News Archives: January 2010

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Not Twitching, Honest

The rough weather has led a number of unusual birds to our back garden in search of food, or at least bird species we don't normally see. A couple of times I've managed to grab a camera, and got these just-about-good-enough-for-id-purposes shoots of a redwing (top) and blackcap (below).

We also saw a fieldfare at Claire's parents on the second, though I didn't get a picture. The visit to Claire's parents was fun and relaxing. I should have probably mentioned it in the last post, but it didn't seem to fit into the general theme of doom.

***

Strangeness of the day #1. Someone has been along the footpath outside our house in some sort of mini-halftrack, maybe three feet wide. It's left a trail of what looks like charcoal - not evenly spread, more sort of here and there. Is this supposed to be some sort of council pavement gritter? The stuff isn't melting the snow/ice, nor does it provide any traction (if anything it makes the surface more slippery). But if it isn't the council, who would have such a vehicle? Some sort of all-terrain mobility scooter? Odd.

***

Yesterday, we had a few friends round to play boardgames. Well, Battlestar Galactica. It was a disaster (from the human perspective). One jump in it was all a little dull. I'd become Admiral Vice-President Tigh, most of the dials were at full or nearly so, and there was little sign of a player-cylon. Tyrol had got brigged, but that was easily fixed - I had a presidential pardon card. Then it all went pear-shaped. Three successive crisis cards left only one cylon ship (a heavy raider) off the board. President Zarek declared himself a cylon, leaving Helo in charge. The next crisis card was the map to Kobol, pushing us over the magic 4 distance, so sleeper loyalty cards were distributed. I sprang Tyrol from the brig so he could repair the FTL and jump us out of there. He'd just got a "you are a cylon" card, and promptly defected. We made the jump anyway, got slammed with the super-crisis cards, losing Colonial One and gaining two centurions on board Galactica. With nearly everything at one or two (other than food, we had a tonne of food), we made one last jump, reaching one jump from Kobol before three heavy raider activations in a row (crisis card, cylon player, cylon player) stomped us under a swarm of centurions.

Was fun anyway...

***

Strangeness of the day #2. Earlier, I got an automated phonecall from Southern Electric, wanting me to phone back with the meter reading for the electricity account they'd taken over last month. In a bit of a panic - we're not planning to change electricity suppliers - I found a phone number for them. Turns out that it was actually Scottish Hydro wanting the gas reading for the account they're taking over today. Which we did know about, but hard to see how the phonecall could have been more misleading.

***

We've spent this evening taking down the Christmas decorations, and Christmas is officially over. I always feel rather melancholy on this day. Still, at least Alfie seems to be on the mend.

Posted by graham @ 10:07 pm

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Drowning

Not the best start to the new year. Alfie's pretty ill - everything he eats goes straight through. One emergency vet visit later, and he has a host of pills, powders, and pastes. Hopefully he'll feel better soon...

***

We saw in the new year at chris's. More a gathering than a party, but the company of good friends is a good start to any year. Several people failed to notice the bells - distracted by fireworks over edinburgh castle.

By the time we got home and walked dogs it was gone three. We were awoken after 4 hours sleep by the phone ringing. Both of us jumped out of bed in a panic - no one would phone that early unless it was an emergency... In fact, it was a badly generated voice saying, "You have a text message. Happy new year." all of which had woken the dogs, so I had to walk them, and didn't get back to bed. Good start to the day. Then Alfie became ill...

***

I did get to see Doctor Who almost live, and before seeing any spoilers this time. I rather enjoyed it. I loved that the regeneration happened for noble rather than heroic reasons. I liked that John Simm got more to do. I liked that the Master drifted towards "amoral schemer" and away from "I'm mad, so I'm evil!" I loved Bernard Cribbens. I liked that the plot more or less worked, and that the solution to the dilemma followed obviously from the whole set-up. Sure there were flaws - not least the long, dull last fifteen minutes - but overall quite enjoyable. And as for Matt Smith, from the couple of minutes he got at the end, he looks rather good. He's got an intriguing alien quality that Tenant always lacked. Looking forward to seeing what Moffat has in store for him...

***

Anyway, I've had about 14 hours sleep between the last three nights, so I'm ging to crash soon. Hope your year so far has been better than mine, and that everyone's gets better.

Posted by graham @ 09:12 pm

[Archive Index]