Author: Purple Wyrm

Subject – Bad Things:

The signals system on the Midland line broke down yesterday while I was on my way to work, meaning my train sat at Claisbrook for a good twenty minutes. This completely negated my efforts to go in early and get some extra work done.

A pipe burst at the complex last night meaning no hot water from about 8:00pm onwards. Luke warm shower last night, no shower at all this morning and wading through two inches of water to get to work.

Too much work on for me to take my usual two week break over Easter, meaning I only get one week off and will probably go mad from stress before long.

Subject – Good Things:

Ryan dropped by with a completely FREE recordable DVD player last night. His dad (who operates a skip bin service) recovered about a dozen perfectly good ones thrown out by a supermarket chain. Free recordable DVD players for all!!

I now have a post office box and can thus order things online without having to send them to my parents’ place or have them stolen from my mailbox by the various indigent savages inhabiting the complex.

Really good second date watching movies at her place last Sunday. Hopefully really good third date at the Art Gallery this Sunday. Lots of emails, texts and online chat in between 😀

Expect more details on some or all of these points over the weekend.

Helen has written to inform me that Saint Germain (without an ‘e’) is in fact an artist – specifically a jazz artist. Damn, I was hoping for the alchemist. I’m also slightly miffed that Dale knows more about music than I do 😉

I have about a dozen emails to answer from various people (including the aforementioned Helen). I meant to get to grips with some of them last night but my brain refused to co-operate. Hopefully I’ll get them sorted tonight.

PS: Tuburculosis (or consumption) is spread by infected droplets produced while coughing. Blue eyes are in fact a recessive trait. Was there anything I’ve forgottten? 😉

PPS: Apart from how to spell ‘forgotten’ obviously? 🙂

PPPS: Rebecca has also emailed me to point out that Saint Germain is a jazz artist. Am I the only person in the entire WORLD not to have heard of this person?!

PPPPS: Apparently.

From Zeldman…

Ain’t that the truth? 🙁

PS: Dale is talking to a potential wedding DJ client on the phone, telling them that he could play some ‘Saint Germaine’ during dinner. I don’t know if…

1. There’s an artist named St Germaine, which there well may be.
2. He means Saint Etienne, who could actually be quite good dinner music.
3. He has recordings by the semi-mythical, immortal alchemist of that name, possibly explaining how to turn base metals into gold 🙂

OK, a while back I said I was doing crazy and wild things, and would blog about them at some point. As the craziness and wildness have stepped up a notch (comparatively speaking) I figured the time had come. So, last night, I went on a date (amazing! 😉

So how did this thaumaturgical prodigy*Always wanted to use that phrase 🙂 come about? Glad you asked.

A few months ago Rebecca (as part of her long term plan to completely restructure my life 🙂 went behind my back and signed me up on RSVP – allegedly Australia’s largest singles and dating site. She then badgered me for weeks on end until I logged in and filled out my profile. I finally got this done to my satisfaction about three weeks ago and was shortly afterwards contacted by a really nice girl (whose name I will withold for now because, well, I suppose I don’t know if she wants to be mentioned by name in such a geeky medium :). One thing led to another and we ended up going out for dinner and a movie last night.

Despite my general social awkwardness this seemed to go quite well. Very well actually :). I know I had a good time, and considering that she didn’t flee off into the night and was very polite about my insanely nerdy apartment I think she had a good time too. And on top of that there was kissing involved, which I guess means we were both having a very good time 🙂

So yeah, hopefully we’ll be seeing each other again soon.

The one downside to this is that my sleeping patterns have got even worse. Nervous anticipation kept me awake most of Wednesday night, and I didn’t sleep very well last night either meaning that I’m only staying awake right now through sheer willpower. My stomach is also churning rather nastily, which at least means I’m not hungry and might lose some weight. I think it’s all down to severe existential/ontological shock. A week ago I was a pathetically single geek, scorned by the women of the world (let’s get overly dramatic now shall we? :). Last night I find myself kissing with a cute/hot/cool/really nice girl who seems to think I have some of those qualities too. It’s a paradigm shift of epic proportions and I think my worldview (not to mention self image) needs some time to adjust.

Not too much time I hope though. Sleep deprivation psychosis isn’t exactly the most attractive quality to take on a second date. 😀

Blazoned across the front page of The West Australian today is a graphic picture of a butchered sea turtle accompanied with text in large letters saying how Indonesian fishermen catch them, flip them over, cut out their eggs and dump them overboard to die.

Now, while this is undoubtedly cruel and barbaric treatment of a protected species, it’s interesting that we’ve known about it for ages (the photo dates from 2001 apparently) without it being front page news. I say – it wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the diplomatic relationship with Indonesia is a bit strained at the moment?*Some West Papuans have recently sought asuylum, claiming genocide by Indonesian troops. We’ve given them temporary visas, and Indonesia has recalled it’s ambassador in protest. Surely the state’s only daily newspaper wouldn’t stir up racial/nationalistic hatred to sell copies, would it?

Sigh. Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a world where newspapers told the news, rather than selectively filtering it. And while we’re at it, free energy, a cure for cancer and weekly shuttle trips to the moon would also be nice.

Prompted by my razor-blade-injury-inspired musings of last week, my good friend Rebecca has pointed out that Pauley Perette has a blog. She’s also pointed out that it’s exactly what you’d expect a goth actor blog to read like and is hence horrific 🙂

Arguably the most interesting thing about Ms Perette (that I know about anyway) is that all the online sources I’ve seen (not that I’ve been looking very hard mind you) say she was born in 1968 – thus making her just shy of 40. On NCIS however she looks at least 10 years younger. I figure this is down to either…

1. A really intensive health regime possibly involving restricted caloric intake and lots of running.
2. A complete inability on my part to judge age from physical appearance.
3. Heaping on tons and tons of age concealing makeup looks perfectly natural for a goth 🙂

I’ll stop this subject now before I start showing up on Google as some kind of NCIS/Pauley Perette/Abby fan blog 🙂

No updates for while because I’ve been busy doing wild and crazy things, which will probably get a write up sooner or later. But I thought I’d jump on to point out this.

Not only is Roma Victor the kind of MMORPG I’d be likely to play (the Romans were a bunch of militarily obsessed fascists but you gotta admit they had a hell of a lot of style – not to mention aqueducts) but this is the best online punishment I’ve ever heard. Break the rules? We don’t lock you out of the game for a week – we tie you up on a cross and leave you there for all the other players to gawk at for a week! Now that’s justice! 🙂

How long before this concept appears in World of Warcraft I wonder?

Note to self: Do not carry out scratch-building work involving unshielded razor blades while watching any TV show featuring Pauley Perette. Particularly any where she’s likely to turn up dressed in a St. Trinians uniform.

(I wouldn’t normally consider myself into the whole uniform thing, however I managed to brutally stab myself in the finger at the exact moment she appeared on screen – coincidence? 🙂

Hmmm, didn’t I say something about blogging on a daily basis this week?

Mind you, you can’t blame me. It’s all Ryan’s fault for coming over and distracting me by giving me birthday presents – can you imagine the nerve? 🙂 Thanks to his generosity I’m now up one Best of Live album (yey!) and one Radagst the Brown model (yey! again!). He on the other hand is up one impromptu lecture on English history – this is what happens when (while talking about V for Vendetta for instance) you make the mistake of asking me “What’s the deal with Guy Fawkes anyway?”

Wyrmworld – educating the masses one person who’d rather be watching the Simpsons at a time! 🙂

LATER…

From the CBS News article Rewriting The Science…

Right, so he’s not a scientist right at the moment, but he will be really soon!!

(It’s called ‘proofreading’ people – look it up some time)

Well I said I was going to write, and write I shall – even if I’m too tired to write anything but appalling gibberish. So, be warned!

So, why is chicken green? “Green?” you say, “What sort of strange drugs have you been taking man?!”*That’s a plummy colonial British ‘man’ by the way, not a stoned San Francisco hippie ‘man’. Just thought I’d make that clear.. “None!” I say for I’m talking about chips*That’s “potato chips” for you Americans and “crisps” for the Brits. Just thought I’d make that clear too..

I don’t know if it’s the case elsewhere in this world of ours, but here in Australia bags of chips are colour coded according to the contents. By reason of law, tradition or old charter all the brands ahere to the same ancient colour system, which is as follows…

Ordinary salted chips are dark blue. Salt and vinegar chips are red, or (for those companies who like to flirt with heresy) reddish purple. Cheese flavoured chips are yellow, with variants such as cheese and onion also yellow – although of a lighter or darker shade. But chicken is green. WHY?!

In the far distant past when the Government gathered together to draft the “Potato Chip Packaging Act 1834” (or whatever) why did they light upon this particular hue? Did they have some kind of sinister underhand motive? Were they perhaps insane? Or were they colour blind? Were they referencing some badly done aquatints or – even stranger – a now extinct 19th century variety of poultry with iridescent green plumage? Or was chicken the last flavour on the list and they’d simply run out of colours? Where, oh where does the truth lie?

I’m sure I can’t say. But I still think about it every time I pass the chip rack at the supermarket.