Article on loneliness at The Happiness Project. “When people feel lonely they are actually far less accepting of potential new friends than when they are socially contented.”
Primary Colour Assessment, which has a short quiz that rates you on curiosity, leadership and execution and then compares your results to the kind of work you're doing. I score overwhelmingly high on execution at the expense of the other two, which doesn't surprise me given how much I enjoy my rather repetitive jobs! (I got 2% for curiosity, which is probably kind of embarrassing.)
Both the above links came from Trent at The Simple Dollar, which is a good blog for basic financial and simple living advice. I don't have much in common with him (he's a small-town Christian married father of young children), but I like his writing style and have picked up many useful ideas from him, from recipes to different ways to think about all sorts of issues. He turned his life around in a short period of time and then started writing about how he did it and what he learned. There is a LOT of content in his archives. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
emma_in_oz, you might enjoy his book reviews of Born to Buy, about children and consumerism.
Every so often I spend an evening just looking at pictures of Appaloosas on the internet, and last time I did that I found this video. What amazing athleticism (from the horse — the rider is mostly just sitting there, which can't be easy either). I love to watch animals that know their job and do it with a minimum of fuss.
( If you are any kind of H/W fan, you should watch this episode. )
Purple in Commodore-speak = Morpheus
In Ford-speak = Viper
(Looking at cars with more airbags. Of course white is safer still but there's just no fun in it.)
Thanks for the comments to my post about Mom's accident. She is VERY bruised today and hurts all over, but hopefully will have no lasting damage.
She's fine, but my mother was in a serious accident this morning on the way to my house, when a car tried to cross the highway in front of her and she hit it at 100km/hr. She is pretty sure she's only alive because her (now written off) 2001 Toyota Camry had a front airbag, and the other driver is perhaps only alive because his car had side airbags. It's amazing to me that you can be largely uninjured hitting anything at that speed.
She says she doesn't even remember the accident except for the noise — one moment she saw the other car stopped at the intersection, and next thing she knew the airbag was gently smoking and deflating and she was cataloguing where it hurt. 8 hours later she was discharged from the hospital. She said she spent most of her waiting time in the hospital telling the staff that if they didn't have a car with airbags, they should try to get one. So, I'm passing that on. My car has front airbags only and that, plus other safety-related considerations I don't know about yet, is something I'll be thinking about when I change it over. Possibly safety is more important than colour!
I've been fine and also fairly fannish, just not getting as far as posting to LJ. In a burst of enthusiasm, I took on another extra accounting job to do from home, one that didn't involve a strict deadline and was a bit out of my area of expertise. The result was that I eyed it off for a long time before starting, occasionally poked at it, finally got stuck into it while rewatching Sharpe episodes because I couldn't stand it on its own, took it with me to my mother's house on three separate occasions with the intention of finishing it there, thought day after day, "I must finish those tax returns today" which is a very tedious thought, and generally let it interfere with my life for weeks out of all proportion to what I'll earn for it. I haven't quite mastered working from home, at least not without a deadline! That's the end of my extra work until next year and I now have my quietest two months ahead of me.
I've rewatched all of Rome and been amazed at how wonderful the second season is. I watched it every week while it was airing, but somehow its full brilliance didn't quite hit me at the time and some of the best scenes — Pullo trying to comfort Vorenus after ( spoiler ), Pullo's "I'm your friend. I love you. I would never betray you" during their fight, and their scenes together in the final episode — didn't permanently etch themselves in my mind the way they should have been etched. Now, they're etched.
I finally found a copy of Warriors, a 1999 BBC mini-series about British peacekeepers in Bosnia starring Damian Lewis and Ioan Gruffudd (whose name I will never be able to spell without looking it up). If you want to watch a no-happy-ending story about what it does to people to have to stand by and watch ethnic cleansing, by all means borrow it from me.
I'm also enjoying White Collar, after seeing the first two episodes with cricketk and sarren last weekend. I'm not naturally inclined towards OT3 situations, but we'll see how it goes. The male leads have plenty of chemistry and I think Peter finds Neal far more fascinating than he does his wife!
Other than that, I've been whippersnippering, pullling what Paterson's Curse remains on my property (not much) and removing the seed pods from the cape tulip that lived to form them despite my spraying efforts. Plant by plant, combing over every inch of my 29 acres, day after day. This is going to be a good year in the ongoing me vs weeds battle and I'm already looking forward to seeing the payoff next year. I'm trying to manage my paddocks so 1) they feed the animals for as long as possible into the summer without me having to buy horse feed, 2) the horses don't get dangerously heavy on the spring grass, 3) the grass doesn't get so long anywhere that it's a real fire risk, and 4) no areas get so bare I get dust and erosion. I won't manage all of that, but that's the goal. Right now the horses are just this side of too fat and shiny in my smallest paddock, only one little area near the water trough is bare thanks to some temporary fencing keeping them out of other areas, everything is drying off but there looks to be plenty of feed for the summer, and I haven't spent a cent on horse feed since July and probably won't until February. No one believes me when I say this, but if you have some land and manage it right, it's cheaper to keep two horses than to feed a cat.
I think I'm irredeemably behind on New Things. Maybe I'll change my plan and aim to do 26 new things in the first six months of next year, like I did this year, rather than trying to fit my outstanding 22 things into the remaining 8 weeks of this year. Now that I finally have some free time, I mostly want to just relax and do the things I normally do.
Did not go to work. Instead, took my horse for a lesson with a visiting Victorian instructor, who doesn't use bits, horseshoes or rugs. My au-naturel, cheerful pony met with his approval. Today was a private lesson, tomorrow's an all-day clinic with a group.
( Photos )
Then Mom and I burned fallen branches on the far side of the creek all afternoon. We've been trying for two months to find a day we were both free and the weather was right. I'm just about to head down there again and make sure the embers are out so I can go to bed. On one memorable occasion psycho_tabby might recall, things flared up and ignited a large bonfire on the neighbour's property after I was 100% sure it was safe to call it a night.
( Outdoor housekeeping )
September's one my busiest work months, because annual reports for June financial year-end companies (the norm in Australia) have to be lodged by September 30. Normal Accounting Job has a December year-end, so with it I'm busiest in February/March, but all my Extra Accounting Jobs are for small June year-end companies. This year I've had five: a scaled-down version of the one I got all worked up over last year, three for someone else that the guy from EAJ1 recommended me for, and one for the person I used to work for before my current NAJ. All manageable, interesting and done completely from home, and only the first one was particularly frustrating!
In between I've been consuming fannish stuff at an unusual rate for me these days, probably semi-deliberately using it to balance all that extra accounting. After I'd finished Wiseguy Season 3 and while waiting for Season 4 to arrive, I suddenly got interested in LA Confidential again. Read all astolat's stories multiple times and even found one I hadn't read before: some linked drabbles that pretty much make up a full story. I keep thinking about a scenario where Exley and White have been sharing Exley's house for a while, say following Payback or Partnership, and Exley starts thinking ahead and asks White what his plans for the future are, whether he wants a wife and children and whether he's only with Exley because he's afraid of becoming violent with a woman again. Exley's thinking that it would be much better for his career if he himself got married, and that he doesn't want to sacrifice his career if Bud is going to leave anyway. But what he really wants most is for their relationship to continue, and that's what Bud wants too, so all's well and good. (If I were most of you, that could become a story, but from me it only makes it to synopsis stage.)
Plus, there's been episodes of Lewis with sarren, and Lewis stories she recommended, and I've reread some of my favourites from The Sentinel, which I think is my top comfort fandom. It seems a little less harsh than most of my others — maybe I think Jim and Blair are less damaged and more likely to be able to make a relationship work. House has just started again, too. Then on Thursday I was sitting at the computer waiting for one of the EAJ people to get back to me about something, wanting to read something very good and new to me, so I started in on astolat and cesperanza's SGA stories. To my surprise I found I had actually already read a lot of cesperanza's, but not OK Computer. I'm pretty much in awe of the mind that can think up such a complicated, but still relationship-focused, plot. In some ways I found that story pretty creepy, but it was certainly entertaining and left me full of admiration. Then I headed off to Bullsbrook to work on a supposedly foundered horse (serious) that turned out only to have an abscess (not serious) in front of a large admiring audience (rare), and came home to do complicated accounting work until 11:30pm (fun and much appreciated by the guy, who was still up and struggling to get everything finished by the next morning) and all in all it was one of the better work days I've ever had.
In honour of hosting the month's slash gathering and to do something fun with some of the money from this extra work, I bought a media player so I can watch downloaded things on my TV. (Yes, I'm a late adopter of everything.) I underestimated how nice it would be to see my own personal favourite songvids on a bigger screen. Definitely a good acquisition.
The Gathering was on an unfortunately rainy day, but at the time of year when my place looks its best and I love having people here to see it, and we made use of my new gizmo to watch the first episode of second season Merlin. Thanks to everybody who made the trek out here!
My workload drops a lot from now until the end of the year and I'm going to catch up on doing New Things. I've only added one more in the last few weeks, which was go to a lecture on medieval history run by the UWA "Friends of the Library". Strangely, I'd never been to a history lecture before, despite being genuinely interested. It was about marriage and the structure of the family in the 1300s, and how the nuclear family often wasn't the norm. What's really stuck with me from the evening, though, was being absolutely transfixed by the enormous lemon-scented gum between the Reid Library and the Arts Building. I stopped, I stared, I walked around it (approx 7.5m circumference, much much bigger than the ones in Kings Park!), I thought grateful thoughts in the direction of the person who planted it and resolved to go back in daylight to take pictures. I think the fact that I now notice trees properly might be the biggest difference to the way I am now compared to the me who studied there.
And I'm running short distances again after my ITB injury and doing things with my horse in preparation for a horsemanship clinic next weekend. Today I'm playing hooky from the Royal Show, where I should be supporting the alpaca association, to finish my weed spraying in the last remaining window of opportunity. I'm three litres of spray down for the day, maybe 15 to go. Life is good and I send positive thoughts to those of you for whom it isn't right now!
All my EAJs are waiting on further information from the clients, and I've seen all of Wiseguy Season 3, so I have a temporary lull. Today I'm going to finish hand-weeding a 4 acre paddock, exciting!
I liked this article fabu linked to recently about getting the most out of life by prioritising and organising, and have been thinking about the things I do in terms of point 4: determine what matters most to you.
There are things that give me way more enjoyment than the time or effort or money I put into them:
1. Slash fandom. When I'm in the grip of a new-fandom high, it's almost impossible to overstate the return I get from a great scene in an episode, or an excellent, entirely free online story, or a great vid, or even one excellent line from a story. On top of that, I've usually got people to share it with. How lucky am I!
2. My property. This takes large amounts of time and money, especially at this time of the year, but it pays me back in spades. I love having space and trees and rocks around me and I love seeing the improvements as a result of my work. Each year the trees are bigger, the weeds are fewer and I try to do a better job of managing grazing and mulching and erosion. I wouldn't like to live without the sense of peace I get from the nature around me here, and when that isn't enough, I get on the horse and ride in a nearby reserve. Owning this land is absolutely central to me. I bought it as a place to keep the horses, but it's the land itself that means the most to me now.
3. The horses, which are mostly self-sufficient. I'd still have them if they cost me more or required more time to look after, but they'd probably fall down into the next category.
4. Informal, low-cost socialising like the monthly slash gatherings or evenings at someone's house.
Things that provide a good return:
1. LJ, especially for people's personal news. I really like being able to keep up with what people are doing/thinking, even if I may not see them often. This would be in the category above, except sometimes I let it eat up too much time (though I'm much better about it than I used to be).
2. Running, when it's over 10km distances or less, no more than three times a week. Except to complete an occasional longer event, I don't think I get enough out of it to do more than that on a regular basis.
3. My accounting work, at least when it's only two days or so a week. For most of this year Normal Accounting Job has been in the negative return category due to interpersonal conflicts, but it's settled back into its normal place now. I get a kick out of numbers and spreadsheets and I'm lucky people will pay me well to do something I generally enjoy.
4. My hoofcare work, in the winter. In the summer, it probably edges down into the next category and is saved only by the compulsory fitness it requires of me and the bragging rights it gives me to be able to do it at all.
5. Weights and core strength fitness exercises: especially since they can be done in front of the TV and hence combined with fandom!
6. Baking sourdough bread (now part of my weekly routine and the big winner so far from the year's New Things) and preparing vegetable-intensive food from scratch. I wouldn't say I like to cook, but I think the health benefits are worth it.
Things that don't pay their way:
1. The alpacas. I like having something appealing to populate my paddocks, but the pleasure I get from that doesn't compensate for the cost and effort, even in a year with fewer vet bills and deaths. I either need to get more involved and learn to get more enjoyment out of the experience, or put the brakes on so I don't end up with even more of them.
2. Serving on the alpaca association committee. Yesterday's meeting was five hours of weekend daylight time, with an hour's travel each way. A slash gathering is worth that, an alpaca meeting is not! Like it or not, I am now more involved, so by the end of my term on the committee I should have a better idea of whether I want to continue breeding alpacas, or just keep a few as pets and lawnmowers.
3. Maintaining contact with a few friends (nobody who will see this) and family members I have little in common with.
It's an interesting exercise. I could stop doing the things in the last section, but I probably already do enough of most of the things in the first two. There's a point of diminishing marginal returns, even with things you love. The time I could free up could go into other things altogether, that I currently don't do much of at all: travel? New personal relationships? Read more books? Weekends away?
I'm trying to juggle five end-of-financial-year Extra Accounting Jobs and my shiny, wonderful new fandom. On Monday I was suppposed to be working at home all day to finish an annual report, and told myself that I would NOT GO to the post office to check whether my S3 DVDs had arrived. I lasted until 2:30pm, when I called to check if any packages had arrived for me. They described something that could be DVDs, from a distribution company that could be associated with the place I ordered from! So of course it was into the car for the drive to town. Next thing it was almost dark and all I'd done with the rest of the afternoon was watch and rewatch certain scenes from the final arc. Then I was up until 1am finishing the report!
Except for the mostly Vinnie-less garment industry arc (and even it is interesting in showing the toll the job has taken on another agent), I like seasons 2 & 3 even better than season 1. By the middle of season 2, Vinnie and Frank are very, very close. The show makes it crystal clear that it's almost impossible to have successful relationships outside the job in their line of work: Frank's marriage fails, Vinnie's relationship with Amber fails, and in "Romp", a between-cases Vinnie is sitting at home on a Friday night with nothing to do because he doesn't really have any friends any more other than Frank and Dan.
Some more random favourite things, in lieu of time to do this properly episode by episode:
1. Any time Vinnie and Frank have to interact publicly when Vinnie is in his undercover persona. In the Dead Dog arc: "I can make life unbearable for an ex-felon, no matter how much he's supposed to have reformed." "What is that, a threat?" "Yeah!" Frank later: "You know, it is not easy pretending that I do not know you."
2. Vinnie to Winston, leaning menacingly over his desk: "I'm not a sycophant, Winston. I am a Sicilian. And we view alliances with a fatalistic eye. Now you will honour my contract with Dead Dog or you will become one." Guh.
3. The fact that Vinnie lives in an old house, drives an old car and wears the same clothes over and over. What does he do with his money? He is pretty consistently characterised as someone who doesn't care about money at all.
4. Vinnie's idealism in the Washington arc, and Frank admitting at the end that he shares it: "You're right. You're not the only one who's spent nights reading those words at the Jefferson" (memorial).
5. Frank talking to Jenny about his work: "You, now that you're doing what you're doing, you're helping people celebrate life. I do what I do, I watch people destroy life. What I do is not a healthy thing. But it’s a necessary thing." I like that she thinks of him as heroic, even though she doesn't want to live with him.
6. The way their jobs are absolutely central to both Vinnie and Frank. They know what their work is doing to the rest of their lives, and to themselves, and yet they put it first. Vinnie refuses when Frank and Dan suggest he get out of undercover work. Frank to Amber: If you love him you better accept it, because he won't give it up for you.
Yesterday's slash gathering was a viewing of about 75% of the Vividcon 2009 playlist at black_samvara's. These ones jumped out at me:
Red Cliff (John Woo movie) by obsessive24 Haven't seen the movie, but it looks like I should, since historical epics with swords and horses and armies and flags really do it for me. Beautiful source and clips masterfully put together to the State of Divinity theme song (whatever that is). There are lots of interesting comments by the vidder in her post about the significance of the material for Chinese people.
Make Your Own Kind of Music, multifandom, by barkley. I only recognise maybe a third of the shows, but I love the song and the sentiment!
Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along!
American Tune, The West Wing, by greensilver. justacat did a great post-Vividcon review in which she talked about how much a particular Six Feet Under vid made her want to see the series. This vid did that for me for The West Wing.
They Don't Know, Doctor Who, by laurashapiro. Fun effects (rendering?). This vid is brimming with love and smiles and happiness, and has a bonus cupcake.
We'd been watching for hours before we saw anything I'd class as a "slash vid" (one for Supernatural). ascetic_hedony thought most of the Merlin vids would qualify, but I felt they had too many other characters to focus sufficiently on a pairing. I know the world has moved on, but I have to admit I miss me some older-style slash vids.
Many thanks to black_samvara for doing all that downloading and organising! You host some terrific social events.
This question came up in a conversation with a work colleague today. I was surprised at what I see as her naivety on the subject, but maybe I'm wrong.
Poll #1450146 Men and Pornography
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20
There are men who don't like any kind of pornography.
And if you said yes: More than say 0.05% of men don't like any kind of pornography.
I'm up to the end of S2 (minus the arc that's missing due to legal problems with using the music, grr) and waiting for S3 to arrive. That's just as well since there are other things I need to be doing and this sad delay in seeing more episodes may enable me to get them done. It's better that a major work deadline and a new-fandom high don't meet in a dark alleyway, since my money would be on the new-fandom high.
I'm going to amuse myself doing notes on the good bits in the episodes like I did for Boston Legal, so I can easily find them again. In the meantime, a few random things I really like:
1. Vinnie has so many different versions of his name, which people use at different times for different effects. He's Vincent (his legal name according to his OCB card), Vincenzo, Vince, Vinnie, even Vin if you count what his brother's high school friend calls him. His mother only calls him Vincenzo. Sonny mostly called him Vinnie, including right from the beginning even though Vinnie introduced himself as Vince, but sometimes used Vince when he wanted to be a little more distant. Pete always called him Vinnie. Frank starts out calling him Vince and gradually introduces more "Vinnie"s as they became closer. Sometimes Frank calls him one name and then the other in consecutive sentences for slightly different shades of meaning.
2. Both Vinnie and Frank say "All I ever wanted was to be a cop": Vinnie to Roger in Date with an Angel, Frank to Vinnie in Stairway to Heaven.
3. At first glance Vinnie is not my type. You can't go too far wrong with tall, dark and handsome, but he's a bit too dark and swarthy and I prefer a much lighter build. However, on better acquaintance, the man is gorgeous in nearly every scene (at least when he doesn't have a beard). It's his expression as much as anything — he so often looks thoughful and concerned and conflicted.
4. Roger, Daryl, Frank and Paul all fairly explicitly tell Vinnie how good he is at his job (Daryl only does it because he wants something, but I still like it). Roger: I fell for it like a kid in short pants. Daryl: You're the best there is, Vince. You were born to it. Frank, talking about Raglan to Vinnie: The only man I know who comes anywhere close to your league. Paul: You and Frank are the best team at OCB.
5. Amber. How neat that Vinnie falls for (as his mother complains about) an older widowed woman who dyes her hair! I love her genuine laughter and disbelief when he tells her he's an OCB agent.
6. Vinnie standing up to Mel Profitt and also Roger to tell them he would go only so far with carrying out their orders and no further. With Mel's gun pointed at him in Fascination for the Flame: "I don't know what you're going to do, Mel, I only know what I'm not going to do." The scene in Player to Be Named Now where Vinnie pulls a gun on Mel — "Let's get one thing straight" — after Mel has shot at him with an empty gun supposedly containing a bullet is one of the hottest things I've seen for a long time.
7. Frank's great enthusiasm when it looks like Vinnie's connection to Don Aiuppo may result in a conviction for the OCB in Le Lacrime D'Amore. Vinnie is worried about what it might do to his family, but Frank reminds him "Vince, this is what we do. This is what it's all about, the aggravation, the wreckage that becomes our home life, this is it. This is the pay dirt."
Closer to Fine by friendshipper
(download .wmv version. Also here on LJ)
Lovely song with amazingly appropriate lyrics and gorgeous clips. Lots of Vinnie and Frank, but also many other characters. This is exactly what I've been wanting, a serious but not too painful vid using good-quality source.
"The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine."
I just watched the most fantastic Wiseguy episode (sarren, it's the one before the Sonny dream / psychiatric hospital episode we watched last week)
( Stairway to Heaven )
Maybe it's just the new fandom high talking, but I'm not sure I've ever fallen for any character quite as thoroughly as I have for Vinnie in Wiseguy. He is so, so smart and good at what he does, and the fact that he works undercover and only a handful of people know who he really is puts him on a whole different level in terms of the difficulty of his work and personal life compared to every other character I've ever admired. He's an amazing mix of streetwise intelligence, physical strength and bravery, Italian demonstrativeness, morality and idealism and as bardiegrub said to me, seems to have chemistry with everyone.
I'm halfway through season 2 and eating up Vinnie's deepening relationship with Frank. They have a beautiful scene in "Last of the True Believers" where Vinnie is worried about a young friend who's supposed to be getting information for him.
Vinnie: Richie should've called by now.
Frank: Yeah? But he didn't. And there's nothing you can do about it. You don't know whether he's been treated to a 14-course meal or fed to the sharks, so your mind, it marks the time by playing all the possibilities, always thinking the worst. You always feel like you should've done something a little extra for the kid. Because you care about him. You really do. Oh, sometimes you feel like having him fit for a straightjacket. Sometimes you feel like wringing his neck. But he's your responsibility. He's family by default. [Long pause, smiling slightly at Vinnie] Sometimes the silences can be loud.
Frank is very nearly as compelling as Vinnie and easier to relate to. I've pre-ordered season 4, which doesn't even have Vinnie in it, just to see more of him (and specifically to hear him talk about Vinnie). There is a great episode guide at this Jonathan Banks website with some of his best lines.
I've been inspired to look up the Australian Federal Police and discovered they don't seem to have an age limit for entry the way the FBI does. In an AU of my life I'd like to be in the police or the military (both of which always come up along with accounting as ideal careers for people with my personality type!). I've looked into joining both in the past, but at this point I probably wouldn't handle handing over control of my life to someone else. Actually, I probably wouldn't have handled it at any point.
What I'm supposed to be doing this weekend is an annual report for a mining company. Since I can't concentrate while I have unwatched episodes, I'm trying to work in the living room on my laptop in front of the TV. You can imagine how well that's going. I think I've figured out about three numbers so far.
Hooray, a new fandom has hit! I have sarren to thank for supervising my initial viewing and then leaving the DVDs in close proximity until it took. Yet again I'm bewildered that it's taken me this long to get interested in a show that seems to be exactly my thing!
Vinnie has to be one of the all-round smartest characters I've ever had the pleasure of watching, though I didn't see that at first behind his slightly thuggish appearance and sometimes rough manner of speaking. I hadn't really thought before about how difficult being an undercover agent would be, having to keep up a convincing act all the time in significant danger with virtually no help available to you. He's so brave, too. I'm currently swooning over the scenes in the Profitt arc where he tells Mel Profitt never to point a gun at him again, and where he refuses to push Jacqueline overboard. Colour me impressed.
I looked up the FBI website to learn more about what it takes to be an agent and was surprised to learn that accounting is one of the preferred degrees to get you in! However, you have to be under 37, so scratch that as a possible alternative career. I also looked up the Mafia, which helped with my understanding of some episodes.
What's the absolute best-case scenario when you get interested in an older fandom for which there isn't a lot of online fanfic? To discover that astolat has written no less than 10 stories in it. This is like winning the lottery.
I love Sonny/Vinnie and could probably live for years on the emotion in the Nights in White Satin scene in their final episode together, but I want Sonny to know what Vinnie is and I don't want Vinnie to give up his convictions about law and order for Sonny's sake. I love the passion in Vinnie's voice when he says "It's about the law, man!" in their final scene and I don't think he could turn his back on that very easily. Also, I want Sonny to realise just how talented Vinnie is and not think he's just something that Sonny has created.
A couple of favourite astolat stories in which Vinnie tells Sonny "I'm a federal agent", which I've decided is my absolute favourite sentence in the fandom:
Confessional A sizzling story that leaves me wishing I was a bit more accomplished in the creativity stakes and could figure out what's going to happen next.
Just One Of Those Things Sonny/Theresa/Vinnie Vinnie crosses the tracks to a significant extent in this one, but not entirely, and Sonny learns what Vinnie is early on and changes a little to meet him part-way. A feel-good happy-ever-after story.
Knocking Over The Table is also enjoyable. I thought the premise was kind of bizarre before I realised it was written for a "Day After Tomorrow" challenge.
I love Frank, also, especially his dedication to his job despite all it costs him and the way he seems to be intimidated by nobody. One of my favourite things in any fandom is a story set many years later when the characters are older, so imagine my delight to find an excellent one amongst the limited Wiseguy stories online: Phantoms Under Glass by Melody Clark, gen, Frank & Vinnie. ( Warning for the story )
I'm also having a ball watching my Media Cannibals 1 & 2 tape, which has lots of Wiseguy that I've always pretty much skipped before.
All this beats hands down being irritated about work or burying alpacas. Yay fandom!
1. Semi-actively looking for work to replace my 20-hour-a-week Normal Accounting Job. Things have settled down there a lot, but I no longer have a positive or even a neutral feeling about the place. However, a) good part-time work is hard to find, and b) I think I should be taking the opportunity to find something more fulfilling to do, rather than just trying to replace what I have. Haven't had any brilliant ideas there, but am working on it.
2. I've injured my ITB (iliotibial band, which runs down the side of the thigh) and am not supposed to run for several weeks, so won't be doing the City to Surf. That will teach me to take stretching more seriously. The physio has me doing exercises on a foam roller. These exercises started out very painful and are now only moderately painful, and I look forward every day to seeing how much less painful they'll be that night!
3. After yesterday's AGM, I'm now the treasurer of the state alpaca association. However, the election didn't quite go to plan in that the person I thought I would be working with closely as President didn't get elected to the committee at all. I don't mind keeping the books, but I'm not very enthusiastic about attending committee meetings. Still, it should be interesting enough.
4. I'm afraid I'm going to have to bury another alpaca tomorrow, a big one this time. Zac, who was our second cria, has a serious back injury (unknown cause) and can't get up. The vet has had him on strong painkillers for four days, hoping that there would be some healing, but there doesn't seem to have been.
5. I'm into my normal winter/spring routine, planting trees and spraying weeds in almost every free moment. I didn't buy a huge number of trees this year and am not planning to hold a tree planting day, but if anyone who's threatened to visit wants to do it in the next few weeks, you're more than welcome to install a few trees while you're here! The place looks its best at this time of the year — nice and green with a flowing creek. I also want to burn some of the fallen branches on the far side of the creek, but don't think I'd better do that alone, so fire supervisors would also be very welcome.
6. Fannishly, I've finally read all of astolat's Master and Commander stories. It's funny how I can enjoy AUs in fandoms I'm not invested in, but not ones where I care about the source material. Duende is still my favourite. And thanks to sarren leaving Season 1 of Wiseguy here recently, I'm doing my ITB exercises to the Sonny arc episodes. In my normal impatient fashion I skipped ahead to the bitter end, was utterly blown away (despite having seen the final scenes, complete with the original Nights in White Satin soundtrack, on YouTube before) and am now filling in the middle.
7. Behind on New Things. Will catch up, but this is my busiest time of the year and I've been a bit distracted.
29. Do a cross-country race with a deep creek crossing
This was the WA Marathon Club's 16km "King of the Mountain" run from Helena Valley to Fred Jacoby Park in Mundaring State Forest. Luckily I didn't learn about the creek crossings until I was on the bus to the start. As it was, when I woke to heavy rain at 6am I only convinced myself to go because sarren was staying over and was expecting me not to be there when she got up, and I'd gone to bed early the night before specifically so I could go.
There were seven creek crossings, the first of which was just under breast height on me and maybe 10-12m across. Aaargh! I was running with someone at that point and just followed her in, which was good as I'm sure I would otherwise have wibbled and dithered much more. I don't even like to get in the water in the summer! Then it was straight up a steep hill with heavy, waterlogged shoes. Each time most of the water worked its way out of my shoes, there would be another creek crossing, but none as deep as the first. At least I didn't have to swim, like some people who got lost did. All the markers washed away in last night's rain.
It was the most scenic run I've ever done and I'm definitely up for more interesting venues. The forest beats running along the river in the city any day. And light rain is actually perfect for running, since you never get that hot uncomfortable feeling (just a milder wet, uncomfortable feeling). juffles, if you're reading this and have the information handy, would you tell me the altitude difference between Helena Valley primary school and Fred Jacoby Park? I'd heard it was mostly uphill, but there was quite a bit of down, too, and I'd like to know whether I mostly ran up or not. One way or another I was proud of myself for getting out of bed and doing it, and for hardly noticing the 16km amidst my concern about getting in the water!
Then I changed clothes in the car (I'd brought everything except a different pair of shoes!), and went straight to:
30. Play a laser game at Darkzone in Northbridge with sarren, dragonfly8, Bunny and about 25 other people, mostly under 12!
There's just no doubt that it's fun to run around and shoot at people in a maze in the dark, and my enjoyment was significantly enhanced by hearing things like "Red Base is under attack!" at regular intervals. I wondered whether pre-20th century people would have enjoyed it just the same, or whether the phasors and flashing lights and bases are a post-Star Wars kind of experience that's now in our collective consciousness but would seem strange without enough context. I also wondered whether the urge to shoot at things is a basic human characteristic or whether it's mostly cultural. I'm guessing it's pretty primal? But maybe in a few hundred years games like this, and violent video games, will seem as barbaric as what went on in Roman arenas does to us.
It was easy to register a hit on both other people and the bases, and I thought the eight-second downtime when you were hit by someone else was exactly right. In the second game I decided to take a break from running around and just stood with my back to a corner in a fairly central area, and shot everyone not on my team who came into view on either level! It was very satisfying and energy-efficient.
It was however a bit scary to discover how hard it is not to shoot people on your own team. With real weapons, this would be a serious problem!
It was kind of fun to play a game on equal footing with six-year-olds. I was most impressed with three young boys who decided to defend the Yellow Base against all comers in our second game. I managed to shoot them all and take out the base once, but it was hard work! Since attack seems like more fun than defence, I thought they had a very mature and cooperative approach.
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