And I can’t believe it’s flippin’ December already!
Pickled Onions
So, Grete has had a small cyst on her scalp for a while now, nothing dangerous, but as it was slowly getting larger, it was becomming more uncomfortable for her in many ways. So she was brave enough to arrange for a quick op to have it removed, which we did today. So, a little bit of hair removed, a cyst removed (looked like a small pickled onion, I kid you not!) and she’s all better, and I’m damn proud of her for getting it done. Three stitches which she needs to get taken out next week, and a little bit of care, and everything’s sorted.
The Devil in Green
I’ve been reading again, which is just excellent news as far as I’m concerned. Reading is like a litmus test of my state of mind. No idea how long it will last, but I certainly enjoy reading, so we’ll see. It means less EQ time, but I’m not sure that’s so bad. The main problem will be avoiding the ‘must finish just this chapter even though it’s 3am’ syndrome.
It should probably have a name that syndrome. Perhaps it does, but it should have a single word that describes it. Like ‘lating’ or ‘onreading’ or ‘freading’ or something.
Anyway, I wanted something pretty fast paced, reasonably short and by an author I knew I enjoyed to try and pick up the reading bug again, so I picked out Devil in Green by Mark Chadbourn. It’s the first of his second series of real-world-falls-into-myth books, and I really enjoyed the first three. This is what I thought of the first series (The Age of Misrule). The second series (The Dark Age) promises to be just as entertaining.
Once again, Chadbourn returns to the world after the fall, when the borders between our reality and the other realities are breached, and what was myth has now become truth. The story picks up sometime after the events of the first series, with people attempting to deal with the world as it now stands, and in particular with the Church trying to re-assert itself. With the original 5 Brothers and Sisters of dragons ‘indisposed’, Existence is forced to find another group of would-be-heroes.
What follows is a claustrophobic story based on 3 different locations, with a small cast, and a tight focused story arc. There isn’t as much humour as I recall in the first series giving the first book of this series a very bleak and stark feeling to it. This is underpinned by the arrival of a Gormenghast style Gothic structure, which only adds to the bleak enclosed feeling that I’m sure is an intentional part of the story.
Our heroes are flawed, and carry with them their own ghosts, some of which we uncover, and some of which Chadbourn appears to want to hold back from us until perhaps the next book. Mallory is a sarcastic know-it-all who believes in nothing and finds himself fighting to save everything, Miller an innocent believer who needs the Church, and Sophie a hippie-come-witch with a sense of humour to match anything Mallory can come up with. The supporting cast is rich and varied, and deeply British.
Our heroes face a selection of other-worldly dangers, some benign, some overtly evil, and many with the same alien intellect hinted at in the previous books making it impossible to fathom their intent or their feelings for how the Fragile Creature of man should be handled.
The pace is good, and the slow building tension matches the story well. I did find sections of the last two chapters fragmented, and I stumbled through them rather than following the flow of the previous chapters, but it didn’t detract enough to put me off and I’m sure a re-read would smooth out any confusion I was left with.
Overall it’s a good start to the new series, with a bleak feel but just enough heroism and high points to prevent it pulling the reader down into a deep depression. Worth a read, especially if you enjoy your British mythology. Looking forward to the next one, which since the series has been out a little while, we already have upstairs!
YABL (Yet another blogging location)
Blogging is currently going on over here but of course, no idea how long for.
Our Cat and My Thumb
We have a cat, Bubbles, she’s cute. Here she is hiding her face from the camera. She likes to lie on her back and look cute, and attack your hand as you go to stroke her stomach. It’s cute. But, she moans when she can’t go out, a lot, and then she whinges about having to use the litter tray instead of being outside. Anyway, as the nights draw in, and get cooler, we stop her being out so long in the evenings, and hence, her whining level goes up.
Anyone who has cats know that the cute ones look cute, but are just as deadly as the ones that look deadly. We all know that Cat bathing is a martial art. It should be obvious that you should never attempt to engage your cat in any kind of activity in which it’s not fully happy with. But, Bubbles has this ability to pick the right moment to wind you up – she’s like a combination between a stroppy teenager and a 2 year old.
And so revenge is often sweet, while she’s sleeping, I tickle her paws for example. Always funny. Anyway, so there she was, lying on her back as she does, next to my computer chair. All four paws in the air, eyes closed, relaxed. Hah, here’s my chance for some light revenge, I’ll just grab a paw gently and she’ll meow and then do that reflexive back-paw-scrabbling thing she does.
Only, well, she was obviously asleep.
And I always underestimate how sharp her claws are.
And how fast her reactions are.
And how surprised she’d be.
The cut is about 3mm deep, and about 3cm long, on the underside of my thumb. It’s painful, and there was a decent amount of blood.
Oh well, it was worth it for the surprised look on Bubble’s face!
Day 2 of the rest of my Life
Ok, so I’m a bit melodramatic in my title sections 😉 Day 2 back at work, and it’s a Friday so the weekend to look forward to. Friday’s are always tougher, because one of the team doesn’t work Friday’s, and quite a few times at the moment, one other team member seems to be on holiday a lot. Today, I’m the only technical resource in the office, along with my team leader. One member in India, one working from home, one on holiday and one who doesn’t work Friday’s.
Had a bit of anxiety at work, and a little bit last night while trying to get to sleep, but nothing as bad as it was before I was off-sick. Got some of the symptoms now as well, but at least I know they aren’t caused by something physical which is killing me, which helps me manage them a hell of a lot better.
Trying to maintain a more relaxed approach to being at work, not worrying so much about the detail, the company doesn’t seem to want me to, so I’ll try not to. Just have to try and move that philosophy into my normal out of work life as well – don’t sweat the small stuff as they say.
Is that good though? Isn’t it the small stuff that differentiates us and makes us who we are? Two people do X, but one of them pays more attention to the fine detail, people are going to say ‘wow, person A did a fine job’ instead of ‘well, person B did just what was needed’. Does it matter? I guess it depends on the job, the small stuff, and how much paying attention we’re talking about. Sweat the small stuff but don’t fret if you can’t sweat it this time. Perhaps.
Back to Work
Back to work this morning after 14 days signed off. I wanted to come back – I can only imagine that suffering anxiety means the longer you stay off work the harder it is to get back to it, so I wanted to come back and deal with the issues directly. Usual back to work after a break stuff to do, cup of tea, catch up with people, read a thousand e-mails.
Grete’s taken up guitar lessons and singing lessons, which she’s really enjoying, and I know she’ll be good at. You can all come around and listen to us murdering Mull of Kintyre at some point. I’ll buy the cider with toe nail clippings for the full effect.
EverQuest is still fun – I’m going to say this even though most of you will have no clue what it means. My warrior character and the character’s of 5 friends succeeded in Tipt last night and we’re now KT flagged. It’s a huge achievement for us, and a weird feeling considering my wizard character has been flagged for ages (thanks to a raiding guild he was in) and has raided in those zones. But achieving it with friends is even more sweet.
Whether or not we’ll be able to repeat that Tipt run to get whole bunches of guild members flagged is another question. Takes about 2 hours to complete, needs a solid core of 3 or 4 players (tank, cleric, puller, cc) and 2 good dps classes to make it through, one of those classes needs to be a good backup healer, secondary rez is very useful, and good buffers essential because deaths are likely. That makes it hard to get 6 new people flagged every time.
Hillbillie’s b0rked computer
One of the things that I love about games like EverQuest is the sense of community. It was there in IRC and FidoNet and it’s there in some MMORPG’s like EQ. You have to work at it, it doesn’t just happen, and you have to want it otherwise it may as well be just another video game. But there can be a sense of community, a feeling of knowing people you’ve never met.
Perhaps a lot of it is illusion – perhaps people you think you know are in fact totally different. But I suspect it’s similar to making pen-pals before the age of global communication via computer, and that often your impression of people you deal with on-line a lot is pretty accurate.
When I play EQ, it’s to socialise as well as play a game, some people will scoff about socialising with people you can’t see or actually hear, but I don’t mind, feel free, we enjoy it.
And so when one member of the community has PC problems, and can’t get them sorted for whatever reason, it’s usually frustrating for their friends, wanting them to get back on-line. Hillbillie’s computer is b0rked and there’s no sign of it being fixed quickly. However, I wanted to help, and I wanted to offer you the chance to help (not you the random reader who just wandered by, but you, a friend of Hillbillie, I don’t expect random Joe public to help!).
There’s a button on the right side of the page, Make a Donation, which uses Pay Pal to send Hillbillie some cash, so that hopefully he can get his computer fixed and get his ass back in the game.
Progress?
Well, yesterday and today I’ve still had the anxiety symptoms, but no-where near as pronounced as they were before hand. The facial/neck pain almost totally gone (although there’s a twinge or two this morning), the heart thing subdued and the cough/breathing stuff not as nasty, although they all come back pretty strongly just before I go to bed, as usual.
I guess the question is, can I cope with the anxiety and get it under control outside of work, in a way which helps me maintain control inside work. We’ll see.
The ‘eating less’ thing isn’t going too well, but hey, we knew that for the last 34 years why would the last 4 weeks be any different. Going to be tough to change the habits I have around food, I have a strong dislike for anything which prevents me enjoying food, and I’m not good at self discipline.
EverQuest is down again for another five hour patch. Not the most successful expansion launch for EQ. 11 Hour patch to launch, 3 hour patch on the day after, 5 hour patch on the day after that and today another 5 hours. So a total of 24 hours of downtime so far to launch it, time will tell if it ruins the experience for some people. Certainly those who did not buy it will be pretty annoyed considering they’re suffering for content they can’t see.
Monster missions are a total blast, radically new in EQ, playing Nagafen and defending his cave from the hoards of crazy ‘players’ was some of the best fun I’ve had in EQ for a long time. Hopefully it’s a sign of some rich content further in the expansion, if we get a good enough run to be able to go and see any of it.
Cliche: Good news and Bad news
Well the bad news is no surprise. Confirmation from my new (and helpful) GP that I do indeed have diabetes. The 3 month blood test shows a high reading (10.something), and he asked if we wanted to do diet or tablet control straight away. I said we’d try diet control, take another test in 3 months and see how that’s going. The fact that we had a conversation about it and he explained the issues is a major step forward, rather than just being told about half of what was going on.
The other physical symptoms I’ve got are ‘classic’ anxiety and he signed me off work for two weeks. The good news, is that they’re not heart disease or a lung infection or any of the other horrible physical things they could have been. Anxiety is serious, but it’s something I can fix, and knowing it’s not caused by a physical illness will already help to reduce the amount of stress I’m feeling.
So, the feelings in the side of my face (a tightness or pain), the heart racing or thumping, and the cough and feeling as if I’d just sucked in some spice or strong mint in my lungs, all anxiety. And knowing that does help, now I just need to find a way to deal with it, and relax more.