Good grief. Last night I dreamed I was staying in the guest house in Neil Gaiman's garden, but managed to somehow antagonise the pet tiger he had lounging around the place, so I spent a lot of the dream tiptoeing around avoiding it in a state of some trepidation. It was perfectly friendly to everyone else, but at one point it came and slept up ( Read more... )

Reading! I can do it, who knew? As promised, two books which I've read in the last week, and which have struck me somewhat forcefully.


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The student query flow, thank heavens, is starting to slow - I seem to have upped efficiency and communication a tad this year, so a lot of admin attempts were correctly located last week instead of illegally this week. Of course, that means last week was unspeakable. Conversely, today was almost conversable. I didn't bite anyone once ( Read more... )

So, orientation starts tomorrow. I've worked a week of 11-hour days in preparation, and most of yesterday and today, in between odd bouts of socialising (librsa's birthday picnic yesterday, lunch with friendly_shrink today). Two hours of photocopying this morning, an extended wrestle with advisor schedules and an online evaluation yesterday, an evening spent writing up ( Read more... )

• I'll swear a billboard I drove past yesterday read "BABOONS DISCOVER NEW CITRUS CULTIVAR". I must have been hallucinating. The one about "JUDGE SKINS SPUD" is mildly entertaining, however. Clever headlining to a very valid criticism.
• I'm kinda going to disengage from yesterday's Great Attribution Debate, because we seem to be beating our heads ( Read more... )

So, riddle me this, witterers. (While we're running with the Gollum theme). What is the difference, in your opinion, between the following, in purely ethical or moral terms? (Please leave legal implications out, I consider them to be a giant red herring in this particular debate).

1. Creating a new story as a response to an old one, with the new one ( Read more... )

I'm attacked by hiccups fairly often, and when they hit, it's violently, with full-body twitches, and, owing to the correlation between hiccups and booze, and my tendency to verbosity when slightly sloshed, the intrusion of loud and helpless "hics" into my usual babbling. All of the above has caused my loving friends to invent the notion of "comedy ( Read more... )

My irritation at Eternity hijacked my microfiction this week: the alien invasion story I had mostly written will have to wait for another theme. Instead, "Impundulu". Because it had to be done. It may make more sense if you know the legend, try here. Real African vampires will kick your butt, broody Western undead.

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Huh. It was an excellent evening at the Roundhouse last night, but for some reason the rich food gave me particularly trippy dreams. I spent a fair portion of the night bounding around the bedroom in a somnambulistic state, trying to prevent the little pewter statue of the man on the horse from galloping around sinking gradually and inexorably ( Read more... )