From The Morgue

Back from AKL. Events: free Rolling Stones, man vs bull, mysterious gorilla suit, shocking collapse, Sigur Ros, 24/7 bar.
Kiwipeeps: this is your warning. There will be a rumpus. Mark your calendar: May 13, Saturday. The party of the year.

There are several funny things turning around and around in my head which I’m not going to write now, because, tired. I am shortly being collected by other moose for road trip to Auckland – exciting, only secondest time out of Wellytown since returning to NZ.
I have been running into people lots in the streets of Wellington. All is as it should be in that regard. Feel like I’m recreating my networks, even though I am still very much a hermit right now.
I am giving the freelance writing thing a serious go, with a focus on the RPG industry, which is completely insane given how few people there are in the world making a living from freelance RPG writing. But what the hell. It all fits into my master plan. Plus, as Billy made me understand, it provides a rationalisation for the ridiculous numbers of RPG books I have – ‘research material’. Honestly, my GM screen for Mekton II counts as research material even though I don’t have any other Mekton II books and the screen is probably useless to me even if I did. It’s research material, don’t judge me.
A few brave souls have toiled through RtB. I am beginning to form a picture of What Must Be Done. Which is good. A few more victims to inflict it upon yet.
My Edinburgh laptop is being written off due to screen malfunction combined with excessive cost of replacement screen. Not exactly in slowville though, as my parental bodies have invested in a laptop which is quicky quicky. Still on dialup. (Broadband in NZ is expensive and useless – it’s a huge issue, turns up lots in our daily papers. You UK ppl would be astonished how bad it is here. And we’re so good with all the other techie stuff in this country, too.) Anyway, I invested in 5-year insurance for the laptop when it was got in November or so 2003, so I’m getting moneys, hopefully enough for another laptop with warranty but of course that’s unlikely. *sigh* We’ll see how we go.
The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day for a drive. Summer lingers. Choice.

c/o Billy:
London blasts had no direct al Qaeda support-report
“The London bombings last July were planned on a shoestring budget from information on the Internet and with no direct support from al Qaeda, a British newspaper on Sunday quoted a government report as saying.”
This has been a theme I’ve returned to over and over again when I’ve got going on this subject – the US and UK govts are desperately trying to sell us this image of Al Qaeda as a highly-structured international network of co-ordinated terror. It’s not.
This sales job is being done to justify the war on terror and to provide legitimacy to their bullshit explanation for the terror: “they hate our freedom!
Ah, I ranted about this before when I attacked big stupid-head David Capitanchik. “If we have a massively decentralised movement, then we need to accept that people are not joining that movement because they are brainwashed by malicious James Bond villains.” Go read that again and imagine I’m ranting it word-for-word here. Enough.

My ankle is doing wonderfully, thank you. A few twinges now and then when I catch my foot on an odd angle, but otherwise back to full mobility and strength.
Now it’s my shoulder that’s playing up. It just starting hurting after the party on Saturday night. No obvious explanation (although being pulled back and forth through a window can’t be ruled out). It’s frustrating, especially as it’s just painful enough to completely ruin my ability to sleep properly. Or, when the painkillers run out in the wee hours of the morning, at all.
I think this is my body’s way of telling me I’m thirty. Bugger.
—
In any case, I’m a bit disheartened to be off the sport so soon after getting back on it, so I’ve scheduled some self-pity for this evening. At 7pm, when I was meant to be playing indoor netball, I’ll instead close the door to my room and curl up on my bed listening to Portishead’s Numb on my headphones. And weep bitter salty tears. Should be fun. (Sorry – you’re not invited.)

I am fine here. How are you? It is sunny outside. I have been drinking a mug of rooibos tea, which I like very much!
Many people have commented on my birthday post, which makes me very happy. Plenty of fun stuff to read in the comments there! You could do much worse than reading through these insightful and amusing quotes. And, of course, adding a quote of your own if you haven’t already!
Here are some other interesting things for you to read:
The Other Moose has a fascinating series of posts on why we can change the world, and why we haven’t done it yet, among other things.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Stronger Light has a great post about the existence or otherwise of ‘covert’ racism here in NZ. Among other things.
No Right Turn‘s Idiot Savant went to the Climate change conference here in Welly, and threw some reports on his blog: One, Two, Three, Four, Five
He’s also conducting some interesting work on encouraging participation in our democracy, trying out pledgebank as a way to motivate action and brainstorming things to suggest to MPs for private members bills.
Also, for my money, the team over at This Modern World continue to provide the best window through which to stare in disbelief at the ludicrous theatre of the absurd that is the US political world. (And David reports that the Daily Show is coming to C4!)

When my classy older bro turned 30, he had a Logan’s Run theme party.
I, on the other hand, am marking the occasion the same way I did the last couple of years. I’d appreciate it very much if you would please throw a quote of some description into the comments section. It can be anything, from any source. Yes, you can make it up, or quote yourself. It can be a Bible verse or something someone said in a film or a knock knock joke. Anything. You don’t need to justify yourself. Give me some quotey goodness in the comments, please – I’m only gonna turn 30 once after all.
Mostly I just like to hear from people. The existence of good people in this world is something to be endlessly celebrated. Yay.
(And do it now. If you decide to come back later you might forget, and if you forget I’ll be a Sad Panda.)
(Lurkers who never comment are particularly invited to comment this time. You can do it anonymoosely.)
(Last year Chuck’s quote made him internet famous! Which is nice because he’s saying nice things about me on his blog. Read the last comment of last year’s post to see.)
Previous birthday quotefests: 2005 2004

Laptop still in shop being checked out. This is the checking-out stage only, they haven’t started work on repairing yet. Gah. So I’m stuck on Slowy McSnailpace here, which can take upwards of 20 seconds to do a screen redraw sometimes. Patience, of course, is a virtue.
Have been busy. Went to De La Soul gig. Went to a wedding (#3 of the year). Hung out with temporarily-returned Leon (still a God). Have successfully recuperated ankle such that I have played three games of netball, one of basketball and one of ultimate over the last three days. Now I am achey from the exercise, but it’s lovely to be fully mobile again.
There now exist printed copies of Ron the Body. This pleases me no end. Thanks, sekret printing source! (Time elapsed from opening printed copy until finding a typo: approx ten seconds.)
The blogging will continue to be irregular while I’m stuck in Slowville. Please, just carry on without me. I’m fine.

I took my laptop into the laptop repairing place today. Online on the parental computer, which is slow. I’ve managed to quadruple its speed but it’s still slow. Only solution: pause the internet for me. I will catch up when laptop returned.
Played netball today, first outing on the ankle post-injury. I did not make it worse. This is good.
Instead of this, go read the other moose’s post about how our psychology influences our political tendencies. Is good, and includes micro-summary of Lakoff, who I’ve been mentioning here of late.

Late Afternoon Sun In A Toronto Park
01torontosunlight.jpg, 226K
(It’s a Canadian sweep of the top three! Go Canucks!)
One of our afternoons in Toronto we made it out to the cool neighbourhood where Andrew H and Janice live. We went for a wander through a big park that was right nearby, and as the sun got lower in the sky the whole place became really pretty.
I just really like this photo. I like the way the lines fall, the treetrunk and the path making a cross shape, Janice and Andrew and the tree all backlit, the more sculpted garden away down the hill… Janice has her hands up because she’s just noticed that the light is great to take a photo of someone standing against the tree, a photo that was taken a minute later on someone else’s camera.
Mostly I like this photo because it brings back the feeling of that day so vividly. It’s one of the few photos I have that combines the pretty scenery with a candid photo of people, and those are two things I like, so, yeah.
Andrew H, by the way, I met on the same trip to Portugal that led to me meeting Aaron (who was in photo 8 with the Guru Josh record) and Ella (who took me to the prairies for last week’s sunflower photo). That was a good trip.
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So those are my favourites. Except it’s a stupid exercise, choosing favourites. There are other photos I also like a whole bunch which didn’t make it in this list. Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed lookin’ at them. I’ve enjoyed revisiting them, that’s for sure.
🙂

From the Dom Post today:
Joe Bennett’s column title: “Do-gooders do no good”
Key paragraph: “Doing good makes people feel gooey inside, but it springs from exactly the same desire as warmongering. It springs from the desire to feel superior.”
(Joe Bennett is pretty moderate as far as columnists go in NZ newspapers, btw.)