Freakin’ Lurgi
The entire family - minus me and the the antisociallite Captain Useless - have been struck low with Lurgi this week.
Which, for me, means interrupted sleep, tired days, lots of coffee caramel mochachinos, and entire swathes of the Blah’s.
More ranting on the Blah’s after the cut.
I’m almost an Author
I’ve published my first story, RTFM.
I did the cover all by myself, in InkScape. So no nasty comments about the cover. I’m fragile [swoon].
Please go buy my book and help finance my trip into fully-fledged Authordom.
As I’ve said before, the difference between a Writer and an Author is that the Author gets paid.
I FINISHED!
I wrapped up the adventure map. I put the final punctuation mark in the last in-game text file.
I’ve written the teacher’s supplements.
I’ve transformed the map from Creative to Survival.
I’ve included the map, the texts, the supplements, the specialised texture pack and some bits of trivia, and put it all into a 43MB package on a stick drive that is currently residing with my house keys.
Tomorrow, I deliver the whole benighted package!
The day after tomorrow….
MWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA(coughcoughcough)
The day after tomorrow, I shall be sharing a 14.3MB zip file containing all of the above with the entire world. I’ll be giving all my loyal fans the URL to download.
And now that it’s all done…
I don’t know what to do with myself. There’s only so much housework to do before it becomes mundane maintenance. I could throw myself back at my writing and see what happens, I suppose. I could learn how to handle Meteor and make Realm of the InterNutter a free app or something. Apps are apparently in.
This whole thing is a huge personal accomplishment. I spent months of my time making this map, engineering traps, building set pieces and, more often than not, breaking something I’d been trying to make the heck down and starting all over again.
My personal deadline was September. I’m over the moon to have finished by July.
So when this comes out on Tuesday(My Tuesday, possibly your Monday), have a go at it. Post some videos. Have fun.
And let me know what you think. Feedback is important to me.
Poo bum wee
I just spent all day trying to come up with something clever and winding up with fail.
And then, to top it off, I tried to make Spore work on my Mac again.
I know there’s worse things to happen to people than spending all day on a computer, but… I was trying my hardest to be clever and the universe just kept on reminding me that I’m stupid.
I feel pretty damn worthless right now.
I’m gonna go read a book. At least I can’t fuck that up.
5 more years off Purgatory…
I did a genuine good deed, tonight. The cat bought in a bird and, being a cat, demanded acknowledgement of her great feline feat.
Mayhem spotted it, I discouraged the cat from holding the poor creature, and together we bought the poor thing to the relative safety of the front room.
It was a small olive-green honeysucker, judging by the proboscis-like beak and its long tongue. I held it in my hands for quite some time, and kept Mayhem from patting the poor creature and scaring it the rest of the way to its little birdie grave.
Hubbie, at my badgering, looked up care and maintenance of cat-struck birds. Instructions that said to place the bird in a shoe box and stay with it until it began walking around.
Well, by the time Mayhem returned with a shoe box, the bird decided it had had enough of these giant noisy pink things and tried to take of on its own. Cue Benny Hill theme as my good self, Mayhem, a chair and a small cardboard box attempted to round up and free to the outside world a small bird about the same size as a mouse.
The good news is that the little olive honeysucker was last seen speeding into the night, hell for leather, little birdie brain determined to find a place of safety and freedom.
The bad news is that the cat was last seen sauntering determinedly after it.
The whole point is, even though I’m dreading hearing a feline’s triumphant meows of a victorious capture, I helped rescue a bird. I held in my hands a little miracle and aided in its survival. That’s one hell of a natural antidepressant. Without the side-effects of numbing the entire heart to the point where nothing can be felt at all.
I feel marvellous. After weeks of hating myself for various reasons, I feel over the moon. It’s wonderful therapy to do something tangibly good. Remember that, it might come in handy.
Dry run day today
It’s Friday. The last school day before I’m off to strange lands.
So, of course, I’m making Hubby do everything I usually do whilst I’m here to supervise ‘cause I’m a paranoid B.
So far he’s woken up Chaos [Autistic, age 6] to come on a walk with him, Mayhem and the hound, and then left her lag behind 'cause I was there to hold her hand. Not encouraging, Hubby dear.
He also somehow managed to ninja some cereal into the house under the guise of bringing fizzy drinks home. I applaud that. Anyone who out-ninja’s me is worth a gold star. It means I have much more to learn about being an urban ninja.
FYI- No, I do not do any of that shuriken, wasabi or fu-jitsu. I’m just talking about being sneaky. Whenever I’m a step or three ahead of whomever, I show off the evidence and calmly announce, “I am ninja.” Fun.
It fits well with my passive ability of Blend Into Scenery - something that always happens when I’m trying to make an inquiry in person at the info desk… But I digress.
It’s very hard for me to sit back and watch. I’m a Mum. Meddling is what I do. I have to fix, twiddle, tweak or otherwise make sure others are going in the right direction. Or the right direction according to me, if I have to be honest.
From the sound of things, breakfast went off without a hitch and lunches are in progress. I’m fighting the instinct to get up and help Chaos get her clothes on.
That’s Daddy’s job, today.
Now the internet is fixed…
I’m not diverting the ponies. They have served their purpose in keeping a nice, long queue for me.
Besides, I’m likely to fill up my queue with Thailand stuff anyway.
Got Hubby to walk the dog with me, this morning. As always, his ideas of hound control and mine differ greatly. And as always, his are super effective. When I get back, I’m going to have to use them.
In the great field of canid-related expenses, Hubby is now talking about fencing off the backyard as a dog run. His proposed fence line means moving the metal shed, ‘cause right now, it’s square in the way. And it might screw up the drainage ditch. We’ll have to think about that.
Anyway, it’s all gas at the moment. We may yet decide to put the hound in a better home with lots of things he’s allowed to chase. We’ll see.
As for preparing to travel, I have accomplished most of the things I needed to do, and only a few piddly details remain. My biggest worry is that the rest of the family will leave me a big mess as a welcome home gift.
But that’s another day. If I deal with things as they come, I can relax. And that’s the whole point of having a holiday.
After eleven days of ponies…
You get this. An explaination as to why eleven days of ponies.
Long story short, the Internet died at home and I can no longer rearrange my posts, and posting more is a pain in the arse on my mobile devices.
But fret not, loyal followers! Soon, I shall be posting from/about Thailand! Pretty pictures, ahoy. Diatribes about why can’t we do X possibly accompanying same.
And in other news, the Hound has reached a point of annoyance where we really really really have to either shell out for training, or find him a new home.
Anyone want to help us with him? He’s a year and a half old, border collie cross, fully immunized, neutered, and needs a lot of space to run and chase things. Oh, and things to chase.
If you’re interested, please message me. Remember, we’re in Australia, specifically, the bit called Burpengary, so no international requests, thanks.
I’ll see what I can do about posting a photo RSN.
I’m leaving… on a jet plane…
I know when I’ll be back again.
Give yourself five geek points if you sang along, and ten if you yelled at the screen because I used the wrong words :)
Today’s the day. I’m headed overseas for the first time in my life.
And I’m a bundle of nerves that’s so bad that each of my nerves is a bundle of nerves and each of those nerves is nearly having a nervous breakdown.
Twenty points for making sense out of that sentence.
And despite apparently having about four hours sleep last night [finally got to sleep after midnight and spontaneously woke around 4:30 AM] I am wide a-freaking-wake and jazzed worse than someone on my fictional ‘wake-up juice’ [Long story. Fans of Sara Louise will know what I’m talking about].
MeMum has done her motherly best to make sure I know all about the disasters/strife that may or may not be happening where I plan to be. And all the things that can go wrong with airplanes. I’d tell her you’re statistically more likely to die in a car crash, but she’s already terrified of travelling in cars.
I’m still going.
I have a neck pillow in my purse in case of the unlikely event that I’ll actually drop off to sleep on the flight. My estimated odds of getting some use out of the damn thing are about billions to one against. And I bought my own headphones, too. Alongside a metric butt-ton of moneys.
I’m prepared.
But I’m still nervous and anxious and vibrating worse than a wet chihuahua in a sack.
This is beyond new for me.
I’m going away. Leaving my family behind. Letting hubby cope with two kids, a dog, and a house that needs a heroic-level clean-out again.
I’m not sure they’ll cope without me.
…and I’m kind-of afraid they will…