Desert of Zin

Prince William and some girl called Kate are getting married in minutes.  Now, I’m not a royalist or a republican.  I’m one of the great unrepresented.  I just don’t care much.

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On the back of buying the Saboteur and Ruthy and I talking about the nude content, leading onto a lament for the way our society and the media sexualise nudity (look, boobs!), we had been thinking about acceptable levels of content to subject Aurora to.

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I only watched the first half of the first series and the odd episode of further series.  Then Ruth only started working through the sixth and final season.  I can’t say there’s much chance of me fully understanding everything that’s going on.

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Yeah, as the SVQ is out of the road, and after a week off from things I would really had to do, I cracked on with my writing yesterday.

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It’s a wonderful movie. Just wonderful.

It’s easily one of the best kids movies of all time. Certainly It’s one that I want Aurora to enjoy as she grows up.

But as we Ruth and I watched it (part of the streaming service we have from LoveFilm through our PS3 – it’s a wonder I ever leave the flat) we noticed that everything is set up for Charlie to succeed.

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I was going to do a number of things today.  I had planned to hit the library early doors to get some quiet college work time.  But I had promised Ruthy a lie-in and looking after Aurora is not conducive to getting much done.

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Heh, it’s Ruthy’s old laptop.  She got a new one for Christmas and I now have my mitts on her old Compaq Presario V5000.  Which now has Ubuntu 10.10 powering it… 

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Aurora has some childcare (whoo!) which gave myself and Ruthy a rare afternoon off.  Bliss.

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Ruthy and I were discussing this morning the anti-Christ-like ways of the ever watch-able Jeremy Kyle, and the celebrity scandal episode with the wonderfully crazy Brigitte Nielsen.  We thought that she’s a good match for the prince of darkness but another name was invoked who we thought would be a perfect match.

Grace Jones.

According to Ruthy, Grace Jones is “the screaming chaos that awaits us all at the end of time”.

Perfect.  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

- Alistair

I have until the end of the week to get a story finished.  Talk about leaving it to the last minute.

The added challenge is Ruth had to head up north for family reasons and I have the little Aurora goblin all to myself until she gets back.  Not exactly conducive to a peaceful writing environment but maybe I should get aurora to help me finish it?

Perhaps her critical eye is exactly what is needed…

- Alistair

It has been a while (as usual) so I thought the blog required a bit of a update.

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(Or ups and downs and the inevitable return of the Crisis of Confidence.)

I have a habit of becoming hermit-like every so often, even more than normal, and recently has been one of those periods.  It’s annoying (a bloody pain to be honest) but it’s just something that has happened for years, easily since I hit my 20′s.

Now, I know this recent one is not a relapse of the poor mental health that plagued me last year.  Generally I’ve been quite chipper.  Work trundles on, they throw me some shifts if they’re feeling benevolent (joke, joke), Aurora is blossoming and Ruthy is as lovely as ever.  A good and erstwhile chum is back from down south, it’s always good to have him around, and I have no reason to feel like this.

Yet I do.

Of course, the usual reason my mood suffers is due to the pressure I put myself under with my writing.  Same old, same old.  Perhaps I’m just going through the same mood I hit when I had my last whinge.

Ah, bugger.  Prog beckons, I think.  That should break me out of it.

- Alistair

Or, How I Managed to Convince My Wife To Have A Game Of Warhammer 40K…

Actually that’s not strictly true.  She is interested in playing a game and seeing as I’ve had these blasted things on my shelf (still mostly unpainted mind) and not yet played them, I think this is a good move.  And seeing as it’s been years and several editions between my last actual games.  16 years and three editions…

Tonight we set up the wee table, I cobbled together two small armies of futuristic metal (and plastic) soldiers, and we went over some of the rules.  The idea is to spread the learning curve over several days and to use units that are pretty straightforward to play.

Tomorrow, hopefully, brings the game itself!

- Alistair

For a while, and for reasons I can’t possibly explain, I’ve been playing D&D Tiny Adventures on Facebook.  And when I say ‘playing’ I mean I log in occasionally and click some buttons to send my character on another quest which, an hour later, will be finished and awaiting my further intervention.

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Railman won’t be ready for Monday.  Ruthy hasn’t been well and has been in quarantine for most of the day and Aurora isn’t all that well at the moment either.

If it’s tidy enough for early in the week I’ll release it then.

Sorry for the delay.

- Alistair

Aurora Bain was born on Sunday 27th December at 4.07 in the afternoon.

Both mother and baby are doing well and should be back home from the hospital tomorrow.

(I would have posted this yesterday but I was shattered when I finally got home…)

- Alistair

Well, it has been a couple of days.  Sorry about the lack of updates.  It’s not like I don’t have the time…

Baby isn’t here yet.  Although we have a week before Ruth is induced.  We’d rather avoid that if possible but it’s not up to us; until then baby will arrive whenever he/she wants to.

There is other news which is quite exciting but I’ll probably post that tomorrow when I’m more awake…

I think it’s time for an early night with 253 by Geoff Ryman. 

- Alistair

…stays together?

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Wow.  It’s been over a month since my last post, and life has been hectic.

Let’s see.  What has been going on in the life of Al?

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I’ve been working on a story for the Words About Whiteinch competition, which I mentioned here, and the first full draft of Whiteinch In Flight is here!

And for a first draft I’m over the moon about it!

Ruthy has already given it her seal of approval so I need to edit it a bit and take it down by about 500 words.  But I’m really chuffed.  Especially after having a really bad last few days, where I’ve been questioning my usefulness at anything.

But once it’s finished I might shave an excerpt off it and post it here.

-Alistair

mrBen was here this evening and we were discussing the whole podcasting/audiobook thing.

Actually, that’s not strictly true.  We already had that conversation and had moved on to fixing up some microphones and seeing what it actually sounded like.  We recorded my telling of a story and although I’m more used to it now, I thought I sounded like a wet fart escaping from a bag.

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Yeah, I wasn’t going to bother with NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve been totally scunnered with my writing and the thought of forcing myself though 50,000 words in a month is less than appealing.

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