Three Pounds of Flax

I just tried to make almond milk. It tastes like creamy, nutty sand. I think a sieve is in my future, lets see if a night in the slow-cooker will teach it a lesson.

"Blend until smooth" my arse!

Is crap.

It has no flavour. It sorta tastes like a 1:10 mix of vegemite and margerine, maybe with some plastic cheese mixed in. If it didn't say "vegemite" on the side of the jar, I wouldn't have known.

Don't bother.

A fairly innocuous email tickled my brain.

"Do we not have insurance?"

I would usually phrase that as "Don't we have insurance?", which, with either more or fewer contractions, is: "Don't we've insurance?" and "Do not we have insurance?", both of which sound really clunky.

The clunkiest by far is "Don't we've". Is there actually a rule that says you can only use "we've" to summarise the have that means "in the past", as opposed to "own"?

Hello all,

I recently received a Baronial Award - the Sun's Ray. I'm inordinately proud of this award, which is given for consistent courtesy. I' even more proud, and embarrassed, by all of the people who came up to me and told me who worthy I was of the award - though obviously not embarrassed enough to brag about it, as you can see!

An effect of this award is that it has filled me with a desire to be worthy of what I see as an not-really-deserved honour, and be a preachy bastard (as japester and countessdeweird were subjected to recently). Ego and courtesy don't really seem to sit well, hand-in-hand, so I guess I'll just have to work more on the former to allow the latter. This post isn't really helping that but hey, 2/3 of a bottle of Johnny Walker Black had to go *somewhere*!

In an attept to move towards making a 1350ish gambeson (current plan is 2 layers of the silk hemp I have in the shed as padding), I had Wendy wrap up my torso in glad-wrap, followed by masking tape last night. This was working pretty well, until I realised that a) I could not breath and b) we were out of masking tape. a) was solved by cutting up the front, sucking in air, and adding more glad-wrap and tape, while b was solved with some cheap-ass silver duct tape I have had the the drawer for about 2 years.

In the end, I know have a tape-patten that I need to transfer to material as a test-go for a cotehardie, which will itself be a test-go for the gambeson.

On a parting note, to echo the current them - if there is something you feel you should know about me that you don't, please ask and I WILL answer truthfully.

Since my last update I've gotten married, went for a fantastic honeymoon in the south island of NZ, been to Rowany Festival and gotten a dislocated right shoulder, been to both the Autumn gathering and Pencampwr and Wendy has gotten a new iPhone.

( Dislocated right shoulder story )

Introspection follows:

I've noticed a tendency in myself, something that I don't really like:

When I'm presented with something new, my immediate response is often rejection. Usually, further contemplation and interaction will reverse this initial reaction!

Some examples:
- I watched one episode of "West Wing", decided it sucked. Came back years later, discovered that it is in fact awesome.
- When Kane first gently suggested that I might consider a role on Baronial council, I reacted aggressively enough that he said "gee, I must have that the wrong way". Within a few months, I took on a role as Constable and am now thinking becoming even more deeply involved.
- When I first met Nathan, I didn't really like him - he seemed too arrogant and crass. Now he is a very close friend.
- I'm finding my self more likely to give a grumpy reaction to new information which I didn't discover

Like everyone else on the planet, I consider myself a good judge of character, and size people up within a few moments of meeting them. Obviously, I'm not as good a judge as I think I am!

Why do I have this quick, defensive distancing reaction? I like to think I have pretty good self-esteem, I'm proud of who I am and what I do, but can't be that self-assured if I react this way to things which go against my assumptions, or change my plans.

This is actually a really cool "quiz"!

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

* Take a picture of yourself right now.
* Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair - just take a picture.
* Post that picture with NO editing.
* Post these instructions with the picture.
( HUGE picture behind cut. They said no editing! )

On another note, Wendy and I are participating in Relay For Life from 3pm today until 3pm tomorrow - should be fun!

I've just had a bit of a read about Christian Bale's assault charges.

His mother and sister insulted his wife, demanded nearly a quarter of a million dollars (AUS) and then called the police because he pushed her out of his way? Wow, with family like that, who needs enemies?

[corrected myself, 15/08/2008]

I got home yesterday, at about 6pm, from Abertridwr (Ab-er-trid-ewer)'s annual event, Pencampwr.

I'm tired, bruised, my left hand doesn't really work anymore and I've never had so much fun. The event was awesome, a far better experience than pencampwr last year, for a few reasons, many personal:

• I knew a lot more people;
  
• King Berenger and Queen Bethan were there - they were both so friendly and fun to be around!;
  
• I was given an Award of Arms! This award grants me the right to bear my device as Arms, and grants the Title of Lord. More importantly, it means that people think that I have "considerably enriched" the realm, which is pretty cool;
  
• Sir Andre, a friend of mine, was knighted by the King and Queen - I stayed up (almost - snuck an hour in from about 7:30) all Friday night with him, discussing chivalry, knighthood and philosophy; and
  
• I was sleeping on an air-matress in a warm, dry tent, not in tiny (1.2 x 1.9) red-dot special with no fly.

Perhaps once more people start posting their photos, I'll make another post describing the event more :)

Who woulda guessed? The only update in ages is a drunken one...

I made a comment to saiyanprince a couple of days ago, that he and I share a trait: We do what we think we think is right, even though such actions will usually be interpreted as stupid stubbornness, bloody-mindedness or just plain old insensitive selfishness.

One of my fondest memories dates back to when (I suspected) vegetus was cheating on me with dafwarg. robthesilent told me during our nightly drive home that he admired me for simply ignoring the situation and trusting vegetus. I still think today that my trust was correct, without ever knowing what was going on.

Anyway, I've got red-wine stains on my lips, and you all deserve this blast of self obsession for DARING to read my journal!

Also: marriage is awesome! I am excited by the mere prospect of my promise being fulfilled. On that note, Rob's Maxine is awesome. We need another party.

Confessions of a slob / The irony of facebook:

On facebook, there is a little app which lets you rate your friends against each-other on various criteria. The criteria are things like, "cuter", "better at science", "better room-mate" and, pertinently, "more athletic".

Since I installed the app, I've been consistently rated by people who should know better as being in the top three "most athletic". This, my friends, is false. I would actually rate myself down near the bottom of the list, certainly behind the list of people who have been hitting the gym regularly and consistently (and showing the result - here's looking at you reaps and utopos!).

Even though I did lose a few kilos around Christmas 06, I did so without improving my (woeful) cardiovascular fitness in the slightest. I like to use lots of pictures of myself in armour, but SCA training very rarely gets me puffing.

I'm making this post because for the last two weeks, I've decided to step-up and go to the gym with Wendy. I have been made painfully aware of how far I am from "most athletic"!

(I hear a voice in my head, the gravely, masculine voice of The Nameless One, saying "updated my journal")

Well, it's been a while. So, what *have* I been up to?

( SCA and the College Challenge )
( WFRP )
( Other Roleplaying )

Well, Merry Christmas everyone! (especially any poor saps in GMT +6 or lower countries!)

Thanks to everyone for their well-wishes on our (Wendy's and my) engagement. I'm still feeling prtty giddy about the whole thing :P

This Christmas looks to be pretty fun between my family tonight (though they've all gone to bed), Wendy's famly tomorrow and back here to Mum and Dad's to see family friends tomorrow night (I'll be bringing my guitar, OHHH YEAH) then hopefully a fun day at Planet on Boxing Day. Hey, if a Wii get brought along there may even be some boxing!

I hope Liz and eveyone had a nice time, but I was still too busy running around then :)

I'm now engaged!

( large picture of the ring )

( The Book Thingy )

17 out of 50, 34%, F.

I haven't read the Le Guin books since I was about 13, so I should probably re-read them. I'm amazed at how much of the Lord of the Rings I had totally missed in my first reading (at about 11).

There wasn't anything in the list that I really didn't like, but I'm suprised to see books I think quite highly of, like Starship Trooper and Stormbringer, languishing more than 20 places below more pulpy books like Harry Potter and Interview with the Vampire.

Well, dear journal, I've been neglecting you.

I'm not sure much has happened in the last couple of weeks really worth journalling. I've had a very busy three weeks at work, with the customer FAT (Factory Acceptance Testing) for one project and the design of another still proceeding when we've already started building it! 60+ hour weeks suck, but I've managed to avoid being suckered into working much on the weekend. I say "much" because I did have to do errands (for work) for about 4 hours weekend before last.

I've been to a friend's - Michael Leahy's - Bucks Day and Wedding for the last two saturdays. These were both a lot of fun, and it was really nice to catch up with Michael, Jeremy, Dave and Southy. Brett, another ex-Games World employee in this group is quite interesting. He exhibits all the normal signs of being a dickhead; he drives a large ute with "Thor" covering the back windscreen, talks with the overt and forced arrogance of 19-21 year old and sports a year-ago-Beckham haircut. Despite this, he actually seems to be a reasonably laid back, friendly guy.

Wendy and I joined Weight Watchers three weeks ago. I haven't had much of a problem staying within my 25 points a day (usually only having about 18-19), but the Bucks Day, the Wedding and the Hangover Recovery (today :P) mean I have blown my weekly totals out of the water. Ah well, I'm sure I'll be able to stay on track better from now on.

Dad introduced me to a fantastic song the other day. It's by an English Folk group called "A Show of Hands", and the song itself is called "Galway Farmer". Amusingly, it's been mistaken for a traditional Irish Folk song and played by other Folk bands as such, despite only being written in 1992. Do yourself a favour and have a listen :)

Well, I haven't made any posts in a while. I guess late on Sunday night with a few drinks in me is as good a time as any.

This may get rambly...

( What I've been up to lately )

( Thoughts )

Well, that's probably enough for now :)