life, liberty and the pursuit of geekiness

Happy Easter. I'm off to church right this minute...

My prompt for the Bujold ficathon:

I'd like an undocumented moment or time in Gregor's life: either a 'missing scene' (e.g. his face-off with Aral from The Vor Game, or the conversation with Cordelia about Serg, or the moments before the drop from the balcony), or something from a period that the books don't cover (either during his childhood or after his marriage); or else something wry and sweet about Gregor and Laisa (any stage in their life). Not keen on explicit sex.

Ack! Can't decide which one, they're all too good. Oh, well, I'm off in a different fandom today anyway (oooo-eeeee-oooooo-eee-oooo)

I came into the room and heard this little noise. I couldn't work out what it was at first, but it was Smudge, who had crept in and lain down in the corner, purring to greet me.

Today was rather eventful. I went into work to find that the agency that employed me had folded overnight. All the temporary staff (estimated by me at about a fifth of the total) had to register with another agency. I hope it's all sorted out. At least I only had about 1/3 of a day's leave so if I lose it it's not the end of the world.

The bus got stuck in the station on my way home because the driver couldn't manage the 67-point turn necessary to get out of the forecourt. It was one of the big articulated ones with the second bus on the end. The buses drive into the station, and to leave they have to turn 180 degrees somehow. He went back and forth, the bus going beepbeepbeep, and back and forth. Then it stopped dead, and he was revving the engine while the backseat chorus cried 'Take the handbrake off!' Another driver had to come and help him get it going again. Eventually he got around at right angles to the exit, and tried to do a sweep round in front of the parcels office. The bend in the bus got more and more acute, and the hinge started to make ominous creaking noises. By this time it was almost around, but it was also about six inches from a small red car. ('Run over it!') The owner of the car was summoned, and as he came onto the scene, cried, 'Might have known it was you! You can't drive!'. After avoiding another car and a the Dublin-Belfast bus ('Mind the Greyhound!') and a few more back-and-forths, the bus finally left the station, to the accompaniment of slow clapping from the back seat, fifteen minutes behind the timtable.

I think I'll get the 1745 tomorrow.

Only four days till NEW WHO!! *bounces up and down making excited OOOOO-EEEEEEE-OOOOOO noises* I picked up the Radio Times with the Doctor Who stuff, and I was dumbfounded by this:

( Spoilers )

I've just signed up for the Bujold ficathon. Going by the likely amount of writing time I have before the deadline, this may have been a mistake.

The little cat followed elerrina_amanya home. She still yowls at the other cats. Muffin is scared to go outside (come on, Muff, you're twice her weight!), and I don't think Smudge has even noticed that's she's here yet. He's a little bit special in the head.

I don't know whether it's the sheer perversity of life, or something psychological, but I seem to write much more when I've got a job or something to do. Perhaps it's because the frontbrain is occupied, leaving the unconcious to to what it likes. I've fished out an old Doctor Who fic I'd abandoned last year and I've written two pages more of it. Perhaps I'll have it done before the new series starts.

The way I write in Doctor Who is quite different to the way I write in Star Wars or Harry Potter. There, I usually have an idea of what the ending is going to be, and even chunks of the dialogue, verbatim. With Doctor who, I start to write without much idea of where I'm going at all, and just let the story wander on. It seems to have worked so far, but it does produce some rather odd fics. The current one is turning out to be one of those bizarre ones where you perceive the constructs of your own subconscious images of what you're expecting to see. (I've expressed that badly; does anyone understand it?) I thought I could never write anything like that. Oh, well, it's stretching me as a writer!

The release of Abdul Rahman is very good news; but in context, only a small victory. The real one will be when the law in Afganistan is changed to make this situation—where a man is sentenced to die for converting from Islam—impossible. After all, we invaded Afganistan to stop that sort of thing, alledgedly. Even more difficult will be to change the hearts of the local population, who according to one of the judges in the case were ready to form a lynch mob. We heard in the last few days a great deal from representatives of Islam in the media, telling us that the Koran does not require the death penalty for conversion. It isn't the largely secular population of Britian they need to be telling this to; it's their fellow Muslims. If that were being preached in mosques in the Middle East, rather than jihad, we'd have a lot fewer problems. I heard one commentator explain that everyone is born Muslim, some have the misfortune to be brought up in other religions. By that system, every non-Muslim male in the world deserves death.

At home, some bloke from Tyrone with more money than sense has paid £80 000 plus VAT for the numberplate BIG 1. He also bought BIG 2 and BIG 3, leaving him with a total bill of £150 000. That's the price of a small flat.
And in the department of You Can't Make This Up, a plane mean to land at Derry City Airport landed instead at the airstrip of the nearby Ballykelly army base (I drove a tank there once), the pilot having apparently becone lost in midair. To paraphrase one of the passengers: The pilot apologised for landing us at the wrong airport. I thought he was joking until I looked out the window and saw half the British Army running over taking photographs.

elerrina_amanya has left for Belfast with The Vor Game and Cetaganda, and is asking about Brothers in Arms and Borders of Infinity. I love converting my family to my fandoms!

I'd just cleaned the bathroom, and I'd left the window open to let it air out. I went back in for something, and one of the cats had come in and left a little row of muddy footmarks around the rim of the bath. So I said, 'Grr, cats.' and wiped it again. Then I came downstairs to hear my ma cry, 'They've done it AGAIN!"

This time there were footprints ALL OVER THE INSIDE AND AROUND THE EDGE AND ON THE TOILET SEAT AND ON THE FLOOR....

I told my parents that my dream job would be to write; now they keep looking hopefully at me to produce a published book out of my ears. This is not a solution to the current job problem. Not at the rate I write, anyway.