I am weak

I am weak.

I went to geek pizza (which was fun, but odd because loud people (affectionately) weren't there, so there were lulls in conversation for the first time in my memory for months :) wonderfully filled in by cheese, maths jokes, polish jokes, and lots of linguistics).

Why do Poles get *all* the jokes? It's a nice country. Does it just hit the right size/relevence between "everyone in england forgets its name" and "too big to make fun of"? But they have (a) the Cauchy jokes (b) the stupid jokes and (c) the really long surname jokes!

Anyway, weak. We didn't do a post-pizza, so I went to borders to browse. And bought half a dozen books, some hardback. I should have gone to amazon (and will, for a couple I left behind) but they were just all ones I wanted, so I treated myself.

OTOH when I think of it as the whizzy car I haven't got round to buying yet, it's a modest outlay. It all balances out.

Walking

On sat, we wandered round town looking for a Large Rocket (TM) to take to my friend's party, and some other bits and pieces. I got some more shoelaces, and spent ages examining the pack to decide if it was one or two inside, and then decided just to get a handful so next time I wouldn't have to. (In fact, they were two, and I didn't see the layering in the way they were tied.)

I also need to shop for clothes, books and silly games at some point.

It's strange being in town without my bike, and without being in a hurry. And it's amazing how far you can walk like that.

On sunday we wandered round Saffren Walden. It's a pretty little place.

Fic update

Progress

It's not going to be 50k. It might make 30k. I decided to write reasonably self-contained chapters that could in theory be parceled off as short stories, so I can add more.

It's fun, which is good. I keep having ideas, which is good. I keep not knowing what background (both metaphysics and character) I've introduced and not.

Names

Because it's fun, I'll appeal to my friends for names. I'm rather bad at this bit. I have *some* names I love, but tend heavily to the Capitalised Noun sort, because that's easy (as anyone I've DM'd[1] knows.)

Placeholder name: Ice

Eisvale (Eisval) is a city of magi. Ice was apprenticed as a young teenager to a master magus there. She was fascinated by the workings of magic, and learned everything she could.

His other apprentice was Seaflake. They became friends and lovers. However, as a young woman Ice left the city for several years to persue researches across the continent. Seaflake took this hard, it led to a falling out, and eventually a bitter rivalry.

Now Ice is an important magus in the city, but concerned that she seems to be tied there, and that this restricts her true learning. She's briefly corresponded with Gya, and introduced to the story when Gerald appears on her doorstep saying (1) Gya would like to develop a regular trade route between the cities and (2) he left flewt singing lullabies to a cave full of shadow creatures, could she please zot them?

What name(s) should I use?


[1] Any 'o' is entirely metaphorical.

Storyline patent

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/04/movie_plotline_patent/

Supposedly, Andrew Knight has submitted a patent application for a storyline. OK, it's a bit out of date, and not as important as, eg. sleaze and rioting, but someone tell me this isn't going to work :)

Time passes

Paraphrased[1] quote from a newsgroup:

"I couldn't find the answer anywhere else, so I'm posting this on Google Groups"

Oh dear.

[1] I have it here so the paraphrase is accurate, but it's by someone else, and I wouldn't want to point to the original, as the wording isn't important.

Harry Potter is part of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle

Harry Potter is part of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle

* The philosopher's stone is a plot object in each, yet not presented as important as you'd think, by some sophistical hand-waving

* Both have plots fairly narritively satisfying to the extent you tend to not notice that logic is being torn assunder.

* Enoch Root adopted the guise of Nicholas Flamel, and later that of his "partner" Dumbledor. And once discovering alchemy/magic could be made to work practically and becoming headmaster and informal soul of it, continuing to meddle with everything both high and low, ignoring mundane conventions like laws in favour of assuring evil is defeated and knowledge is preserved.

* Harry is a Shaftoe, Hermione a Waterhouse. There's even a assonancey similarity.