You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Furniture, Car, Letters

One of the problems with updating infrequently is that I forget where I first saw things. For example, I'm not sure who first pointed me at Ixi, so I'm not sure who I can thank for exposing me to the Stoolpants.

Some of the other suggestions fail for cultural, rather than asthetic reasons. Putting your bum or feet on a table or desk (especially one that people might eat off of) isn't okay at all in Maori culture -- teacher friends of mine have said that they've gotten very adept at perching on the backs of chairs. So Akira's sofa, while a nifty idea, makes me go a bit "bleargh". It's a better name than "Stoolpants", though.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Zombie Pinup girls, where people dress up as... sexy zombies. Peoples is weird.

***

I've had my car back for a little while, and while I'm finding it odd to get into a habit of checking the radiator and oil every morning before I start, at least this reassures me that nothing is going wrong. I've driven up to Kapiti (to see Debz students put on the play And Then They Were None, which was very well done -- much kudos to Debz and her drama student crew), and the car behaved itself fine. It can be a bit grumbly when first starting up, but this may be because the garage set the idling speed quite low when the choke is on.

Okay, I am forced to admit that I only have the haziest and most general idea of how a choke works, how idling speeds might be set, and car things in general. Forget being the car-equivalent of someone who uses prepackaged web authoring software, rather than writing them raw in a text editor as the good Lord intended; I'm the guy who's only just discovered you can type in the address bar of your browser. Oh noes! ;)

It goes back to the garage briefly in a few weeks to be checked over; but so far, everything is looking good. (touch wood)

***

I've been talking to an old friend who's currently in Newcastle (when she's not swanning around Britain and the Continent). We've been looking at reviving an old collaborative fiction thing that we started back when I was still working for Vic Uni; it was inspired by Sorcery and Cecilia, insofar as the central conceit is a series of letters passed back and forth between two correspondents. Since she is a Real Author who has gone to writing courses and the like, whereas my writing background could charitably be characterized as "minimal", I'm somewhat anxious; but since it's only for fun, and we're going for a "sci-fi period-piece" feel, I hope to acquit myself reasonably.

A link? Um... all right, but A Game of Letters is all in a bit of a state of flux. Comments aren't enabled for visitors, and there's only the first letter back and forth so far, because I'm in the middle of rewriting Gideon's second letter... anyway, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and it's likely to move glacially slowly, but I thought I'd mention it.

Posted by svend at October 27, 2005 11:24 AM