Unadulterated joy
Oh yes.
Firstly, I want to apologise for people still waiting for me to write up the review I promised - I've written about half of it, but I keep getting distracted with my busy, busy, busy at the moment. It's coming, though.
Secondly, I also need to write up a report for Conception - I know, but this, also, is something I'm procrastinating.
Thirdly, last night I told another story at the little storytelling night. That was fun. I wasn't quite as drunk as I was last time so the nerves hit me a little stronger but I got lots of good feedback again which was nice.
Fourthly, I've worked out where all my precious money has been disappearing. My crappy token meter has been eating up gas like it doesn't care. I've been pumping in on average about £20 a week. Last month cost me £100 in gas which is the sum total of my electricity bill for the last quarter. This is pretty damned fucking stupid. Obviously at summer I'm more likely to be spending £20 a month or something because I won't be using the heating, but that and the cost of Conception has royally screwed my financial comfort zone. I'm not quite in dire straits again, but it's looking potentially nasty again. A man from British Gas came out to have a look at the boiler yesterday and he told me that currently I'm losing about 25% of the money I put into it due to inefficiency mostly due to sedement in the boiler (yay, magnite). On the plus side he told me that the solution to my low hot water pressure would be to get a combi-boiler installed and then I would have a decent hot water pressure and I could have showers again (genuine yay). The only snag here is trying to convince my landlord that this is needed.
Fifthly, I'm about to embark into the world of self-employment again. With the economy at the moment, and it being tough finding any kind of decent (or half-decent) work I figure the best solution here is to make my own. Well, that and if I don't do it I'll probably be assigned to Environmental Task Force (read: litter picking). It's a little sooner than I'd like to be doing it what with me still being unable to do database integration at the moment, but if I can get the work going this could be good. I'm going to be working in conjunction with Guy who will focus primarily on copywriting and SEO while I deal with all the rest of the website side of things. To be honest, websites are not the only focus of our business ambitions but it's a cheap starting point and requires the least startup costs.
Sixthly, there is no sixthly.
Seventhly, I've finally started re-designing my personal website. For the last year or so I've stopped advertising to potential employers that I even have a personal site because I've not worked on it since 2002 and, frankly, it's an embarrasment. It doesn't really use any kind of decent CSS (read: none of any consequence), I did it when I was still learning Dreamweaver and therefore the layout is in tables (which is really not the current techniques), and really everything about my personal site has been annoying me for nearly two years although I've really not had time to work on it. Recently, however, I finally got around to doing up a concept in Photoshop and sliced it into the starts of a CSS display. Now it's just a matter of transferring all the content (which will take a fair amount of time to clean up and re-work but I'll probably look at killing a lot of the content of my site initially just to get it up there and then work on transferring the various areas over time (or not - might just keep them the same as "archives". I'll, of course, post here when it's done.
Eighthly, I'm finally getting myself back to finishing Flatsharing. Realising I need to rebuild the title sequence and add a name that I neglected first time out, horrifyingly realised that not only did I need to hunt down two effects for After Effects that were pretty much central to my sequence, but also that 3 files appeared to be missing but I can't seem to identify what files are missing. Furthermore, in order to add the name I need to remember how I created the effects of the simply text itself, plus what font I used, both of which I have no idea any more. So without adding the name (bah!) I decided to start building the sequence. It has been building now for the last 24 hours and is only just past half way through. This is about as long as it took me last time and then I had a slower processor and less memory. Grr. It's kind of thankful that I have this netbook otherwise it would be no internet for me for quite some time. Of course, it could all be one giant waste of time if the files that are missing are actually essential. Time will tell.
Ninthly, my Call of Cthulhu game is still on hold mostly due to not having the space to run things. With Guy still staying here I can't fit everyone into my living room without kicking him out of the flat for four hours, which I don't really want to do, and we can't play upstairs at the moment because Sam (who isn't playing) doesn't really want everyone around while she's home (until and unless she gets herself work on a Saturday). There's the possibility that she might be convinced to give some leeway and we can at least start it up maybe fortnightly. Truth be told, I'm not even sure everyone will want to come back after such a long gap... We'll see. I still need to work on the "re-introduction" scenario. It was agreed that I would write a prequel scenario unrelated to the campaign in an effort to get the group working together and then if everyone still wants to play then we can go back to the campaign.
Tenthly, I'm starting to get a little pissed off again with RAWSOC but that's another rant which I will spare you if you've actually read all of this. Sorry for the long post for those who don't like them but I can't be bothered putting in any LJ cuts at the moment because really I'm procrastinating doing some other work right now as it is and rather than re-read this post I'd rather just get back to work.
Buddha said: "Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others."
Be happy, people.
Firstly, I want to apologise for people still waiting for me to write up the review I promised - I've written about half of it, but I keep getting distracted with my busy, busy, busy at the moment. It's coming, though.
Secondly, I also need to write up a report for Conception - I know, but this, also, is something I'm procrastinating.
Thirdly, last night I told another story at the little storytelling night. That was fun. I wasn't quite as drunk as I was last time so the nerves hit me a little stronger but I got lots of good feedback again which was nice.
Fourthly, I've worked out where all my precious money has been disappearing. My crappy token meter has been eating up gas like it doesn't care. I've been pumping in on average about £20 a week. Last month cost me £100 in gas which is the sum total of my electricity bill for the last quarter. This is pretty damned fucking stupid. Obviously at summer I'm more likely to be spending £20 a month or something because I won't be using the heating, but that and the cost of Conception has royally screwed my financial comfort zone. I'm not quite in dire straits again, but it's looking potentially nasty again. A man from British Gas came out to have a look at the boiler yesterday and he told me that currently I'm losing about 25% of the money I put into it due to inefficiency mostly due to sedement in the boiler (yay, magnite). On the plus side he told me that the solution to my low hot water pressure would be to get a combi-boiler installed and then I would have a decent hot water pressure and I could have showers again (genuine yay). The only snag here is trying to convince my landlord that this is needed.
Fifthly, I'm about to embark into the world of self-employment again. With the economy at the moment, and it being tough finding any kind of decent (or half-decent) work I figure the best solution here is to make my own. Well, that and if I don't do it I'll probably be assigned to Environmental Task Force (read: litter picking). It's a little sooner than I'd like to be doing it what with me still being unable to do database integration at the moment, but if I can get the work going this could be good. I'm going to be working in conjunction with Guy who will focus primarily on copywriting and SEO while I deal with all the rest of the website side of things. To be honest, websites are not the only focus of our business ambitions but it's a cheap starting point and requires the least startup costs.
Sixthly, there is no sixthly.
Seventhly, I've finally started re-designing my personal website. For the last year or so I've stopped advertising to potential employers that I even have a personal site because I've not worked on it since 2002 and, frankly, it's an embarrasment. It doesn't really use any kind of decent CSS (read: none of any consequence), I did it when I was still learning Dreamweaver and therefore the layout is in tables (which is really not the current techniques), and really everything about my personal site has been annoying me for nearly two years although I've really not had time to work on it. Recently, however, I finally got around to doing up a concept in Photoshop and sliced it into the starts of a CSS display. Now it's just a matter of transferring all the content (which will take a fair amount of time to clean up and re-work but I'll probably look at killing a lot of the content of my site initially just to get it up there and then work on transferring the various areas over time (or not - might just keep them the same as "archives". I'll, of course, post here when it's done.
Eighthly, I'm finally getting myself back to finishing Flatsharing. Realising I need to rebuild the title sequence and add a name that I neglected first time out, horrifyingly realised that not only did I need to hunt down two effects for After Effects that were pretty much central to my sequence, but also that 3 files appeared to be missing but I can't seem to identify what files are missing. Furthermore, in order to add the name I need to remember how I created the effects of the simply text itself, plus what font I used, both of which I have no idea any more. So without adding the name (bah!) I decided to start building the sequence. It has been building now for the last 24 hours and is only just past half way through. This is about as long as it took me last time and then I had a slower processor and less memory. Grr. It's kind of thankful that I have this netbook otherwise it would be no internet for me for quite some time. Of course, it could all be one giant waste of time if the files that are missing are actually essential. Time will tell.
Ninthly, my Call of Cthulhu game is still on hold mostly due to not having the space to run things. With Guy still staying here I can't fit everyone into my living room without kicking him out of the flat for four hours, which I don't really want to do, and we can't play upstairs at the moment because Sam (who isn't playing) doesn't really want everyone around while she's home (until and unless she gets herself work on a Saturday). There's the possibility that she might be convinced to give some leeway and we can at least start it up maybe fortnightly. Truth be told, I'm not even sure everyone will want to come back after such a long gap... We'll see. I still need to work on the "re-introduction" scenario. It was agreed that I would write a prequel scenario unrelated to the campaign in an effort to get the group working together and then if everyone still wants to play then we can go back to the campaign.
Tenthly, I'm starting to get a little pissed off again with RAWSOC but that's another rant which I will spare you if you've actually read all of this. Sorry for the long post for those who don't like them but I can't be bothered putting in any LJ cuts at the moment because really I'm procrastinating doing some other work right now as it is and rather than re-read this post I'd rather just get back to work.
Buddha said: "Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others."
Be happy, people.