Sleepless in Scotland

Hair Update, because I just know you're all dying to know: now entering the fuzzy phase. Next up: Phase Fluffy, followed by what'll probably be at least a month or two of Phase Augh Why Do I Do This To Myself?! I spent Saturday night with olive oil and egg yolk on my head, which is about as icky as it sounds, but between that and only washing my hair with shampoo once a week, my hair does feel nice and healthy. Not sure how thick it'll be, but at least it's healthy, and I think one more henna application will get it to the colour I want it to be. Yaye!

Fun Family Things I Found Out Recently: Apparently my grandfather was the first phys. ed. teacher in Belgium. He didn't know either, but some enterprising student on a thesis mission found out and wants to interview him about it. Cool! I mean, not that it changes the fact that none of his grandkids are at all athletically inclined, but still. :D

Current poll results indicate a preference for either a free-for-all challenge, or a secret santa type one. I'm partial to secret santa type challenges myself, but they necessitate pitch hitters, and matching people up, and people feeling disappointed if they didn't get their present, and whatnot, so I'll probably go with the free-for-all. There will be signups, though, to make it easier to get artists involved.

There's an overwhelming preference for having a deadline and posting stories in one batch after said deadline, so that one's easy, and the general consensus seems to point towards a two months deadline, which seems reasonable to me. Question I forgot to ask: should there be a deadline for signups?

I'll probably get everything up and announce the challenge on the 17th/18, with the deadline at the end of October. That'll give people two months (or a little more) to write, and then give them a breather before the Secret Santas and Yuletide challenges start coming in.

Now I just need to name the damn thing. Gah.

*flails around* OMG POTTERDAMMERUNG BWEEEEEE!

I'm swinging by the shop this afternoon to stock up on semi-healthy and unhealthy snacks, then go home, finish cleaning, setup my blanket fort bunker, shave my head, dress up, and plan to be in the queue somewhere around tennish. Have pre-order, will bounce for candy?

I'll be posting blow-by-blow reactions as I read the book, probably, like I did last time. Expect no coherency. I may resort to voiceposts filled with primal noises at some point.

( Random predictions, non-spoilery as I'm spoiler-free myself, but cutting just in case. )

I may also be on vent during/after the reading -- I have a private server (geeky impulse purchases FTW!), if anyone'd be interested in talking to me in non-text form, let me know and I'll post the info.

Daily food post: yesterday and today.

So my dad went to Vietnam a few weeks ago, and apparently brought me back some nice silk scarves. Which is nice enough in and of itself, but apparently he'd bought a bronze one and spent like an hour looking for a dark blue one as well. Because my dad is all about indulging my HP geek tendencies, apparently. I love my daddy. :D

*hides from kerfuffles* lalala i'm sorry, i cannae hear you i have a banana in my ear!

Headline of the day, in a horrifying and yet mindboggling way: "Man took call during rape, police say". Right, that's it, you can close the internet. I HAVE SEEN IT ALL!

Best customer ever, first thing he said: "I'm a man, so you know I'm a bit thick when it comes to these things ..."

... Aaaaand I just talked to Oliver Wood. Ehehehehe.

So I overslept this morning, wolfed down my breakfast, and promtply threw it up. Good morning indeed. I think this is a stomach infection, which means soup, toast and no coffee for me for the next three days. Blaaaaah.

And then I put on a pink-purple shirt and black-and-red striped socks, which just further proves that I should not be allowed to dress myself. *facepalm*

I've not yet watched the new Dr Who, because I was busy as hell this weekend between parties and reading the HP fandom equivalent of Behind the Music. (More on that later, possibly. Once I'm completely caught up on the utter crack.)

Okay, first of all: Whoa, Collin!

Secondly, Sir Ian is so totally my Big Gay Hero, man.

And thirdly, some quotes from last night's game:

Melle: I've got an axe, a knife, light armour, a Hell Mace, a Gauntlet, a shortbow, a spell ring, a Talisman, ...
Ben: [sings] ... and a partridge in a pear tree.

Dave (GM, as the squad's "read guard" redshirts): "They're all chaos mutations! Let's kill 'em all, lads!"
Ben: You think our lot are brave enough for that?
Dave: "Let's go tell the boss, lads!"
Ben: That's more like it.

And then Ben, who was party leader this week, managed to kill off all but one of our redshirt squad. Well, that'll save me the trouble next week, I suppose.

The things you find while cleaning, man. I'm going through the stationary and paperwork and stuff, and um. Found my original, handwritten versions of just about all the stories I wrote between early 2000 and late 2003, back before my RSI got so bad I couldn't write by hand anymore. Things like Polar, Sin, the very first incarnation of Elfstone, back when that title was still, you know, applicable, and, to quote an e-mail I just sent to Amy, "an entire chapter of HP fic, plus notes on plotting, that I have absolutely no recollection of. I don't know where I was going with this, although judging by what I can still read from my notes, it was ambitious and epic and also Harry/Draco." I may type this up at some point, if only to share the bad. Ow.

Oh, dear lord, I found my teenaged emo-goth poetry. The only thing stopping me from burning it is my inner archeologist. My inner writer cares not for preservation for future generations, she just wants to pretend this never happened. *hides* (I wrote epic poetry, people! WTF, self, WTF.)

WTF, when did I write (the beginning of) a S:AaB/BtVS crossover? Clearly, I was on crack in the nineties. o_O

Awwww, my very first attempt at writing a fantasy novel, way back in ... *thinks* Christ, that must've been '94 or thereabouts. Holy crap. (Oddly enough, I'm a lot less embarassed about the things I wrote pre-puberty, possibly because I had no delusions of depth yet back then and just wrote fairy tales. Heh.)

And a whole bunch of my trying-to-draw stuff from the late nineties. Actually, some of this isn't too bad, I should get these scanned in.

[ETA] ... I'd forgotten just how much Biker Mice from Mars fanart I'd drawn back then. Ehehehe. Right. *cough*[/ETA]

Dear vidders on my friendslist: this needs to happen. Now!

Eeee, Jeanne! I got your package of smelly stuff, yaye! *bounces* Can't wait to try it all!

... Would it be rude if I were to reply to a customer e-mail with "I'm sorry, I don't have a clue what you asked me, please resubmit your query in proper Dutch"? Because seriously, I haven't anything remotely resembling a clue, here. My head hurts.

My NaNo mug has arrived! Now if only I had non-decaf coffee to drink from it. Feh. but still. Massive Novelist Mug Of DOOOOOOOM!

Today's Metro horoscope says:

A face like a wet night looking for a dry morning isn't going to get you anywhere, is it? A shift in attitude will bring incredible results. Be brighter.

Dear horoscope,
Bite me.
Toothily yours,
Melle

Amusing work anecdote of the day: one of the sales reps I'm in semi-regular e-mail contact with about a couple of cases is called Khan. My inner Star Trek dork is very amused by this and needs to be clobbered on a regular basis to avoid calling "KHAAAAAAAN!" at my computer screen while other people are trying to work.

Side note re: work, or rather, co-workers, sometimes I'm rather forcibly reminded why, while I like me co-workers well enough, I will never actually become friends with them. Quite apart from the whole "I didn't move to Scotland to hang out only with other expats" thing, some of them are just stupid. I just had to explain to Straight Guy what a placebo is, and the woman who sits next to me came into work this morning all wrapped up in a huge coat, hat, scarf, the works, and complains about being cold even in here, and meanwhile I keep having to bite my tongue before I tell her to buy a whole damn shirt if she's so cold. I mean, damn, woman. Of course you're gonna be cold if you can't even tuck in your shirt like a normal person and keep your body heat in!

In other news, by which I mean "news that is neither random minutiae from my work life, nor tedious TMI none of you want to hear," I see that wish list meme is doing the rounds again. I kind of want to do it, but on the other hand, I feel like it's too early to start thinking about Christmas. OMG it hasn't even been St Nicholas Day yet, you heretics! On the other other hand, I think my parents are about to start hinting that I need to make a wish list already, as well, so I might as well take the opportunity to put all the things I can't ask them for (I am not asking my parents for porn!) on my LJ wish list.

Fannish ramblings of the day: Everyone's heard of the twit that went to see GoF as a reviewer and complained that it was too dark, right? Because she'd apparently been living under a rock since 2000, and quite obviously enver read the books or saw the previous movies--I mean, yeah, GoF is darker than the previous movies, but what this woman was expecting was, apparently, "[a] couple of hours of child wizards casting spells, some japery involving flying broomsticks, a few owls and maybe some humorous interludes with a green elf."

Some people, honestly. I bet she felt cheated that the end of Return of the King was such a letdown. (I mean , I didn't think it was a letdown, but then I rather enjoy having my heart ripped out and watching Peter Jackson do a little jig on it. And wow, mental image there. ANYWAY!)

My hands are freezing off over here, augh! *sticks hands up friendslists's shirts to warm them* Er.

[ETA] I just got spam from Ron Jeremy. My day is made![/ETA]

Pimping time:

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