Internet dog ate my blog.

Maybe I can remember what I wrote. Hey, remember when I said you might get some stories about China? Maybe I wrote them all down and accidentally refreshed the page without saving it...

Anyway.

My car + two doors + roadside assistance for three years + central locking + keyless entry + power windows + CD player = Emma's car + about a grand.  ¶ 20:33 0 comments

  I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old.

Amongst my birthday loot are such diverse elements as: A CD by Debra Jaye called Diving for Things that Shine, a three CD set of music by Henry Mancini and his band; a boardgame called Puerto Rico; Zendo, a game played with pretty little pyramids; and a comfy warm jacket. Most best present of all was season three of Blake's 7 with a little Corgi Liberator in a plastic bubble.

See you in thirty-two years, dude.  ¶ 17:50 2 comments

  What happened on the weekend?

I can't recall what happened on Saturday, I was looking forward to Sunday too much.

On Sunday I drove Linda to Kinokuniya in Sydney and met Emma for an afternoon of shopping in the city. I bought some Doctor Who books, Emma bought some Sandman and Y: the Last Man comics and Linda bought a basket load of manga. Then we had coffees; then we went home.  ¶ 23:43 0 comments

  That was the week that snowed.

It snowed. The frozen percipitation, not the young people's slang term for whatever it is a young people's slang term for, actual frozen percipitation. Which was nice.

This week I played the pirate game; Kate visited while Gavin was out of town; mum got a DVD player; and I went out to a Mexican restaurant. I'm sleepy and distracted and I miss Emma.

The snow was nifty.  ¶ 20:53 2 comments

  Doubly illusory.

On Saturday the Dangerous Wayfarers (in that way players have of doing the completely unexpected while staying in character) reconnoitred the bandit camp, created a diversion, set up a kill zone, and systematically executed sixty bandits. On Sunday I took mum and Linda bookshelf shopping. Then I surfed the interweb for free stuff to help me keep my campaign notes up to date because every time I let the players near the game world I have to rewrite everything. On Monday I return to work and it will be day six of my working week because I didn't get to see Emma this weekend so my relative time perception coping mechanism will pretend the weekend didn't happen.

It will be as if the two days spent recombobulating an imaginary land didn't happen.  ¶ 18:10 1 comments

  Five years and four months later.

I bought four new tyres and, as I was a sleepy head when I dropped my car off, I also bought wheel balancing and alignment. Later the same day I bought a new battery. When I went to collect my renovated car, nine hours after I left it to be renovated, it was not ready. The whole staff of the garage were involved in "putting it back together".

While it was being test driven the managerial mechanic asked if I had jumper leads at home. (The Owner's Manual cautions against jump-starting my car as it may cause trouble with the computer controlled parts of the car, like the engine. I expect it simultaneously voids the warranty.) He explained the new battery was not quite fully charged but it should charge up when I drove home, and if I could leave the car running for about an hour after I got home it should be okay. When my car came back from being test driven the long-haired mechanic changed the battery. He told me "the new part we installed was faulty"; I believe the "part" is called a battery.

When I released the handbrake to let my car roll out of the garage this morning the new tyres were so grippy it almost didn't roll out of the garage. Then I returned the mobile phone I had found on the passenger seat to the tyre shop.  ¶ 15:01 2 comments