an hour later I was in the Patrick Stead hospital in Halesworth, having my eye washed out. When the lens started coming out in sections, the doctor called for the needle. My, such fun. The net result is that I had to abstain from driving for a day, computers for 48 hours and wearing contacts for two weeks. I am officially a speccy git for the next fortnight. Still, at least I can see.

Why do PRs still persist in sending me press releases on paper this far into the 21st Century. I look at my desk, and see umpteen items that could just as easily have come to me via e-mail, but no, they have to waste time, money and trees by doing it the old fashioned way.

I lose bits of paper. It’s a magazine office. There are bits of paper everywhere. THey can end up on the wrong desk or in the bin. This doesn’t happen with my arcane Outlook filing system. So PRs, if you want me to pay attention to you finest examples of fluff, send ‘em by e-mail.

Yes, I am back from the Lake District. Those keen to find out what happened in the latter part of the holiday would be best served by going here.

When you take a rural holiday in early February, you take risks. We lost. From the moment we arrived in Penrith it has been pouring with rain. It’s not just the normal, water-falling-from-the-sky variety. No, it’s the driving-soaks-you-to-the-skin-as-soon-as-you-step-outside variety. This explains a couple of things. It explains why Lorna and I had a romantic dinner in the Safeway supermarket just by the station yesterday. It also explains why we retired to the nearby pub afterwards.

My, what a drinking hole that was. We spent a few hours listening to the local youths listening to Nu Metal and desperately trying to chat up the only girl in the group. Once we got tired of that, we moved into the other bar where Lorna attracted the attention of a drunk old man who kept muttering about her “nice teeth”. After a while, he took to calling me a “lying northerner”.

“You don’t want to trust him. He’s lying. I can see it in his eyes,” he told Lorna, no doubt hoping to get her alone so he could remove her teeth and add them to the girlfriend he’s been building in his outhouse. Thankfully, three of the lads arrived before I had to fight for my life and the honour of Lorna’s teeth. We leapt in their car and made the slow journey up to the house.

Why slow? Remember that rain I talked about last night? It’s been pouring off the hills in rivers. Lake Ullswater, which sites right by the road, was doing its best to conquer it and launch an assault on the sheep fields above. It was doing a pretty damn good job, much to the consternation of the sheep and us in the car. Still, we made to the house, more-or-less dry and settled in quickly.

It’s a big old farmhouse, with a central living area and wings of bedrooms off to either side. It’s that rickety age of uneven floors, rough plaster and exposed beams, and is waterproof enough, as long as you don’t mid a bucket under the leak in the bathroom ceiling. Certainly enough to keep 11 people with enough booze to drown those sheep dry, anyway.

We all got up pretty late this morning. OK, we all got up this afternoon, and had a huge cooked breakfast. I really enjoyed it until Lorna and I settled down to wash up. I have never seen so much lard used to cook a meal in my life. Lorna washed the frying pans three times each. We discussed this with Nicki & Suzanne and decided to hide the lard before tomorrow morning.

We all decided to brave the weather and take a trip into Penrith proper. Overnight, the lake had risen high enough that is covered the road in several places. Between those and the places where the torrents of water falling off the hills were drenching the road, it was a slow, wet and slightly nerve-racking journey. Still, we made it and had a few good hours in Penrith, buying some odds and ends - including some waterproofs for me - and enjoying a drink in the pub.

On the way back, Steve suddenly had the bright idea of going on to Howtown, the next village along from the farmhouse where we’re staying. The water had receded a little in the time we’d been out, so this seemed like a good idea, right up until the moment his tyre burst. So, instead of finding out if we had a good local pub, we ended up shivering by the side of a tiny country lane while Steve and Lorna fixed the tyre.

Now I’m back in my room, warming up and looking forward to my dinner. Bliss.