character saturday: leadership realness

Happy Birthday to me. I am now as old as there are weeks in the year. Do with that what you will.

Now, we've done the Icewind Dale Rangers before. But I accidentally gave a bunch of them a makeover. I went into Hero Forge with the intent of doing something else altogether, and got distracted by the very old model of one of them. I'd already given a couple of them a makeover, but never posted those and realised how shitty some of the other ones looked.

My favourite of the bunch though was the leader of the Rangers, Dreth. Partially because I always liked him as an NPC during that game, he was also the only one I didn't make up, but rather the one that DM Fluffy made up.

I'd done a partial makeover of him, but still didn't love the finished one. Weirdly, taking his hat off and putting a slight smile on his face make me instantly fall in love with him.

Anyway...

Let's start with Mini Media Reviews for this week. The theme of the week? Snowpiercer. All Snowpiercer, all week. And I still have half of the final season to go this weekend.

And damn it's good. Like really, really good. It's also incredibly intense at times. But the writing and the performances are fantastic. It takes a very special kind of show to have me wishing a character would be killed off in the first season and then have that same character being literally my favourite character in the show by the fourth season.

I'll be sad to get to the end to be honest. But I hope it ends on both a "finished" note (as in, the show was planned to run four seasons, it ran four seasons and ended, rather than it just randomly got cancelled after a season ended) and also a satisfying note. Even if that last bit is achieved by a "some amount of time later" flash forward in the last 10 minutes.

This week I also made tuna mornay. Not the spiciest of versions, but tasty.

Friday I went out to get my Birthday Boost Juice, because I love getting strangers to wish me Happy Birthday. It's a very niche kink. I also picked up Untitled Goose Game and basically knocked the game over in one sitting.

Friday Night DnD was also Birthday Night DnD. Fluffy showed up at my place with a present, but honestly, the bag the present came in was almost more exciting that the present itself. Which says everything about the bag and nothing about the present. The bag was a Toothless bag, just his big dumb face, which is currently hanging from a doorknob across the room where I can see it.

The actual present was The Witcher 3 and God of War. Fluffy was quick to point out they were preowned versions, which is totally fine. Now whether or not I'll vibe with them, who can say. I am going to start with Witcher, partially because I've watched someone play a good chunk of the first third or so of God of War. Which also makes me glad I knocked Goose Game on the head earlier in the day.

It was fascinating that when I opened the present from Mr and Mrs... it was the Toothless Lego set. Which I absolutely did not expect. But just funny that both of the presents had a Toothless themed element.

Also cheesecake. 

The actual game was more exploration of the dungeon complex we were in last week. We're also finally starting to get to the weirder elements of the adventure, which is good.

Anyway...

Today wasn't particularly exciting. Mostly because I honestly wasn't really all that bothered. We did the supermarket thing, I got my Birthday Scone from Baker's Delight. We didn't really have any other plans, and I'll be honest, I wasn't really bothered about going out to lunch or anything because that would have required killing at least a couple of hours.

2026

2026. Weirdly it feels like a made up number. Like what do you mean the year is 2026, that's not a real thing. Admittedly, 2025 felt kind of the same.

In addition to being the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, it's also the International Year of the Woman Farmer as well as Volunteers for Sustainable Development. So, naturally Hot Boy With Farm Animal was the go-to. And this particular Hot Boy is Francesco Soave, in a photoshoot by Johnny Lopera.

Yesterday was a little atypical, relatively speaking. I did the usual stuff, changed the bed to the soothing black and white bedding, generally tidied up, although I already did the lion's share of that earlier in the week, ran the vacuum over the floors... and then finished reading the book I was on because I wanted it done before the new year. You know, nothing exciting.

I also realised, fairly late in the afternoon that I hadn't made my usual year-in-review post... and looking through the blog last year... really there wasn't enough interesting stuff to justify bothering. I made a few crochet scarves plus a cardigan for Ma, I befriended a butterfly, I broke my toe... that was it really. So I didn't bother. There will be a books/media "best of" post sometime in the next week or so though.

The evening was where things weren't The Usual. For the first time since 2021, there was no Fluffy Movie Night. In all honestly, there wasn't even a "movie night" at all. Because I'd grabbed TV shows at the library last weekend without necessarily thinking it all the way through. So I finished the last three episodes of the season I was watching (more on that on the weekend). Which at least felt apt, even if there's a second season I really need to grab soon.

And that finished up around like 10:30... so I tidied things away and just went to bed by about, I dunno, 11 or so. Granted I messed around on my phone until midnight and did hear the fireworks from town, but I basically crashed out before 12:15.

This morning was a very quiet walk, as New Year's Day tends to be. And then the plan for later today is probably putting together the Lucky Bamboo Lego that Fluffy got me for Christmas. And then working out if I can actually get it in one of the cloches that I already own.

post christmas round-up 2025

Well... it's that time of year again. Time for the Christmas Round Up that is functionally the same as the last however many Christmas Round Ups.

We start out with the Krampus inspired warlock I came up with earlier this month after being inspired by an Instagram reel. She came out pretty well actually, just as a thought experiment. And then I realised that a good use for her was for today. So here we are.

Today, like always, wasn't terribly exciting, but it was, relatively speaking, very laid back. It was also, because I am contractually obligated to mention the weather, it was a pretty mild day. I wore jeans the whole day.

I'd already said to Ma that I wasn't going to rush down for breakfast, also so that she didn't need to rush in getting herself organised this morning. So I basically got up at my regular time and then went for my walk. 

Then I came home, had my usual breakfast and pottered around a little, got ready and headed down to Ma's about 9:15. The downside being that I didn't walk into Ma's place to find goodies fresh out of the oven, the upside being that Ma was fully organised by the time I got there.

We threw on the MTV Christmas songs special on the TV, while I pottered around Ma's place doing some prep work, setting the table, organising the kitchen for me to use, that kind of thing. Once I was done with that, we did presents, such as they were, relatively early.

It was a very DnD Christmas... 

• Dice Advent Calendar (from Mr and Mrs)
• 2024 DnD Players Handbook
• Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun book 

We haven't done Friday Night Christmas yet. So, there's at least that to look forward to.

Once we were done with that, I started on the cooking and whatnot.

I chose to do all the cooking and tidying up and whatnot today, for a variety of reasons, but also just to let Ma chill.

While watching a couple of movies I brought down (that I'd already watched). More on that in the Mini Media Review on Saturday.

I was unsure whether or not everything was going to actually be ready on time and work out properly, because Ma's oven is smaller than mine, and we had turkey and sausage meat and potatoes all to cook at the same time. And I just shoved the potatoes in raw and let them cook the entire time.

I had a little bit of a... not meltdown... let's call it a crisis of faith about how I'd organised things, reorganised them, also didn't like that, re-reorganised them and then went back to the first version.

In the end though it all worked out. And after I pulled the turkey and the sausage meat I let the potatoes keep cooking for a little bit, and was a little lazy and instead of cooking the haloumi, I just threw it in with the potatoes for a bit. That actually worked. What I didn't do was read last year's round-up that told me to take the sausage meat out early. Ah well. Worked out anyway.

I also didn't read the note about putting the basil in the bowls either. I should remember to read last year's advice.

But it came together well. I did my usual trick and just threw together a salad dressing with what was either in Ma's fridge or pantry. And a little mustard and some cranberry sauce goes a long way.

Then afterwards, I cleaned up the kitchen, put the leftovers away, all that stuff, before we put another movie on. And we did the usual thing of having dessert midway through the afternoon. I didn't take a photo of that one though, because, honestly, it was less visually appealing than previous years. Just go look at last year's version. That. 

Once we were finished with the movie it was about 5pm and I packed up my stuff and headed off.

So, you know, relatively normal, relatively boring, relatively the same as every other year. 

character saturday: little green dufus

So, this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is another one that is classified as "fan art". And yes, this is also the second time that I've done a similar off-centre pose for a character involved with the Phandelver Above and Below campaign we're playing on Friday night.

This is also very much my interpretation of the character based solely on vibes and after a makeover. I am also fairly sure that the background and subclass I've picked here are wrong. But again, based purely on vibes.

And I'll explain exactly where this Little Guy fits into out adventures when we get to Friday's DnD roundup.

Anyway...

This week was yet another incarnation of my minestrone soup, using the leftover tomato soup from a couple of weeks before as a base, because I had one left and shoved it in the freezer. It was a good call honestly. A very tomato-ey and rich minestrone.

In, "I'm clearly a witch" news... on Saturday, while talking about a set of boyfriend twins we saw leaving the supermarket (I've seen them before, I'm fairly certain it's a gay couple that just looks entirely too similar to each other, but there's also a non-zero possibility they could just be siblings), I said a name out loud that I probably haven't specifically said so that the universe can hear me in... a while.

And thusly, because, as previously mentioned, I am clearly a witch, that person messaged me after having spoken to them/seen them for 12 years. Yes, J has appeared from out of the ether after over a decade. And it definitely has to be that long, because they still remembered me living on Childers Street, and I moved out of there in the beginning of 2014.

Getting a text out of the blue was definitely a surprise, but we set up a call for later that evening, which was just long enough for my brain to run through the usual "panic later" routine... and honestly, my brain eventually just came back with 404 File Not Found. Which was actually nice.

I did, however, remember part way through the phone call that J is both A Lot Of Work, and that I think he's something of a pathological exaggerator. Not a liar, you understand, I just feel like he embellishes his stories. Which circles back into being A Lot Of Work.

It was a pleasant enough phone call though, and at some point I'm sure we'll do a dinner, but it absolutely feels like a lot of water has passed under the proverbial bridge since then. And, honestly, the place in my brain that used to hold space of J now basically holds space for Fluffy. Which sounds terrible, I fully understand, but doesn't make it any less true.

In crochet news... I undid/frogged the entire shrug cardigan I mentioned last week... and started making a second thing, which was essentially just a big granny square. That I then gave up on by the end of the week and also frogged. Because that will happen when you try and make a square using different weights of yarn and the corners end up bowing out slightly. I very much liked the way the colours looked, but by the end it was just not sitting the way I wanted it to. So I pulled the whole thing apart and will ponder my next step while doing some other projects this week. 

This week's Mini Media Reviews are the last of the X-Men movies and the second season on Penny Dreadful.

Now, I absolutely don't understand why all of the reviews for X-Men: Dark Phoenix are terrible. Truly I don't. Because it's better than the last time they tried this storyline in The Last Stand. It's certainly infinitely better than Apocalypse. I do get that it very much feels like a massive left turn for where the previous movie was pointing the characters. But it also makes sense. So, yeah, I liked it a lot.

The second season of Penny Dreadful was both better than the first one and also just fully leaning into Gothic tragedy. I'm just hoping that it manages to stick the landing in the third season, given that the series was cancelled. But I'm also not expecting anybody to get a happy ending, the series being what it is.

It is absolutely my vibe and beautifully made though.

Which brings us to Friday Night DnD...

Firstly, more kitten cuddles which is lovely.

And then, because Fluffy's character had disappeared off into the night at the end the last game, he just ended up sitting there for most of the game while Mrs and I did some bits and pieces, mostly just housekeeping stuff because we all knew is was going to be a short session.

Right up until the point where my character went out during the night for a little bit of light B and E to gather some information. And on the way back happened to come across a certain shadowy figure doing it's own bit of breaking and entering at one of the stores in town. So, as a good, civic minded citizen, my boy absolutely stuck his nose in with the intent of stopping the robbery. Yeah, the hypocrisy was breathtaking.

I'll be honest, I was assuming I might run into Fluffy's character on my way back, and I did... except it was the wrong character. Fluffy took great delight in taking the unopened folder in front of him and swapping it out for a completely different folder. And debuting Sugar Snap, the goblin rogue, who will be with us until we break his former character out of the lair of some nasty goblins we were intending to head towards anyway.

I haven't bothered asking the why... because this is absolutely a Fluffy Plan, rather than potentially a thing that the DM did. Or, at the very least, it's some bullshit the two of them cooked up together. And I understand the timing to some degree. It just feels a little dumb because we were fully in the middle of a story dump for his previous character... so I guess I just don't get swapping characters in the middle of that.

But it is what it is.

And it will serve him right if we end up liking the new character more than the old character, even if he wants to change back to the old character. It would also have served him right if I'd just murdered his character in the middle of the night.

Anyway...

Today was Ma's birthday... which, I will fully admit, I absolutely forgot about until I happened to check my phone after she got here. But also, I gave her her present last week.

But we did the usual supermarket thing, and Ma had decided she wanted to do lunch at the same place we went for my birthday, The Republic Norwood.  And this time I had the schnitzel I should have had last time. Because it was pretty much excellent. Maybe more so because it had been raining heavily on and off all morning.

And that was it really. 

character saturday: barbarian berseker

Back in 2020 [makes sign against the Evil Eye], before one of the previous sourcebooks came out, I was dabbling in ideas and came up with Wrath, Path of the Beast Barbarian. Consider Havoc to be the 2025 evolution of that idea. And also today's entry for Week 3 of DnD Character Colouring Book Barbarian March.

I don't know exactly what the allure of an angry albino tiefling barbarian is, but I'm absolutely here for it.

Havoc's backstory is still a little vague... the original idea was some sort of mash up of The Count of Monte Cristo... but, honestly, when you start to pick apart the inciting incident to that story, it gets very complicated. So right now I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with his backstory.

The other interesting thing about Havoc is that I could very easily switch up his subclass to any of the ones from the new PHB with very little tweaking.

Patience, his greatsword, is the result of a little bit of Photoshop fuckery, plus somewhere in that idea that is a catchphrase about "trying his patience" or "running out of patience" or something similar. I don't know exactly what it is yet, but it's in there somewhere.

I was also very proud of myself with his posing too. It's not hugely complex, but it came together just right.

Anyway...

This week's Mini Movie Reviews are definitely a mixed bag... I started out with Season 2 of American Gods, still loving Mad Sweeney but also definitely coming around on Technology Boy.

Next up, I took a little detour after having recommended the 2002 version of The Importance of Being Earnest to Fluffy, and watched it later that night. It's still very good.

And lastly I did Paris Police 1905, which I actually liked more than 1900 season. Whether that was because this was much less anti-Semitism and much more sex workers and homosexuals. Everything is still incredibly terrible for everybody concerned, but I enjoyed it more overall.

This week was My Birthday Week... but honestly, it essentially boiled down to Friday and today.

Friday I did my usual loop to Baker's Delight and Boost Juice to get my free stuff and make people in shops wish me Happy Birthday. So I came home with a nice cheese and chive scone and a King William Chocolate Boost.

Yes please and thank you for free stuff.

Fluffy got me both the Wolfsong book that was Very Important To Me in 2023, along with it's sequel, Ravensong, which I haven't gotten to yet, because it was, and I quote, "annoying me that you didn't have a copy of it".

And then there might have been a brief but deep conversation that followed.

Then it was off to Friday Night DnD. Small child of the Mr and Mrs house had felt compelled to make me "a card", which was very sweet. I also got another Dymocks voucher, so I'll put that to good use eventually.

Actual Friday Night DnD was... slightly less chaotic than I was expecting it to perhaps be. We dispatched the last of the bad guys and cashed in some quests, which was good.

It did lead to my boy perhaps revealing more of his backstory than I'd expected to this early.

We do now need to forcibly extract Mrs character's backstory... since she's the only one still sitting on secrets.

Anyway...

Today started like it always does, with the supermarket. Then we killed some time before heading out to Spotlight to actually do the thing we tried to do last week. This time successfully.

And then we went to The Republic Norwood for Birthday Lunch. I had the fried chicken burger, Ma had the fried halloumi burger. Should I have gone with my original plan to get a schnitzel? Very possibly. Did I only learn just now that they have a much more reasonably priced lunch menu that only exists from Monday to Friday? Also yes. 

Was it still very tasty? Absolutely. And the service was excellent.

2025

Welcome to 2025.

In addition to being the International Year of Peace and Trust, 2025 is the International Years for Glaciers' Preservation, Cooperatives as well as Quantum Science and Technology. However, as much as I would have liked to feature "hot boy on iceberg", the image search gods were not with me in this effort.

I also realised that 2021 was also a "Peace and Trust" year. Turns out that that's just the United Nations way of going "hey kids, quit squabbling, also we exist still" essentially. The more you know. And good for them I guess.

Weirdly, New Years Eve felt like it snuck up on me this year. I don't know if that's because there was a weekend in the middle, or what, I don't know. But yesterday was very "oh, it's NYE".

After my walk I went through my usual NYE chores. Change the bedding from festive red and green to calming black and white, tidy the house, vacuum, trim my hair, etc. All thrilling stuff, but necessary. And all very much my NYE "traditions". In the loosest definition of that word.

As is also tradition, Fluffy showed up in the evening for our usual New Years Eve Moviefest.

Of course, after a month of watching nothing but the entire run of Teen Wolf, and inspiring Fluffy to do the same, just slightly behind me, of course our first movie pick for the night had to be Teen Wolf: The Movie. I'm going to do a full review on it shortly... but it was both very good and in line with elements of the series, and also an entire dumpster fire. Very solidly average.

We followed that up with 80's camp classic, Big Business, partially to expand Fluffy's knowledge of Lily Tomlin, partially because it's just a big camp farce. It is, at times, somewhat slower than I remember it being and doesn't quite do as much of the, to quote Noises Off, "...doors and sardines. Getting on, getting off. Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That's farce."

I mean, it does all that, just less frantically. Still great though.

And, because we never quite get the timing right, we finished the movies at 11:30 and I drove Fluffy home, getting back just before midnight and basically just listening to the sounds of about 10 minutes of fireworks before I called it a night.

This morning wasn't anything new or surprising, just my morning walk.

post christmas round-up 2024

The Giant Christmas Moth wishes you a Merry Chrimmas! Yeah, it's just a giant-ass moth that was on the wall when I went for my walk this morning, but you know... I posted it to Instagram with the same caption.

And since we don't really do a tree thing at Ma's place these days, you get what you get.

Because I generally report on the Christmas Weather... it was a warm one this year. It topped out at just over 36°C, and, of course one of those times was when I was driving home... obviously.

So... I headed out for my walk this morning, and much like last year, there were what felt like a far larger amount of people out and about also doing a walk than there is on a regular weekday, and certainly more than I remember from back in the day when I used to walk in North Adelaide.

I came back, threw myself in the shower, had indecision about what to wear before discovering that I had a pair of jeans shorts in the wardrobe that I'd never actually worn and have no memory of getting. Happy Christmas to me.

The run down to Ma's place was good... I didn't get caught by the majority of the lights on the way down, or when I did, they changed basically by the time I'd stopped. So I got there around 9:30.

Was the first little while a slight comedy of errors? Yes, yes it was. Did I put the breakfast croissants into an already hot oven without checking the temperature? Yes, yes I did. Did they end up with a healthy coating of charcoal? Yes, yes they did. Did we eat them anyway? Fuck yes. Did I go to shake the Farmer's Union Iced Coffee from Ma's fridge only to discover as I was doing it that one of them was already open and sealed back up with a bulldog clip? Yes, yes I did. Thankfully the spray was minimal. But was I already by 10am ready to just give up on the whole endeavour and go home? Slightly yes.

But we made it through breakfast. Afterwards I hooked my laptop up to Ma's TV and played the Critical Role Winter's Crest holiday album... which, honestly, is not bad... and then cleaned up from breakfast. Mostly I threw Ma out of her own kitchen all day... for a couple of reasons. One of them being that it was honestly just easier for me to do everything myself, and also because it gave her a day where she didn't have to do anything.

Then we did a very brief round of presents.

Honestly, there was also a few bits and pieces like a couple of packs of Bundaberg Spiced Ginger Beer, because it wouldn't be Christmas without it, but I didn't bother adding them to the photo. There was supposed to be a copy of the new Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, but due to retail stupidity, I never got around to picking one up, but I'll do that in January. 

And the PS4 was something that got replaced back at the end of July, with the understanding that it was actually a Christmas present. So I just brought the box down for completeness.

So, the list looks thusly...

• PS4 (500GB in black)
• Dice Advent Calendar (from Mr and Mrs)
• Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret book (from Mr and Mrs)
• LEGO Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera (from Fluffy)
• Blokey Strokes magnetic bookmark (from Fluffy)
• LEGO Dungeons and Dragons minifigure Mindflayer and Half-Elf Bard
• Bundaberg Christmas Spiced Ginger Beer x 2
  

Afterwards, I set Ma in front of one of the movies I'd borrowed from the library (Wonka, more on that at the end of the week), while I started sticking things into the oven. Because we gave up on the Weber BBQ after last year's complete failure.

I'll also be honest, I have no idea who we specifically fit it all into Ma's oven last year. I mean, I managed, but it was slightly squished. Also, I really need to read the last year's Christmas Round-Up before the following Christmas, because if I'd remembered that I said last year that I didn't need to microwave the potatoes first, I might have actually listened to myself.

This Year's Me will tell Next Year's Me that we can probably take the potatoes and sausage meat out after about 75 minutes, and coating the turkey with some oil like the box says is a good idea. Also, just microwave the beans for like 30 seconds.

What I did do this year was not dump all the basil into the mixture, but added it to the bottom of the bowls, because honestly, it goes all weird in the leftovers.

It still looks pretty good though, honestly. Not bad for just throwing together basil, green beans, roast potatoes, cherry tomatoes, turkey, sausage meat and making a salad dressing with some cranberry, mustard, vinegar and oil. Voila.

Also, yes, that is essentially pretty much the identical photo I've posted for the last... I dunno, several years. On Instagram if not here on the blog. But these days I'm just lazy and reuse my Insta photos.

So, basically I dipped in and out of watching Wonka while getting lunch prepared. And then after we finished lunch (and the end of Wonka), I cleaned up while I put on the other library movie, Suzume, for Ma. The clean up wasn't too arduous honestly, because I'd been keeping a relatively clean kitchen throughout. But I did dip in and out of the movie a few times.

As is usual, we didn't have dessert directly after lunch, we never do. It generally ends up being late in the afternoon before we even bother. In this case it was after the movie. While I never really keep track of what time anything happens on Christmas Day, I do know that it was after 4:30, because when we turned the movie off, I just flicked through the TV and stumbled across the Christmas episode of Mythbusters from the first season, so we just threw that on.

I packed up afterwards and headed home sometime just before 6pm. Which was also around the time that the temperature spiked again. Good times.

And I got stopped at pretty much all the lights on the way home. Which is what you want when you're in a metal box that has been sitting in the sun all day.

So I got home, unpacked and then threw myself under a cold shower. As one does.

And that, mes amis, is Christmas 2024. For what it's worth.

character saturday: old lady druid

Weirdly, I thought I'd dropped an earlier version of this character... but clearly I did not. But this week's DnD Character Colouring Book isn't one of my characters, it's the one and only character Ma made, when she asked me to run a solo game for her and then I organised a game with some of my Adventurer's League chuckleheads, including Fluffy.

And this was her character, Nanith, a Wood Elf Druid. 

It seemed fitting, given that it was Ma's birthday this week.

Anyway...

I started off with potato, bacon and dill soup this week. I mean potato soup is pretty hard to mess up too badly, and I was using little pieces of bacon, so it was pretty good overall.

Then there was the fun and games that is Cleaning For A Rental Inspection. Not that it was overly arduous this time around. At least up until the point where I was vacuuming the carpet in the bedroom and the vacuum, which had given me some amount of grief during the previous inspection, just flat out stopped working.

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. One minute it was working perfectly, the next minute, it just turned off and wouldn't turn back on again. While I still had a small circle of unvacuumed carpet right in front of the bedroom door.

Rude.

So... I grumbled about it for about 30 seconds and just got on with things, because what else was I going to do? But I was pretty much all done by about 1pm, which isn't bad, given I started around 9, and wasn't exactly rushing through things. And, honestly, I definitely spent a bunch of time waiting for the floor to dry after I mopped.

I also spent more of the afternoon laying down in order to let my body recover. Because old and broken.

Tuesday, I got my shit together early, left a note for my rental agent saying "soz about the carpet but reasons" and headed out to the library near my old apartment. I ended up sticking around longer than I needed to, because I was so close to finishing my book. And then I detoured to Burnside Village to grab some lunch before heading home.

Insert usual comment about post-inspection house being best house.

Thursday I picked up books from the library, and then ended up going on a quick excursion to pick up a DVD that should have been on the way, but the third movie in the series showed up before that second one.

Thus, rounding out my Marvel catch-up (because fuck Guardians) was my literal least favourite entry into the franchise... Ant Man. Or more specifically Ant Man and the Wasp plus Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania as a double feature on Thursday night.

I honestly don't have a lot to say beyond the fact that I don't find Paul Rudd funny or charming and hot or whatever other people seem to be under the delusion that he is, and I never have, also, these particular movies lean on the type of "comedy" I just call cringeworthy.

The second movie (AMATW) is.... fine. I mean, it's cringy more than it needs to be, and it has both too many villains and no actual real villain, because the person who you're supposed to label as the villain is just handwaved at the end of the movie into being Not The Villain.

And Quantumania is... a delusional fever dream that would be a complete dumpster-fire was it not for the fact that Michelle Pfieffer literally improves every single scene that she's in, even the ones where Bill Murray shows up for literally no well explained reason.

The literal less said about MODOK the better, because the IQ of everybody both in the movie and watching the movie drops like 100 points every time he's on screen. That was a mistake. Honestly, the whole damn movie was a giant mistake. But seemingly, due to the fact that the actor playing the bad guy is, himself, a human dumpster fire, it looks like they won't be revisiting that storyline any time soon.

Glad to have ticked them off, but yeah, they were as bad as I thought they were going to be.

Friday Night DnD was us being less stupid, but possibly angrier. Which makes sense for the characters. Or possibly just my character. And because this campaign just seems to spend a lot of time throwing things at the party even when we're already trying to get something else done.

So even though we were pointed at Plot Thread A, Plot Thread B presented itself as an option, which we rejected and then it turned out that the thing we were headed to in order to activate Plot Thread A was actually sitting smack dab in the middle of Plot Thread C.

Which meant a session of sorting out Plot Thread C and a combat encounter that literally took about 12 seconds (in universe) to defeat the guy we needed to defeat.

Also, because there's only three of us, and my character can make additional magic items, we're already tripping over magic items, and it's only going to get worse as we go along. I feel like maybe it's the DnD Universe correcting the fact that we haven't really had that many magic items in the last couple of campaigns.

Anyway...

Today was, technically speaking, Ma's Post Birthday Birthday Day... 

We did the usual supermarketry, and then Ma wanted to go do Looking At Things at Spotlight, so we did. And maybe I got more yarn, that I have no idea what I'm going to do with, but it was too pretty not to pick up. So, for now, it's going to go with the last instance of the very pretty yarn that I don't know what I'm going to do with.

And then we went to North Adelaide and picked up some pies and nostalgia at Perryman's Bakery. Because, you know, it's in North Adelaide and I was there for 20 years, so... [cue high pitched cat wailing singing] memmmmmmmmmmmmriesssssssss!

After that, because we were already halfway there, and they were having a sale, we took a little trip out to Lincraft in Sefton Park. Also, memories. I will say, back in the day, I much preferred Lincraft over Spotlight, because Lincraft seemed like they had their shit together and they had more things and it was just nicer. And then, at some point, something happened and now, they're just kind of... grubby. I mean, not literally. But it always feels... disorganised and a bit of a mess. We also didn't find anything good there, although they had some pretty yarn.

And that was it really.

character friday: birthday boy and purple pal

Let's get a little weird... in any number of ways. So the idea of what the first character I might make from the 2024 version of the PHB has been floating around in my head for the last little while, and the one new subrace that they floated that really caught my eye was the Chthonic tiefling.

Which led me to this week's DnD Character Colouring Book... Liberty, Chthonic Tiefling Sailor, Great Old One Warlock and Swashbuckler Rogue.

I know what you're thinking... because, literally, it was what I was thinking up until about 75 seconds ago when I googled "chthonic"... it's less about Lovecraft and Cthulhu and literally just means "underworld". Which, honestly, makes it make a lot more sense. And had I realised that at the time, might have altered my theming... but instead I discovered the Piscoloth, which is one of the possible Neutral Evil fiendish ancestors.

So, why wouldn't I lean into the cool, purple, aquatic, nightmare lobster and make it more people-like. Also, leaning into that idea meant being able to make a hornless (bald) tiefling. Which I dig. Originally he didn't have a tail, because I wanted to lean away from a number of the regular Infernal tiefling visuals. But he just ended up looking like a purple dude... so, sometimes you can't get rid of all the tropes.

The tattoo is a combination of a "Great Old One" sketch I found, two lots of "Lovecraftian" text (keeping in mind that Lovecraft was a racist asshole) at 90 degrees to each other, pulled from the Dagon short story (specifically the passage describing the titular creature) and a symbol for same. The idea would be that it's less of a tattoo and more something his patron inflicted on him.

I also, mostly for my own benefit, I included screen shots of the specific Warlock Eldritch Invocations he would have with six levels of Warlock and four levels of Rogue. I'm not convinced about the Gift of the Depths option, it would be one of those there I'd have to have a conversation with the DM and ask "is this a thing that's actually going to come up or be useful at all?". Because if there's like, one room in one dungeon in the whole adventure where this might be useful and nowhere else... then I'll just take Eldritch Smite (maybe).

The tail cuff was originally three rings, but the more I looked at it, the more I went... "that would just be uncomfortable and impractical", so instead I defaulted to the singular cuff. And engraved it with the name of three ships he's served on. One of which might just be a Spelljammer ship (probably a Damselfly Ship). Because as much as I probably don't ever want to PLAY Spelljammer, tying him into that idea might be fun. I also just realised that two of the three ship names I came up with are alliterative... so either I need to change the one that isn't so that they're all like that, or change one of the ones that are.

In my head, he would also have light, silk robe/jacket that would go over the armor... but that's not a thing that would work in Hero Forge. Think something that's kinda Burning Man, kinda Coachella, very dramatic, big wide sleeves (or no sleeves)... something you could get a good "King Thranduil" shablam moment out of before a battle... yeah. That.

And lastly, because he has Mask of Many Faces, I also mocked up his... default disguise. Because as much as the playtest information says "thanks to the victories and sacrifices of these legends, tieflings throughout the multiverse enjoy widespread acceptance", widespread isn't total and there's going to be times when it's much easier to pass as a brown skinned gentleman with a relatively normal tattoo than it would be to be a very distinctive purple gentleman with a tail. The names of the ships appear up in the tattoo also.

Anyway.

This week was Birthday Week.

But before we get to that...

I'm not going into this too deeply, but my landlord is literally the most awkward man to ever live. Also, I finally got my stovetop fixed. Because it kept fucking up... but nobody actually seemed to bother investigating what the issue WAS, the electrician just upgraded the fuse that the oven and stovetop runs on. So we'll assume that fixes the issue. I guess. But also, because electricians can't ever give you a time, he was supposedly coming "mid afternoon" and it was basically 4pm by the time he showed up. So that ended up being most of my Wednesday, at least from a "taking up space in my brain" perspective.

Most of the week was me hiding in the aircon, because fuck the last throws of Summer, which always thrashes around like a dying octopus before it disappears out the door.

Thursday was my actual birthday... and I just realised that I did not do my annual "it's my [number] birthday and also [insert male celeb's name who shares my birthday]" image... because, frankly, I completely forgot about it. Also, I'm basically recycling celebs at this point. So... maybe we skip this year? Maybe. Which is sad is the only other time I skipped it was 2021... and, honestly, yeah, I was clearly in a mood for the entirety of 2021.

And did I just take a detour and go and do a search to see if anybody new or interesting had popped up? Yes, yes I did. But I also don't know that I want to go, create an image and then backdate a post. Seems like, honestly, too much work. I forgot, so maybe we'll pick it back up next year, maybe it's a meme that had it's day. Which is something of a shame this year, given that it's my 50th. Also, I'm 50, who the fuck let that happen.

So, getting back to Thursday.

I started off with a message followed by a phonecall from Ma wishing me Happy Birthday. Then I did my usual visit to Boost Juice and Baker's Delight in order to collect the free shit both of those places give you when it's your birthday.

Thursday Night DnD is... as Fluffy and I have remarked on many occasions, cursed beyond the telling of it. So, that fell over and died, because our host wasn't well. Which meant that I had a nice quiet evening.

Friday was Chiro Day... so I went and did my usual wandering around town after getting my back sorted out. I did spend a while pottering around Dymocks considering potential books to buy with the money left over from last birthday's gift voucher. But I have two issues when it comes to books right now. Stuff that I have read and enjoyed... I'm not sure that, for most of it, I actually need to own it or, for right now, wouldn't really be that bothered going back and rereading (mostly because, right now, I'm enjoying just cycling through all kinds of new and exciting books)... and when it comes to things I haven't read yet... well, why wouldn't I borrow it from the library first to ensure I'm actually going to enjoy it? Which then turns into the first issue.

And the one book that I did think that I might buy just so that I actually own it... they didn't have. But wandering around books was an enjoyable way to spend a little while.

Then we get to Friday Night DnD...

And it turns out that directly after I have everybody a "hey, important birthday coming up, but I don't really need STUFF, but I also don't know what I want... you figure it out and don't ask me things..." just after Valentine's Day, they commenced Planning Things.

Some of that planning came to fruition when Fluffy asked me "a quick question about a totally fictionalised situation that will have no bearing on actual events". Which turned out to be a question about cake. And that I initially said I didn't have a lot of strong opinions about, and then proceeded to have several strong opinions about. Because marzipan, white chocolate and baked cheesecakes are all, in fact, literally The Devil.

So it wasn't a great surprise when Fluffy messaged me when he got here on Friday to say "could you get the door for me and spare some room in your fridge". Because you have to put hypothetical cheesecake in the fridge, obviously.

Then when we got there, it turned out that they'd been plotting and scheming and working together. But due to circumstances, the plan didn't quite work as it might have done... but that was okay, because for the plan to work, time travel would have needed to be involved. So we dealt with the timeline we're currently in.

Because, honestly, you don't want to give me the power to mess around with the timelines at this point. Not least of all because I'll just go and buy a bunch of Apple stock and several copies of Action Comics #1 featuring the first appearance of Superman. Or something.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, presents. There was a set of group presents... that's a confusing sentence. There were three presents, from the group. A present "to celebrate", a present "to remember" and a present "to inspire". Yeah, like I said, they'd been plotting and planning.

Celebrate was a... well, I don't know what the official name of it would be... a diadem or a corolla, maybe a coronet... not a tiara though, because it's a full circle... essentially it's a tiny crown. Which is made of some kind of metal and has little fake gemstones and repeating fleur-de-lis... which is funny because my first tattoo was, in fact, a fleur-de-lis.

And why... because, I am, in fact a Pretty Pretty Princess.

Does it fit my oblong head? Not remotely. Is it clearly designed to be worn by a bride with a veil and connection points where you attach it to a hairstyle with bobby pins? Yes. Is it very cute? Also yes.

Remember was a very lovely Sketchgoblin portrait of my girl Nightingale. Is it the version of my girl that I would have designed if I'd been dealing with the artist directly? No, but I think they were working from the 2020 version of my girl... and I think I've slightly redesigned her several times since then, and, honestly, she's about to go through another slightly update next week when they drop some new jacket pieces. Also, I'd possibly be a nightmare dealing with an artist. Or else send them a full terrabyte of reference images.

But, again, this is "remember". So, basing it around the version of her that finished the game is entirely appropriate. And I'm also perfectly happy for this to be... "fan art" of my girl. Also, just so we're clear, it is quite lovely. And the perfect group gift from this group of people. Because that was the first character I played with them when we started doing our Friday thing back at the end of October 2019.

Entirely fitting.

Inspire was scarlet yarn. Several balls thereof. Half of which was acrylic and half of which was merino wool. Weirdly, if you'd showed me the acrylic yarn and asked if that was my preferred colour of red, I would have said "absolutely", right up until I looked at the merino wool, which is slightly darked and a less orange leaning scarlet.

What am I going to make with it? Not a fucking Scooby. Scooby Doo. Clue. You got that, right? Cockney Rhyming Slang.

And then we have some very delightful tropical/passionfruit cheesecake from the Cheesecake Shop and played a game of Sheriff of Nottingham and a game of Sushi Go (both of which Fluffy won, because I goaded him into not playing Sheriff the way he normally plays it, and none of us really ended up  challenging each other when we were clearly all lying). But it was a pleasant evening.

Anyway.

Today was also pleasant.

We did the supermarket thing, came back here and watched more of the UK Portrait Artist of the Year only to discover that the episode marked as Episode 4 was actually just Episode 3 again (nobody cares, I understand)... also that the last episode that seems to appear online is like a month ago... so that train may have run out of steam. Then we watched Canadian Pottery Throw Down, which is just Great British Bake Off but for pottery (well, actually it's the Canadian version of The Great Pottery Throw Down, which is just GBBO for pottery... again, nobody cares)... only to discover that the Totally Legal and Absolutely Autorised Version that we were watching cut out literally two seconds before they announced who was going home this week. Rude.

Then we went down to the Parade, avoided the insanity going on today at the Irish pub on the other corner for St Paddy's Day tomorrow, and went to the same cafe we went to for Ma's birthday last year.

Should I have gotten the focaccia/baguette instead of the chicken burger? Probably. And when the problem with the chicken burger is... the chicken. Well, what are you going to do really? It wasn't bad... just... highly underwhelming.

So, Happy Birthday to me I guess. On the plus side, I do have half a cheesecake in the fridge right now.

2024

Hello 2024!

Also, hello to the International Year of Camelids... which includes camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and guanacos.

It also led to me discovering the batshit crazy image that graces the top of this post... which, just this morning, I discovered was from an even more batshit crazy commercial for a Norwegian "acupressure" product that... doesn't seem to exist under that name anymore.

Also, there is "no reliable evidence for the effectiveness of acupressure", according to Wikipedia and anybody with any sense. The image is still great though.

So that was my morning. How did you start your 2024?

The thing about traditions... or just a day where you do things because it's that day... is that just traditions... I'm very good with words and thinking and making sense of things this morning... wait, where was I...

Oh, traditions... the thing about them, given that we're talking about ones that only come up once a year, is that they don't tend to change very much from year to year.

My New Years Eve is very that. The only major thing that tends to change is what day it's happening on, which changes some of the minor details.

Yesterday was very much both an average Sunday and also an average New Years Eve.

I did my usual porridge and coffee breakfast, I had pizza for a late lunch/early dinner. I'd already taken down my Christmas decorations (such as they were) on Saturday night, I did some cleaning up, I vacuumed the floors, mostly because they needed it anyway and less specifically because it was New Years.

I changed my bedding from the festive green IKEA swirly quilt cover with the red fitted sheet that I make from a combination of two different regular sets of bedding with the exact same pattern of quilt cover, but in all black and white (which are the other halves of the Christmas sets)... and every year the monochrome version is so very restful to the eyes in a way that I don't think about until it changes over. Also, I think that's the most awkward version of that sentence from any of the New Years posts in recent memory. Like I said... I do words good today.

And then Fluffy came over so we could do what is fast becoming our New Years Eve tradition, which is just the New Years Tradition I was already doing, just with another person. Essentially, watch movies until New Year happens.

I did make little tiny pizza scrolls though, which were successful for the low effort it took to make them.

We also have fallen into a pattern where I show Fluffy a vintage movie he hasn't seen, and then we watch either a movie he's seen and I haven't or something new that neither of us have seen.

This year we started off with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ticking "Marilyn Monroe" off on his Movie Education Bingo Card... and then we did The Mitchells vs The Machines. Which is... decent. It feels a little too... "I've seen this story 9000 times already" and also "This movie is clearly not aimed at me" and also "LOL, wut, random" or whatever the current generation version of that is. But, to be fair, it's less of that as the movie goes along. I don't think I have enough to say about it to make a whole review though.

We had decided to wander down the road a little to see if we could watch the fireworks down one of the side streets, so we killed the little bit of time before midnight with a frankly terrible episode of the David Suchet Poirot series that was very short and full of very bad acting. And I realised, about halfway through, that the story had also been part of the Anime Poirot and Miss Marple series I watched a bunch of last year.

Was the "watch the fireworks" plan successful? I swear that last year, I saw the fireworks very clearly as I was driving home from having dropped Fluffy home... but, I guess... trees grow in a year. So... we saw what can best be described as both diddly and squat. But we did head people yell "Happy New Year" in literal surround sound as people in the houses around us all yelled it at midnight. So that was novel.

And then I drove him home. I think maybe next year, we just go for three full movies.

This morning, being a Monday, started with my morning walk. And now we're here. So, 2024 definitely has some built in chaos energy already, we'll see how things progress.

post christmas round-up 2023

Rain on Christmas? Clouds and cold weather?

Yeah... "Adelaide recorded its coldest Christmas Day since 2006 (17.9 degrees recorded at the Kent Town observation site)". Although I do love how difficult it is to find any reliable reporting on the temperature at Christmas, other than the Bureau of Meteorology, because media outlets are always screaming about it being the hottest, coldest, wettest, cloudiest, humidest, blah di blah di blah Christmas since [insert random year].

But otherwise, it was actually a pretty good day overall. I both didn't take a lot of photos, and the photos I did take weren't what we would consider my best work, so I did find this great retro pin-up Caducado piece that can serve in place of the usual Christmas tree photo (also, we've kind of stopped doing full on Christmas tree-ness, but Ma does have little tiny trees that she can take down without assistance come January.

I didn't do anything particular festive last night... I made pizza, which fulfilled my Christmas Eve Pizza requirements, packed up some stuff that I was taking to Ma's place but that was about it.

This morning I did my morning walk. And it was odd, because I only started doing this again in January (and mentioned it briefly at the start of February), so it was interesting doing the Christmas Morning Walk, which I haven't done since the old days of North Adelaide. There are always a couple of folks out and about, although I did see more folks out walking their dogs (we get a lot of that in Norwood) when I was driving to Ma's.

Anyway, I got back, got ready and, as I said, headed down the road and got to Ma's shortly after 9.

Note to self: If we buy croissants a day early, check if they're in those bags that are designed to not make bread products go soft. Because that's great for certain things, but not for croissants. But the insides were mostly good.

So, yeah, our usual croissant breakfast. After I pre-breakfasted on some of the ham hearts Ma was literally pulling out of the oven when I got there.

The weird thing is, because we do basically the same thing every year, and, honestly, not much of anything really happens, I always end up not really remembering the order in which we did anything.

I think we did presents next.

So, we have...

• Yarn in 7 colours (you know, basically a jewel-tone rainbow) plus black for my 2024 Hexagon Granny Square Cardigan project (there's also more black yarn not shown)
  
• Dice Advent Calendar (from Mr and Mrs)
• Haighs Milk Chocolate Baubles (from Mr and Mrs)
• The 99% Invisible City book (from Fluffy)
• Pink and Orange Skull Dice (from Fluffy)
• Saga, Volume 11
• Lego + Disney 100 Wicked Queen and Robin Hood minifigs
  
• Bundaberg Christmas Spiced Ginger Beer
• Chocolate Crackle Candle
• Black Body Pillowcase
• Mossimo Mens Canvas Slip-On Shoes (not shown... I forgot to put them in shot)

See what I mean... I forgot to put shoes in the shot... and I only realised afterwards that I had put the Dice Advent Calendar down upside down.

I was also pleased with my Lego + Disney minifigs... especially given that they were the last two in the box when we bought them. Would it have been perfect if I'd gotten Cruella, Stitch or Baymax? Yes, but at least I got my Wicked Queen.

I'd also brought my laptop up to Ma's, so at a certain point I hooked it up to Ma's TV (which she can't do with her laptop because it's a little old and crusty) and just stuck some Christmas Lofi on while we did other things.

There was a hiccup when we went out to light the Webber. Well, more so when we went out to check on it after lighting it. Because of the wind, it wasn't catching the way it needed to and the coals weren't heating up like they needed to.

So, we basically gave up on that, came inside and cranked up the oven. Thankfully it was, as previously discussed, the coldest Christmas Day in 17 years, so that wasn't really an issue.

It was also slightly odd... because we only do this whole thing once a year, it's kind of easier to track the changes to our routine... and this year, I ended up doing a lot of the cooking and organising and prepping and whatnot. Which let Ma relax. In previous years we've mostly been sharing it all, but I just got on with it.

And for the most part, shoving it all in the oven worked out. It was a little more crowded, and I probably didn't need to microwave the potatoes first since they were in the oven the whole time (they were fine, just a little too crispy).

While things were cooking, I put on the Scrooge musical that I'd watched last year, because it's colour and movement and takes up time and is still pretty good. It also meant that I could walk away from it to do Christmas Lunch prep and not actually be missing anything.

I did swap back to Christmas Lofi Beats when we were eating dinner though.

And, like I said, other than slightly overly crispy potatoes, it was pretty well done. I mean, it isn't going to the top of the list of our Christmas Salads, but it was tasty.

It also really doesn't matter how early we try to get organised or how early we intend to have Christmas Lunch... it always ends up being about 2:30.

Then we finished lunch, we finished Scrooge and then tidied up from lunch. And I threw together some Eton Mess, as we usually do.

We continued in the Christmas Carol vein with A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong (also on YouTube), which is always fun.

Then we packed up my stuff and the leftover food I was taking home and I toddled off home... and it rained most of the way home. And by rain, it wasn't exactly bucketing down.

So... that's it for Christmas 2023.

it's my (49th) birthday

The downside to this whole "famous person who shares your birthday thing" is that eventually, if we're not counting Instagram and TikTok "stars", you run out of actual famous people. So we took a left this year. More on that in a second.

Today was... actually a pretty okay birthday. I mean, it wasn't exciting or flashy or involved, but it was okay.

I started off by getting woken up from a call from Ma, who would normally text, but for reasons best known to her, called me instead.

Then I headed down the road to go buy some wireless headphones as my birthday present. Also, can I just do an "old man yells at cloud" about the fact that things don't come with instructions anymore. I mean, if I can't do that on my birthday, when can I do it? Things should come with, at the least, basic instructions. But I worked the headphones out eventually.

I then used said headphones to walk to the shops and felt very Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century. Yeah, there's a dated reference. I had to go to the shops in order to get my free Birthday Boost and my free Birthday Scone and also, you know, some actual lunch.

So, you know, like I said, not exciting, but I like free things and I like it when retail people wish me Happy Birthday on my actual birthday.

This year's image is Nicky Doll (aka Karl Sanchez), a French drag queen and RuPaul's Drag Race alumni as well as being the host of Drag Race France since 2022.

Happy Birthday Nicky (also Karl). You're the latest addition to the list of famous faces who share my birthday... including, three-time featured Jamie Bell, Johan Paulik, Taylor Hanson, Michael Caine, Chris Klein, Albert Einstein, Corey Stoll, Daniel Gillies, Ansel Elgort, Demetrius Joyette, Stephen Curry, Antoni Porowski and Johnny Flynn.

Current mood:

photo saturday: wonderwalls pre-birthday saturday

Hey, look. It's that thing where I go places and take photographs. Remember when that was a thing. Yeah. We're having a brief resurgence.

Because last week was the Wonderwalls Street Art event down at Port Adelaide, and the last one I went to was 2019.

This was also one of my favorite pieces by artists PichiAvo. Their whole vibe is taking classical sculpture images against colourful words. Would it have been better if I had lined the shots up so that the arm went across properly? Sure. Didn't happen though.

But more on Wonderwalls later.

Anyway...

Next up, some Sofles yellow and purple art.

All behold, It is My Birthday Week. Because that's three days before my birthday, then my birthday on Tuesday, then three days after my birthday. Which brings us to next Friday. Mark your calendars appropriately.

Of course, having said that, do I actually care one fuck about my birthday this year? No, no I do not. Will I care next year when it's a birthday ending in a zero? Who can say. We'll see when we get there.

I've now read more books than I read in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022. So there's that.

Otherwise Thursday Night DnD was good. We were down a player, and the whole session ended up being about finding that player before he got married to a banshee bride. And, you know, also drawing under an off-hand joke I made several sessions ago about started a rumour in the tavern that said player was getting married.

Maybe next week we can get to the start of the actual hardcover adventure we're intending to play.

Friday Night Not DnD was also good. We almost got the bad guy for this level, but he teleported away at the last second, which is annoying. And then afterwards, as generally happens when we're all a little overtired and overstimulated, we played what should have been some very chill Love Letter and lost our minds several times.

Also I won. Because that's important to note.

Anyway...

This is my second favourite. this absolutely amazing piece by Smug One featuring Hot Boy and Squeezed Plums. Yes. Please. Although the sun was completely in the wrong position to get decent shots, but that happens a lot of the time with the Wonderwalls stuff. Either you need a completely overcast day, when your sky is just blah, or you need to pick your times based on the direction of the wall.

I paired this with a nice case of Urban. Because why not.

Today was... well, you've basically seen a bunch of today.

We did the supermarket. I want it to be soup season already please, I'm bored with deciding what to make for dinner. Although this week I did make a mostly average tuna morney. Edible, but not exciting.

Then we bundled into the car and, detouring through town in a way we don't normally detour through town, we drove all the way down to Port Adelaide.

I'd done some internet sleuthing, so I knew both that there were only about eight new Wonderwalls pieces around, but also that there were pieces from all the years we missed (well, when they actually did it). Also, annoyingly, the map I was looking at online wasn't as good as the printed map we found... after we'd finished and were having lunch. [le sigh]

But we did a bunch of short car hops going from place to place, rather than traipsing from one end of the Port to the other. And found everything I wanted to find. Would it have been better if we'd remembered to bring hats. Probably. But we did okay.

And when we'd done the whole look, we went back to where we'd started to have lunch at a little place called Swedish Tarts Cafe. Where they have, no surprise, Swedish tarts. But we had a pleasant lunch, bought some tarts to take away and split when we got back to my place, and then bundled back into the car and drove all the way back here.

So, a different Saturday. And I'll have photos for at least two or three weeks.

Current mood:

2023

Welcome to 2023.

International Year of Millets and also Dialogue as a Guarantee of Peace... so there's that. And I went a little oldschool with the image for this year. All the way back to the 1930's with this photo by Gustave Roud from his Farmer Bodies series. Because who doesn't like a little vintage Swiss beefcake.

Yesterday was pretty chill. I did my usual prep. Emptied things, filled things. Took down the few Christmas decorations I had up. Changed my sheets and towels. Posted my regular posts to Twitter, Insta and the blog (Twitterversary, Insta Top 9 and Year in Review respectively).

And the Fluffy came over for NYE Movie Night.

Oh, I was also very, very happy to see Channel 9 continuing the NYE tradition and extending it this year. So not only was Can't Stop The Music on just before midnight, but before that, they put Xanadu on. Which makes my heart happy, because they're both trash, but they're the good kind of trash.

Speaking of movies.

I continued Fluffy's Classic Movie Education by introducing him to 1992's Death Becomes Her. Because what better way to end 2022 than with homicidal bitchy divas. 

And then he wanted me to finally watch the Marvel Halloween short movie, Werewolf by Night. It was about what I expected. A cast mostly devoid of charisma, a script mostly devoid of actual horror or suspense, and the usual amount of "stunt man throws other stunt man using wires" you expect from Marvel. The upsides. Cinematographer Zoe White, who made it look amazing. And, honestly, Man-Thing, the non-speaking CGI creature. Also, the makeup department.

It was not, however, the worst thing we watched all night.

Disney's Strange World. More on that shortly.

We also need to get better at timings for New Years Movie Night. So that, you know, we actually end the last movie at or just after midnight.

Because we finished up at about 11:30, wandered around my apartment for a good 10 minutes just saying "why" at each other, and then I drove Fluffy home, and was sitting at an intersection on the way home for actual New Years. Which did mean that including the drive there and the drive back, I saw about 8 different sets of fireworks go off. And got home just as the ones in Adelaide finished.

This morning I attempted to recreate the perfect egg and bacon roll I made back in... I dunno... it was 2 houses ago... so about 2015. Today's entry was tasty enough with the edition of my tomato and onion relish, but not as Instragram-worthy 2015 version.

So that's that about that.

Current mood:

post christmas round-up 2022

So Kris actually belongs to the Jingle Bros (Part 1 and Part 2) from last year. But I ran out of time to add him to the roster, so, you know what, he can be part of today. And he's just as I made him last year, I didn't bother remaking him.

And of course he's a halfling.

Merry Christmas to the, like, handful of people who still bother reading my blog. Essentially it's just a diary I shout into the void these days. But I'm still grateful for anybody who has stuck around.

So, indulge me for a little bit if you will. I'm feeling a little... garrulous.

The observant amongst you would have noticed that there was no traditional putting up of the Christmas Tree this year. No scantily clad Christmas hunk posted earlier on Christmas Day.

Yeah, I wasn't, and am still not, feeling it.

What I am feeling is more pain than I would like. And the sentence that has been whirling around in my head all day, and was originally going to be the opening line for this post is thus.

Surprising nobody, pain changes your brain chemistry. Regular pain more so. And for at least the last month, my brain has been dealing with intermittent pain from my back. Or, weirdly, pain that SHOULD be in my back, but is often on the sides of my calves, because nervous systems are fucked up little monkeys.

So, the last thing I wanted, or was physically able, to do at the start of the month, was drive down to Ma's place and put the Christmas Tree up. And so, left to her own devices, and under strict instructions that if she attempted to construct and dress the whole Christmas Tree I would be Very Angry With Her, the image above was the result.

It's not great, it also doesn't suck. It's the top third of the regular tree, inserted into the base of the regular tree. And had I been involved I might have attempted something with the Christmas Lights, it's not terrible.

But, going back to... well, my back. I can't sit for long. Not in most places. When I do, the aforementioned pain starts to creep in around the edges. And then all I want to do is go lie down. But after I've been lying down on and off for almost a month, that also fucks with my brain.

So, clearly, given this little story, I'm in a weird place this Christmas. Last Christmas was pre-moving stress. This is... less intense. But, honestly, I didn't much care about Christmas this year. And, yeah, I know, if you go back through the last few years, I've been saying some version of that for the last several years. But it's still true.

I still went through all the motions. But it was mostly for other people. And while I had fun along the way, I wasn't feeling it. Which brings us to today. Let's just say that left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't have bothered much.

I woke up about as early as I have been of late, which is a little too early for my tastes. And I'd already told Ma there wasn't much of a point in me being down at hers super early. So I wasn't in any kind of rush. I faffed around, watched some YouTube stuff, and finally got my ass into gear, before having a shower, loading up the car with what little there was to load it with, closed up the house with the aircon on so I'd come home to a nice cool house and toddling up the road to Ma's place at about 8:45 or so.

We had our usual breakfast of croissants, and I'll be honest, as much as Ma always asks what I want on/with them, generally speaking I just want a little butter and that good, good warm pastry.

We fucked around a bit after, I complained, as I do every year, that none of the TV stations just digs into their stock of shitty (or not shitty) Christmas movies and just runs them end to end all day. There are enough channels these days, they could totally do that. I don't want to WATCH them, you understand, but I like some, as we call it, colour and movement going on in the background, since it's just Ma and I.

I never keep track of time on Christmas Day at the best of times, and it somehow tends to just flow through my brain like water anyway, so who the fuck knows when anything happened... 

But between mostly ignoring and quite often going "Hey, it's that person who was in that other thing", we put the original 1947 Miracle on 34th Street (it does kinda fall over a bit when you realise that Santa is also Captain Wiles from my favourite Hitchcock movie, The Trouble With Harry) and at some point in the process it was time for presents, such as it was.

And I say that only because a lot of my presents are what happens when you say "oh, that thing I need, or that thing we just bought, that can go away for Christmas". For... like the last four months. So it's all some combination of kinda from Ma, kinda from me to me.

But it also includes the presents from Mr, Mrs and Fluffy from Board Game Christmas.

So, starting there...

• LEGO Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck
  (from Fluffy... nearly made me cry because reasons)
• IKEA BLÅHAJ Baby Shark
  (again, Fluffy... because we got slightly obsessed with some stupid IKEA Japan videos and the sharks in general)
• Here to Sleigh expansion deck (from Mr and Mrs... they bought me the original game a couple of years back)
• Q Workshop 2022 Advent Dice Calendar (from Mr and Mrs at the end of November)
• IKEA PIPSTÄKRA quilt cover (which also has an associated fitted sheet and a couple of pillowcases for other pillows, but I didn't bother including them)
• IKEA VINTERFINT Apple scented candle in metal tin
  
• Bonds Essentials Move Pullover Hoodie (plus a couple of Bonds tees, also not included)
• Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes sourcebook
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold by  Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell
• LEGO Minifigure Series 23 Cardboard Robot (the one problem with blind box things is sometimes you get the one you're wildly ambivalent about instead of one of the 11 you really, really like)
• Chessex Polyhedral Dice Sets in Translucent Orange, Translucent Yellow and Light Blue

Oh, and some Bundaberg Spiced Ginger Beer, which is not so much a present, as something I was definitely taking home.

I took some photos, moved some stuff around, and then we started on lunch prep. Which went about the same as always, albeit slightly smoother than some years.

We put the potatoes in with the turkey and the sausage meat, so they got all good and crispy. But mostly it was switching between half watching The Holiday and doing prep.

And I'm just now remembering that I forgot to steal both the last of the mango salad dressing AND the mince pie ice cream from Ma's place. Oh well.

I have no idea when we sat down to eat. Sometime after 2pm maybe. No clue.

It was pretty good though. And some combination of the pepper I put on the tomatoes, the chili in the salad dressing and the ginger in the ginger beer definitely made it nice and tasty.

The intent was probably to play some Here to Slay, but, I'll be honest, I wasn't in the mood.

We tidied up, we watched a good chunk of Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which it seems like Ma hasn't seen before, and she groaned through all of the groan-worthy parts.

And then I threw together some Eton Mess with mince pie ice cream, lemon meringues and fresh berries. It's a good Christmas dessert. Even if, traditionally, we have it about three hours after dinner.

Then, honestly, by that point, I'd kind of had enough. Mostly of sitting and standing.

So I packed up the car with more stuff than I arrived with and headed back up the road. And other than the heat, it wasn't a bad run. I think it was around 6pm when I got home, and after unpacking all the stuff, threw myself into a quick shower and then had a lie down until I felt able to tackle this post.

Which is done now.

So, for another year, Merry Christmas, and thanks for listening to me unpack my internal monologue as part of the post-Christmas round up. It's becoming a tradition at this point.

Current mood: