Cas is currently

So a couple of people have been asking why I am so keen to get out of the current flat and find a shiny nice place of my own. At the moment, I would settle for a not-quite-shiny place so long as it wasn’t this dump. I think the following picture illustrates it pretty nicely.

Today is rather wet. I had to go out, so took my umbrella to keep me as dry as possible. This proved to be a mission: impossible, but that’s for another time. Still, I got home, and needed somewhere to put the umbrella to dry it out. My room was out because there wasn’t going to be enough room for me and the umbrella, and I had work to do, so I put it up in the bathroom.

There is something wrong when your umbrella takes up the entire room

And this is my small handbag sized model! ^*1*.

Cas is currently

So today they obviously decided to have a scary right-wing politics morning on both sides of the House.

Exhibit one, we have Mr Clarke (the Home Secretary, Labour, nominally leftish) with his global database of anyone who might have been a bit naughty. I may be oversimplifying, and I sure as hell know the BBC reportage isn’t giving the full story, but when the dude from the UN gets worried, you have to think twice.

Exhibit two, we have David Cameron (current favourite to take over the Conservative leadership, scary, well, Conservative) giving Conservatives a bad name. Withdrawing from international human rights conventions?!? What happened to the fluffy nice and new Conservatives they keep promising us?

I am on record, I think, with my whole “war = bad idea” ethos, including my opinions on the whole “war on terror” debacle. Yes, we live in a climate of danger and threat, we have to do something about it, and I don’t have much of an idea what we should be doing about it. But I sure as hell know that what we’re doing now ain’t exactly working. I think the figures are at something like 100,000 Iraqi’s dead since the ‘war’ began. That is ‘war’ in quotes, because, remember folks, they never actually declared war. Just a bit of police action between friends.

And as soon as I get one wiki working (even though no one seems to be actually using it yet), the other one goes on the fritz. As I already look like an extra from the “singing in the rain” number, I feel no inclination to tromp all the way up to the lab to see what the hell is wrong with, but as it is currently holding all my thesis notes hostage, I am going to have to go negotiate.

Damn it! My planned evening had better be a whole lot more fun than the morning’s been so far. Grrr.

Cas is currently very and a little bit

What do you get when you get a load of very stressed computer archaeologists, human origins people, osteologists, marine archaeologists, and one lone man from Hull, and put them together in a building that sells alcohol and food?

Answer, a great evening. Even the presence of the Misogynistic Belgian couldn’t put too much of a damper on the evening. Saw Tilly and Sk8er Dude for the first time in a while today, and I got in some light musing duties whilst I was about it.

Finally, everyone now has a blog-name. It’s taken me near a year, but I got the last two tonight: Celtic Vixen, and Pimp Girl (said with complete love and affection – the girl is a total darling. It was suggested by herself). Jeff the Pimp ^*1* is also finally reconciled to his name. He did moan that everyone else had fun names, whilst he was stuck with Jeff, but when I explained the rational behind it again, he cheered up.

Also, Jeff is the latest convert to Firefly, coming to the party after being forced to watch the ‘Serenity’ episode with the Cute Canadian and myself on Sunday. He didn’t enjoy it much the first time round because the pair of us kept laughing over the jokes, and spoiling the plot etc (we’ve both seen it far too many times), but Jeff watched it again last night, and went straight on to ‘Trainjob’ he enjoyed it so much.

Roll on September and the release of Serenity.

Right, I’ve just been informed that I have to make Jeff sound cool. So, here goes: I would like to announce to all you random internet people out there that my friend, Jeff, is a cool person. So cool, in fact, that icebergs go to him for advice on how to stay chilly. He is the veritable King of Cool. There is no one cooler on the planet than my friend, Jeff. Yep, Coolie Mac Cool has nothing on Jeff. Cool is not only his middle name, it is his first and his last as well. Lock up your daughters. You have been warned.

Now, having blown any cred I might have had left on that whole “Jeff = Cool” issue ^*2*, I’m off to go over some edits and re-write the ending to a longer story so I can start to post it in a couple of days.

Best line of the evening has to be from Pimp Girl:
“When I’m dancing on the tables I know I’ve gone too far”.

Endnotes:
^*1*I’m really not being mean with all the pimp comments here. There was a strange confluence of t-shirts and… You just had to be there, but the Turf War over lunch in the courtyard was hilarious^Back
*2*In all seriousness, he is a total honey. Love the boy. Jeff, sweetie, I’m sorry ^Back

Cas is currently

So today has had its ups, and its downs.

The first downs were catalogued in the previous post, followed swiftly by getting into the lab and finding I’d left my teabags at home, so twice today I had to shell out 52 pence for some very dubious tetley tea.

Then there were some ups – finding a way to hack the wiki and get the Cute Canadian able to log onto the wiki being one of them.

Though the fact that even I can hack the wiki doesn’t bode well for the security of the bloody thing, so perhaps that should be a down…

Then there were some more downs – mainly centered around me crashing out at about 2 pm suddenly unable to form coherent thought or even keep my eyes open. It happens sometimes. At least I didn’t faint this time, which has happened in the past, much to the consternation of all around me. The sudden appearance on the scene of the Misogynistic Belgian didn’t make for my day improving any, especially not when his form of greeting is punching me, then going in for the leg-stroke. Words just don’t do justice to how much this guy creeps the fuck out of me.

Normally at this point, I would trudge home and take a nap. It really is the only thing to do in those situations. But alas, even that simple pleasure was denied me, when Moose came on MSN to tell me there were two large men in blue overalls in my room.

Now, there are certain situations under which a girl is not averse to having men in her room: sadly, neither of them was the man Cas had been dreaming of lately. They were maintenance men here to finally replace my sink – it’s been leaking like a very leaky thing since about March, and I’d given up hope of them appearing before I leave the flat in a month. Under any other circumstances, I would have been overjoyed at this news, and happily stayed in the lab till they’d finished, but I so wanted my bed.

Finally though they were done and it was safe for me to return.

I now have a shiny new sink! That doesn’t leak! And despite the fact my room stinks of sealant, I am so happy! Now all I need is users for my wiki and my cup would overfloweth. Ok, so there are a few other things I would like to happen, but a girl has to take happiness where she finds it these days.

The Latvian Lovely had this to say on the whole thing of finding random men in our flat:
“I walked into the kitchen, there were two men on the table, so I turned round and walked right out again.”

She has this deadpan delivery and a totally straight face, and it just cracked me up.

Cas is currently

I really should be working right now, but bleck. Can’t bothered. Too many cute distractions online.
So, I have once again bowed to pressure, and made the foolish decision to post another story over at Blackcurrant Cheesecake. Not the really long serial one – still need to work on that – but something short and well, not sweet, but short anyways.

And here is a link to it: Alright?.

And because apparently I am being too depressing with these stories, the closest to an up-beat one I could find. No Worries.

Cas is currently

In the long running saga of ways to really ruin the start of your day (evil anonymous comments, random Germans, Clompy, soggy toast), we have a new entry.

The university library telling you that you have a massive fine for a book that is way over due. This is, of course, the book that I took back on time, last week. We won’t go into them taking 3 months to inter library loan a couple of books that I am still waiting for. Or silly maximum numbers of items that mean post-grad students can’t take out more than 10 items at once. Yes, 10 ^*1*. Which, when you consider an average piece of work for the undergraduate course was expected to have a bibliography of a minimum of 20/25 books, is just a little silly.

But we’re not going into that now. No, we are moaning about the stupidity of the loans clerk who took my book, checked it through the machine, made the point of saying “oh this is an inter library loan book”, and still manages to get me in trouble with the library. I have no proof I gave the book back, just my say so, and the fact I have never in the entire year had another book back late. If I’d known I was going to get in trouble with this book, I’d have kept it a couple of extra days to finish it at my leisure, instead of staying up till about 1 am the night before finishing making notes.

And then I get another email from them, telling me that the inter library loan I requested over a month ago is ready for collection. This bugs me because (due to time pressures), I had to get a copy off the godhead, so had informed the ILL office a good couple of weeks back that I no longer required the item.

On the phone just now, they informed me that, because they don’t staff the ILL desk on Fridays (who did I speak to then, a ghost?), if your book is due back on a Friday, you will automatically get a fine till they can clear the book on Monday. Or when they can be bothered. But they will very kindly wipe the fine in this case. How big of them. And when I, as their own email requested, informed them that I didn’t want to collect my inter library loan that had come through, they got all huffy with me. I’d told them three weeks ago I didn’t want it! And again today, so they didn’t have to waste time emailing me every day to tell me it was ready! So now they have a copy of a paper from ARCHEOLOGIA E CALCOLATORI that they didn’t have before. I am sure that someone else will find a use for it.

Grrrr. I used to work in the public service sector. I was considered very very good at my job ^*2*. Dealing with the public isn’t hard. So why is it I get the impression that they give you a full frontal lobotomy and remove any shred of common sense you might once have had, if you choose to work for, say, the library? I am sure these people really aren’t that thick. They would not be able to breathe and walk at the same time if they were.

So there you have it, way no 5 to really piss Cas off in the morning. Yes, it’s easy to do, but once again this got me before I’d had my cup of tea. I really should stop checking my email before I’ve drunk it.

But now it is raining, and I have to walk up to the lab to try and wrest the Cute Canadian’s password for the wiki from the dread server, so that’s my hairstyle ruined half an hour after I got out of the shower.

Yes, today is most definitely going to be one of those days.

Ok, I am being badgered on both sides of the pond now to post up some stories.

The question is, what format should this be done in? The reverse chronological order of the blog makes it not ideal for the posting of longer works of fiction and, bearing in mind this is me we are discussing, I do tend to prefer the longer winded form of writing.

Should I

1. Post the last chapter first, then the second last, and so on, till the first is at the top of the page and you read it all in one go?
2. Post first chapter first, then second, till the last is at the top, but provide linking between somehow?
3. Post it in serial form (a chapter per day/week/random interval)?
4. You tell me.

Seriously, I’m not the one that has to read it, you are.
Also, is there even an audience out there if I do this? I am going to feel a right muppet if there is zero interest. Though lack of audience hasn’t stopped me blogging, for some reason fiction is different in that respect.

Anyway, feedback on the above, and anything else you care to think about, please. I’m off to stare at wiki’s some more and stick pins on the voodoo doll I just made of random-cyclist-chappy from last night.