Zone Doubt, a.k.a. 'Surreal Я Us'...

Joules, trusted by... dozens... to make a drama out of your crisis...

Other sites:

:: JAT :: WaveWrights :: Publications ::

I live to write. It's not wise to get in my way.

... I'd write my autobiography, but no-one would believe it....


If you come across any words you don't recognise in this blog, take a look at the Taylorspeke Glossary in the left-hand infopane, you'll usually find a definition there.


The Poppy Tales

(Transformers fanfiction!)

Transformers mini-comics here.




Adventures in Orchids

Apparently I am now collecting them...

There's room for one - or maybe two, at a pinch - more on that bedroom windowsill (the only one in the house that's ideal for them). Let's see what I find. Well, that didn't last long...


EO - Everlasting orchid. Phalaenopsis. I've had this orchid since 2007 and it just keeps flowering...







AO - Alien face orchid. Phalaenopsis . Bought 2018 - lovely little flowers, all different patterns!





RO - Rescued orchid photo to come when it flowers. Phalaenopsis. Rescued from a bin up the road in 2019. Classic!






TO - Tiny orchid. Phalaenopsis. Bought at Tesco 21.8.20. It just begged to come home with me. How could I say no?





CO - Crimson orchid. Cambria. Another Tesco find. This one may be going to live in Ken's room once we've redecorated and put up the new shelving; it prefers a cooler, less sunny windowsill. If so, I'll need to find another cambrian to keep it company.






GO - Golden orchid. Phalaenopsis. Saw this one when I bought CO and left it behind - then immediately regretted it as soon as I got home. Never seen one like it before. Ken, bless him, went back over to Tesco in the rain and bought it for me...





DO - Dendrobium Orchid. Smells of wisteria, so beautiful...











RO2 - Rescued orchid no 2. Phalaenopsis. This is the one I rescued from the wall along the road middle of 2021.








PO. Pink orchid. Phalaenopsis. This is the one I bought at Cabury Garden Centre on special, late 2021. It's much happier here!










TWO. Teeny weeny orchid, Phalaenopsis. Rescued from Tesco end 2021 (I think).




















My IMDb ep summaries

(completed)
Arthur of the Britons
Sky
Star Maidens
The Starlost
Space Rangers
The Sentinel (part: seasons 2 and 3)
Swamp Thing (part: season 3)
Gravedale High
Transformers: Armada
Transformers: Energon
Transformers: Cybertron (part)
Misfits of Science (four eps)
Zoo Gang
Zodiac
Jupiter Moon
Transformers: Beast Wars (part: seasons 2 and 3)
Transformers: Beast Machines (part)
Vampire Princess Miyu
Starhyke
Nathan Barley
No Heroics
Undermind (3 eps)
Will Shakespeare (Tim Curry version)
Nightwalker
12 Kingdoms
Trigun (ep 8)
Rayearth
Hyperdrive (season 2 ep 3)
The Café

For later:

Missing Earthian ep
Missing Haibane Renme eps


Silver birch at Eastwood 

Farm

"Autumnal - nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges of the day... Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it... Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very outside edge of the senses... deep shining ochres, burnt umber and parchments of baked earth - reflecting on itself and through itself, filtering the light. At such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere..."

(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Act 2: Tom Stoppard)

Autumn...

I love this time of year. I love the colours, the sharp slant of sunlight on the trees, mosaics of acid-yellow and harts- blood, velvet and darkness and a haze of mist-grey over the hills. I love its immanence, its mellowness, the tang of frost just around the corner of the year...

Watching the little birds in the goat-willow in my garden, I realised something more.

I love this land with a fierce, possessive love, deep-rooted in two thousand years of history. From the frosted beaches and cloud-brushing peaks of the north to the wind-haunted meanderings of the rivers of the east, from the sensuous rolling patchworked hills of the south to the demanding dark moors of the west, this land seeps into bone and blood and synapse, mother of motley nobility, culture, individual freedoms. It can be known. It can be understood. It can be felt deep inside.

I love its effortless eccentricities, its vigour and vibrancy, its flawed perfections, its silent strength and tenacious resilience, its hard-won tolerances and intense and variable beauty, the profound energy in its sacred mythical landscape.

Home and more-than-home, the forces that shape and protect and bind, in me, as I am in the land. Love returning love in the stillness for those who'll only take the time to listen...

(Joules, Autumn 2004)


All photographs taken by Joules unless otherwise specified. All photographs © Joules A Taylor or other specified individual.


In Memoriam

17.03.09 - Argent

25.07.08 - Raptor

18.12.07 - Quyn

02.12.06 - Ryme


Currently enjoying:
Muse
Transformers - IDW, Prime, Animated, Rescue Bots.

Currently reading:
Various Transformers books and graphic novels.



Currently working on:
Haadri

Currently chuffed with:
My garden

Currently miffed at:
Nestlé, Nonpres Tinyhands Fart, Toadface Farage

Currently maintaining:
BCHS
BCW


Blog Pics
I've gathered some of my pages of photos together: the page of links is here. I'll be adding more as time goes by!




Evil Squid
A Little Glossary of Taylorspeke
(in no particular order)

plit popints - n. Typo for 'plot points' typed on a keyboard with more than half the characters worn off...

[PING] (alt [ping]) - n. A brainwave. The text equivalent of a lightbulb going on blindingly over someone's head. Usually mine. And usually at the most inconvenient of times. [sigh]

TPTB - The Powers That Be.

wulmet - n. A person of little or no talent who somehow inveigles himself into a position where he is in power over other, far more talented people and uses his position to downplay them in order to try to make himself feel superior.

biteable - referring to an anatomical part vb, tasty.

Flatterfed - vb. 27.02.08: my typo for flattered, but since it's so cutely apt I thought it would fit nicely here. Lutra defined it as "the lovely warm feeling of satisfaction resulting from enthusiastic reviews..." (which I've been getting for my MB fics).

Composted - vb, 'compos mentis', mentally capable of working. Contrast with uncomposted or non- composted, not 'compos mentis', not capable of working, hungover...

Cumbles - n, cucumbers.

Kewp - how Ken says 'thank you'. We rather like Lutra's 'nanx', too...

Musekick - noun, music, without which I cannot work.

'feinne - noun, caffeine, essential for correct mental functioning, especially first thing in the morning. I prefer mine in the form of SodaStream Diet Coke. And on that subject...

Skoosh - verb, noun. To skoosh - to add CO2 to a sodastream bottle filled with water to make it fizzy, prior to adding Diet Coke syrup (or just drinking as sparkling water). A skoosh - a bottle of water that has been skooshed. Skooshy - something that has been skooshed, water, or that whipped cream that comes in tins you have to shake then upend and press the nozzle...

Shoogle - verb. To shake gently, for example, of roast potatoes in a roasting tin to ensure they're covered with oil. I have vague memories of this being a real Scottish colloquialism...

Stegasaurus - n, spider of the genus tegenaria. Why? No idea. I just find it easier, that's all...
Edit 08.09.07: Lutra thinks that Brian is a good name for a mini-stegasaurus. From now on, any 'Brian's in the posts may be assumed to be a tegenaria. Except where otherwise specified.

Viterals - noun, vitamins + minerals. Also a pun on victuals.

Splish - verb. A combination of slosh and splash.

Parrots - noun, paracetemol (from the old joke "Why are there no aspirin tablets in the jungle? Because the parrots eat 'em all...")

Maggles - noun, magpies. As opposed to non-magical people.

Flamewings - noun. Swifts. So called because the first time we became aware of them was an early summer evening when they were flying high, the light from the setting sun seemingly turning their wings to flames. Lovely little birds. We always know summer's arrived when we hear their high-pitched squeeing.

Murfs - noun, moths.

Peasant cut - noun, roughly cut up into big chunks, e.g. vegetables chopped in a hurry for a hearty stew or soup. By extension, anything prepared in a hurry - haircut, material, even a first draft of a story...

Giraffe - noun, a carafe (of wine, coffee or water, for example).

Shrumps - noun, mushrooms.

Splings - noun, Kai's spelling homework: by extension, any spelling.

Tyops - noun, typos. var toyps, typso, psyto, psoyt, etc. Usual result of a dose of the fingerials (see next entry).

Fingerials - (pr. fin GEEE ree yalls) noun, fingers that will not type what you want them to.

Haddock - noun, time, of which I never have enough. (Origin of this term here.)

Sleep - noun? vb? a.k.a. sheeeeeeeeep.... I used to know what this word meant...


The Updates Blog

The place to stay notified of WaveWrights' Fiction updates: Zone, Darkside, DarkRealm, Matrix, Vault, Safehouse 13...




my computer gremlin Butch. click the pic to see the larger image

Butch, my computer gremlin. Click the pic for larger version, and read his adventures here...

Butch by the talented 

Sylverthorne

A gift for me! Butch by the very talented Sylverthorne. Click pic for larger image.

Joules' 

Haddock

This is MY haddock. It was caught exclusively for me by Talon. No, you can't have any. I need all the haddock I can get!!



A'lestrel by Valkyrie.

A'lestrel - a gift for me from Valkyrie...



Albino Alsatian Benten (c) MEBird 

2004

Another gorgeous Valkyrie gift for me - Benten the Albino Alsatian! Click thumbnail for larger image.

Radittsu, an oekaki for my birthday 04 

by 

Onna

Oekai by Bakayaro Onna - Radittsu at his sexiest...



The Zone Plant from
The Zone 

blog 

plant

OrganicHTML (which alas no longer seems to exist...)
[::..My Regular Reads..::]
:: Astronomical Pic of the Day [>]
:: What is Space... [>]
:: Dark Roasted Blend [>]
:: BLDG [>]
:: Watchismo Times [>]
[::..Fun Places..::]
::HubbleSite
Stunning...
::PALEOMAP Project
Absolutely fascinating.
:: Skymap
Check out the night sky where you are!
[::..Useful Sites..::]
:: GreenNet
First stop for environmental matters
:: The Forest of Avon
Our local community forest and places to visit
:: The Guardian
Online Guardian Newspaper.
:: Symbols
Exactly what it says
:: World Timeserver
For checking the current time around this world
:: Universal Currency Converter
Actually it's just a terran-global currency converter, not universal, but it's still useful...

So what is it with the haddock? Am I some kind of fish freak?

I'll leave that to others to decide.

The tale (or tail if you prefer) harks back to October 2000, when my GoodTwin and I, ably assisted by Sue, ran the first UK Professionals convention...
It's common knowledge that I never have enough time, and I was determined not to bewail the fact that weekend: hence I promised not to use the 'T' word...
Of course, that didn't really work (if nothing else I had to let the trainees know what times things were supposed to be happening!) so we decided a substitute word would be employed instead. There were several suggestions. Banana came very close to being chosen. However, I eventually decided that 'haddock' fitted the bill nicely. Ever since, haddock=time. Hence the title of my forthcoming autobiography,
My Half-Life in the Haddock Space Continuum....


Normally I wouldn't, but these were just irresistible...

How could I resist?

Just too adorable...

and to complete the rainbow...

These Too-Kawaii Kitties
were adopted from
Ghost's Anime Page (which appears to have disappeared, alas...)

[::..Anime/Manga..::]
Useful sites:

BBTS -
Fabulous anime figures

Anime Lyrics
A huge selection... evil popups

Anime still needed to complete series' I'm collecting... Many thanks to everyone who has helped me acquire the collection!
Ai no Kusabi

Owned:
   DVD
   Dj: June Special
   CD: Ambivalence

Cyber City Oedo 808

Owned:
   DVD
   All 3 eps on Video, dubbed
   Dj: Cyberage 1-3
   Illustrated Book 2 (Benten's) in Japanese

From Eroica with Love

Owned:
   Manga Vols 1, 9, 11

Mirage of Blaze

Owned:
   DVD Vol 1 (eps 1-4)

R.G. Veda

Owned:
   English Manga: Vol 1
   Japanese Manga: Vol 1-7 complete
   Tarot Pack
   R.G.Veda video

Twelve Kingdoms

Owned:
   Anime Vol 1-12: complete

Under the Glass Moon

Owned:
   Manga Vol 1, 2
Vol 3 needed

Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust

Owned:
   DVD

   Vampire Hunter D Book 1



New Vampire Miyu

Owned:
   (Studio Ironcat) Manga Vols 1 -5 (complete)


Yami no Matsuei

Owned:
   Viz Manga: English translation, Vols 1 - 11 (complete: I believe vol 12 is only available online)
   Japanese 3-DVD set
   Central Park Media: Descendants of Darkness Vol. 1, English/Japanese subbed.
   Sketchbook


[::..Joules SP fied..::]


... this is Terra? How the hell'd I end up here...?

(Thanks, Lutra, for the quote!)

[::..archive..::]
07/01/2002 - 07/31/2002
08/01/2002 - 08/31/2002
09/01/2002 - 09/30/2002
10/01/2002 - 10/31/2002
11/01/2002 - 11/30/2002
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01/01/2005 - 01/31/2005
02/01/2005 - 02/28/2005
03/01/2005 - 03/31/2005
04/01/2005 - 04/30/2005
05/01/2005 - 05/31/2005
06/01/2005 - 06/30/2005
07/01/2005 - 07/31/2005
08/01/2005 - 08/31/2005
09/01/2005 - 09/30/2005
10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005
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12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005
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03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006
04/01/2006 - 04/30/2006
05/01/2006 - 05/31/2006
06/01/2006 - 06/30/2006
07/01/2006 - 07/31/2006
08/01/2006 - 08/31/2006
09/01/2006 - 09/30/2006
10/01/2006 - 10/31/2006
11/01/2006 - 11/30/2006
12/01/2006 - 12/31/2006
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02/01/2007 - 02/28/2007
03/01/2007 - 03/31/2007
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01/12/2015 - 31/12/2015
01/01/2016 - 31/01/2016
01/022016 - 28/02/2016
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01/01/2017 - 31/01/2017
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01/01/2018 - 31/01/2018
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01/10/2018 - 31/10/2018
01/11/2018 - 30/11/2018
01/12/2018 - 31/12/2018
01/01/2019 - 31/01/2019
01/02/2019 - 28/02/2019
01/03/2019 - 31/03/2019
01/04/2019 - 30/04/2019
01/05/2019 - 31/05/2019
01/06/2019 - 30/06/2019
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01/10/2019 - 31/10/2019
01/11/2019 - 30/11/2019
01/12/2019 - 31/12/2019
01/01/2020 - 31/01/2020
01/02/2020 - 29/02/2020
01/03/2020 - 31/03/2020
01/04/2020 - 31/04/2020
01/05/2020 - 31/05/2020
01/06/2020 - 31/06/2020
01/07/2020 - 31/07/2020
01/08/2020 - 31/08/2020
01/09/2020 - 30/09/2020
01/10/2020 - 31/10/2020
01/11/2020 - 30/11/2020
01/12/2020 - 31/12/2020
01/01/2021 - 31/01/2021
01/02/2021 - 28/02/2021
01/03/2021 - 31/03/2021
01/04/2021 - 30/04/2021
01/05/2021 - 31/05/2021
01/06/2021 - 30/06/2021
01/07/2021 - 31/07/2021
01/08/2021 - 31/08/2021
01/09/2021 - 30/09/2021
01/10/2021 - 31/10/2021
01/11/2021 - 30/11/2021
01/12/2021 - 31/12/2021
01/01/2022 - 31/01/2022
01/02/2022 - 28/02/2022
01/03/2022 - 31/03/2022
01/04/2022 - 30/04/2022
01/05/2022 - 30/05/2022
01/06/2022 - 31/06/2022
01/07/2022 - 31/07/2022
01/08/2022 - 31/08/2022
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01/10/2022 - 31/10/2022
01/11/2021 - 31/11/2021
01/12/2022 - 31/12/2022
01/01/2023 - 31/01/2023
01/02/2023 - 28/02/2023
01/03/2023 - 31/03/2023
01/04/2023 - 30/04/2023
01/08/2023 - 31/08/2023
01/11/2023 - 31/11/2023

Friday, January 30, 2015

Day +150 

We ended up going for the river walk anyway!

The Great Western Railway coach works and coke house ruins just outside Temple Meads railway station.

Looking back upriver, blue railway and pedestrian bridge, and behind it the houses at Totterdown.


Strange 'bird' installation along the walk. There are four of these in total, along this part of the walk, anyway (this is still part of the Whitchurch Way, which runs from the city centre to Whitchurch), but one of them has lost its head.

That's the Paintworks on the other side of the river, and the Bath Road at Arno's Vale at the top.


They're very strange. They seem to be a mix of heron, starling and blackbird, and are made of whitewashed straw and mud, as best we can tell. I can't find any info online about them, but they may be related to the Art thing that happens here every few years. The last one was about three years ago, I think.

Discovered last night that the ep summaries for Beauty and the Beast season 2 and 3 are incomplete. Will probably tackle those when I've finished Sky (two eps to go), but by myself rather than as a family thing of an evening. I can watch it of a morning, after dealing with mail and before Kai wakes up. It's not like I need an excuse to rewatch it, I love the series, and it would ensure I sit down with feet up for 45 mins or so, which seems to help my back.

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0 Comments:



Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Catch up again...

We did go for another walk on Saturday - all the way to Whitchurch, a bit less than a mile further on from the end point of our last walk. Glorious sunny day again, but ow my legs on the way back...

Sunday was busy as usual. After the morning shop, Ken and I went out to Hurrans to take advantage of the last days of their post Yule sale. Picked up two berberis thunbergii at half price to plant with the three we already have, out the front as a security barrier (yes, OK, it'll be a couple of years before they grow to the promised 4' and are fully effective, but still...) I also found this adorable little pot at half price:

I told Kai he could have it if he could make a persuasive case for it, but he decided it was a little too small for his use so I get to keep it! I haven't decided what to put in it yet, but it looks so sweet in the kitchen.

Monday was another good day - cloudy and windy but no rain - so we went for another walk. Much more strenuous, that one, up the opposite side of the valley from the Whitchurch Way. It leads to Stockwood open space eventually, but after climbing up the hill I didn't have the energy to go any further. Maybe next time. The views from the top are great though!

We've now watched both Dragonwyck and The Raven (so funny! "You're defending yourself, you coward!") and enjoyed them. We've started watching Sky, which, while an interesting idea, is proving to be nowhere near as good as I remember. We expected poor sfx and less than stellar acting, but the acting is worse than anticipated (the decent actors in it seem embarrassed to be there), and the story is choppy and disjointed. Luckily it's only seven eps long (heh, I typed 'wrong' there initially!), but how I'm going to write the IMDb summaries I'm not quite sure.

We were planning another walk today but given it's hailing buckets out there and generally grey and miserable that may be a no-no. Since I haven't had time to do much to revise Perfume Power yet, that may be a good thing...

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4 Comments:

Blogger Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor said...

Test...

2:54 pm  
Blogger Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor said...

Hm... OK - this from writerchick:

Frustratingly, I can't comment on your blog: keep getting "internal error" when I click Submit.

Therefore I submit to you directly that the fox pot is gorgeous, and that Starscream might have stepped out of the pages of Gentleman's Quarterly.

2:56 pm  
Blogger Sue said...

Testing too :)
I meant to say earlier what good news that is about Perfume Power. I have a great fondness for that book as it was the first in my 'Joules' collection.

10:06 pm  
Blogger GoodTwin said...

Testing three... :)
I haven't had a problem although just lately my computer has been refusing to load all sorts of pages. Maybe it's sulking because I bought a laptop?

11:28 pm  



Saturday, January 24, 2015

Quickie before I go fall over...

I've been been enjoying role-playing on tumblr for the past... ye gods, nearly two years! I've made some fun friends, and as a treat to myself I commissioned a picture from Clicha. Clicha is a Transformers fan, and a fine artist. Clicha instituted a phenomenon called Robots-in-suits-January, which I really like...


[g] Ohhh yes...

Clicha is currently looking for commissions to fund getting to AA 2015. Just so's you know!

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Friday, January 23, 2015

Cold. It's below freezing out there today. Gloriously sunny though. It's supposed to be the same tomorrow: if it's not too slippery underfoot we'll try for another walk.

Kai did fancy a walk on Monday - along the Whitchurch Way to Whitchurch. It's an old railway track that's been made into a cycle path (the same one that goes past right outside the house) and from here is 2.2 miles each way...


(Ow my legs...) Kai can now do this walk and more without any difficulty - which is wonderful, given that pre-transplant he couldn't climb the stairs without getting breathless and weak.

And regardless of how I feel tomorrow, I'm going to have to walk anyway. Finally managed to get to see the dr about my hip last night, and she's referred me to the muscular-skeleto (I think that's the term) team at the BRI. Apparently the unfused bone might be what's causing the pain and the team will write to me to make an initial appt, but I'm to carry on losing weight (and keep exercising) in the meantime. Oh joy...

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Monday, January 19, 2015





I follow a tumblr blog called The Beauty of Wildlife, which often has amazing photos of foxes. This one really appealed to me (pic is clickable to the original). That expression is exactly what my face frequently looks like when I consider the human species...




I forgot to say - I found out why Kai will have to take penicillin for the rest of his life. Apparently the TBI (Total Body Irradiation) destroys the spleen's ability to handle meningococcal and pneumococcal infections, both of which can be life-threatening. So - penicillin. A small price to pay, we think...

It's a beautiful day today, freezing (almost literally, the outside temperature is around 2°) but cloudless and brilliantly sunny. Hoping Kai feels like a walk when he gets up, although he did walk the Whitchurch Way with Ken yesterday, so might not fancy it.

In the meantime, it looks like Perfume Power has a chance of being republished, possibly as an e-book, so I'm revising it. The science has come on a little way since I first wrote it (and at the very least I have the chance to get rid of the embarrassing number of exclamation marks!) More as it happens.

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2 Comments:

Blogger GoodTwin said...

One can imagine the thought-bubble: "Whut?"

And fingers crossed for Perfume Power - that would be excellent.

11:08 pm  
Blogger Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor said...

Thank you!
I was, and still am, very pleased with that little book. I'd be delighted to have it accessible to a wider audience.

12:19 am  



Saturday, January 17, 2015

Every now and then I enter - 'starscream figure' - into ebay to see if there's anything new/that I don't have.

And thus I found these...

Yes, they are in fact a set of Transformers: Prime figures - Kinder Egg ones.

I had no idea such a thing existed. Quite adorable, surprisingly sophisticated, and absolutely teeny!


*whispering* I also gave in and have one of these coming for my birthday, found on ebay for a lot less than that...

And Kai's guitar rack arrived.He's upstairs putting it together. His last Skype was - "oh. I finished building it and then found the instructions." Which is actually typical for this family...

His follow up Skype - 'it's probably just as well, the instructions are talking about 'soft stuffed legs' and 'activities ring connecting screws'".

Surreal.

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2 Comments:

Blogger GoodTwin said...

'Soft stuffed legs'? Don't you just love Chinglish? :)

7:50 am  
Blogger Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor said...

ROFL!
Yes indeed...
*pout* The new captcha requires me to tick 'I'm not a robot'! What does captcha have against Transformers!?

12:02 pm  



Friday, January 16, 2015

Gordon Bennett where did the week go...?

It's been busy, I remember that. Kai and I have been for a couple of walks, I've only got one small bit of sewing left to do and I've finished everything I planned, I'm nearly half way through the Sentinel season 4 summaries, and the freezer is fully stocked again. Monday's BHOC appt went well: Kai is improving steadily, although he's still very fatigued and has enormous difficulty waking up. (Once he is awake, however, he's alert almost right away, which is a definite improvement!)

Today's project is to reorganise his room again. We think we've now worked out the optimum arrangement, and when he's awake are going to try it. It'll give him a lot more room to move in, but it involves moving the bed half into one of the alcoves (where his guitars are at the moment: we ordered a 7-guitar rack last night, which will fit in the chimney-breast space) and it's going to be a bit of a tight fit. However, we've measure it up and I think it can be done. Then he can order a new desk!

Ascension starts tonight. Looks interesting - we'll give it a try.

Heh, if I remember anything more I'll edit the post later...

Later edit:

Joules: Kai is VERY happy with his room. Though I had to chisel out a chunk of... what's it called, that wood around the bottom of walls? and take off the side of the chimney-breast bookcase to make the bed fit.
Lutra: Skirting board?
That's the one! Can't word today... I am supermum again. I don't let anything get in my way!
[beg] But of course!
Only - I used Ken's antique chisel, though I didn't know that 'til he got home...
Oops.

[g] oops
I told him he has to hide stuff he doesn't want me to use.
LOL! or label it? : )
To my credit, I did try to ring him before I started. He didn't hear his mobile ring...
Bonus points there then.

Yerrss... [g]

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Friday, January 09, 2015

Catch up again...

Spoiler alert: I've just watched Only Lovers Left Alive (recommended by Lutra and got as a Yule present from GoodTwin) and it's amazing. I'll talk about it further down under a spoiler warning.

Soooo... what have we been up to? Well, Kai's had another little episode of tinnitus and blurry vision, although that has improved over the last couple of days. Yesterday the weather was glorious, so we went for a walk down to Arno's Vale. Yes, it's a cemetery, but it's also a fabulous nature reserve, with paths everywhere of varying steepness and difficulty. We went up through the woods to the open plateau at the top - the views are fantastic, out to the Cotswolds, but you can't see them when the trees are in leaf so this is the right time of year to go. It took us an hour, and our legs were aching when we got back, but it was good and healthy and all helps to build up Kai's strength and stamina again.

I replaced a whole load of music cassettes with CDs I found on amazon and ebay, and we've been working our way through them - the first five Queen albums over dinner (After Day at the Races they started believing their own hype and got tedious, so I gave up collecting them). Night at the Opera, of course, has the wonderful track '39, possibly the first ever s-f song...


Kai brought the laptop down on Tuesday evening and worked on some art while we played a series of concept albums - Scenes from a Memory (not my favourite Dream Theater album, I must confess, but Kai says it takes a least three listens to really appreciate it), some of Patti Smith's Horses, Welcome to my Nightmare (ye gods, 1975. That's the year I met Wendy and Ken, and it still sounds as good as it did on first hearing. Timeless stuff...) and the first couple of tracks from Diamond Dogs. Of course, the Alice Cooper album has a voice over to Black Widow by Vincent Price, which reminded me we have no Price films...

Half an hour later and we have an extremely cheap amazon order of Dragonwyck (serious classical stuff), The Raven (gloriously funny and distinctly campy), The Tingler (which absolutely terrified me the first time I saw it), and a double set of The Abominable Dr Phibes and Dr Phibes Rises Again (very silly). We'll still need to get the classics Masque of the Red Death, and Fall of the House of Usher, but four will do to start with...

We've nearly finished watching Sentinel season 3 (my IMDb summaries are still being posted): next up is Sky (will write the summaries for that too, since they're currently empty). We still have Twin Peaks and the Battlestar Galactica phenomenon to tackle - plus Charlie Jade from several years ago (watched the first couple of eps and they sent me to sleep, but I should try again as the premise is interesting), and Falling Skies (first ep was so-so, we haven't gone back to it yet). So no lack of entertainment!

Spoiler warning

Only Lovers Left Alive... It's a vampire film, but completely different to any other I've seen. It has a feeling of agelessness, and the characters are perfectly believable and perfectly cast. Many centuries - if not millennia - old, they've transcended concerns for physical things (except, possibly, clothes, though even there what they wear is often decades or centuries old): they live in what can only be described as squalor. Life is difficult: most humans' blood is tainted these days, causing sickness, and procuring safe nourishment can be difficult. And the music is fantastic (the soundtrack is available and has gone straight on my wishlist!) It's a slow-paced, artistic gem of a film. Not for everyone, but I'm very glad I have it!

Edit: Lutra tells me Eve is about 3000 years old and was a druid.

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Saturday, January 03, 2015

Quick catchup - it's been busy, but things seem to be slowing down a little...

So... Kai is looking and feeling better all the time - slowly, it's not a sudden thing, but it's noticeable. He's more alert, and has started programming again. His hair has grown back lighter, but still brown, and I think it may be wavy, but we can't tell until it's a bit longer. It's certainly thick, and very soft.

Not having to schedule in the twice daily itraconasole has eased the pressure a little: he now has main meds around 9 am and 9 pm, with aciclovir, omeprazole and cyclizine around 1 pm. And he's preparing most of them himself (I'm still doing the morning ones).

Things can still go wrong, but it's very promisisng...

Films...

Frozen. Pretty, but formulaic and predictable. I don't see what all the fuss was about. (And I really dislike modern colloquialisms in what is supposed to be an old setting.)

Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games. 20 years on version of the dance phenomenon, with new costumes, new music, new characters - including tap dancing robots!! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tonight it was Non-stop, which is rather good. Mind you, anything with Liam Neeson is usually good. (Well, except GI Joe, but we won't talk about that...)

In other news... I now have a litre bottle of Turkish Delight vodka creating itself quietly in the pantry, and a small bottle of lemon vodka (lemon oil and lemon TD) to see what it's like. Also picked up some orange oil to try making an orange version in the near future.

Less good news is I put on half a stone over the last month - though the good news is it was only half a stone, which should be relatively easy to lose. Fingers crossed!

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Thursday, January 01, 2015

Happy New Year! 

Buffet...


Tempted to take a nap - weather is grey and dull, and I ate too much!

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