My tag list

The tracked tags on my tumblr are currently as follows:

brony
bujold
doctor who
ds9
leverage
lois mcmaster bujold
miles vorkosigan
my little pony
ows

This has to mean something. But what?

What the Flying Heck?

I’m new to drawing on a tablet device and my art skills are not the best.

That’s why I chose to fingerpaint some ponies as humans and share the results with you.

Each humanised pony took about two hours for me to get right. And I still hate what happened with the hands and feet. I suck at both.

By the time I was done focussing on the important part, I was all fgsfds when it came to doing the backgrounds.

I had already decided to do cell-style colouring, hence the lack of shading and depth, so abstract backgrounds made a kind of sense.

Each block of text had to be put in one line at a time, owing to the restrictions of the art program I was using. Sometimes, I didn’t get it quite right.

And why did I post them once a day?

So I could plump out my post queue, of course :)

That, and someone has to encourage the less-brave artists out there who aren’t confident about matching some of the eye-popping pony artists out there. If I can share my sack of suck with everyone, you can have a go, can’t you? You may be pleasantly surprised.

Happy new year!

Here on the east coast of Australia, it’s been 2012 for five hours and forty-five minutes. So far, it’s all going fine.

I slept through new years’ for the first time since I was a little one and I’m wondering if it’s because I’m old.

Though I was woken up by the sound of the neighbourhood’s illegal fireworks going off, and Chaos’ screaming when it was all over. Apparently, she wanted more fireworks. Poor kid.

My new years’ resolutions are as follows:

1) Always keep working on my writing and try to finish what I started [traditional]
2) Monitor my weight and do my utmost to get back down to the vicinity of eighty kilos
3) Do some friggin’ housework every day ‘cause nobody else is

Let’s see how long those last.

I currently weigh ninety-five point four. That’s almost up to 100 again. I did weigh 100 kilos in January of 2009 and got down to 84 on a slow diet. Now my bad habits have slowly got me back up again. Yikes.

I obviously need to keep track of myself or I turn into a blob monster.

On my favour I have: The knowledge that I did it once before, a dog to walk [the leash is in scenic Coominya] and the knowledge of how I did it.

Now I just have to get into good habits and stop eating half a block of chocolate for breakfast.

As for my writing… I’m already doing something every day. That’s a plus. Now, if only it could be something of a professional standard.

What’s some of your new years’ resolutions?

Ow.

I’m going to have to work on leash-training the hound at home. Lord knows I lack the capability when out on our morning constitutional.

I left the check chain at home this morning. It wasn’t working to stop him tugging, and it was just hurting him.

Just the ordinary leash on his harness hurt my wrist from the near-constant pulling, but then I don’t matter.

I’m just a human.

Still, walking every day will help me lose weight and help the dog by getting him out and about. And if I can get him to come to heel and walk with me, then we can both enjoy the experience.

When I’m no longer puffing and blowing after a walk around one block, I may go for two blocks. Set off all the dogs around the neighbourhood in one go.

But right now, my wrist hurts. My legs hurt. My back hurts. And it’s a bit of a pain to get a whole lung full of air. I clearly need to keep going until I get better or it kills me.

And I only got a paragraph and a half done on my novel.

Ah well. Progress is progress, I guess.

This is it.

The 14th post in my queue.

This means I can officially take a break from seeking blog material and go write some independent fiction.

Or, as I sometimes put it, I’m going to commit some literature.

Expect the next few blogs to be me honking on about my latest Work In Progress.

Unless something spectacularly heinous pops up concerning OWS and the corpratocracy’s slow collapse into malevolent dictatorship.

Or I get a funny idea.

I am Desperately Out of Shape

So I thought this morning, “I have to go to the chemists’. I’ll kill two birds with one stone and take the dog for a walk at the same time.”

Bad. Idea.

1) It was stinking hot
2) We both needed a drink by the halfway point
3) I forgot to bring water and drink containers
4) The best I could do for a hitching post was snagging the leash around an awning upright
5) Despite the use of a check chain, the dog still tugs my arm off.

I’m out of breath, lathered in sweat, struggling for breath [Ironically, I was heading up to the chemists’ to get asthma meds]. The dog is panting by his water dish in the shade. I don’t know which one of us is more knackered.

I need to get fitter.

And the best way for a sedentary soul like myself to get fit?

Taking the dog for a fargnaxing walk.

Every morning.

At least in the morning it’ll be relatively cool. And I can piss off the neighbour who hates barking dogs by setting off every dog in the neighbourhood. And being all innocent, “I just got back from taking him for a walk. He’s been a little angel. It’s the other dogs you need to be mad at,” if he rings up.

Heheh. Revenge will be sweet. And a bit petty.

If I alternate blocks I go around, maybe he won’t wake up for a while that it’s me.

So I’m joining the latest fitness campaign and swapping Minecraft in the morning to taking the dog for a walk.

Then flopping down ‘till I get my breath back and playing Minecraft :)

Minties and Fanta.

I’ve been asked about this, before. Primarily, I have been asked, “what the hell is a Mintie?”

Minties must be unique to Australia.

They’re a brand-name individually-wrapped sweet put out by Allans’ lollies. They look like a very small fire lighter cube and taste like an explosion of mint. Chewing them is like trying to bite through a half-frozen sausage. Don’t try it if you have temporary fillings.

Fanta is everywhere. Get the orange stuff, as that was all that was around when I discovered the taste thrill.

Work your mintie [or mintie substitute] into softness. This can take some time and is an excellent workout for the jaw muscles.

Now take a swig of fizzy orange drink.

After you get feeling back in your tongue, you’ll be aware of a new state of wakefulness that comes with the mint burnout in your mouth.

This is how I stayed awake during marathon programming sessions when I was in university. I got understandably loopy throughout the days/weeks.

Now are you glad it’s only caramel mochachinos?

The Bad Barrista - Caramel Mochachino

Any self-respecting barrista would be running away from this.

This is NOT how trained professionals would do it. This is how I do it.

Tools:

Method of boiling water.
1 handy heat source for same.
Large cup.
teaspoon.

Ingredients:

1 stick pre-prepared Mocha mix
1 stick pre-prepared caramel hot chocolate mix
1-2 tsp sugar
Water. 

Method:

Start boiling water.
Open sticks and tip contents into cup.
Add sugar.
Blend dry ingredients with spoon. 
Once water is boiled, half-fill cup with hot water.
Stir thoroughly. If you don’t you get crunchy sweet coffee clusters. Not nice.
Add milk to top it off.

Drink, and try not to bounce off the walls.

Pro barristers are doubtless going to (a) tell me I’m doing it wrong, volume optional or (b) tell me how they’d make one and invite me to try it.

Folks, this is something I have to make at home in order to keep myself awake during sleep dep episodes. In order to drive to your place of business, I’d have to make one before I go.

I am not a coffee person. I’m not that big on tea, either. When it comes to hot beverages, I’m a hot chocolate kinda gal. Which helps me sleep. When I need to stay awake, I take my coffee with heinous amounts of sweetening substances in order to overwhelm the bitterness. Hence, caramel mochachino.

Yes, it’s an abomination unto the rest of mankind. So was my earlier stimulant of choice: minties and fanta.

So I Might Have Poisoned Some People…

Not on the scale of ratsak for sugar. No. It was round-up. On weeds.

How can that poison people, you ask.

These were weeds on the fence that we’re fixing up so the dog can’t get through. Hubby told me to go spritz the weeds along the fence line, so I did. Fast forward a few minutes and Hubby and Brother-in-law have now decided to go whipper-snip the back fence and pull all the weeds out.

The last time I used round-up, I had diarrhoea for two days.

Say what you will about the Monsan-toerags evil ways, but they do know how to make shit that kills things.

This time, I insisted that everyone wash.

I don’t know if that’s enough. I washed the last time and I still got the quirblies in the intestinal region. I hope the use of extra soap helped matters.

Maybe it soaked into the plants before anyone laid their hands on them.

Maybe extra lashings of soap will help, this time.

I won’t know until the time for innard rebellion has passed.

At least the dead plants are on our side of the fence. No need to worry about inadvertently poisoning the neighbour’s cows.

They sell this shit where kids can grab it. Yikes.

F*king Cashmas Carols

I usually refer to the Great Christmas Shopping Push from October to December as “Cashmas”. It isn’t the slightest bit about celebrating the holiday season, it’s about getting your money.

Buy a tree. Buy decorations. Spend a fortune on rellos you hardly ever see because it’s that time of year and you have to show them you care and why not use that credit card until it smokes?

Yeah. How about fuck off?

I have rellos who are hard to shop for at the best of times. Thanks to obstreperous neighbours, this is not one of those times. I almost have zero money [MeMum bailed me out and I insist on only spending that cash on needs, not wants] and difficult rellos.

My usual yuletide fallback of gingerbreads for everyone, or Molasses cake-bikkies, has fallen over because sugar’s on a whole bunch of folks’ verboten food lists. Sigh.

So the one high point of my current fix is that I haven’t been going to the shops a lot. Why is this a high point?

Cashmas Carols.

From October until January, all you hear is twenty-seven squillion versions of every last Christmas song there is. Some of them are nice enough, but most of them just make my blood boil.

One year, I was trapped in the zombie shopping herd and subjected to hours of every last rendition of The Little Drummer Boy. To this day, even one phrase of it will make me twitch.

Another year, they insisted on every last Christmas Song For Charity. In a row. Feed the World was right next to a song for the kiddies whose Christmas got wrecked by a cyclone in Darwin. When I was FIVE.

In yet another year, I was tortured by every last rendition of Winter Wonderland. This in a country where the summer heat sucks the soul out of you in less than a second, should one dare to step outside of the AC.

This year, in so far as I can tell, it’s Reggae Christmas Hits mixed with the world’s most annoying and whiny singers warbling atonally up and down the scales at every last opportunity and a few that didn’t exist before.

All I Want For Christmas is You is not a dirge, people!

Cashmas shits me off.

I do my utmost not to support it.

And every year, they make it so easy to do so.