Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in mysterysquid's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, May 12th, 2012
10:49 pm	Hello! Goodness, I've gotten rather bad at this. It's that terrible feedback effect where the longer you go without posting, the less it feels like you have to say. I'm going to make a few posts to catch up on some big things, and see if I can post more regularly. So, here's one I've promised a few people. Neil Gaiman! ( Ninja gig! ) Current Mood: cheerful (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 4th, 2012
9:58 pm	World Greatest Shave It lives! I still owe my journal posts on several trips, and Neil Gaiman, amongst other things, BUT. This is time dependent. As some of you know, my sister died of leukaemia just over eight years ago. As I have a few times in the past, I'm going to do the World's Greatest Shave as a fundraiser for leukaemia research. I will therefore be going from this: To significantly less hair than that!  It would be great if people could sponsor me! Any amount is great, it all helps. Here's the link: http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/heathg I will of course share photos of the results. :) Thanks people! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 8th, 2012
10:24 am	Something something Steps (Hitchcock) The sum of five consecutive primes (3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13), and the sum of the first three powers of 3. The atomic number of yttrium The number of categories of activity prohibited on Shabbat according to Halakha The number of books in the Old Testament according to Protestant canon The age American comedian Jack Benny claimed to be for more than 40 years - I may steal this one! One of my favourite tracks from A Night At the Opera. (Apparently if the tracks on Queen's original studio albums are numbered in sequential order starting with their first, this track falls in the thirty-ninth position!) The number of signers to the United States Constitution, out of 55 members of the Philadelphia Convention delegates. The traditional number of times citizens of Ancient Rome hit their slaves when beating them, referred to as "Forty save one" The code for international direct-dialed phone calls to Italy Japanese Internet chat slang for "thank you" when written with numbers (3=san 9=kyu) Special bonus: A photo of me I don't hate! Taken at work. Dragon puppet is totally work related. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 30th, 2011
6:22 pm	Christmas Right, before I get back to belatedly chronicling my travels, I'll fill in what's happened in the last few days. Christmas completely snuck up on me this year. I wasn't feeling it at all, completely disconnected. We got together presents for the kids, and I laybyed some Harry Potter lego (both halves of Hogwarts) for acerbicmuffin. As a family we chipped in to buy a fish farm in Laos through Oxfam. We started doing this a few years ago, after my brother and I realised we were just exchanging vouchers of the exact same value, and had been for a few years. Pooling our money to buy something for people who really need it seemed to be much more in keeping with the season.   Christmas day itself was chaotic. The kids got ridiculous amounts of gifts, as usual. Ours seemed to go down well - we made sure to sneak in a book for each of them! We had messages from friends near and far, including miss_m_cricket, ted_the_bug, and even expoduck in Manchester, which was awesome. We visited my aunt and her weird christmas lunch with her husband's family, a collection of very unusual people. On the way there, we were hit by an amazing storm - huge amounts of rain and hail. We joked about getting a white christmas in the middle of summer. We had our christmas lunch, where mum overcatered to a stupid degree, as always (four roasts!) We had the traditional bitching that Carols by Candlelight isn't as good as it used to be, and they hardly even have any carols anymore, it's just commercial now. In short, it was finally starting to feel like christmas! Then the rain came back. The second storm was at least as heavy as the first storm. The kids were actually quite scared. And then we noticed the rushing sound. Looking down the basement stairs, we were greeted by the sight of a fast running stream of water. We had experienced some minor flooding in the basement before, but nothing like this. We ended up with all of us in the basement, sweeping out water. lil_miss_morbid avoided much damage to her room, which was just off the basement, which was a huge relief. After several hours of slogging, acerbicmuffin and I came back to our room, ready to crash - which was when we discovered our carpet was weirdly dark-looking. And squishy. The entire carpet was soaked. We frantically moved everything we could away from floor level. Here's another huge relief, very little was damaged: I lost my Worldcon stuff, and Tanya lost a pattern book. We had to spend the night on the folks' couch bed. Boxing day lived up to its name. We packed all of our belongings into boxes so we could clear the room and rip out the carpet. We've spent two nights on the couch, and then two nights with AMAZNGLY generous and supportive friends: Miss RB (of no fixed URL) and jesusandrew and 17catherines. I can't express how much this meant to us. I'm sure someone would have snapped if we'd had to stay in what's essentially my brother's lounge room for one more night. We're now back in our own room. We have bed, chairs, laptops and tv - everything else is still boxed and in storage. We're exhausted, and it's not been much of a holiday. But we're okay, and most of our stuff is undamaged. It could have been much, much worse. Upcoming posts: work trip to Swan Hill, holiday to Tasmania, and Secret Gig with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 23rd, 2011
11:50 pm	Mildura Work is over for the year, so I'm going to play catchup now. Not that work is an excuse really - I have friends who've had eighty bajillion christmas events that they organised, family bereavements, or in one notable case, two operations and pneumonia (hi nicholeipickle!), since I last updated. Must just be the laziness I guess. ( Mildura ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
10:34 pm	THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS I am a lazy lazy person. I still haven't posted about Mildura, and since then, I've been to Swan Hill for work, and Tasmania for a holiday. And when I do post, what do I give you? Ah well, too bad. Will post again soon! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
11:49 pm	On the road again: Ballarat I drove back from Horsham via Ballarat, and did another teacher presentation there on my way through. Pretty disappointed in the turnout there - I had three. Sigh. Didn't even get the regional rep who'd organised it for me! Nobody knew where she was, she'd just taken off from the office. Ah well. I've always liked Ballarat. It's only a bit over an hour from Melbourne, and acerbicmuffin and I have always said if we HAD to live somewhere outside of the city, it'd be there. A few more pics - including an AMAZING SIGHT that can be seen on the highway: ( After this break... ) Next time - Mildura! (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 27th, 2011
10:42 pm	On the road again. More travel for work. I'll slap the details under a cut. I've included some photos for the curious. This will be part one of three, it's getting a bit long... ( Travels ) Last Wednesday would have been my sister Marla's 36th birthday. She died just under eight years ago. I wonder what she'd be doing now if she was still with us. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 30th, 2011
10:30 pm	Yeah, about that updating thing... Sigh. So, let's see. Still eleven people in the house. It's a bit crazy a lot of the time. (For those who missed it, my brother, his wife and their four kids moved in with us while they built their new house. It's been a year and a half, and they've not started building yet.) I went on a tour with one of the other education staff from the Library, taking some items from the Burke and Wills expedition to the public library in Warrmanbool and then showing them to a few hundred schoolkids there and in Colac. We were accompanied by a two person theatre troupe who performed a short humorous play about the expedition  artist Ludwig Becker. The items included two of Becker's paintings (this one and this one), Burke's last note, Wills' pistol, nardoo grinding stones, and the plate from the box that carried Burke and WIlls' remains back to Melbourne. We had to have special training to handle these items - white gloves and all! - and they had to be stored overnight at police stations in case of theft. In Warrnambool, they ended up in the drugs storage room, which is the most secure room in the whole station apparently! It was great to get out and give some presentations, talk to members of the public and some school kids. Otherwise, work has been -- frustrating. I'm promoting a bunch of online resources for schools, and let's just say some of the people I've been in touch with have been less than helpful. As in, not returning emails or phone calls for weeks, not even to let me know that they weren't the person I needed to speak to any way! Argh. Term 4 is also about the worst time to be promoting resources to teachers, as they're flat out with getting things wrapped up for the end of the year. Nevertheless, I've booked trips to Horsham, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Mildura, as well as Brunswick, and I am speaking at a conference and a few other events. Oh, I had a toenail fall off! That was exciting. I got an infection under the nail bed from a blister, of all things. When it started swelling, I went to the doctor like a good boy, but two courses of antibiotics later it didn't look much better, so the doctor was having a closer look, and the nail just sort of...fell off. Yeah, I know. It's looking much better now though. Okay, tl;dr: still alive. I will try to do this more regularly, and then it'll be less overwhelming. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 13th, 2011
11:27 am	It's okay! Had not seen this before. But I love it. Hopefully, one day the whole world will be like this. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
6:49 pm	I Aten't Dead As it turns out! Just really quiet. It's tricky when you've not posted for this long. What's noteworthy, what's not? I have no idea, to be honest. Let's see. Work: is good Inside a Dog and Ergo have both been rebuilt and relaunched, and are going well. I've been travelling a lot promoting the sites to schools and libraries around the state, including some longer trips to Leongatha, Wangaratta, Shepparton, and Warrnambool. I've presented to all sorts of groups, big and small, teachers, librarians, students, parents, you name it. I've presented at a big Education Department conference, and I helped with the running of the Reading Matters conference, where I got to meet Markus Zusak, Rebecca Stead, Brenton McKenna, Oliver Phommavanh and even Cassandra Clare, as well as catching up with a bunch of other folks - authors I knew (like Lili Wilkinson and Karen Healey), librarians, teachers, booksellers, you name it. It's funny ghow immersed I've become in the YA scene without really even noticing. There's a full-time slot coming up with the Centre for Youth Literature that I applied for on Friday. It'll be pretty popular, so I don't know what my chances are. Still, fingers crossed! Failing that, I still have a short-term contract til February, so that's all good. Life in general is okay. Not hitting the gym as much as I should, but getting out a bit more. Still not great at catching up with people in perosn either, but we're seeing a lot more of ted_the_bug  now she's back in the city, which is great. I had the most amazing surprise on Thursday - a visitor at work. Folks I know from selfportraits  might remember Paul - selahme  AKA psalm1special AKA the funny goofy guy form SIngapore! He was in Melbourne and had conspired in secret with acerbicmuffin  to surprise me. I was totally gobsmacked. He's just as lovely in person as he seems online, and he got me a present: one of those umbrellas with a katana handle. Awesome. SO - that's a start. Hi everyone. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
8:52 pm	More filler, I'm afraid (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 20th, 2011
10:06 pm	Helloo! Still alive! It seems like half my flist have done giant catchup updates in the last few days. This is not one of them. Consider it a placeholder for when I do. Real Soon Now. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
10:51 pm	(Comment on this)
Sunday, February 27th, 2011
9:41 pm	Update, wow! Yeesh, I'm getting worse. Work is good. Gearing up to launches on both of the websites I'm working on, and we're starting to visit schools, conferences and the like to talk them up. Only busier from here on in I suspect. I mainly wanted to make a quick note about the Amanda Palmer gig last night, which was brilliant. Amanda herself was in fine form, but wow, the support acts! Rather like Arnold Rimmer, small servings, but so many courses! Kim Boekbinder - the Impossible Girl. The Jane Austen Argument - fantastic Melbourne cabaret duo Evelyn Evelyn - a special appearance from the twins! Mikelangelo and the Tin Star - what a handsome devil! Country surf Jason Webley - like a young Tom Waits. The show ran four hours. Ukulele mayhem, koala strippers, maps of Tasmania, go-go dancers, cats and dogs living together - mass hysteria! Many albums were bought that night. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
2:01 pm	Had to share this one Seems fitting, as it's expoduck  AND policeb0x 's birthday! Have a good one! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, January 17th, 2011
6:42 pm	Cushing! Word! We need a Christopher Lee one as well! Bonus track: What is this I don't even... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
8:59 pm	Tressage, by RM Rhodes My friend Matt makes comics. This is his latest.   (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 10th, 2011
10:24 pm	I spent the weekend in a hotel with my wife and another woman for my birthday. acerbicmuffin  and pluto_pup  were planning one of their cricket outings to Adelaide on my birthday weekend, so I decided I'd join them! Knocked off from work at midday Thursday, and then piled into pluto_pup 's car that evening for the first stage of the trip - Melbourne to Nhill, where Pluto grew up. SHe had prepared for the trip by putting a screen over her grates to protect from locusts, which were currently in plague proportions in the Wimmera Wow, the countryside is green! There's growth everywhere, and the dams are full. It's remarkable, after ten years of solid drought. We overnighted with Pluto's  folks, and called in to see expoduck 's mum at her shop while we were in town. I drove this leg. We'd seen a few locusts already, but we hit a larger swarm outside Kaniva. It's quite an interesting thing. The locusts hopping up into the undercarriage of the car sounds like a reverse hailstorm. Their guts are orange. We didn't have to pull over though, and the screen worked as advertised in keeping them out of the engine. Our hotel in Adelaide was on South Terrace. None of us were hungry when we arrived, so we decided to go out for dinner at about nine. Bad move. Adelaide isn't like a proper city. Pretty much everything was closed by then! We eventually found a late night pancake joint. Saturday morning - my birthday! We wandered the deserted streets in quiet bewilderment, until we stumbled on to a lively strip near the markets, where we had brunch at a great cafe called Zuma. Wandering past the Rundle mall, we called in to Pulp Fiction Comics, where the Muffin bought me Grandville Mon Amour and Hopeless Savages Greatest Hits for my birthday. Awesomeness! Then we went to the South Australian Museum. it was great! Quite old school, especially next to our museum. They had, like - cabinets, with things in them. And labels. And taxidermied animals. Highlights were the giant squid (natch), suspended vertically over three storeys in a stairwell, the opalised plesiosaur skeleton, and the Egyptian room that felt like it had been preserved in time itself. And so to the cricket! it was fun. I'd never been before. It was only a T20 match, so it was over in about three and a half hours, which I've been informed barely counts as a cricket match. ;) It moved quickly, with some big hits and exciting catches. The evening was slightly marred by the Bushrangers having their arses handed to them, and the revolting bogans sitting a few rows in front of us who apparently had nothing better to do than randomly abuse the players and get drunk. There were also dancing girls, and a person dressed as a FruChoc. Many lovely birthday wishes, in person, on facebook, and even by phone (thank you!) Sunday was consumed with the drive back. Australia is really big, people! Really, really big. And let me tell you, getting up for work this morning was -- not easy. Current Mood: tired (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
10:22 pm	Cool! Current Mood: amused (2 Comments |Comment on this)