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Entry tags:
A miscellany
A catchup in virtual dot points.
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking is a rather fabulous bit of television, on SBS on whatever night QI shows on the ABC. Two parts down - Aliens and Time Travel; two to go. During the Aliens episode I experienced a moment the exact opposite of fist waving at the TV. It involved me shrieking Yes! Yes! YES! rather a lot. Why? Because for the first damn time in a zillion hours of media commentary on the possibility of humans encountering alien life--especially intelligent and intelligible life--the time factor was mentioned. Yay, finally it's been said that even if aliens were right next door in space we would miss each other if our civilisations were not also absurdly synchronised in time.
Not in those exact words, but I just got very excited again.
Man vs Wild: Crew Special finally acknowledged the existence, fortitude, and supportyness of Bear Grylls' camera and production crew.
Today in the garden I observed a small spider performing a mating display. He was a black jumping spider of some sort, with white palps. Body around the 5-7mm mark long perhaps. She (or rather they, for there were multiple girls watching) was smaller and medium brown. He semaphored like a champion. I suspect the rain followed by the sunshine is encouraging all sorts of Behaviour. I could also hear the weeds growing.
Today at the shops the zip on my handbag broke, so I had to complete my errands with a gaping come-and-steal-my-stuff hole in my bag. The straps were wearing down so I imagine this one didn't have much life left in it. I shall have to replace it soon (it being my only bag with suitable pockets), but it seems a terrible waste of a precious retail experience if I'm not in the mood to go shopping. Maybe this time I'll get something that isn't black.
Probably not.
Attempted to catch up with medical paperwork today, including a year's worth of extras claims. I already had a decent pile when Medicare Private decided to abandon retail claims, but it grew quite a bit before I got to them today. There is still an option to drop the receipts at a retail front and wait 4-5 days for processing. Doing this seemed to take much longer than just processing the damn things, and the shopdroid discovered that two of my massage receipts didn't have dates on them. She was very nice; she offered to call; she insisted on sorting them; she WOULD NOT LET ME GO.
Having given myself permission to acquire some new chillout music, I was at first excited to acquire a sequel album to one of my favourite compilations Open Space. Unfortunately somewhere between Volume 1 and Volume 3 the definition of the chillout genre changed :-( Way too many fast trance beats, and insufficient harmonious synth with tinkly treble FX. Boo. I'm pretty sure the music wasn't supposed to enrage me, but enrage me it did. Later I noticed that I was in horrible pain, but that's not enough to excuse the playlist *shakes fist at unchilly music*.
Princess 'roid sked. Tried to extend Princess' steroids out to an interval of one week, but I caved at 6 1/2 days when she started to scratch at the inside of her ears (ie Sunday night rather than Monday morning). She did show some discomfort from day 4/5ish onwards, some of which might have been a bit of withdrawal. Her fur is growing back nicely, so she won't have a bald patch after all.
Read Dead Red Heart ed by my very own fresher Russell B. Farr of Ticonderoga Press (in which I am more than happy to be included in the acknowledgements!). Australian vampire stories. Has completely restored my faith in the vampire genre. Overwhelming majority of the stories were fabulous. Only a couple of weak ones, and only one wanted to make me spit. No abandonments; I read them all which is unusual in any anthology of length. Near 30 *really good* engaging, entertaining, spit-and-cringe-free pieces of writing. Unfortunately (damn you (again) R) I got all inspired and was forced to record story ideas for one of my own. One wonders how much sense the notes will make if I ever return to it.
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking is a rather fabulous bit of television, on SBS on whatever night QI shows on the ABC. Two parts down - Aliens and Time Travel; two to go. During the Aliens episode I experienced a moment the exact opposite of fist waving at the TV. It involved me shrieking Yes! Yes! YES! rather a lot. Why? Because for the first damn time in a zillion hours of media commentary on the possibility of humans encountering alien life--especially intelligent and intelligible life--the time factor was mentioned. Yay, finally it's been said that even if aliens were right next door in space we would miss each other if our civilisations were not also absurdly synchronised in time.
Not in those exact words, but I just got very excited again.
Man vs Wild: Crew Special finally acknowledged the existence, fortitude, and supportyness of Bear Grylls' camera and production crew.
Today in the garden I observed a small spider performing a mating display. He was a black jumping spider of some sort, with white palps. Body around the 5-7mm mark long perhaps. She (or rather they, for there were multiple girls watching) was smaller and medium brown. He semaphored like a champion. I suspect the rain followed by the sunshine is encouraging all sorts of Behaviour. I could also hear the weeds growing.
Today at the shops the zip on my handbag broke, so I had to complete my errands with a gaping come-and-steal-my-stuff hole in my bag. The straps were wearing down so I imagine this one didn't have much life left in it. I shall have to replace it soon (it being my only bag with suitable pockets), but it seems a terrible waste of a precious retail experience if I'm not in the mood to go shopping. Maybe this time I'll get something that isn't black.
Probably not.
Attempted to catch up with medical paperwork today, including a year's worth of extras claims. I already had a decent pile when Medicare Private decided to abandon retail claims, but it grew quite a bit before I got to them today. There is still an option to drop the receipts at a retail front and wait 4-5 days for processing. Doing this seemed to take much longer than just processing the damn things, and the shopdroid discovered that two of my massage receipts didn't have dates on them. She was very nice; she offered to call; she insisted on sorting them; she WOULD NOT LET ME GO.
Having given myself permission to acquire some new chillout music, I was at first excited to acquire a sequel album to one of my favourite compilations Open Space. Unfortunately somewhere between Volume 1 and Volume 3 the definition of the chillout genre changed :-( Way too many fast trance beats, and insufficient harmonious synth with tinkly treble FX. Boo. I'm pretty sure the music wasn't supposed to enrage me, but enrage me it did. Later I noticed that I was in horrible pain, but that's not enough to excuse the playlist *shakes fist at unchilly music*.
Princess 'roid sked. Tried to extend Princess' steroids out to an interval of one week, but I caved at 6 1/2 days when she started to scratch at the inside of her ears (ie Sunday night rather than Monday morning). She did show some discomfort from day 4/5ish onwards, some of which might have been a bit of withdrawal. Her fur is growing back nicely, so she won't have a bald patch after all.
Read Dead Red Heart ed by my very own fresher Russell B. Farr of Ticonderoga Press (in which I am more than happy to be included in the acknowledgements!). Australian vampire stories. Has completely restored my faith in the vampire genre. Overwhelming majority of the stories were fabulous. Only a couple of weak ones, and only one wanted to make me spit. No abandonments; I read them all which is unusual in any anthology of length. Near 30 *really good* engaging, entertaining, spit-and-cringe-free pieces of writing. Unfortunately (damn you (again) R) I got all inspired and was forced to record story ideas for one of my own. One wonders how much sense the notes will make if I ever return to it.