character saturday: hello tiger

Happy Chinese New Year (for last Tuesday)... Welcome to the Year of the Water Tiger. I am also Year of the Tiger... but a Wood Tiger.

So, yes, I commemorated the occasion by making a Water Tiger in Hero Forge for today's DnD Character Colouring Book. Which gave us Master Bohai... and, yes, I'll admit, a Water Tiger with a sprinkling of Wood Tiger elements... like the staff and the green trim/belt. 

Plus I snuck a reference to the Wood Tiger into his name, given that the site I found mentioned that the Chinese element of Wood is associated with "windy" weather, plus the water, gave him a name that roughly translates to "sea waves"... because wind causes waves. Yeah, I do this shit all the time with character names and never mention it really.

Not a character I would play though... because the Four Elements Monk is perhaps my least favourite of all the monk subclasses, just because the cost for doing any of the cool power things is far too high... but if I was going to, I'd make him a Tabaxi instead of a Tiger and maybe reflavour the four elements into the five Chinese elements.

But the design process for fun. I might have to celebrate all the interesting holidays this way during the year. We'll see.

Anyway.

This week was... less full on that last week. But it still had it's moments.

Sunday I mostly pottered about for most of the day... packed a few more boxes, increased the size of the Great Wall of Box on the east side of my living room.

Monday I was off to get my booster shot. At 8am... because why not get it done first thing in the morning, especially when the temperature was expected to be on the rise. I was kind of expecting it to knock me on my arse for a couple of days, but overall it was relatively mild. I had a sore arm for about half the week, but then I also didn't bother putting a cold pack on it or anything. And I felt a little... m'eh. But it was manageable and not that bad.

I also pottered about a bit on Monday and packed up some of the weirdly shaped bits and bobs that just needed some kind of box around them. Actually, I did bits of that on Tuesday too... it was kind of a "do a bit until you run out of ideas/enthusiasm, then stop".

I am reaching/have reached the point where I can't really pack very much else because I have to, you know, exist in the house for another couple of weeks. But after next weekend. Yeah, then that's all fair game.

There was also associated faffing about getting my lease signed, scanned and sent back. Nothing major, just... the minor irritations of modern life I guess.

Oh, and I also went through my wardrobe on Wednesday and pulled out everything that no longer fit. Which was... not really unexpected, because most of it was stuff I haven't worn in at least five years and some of it for more like seven or more. So, yeah, no wonder it no longer fucking fits. I ended up pulling out all of my old polo shirts and almost all of my old button down shirts. I also managed to convert almost all of my coat hangers over to the much nicer IKEA wooden ones from the crappy plastic Target ones, which is a bonus. And ended up with a big bag full of hangers to send off to their destiny.

So, how I have a lot more room in the wardrobe, but a large gap in my wardrobe... errr... you know what I mean.

Fun times happened on Thursday when I took Ma into the Apple Store in order to upgrade her phone. Sadly, the lovely man who helped me last week wasn't in, so we got some other random dude, who was fine but didn't seem to know quite as much. The process itself was relatively easy, and may have taken less time than when I did it... or because I knew what to expect, it just felt like it took less time, I don't know.

We also stopped off at Officeworks in town... and could have bought the case and screen protector then, but Ma wanted to see the other cases, so we headed to the Officeworks I went to for mine and grabbed them from there.

But then we came back here and I updated Ma's new phone and turned off all the settings that needed to be turned off because fuck all those dumb stupid options that we don't need to have turned on because they're stupid options and we hate them. You know, all those options.

But I also gave her some updated apps that replaced old ones that either didn't work any more or things that she didn't already have, and just generally talked her through a bunch of stuff... about half of which she promptly forgot, because that's just what happens. It also led to her asking me today about something that I fully explained to her for at least a couple of minutes on Thursday.

Sigh. Good job that I'm fond of her.

But that took most of the day... between the explaining and the waiting and the general rigmarole of it all. Plus I was keeping the phone plugged in until the battery completely charged.

So, a long day and a tiring one. But at least she's all updated and up-to-date. It just means I'll be answering weird phone related questions for a little while. But on the upside it means that while looking for options in her Settings, I discover cool fucking things I had no idea where a thing because I never bothered paying attention to any of the new features for phones I wasn't going to own.

So that's fun. Or at a bare minimum, it's useful.

Friday was... 

Yeah, dunno how to finish that sentence at all to be honest. The day wasn't much of anything honestly, I did make parmesan and chive bread... which was actually pretty awesome. The cheese was slightly chonkier than I normally would have made it, since I've packed my vegetable peeler and usually I use that on cheese. But overall, very tasty. Definitely one to put on the rotation when I have a big chunk of parmesan in the fridge.

Then we get to the Friday night DnD game.

And the final of the four challenges we started last week. Where DM Fluffy decided to use a real world psychology/social work puzzle/training exercise as the final challenge. Which definitely added to the feeling of it being a challenge or more interesting than some of the puzzles you often get within DnD modules/adventures.

But then at the end of the game we succumbed to the "let's just check behind that one last door"... which, honestly, has been the potential undoing of this party on... at least two other occasions at this point.

Of course, that door held the misty avatar of the Goddess of Winter and she offered us a potential reward for completing her challenges. Which would be great maybe if we were actually characters who worshipped her... or characters with higher bonuses to their Constitution maybe.

Thankfully, because my character isn't an idiot, I extracted a promise that we wouldn't be harmed by the goddess's hand if we undertook the chance of getting the reward.

And rolled a 20, 18 and 15... but needed a 21 to pass the check. So now we're all "technically" dead/petrified/fucked. Good times. Good, good times.

DM Fluffy says that he has a plan, so, sure, we don't have to either roll up new characters or play board games for the next couple of weeks until I can get together the adventure I'll be running next. Which is good... also because I'm so not fucking ready. 

But yeah, that was a fucking hell of a cliffhanger to end on. Urgh.

Today was simple. As compared with the last few Saturdays anyway.

We did the supermarket thing... and, just a quick sidebar... over the last two years neither Ma nor I have either been able to or have bothered to check into shops/locations via the check in app. I mean, maybe if I'd updated my iOS at some time in the last four years, I could have done, but fuckit, water under the bridge and all that. So now that we're both all updated and I got Ma signed up appropriately for the app... like, the week that we did this... is the same week (more or less) where they have stopped requiring check-ins at most places. Grumble. I mean, yay not having to bother checking in... but also... fucking what? Also, why is precise moment? Urgh x 2. Coincidence is a bitch.

Anyway, where was I... oh yes, supermarket. So, we did the supermarket thing, and yeah, possibly because I didn't buy enough stuff last week, we ended up doing a larger shop than usual. Plus, annoyingly, I was running low on stuff that I would have preferred to not have to buy before the move, but I would also have run out before that point, so... yeah.

We came back here, unpacked and I sorted out some things on Ma's phone as per the previous conversation. But then we mostly called it a day.

Fun times.

Thirteen days and counting.

Current mood:

character friday: dollcradle boy

How do you make a character that would work for a game and a world that you absolutely don't care about... and if people on the internet are to be believed, isn't a very good adventure... so you'll probably never actually play it?

Welcome to this week's edition of DnD Character Colouring Book... were you make a character who also is dismissive about the adventure and world of it all and just wants to be left alone to study.

Say hello to Ephah, Hexblood Warlock of the Witherbloom College of Strixhaven...

At Witherbloom, the College of Essence Studies, mages draw power from the opposing forces of life and death. These mages brew their spells from natural components and the essence of living creatures, using that power to heal or harm the living or to raise or entreat the dead. They can cause entire forests to blossom out of nowhere or call down old curses that scourge flesh from bone.

Oh, also his zombie hand familiar Phalanx. Named after a bone in the hand, obviously.

Of the three "races" (or lineages, which is what they're called in the book they're from), Hexblood is the one I was less excited about, mostly because I couldn't find a concept that I liked... but this all seemed to mesh nicely. The Undying Warlock of it all, plus the Witherbloom element... it just felt like the right way to go.

Plus, I decided he is ridiculously tall, and just generally over everything.

Anyway.

Wow. This week. Not going to lie, it has been the technical definition of A Lot. Not bad, just a lot.

Also, the weather has been so fucking humid all week that I might as well have been in Sydney or Brisbane... too humid for me... I can't with humidity at the best of times. But it's been annoying all week.

Moving on.

We start out on Monday... when I went into the city to do a bunch of errands.

First errand was to go to the Apple Store to talk to them about my dying iPhone. Well, technically the first thing was to get an appointment to talk to someone, then go do other errands, then come back. Which is what happened, but while I was running around going to the bank to get the drama from last Friday sorted now that I had access to the appropriate app, buying a new mask (plus ordering a smaller one for Ma), forgetting the other thing I needed to do... I stopped to take a street art photo... and 15 seconds later, my phone went "nah, no more battery for you".

So I went back to the Apple Store to steal some of their electricity to get my phone up and running again, only to discover that while the girl who booked me in said "come back in two hours"... but I was back within about half an hour, and the appointment I booked in for was at 1pm, which was only about half an hour, forty minutes from when I first went in. WTF. But, I was there, it all worked out.

Spoke to possibly the oldest Apple employee I've ever encountered, he poked my iPhone with all appropriately technology, only to tell me that my phone was only capable of keeping 30% of a charge in it's battery. Fun times. Especially when he said that he'd never seen one so low.

He poked around for a while, I asked some questions where the answers were either "you might need to reformat you phone and then replace it from a backup" or "that's just how that works now", which is about what I expected.

But he was nice, he gave me some stuff to think about, and then left the store, started playing my podcast, got three steps further on and the phone battery just died because it was clearly past the point where it actually had enough charge to do more than just sit there quietly.

Annoying.

So I figured maybe it's time to bite the bullet and get a new phone. It's been a hot minute. And by minute, I mean 8 years, 1 month, 29 days.

I came home, realised that I hadn't gone into the chiro to change my appointment to a day that wasn't the day I have to move house, called them and sorted that out. Then paid my bond for the new place.

Then poked the Optus and Apple Store websites for potential phone plans.

Tuesday I had the plumbers coming to look at the roof and it's ongoing leak issues. Again. They hung around for a good hour and a half. Poked the roof with... whatever they poke the roof with, ran water off it for a period of time to see if any of it ended up in my living room. It did not. Eventually they left after putting sealant on a bunch of places that seemed like they were a problem (also, hi, hello, previous plumbing boys... why the fuck didn't you fucking do that?), and advised me to keep an eye one it. Absolutely. Right up until moving day and then I will never think or care about it ever again.

After they left I called the moving company to update them on the moving date, and while I had them on the phone, I mentioned that when I bought boxes I bought too many of the large ones and not enough of the small ones and was there any chance that I could bring some back and swap them out? Turns out yes. Yay. So I threw five of the big boxes in the back of the car and drove down there to trade them in. Only got slightly lost once, which is better than when Ma and I went down there originally.

And now I have an extra 8 smaller boxes. Plus one of their "Safe Spot" boxes, which is designed to put things like kitchen towel and toilet roll and the kettle and tea and coffee and things that you will definitely need when you get to the new house. For free. Because I asked her about them, and, I dunno... maybe because I'm already spending all the money with them.

Wednesday was a public holiday. For some reason, even though this public holiday is on the same fucking day every fucking year, I was convinced that it was on Thursday not Wednesday. So, there were things I was going to do Wednesday that I had to put off for an extra day. Otherwise I did fuck all. Oh, wait, I emptied the linen closet and put all my towels and bedding in one of the remaining big boxes. So that's done.

Randomly had a lovely chat with Owlgirl via Instagram while doing that last bit... which was lovely, obviously.

Thursday was New Phone Day.

I'd done my research, I knew what I wanted and what was inside my budget, so off I trotted to the Apple Store just after they opened.

Yep, that's right... a nice new shiny red iPhone. An SE to be precise. And not just red... but (Product) RED. Which is nice, even if I'm sure it's not that much of a percentage of the price.

Anyway... it took a while to get through all of process and do all the things. As it always does. Because, stuff.

The guy who looked after me was very lovely though, and, given that they have a deal where if you buy the phone through Apple they give you a massive discount, I got the phone for about $220, and the bills will be slightly lower than they are right now. Which is great.

I also bought an adaptor for my headphones... because that was cheaper than buying new Apple headphones of any kind. Also because I don't really like the Apple ones... they dont' stay in my ears properly.

When that was done, I wandered around town trying to find a cheap but functional case and screen protector... tried Target, tried JB HiFi, looked briefly at one of those slightly dodgy kiosks, totally forgot that the other place I needed to look was Officeworks.

After that, I headed home, and spent... entirely too much time updating the new phone with all my bits and pieces and downloading an iOS update and updating a ton of the apps... and even headed out halfway through to drive down the road to the other Officeworks near me to get the aforementioned case and screen protector. Because, that's where I should have fucking gone in the first place. Whether the city store would have had what I wanted or not, I dunno... and also, I needed to pick up more bubblewrap so that we didn't have to do it today.

By the time I'd done all of that, my phone had updated itself appropriately along with all the apps, the battery was fully charged and I'd put the screen protector and case on it... oh, and I'd finally gotten around to moving the SIM card over, and made my first call on the phone to tell Ma I had a new phone, it was 4:15pm. Keeping it mind that I walked into the Apple Store just after 10:15am. So, a very phone orientated day.

It's just that bit much larger than the old phone... enough that I can put an extra row of apps on the home screen, and right now it's more comfortable to use it with two hands. But everything is new any shiny and updated and lovely. And also chunks of it are now serving me ads that couldn't before because my phone was very old. I'll live with that, honestly.

It is also a huge weight off my mind however. Because I don't have to stress out about my phone dying after me using it for more than 30 seconds at a time.

And, in the grand tradition of Bumblebee, Bonecrusher and Bluestreak... well, fuck, I'd forgotten that I was doing both a Transformers AND a letter B thing for my phones... actually, I very nearly called this new one Blaster, after the Autobot knockoff of Soundwave (the best Transformer, don't @ me... but the phone isn't purple)... but Blaster is kind of a stupid name.

In the end, from the list of the "red" Transformers, I decided on Perceptor.

Because I'm a grown ass adult man... and I can name my technology after stupid 80's cartoon shows if I want.

So there's that about that.

Also, while I was doing all of that, the real estate company from the other application I put in called. I don't know why. I assume to say "yeah, no", but honestly I don't know. Because I'd already assumed that I didn't and wouldn't get that place, so I'd written it off. And why would they call instead of just sending an email or a text message. 

But I'll never know, because I didn't let her get too far into her spiel before I cut her off to tell her that I'd secured another apartment and wouldn't be moving forward with this one. Because at this point, it has been about a week and a half... week and a bit anyway. And if it took them that long to get back to me, I'm probably better off.

But not knowing will bug me for... about three more days... or until I forget about it completely.

Friday... actually, Friday I think maybe I let out the breath I've been holding for... I dunno... months. And I didn't even really realise that I had been holding it. But I'm pretty sure I have been. Or at the very least I let it out a bit. Maybe not the whole thing. Enough though.

Mostly Friday I pottered around the house a bit, came up with a vague plan for today's packing, but didn't do much else really. Oh. I did reshave my head and trim the beard for the first time since the middle of December. I probably should have done it at New Years, but I didn't... and was looking like of scruffy by the time I did the trim. Better now.

Then we come to Friday night DnD. It was... also a lot. But in a different way.

DM Fluffy decided that he didn't like the "trials" as written for the tenets of the goddess... you know, the fun stuff of cruelty, isolation, endurance and preservation. So he came up with his own versions, the evil little hobbit.

Because he also managed to sync the trials up to the backstories of each of our three player characters plus our talking polar bear NPC. Only we didn't realise that at the start, because we started with the trial that happened to be connected to our NPC. Turns out the polar bear used to be a prince regent (insert <of_course.gif> here... although, honestly, I had no fucking idea)... and we had to recreate one of his memories and all has to be horrible to him. Because cruelty.

It was... infuriating. In the best way. Because we were all terrible people within the memory... as in we were standing in for existing horrible people. But then we also had to be horrible to the prince regent without knowing that he was actually our polar bear NPC.

Isolation was my character's test. And I knew it was immediately. Because if anything underlines Quillamina's story in this campaign, it's isolation caused by loss and grief. Not that she's isolating herself, and she has the other members of the party, but she's been isolated from her husband through death, her son through circumstances, about half of her druid circle by death, deception or betrayal... and so, yeah, isolation works.

But the thing was we had to split up. Which I knew. Because, isolation, dur. And head in opposite directions. Again, no shit Sherlock. But eventually we each independently came across Quill's house, that she shared with her husband and her son... which she's kind of avoided since his death, unsurprisingly.

When she finally went through the door she realised that the house wasn't hers anymore. Someone else had put their things there. The building was the same, the house she built with her husband when they came to this place. It wasn't her house anymore.

Which, is, you know, not like anything at all that is anything to do with what I'm currently going through in real life... or have gone through previously in the last couple of apartments.

But mostly, when I leave somewhere, I leave it... and it's not mine anymore. I'd also been standing in the kitchen before Fluffy arrived at my place, looking around the room and thinking about that very thing. Moving on.

Fluffy claims he didn't specifically plan that... but it was odd that my character happened to sync up with where my head is at right now. Plus I have plans for that in-game house when the campaign is over. I have had for a while... which, I think, means that Quill has had those same plans for a little while.

Mine was also the shortest of the sequences. Because all we needed to do was have me be at peace with the fact that that house was no longer mine. And, as discussed, already there.

I don't think any of us expected Mr to have the reaction that his character did to the trial of endurance. I don't even think he could explain it, either in or out of character. And it wasn't the longest, but it was... no... it wasn't the most frustrating either... it was the most... interesting actually, because of Mr's reaction.

Also, because my character has been watching the other two characters have some sort of feelings for each other but not be specific about those feelings with my character or each other... we may have left the session on a "cliffhanger" after the endurance test was... endured (yes, I know) because I basically told Mr's character that maybe it was time that he said the things that needed to be said to the people who needed to hear them.

And then walked off to talk to the gigantic talking walrus.

So we'll see how that works out next week.

Oh, and after I fully charged my new phone on Thursday, I didn't need to put it on charge again until last night. Oh, the joy. Oh, the relief. Oh, the battery life.

Which brings us around to today.

Today was... exhausting. Because packing is exhausting. And moving house is exhausting. And I'm so fucking glad that I'm not actually moving house this coming Tuesday, because otherwise, today would have been very different. And much more frantic.

But we did the supermarket thing. And, when the check out girl put only a small amount of stuff into two different bags, I may have just repacked them into a single bag. Because fuck that.

After we came back here and unpacked, we made a brief trip into the city to pick up the mask I ordered on Monday. That's some good service. And by brief trip, I literally mean that Ma circled the block while I went into the store, and then we came back here and... packed.

I think we got through... six boxes. Seven maybe. And started on some of the kitchen stuff. Also, note to self, you packed a whole lot of stuff INSIDE other things. You probably want to check all of that when you get to the new house. Because otherwise, that's going to be a weird surprise in... two years time when you open that random tin or container and find... baking powder. Or something stranger.

You won't re-read this after the move, but maybe having typed it will make you remember. Otherwise, may all appropriate gods have mercy on your... kitchen containers I guess.

But we got through some packing. And my main room is full of even more boxes. And the stack of plastic storage bins next to my bedside cabinet grows ever taller. And the cupboards slowly get emptier and emptier.

And this is less and less my home. And I'm... okay with that. Or at least, it is what it is, and it's the beginning of something new.

And right now, my body is really fucking sore... lol.

And that's about it for this week.

Twenty days and counting.

Current mood:

character friday: fairy friend

It's been an... interesting 168 hours (or, you know, week)...

But things are looking good... so let's go for something a little playful for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book... Zephyr.

Zephyr is an NPC for an upcoming campaign I'm running for the Friday crew... specifically linked to Fluffy's character for the first part of the adventure. He's a knife throwing, knife juggling, knife tricks essentially. But he's only about 10"/25cm tall.

I haven't really pinned down his personality as yet... I think he's going to be very outgoing and very much a showman when he's performing, but more parental and warm when he's backstage. Like I said, I haven't thought it out fully yet... and it will also kind of just happen at the table when I open my mouth and words come out.

Anyway, he was fun to design and go over the top with his makeup and hair and costume all based around the colours of his wings.

Moving on...

So, I had two apartment inspections on Monday, one in North Adelaide, which was a shoebox and one in Glenunga, which was lovely from the outside (a very green courtyard, small number of units) but inside it was... weird. I wasn't digging it.

Tuesday was the first place I looked at where I thought, yeah I would put in an application on this place. Again the block itself was green and shaded and quite nice, and the apartment was... okay. Okay enough to put in an application anyway.

So Wednesday morning was... a giant fucking headfuck. Because fuck electronic/online rental inspections in every uncomfortable orifice. Also, but the time I was finished with pulling all the dates together and photographing a bunch of my IDs and pulling all the other documents I needed and working out how the fuck I was going to make myself not sound like the worst possible tenant in the world, it took me like an hour and a half and I hated myself and I hated the application and I knew I wasn't going to get it and my application was going to go straight in the recycle bin.

But I did it anyway.

Then Wednsday afternoon I went out to Norwood to look at a place. Again, it was cute enough. Less interesting block, but on a good street, and big enough for my purposes, and also on the second floor, which is fine. Also giving it marks in the plus column was the current tenant's belongings (also, could you be more of a hipster, sir... with your vinyl turntable and your lack of a television... well, I don't remember seeing a TV anyway), which made it look like a home rather than just a box with windows.

I have realised that one of the flaws that I have when I'm looking at apartments... is that I don't actually SEE a lot of the details. Like, I see the space. I see things that seem to make sense to me at the time. I get the vibe of the place... but I don't LOOK properly. In this place I never looked at the kitchen. I think the stove is electric, but I'm not completely sure, and I know it has aircon, but I don't remember actually seeing it.

So Thursday morning was filling out the paper application for that place. Which took 15 minutes. Seriously, it took so little time it was actually disconcerting. I thought maybe I did something wrong. And I only needed to add a photo of my driver's license, AND I was able to actually attach a cover letter explaining my circumstances. So, suffice to say, I felt a lot better about that application. Doubly so because I looked up the land agent and while it should have been weird, because it's a very, very small company, the information on the site made me feel like if anyone would give me a chance, it would be this company.

And even better still when I got a phone call from the Land Agent on Thursday night saying that it was down to me and one other person, she just had to talk to the owner. Who also owns the whole building. And lives there.

Yay.

Of course, I had a nervous night, got up earlier than I otherwise would have done and couldn't really settle to anything.

I also had my chiro appointment. So that at least got me out the house. And of course I fully expected to get a call or a message while I was flat on the table. That didn't happen, but I did get a message right after I sat down in my chiro's office. And I thought that was bad news, because usually they just message you if they're saying no. But no, it was just the agent keeping me updated on the fact that she still hadn't spoken to the owner.

Chiro appointment was business as usual.

Wandered around town for... a tiny bit... came home, and less than a minute after walked through the door, the agent called me. And took me on a roller coaster ride of "ooh that's bad... ah that's good... ooh that's bad... the froghurt is also cursed, etc"... only to say that if I could match the extra rent the other guy was offering (also, fuck that trend... let's not line the pockets of the fucking landlords any more than we need to, shall we?) then it was mine. So of COURSE I said yes.

And then immediately called Ma and when she answered the phone I was just saying "yes, yes, yes, yes...".

So, I have a place to live.

But that opened up a Pandora's Box (no pun intended... because, moving) of... other things I had to then do.

Firstly I called my current land agent to say... "hey, got a place, but you know how I'm supposed to move out at the beginning of February... nah bitch, how's three weeks later, because that's when I can move into the new place... 'k?". Of course it wasn't that easy... he had to talk to the other woman, who was theoretically on leave... so, yeah, call me back bud.

Then there was drama with paying my first two weeks rent, because internet banking decided that you need to download a fucking app that has nothing to do with your bank in order to do some stupid security thing in order to add a new payee to my own fucking account. How does GET FUCKED sound.

And I have been incredibly lax in updating my phone in the last... I dunno... seven years. So I hadn't updated my iOS, which then meant that I couldn't download the app. So I went to the bank. And the woman was, frankly and unsurprisingly, unhelpful and dismissive. Not enough for me to decide to go to a different bank... but, you know... enough to further frustrate my already frustrated and overheated ass.

In the end I withdrew the money from my bank and walked down the street like a peasant in order to pay it in at my land agent's bank. URGH.

But I got it done... 

And on the drive home, not only did the Online Banking Call Centre call me back (after an hour and a half vs the 26-45 minutes they claimed when I said "yes, please just call me back so I don't have to sit on hold for forever") while I was driving, but also the other land agent for my current place I think tried to call me, and then messaged me with a frankly incoherent message. So I was just thinking to myself... "fuck, can I just drive home in peace for five minutes"... is that a thing I can do after having essentially yelled at the bank bitch. I mean, I didn't... but I was yelling on the inside.

Got home, ignored the Online Banking People because fuck you, you can't help me, and I think you try and call back three times and then give up anyway. Called the current land agent... did a little sweet talking and YAY... I can stay here until my moving date.

Because, honestly, I am slowly trying to move any potential moving date further and further away from Christmas and New Years one move at a time... somewhat accidentally given the first move (in 20 years) was like 6 January, the next one got pushed out to 6 February and now we're most of the way through February. Because fuck trying to find something while Christmas and New Year is happening.

Not that I'm going anywhere for a while, honestly.

So, after that I called Ma and ranted for a little bit. And then though... well, fuckkit, let's see what I can do about this iOS issue. So I plugged in my phone, hit some buttons and before I knew it I was leaping about four iOS versions and my phone was chugging away downloading an update when Fluffy turned up. Because I'd asked him to come down a little early, but didn't know when he was actually showing up. So he surprised me.

Wow... sorry... not that you would have noticed, but I kinda got distracted there by reading the two overly long moving posts. Yeah... those are... definitely two different moods. And my feelings about this place now and this place when I moved in are... kind of the opinions of two different people. I mean, I definitely know that other person. But some of those issues got resolved and were, I think, mostly related to having to move at all rather than having to move here.

Anyway, where was I?

Ah, Fluffy. He helped me take all of the art that has been stored in the boxes in my bedroom for the last 6 years out of said boxes, retape said boxes to ensure they will stand another move, then repacked said art into said boxes. So that's done.

Which then led into a) me showing him the photos of my art collection, since said collection is wrapped in bubble wrap in said boxes and b) reminiscing about Burger Theory in all it's glory. Good times.

Then bread cooking, and off to Friday night DnD.

For any number of reasons, not least of all because we haven't seen each other for two weeks, there was lots of chat before we finally got down to the game.

And we set foot into the Belly of the Beast as it were. By which I mean the lair of a goddess... that used to be the home of a tribe of frost giants. So, you know, a regular Friday. We did meet the sweetest talking walrus though... who just happened to have the same accent as my character, which led to my character's accent getting a LOT thicker. Because of course that's what would happen.

So now we just have to go through four trials for the tenets of the goddess... cruelty, endurance, isolation, preservation. Won't that be fun.

Today was... tiring.

We did the supermarket thing as usual this morning, after I detoured past the new place so Ma could see it from the outside/see the location.

After shopping we came back here, and I unpacked my shopping and also unpacked the collection of extra cardboard boxes Ma brought down (thank goodness).

And then it was packing. I wanted to get the apartment "tidied" as best as I could, because it's been a total mess for the last week, much like the inside of my brain. So, with the help of the boxes Ma brought, I managed to pack some things that I tried to pack during the week and couldn't because the boxes I had were entirely too big. Or possibly I didn't think of that particular box. I'm not sure which anymore.

We also ended up pulling the big artwork out of the big box that has been living along side my pantry shelf for the aforementioned 6 years. Retaped the box, put some of the art pieces that used to be in the box back in the box and also added in a few other bits and pieces that fit in the space that I had left.

Ma also displayed her super power.

I was trying to stick a large number of things that were already in boxes into the big box I'd already put together, and they just wouldn't fit. No matter how I tried to put these five or six boxes inside this bigger box, they just wouldn't work. And I was basically "fuck this". Ma wandered over, turned one single box 90 degrees and suddenly they all went in the box pretty much perfectly. Fucking Human Tetris Machine. It's useful, but man, the number of times I tried and failed before she did one tiny thing.

In the end, we cleared 90% of my dining table, packed like seven other boxes, made some decisions about things and got my apartment in a much more organised state.

It's almost as though once I got my head straight after securing a new place to live, I can then get my physical surroundings organised in a way that I couldn't before that point. Who knew? Well, you know, I knew... it made perfect sense to me, even if I kind of made it happen by randomly throwing the shit on the table into a box just to clear it so we could use it to wrap some additional art. Then took it all back out and repacked it. Shit got done basically.

Fun fact: I also have a box entirely filled with tea and tea making supplies. I have too much tea.

We took a couple of breaks, eventually I showed Ma the photos of the inside of the place (because I showed all the properties to her... last week, I think... but that was a whole week away and I don't this she retained all that much of the information. Plus this is the place she actually has to remember now that I'm moving there.

But finally I was absolutely done... and my entire body is still all kinds of sore. Tomorrow will be fun. Plus I worked out while working on this post that I'm going to need to move my chiro appointment next week, because I accidentally booked it on the same day as the move, so that's not going to fly.

Having an appointment the week after the move definitely isn't the worst idea though.

So, yeah... as much as I'm sure I will complain about very specific things once I move into the new place, and if I make it through the process without wanting to murder various utility company staff members it will be a miracle, but right now, everything feels positive.

Just keep your fingers crossed for me if you wouldn't mind... because, you know, one can never have too much extra luck during the process of moving.

Current mood:

character saturday: tenpenny and honeypot

So... this week... yeah, that's a full on conversation.

But first... my purple clad, purple prose writing erotic novelist bard... Harland Honeypot. I knew who his mother was, but until the games before Christmas I hadn't thought about his father much at all.

I knew he had one, but I thought perhaps his mother, Mimosa Honeypot, a "former" courtesan (she still has a few old regulars, but isn't taking on any new clients right now, thank you for asking) and current hostess and entertainer at the Blushing Nymph festhall, maybe didn't know who his father was, or did but hadn't told him, or had don't him but it wasn't a big deal to either of them.

Basically wherever she was in her life at the time and where she is now are two very different places, and a long term relationship doesn't fit anymore.

But then we met some Harpers in the last game we met before Christmas. And I knew that Harland didn't like the Harpers, even though he's is 100% perfect to be a member of said faction, but I couldn't remember WHY (I think it came up in our pre-game relationship dice rolls, but I honestly didn't write most of it down, as I didn't really care). So when we met said Harper agent, Harland instantly disliked her and was honestly kind of a dick about it. Which was fun to play, even if I didn't understand what was driving it initially.

But then I needed to work out WHY. Which led me to dear old dad. He was involved in something he shouldn't have been and the Harpers used him to get to the more important criminals but in the end hung him out to dry. And he ended up in prison because of it. Where he died. Or something. Like, he's definitely dead, because why else would the reaction have been that strong, even if he knew his dad was a bad guy. I'm okay with leaving it a little up in the air because basically I know that whatever the actual story is, Harland doesn't know it. He only knows the story he was told, ostensibly by his dad, who would therefore be an unreliable narrator to his own story.

I also know the Harpers have been through more than one instance of "traitors within", so maybe his dad was a Harper or working with them but was then betrayed by said traitor, maybe dad was a traitor himself. In the end it doesn't really matter.. it's enough for what I need.

And that was how Milo Tenpenny came to be. The poor schlub didn't even have a name before that point.

I don't think he and Mimosa (and I only just realised that they're both M names) ever married, which is part of the reason why Harland uses his mother's name... but also, as an author of erotic novels, which would you rather be called... Harland Tenpenny or Harland Honeypot?

Yeah, same.

Which of course led me to DnD Character Colouring Book for the parents. Partly because they'd just added the new dress at the time and that seemed appropriate for dear old Mum. I also enjoy that Dad is just a little bit derpy. Looking back at Harland's skin tone, I feel like Dad's skin should be darker, but maybe Dad spent too many nights out on the job and too many days catching up on his sleep.

Also, if they had class levels (which they don't), then Rogue and Bard respectively. And probably the Thief and College of Glamour subclasses honestly.

And the fact that it looks like Milo is checking Mimosa's goblet to see if she needs a top up, or has just topped her up, is completely accidental. I was more trying to get across that she's all fine wine and golden goblets and he's all dagger in your back and rotgut rum.

Anyway... 

This week has been... too fucking much honestly.

So, after I finished last week's post, we learned that Fluffy's sister had tested positive, which meant that Fluffy was technically a close contact, which meant that because he spent like half of Friday with me, I was technically a close contact of him, which meant that Mr and Mrs, who we saw for DnD on Friday night were close contacts of the pair of us, and Ma, who I went shopping with on Saturday and then sat around and watched a movie with was also a close contact of me.

Fuckit.

I didn't care so much for myself, but Mrs is immuno compromised and Ma is just old.

So off they went to get tested on Saturday evening... and we had to wait until Sunday for results. I called Ma and advised her to, you know, not do her Sunday plans of going to see her equally old friends and instead stay home.

Sunday morning Fluffy was most convinced he was going to test positive... so I decided, fuckit, let's go and sneak a test in on Sunday morning while the lines are hopefully not super long and so that if the worst comes to the worst, I have my results back sooner rather than later.

So off to Hindmarsh we went. To the Educational Development Centre... retreading old ground from previous lives and all that. And a place that I've been to on more than one occasion under very different circumstances.

And as much as I didn't really dig the "have to get out of your car" aesthetic of the place, I did appreciate that it took me about as long to drive there as it did to get tested and I was back inside of an hour I think.

I also remembered to be very nice to all the staff because they're doing a very necessary job and also one where they don't get thanked anywhere near as much as they should do. And that included the girl whose main job seems to be "print out papers, fold them and place them in the right place for the nurses"... because nobody remembers to thank the admin staff. So I did. Also the nurses.

Anyway... stayed indoors for all of Sunday just to be sure. We got Fluffy's results back midway through Sunday... negative. And my results, when they came through on Monday, also negative.

Thank fuck.

Because, yeah, having to isolate for a week while also trying to find a new place to live, that wasn't going to be any kind of fun.

Speaking of...

I have currently backed 16 small boxes and two large boxes, including all of my books and most of my papers and tchotchkes. Plus I think six plastic storage tubs that I already had. All of my bookcases are stripped down and are just holding the stuff that still needs packing and the house looks like... well, it looks like I'm midway through packing for a move honestly.

Dining table isn't any clearer... every time I semi empty it, I just add more stuff to it, so there's that.

I also went through my CDs during the week... basically enough of them need to go in order for me to just have a single bookshelf worth, which may not make a lot of sense, but otherwise I'd have a weirdly shaped shelf to fill otherwise.

And I went to see two places last week. One said that it was in North Adelaide but was actually in Ovingham on the side of a hill and didn't have a stove. Nor a cooktop. So fuck that noise on any number of levels. If I'd known that before I went, I wouldn't have gone.

Then on Friday I went to another place that was within walking distance of my current place. It just seemed... small and grubby... didn't like it.

Currently I have, I think, at least four open inspections next week. And some, if not all of them, I'm going to need to start putting in applications for, even if they're not 100% perfect.

Fun times.

Also, as I messaged Fluffy mid way through the week... I am currently sick of every single thing that I own. Because either there's too many of them, they're difficult to pack, or I probably should have gotten rid of them at some point but just didn't.

In any event, there will come a time for culling after the move. Especially for random tchotchkes I think. I have a whole storage bin full of them that I never even got out here... or possibly the place before honestly... yeah, it's a whole lot of stuff that I like, but, honestly, if I don't have an actual spot for it, why is it hanging around.

Whether this mood lasts throughout the move and into the unpacking phase remains to be seen.

Anyway...

Due to aforementioned "close contact", even though all of their tests came back negative, Fluffy and the fam still needed to insolate for the week, so no Friday DnD. And I've pulled the plug on Thursday DnD for the month, because I kind of don't have, as mentioned last week, the mental bandwidth for it right now. Plus I need to be able to head out to open inspections in the evenings, just in case.

Also my back has been letting me know that it doesn't appreciate all the bending and carrying of heavy objects... and I don't have a chiro appointment until next week sadly. So, yeah, more fun times.

justquietly... arrggghhhhhh.....

Which brings us around to today.

Which mostly involved me proverbially banging my head against the proverbial wall honestly.

First up, supermarket. And because I didn't buy fuck all last week due to... last week... I needed to make up for it with additional stuff this week. Or, you know, the right amount of stuff.

Then it was back here for unpacking and... coming up with a plan for more packing of a different kind. Fun times. Or something.

So, it was off to the Reject Shop to get a couple more of those plastic storage tubs that are super useful for the more fragile of the tchotchkes. Plus I want to keep the last four of the smaller boxes for kitchen stuff.

And then it was back here to try and work out what to pack and how to pack it. Because most of what's left needs some amount of bubblewrap, it's just working out the how and the.... well, mostly the how of wrapping them up honestly. So we did that... take item out of glass container it usually lives in, wrap item in bubble wrap awkwardly, put item back in glass container, wrap whole thing in bubblewrap awkwardly, put entirely too much tape on it, look at weird lump that results... get next thing.

I also kept finding additional THINGS... stuff I'd clearly put in A Place at Some Time and then promptly forgotten about, only to discover it now and think "sorry, what... why is this a thing and when did I put that there?".

Right now my brain is mostly fried... my hands feel all weird and tingly from having handled too much bubblewrap and tape... and I still am mostly sick of every single thing I own.

Also, I now have a stack of "not moving company" cardboard boxes that I'm sure will come in useful eventually, but right now are just taking up space.

And just so we're clear... on a scale from Underwhelmed to Overwhelmed, I'm currently at Whelmed, dancing furiously on the borderline of Overwhelmed.

Fun. Fucking. Times.

Current mood:

character saturday: animal boys

Some animal themed boys for the first DnD Character Colouring Book of the year. And I probably could have just gone with one of them, but they seemed to work nicely together honestly.

Firstly, the Battlemaster Fighter... the very on-the-nose named Reynard, the redhead, who kind of got his fox based name after his look was done. Because I still haven't really done a redheaded character, even though I've wanted to on a number of occasions. Also, he's only a Battlemaster because that made sense for him... it's not really my favourite subclass.

Valazquez is when happens when you're watching people play video games for a number of hours and something comes up in the game that makes you want to make a DnD character with the same theme.

The video game: Wildermyth. The something: the Crowtouched theme that slowly turns one of your characters into... a crow.

While musing on it, the character became an Acolyte and Aasimar tied to the Raven Queen... because goth and edgy shit. And then a rogue, because the aforementioned goth and edgy shit. See also the Phantom Rogue subclass.

Moving on.

This week was... a lot.

So, although I haven't mentioned it since the first... mention... urgh... I still have to move house at the start of February. Which is all kinds of problems and issues and whatnots.

But between Christmas and New Year I found a moving company, but they seemed... less good than the other company I used during my last two moves... but they decided that they didn't want to operate in Adelaide any more sometime after my last move. So, urgh, again.

So, this week I tried to find a different company. Wow. Moving companies are... the word that comes springing to mind is... bullshit. Or often just a random dude and a truck. Is it out of line to expect, I don't know. An office. And when I look up your company address on Google Maps, that I don't find... somebody's house. Or a place where you theoretically park your truck.

And when you go through Google looking at different removal companies... you start to notice that a lof of the websites look like ass. And... you start to realise that, hey, I've seen that phone number before... so you Google the phone number and find, like five different "companies" with similar looking websites, but with completely different names.

So... Best Movers Adelaide, Same Day Movers, Total Removals, Proven Removalists and Carlo Removalists... I fucking see you all. With your mostly matching websites and your identical phone numbers but different addresses. I see you.

I'll tell you, that for me, I started to a) loose all faith in humanity in general and b) started to kind of loose my tenuous grip on reality.

Also not helped when the company that I had seen that seemed better than the one I'd already spoken to told me when I called them that they're not doing any removals in Adelaide until April. At least I think it was them, I ended up speaking to a number of companies and had a number of stupid conversations.

So what do we do when we start to loose our tenuous grip on reality? We call Ma. And she comes down so that you can have a brief freak out, and then outline the whole problem you're having and then end up calling a couple of other companies who are also... functionally useless.

I mean, they had reasons, and I understand their reasons. But for the most part, none of those reasons didn't help me.

And even trying to find a company that rented/sold moving boxes was doing my head in.

Basically the TLDR is that I had gotten myself into a headspace, and couldn't see my way past any of it.

Basically after I called one of the major moving companies and while I spoke to someone in Melbourne, they tried to put me through someone in Adelaide, but nobody was picking up the phone. Now, I get it... this was the first day back at work for a lot of them after the Christmas/New Years break, but fuck.

So I just went... fuck it. Let's go with the company that I'm already booked with, and even though they don't fucking mention it, they do rent boxes, albeit at a more expensive rate than I would have initially liked (which was one of the things that I was unhappy about when I first spoke to them). And because I know they charged an additional fee to bring the boxes out, so, since Ma was here, I suggested driving out there to pick some up.

I mean, I called them first... but, like every other phonecall I made that day, it was unproductive because it ended up going to voicemail... and they never called me back (I mean, before we got there).

Actually seeing that they had a building, with a sign, and a dinky little office (which was essentially a cube inside the bigger warehouse), and people... made me feel better. I mean, I then had to spend entirely too much fucking money on fucking cardboard. But they're good boxes. And I learned my lesson from the last move by getting the new ones and not the used ones. Because my experience with the used boxes last time was less than ideal.

And of course, because of the way my life works, while I am physically holding onto one of the sets of boxes, with woman from the office getting the other boxes for me... my phone rings. Of course it's the other moving company. I just thought "fuck this" and told the woman who called that I'd made "other arrangements, but thank you".

Then we stopped off at Officeworks on the way back to my place for some more tape and some bubble wrap and some butchers paper. Not the BEST butchers paper mind you, it's a bit... thin. But there's also 250 sheets of it, so... swings and roundabouts.

And that was just my Tuesday.

So, right now, I have... 10 boxes packed, two large ones, 8 small ones, all my DVDs are packed, the papers and shite from my chest of drawers are packed, all of the boxes that I had for my tchotchkes, with the aforementioned tchotchkes repacking inside them are in boxes, and I'm slowly building the Great Wall Of China in my living room.

I mean, what the fuck did I do with all the boxes when I loved in here? There the actual fuck did I put them all? I mean, I know that I didn't have the dining table, or the chest of drawers, or the kitchen workbench when I got here... and everything was all piled up against the bookcases the day after I moved in... 

But I'll be honest, even looking at that photo right now gives me... well, not clinical anxiety... but it makes me all manner of anxious. Also, the photo from like a week previous that showed where I was up to with packing... also makes me all kinds of anxious.

Partially because the rental market is very, very different now than it was five years ago, my overall situation is... worse than it was five years ago, and, you know, looking for places in the Current World Situation is... kinda fucked, honestly.

In a word. Fuck. Just... plain, old, ordinary... fuck.

Anyway... I went and looked at a place on Thursday evening. Two doors down from the Wellington Square apartment. Which made me suddenly remember a) planes flying overhead and b) it's been five years since I've really been to North Adelaide and c) there were entirely too many people/couples looking through the place, which was cute, but, you know... me against couples for an apartment. Urgh.

But it's also the first one I've physically set foot in, so there's that.

On Friday, Fluffy came down in the afternoon and we did a little packing, did a little organising and culling of shite. I mean, I knew that I liked to keep a useful jar. Just in case it was, at a later point, useful. But I didn't actually realise how many fucking jars I had accumulated inside my house.

Well, jars and empty honey containers, because I also hoard those for soup and whatnot. And also other plastic containers that I put up on high shelves in the kitchen and... never thought of ever again.

So now my recycle bin outside is full. Not just, like, a little bit full... "the lid won't close" kind of full. Mostly with jars. I mean, if they were all smashed into glass, then maybe they'd take up less room. but that's going to make all the pretty, breaking noises when they dump it all into the recycle truck next week.

"Hi, my name's Yani, and I have a problem with collecting containers."

But at least most of that is in the trash now and I don't need to worry about it.

And, while I know that I could actually pack more or less fully for a move within, like a week, taking my time is preferable, but the issue, as I mentioned to... well, anybody who stood still long enough for me to tell this week... right now I have to weigh up between how much room the thing is currently taking up in my house and how much room it will take up once it's in a box... and sometimes it can just stay where it is for now.

Which is also why Ma and I didn't do any packing today... next week is definitely going to be a thing... but for this week... nah, I honestly didn't have the mental bandwidth necessary.

Also, to quote an oft used quote from Press Gang, one of my favourite shows from the 90's... my apartment looks like I've "been playing with something thermonuclear". Big wall of boxes, empty spaces in the bookcases, every surface strewn with the detritus of my life. It's a mess.

Much like my life right now... <insert self deprecating grin gif here>

Urgh... speaking of not having the mental bandwidth... let's move on shall we.

Really the only other thing of note this week... or possibly the only other thing that I really remember because past a certain point my brain is just full... is Friday's DnD game.

After several sessions of... not avoiding the main plot... but, doing our own thing... we proceeded full force with the plot. You know, right into the belly of the beast and all that.

And now we get to answer the age old question... what happens when you put the ghost of a sassy bitch into the body of an already sassy bitch. Yes, my girl got a sassy ghost in her head... because initially she went into the head of our monk... and that wasn't going to be a thing we allowed to stand.

So now I have a sassy bitch in my head and a new weasel familiar friend. I mean, it's the familiar of the sassy bitch... but he's a sweet white weasel/ferret... which might actually be a stoat or an ermine based of the art I saw.

Anyway... next up, we're into the fortress of plot and bad stuff... so that'll be... stressful. But a different kind of stress.

Today was... I dunno... Mental Fallout Day, I guess.

We did the supermarket thing... but didn't end up buying very much... partially because, honestly, I didn't know what the fuck I wanted this week and because the weather can't make up it's damn mind about the weather right now.

Oh, yeah, I should also mention... you know how they "came and fixed to roof"... because of leaks. Yeah, it rained really fucking heavily on Friday afternoon... and, you guessed it, the ceiling/roof leaked again. So they didn't fix shit. But I also don't actually need to care about it for all that much longer. After that it becomes my favourite kind of problem... Somebody Else's Problem.

Anyway, we came back here, I gave Ma a bunch of stuff that I didn't want to just throw away... we watched a weird movie on TV, and then she headed home.

So, there's that about that.

Anyway... think nice thoughts in my general direction please. Think apartment thoughts, think successful thoughts, just think me being able to talk my way into what I want kinda thoughts. Or, you know, not... I'm not the boss of you.

Current mood:

movies: encanto

Well... Encanto...

This was a movie I... didn't see coming. I mean, I knew that it was a movie and I knew that it was coming out, and I'd heard good things. But I had no idea what the hell this movie was. Because I don't do trailers anymore, and I prefer going into a movie knowing nothing about it.

And thus, we have situations like Encanto. Where knowing nothing about a movie let's it hit me like a ten-ton truck.

If you haven't seen anything about the movie, but generally like Disney movies, I'd say, go and see it.

Encanto is another Disney movie in an developing list that takes on a different culture and sets it's story deep within that culture. See also Raya and Moana. 

But this feels more successful than either of those, even though I liked Moana very much. And like Moana, this movie has a number of Lin-Manuel Miranda songs throughout, but more on that later.

At it's core though, Encanto is the story of a family. And what that means, both for good and for bad. It's a very special extended family with a set of gifts, but a family none-the-less. The interesting part comes in because it's a Latinx family, who live in a wonderful house, in a non-specific timeframe, in an isolated rural village location in Columbia. It's also great that the movie's cast is predominantly Latinx and a number of them also reprised their roles in the Spanish language dub of the movie, which is nice.

But maybe 90% of the movie takes place in, or very close to that house. They also manage to give the house something of a personality or at least set it apart from other... magical buildings. Plus there are only a handful of other characters with speaking roles or who affect the plot in any significant way.

The movie is visually... lush. There honestly isn't any other word for how beautiful this movie looks. I know that's generally my go-to description of any new Disney animated movie, but this one is set in a colourful house in a jungle location with flowers and bright costumes and magic and colours everywhere.

The movement of the characters, especially when people move to the music without seemingly meaning to or just dance, are beautiful. They're fluid and have weight and feel real. 

It also has some great songs, one of which, "Surface Pressure" is my favourite of the movie, and something of an earworm that has been bouncing around in my head since... well, not since last night, because I watched it again this morning, but it's certainly catchy.

However... here we get to one of a couple of very minor complaints that I have about the movie.

The first of which is that Lin-Manuel Miranda is amazing at writing songs that move the story along and that focus on character and emotion and what's happening in the scene. What I feel like he's pretty bad at is writing a song you can sing along to. 

None of these songs are "Be Our Guest" or "Never Had A Friend Like Me" or "Under the Sea" or "Hakuna Matata".... and not a single one of them are "I'll Make A Man Out Of You". These are lyrically dense songs that work within the confines of the movie, but I very much doubt will endure or find a life outside of the movie.

And as much as I loved the Moana soundtrack (I bought it on CD after all), there are at least a couple of songs on there that are more generically Disney songs (specifically "How Far I'll Go")... this feels like they just let him go full Lin-Manuel. Which is great, but, like I said, these songs won't endure. Or show up as karaoke songs in ten years times or be a thing you randomly quote if somebody happens to accidentally say a line from.

The other complaint is something of a... "good problem to have" I guess. I like a lot of the characters, both visually and for their part in the story... but... there may be too many of them. Because there are character who don't get enough screen time or don't get fleshed out in any significant way. And I really wish they did. 

It's better than having too few characters who don't get fleshed out, but it's still a problem. There needed to be a lot of characters to get an authentic extended family feel, I get that... but at the same time some of the characters don't get much of a personality beyond the singular character traits outlined for them in the opening number of the movie. Too much of a good thing maybe.

It feels like they came up with some great ideas for individual gifts but were loathe to lose any.

Also... beyond being nice... I'm not completely sure that our main character has a full personality. It works within the context of the movie, because we get enough about her for you to go along with her for the movie and what she has to do within it... but beyond "nice" and "the main character", her personality seems to be "wants to fix the thing that is wrong". And yes, the thing everyone wants to point out is that she's the first female protagonist in a Disney movie who wears glasses. Which is... great, I guess, but it's still not a personality. 

I really like her, don't get me wrong. But I'm damned if I can actually come up with a personality trait for her beyond "protagonist". She loves her family and she works out what's wrong at the end of the movie and why, but only because she's following a completely different plot thread and kind of stumbles on the answer by accident.

Which is fine and good and adequate for a family movie. But, on reflection, a lot of the characters are fairly thinly realised.

Like I said though, it still works for me.

I also knew where the plot was (mostly) going, from early on, but I enjoyed the journey of getting there. And it made me cry at the end. Which is really where the ten-ton truck comes in. Maybe a train is a better analogy... I saw it coming on the tracks, I didn't want to get out of the way, and it ran completely over me.

yani's rating: 4 butterflies out of 5

2022

2022... which, if you say it out loud, sounds like 2020 II... or the second 2020. And, honestly, nobody wants any of that.

This year is not only the International Year of Glass, as exemplified by the above image... looking through glass windows to see glass windows, also tastefully naked blonde man. But this year is also the year of both Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Mountain Development.

We'll get onto New Years Eve in a second, but because today is ALSO a Saturday, I need to do a real quick roundup first. Because screw this holiday season and things falling on Saturdays.

The only real points of interest were that on Monday I lost my mind slightly and started finding the boxes I had stored away for various bits of tchotchkes, pulled them all out, put things in boxes and filled the kitchen table with them. So... that's the start of that.

Thursday was both Supermarket Saturday and DnD Friday, while also being Thursday. So first up was the Supermarket with Ma... and it was much, much quieter than last week's shopping. Then DnD Night was... more talking. And making plans. And trying to convince a polar bear that he shouldn't be keeping secrets from us. And investigating a story thread that I probably should have looked into months ago, but didn't. And getting a spooky omen from the Frostmaiden herself.

Which brings us around to New Years Eve.

Now, normally my New Years Eve is the exact same shit as the year before and the year before that and the year before that and the year before that. And this year was... 90% that. But not.

So, I tidied the house as best I could with boxes spread over multiple surfaces, change my bedding from garish red and green to calm black and white, rotated the mattress, because otherwise I forget to do it, so once a year at the very least seems like a good idea. And then Fluffy came down in the evening.

Which means, instead of just sitting around on my own watching movies, I sat around with Fluffy and watched movies. Which is the 10% from the above.

We started off with a classic, How To Steal A Million, which I love, and which Fluffy had never seen... then we watched Encanto... and that is absolutely getting a review later. The funny thing was that mid way through the movie Fluffy's laptop, which we were using to play the movie onto my TV just rebooted itself and decided that it needed to take about half an hour to do a Windows update. Because that really needed to happen right then and there and couldn't have waited a couple of hours or until he shut the laptop down. So we ended up watching a chunk of Dirty Dancing, which, I realised, I'd never seen all the way through, although I'm familiar with the story.

But it eventually sorted itself out, we finished the movie, I big-cried (but not as far as ugly cry, but it was touch and go for a second there) and we then spent a good portion of time analysing the shit out of it.

And... for some reason, Channel 9 had decided to play You Can't Stop The Music starting at like 10:30pm rather than midnight. So we left that on for a bit before Fluffy started losing the will to live. So then it was back to YouTube to look up Encanto songs until midnight.

Then once we heard the fireworks, we wished each other a Happy New Year... and I drove him home LOL. Had things been slightly different, I might have thrown another old movie on, but, overall it was a nice night. Something different enough at any rate.

And then I came home, and was going to go to bed, but went to shut the laptop down and ended up messaging back and forth with Owlgirl for about half an hour. So that was nice.

Of course, then the first news I saw this morning when I woke up was the fact that Betty White had passed away at the age of 99, a couple of weeks before her 100th birthday. But that technically counts as a 2021 problem. Safe journeys Betty... thanks for you know... and also, for sticking around for so long.

Okay, bring it on 2022. I may not be ready or prepared, but... actually I don't know how that sentence ends... but, we'll get there.

Current mood:

two thousand and twenty one in review

I very nearly didn't do this. In the end, I only really decided to do it because a) tradition but also b) I would very, very, very much like to look back this time next year and breath a sigh of relief that my life has improved in a significant number of ways.

So... there's that. 

Don't expect a lot of introspection though, because, honestly, I don't have the mental bandwidth for that right now. 

I'm also not really in the mood to reminisce about a mostly shit year and one where when everything is potentially about to fall on it's ass in my life in the next month... or at best is going to be majorly fucking stressful. 

Urgh.

But enough of my mental baggage, 2021.

Almost nothing happened this year. Days passed, things happened. But nothing HAPPENED. You know.

Like last year, I would have gone insane if not for my friends. And having a routine that actually got me out of the house more than once a week.

January: Friday night DnD finished our almost year and a half Descent into Avernus campaign. Still sad, still amazing. 

February: I had a bout of dizziness that lasted a couple of weeks, involved a doctor's visit and then disappeared as quickly as it arrived. 

March: My birthday. For which no shits were given by me. I developed a DnD character basically live on the blog. We went to the movies for the first time in over a year. 

April: I shaved my head after threatening to do it about once a month since March 2020. It remains shaved. 

May: We started a "non-campaign" campaign for the Thursday night Dnd Group. 

June: I explored the DnD Cookbook. We started the new major Friday night DnD campaign. Critical Role Series 2 ended with a 7 hour game. 

July: A roof leak. Getting Ma on the internets. Having to isolate for two weeks and it taking five and a half hours for my first test and 10 minutes for the second and third. 

August: Roof/ceiling shenanigans continued, resulting in a hole cut in the ceiling. 

September: I got my first vax shot. And I ran a one shot game for Fluffy's birthday. The hole in the ceiling got patched. 

October: I got told my lease, which expires in February, isn't being renewed. I got my second vax shot. Friday Night DnD's two year anniversary. 

November: My shoulder stopped being fully functional for no well explained reason. They finally fixed the actual roof leak. 

December: The Christmas Tree went up (see also: Fuck Christmas). We did Board Game Christmas with Mr and Mrs again, followed by Movie Night with Fluffy. Christmas happened.

I did make a lot of additional DnD characters or sketches or ideas for use in place of actual photos this year. DnD was once again... very important in my life.

I didn't really do much in the way of movies this year... even older stuff.

What I will say is that Luca was great, Shang Chi was much better than I expected, Cruella SUCKED, as I knew it would, and Raya and the Last Dragon was uneven but 100% is a Disney movie with a lesbian lead/love story.

Current mood:

post christmas round-up 2021

It's Saturday, but it's also Christmas Day... which basically just leads to my brain imploding in on itself at a certain point.

So we're going to do a modified weekly round-up, such as it is, then do the Christmas thing, such as that is.

First and foremost, I need a Bundaberg Spiced Ginger Beer... because that shit is tasty, tasty Christmas in a bottle, and I love it. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but it's fucking great, and I'm 100% here for it.

Secondly... I told you we had one DnD Character Colouring Book Reindeer to go.

Cousin Rudolph. Because, he's definitely not a Jingle Brother. And of course he's a Warlock. And a little bit extra. With Santa as his patron. I do really love how his outfit turned out to be honest. And I also love that the little doll in Hero Forge can be coloured to look like Spiderman... because that's silly and fun. And it's also the thing he "inherited" from Santa. And his Talisman Pact Boon. Or else the doll is the talisman and the staff is the thing he inherited. One of those.

So there's that.

This week was all topsy turvy... 

We had Friday's DnD on Thursday. And it was basically almost entirely a roleplay episode. Because we came back to the place where all the NPCs are right now, so we tend to talk to all of them. And my character got Wine Mom Drunk and spoke Truth to one of the other characters about them being awesome. I mean, she is due... she's had a hell of a couple of weeks.

Thursday was also Supermarket Day. Which I did on my own. At 7:30am.

Only to discover that every other muthafucker had also decided that 7:30am on the day before Christmas and the same amount of people we usually see during the course of one entire supermarket trip were all crammed into the fruit and veg department.

Grrrr.

But I was out of there and back home by 8:30 give or take.

I also wrapped up my Dice Advent Calendar from Mr and Mrs... which ended up in a very eclectic set of dice, plus one red and white Santa themed set, which I quite like. But the weird thing being that, other than that set, I did not get a single d8 dice. Everything else. No d8's. Weird.

I had assumed that while the dice were "random", there would be the Santa set, two full sets of random dice (as in a d20, d12, d00, d10, d8, d6 and d4), then the extra d4 from the Santa set, the special metal dice and... you know... another d20, probably. But not, the dice were super random. I got a lot of d6's... Fluffy got a lot of d20's in his calendar... and it was just... odd.

Anyway...

Welcome to Christmas Day.

I woke up... fairly early... but no earlier than I've been waking up of late.

And because we don't have places to go and people to see these days (and honestly, even if we had, I would 100% have cancelled it, because, The World Right Now), I didn't feel compelled to head down the road super early.

So I messaged Ma, wished her a Merry Crimmas, futzed around on my phone for a bit, got up, had a shower, did my physio exercises (because while my shoulder is 95% there again, I'm still doing the exercises for the foreseeable, just until the little bit of weakness that I can still feel is gone), which watching things on YouTube... 

And then, honestly, it felt very weird that I didn't get to open a window in the Dice Advent Calendar, since that has been a thing every day for the last 24 days.

But I finally packed up the car and headed down the road at about 8:45am. The roads weren't perhaps as empty as they have been when I've done the super early drive, but it was find.

And of course, when I got there, Ma was pulling a bunch of Ham Hearts out of the oven, so yummy ham, cheese and puff pastry morsels for the pre-breakfast snack. Because, fuck it... it's Christmas, and I can have breakfast before my breakfast.

Anyway, we did the croissant thing. Because as much as I loved having to get up two and a half hours before I intended to leave in order to make fresh bread, bake the bread and then take it down the road to Ma's place... honestly, I just fucking wanted croissants. Because I have bread on the regular, I never have croissants.

I could just say here that everything happened in much the same way as previous Christmas Days... but it kinda didn't. I mean, mostly it did, but it also kinda didn't.

And I'm not super getting into it, but for any number of reasons, we barely did presents this year. There were a couple of bits and pieces, but Ma gave me some money, because, honestly, either I need major items that I wouldn't expect to get as Christmas presents, like a *whispers* newlaptop *whispers* (we don't say it too loud so the laptop doesn't hear) or a new TV or a new iPhone... or I don't really need much of anything right now.

Anyway.

We kind of pfaffed around... a lot. I messaged a bunch of people with Christmas greetings. After that we prepped for lunch. After the semi panic of, I think, last year... or the year before... I can't be bothered looking it up, I prepped all of the individual things that went into the salad beforehand, so it was just kinda plug and play.

And then we did... "presents". Most of these were things I got from DnD Christmas with Fluffy, Mr and Mrs... but we do the full list here, because... tradition, I guess.

• The Wild Beyond The Witchlight Campaign Book (from Mr, Mrs and Fluffy)
• Thousand Year Old Vampire (from Fluffy)
• Wyrmwood Dice Box (from Mr and Mrs)
• Q Workshop Dice Advent Calendar (from Mr and Mrs)
• Handmade Embroidered Bear with a Whip ornament (from Fluffy, crafted by Fluffy's Mum, themed around my Asshole Cleric)
• Wooden Incense Box
• Avengers: Endgame DVD
• Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings DVD
• Light Up Crystal Ball (sadly, not as pretty as I'd hoped, but we got it real cheap when they were selling out Halloween shit... and I can make some use of it)

So, there's that.

After all of that prep... including just throwing together a salad dressing with mustard, cranberry sauce, oil and vinegar at the last second (because the one that Ma had was a little too... much)... and I burned the haloumi because fuck Ma's electric stove top.

But thanks to a Jamie Oliver Christmas cooking special was on in the background at some point, I squished the roast potatoes part way through, and they came out really nicely. Sadly, throwing dressing on them makes them much less crispy instantly, but overall, it all worked out.

Then we cleaned up and played a few games of L.L.A.M.A... and then a game of Here To Slay, which we played last year. While mostly ignoring White Christmas which was on in the background.

We made the usual Eton Mess thingy with gin and lemon meringue, mince pie icecream and fresh berries. It's always nice, it's always super sweet and super rich, and I couldn't deal with it more than once a year.

And when White Christmas finished, I packed up and came home.

In a word. Blah.

Current mood:

character saturday: jingle bros part two

The second half of the Jingle Brothers for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book - Xmas Edition.

• Comet - The Light Domain Cleric
  The kindly young healer that lights up the lives of everyone he meets
• Cupid - The Fey Wanderer Ranger
  The quiet and calm bowmaster who got lost in the Feywild as a child
• Donner - The Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
  The debonair arcane spellcaster harnessing the magical power of toys
• Blitzen - The Way of Mercy Monk
  The stern eldest brother with a heart of gold who is beloved by the toymaking elves

Of these four, I think Comet is my favourite. I just love how his colour scheme came out, but I have a bit of a soft spot for Cupid also (even if, in this arrangement of images it kind of looks as though he's about to take a potshot at his brother). Blitzen had to be the stern and serious one because his costume is kind of the silliest... along with the candy cane bo staff.

Those of you playing Reindeer Bingo at home, might be saying to yourselves... "hey, you missed one"... never fear, after all, Christmas Day is on a Saturday.

Moving on...

So... Tuna Noodle Do for food this week. Without eggs, because I ate entirely all of the eggs last week.

Then, on Monday afternoon I went hardcore on Rocky Road, by which I mean I made a big old chocolately mess, filled two foil trays with it and then later on cut it into appropriately sized pieces and filled the bottom shelf of my fridge with it.

I also finished off Fluffy's present, which was a collection of recipes, mostly from the blog, but also from life in general, and a simplified version of a couple of the DnD recipes (because he's got the book, but some of those recipes definitely over explain things... plus you don't want to get the pretty, pretty book out every time, it could get dirty). But it looked quite smart in the display book I got.

Then we get to Wednesday, which was Board Game Christmas with Fluffy, Mr and Mrs. Well, mostly Fluffy and Mrs... Mr had other things he needed to be doing, but he did show up a few times.

I made cheese, chive and black pepper bread, and took Rocky Road for Mr and Mrs. We did the present thing first... and I'll mention those with my other presents next week. Then, we were on for games. We played quite a bit of L.L.A.M.A. followed by several rounds of Coup, a spirited game of Disney Villainous: Perfectly Wretched where I played Cruella, obvs... and Fluffy won, because, for some reason, Fluffy always fucking wins Villainous. Followed up by a seemingly quite short game of Mysterium, and then rounded out with a few more games of L.L.A.M.A. And we fitted lunch in there somewhere. Possibly between Coup and Villainous I think.

It was a fun day. We got there just after 10am and didn't leave until... just after 4 I think.

Then Fluffy and I came back here and watched Christmas movies. The original idea was Bad Netflix Xmas movie, but, honestly, I wanted "camp bad" not "people who can't act bad"... so in the end we went with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (which is freely available on the YooToobs), which is unabashedly, certifiably TERRIBLE, but fun to make fun of. We really knew what we were into when the credits at the start of the movie listed the "Custume Designer".

But, fun fact, that movie is the first documented appearance of Mrs Claus in a motion picture. And the second is in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Rankin Bass stop motion animation classic, which came out three weeks later.

Then we went down the road and grabbed a pizza, came back here and watched The Muppets Christmas Carol, because after all that bad movie, we needed something good to balance it out.

It was a long day, and I want exhausted by the end of it. Which is weird, because it doesn't sound like all that much. But, you know, stuff.

Friday was DnD as usual.

Except, you know, I somehow cast a DnD spell in real life. The short version is that there were some bad guys coming up towards the cave we were in, so my druid cast Call Lightning, a spell that, unsurprisingly, creates a 60 foot radius storm cloud that you can call down lightning from.

And not 10 second after I'd said that I was going to cast that spell, we saw a flash of real lightning outside. It's not even like the day had been stormy or rainy... it had been filthy hot, if overcast, all day, and a lightning storm was the last thing any of us expected.

So, yeah... that was weird.

Otherwise, it was a decent game. We mostly did diplomatic negotiations... well, after we murderised the bad guys at the start. And I talked to plants again. Which, honestly, was more confusing than the diplomacy.

Moving on.

Today was... brief and to the point.

With everything going on right now, the last thing I want to do is to be making unnecessary trips to places... so we did the supermarket, came back here, didn't really do much here, and then Ma shuffled off home.

It does mean that I'm going to need to sneak in a shopping trip sometime towards the end of the week. Most likely first thing on Thursday morning honestly, since the supermarket opens at like 7:30am. And I don't need a ton of stuff, due to, you know, Christmas leftovers, mostly just some salad stuff and some milk products. But, you know, grocery shopping two days before Christmas... everyone pray for me.

But that's that really.

Current mood: