Saturday

On saturday we had a poohsoc meeting reminiscent of the classic Three Doctors thing; we had four ex-presidents (Rosy, Owen, Ben and Jenny). Someone quoted back to me something I quoted to them, which before correcting for good memories for people and bad memories for quotes means I've in my life said at least two things at least one person has found interesting.

I bought some (bujold) books for real cash non-discounted n%-to-the-author money, and read them that weekend. I live my life the way I play roleplaying games: I'm don't like thinking about spending money, so I tend to spend fairly freely on things I need (food, second hand books) and grudgingly on things I don't even if they'd be useful (healing potions, DVDs, new books, holidays); but with a regular decent income I do have *some* surplus (not counting student loan debt) there's no reason I shouldn't enjoy instead of hoarding.

I met mdavison and Thea for Pizza Hut before starwars. It was nice to talk to them both, for it's been ages since I've seen them not-in-a-society. Thea always somehow manages to broadcast subtle 'normal person' pheromones, despite being a geek really, and also remind me of the Cryptonomicon quote about the Dentist, "Arent' some of his partners lawyers? His partners, his friends... hell, his dentist is probably a lawyer. The point is, he's famously litigious," due to having too many relatives persuading her to, or mainly not to, become a lawyer.

mdavison made me realise something about ID cards I should have thought of before: the privacy concerns are whelming, but if you want something cryptographic to prevent fraud that's, um, a bugger. After that we saw starwars, see yesterday's post.

[1] Who personifies my observations of many writers including Stephenson and in Firefly that there's villains and villains: some people are on the other side, but it's all a bit of fun, and others who are genuinely unredeemable, and the difference is that the former have a sense of irony or even humour :)

Sunday

I had nearly enough sleep on sunday. I made the mistake of finsihing the first book the night before, getting to bed about three, but I didn't have anything to do until the evening, so slept till the afternoon. It's so rare I don't have *something* to dash off to. As it happened I didn't get much of the free time in the afternoon I was expecting, due to the *other* book.

Then Doctor Who. ( Cool )

I was cycling and met chess and probably tienelle driving. *waves* I'm sorry I didn't wave before, it's hard to see into cars, and I'm still very wobbly when steering with one hand.

And games evening. Lots of mao. I think I inherently suck at mao, being loath to experiment and having a bad memory for when I'm supposed to say things even when I know, but practice is paying off and I start to understand stupid interacting suit-swapping rules. It is more social when you can talk, but I did come to appreciate how distracting it can be when people are yelling. And, godsdammit TOMATOES ARE A VEGETABLE[1], ok? Though I was careful not to make that a game-breaking issue. sonicdrift wasn't evil, and come to think of it she isn't an evil DM either, just threatens to be :) Ian wasn't evil. People who seemed new did well.

[1] Firstly, what I hope is unarguable. Fruit is a botanic term, and tomatoes having seeds unquestionably fit it. Vegetable to me is a colloqial term meaning "edible garden plant, probably low-lying, probably not sweet, sold in the vegetable section of a supermarket" and OED says "A plant cultivated for food; esp. an edible herb or root used for human consumption and commonly eaten, either cooked or raw, with meat or other article of food." Where does the superstiiton that fruits and vegetables are disjoint come from?