space! the final frontier!

[freckles_and_doubt]

So, here I sit at my rather small desk, of which vast expanses are suddenly free and empty, ready to be filled with exciting tottering piles of the current research (which is Tolkien and fan culture, and therefore barely qualifies as work). And why? Because I have the best friends in the multiverse, is why. The Great Birthday Conspiracy, which originated in the generous and fermenting brain of Jo(ty), turned out to be a joint present from about 30 people, a large, square, flat box wrapped in exciting shiny purple and gold paper, and containing... a new LCD monitor for my computer. It's slender, and black, and very, very sexy, and is seriously putting to stylistic shame my keyboard and mouse. I shall have to replace them with black, curvy ones.

The side-effect of the Amazing Friend syndrome is that a good half of them are computer geeks, which means they not only gave me the monitor, they assembled and installed it, causing me to spend a good two-thirds of last night's party bouncing around on the tips of my toes uttering excited squeaks, as relays of guests shuttled into the study to Admire. And Win98 found drivers when I booted this morning, no problems at all (despite the fact that the instructions on the packaging don't even mention something as lowly as 98), and the screen is clear and sharp and utterly, utterly free of wibble and fade. Deep is my happiness. Huge is my gratitude. Yoda is clearly my linguistic role model.

It was a good party, too. Evil Landlord made his killer gluhwein, and I made mulled cider, and bunches of snacks, which is inevitable for one whose cooking motto is "There's no such thing as too much food." Guests left groaning and weaving slightly, which is to me the hallmark of a successful party. Lots of people there I haven't seen in a while, excellent catch-up opportunities. We also played Gloom, which is an entertainingly Edward Goreyesque card game on transparent cards, where you play a mad family of some sort, the purpose being to drive the disfunctional members ever deeper into depression and angst, until they finally expire. (Young Mike shall suffer for the happiness he inflicted on my family). Lots of fun, I shall have to acquire a copy. What's with ironic Gothic at the moment? Very Adams family feel, but it's huge right now - Lemony Snicket being the archetypal example. I suppose it's the inevitable moment where consumer culture circles back and appropriates the fringe counter-cultures of the past. Alas, poor Goth.

I am left with a slightly guilty appreciation of the hideous power that is the blog phenomenon. It certainly seems to address the problem of what people want for their birthdays... As Neil says, next time I should simply casually mention that I really need about 30 million rand, and see what happens...

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Surely that should be Yoda my linguistic role model clearly is.

oh, pish!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

and likewise, tush. Darned purists. Yes, since you must have it so, that should have read: "Deep my happiness is. Huge my gratitude is. Yoda my linguistic role model clearly is." *blows raspberry*

I've been meaning to mail you for days to say that yes, thank you millyuns, the CDs arrived safely. I have tamed the raaaaar! file, remarkably easily, actually (*brandishes whip at WinZip*); it now remains only to find a media player that will (a) actually play the defanged result, and (b) download without timing out during one of IAfrica's characteristic fits of existential angst during long downloads. (Is this a download? do I know this person? am I actually a connection? oops, guess not). I am now a dedicated convert to Firefox, but the one beef I do have with it is its absolute and tragic absence of a Resume function during downloads. Trolling its site for cool extensions, I find long lists of posts from people complaining about - strangely - the lack of the resume function. I feel less alone now. Although more impelled to curse the lucky sods with broadband.

Re: oh, pish!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

lucky sods with broadband

I'm told that some people still use dialup.

Mostly I play movies in Winamp. of course, you need the right codecs installed too.

Good firefox extensions that I use are: Googlebar, adblock, linkifcation, netcrafttoolbar.
And for fun maybe forecastfox (weather reports).
I have sage (rss) installed, but tend to use the RSS on Thunderbird instead.

You did mention that someone there had the Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Episodes, right?

Hm, BG Season two starts in September on Sky 1.

well congratumalations!

[(Anonymous)]

Amazing friends indeed. Yay you.

I am sunk in envy of two things, after reading this post. Not the Amazing Friends, I have those too. No, my twofold envy embraces: the monitor (obviously); and - dammit - your clearly alien metabolism that enables you to share my "no such thing as too much food"* philosophy while remaining fashionably thin.

robynn

* I do realise that you're applying this to Cooking for Guests, not Eating for Self. As do I, of course. *ahem*

Re: well congratumalations!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Well, the thing is that, once I've spent the day cooking and the evening bounding around pressing food on people, approximately the last thing I feel like doing is actually eating any of it. This strange sort of diet plan frequently causes my guests to look sideways at me and mutter about poison, but so far, no fatalities. Anyway, at parties I'm generally too busy losing my drink to eat. (I lose it an average of about twice an hour - put it down on a surface somewhere and can't find it, so I spend the evening drifting vaguely through the room wailing "But where's my drink?!" On Friday the suggestion was made that they could have concealed the Seekrit Surprise Pressie from me practically indefinitely, despite its metre-square purpleness, by simply putting my drink down on top of it).

And, as to the fashionably thin... darned alien metabolism is failing me. You approach 30, and the hips start ballooning, and no alien genetics in the world is going to stop that. I am somewhat more substantial than when you last saw me :>.

Hippy bathday

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

.. because real hippies bathe only once a year.

What I wanted to ask was, did the CD of Battlestar Galactica ever arrive?

Hurrah!

[(Anonymous)]

What an awesome present! You are blessed with truly wonderful friends.

Happy Birthday again,
Dayle
(who wishes she wasn't at the other end of the world because sbe wants to come to your parties and have you at her parties...)

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday. Word of the Great Birthday Conspiracy even reached me over here, so hope you enjoy the cool new pressie. :)