LJ is still being a pain in the arse and I cannot currently access previous posts (and the hell?!) And this is distressful - especially since I wanted to reply to people who made VERY MUCH SENSE in comments (I agree with you all, very hard but also out loud - which is why you can't hear my response).

So in the meantime, I will ask who is on Twitter and to drop your handle in comment so's I can find you - replies screened for those with a divide between lives!!

(Tigs you especially as I have FAILED to find you via my BlackBerry and keep failing epiclike to remember to do it on real computer!!)

Love,
Kaz


PS Tam - London?? Can you email me as I cannot reply to your text, phone refusing to acknowledge your crazy foreigness.

PPS I am sure I used to be better at arranging and managing all of the things.

Tags: half asleep already, look guys i'm trying, social networking fail

I am fine and have not been set on fire, broken, stolen or otherwise molested in the course of the London Riots.

Which is, you know, generally a good state in which to be.

xx

Tags: bloody hell guys, can't keep mocking greece now, london riots

At the risk of wishing time away, please could we please have the weekend now? I am totally over the week. I may, in fact, be over next week at this stage.

This week I have done very little of any exccitement or note, but I have booked to do things in the ~future~ which I will enjoy so I consider it to be a win.

I've also convinced petulans to watch musical theatre with me in October, so that's very exciting.

I'm about half way through redrafting Act 2 of The Play Which Will Never Be Completed (I swear I've finished it something like three or four times now). I have not yet redrafted the bit that needs it the most. I'm also - still - running significantly long. I am about three days away from "rocks fall". Possibly four.¹

It doesn't help that I don't even see the words any more, just vague concepts of the scenes. Rewrites always end up this way for me.

I have a book on editing upstairs which I keep trying to read. I can't get past the first page. It's pretty dense going. It's been suggested it needs to be better edited (my mother) and that it needs pictures (me).

In other news, my boss is still a complete cockstickal and work is as tedious as always, but no worse - which I consider to be an improvement, in a sick and twisted kind of a way.

Tomorrow I get to have lunch with Lorentz and pick up my new filofax, which replaces my other new filofax, which it turns out wasn't quite as new as it should've been when I bought it three weeks ago.

So I guess some things are a bit exciting after all.


¹Which is also the number of jelly snakes I have consumed.

Tags: long week, my boss is a dick, not even trying with tags, plays are hard, sleepytired
Current Location: Home, London, still
Mood: almost asleep already

Yo dawg, I heard (most of you) like video games, so I come bearing linkage and the chance to win a teeshirt! As the meme totally doesn't go ...

Level Up, slated for publication in Spring 2012, is compilation of "original video game articles written by people in the [video game] industry". It will cover "a variety of topics ranging from motion capture to soundtracks, from writing to art direction."

Also "The book will contain guides about the industry as well as detailed accounts of working behind the scenes of some of the most popular games."

This is a not-for-profit venture to raise money for Child's Play known around these parts as "the Gamer's Charity" and no monies will be made by any of the contributors - so it's a good project for a good cause!

For more information about the project see this press release and to support it you can sign up to the mailing list.

If you sign up by 11.59 BST (GMT+1) on Friday 12th August you can opt into a free prize draw to win a teeshirt of your choice from GamerPrint!

I like competitions, they make me use big!font.

People I care very much about are running this project so please do visit the website and sign up to the mailing list - it's shaping up to be an amazing book! Tell your friends :)

Tags: competition time, level up, things people do that impress
Current Location: Home, London
Mood: excited

It turns out writing draft LJ posts and actually, you know, posting them are very different things. I expect at some point autopilot will take over once again because otherwise I am going to do the LJ equivalent of flying my journal into a mountain and exploding messily onto the rocks and--

--that entire sentence escaped me. Where was I? Confused, mainly - as indicated by my opening paragraph. I have continued to be pretty much confused by pretty much all of the things for pretty much all of the time this week, which provides a strange kind of symmetry even if it isn't any actual progress.

I went to see Lusie Miller at the Donmar on Thursday. It was very good; I recommend. But then the Donmar is probably one of my favourite theatres and has the nicest staff so I am somewhat biased.

Since last update I have also been to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at Theatre Royal Haymarket (spoiler: still dead) and the episode 5 recording of The Now Show (wherein John Finnemore eviscerated News International and it was amazing).

Also, courtesy of lj users equal starcrossedgirl and petulans I am continuing to catch up on the last few seasons of Supernatural which I am sure I've seen once around but apparently without paying the requisite attention.

Other than this I have spent the last week doing epic battle with a cold/chest infection of some description and an entirely less metaphorical battle with my dickhead boss. And I've been sleeping, but not as much as I'd like/technically, medically require.

This week I'm going to try to work on all three of the above, do some serious sorting out of junk, finish redrafting the second act of a two-act play (in which I do a great disservice to one of my characters out of laziness and length limitations) and eat jelly snakes.

I am likely to achieve only one of these things.

(It's the one made of jelly.)

~l/K

Current Location: Home, London
Mood: okay
Music: Val Emmich, "When In Rome"

I doubt there is anyone who should know and is yet to hear, but Kay Dekker, known around these parts as mhw died last week.

I've been thinking about making this post since I heard, but Greg, utterly unexpectedly, got there first and proceeded to succinctly and extremely eloquently cover everything I needed to say, so just so much what he said.

Kay Dekker was one of the sweetest, kindest, most insightful, intelligent, -- I don't have the words. Greg does, you should read his words, every one of them is true, some of them are true many times over.

It's a cliché, overused to the point of insincerity, but the world really is dimmer for his loss. My heart goes out to those who were closest to him and will feel his loss all the keener, my heart, my condolences and my love.

You are so loved Kay and so missed already. I'm so glad I knew you - and I feel so lucky.

Xx

Current Location: FFN
Mood: difficult

Still not dead. Bin Laden is. This is the correct order of things.

Not-gonna-lie: PURPOSE OF POST:

My teenaged sister's humourless schoolfriend was up in arms on facebook over peers not knowing who Osama Bin Laden was (mid-teens who have turned apathy and disinterest into an art form).

My sister just had to reply saying that of course she knew who he was; He was the bloke who put the cat in the wheelie bin.

It went down not at all well at all. My sister is not-so-secretly my hero.

In OTHER: thank you so, so, so, much for the drowningy ducky SFX linkage/emails. I spent three hours listening to water, drowning, ducks (and geese, the difference was noted) and, for some reason a clip in Japanese which had, sounded like, laser bells?? Honestly don't even know what that one was going for but - thanks?

For those I haven't run into recently; SFX were required for a play what I wrote, which STILL didn't have the correct sound clips on the day of performance.

WHICH, IT TURNS OUT, WAS FINE, because tech ended up blowing all of our sound cues and some that they'd added in simply for the blowing. I'm told this didn't affect those who hadn't been in rehearsals but it will go on the 'things not to ask me about this year' list...

~l/K

Tags: i'm not even going to pretend i've any c
Current Location: Home, London, etc
Mood: happy
Music: Something from Glee.

Hi guys,

Yeah, so I'm not dead and I have an URGENT PLEA for two sound effects, one more specific than the other:

1. AGITATED DUCKS: as in 'holy hell, look - bread!!!!' Calm ducks would also be handy about now.

2. AGITATED Water (there is a theme)

Mp3s to ****** at gmail please and I will love you forever, alternatively a comment and a link would be perfect.

Explanations to follow, since I'm a demanding ho.

Love & HOPE
Kx

Two Barclay bikes colliding with each other outside Charing Cross station during morning rush hour = pretty much what I expected from the bike hire scheme to be honest.

So it's fortunate that TfL/Barclays, anticipating the fact that bikes would attract inexperienced (or at least inexperienced with rush hour cyclists) provided helmets with their bikes.

Oh no, wait, they didn't - nix that then.

Wish cyclists in question had stayed in situ for longer - say long enough for me to find my camera for a quick photo of what I feel is a metaphor for the useless wunch of bankers.

I walked to work; because life's complicated enough.

Current Location: Work, London
Mood: disinterested
Music: Amanda Palmer, "I Want You, But I Don't Need You"

Bought a four quid copy of "Writing the Breakout Novel" (here) in the Oxfam Bookshop at lunch.

Didn't think it had been read, but skimming through the chapters brings me to an annotation, singular.

Page seventy nine, and page seventy nine only, has been partially underlined in red biro. It reads:

""Why am I writing this novel? A second necessary question is the following: If I stopped writing this novel, why would that matter?"

I'm assuming this was answered but that the answer was found wanting as the rest of the book really doesn't look like it's been read and, in any case, ended up in a charity shop.

I wish The Previous Owner had left a commentary, but then I wish all charity shop books had a little note in the front cover saying why they were being donated ...

"Nice read, but I have a small flat and wouldn't re-read it", por ejemplo, or "Probably the worst book I've ever read and I don't need to burn it for heat" or, "bought second hand and freaked out by the massive spider crushed between pages sixty six and seventy three".

The last one would probably be more of a public service announcement really. And I can't imagine it being suitable for resell. Maybe alright for an arachnophile ... although actually, probably not, as the spider would be dead.

I wouldn't be able to leave such notes in Oxfam books, as I would stray onto tangents and end up writing my own novel between the lines.

Which, in the case of "Writing the Breakout Novel", would at least be contextually appropriate.

Current Location: Home, London
Mood: procrastinatory
Music: Scouting for Girls, "Heartbeat". Shut up.

There was a time, at 4am, when the entire world was online. When I am stuck sitting on the floor of Gatwick station drinking abysmal Costa Coffee where is everyone? Discovering normal circadian rhythms. And it took me about three minutes to spell 'rhythms' correctly. Still looks wrong.

I was, for a while there in Barcelona. And now I am not. It is all very distressing to me.

Now I am sitting on concrete, reading failblog and mainlining caffeine.

Moments like these really make you re-examine your life.

(Okay, analysis over; I fucking rock.)

Flight delays are shit. Was fascinated to discover that was boarding flight before plane had arrived. As was rest of queue. Apparently Denmark eats planes these days? This is all the explanation we received. There may have been some apology with it but I was flying Easyjet (whose motto, so I believe, is "Hey guys, we're not Ryanair!" and an orange thumbs up) so it was lost between "We're selling the Daily Mail" and "Please buy lottery tickets and an orange teddy bear with our logo now".

They could go classy, but they'd only be a surcharge for it.

Meanwhile DAYLIGHT is occurring and I am still on Spanish time. In half an hour I will be on a train to London Bridge to wait there. I might upgrade from concrete to a vac-formed chair. And find some decent coffee.

In the meantime my broken Spanish and I have become directions guru for stranded Spanish tourists.

I miss Barceona, I miss awesome people and I miss sunshine. I also miss being able to hear properly out of my right ear; thank you air pressure.

At no point ever have I missed Southern Rail.

xx

Tags: 4am is hard, diaf easyjet, travel can bite me
Current Location: Gatwick, fucking Gatwick
Mood: so far beyond exhausted
Music: despair, mainly

Been in for two hours; still no computers.

People are staring at paper with a look of sheer horror, as if to say "Make marks? With what? Does it take long? Is it painful?"

We have about two units working (offline during yesterday's FAIIIIIIIIIL) and if IT don't make it up here soon I suspect bitchy pissiness will give way to actual, physical fights regarding which of a dozen people get to use them.

Somehow seniority has fallen by the wayside, instead I find myself weighing odds depending on mood and aggression.

Manager Bling, for example, looks like a biter. She stayed late, staring at a blank screen in case merely WISHING it alive would reverse McA's Epic Fail and is in a very bad mood. Right now she could probably take anyone in the office bar our Temp, who can't afford to be seen not working and has been filing since half past seven. Our Temp could probably, right now, skin someone alive with a letter opener; I'm keeping a low profile.

Cow Orker Bond is currently on a terminal but would take a dive in the second round, after a token defense for appearance's sake. This is because she doesn't want to work; she's left with a particularly shitty workload and can't even email anyone to complain, because nobody will receive them until the computer's are fixed.

Tess is filing stationery. This isn't because the computers are down, it's because she really likes stationery. If she ever decides she wants to check her email she will have an unlimited number of missiles, projectiles and makeshift blades in her arsenal; we will not stand a chance.

Everyone else seems to be in the canteen, presumbly structuring their battleplans.

I do not care all that much for I use fountain pens and ink and I have a variety of attractive notebooks waiting to receive them. More importantly at this moment: I found out what was up yesterday, realised it wouldn't be fixed and brought my REINCARNATED NETBOOK and a vodaphone dongle. Thus I can do my very important workday things, like checking gmail, perusing failblog and searching google for robot sound effects.

~l/K


PS Am not intending to enter the fray, however I may be tempted if anyone prompts me to say "IT'S MCAFEE, NOT A BLOODY VIRUS" just one more time. I totally understand how the confusion between McA/vicious little virus has occured; I do not understand how, after forcing me to explain, over and again and in detail what has happened, people still fail to comprehend.

Tags: viral intercourse
Current Location: Work, London
Mood: apathetic

Well I was going to be at the office 'til late tonight (because the Financial Year will not die), but I can't because from five pm every single computer on the network bricked out.

This would be because McAfee's decided to identify XP as a virus and has broken the world.

So between five and six pm every single connected terminal across the entire site crashed out and will, at least according to current opinion, require individual attention to restore.

Pretty sure you could hear the wails from our IT dept during the resultant mass employee exodus. I'm contemplating bringing them biscuits tomorrow, since I'm fairly certain there was a lock-in of all remaining IT staff once the 'unplanned downtime' kicked off.

Unplanned downtime being the official term we're using for said clusterfuck.

But it's not what we're really calling it.

~l/K


ETA for clarity: McAfee have pulled the buggy update from system; McAfee is now as safe as it ever was, which is - incidentally - NOT VERY.

Official McA Fix released.

McAfee CF only affecting PCs running XP - and only those "updated" today, and network terminals in use at point of update hitting system - which means offline terminals are safe to go back on as soon as the issue's resolved.

McA fail so hard for this one.

Current Location: Home now, London
Mood: don't care; not bricked

Yesterday I put through an invoice for, according to the charge line:

"Supply, Install & Commission: New Matrix".

It may have something to do with our CCTV but, based on all observable evidence, I'm going to guess we've gone straight down the rabbit hole.

Not quite as bad as the invoice I put through for "Hose, Wand & Water Tank For Rogh Doctor", which read like a sex crime waiting to happen and only caused further alarm when I noticed the shipping address was listed as "Back of The House".

Not quite as bad - but it ranks up there.

Definitely should have taken the Blue Pill.

~L/Kaz

Current Location: Work, London
Mood: rushed
Music: Tim Minchin, "Song for Phil Daoust"

( Torchwood 4 not-quite spoiler )

That is all I have.

I have not had an overly successful week, productivity-wise. I was going to have an incredibly successful weekend - I had intended to get my Christmas shopping out of the way (I still have a little to do. Namely: all of it) and work on one of my writing projects (or the horrible work-related article I really should have had completed over a month ago and have simply not bothered doing).

Instead I have come down with a particularly spiteful cold (because it is winter and it will spend the next few months cycling through the departments until replaced by something exciting & summery like hay fever or avian flu) and am sprawled across the sofa watching Stargate at 4am trying not to breathe too deeply in case my lungs explode.

Lungs have not exploded yet, but I fear it is merely a matter of time.

I have been sprawled across the sofa for most of the day in fact, because it was that or bed and the central heating is not switched on upstairs. And also because once I made it downstairs heading back upstairs seemed like it would take significantly more energy than I actually had remaining. Many hours later and I still do not have the energy to get back upstairs.

I might well have to live on the sofa from this point onward.

Current Location: Sofa, Home, London

Am way behind quotas at work and staying late to talk to USians about their publications.

So far Houston, Texas and Cleveland, Ohio (oh me-o, oh my-o) have earned themselves very many brownie points. Hell, let us spread the joy state-wide, I am that pleased with them.

Contrasting sharply with the employees of the Seattle Art Museum, the entirety of whom appear to be asleep.

If you are within shouting distance of the Seattle Art Museum, please do so. I am hoping that, when they wake, my phone calls will be answered. I have tried four different numbers now.

Is Seattle on fire or something? Did I miss News? Because, literally, the most breaking news I can find for Seattle is about Seattle's pay by bin scheme and I am not even joking.

I would like to think that everything is okay in Seattle - I know at least plural awesome people in Seattle, but until I hear otherwise am going to have to assume it has been put into solitary confinement or some kind of technological quarantine.

Explanations plz?

(Meanwhile: NaNoWriMo ate my mind, I just corrected 'phone calls' from 'phonecalls' and went: "ooh, extra word!".)


ETA:
Also in my good books: New York, New York (despite being somewhat weird/rude) and Landover, Maryland.

Current Location: Work, London
Mood: blank -ed!

I've tried to post for, no kidding, hours. But I have no words, I really don't. And this? To me? Does not often happen.

I am so hot for you right now America.

<3

When running stupidly late and having to get the last commuter train of the morning I am almost guaranteed to forget that the 25-past train is not actually at 25-past but is, in fact, at 24-past as the 25-past train only exists in my tragically sleep deprived mind. I usually remember this as I reach the station, at which point it is a mad dash to get onto the platform before said 24-past train leaves, smirking. YES smirking.

Today I had to start rushing as soon as I reached the station and broke into an all out run the second I got through the barriers, BUT I caught the train.

Although it would possibly be more accurate to state that the train caught me as I boarded the train head first and, regrettably, left my feet on the platform as I tripped and faceplanted spectacularly onto the carriage floor.

Then the doors shut on my ankles, leaving my feet sticking out in a manner reminiscent of L. Frank Baum's Wicked Witch of the East after the house lands on her, but with far less fetishistic footwear.

Being that it was the Last Commuter Train of the Morning it was seat-full but no one was standing so on the plus side I had the space to wipeout entirely, which is good because I was too busy tilting at the windmill called Gravity to check this. People even moved to check that I was okay; one gentleman made me stand up (yes: made) while someone else picked my handbag up for me. True, this would have been more helpful had she not been holding it upside down, but the gesture was mostly appreciated.

The train moved off and I put myself back together, put the stuff back in my bag and, for a motive that eludes me entirely put some lip balm on. Then I spent the rest of the journey trying to stay as still as possible whilst concerned strangers offered me empty seats and made awkward small talk.

I am leaving the office in about an hour, after which point my sole aim for my evening commute is to remain upright for the entirety of the journey.

Tags: oh life
Current Location: TBM, London
Mood: bruised
Music: BNL, "Falling for the First Time" oh very funny mediaplayer. Very fucking funny

Working in Central London means I get to say many things over the course of my commute, but this morning the sentence:

"Excuse me, please - would you mind not throwing your nipple tassels in my face? Those sequins are rather sharp actually."

Was forced from my lips, which I think means it must be a Friday.

----

Yesterday I bought a fabulous pair of boots and so today I have a blister where my heel is supposed to be.

I am going out for coffee in four hours and will have to change into my 3" work heels for comfort. COMFORT.


love
~Bizzaro-Kaz

Current Location: TBM, London
Mood: It's a cliché but TGIF!
Music: XFM, soon to be exchanged for last night's RNC coverage