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inannajones is off to Finland for two weeks from today. I am issuing an antisocial warning for the first week of this, because it has been a very long time since I indulged in being a grouchy bastard for any length of time, and every bloke needs to do so on a regular basis. I will be in work the normal hours, but otherwise, if I don't definitely say I will be somewhere else, expect me to be in the study, with the door closed. Email may be answered. Phone calls will only be answered in an emergency.

olethros and

mirozacat are exempt from having their heads bitten off if they come in, everyone else should beware. Raaar, etc.

Current Mood: organised

On my work email account, I filter spam heavily. It's very rare that an unsolicited mail makes it to my inbox, because the filters are well trained by now, and our mail server marks incoming suspect mails as well. Sometimes I have to retrieve legitimate mail from the junk boxes, but that's ok. However, this morning, one made it through, with a very straightforward subject line, and I realised, looking over my filters, that there's an odd bias in there. Almost all of them target either marketing-speak, or American slang. This one got through, though, because the subject was: "Now you can shag more frequently". So, have speakers of the Queen's English discovered spam, or are American spammers actually turning to writing in real English to get through the filters?

Well, I planted carrots and peas. The carrots are now coming up in pairs of thin grass-like leaves, and the peas are pushing up small clumps of leaves. This initial success pleases me, and so I planted some spring onions today, and also buried a Spanish onion that was starting to grow in the veg basket - more to see what happens than anything else. I have tomatoes, not for planting until a little later in the year, some very experimental gourd things, and lettuce, both also for a bit later.

For the peas, I'm wondering what kind of support they'll need. They're growing in pots by a wall, between two posts of the pergola, so I can run waxed string or wire back and forth in bars or a zig-zag pattern - I think that should do. My grandfather used to run parallel strings about a foot apart down a row of poles. They were bright orange when he put them up, and pale pink by autumn - the strings, that is, not the peas.

I also tidied up the jasmine in the corner, and went about training stray shoots back around the pergola post they're supposed to be climbing. The wisteria on the other house-side post is still looking rather miserable, though. We have two wisterias - the one in front of the house, on a north-west facing wall, is very very healthy, and tries to get in through the bedroom windows in summer. The one on the pergola, on a south-west corner, with a pole to climb, is a miserable specimen, which comes into leaf later, loses the leaves earlier, and never really gets all that green. We trimmed it back last year, having read that it's encouraged thus, but it doesn't seem to have done much. I'd blame the limited area of soil it has, but other plants take root in there regularly and thrive.

I like this gardening thing. This really shouldn't surprise me.

Good Charlotte are hereinafter comdemned to the list of people who, when not singing, should keep their mouths shut.

My first impressions of the new Doctor Who are over on Duke Street. And I think almost everyone on my friendslist who could watch it did, by the looks of things.

In the half hour between the alarm going off and my waking up again (I assume the alarm went off; I have no memory of its doing so), I had the most bizarrely disorientating dream I've ever had. My normal sense that I'm dreaming was completely absent, and I was struggling to make sense of changes in the dreamscape. There isn't even anything like a coherent storyline to it.

inannajones,

bluedevi and

graylion featured in various capacities, as did a house bulit in the spaces between other houses whose bathroom had at least three doors, an alien plant which looked faintly like a ridiculously elongated brown shoe, a car

inannajones was driving through either the ruins or the building site of Carlow, and a sign that said "No Cows Please". Waking up felt disturbingly like coming to having been unconscious - the same feeling of rising back into my own skull - and I'm still feeling as though weird shit is going to happen at any moment.

Hello, equinox. You've never been this strange before.

Last week, I was talking to a co-worker on the train, on the way into work, about the D&D games I'm running. She said she'd be interested in playing, and she knew at least one other person who would, so would I see about running a game in work? Nothing to lose, so I sent out a mail to the Dublin office, asking if anyone was interested. Lo and behold, six people are interested.

Still not quite believing it, I show them rulebooks, get them working on character concepts, get the initial dice rolled... and we end up with a gnome sorcerer, a gnome wizard, an elven wizard, and a halfing sorcerer, all completed, even with names (typically the most difficult aspect for newcomers) and two elven rangers (I think) to be generated on Monday. First game on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

And there's a fair bit of individual interest; it's not just a going with the crowd thing. There are enquiries about names, the part of the world they'll be starting in, cultures, areas of origin for characters, and I even have a complete description of clothing for one character. It's pretty damn cool, and I'm looking forward to running the game.

Current Mood: accomplished

I greatly regret that this recruitment ad image is too big to just stick into my livejournal.

However, if you've ever wanted to be a superhero, work on the web, AND have that dangerous air that comes from being a professional gambler, perhaps Casino Boy can help you.

Take a look, it's worth it.

I am very suspisciously awake this morning. My eyes opened at 06:30, and there was just no way I was going back to sleep. So I did some role-reversal stuff, and woke the cat. Now I'm breakfasted, she's breakfasted, I've read email, LJ, news... There's no point in leaving the house before 07:30, so I'm actually left wondering what to do. This never happens.

Having been woken up with breakfast in bed - which is the best possible way to wake up - I've spent the early afternoon in the back garden. I've planted peas and carrots, both in containers. There will be spring onions and tomatoes next weekend. And we cleared up piles of various dead leaves and branches,

inannajones did some trimming of overgrown things, and I cleaned out the garden shed. A very productive afternoon. There's some good rosemary out there at the moment, which I want to bring in and dry for future use. For some reason, it's growing very well out there, even though the soil is much heavier than I'm told it prefers.

I'm looking forward to making good use of the garden this year, both for growing things and for barbecues. I want the weather to become just that touch warmer so we can get going.

Current Mood: productive

( What labels have you in gmail? )

I'll be interested to see if the list grows, or shrinks, or what. And yes, I am that organised about email. I pretty much have to be.

This entry on

urban_decay is absolutely stunning. Anyone got a really good colour printer?

Right. I'm working up to doing some serious promotion on dukestreet.org - it's been around long enough for the search engines to pick up. What I'd like are links. Particularly links from sites that are not LJ. So if you run another blog, a newsletter, a review site, or what-have-you, I'd very much appreciate a link to dukestreet from it - where it's on-topic, of course. Don't feel compelled to add a link to it from your site about breeding angel fish, or the like.

However, I recognise that in the attention economy of the web, links are valuable. So if you'll link to my site, I'll write an article for it on a topic of your choice (within the topics covered by the site, of course) and link to yours in that, using any keywords you feel would be useful, and so on. If you add a link, and want an article, please comment below.

(While I'm doing dukestreet for fun, it's also part of an onging experiment to see how well a site can do by natural networking - I'm not doing anything to add it to search engines, not am I buying advertsing anywhere.)

So I'm sitting here, watching the snow fall, and suddenly there's a flash of lightning and this huge roll of thunder. Temperature has dropped 3°C since I woke up. Wow.

That really made me jump.

There are a few political things I sort-of want to post about. But mainly what it comes down to is pointing at Bush, and asking, "Will someone explain to that idiot, again, about the separation of church and state?" When there's an international conference, and the US position is agreed on by one single other representative, and that's the Vatican, is this not a clear signal that there is something seriously wrong? While I disagree with many things that Bush is pushing (or that other elements of his administration are pushing), it's his extension into international politics of his own personal insistence on abstinence over contraception that I find to be most reprehensible.

I feel absolutely rotten. I am going back to bed.

Big Easy Players: Thursday 10th is the next game. I know I mentioned Thursday 3rd, but there's a concert on that day that

inannajones and I are going to.

Hey, actual advance warning!

I want to plant things outside this year, have them grow, and then eat them. I'm willing to invest quite some effort in the planting and the eating, but as I can't be relied upon to remember their existence in between, something tough is probably advisable. I'll be planting in window-box sized things, since there's a lawn and flowerbeds out back that the landlady probably won't want us to dig up. Assume I know absolutely nothing about plants (which isn't too far from the truth).

So, what can I grow? All advice gratefully accepted.

This is being a good week. Work is running smoothly. It's nice and cold. Practice last night was excellent. And there's a light dusting of snow this morning, with a more than fair chance of more over today and tomorrow. More falling as I write, mixed with hail...

Tonight is going to be a devoted DAoC night.

mr_wombat,

bastun_ie, ye going to be about?

Big Easy players - does Thursday this week suit, or does it look like weather will make things awkward? I'd like to pick up again before we all forget what's happening.

Current Mood: organised

Ghostweather Survey - in which I got to express my opinion of the "What colour of handbasket are you?" things. Tell them I sent you. Prizes, too.

Man attack tree. Man win. Tree lose. Raaar.

Or in other words, finally got around to hacking the Christmas Tree which has been standing in the back yard into bits. It now consists of a pile of flare material, a smaller pile of firelighting material, and a few chunks of actually burning material. Seeing as next week is to be cold, I can't see them lasting too long.

Big Easy players, there's a game on tomorrow. Who can make it?

[Poll #438469]

I suspect this is the geek equivalent of holiday photographs nobody wants to see. But here, for your viewing pleasure, are

inannajones and myself (aka Aedinn and Madoine) taking down an Abordon Abductor (witha herd of rapacious shrillers frolicking in the background), and a Fomorian Radden. Those Fomorians are really distubring.

Large images, mind - about 300K each.

Current Mood: amused

I just spent 15 minutes sharpening a katana so that

niallm and

radegund can use it to cut a wedding cake. I'm not entirely sure that the scimitar wouldn't have been better, but it's bit grubby.

The cat has just spent five minutes begging me, quite persistently, for the last couple of peas from a bowl here. Eventually, I gave them to her, and she ate them with every evidence of enjoyment, and is now sitting partially on the chairback and partially on my shoulder, washing and purring. She likes pistachios as well, but peas are a new one.

I am on such a burst of creativity for the last two weeks that it's really rather fearsome. Three sites designed, two projects suggested and accepted in work, a whole pile of campaign notes written... now how do I keep it this way?

Current Mood: accomplished

My machine is making an intermittent groaning noise. Somehow, this fails to fill me with joy.

Current Mood: awake

If you asked to be on the DM filter, and you can't see today's posts on it, and you're not

olethros, let me know.

Current Mood: still accomplished

I did a redesign on dukestreet.org today. Well, it was more of a reskinning, really, you'd have to work hard to call it a design. But it's CSS, and colours that aren't black-on-white or green-on-black, and I'm rather pleased with it. There are a few more small things I want to do with it, mostly to do with putting very subtle graphics in, but bascially, it's done.

Current Mood: accomplished

It's that time of campaign again, and I'm adding people to the DM filter, behind which I occasionally post upcoming plot points, discussion, or ask for suggestions. Please click something below (although I won't add you if you don't ask).

[Poll #432100]

I gather it's pretty normal for guys, when the girlfriend or wife goes away for a bit, to go "Right. Now I can do X thing that I never normally get to do."

I've been thinking for half an hour, and I haven't come up with anything. That's pretty cool.

In other news, there seems to be a lack of Nokia phone chargers around here, and my phone is dead. Anyone in Dublin got a charger I could wander over and use for an hour?

Big Easy players: There is a game tonight. Apologies for not posting a reminder sooner. Who's able to attend? I think we can, if need, be, run with low numbers on tonight's session - which means everyone will be there, right?

Fight practice this evening, and I was in armour and fighting for the first time in months. It was good. I was tired fairly quickly, but not as quickly as I had expected. And I've discovered the secret of defeating THL Cernac - you need to get in close, where his reach is no use, and then beat him in the extremities. Of course, it'll only work for a few weeks. There was also the uncomfortable discovery that my armour - Visby "coat of plate", made of leather and pickle barrel - is a little less covering on the right-hand side of the chest than I thought it was. Specifically, it does not quite cover the nipple, and a blow from Cernac, pulled back a bit after I called good on the previous blow, grazed it. It took a good ten seconds of standing there with my jaw clenched before I could speak without yelping. Very undignified. The fact that his next landing blow was firmly across the buttocks encouraged me to step up my own aggression a touch - which works wonders. I begin to see the point of fighting when hungover.

Current Mood: accomplished

Oi,

mr_wombat, you organising these writers nights, or is it all just talk, like logging on to DAoC ever again? :)

I've just spent an entire evening playing DAoC with

inannajones, who is hereinafter named Coolest Significant Other Ever. Cos someone who puts up with me and plays MMORPGs with me has to be that.

Madoine Mactire is now at level 27, and Maduire, a second character, just hit 10, and took on the surname FitzMactire. Cos I like having connections.

Current Mood: pleased

I feel irritable about the week just past; the flu was bad enough and persistent enough that I had to go to the doctor on Wednesday, and get a prescription and a cert keeping me out of work until Monday. I still have some aches and pains, but can lay claim to "better" at this stage. However, I feel I've wasted the time - either it could have better spent in work, or it could have been better spent at home, but I wasn't up to spending any time usefully. And yet I seem to have exhausted a week's leisure pursuits, leaving me with nothing to do this evening - or nothing I'm interested in - and a vague grouch and grump feeling. Bah to it all.

Current Mood: grumpy

There appears to be a Girls' Night In happening on Friday. Therefore, I have two options - stay in and drink beer, or go out and drink beer. For once, the latter seems like a better notion, especially since it's payday. Therefore, I propose a Blokes' Night Out. Either the Library Bar in town, or McSorleys here in Ranelagh, from after work until whenever. I'd propose the Porterhouse, but on a Friday, no thanks. Anyone going to join me? And is there a preference for town or Ranelagh?

Current Mood: contemplative

I'm not normally in the habit of picking up icons from elsewhere, but this one proved irresistable. By

rikkustears on

teardropicons.

Technorati Profile

Big Easy players, your attention please. If I have to crawl in and be propped up at the table, we are still having a game on Thursday evening. Thank you.

Who can make it? (And, on the whole, considering stuff I've written, it had better be more than two of ye...)

Down with the second day of what I thought was a relatively mild dose of flu, or some other winter bug. I was doing fine last night, aches and pains gone, head not sore, fully working out the pleasures of getting to work on a nice cold morning this morning. I woke this morning, staggered out of bed protesting to myself "it's because you've just woken up", got as far as reading mail and doing dishes, and realised that no, it wasn't. The aches and pains are back - my fingers ache, my head is sore and a bit spinny, and I have developed the fine art of staring into space between sentences, indeed between thoughts, to about three minutes. Sinuses are starting to block up as well. I hates being sick; it takes time that could be good because I'm at home, and turns it into nothing, and it eats my evenings as well. Not to mention the basic unwellness.

I'm concentrating all the whinging about it into one burst here, so that people can bear to be around me; there's nothing worse than a sick bloke for general miserableness. So: whinge whinge, whine whine, poor me, bleah, whinge, whine.

There.

Current Mood: unwell

It's been a good week, in terms of getting stuff done. My work queue has been reduced to two small items and one low-priority one. I've worked out plenty of stuff for the new campaign (optimistically named Road To Hell), and helped the players in Age of Legends work out strategies, spells and gear to help their characters survive the huge battle that's going to happen in tonight's session. And I got a couple more items written for

dukestreet, including a review of Dark Age of Camelot, which I've been trying to write for a while. Since there's now content going up there reg'lar like, I'm considering starting poking people for links.

This has come down from on high here in work:

Swiftpay International, located in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, is a well established player in the Internet payments sector, providing services to companies in the e-commerce arena.

Swiftpay provides technical and development services and delivers innovative targeted marketing solutions to online companies with a particular focus on the online gaming and sports betting sectors.

We are seeking a programming graduate with a degree or equivalent qualification and a proven track record of excellent academic achievement.

The candidate must have good knowledge of:

Client-server technologies

Web development environments

Programming languages such as Cold Fusion or ASP

Development methodologies and development life cycles

Also - knowledge of HTML, XML, Javascript and SQL would be a definite advantage.

The ideal candidate will have excellent teamwork and communication skills and will ideally have a minimum of one years experience in a similar role. Candidates with relevant college related work experience or placement work experience may be considered.

An attractive salary and benefits package, dependent on experience will be offered to the right candidate.

----

In other words, if you're a tech looking for work, send me a CV. Address for this is ashiel at swiftpay dot com.

One of my non-resolutions for 2005 is to write more on The Wizard of Duke Street (confusingly given the same name as this LJ). Even if that results in three paragraph entries like this about Clive Barker and Diana Wynne Jones, I think it's better than no entries. I'll get to the original intent, the essays, when I can, but I don't like to leave it idle in the meantime.

As to what I'm doing up at 01:45 on a work night, I think I relaxed too much. I'm very rested, and my mind is in full on, light-speed, hyperactive mode. Ideas sleeting in all over the place, and if I wasn't up writing them down, they'd be bouncing around inside my head going bzzzz.

Current Mood: awake

I've spent a reasonable portion of the weekend playing DAoC. On Saturday, some of my guild and a couple of allied high-level folk power-levelled Madoine (and a couple of others) from 19th level to 22nd. For those of you who haven't heard the term, it meant that they formed a group, consisting of two high-level folk and a few lower levels, took us into anotherwise lethally dangerous spot, and killed monsters there, with a few extra people along to heal them. Experience gets divided among the group, even if you're just standing there, so I got three levels for nothing more than being polite. I do feel faintly like it's cheating, but it's the way the game is played, and if I want to run a character from zero to fifty without power-levelling or the like, I can do so another time. Meantime, I'll be more use to my guild - and realm - with a high-level character.

Today (well, yesterday now), I soloed (played on my own) through the rest of level 22, reaching 23, and then went to check out the Realm versus Realm area of the game. There's RvR before this level, but it's not much used on the server I play on. It comes to life at 20th level. And how. The couple of hours I spent attempting to beat the Albion scum into submission was in some weird way the most relaxing thing I've done in months. Working with an impromptu group of other folk there, healing and buffing (increasing other characters power by means of spells) and occasionally hitting something myself, and knowing that I was playing against other people, not bits of code on a computer someplace, was really, really fun.

There's a new patch for the game coming out this week, containing improvements like faster levelling for those who are putting in effort, more experience from rarely beaten monsters, proper in-game mapping, and an on-screen clock. I'm looking forward to it all.

There's a (fairly minor) character in my Age of Legends game, whose name I apparently can't spell in English. His name is somewhere between: Auan, Avan and Awan. The Irish-style Abhan comes close, but doesn;t hit it either. I suspect only I can hear the difference, but can anyone suggest a language with another variant on the v/w/u sound?

springinautumn asked:

"Would you please say something on this sale of LJ thing?"

So here's what I think: I'm pleased. I don't think Six Apart are going to do anything bad - they haven't done anything bad to the TypePad or Movable Type customers they already have, they're a small company, and they're run by a husband and wife. They understand the importance of community, and the freedom to communicate. And the founder of LJ -

bradfitz - is now free to do the stuff he likes doing, rather than the business stuff, which he's on record as really not liking. With something as successful as livejournal has become, being bought by a, well, a more organised business was only a matter of time. I'm pleased that it's a company who understands what they're getting. I'm not going about backing up my LJ, opening other journals, or any such stuff (I think I have a deadjournal from years ago), and I think it's all going to be fine.

There'll also be some features added that I'm looking forward to, like trackback compliance. That'll be cool.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: I really must get around to playing music in here...

We did it all for the Glory of Love

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