Just had a big burst of activity and spent what feels like the last 2 hours cleaning up.  Main area of zappage was the middle bedroom which is where I put my computer. If you know me its a continuation of the den, where my messy 15 year old self holds court. Well no more, Rach gave me an ultimatum clean up or no computer. Seeing as it turns up tomorrow, today is do it day. So its done, and I’ve just chucked another load of clutter in the bin. The middle bedroom is one of our favourite dumping grounds. Things that go there are usually on their way to the attic, to garage (where there will be a reckoning one day) or the bin.  There’s a rant in there somewhere, but for now I’ll just leave it at 99% of my problems these days are to do with too much stuff in my life.

All the content, bar Darran’s HQ scenario which hes doing next week along with some art :), for Hearts in Glorantha is in 😀 I’m currently gobsmaked. For something that has come together almost on a whim, the quality is outstanding. I can’t really single anyone out. Little old me has ten or so top quality articles to do justice on layout. 50 odd pages of copy and not a dud amoungst them. Job tomorrow print it all out and enjoy reading it. This job does have its perks after all 🙂

Another writing job I’ve started this weekend is the end of SimpleQuest. All the hard rulesy bits are done and have been edited by the lovely

gspearing

. Now I’m just doing the example setting (think Charlemagne’s Europe with Orcs), monster descriptions for the creatures chapter and a very simple adventure that teaches the rules. Its all a bit fluffy, but very nice to write. Should all be done and dusted by next weekend 🙂

Evie was charming today, despite being shut in the house for most of it. Managed to go out on her trike down half mile or so of road, there and back twice which meant I walked a grand total of 2 miles. Between going out for walks with Evie and gardening I’m beginning to get back into exercising which is good news.

Looking forward to work this week. Its going to be a challenging week, but I’ve learnt from the hard work I’ve put in this weekend that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to happy and relaxing where I allow things to work themselves out and not get in the way 🙂

So Rach is on nights this weekend. Not something I enjoy, being in the house on my own freaks me out and I don’t sleep as well. Evie didn’t go down well last night, it took an hour to settle her. But once she did, I had me curry and settled in to catching up with TV (Battlestar Gallatica) and Films (Walk the Line and the Buffalo Soliders – both damn fine films, BS especially). Did a bit of RPG writing, but didn’t bust a gut like I planned. Struck me how much I needed to have a good relaxing night in.

Another night in alone tonight. Going to pick up the pace on the writing, since I have sorted out my writing set up with the laptop.  Got to make the most of it, since back to usual tommorrow and my gaming PC turns up 🙂

Well Ministry last night was a bunch of fun. Got to catch up with a load of folk I’ve not seen in an age which was great and generally have a good night out.

As for Ministry themselves, well the best I can say is that they looked and played tired. Me and Nice Andy left about 10 mins early, that’s how bored I was.

Update: attack-monkey goes into much more detail over on his LJ

Been awhile since I’ve posted here properly. I think shorter posts should do it. If I’ve got time to post comments I’ve got time to post here 😉

Evie’s 1st Birthday party was lovely and it was nice to catch up with folk who came (even the knife fighting Foz brothers 🙂 )

Been sick. sick and sick again. A similar cold to the one I had over XMAS. I joke that I was besieged by Evil Snot Goblins. Well over the last week I had to cough them up, one at a time YICK!  Almost lost the will to live, was unpleasant to live with (sorry Rach 😦 ) which made me realise that if I ever got any proper illness I would be truely awful. More or less over it now.

Hearts in Glorantha and SimpleQuest coming along nicely. Currently having a crash course in InDesign which RAWKS!!

Rach got a Wii after months of pontificating. Its great. Rach videoed me playing with it, but you are never seeing that particular home movie (Titled ‘A fat man plays Wii’).

Had a nice Personal Development Review which confirmed that I’m settled in happily to my new role 🙂 Onwards and upwards they say.

My pc Monstro, which I have had for six years, crashed windows again. Its fixable but its time to move on. Getting a shiney new gaming machine from CyberPower . Monstro is going to live with my brother George which makes me happy since its a good machine that I’ve had allot of fun and use out and I would hate for it to go to land fill.

Well yesterday was interesting if only for one thing. UEFA cup in Manchester Rangers vs St Petersburg, a game which not being a footy fan I was blissfully unaware of until I got off the bus at Picadilly Gardens in Central Manchester at 9:30 and was hit by a tidal wave of blue shirted Rangers fans, most of whom had already started drinking. The reason why there were so many in Piccadilly  was that it was one of three fanzones (Albert Sq and Cathedral Gardens being the others) set up with a large screen, a bar (with two petrol tankers full of Carlsburg) and festival style and scale portaloos.

Got over to my office on Oxford Road, and during the day you could here gangs of fans coming down the road into the city centre chanting and singing. A colleague summed it up, it was like Day of the Dead with Footie fans.

Walking across Picadilly at about 5:15 to get the bus home was amazing. I’ve never seen so many people in one place before except perhaps at some of the rock festivals I’ve been to in the past. My bus stop was moved about 2 mins walk out to the old station on Lever street, and it was quite intense walking through the generally well behaved fans (although one yahoo thoughtfully threw a crushed up can directly at me as I hit the fringes of the mass at Picadilly station). Even on the bus ride home the blue crowds didn’t go away until we were well down Oldham road almost into Newton Heath which is a good 5 miniutes out of the city centre.

Of course predictably that many people which that much alcohol, there was some rioting later on when the screen in Piccadilly Gardens failed. This article in the Independant online seems to give the best detail on the events – Manchester bears scars of UEFA violence.

This morning when I got in by the bus at 9 the clean up operation had just started. Piles of newspaper, cans and bottles everywhere right up to the shops along Oldham road and also along Portland street as well. Picadilly Square itself just reeks of stale lager and several of the bus stops are smashed up as well as some of the fencing around the fan zone. Won’t be surprised if they are still cleaning up when I go home at five.

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1. Tell you why I befriended you.
2. Associate you with something -fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.bigdaz
5. Ask something I’ve always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favourite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ

Our Eve is one today. Can hardly believe it…its been a life changing year in so many ways.

The First year of her life in pictures….

…and one needs more tea.

Time to wake small one up and put the kettle on meethinks.

If weather holds up its out in the garden being Alan Titchmarsh! Time to see if our petrol lawnmower – Metallica – still works despite me not giving its end of season clean last Sept.

Last night started the great Windows reinstall, as WinXP yet again lost its settings on the desktop in the office and there was no way of repairing it. Grr. Saying this I’ve not lost much this time round since all family email is no on Gmail, all bookmarks are saved via Foxmarks on Firefox and I grabbed all my documents (mainly RPG writing) and the sacred family photos (4.5 GB of photos of mainly Eve) and put it on my 80GB Ipod using an Ubuntu Live CD. In fact I’d probably go Ubuntu with Wine , for my old games and apps, since the machine is 6 years old and the most cutting edge thing is 2 years old, except Rach isn’t sold on Ubuntu. Compare this with the Ubuntu laptop we use daily while lounging about down stairs in the lounge, that has never needed to be reinstalled in the year that I’ve had it and is a similiar spec and age to the desktop.

Bit of a pointless rant, seeing that I’ve reinstalled WinXP, but it does give me food for thought for the new machine I’m planning on getting this year.

UPDATE: By gumby. After reviewing the WIneHQ App database, I’m inspired to give it a go on my Ubuntu laptop!!

The weeks are just flying by. This must be the most hectic year evar!

Dad came to visit last weekend. Had a good time catching up and the highlight of the visit was a trip into Manchester to go to the ever mouthwatering Yang Sing  Chinese resturant. Afterwards had abit of a guided tour of Manchester, as dad wanted to see what had changed since he was last there in the 1960s.

Took Monday off and had a lovely day with Eve and Rachel. Didn’t do a great deal, but had fun going round the toy depts at Mother care and Toys R US ( all I’ve got to say here is ‘VOICE ACTIVATED DALEKS WOOHOOO!!’). Can’t believe that our little girl is nearly one (this May).

Don’t know what came over me yesterday. Was surly and sulky in a fifthteen year old sort of way. Fortunately managed to shake it by the time I got home. 

Today I’m back to my bright sparky self and getting on with work and life in general 🙂