Files and Records

Category: Uncategorized

  • Is it Friday again already?

    Well, there went another week.  They seem to go past awfully quickly at the moment.  I set out with good intentions – I was expecting the Lerwick Writers' Group (www.lerwickwriters.org) to meet on Tuesday evening, I'd get a chance to read out some more of my NaNoWriMo project (National Novel Writing Month – www.nanowrimo.org – 50,000 words or more in November).  I haven't looked at this since the end of November when I checked my word count.  Unfortunately, I'd miscalculated – apparently we don't meet in January as everyone is too busy.  First meeting will be the first Tuesday in February.

    Right (thought I).  Tuesday night I'll break out the index cards and start finding the missing bits in the storyline, work out what I need to write.  I figure it'll be about 100,000 words once I've filled in the gaps, I can then edit it back to a more reasonably 75-80,000.  What happened on Tuesday?  Can't remember.  Sure as hell didn't write anything.  No problems, move the job to Wednesday night.  Thursday?  Friday?  No, not Friday.  Jo's back from Aberdeen and it's games night with the kids.  Playing a Dr Who RPG with them at the moment and we should finish the scenario tonight if things go to plan.  And the weekend's out, so that pushes stuff through into next week already.

    My question is this:  Where the bloody hell does the time go?  Okay, I've got 5 kids so looking after the house eats up a big chunk of it.  Then there's work, of course.  And interesting TV, though that's pretty thin on the ground at the moment.  If you don't watch soaps or sport your pickings are slim on Freeview.  And there's nothing that's replaced Firefly, Buffy, Warehouse 13…  Am I the only person missing smart, funny science fiction/fantasy/horror?  C'mon!  Second series of Krod Mandoon, stat!  One of the normal channels, grab Fringe!  I'd settle for Days of Our Lives right about now but I'm not desperate enough to watch Primeval.

    Anyway, the 2 youngest appear to have decided to sleep in shifts today.  That's my "me" time over for the moment.  One blog update.  Well, that's where 5 minutes of this week went.

    Oh, yes.  I remembered what I did Tuesday – watched Zen on iPlayer (thank you, PS3).  If you've not managed to catch this one yet, do so.  It's smart, funny, interesting TV.  Definitely worth watching.

    See you in seven.

    Posted via email from Claytons in the Far, Far North

  • New year, new style of working. And some pictures from my phone.

    That was very satisfying.  Just tidied up my Facebook account and finally decided to block “City of Wonder”.  This is all part of my cunning plan to use the computer in a smarter way over the coming year.

    I have also started using “Remember the Milk” as a task manager, plugging everything that needs doing into it.  This syncs with my phone and makes me a happy little geek.

    Enough of the dull.  Now, the fun stuff.  When we were out in Lanzarote I purchased a camera app for my phone called Vignette.  This lovely app applies all manner of effects to the photos you take (as well as keeping the originals).  You can set up shortcuts to your favourite effects and launch the camera ready to use them.  I’ve left mine set on completely random.  This has the advantage of throwing up some amazing photographs but the disadvantage of never knowing what effects were applied to make the picture I’ve just taken.  I can ID panorama, polaroid, and a few other of the frames but after that I’m out!

    If my calculations are correct, then this link:  Photo album should allow you to see these pics.  Some are better than others…  If my calculations aren’t, then it’s not going to work.  Please comment below one way or another.

    Finally, I’m trying a new look.  Evil Mirror-Universe John.  Not sure yet, but time will tell.  Oh, and the diet/exercise regime is starting both to hurt and to give some real benefits – great weight loss in week 1, let’s see how week 2 goes!

    Later, folks.

     

    via ScribeFire

    Posted via email from Claytons in the Far, Far North

  • So that was Christmas

    Jo's blogging the whole Christmas over at her blog – http://claytonsinshetland.blogspot.com – so you can read all the gory details there.  I'm just going to pick out my favourite moments:

    Catering for 17 was a real fun challenge.  Somehow, certainly more luck that judgement, our logistics were almost perfect.  We didn't run out of anything, we had minimal left-overs.  And it proved that the dishes we do day-to-day for the family can scale up perfectly.  Christmas dinner was a team affair that involved all of the adults in the house and the timings were spot on.
    Home brew, drinking, for the use of.  Now I've brewed beer for years and we've always drunk it slowly.  However, I started this Christmas with a full cupboard and ended it with 1 pint of cider and the mead left.  Since the mead won't be ready for drinking until my birthday, I think that's pretty good.  Adam brought up 4 bottles of his own brew – very impressive it was, too.
    Full house.  17 in one house worked surprisingly well.  Thanks to a few tables and chairs loaned from the works restaurant there was no trouble seating everyone for meals.  And thanks to the rather remote location of our house the bedrooms are large enough that we can put entire families in each room.  Including ours!
    The presents! Always the high-point of Christmas, I now have a number of things I never knew I needed.  Secret Centre Table Santa kindly provided me with a Yorkshire Bitter kit, so I can replenish some of the stocks we drank in time for Zach's Christening in June.  Once the shops are open and I can buy some sugar, it's game on.  I have a bluetooth adaptor for the other laptop so just need a suitable gaming keyboard and mouse so we can hook said laptop up to the TV and play Risen in comfort (thanks, Rhu!  Grave moths are a challenge and we're only a few minutes into the game)
    The food.  Did I mention we ate rather well?  Huge pots of full-strength curry, pakoras, salmon (both smoked and en croute), jerk chicken, the list goes on.  Yum.  Looking forward to the next excuse to cook on a grand scale.
    Gaming.  Card games, board games, playstation games.  Sing Star is so much more fun when you're drunk and someone else is picking the songs for you.  Thanks to the medleys I've sung stuff I never knew we had.  Dr Lucky had his traditional Christmas outing, both Kill and Save variations being played.  Fluxx confused a few to start with but soon got going.  The favourite, though, has to be The Great Game of Britain.  Challenging geography and allowing your vindictive streak to come to the fore, it's fantastic.  Over the next year I'll be adding Dungeon Quest, Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan into the mix.

    All told, it was a fantastic Christmas, definitely one of the best of my adult life.  Having the house full and everyone enjoying themselves was the best present we could have hoped for.

    New Year's Eve saw more gaming, this time with the Grays, Dungeon Quest, Labyrinth and The Great Game coming out again.  Hopefully this is setting the tone for 2011 as the year of family gaming.  Now I've just got to start up the Dr Who RPG I'm playing with the older kids again…

    Happy New Year to everyone who reads this.  And everyone who doesn't, for that matter.  Not bothered either way.

    Posted via email from Claytons in the Far, Far North