jack

Q. Can I help you? What do you want?
A. What do I want?
Q. Uh, in the next half-hour, say.
A. Oh, then mushrooms hammered flat and flavoured of chicken.
Q. Ah, of course. Aisle 7, non-religious ethics, sir.

Q. Why is this shelf leaking corrosive green gas?
A. Ah! That's the low-sodium salt, sir.

Q. Why is "Cheshire" in the "continental" section?
A. Well, it is in the continent, isn't it?
Q. Well, yes, but so is the washing powder in the continent, you haven't put that there.
Q. For the record, I'm implying you could move the "cheshire" into the "cheese aisle", not everything else into the "continental" section.
A. Oh good. Otherwise no-one would be able to find anything, they'd have to look at every product in the store just to by bread!
Q. Uh.... I'll just stop suggesting things now, shall I.
A. Very well. Thank you, sir.

Q. Hi.
A. Hello, Jack.
Q. Maternal progenitor and respected sustainer of my existence, Greetings. [Yes, I actually do answer the phone like this. Sometimes. I think I've never yet to the completely wrong person; I will almost always have seen caller id.]
A. How and where are you? [No, my mother doesn't talk like that, unless she wants to get my attention.]
Q. I'm in Tesco's. Can we chat later?
A. Please.
Q. Also, would you say lightbulbs were more like binbags or DVD players? And do you remember who wrote
A Mathematician's Delight? [Yes, I do talk like that, though much more so to people who will think it's funny. And have requested in-store directions over the phone, though only when it's particularly convenient or funny -- it's wrong to do so habitually.]

Imagine this post with pictures of me, pictures of lusers, and pictures of bikes overlayed with pseudolatin captions and bright arrows, a la the start of Wile E. Coyotee and Roadrunner cartoons.

I have graduated from a complete novice who doesn't know what a computer is to someone who stores all their files on the desktop[2] -- I have wedded my two broken bikes, suffusing myself with Mbtwness

Much better than walking consists of:

* The cheaper frame
* The front wheel which was on it (though I can't remember if that was the original, I've swapped them a couple of times, finding a wheel not on a bike easier to change/fix inner tubes on.
* The (derailleur) back wheel from the other bike
* The spare, unused, chain

So, it doesn't have gears, well not more than one, but is ridable to a bike shop which is a major gain.

Remaining lying in my shed are:

* The better frame
* A sturmey-archer back wheel, with the hub worn so it doesn't take a new chain
* A derailleur

[1] Being a pun on mutant, as in monster, as in veloceraptor, and vélo, bike. OK, I know that's a stretch, since (a) they're etymologically related anyway (b) veloceraptor doesn't really make any sense there and (c) the new bike isn't *very* fast, but I'm sure you all see where I was going with it.
[2] Someone who is annoying in that they ignore how their tool is supposed to work, but respected in that they did work out what they wanted to do and force their world into compliance, which would be being a hacker if it was just a bit more obscure problem than "saving a file and opening it again"

After pizza, during which there was much discussion of mortgages and the meaning of the word 'fair', and Sally in her Wonderful Lesbian Shirt TM :), Tom took us on a magical journey round the back of the Shire Hall.

At this point the Ted-and-Sylvie-esque Bicycle pootling[1][2] suddenly blurred and rasterized and helmet and gauntlets pinged down over skin and sound effects switched from breeze and birds to synthesised whirrs and blips, and vast italic text scrolls across the screen reading "Ready? Race!"

We swerve across the road and dive sideways into the carpark. Dodging building left and right and orbitting each other going round the corners we whirl down the side of buildings, curving round pavements to find dips, sliding through narrow gaps, an generally playing the "It's coming towards me! I wonder which way I should go round it?" style of computer game, before flying over a bump and skidding to a halt in two foot of gravel.

After that we looked at the moon, drank wine, and played penultima, which was anticlimactical really.

[1] This is not meant to imply that Ian doesn't pootle faster than the maximum speed limit in residential areas.

[2] The previous collective nouns "A bell of bicyles" and "An annoyance of bicyles" being replaced by "A duckling of bicycles?" and "A cat heard of bicyles"

I now occasionally post private journal entries, often rants. It's strange that it seems to relieve my feelings to write it, even if no-one will see. But then I remember my resolution to try to rewrite them as greenenders, though I haven't had a great deal of success.

Today, we will represent my frustrations as animated mime.

*spiky orthogonal demon, about a foot tall, jumps up and down in front of computer, weeping*
*computer doesn't do anything*
*violins play*
*demon grips keyboard, pounds on spacebar with feet*
*violins make a "shutting down without saving" wawaaaaa noise*
*demon bangs head repeatedly into wall*
*computer lights up with data*
*demon rubs head ruefully and sits down to work*
*violins play ragtime*
*demon hammers away furiously*
*demon shakes fist at sky, punctuated by violent chords from violins, cursing the universe for being uncooperative*
*computer reformats demon*
*violins slide into honkytonk and then silence*

Well, that was surreal. At least it didn't have any phone menus in. I could see a frustrated cartesian demon representing me (a la the icon missnext made for me), though I don't think I could draw it even as well as the cuddly gruff dinosaur, nor would it be as inspiring. I do not have a tag for surreal pseudomime. I think I'm glad.

OK, after all that, I do feel better.

Flashback. The ancestors of the current greenenders cast huddle in a damp cave, scraping the last of the meat of antelope bones, and shivering in the cold of the oncoming winter. Then the shaman shouts, and the humanoids turn to look. He is waving some carefully dried sticks, and in a moment they blaze with light and heat, and ignite a pile of kindling. The tribe draw round awed. Winter is averted, man has triumphed over nature.

End flashback. I turned on the radiator in my bedroom.

Winter has begun[1].

[1] cryptonomicon reference

PS. I shouldn't really have used the 'fire' tag, but it felt left out, you know?

And then to games evening.

* We played Carcassonne. So that's what people were talking about. I thought I was losing, but at least we were playing fairly quickly, but then my farmers gained power and mana in proportion to the number of other farmers scored lots of points because I'd put one in the middle and made sure that field was connected all the cities everyone else was busily finishing. Sorry, Jacqy.

I should be able to make a Carcassonne fairly easily with a printer, glue, and cardboard, right, and could be trivially reworked to be a CTS game by painting orcs on stuff. Eg. Battle of the five armies, players become armies, roads become ridge lines, cities become spurs of mountain, farms become armies beseiging spurs of mountain, seminaries and the river bcome key events in the battle.

The other idea was you each represent a different chronicler, and everything was about making plot. (With the gameplay still modelled on an exisitng variant. For instance, no point using the same orientation of tiles to make things easy for old players.)

Whew. These could probably cut for the cinema release, but go back in the DVD edition. What other extras should I have? Custom Apples to Apples game? Computer games? Life advice? QUizzes? Anyway, to quickly finish the week.

Ep 6. Sunday

Went to london to see Justin and actually meet L, who seems nice, and catch up in person instead of endless phone calls and emails. I also met Angel in starbucks, but didn't go to church :)

Came back and went to games evening. Chrononauts is very silly ("If you blow up the universe, all players lose.")

Ep 7. Monday

Halloween/games evening at sonicdrift's. Didn't manage to dress up, but brought some games. Played buying/building/scoring for the most of foo game from Mobbsy, which probably would be fun now we know to play quickly, but bogged a bit while we debated strategy. Articulate. Cat girl porn. And lovely german jenga-like tower building thing.

Unfortunately due to budget cuts we were unable to film several episodes of Greenenders but because of continuity issues and popular request (*hug* miss_next) had to find some compromise, so are presenting several as concept sketches and plot summaries.

Ep1. Angelfriends at the Rainbow: In which Angel has a birthdayish dinner at the Rainbow, and other new people are met.

Cast: Angel, Jack, Theo, yrieithydd, the_alchemist, emperor, Mark and Naomi, choir people I didn't know before, atreic, Richard.

Epsiode notes: Sorry to Angel and Richard for Mao. It was nice to meet lots of people. It was amusing when we were retiring to emporer's and scooped up Richard going "Hold on, how do all these people I know know each other" because I'd already walked Angel to the station by then, and we'd picked up some other people by walking past a peterhouse choir party.

Ep2. Wallace and Grommit

Cast: Me, and the old friends from Trinity.

Episode notes: A good film. Mainly an excuse to save budget by sticking to one location and showing a canned film as part of an episode.

Ep3. Games evening

Episode notes: An effort at a product tie-in and making introducing a game to create some suspense: Pete finally introduced me to Magic: The Gathering.

I used Pete's simplest and coincidently most powerful deck, his beginner's having been left at home because it was never needed. I'd picked up most of the basic rules before, and put it together ok, I think, though I spent a lot too much time dithering and supplicating strategy advice.

The first game I won despite not having any land from random, the second I thought I was going to lose, getting shredded by interacting artifact golems, but then managed to bootstrap into mana and get half a dozen elves lined up with a couple of artifacts that made each proportionally as powerful as all of them and Pete saw 35 damage coming next turn and said it was over.

Continued next episode...

Due to "being asked complicated choice tree questions at the last minute" I left work for the fresher's fair a bit late. The journey I think would be filmed as a parody of old films with chases through cardboard sets. Benny-Hill-esque background chase music. I wouldn't be on my real bike, it'd show something with mini wheels and my legs pedalling at 10x real speed to show haste. It would cut between shots of me, obviously pedalling in front of a blue screen, to scenes of road chaos and rush hours. Two large cardboards lorries would be shown veering together and then apart, nearly squishing a little model of me.

Then I got to KK[2], went in the stallholder's entrace -- again no-one checked who I was, though I'm assured they do sometimes -- skipped up the stairs, and trawled the room for naath and eni silhouettes. Then I stand for an hour repeatedly offering people fliers.

I wander take a break to wander round the fair and see who else I know and what might be interesting.

* Almost of poohsoc all doing different stands.
* A giant LARP-treasure-trap-diplomacy-assassins-cusfs-jomsburg collective of half a dozen stalls.
* I am invited to join larp by the only guy on the stall I don't know.
* People in corsets and bikinis and who stroke my hair wander past to (a) be ironic at shows that spice the episode up a bit with that sort of thing and (b) to spice the episode up a bit
* The *conservative* party are wearing bikinis. Fair enough, but somehow it doesn't seem to stand for the sort of things I thought they were supposed to champion.
* A row of a dozen christian societies, a few christian music societies, and a lone "Christians in Unity in Cambridge" stall on the end.
* A girl from the amnesty stall I exchanged fliers with *last* year as well. She promised to come to poohsoc at last. I promise to go back to amnesty more.

People keep jumping out at me. It's a strange sort of flirtation. I glance at the stall, eyes go to fliers, posters, paraphenalia, and briefly stall-holder's faces in case I know them, and they (or we) pounce and make eye contact and ask "Why *don't* you want to join Canoe Club/Pro-Life/Officer's Training" :)

All in all though it was laid out fairly well. There was much grouping of societies in fairly logical ways, like sports societies in the side rooms -- this makes sense, you know whether you want to go first or last, you don't think "Well, I'll just do the main hall, there won't be anything interesting there". Xians and other religions together. Sciency things together. Advertising people together.

Of course, there's some orphans. OTOH, on the whole, I'm sure there were fewer stalls than last year, you could *nearly* walk down the aisles.

[1] Hey, another optional apostrophe!
[2] Kelsey Kerridge sports centre. Despite my haircut, I am no KKK.

Some people have lives told in Shakespearean style. Bleak house. Austen. Saki. Anything. I have sitcom. Oh well :)

This will be represented as a rapid sequence of scene cuts, as I move from one bike shop to the other. Some humour will be evinced in repetition, some in breaking the repetition.

** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I see you have a selection. What's the difference between this £100 bike, and this £130 bike?
Him: *gormless look* It costs more. It has a, uuuhh, *looks at bike* better frame. And different coloured gears.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: So, do you have any bikes less tall than I am for under £230 pounds?
Him: No.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
Him: *shocked look*
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a bike?
Him: I'm sorry sir, this is a hardware store.
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.
Him: I'm sorry sir, this is subway.
** series of shots of me muching through a sandwich looking tired **
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
** long pan down ten meter long row of off-road bikes costing £300 **
** 'blinds' transition **
Me: I'm looking for a town bike?
Him: Why are you late for work?
Me: Well, I was *going* to ride in...

*sigh* And all those 0.14s transitions took me half an hour of walking. At least I had a book and a plot to write. But I'm 5'10 or 5'11, I'm not *that* short.

I thought it might be as easy as last time. Where else should I go?