look on my works ye mighty, and despair

Today I wore my skinny jeans and my new back-laced knee-length boots, and lo, I felt sassy.

Today has been a lot less stressful overall than the past week or so. I adorned my dragons with falling petals in Flight Rising, I did my WK reviews, I petted the kitties. Ja rewarded me for paying attention to him by sticking a claw deep into my knuckle, which bled profusely and is now somewhat swollen, sigh.

I lost most of my evening to playing Game Dev Tycoon, which I think was basically exactly what I needed: immersive and fun without making me have to make any decisions that involved people or ethics or plots.

Tomorrow we have the inevitable and traditional ALL THE EXPRESS DELIVERY ORDERS of the pre-Expo week. My Sunday costume is a last-minute decision too so I'm not in any position to judge these people any more. Even so I'm just gonna say: writing 'MUST BE HERE BY SATURDAY' on your order notes ain't gonna do a thing unless you pay for faster shipping, people.

Worbla's Finest Art came back into stock at Coscraft yesterday evening, so of course today we had to send out 50kg of orders for it. Believe us when we say we want to consistently have it in stock, because these panic-bulk-orders are knackering. I was cutting sheets most of the day while Pez packed the orders up, and now my back hurts from doing that. Pez is making us food, and I'm staying on the sofa for a while.

Lest you think I'm not being productive in my sofa-state, I'm busy repeatedly calling the local sorting office, because as far as we can tell an entire bag of our mail from last Thursday has gone missing -- more than a third of the people whose orders were in that bag have reported not receiving their parcels. The post office told us we need to call the sorting office, so I've been attempting to call for three-quarters of an hour, and nobody is picking up the phone. It's delightful. Feh.

Today has been mostly about:

• Pez's back (it still hurts but now she has medication)
• Masa in drag (mostly because of the Kuroshitsuji musical, but also just generally)
• finishing and posting P4 fic so I can stop thinking about it
• packing parcels

And now it is time to head off to the post office! BUSY BUSY augh.

Urgh, Vauxhall helicopter crash. I don't think I know many people who live there any more (now kahochan et al have moved away), but it's always more visceral when these things happen in places that are familiar. It seems to being dealt with rather efficiently. The police and fire and ambulance representatives being constantly interviewed are handling the questions exceptionally well.

Edit: oh, actually, it turns out we know someone who lived in the building next to one that got hit (he's been evacuated). His footage of the fires is being shown all over the place. Brr.

The snow is thick outside (but melting); yesterday I slogged through a minor blizzard to get to the post office but I think today the main issue will be not slipping on ice. At least the buses are still running.

So, riots and looting and fires in London. Scary stuff.

I think it's clear by now that a lot of this is opportunistic greed at work--it's suddenly dawned on people that if enough of them go out on the streets and take stuff, the police can't cope. Which I can sort of understand, if I squint--jobless, no prospects, resentful: if you suddenly realise you can suddenly go out and take all those trappings of wealth and luxury you've been wanting, I guess that's what you do. The idea that those goods may be someone's whole source of business isn't likely to occur to them and, if it does, it'd soon be handwaved away to 'I'm moral, so I'll only loot the chain stores'. I can actually fathom this mindset, just about.

The arson and shooting and muggings I find a lot harder to comprehend except as mindless violence and bitterness at the system, but it isn't totally incomprehensible either. Of course they're angry. Taking it out on branches of Carpetright seem bizarre, but that's because so far all the violence is spontaneous. I'd expect more police station and council office fires soon, though, if people start planning with intent instead of acting on whim.

The constant repetition of 'unacceptable' from all sources is making me grit my teeth, but that's perhaps my own peeves at work.

Discussions about curfews and army involvement seem to be going around. Enforcing a curfew without army involvement--even having pulled in all special constables--seems unworkable to me, and I don't think the army will be called in quite yet. Pulling in officers from outlying regions makes me vaguely concerned that those outlying regions will erupt; opportunism again. And if there isn't enough visible police/enforcement presence, I suspect there'll be some amount of vigilante retaliation against the looters soon enough, which is terrifying on a whole new level.

Augh, talking about this makes me angry and sad, and I'm spiralling into paranoid gibbering here. #riotcleanup and the like are heartwarming, at least. And I can be optimistic: maybe the bulk of looting types will by now have grabbed enough in the way of shiny new possessions to keep them from going out for more?

Work: still stupid and mental. And other things are annoying me in the world.

But it is *lovely* to be living with Pez full-time.

So tired today that I am having to rely on MS Word to spot comma splices for me. This is not a good sign.

I've been having waves of vertigo for about a week and a half now--according to the doctor I saw earlier, I probably have viral labyrinthitis--inflammation of part of the inner ear.

I've obtained some anti-nausea pills (since the vertigo's been so bad it's made me vomit a couple of times) but really I just need to wait for the problem to subside naturally. Sigh. I miss being able to stand up without getting woozy.

I have a PSP! It is shiny and white (and not a PSP Go). And I have Dissidia, which is... deeply odd, so far. I don't think I'm really accustomed to either the PSP or the game controls yet. But it's fun beating up Cloud as Squall in the one-on-one battle stuff.

(Also I am feeling sort of meh this week. I lack energy, or motivation to do much of anything beyond flopping in a heap when I get home. Sigh. Hopefully I'll pull out of this post-flu lethargy stuff soon, because I'm sick of myself like this.)

...Why, no, brain. I actually would have liked that two hours of extra sleep I didn't get because you decided to see 5am as 7am this morning.

(grumble)

But more importantly, Mr Missingham said, he found that 100% of children in the UK between the ages of 6 and 10 called themselves 'gamers'.

I noticed this in this BBC article, but on inspecting the press release it's not a beeb typo. 100%, really? Not even one 6-10 year old who said 'what's a 'gamer'? None who were for whatever reasons not capable of playing any games?

Grr!

Alex Pepperberg, the African Grey parrot well-known from animal language and intelligence studies, died yesterday aged 30.

See The Alex Foundation for more details.

I don't like coriander. I'm one of those people for whom it tastes like soap. It's not enough of a 'blech plt' reaction to make me have to pick it out of food -- I even quite like some foods with coriander in, since other flavours can ameliorate that soapiness.

Which is why I don't usually grumble too much that the most otherwise-interesting sandwiches I can get from waitrose are the ones with coriander in. I'm just fussy enough to pick up a few sandwiches at the same time so I can choose the one which seems to have the least coriander leaf, but generally it's okay. The coriander adds a leafy texture while the other flavours mask its taste.

So it's very depressing to take a bite of sandwich and to have it be almost entirely leaf with no other filling.

Now my mouth tastes all soapy.

Blech plt.

This thing where people play music (via phone speakers) VERY LOUDLY on public transport seems to be getting really common. It infuriates me to an irrational degree, mostly because they inevitably have dreadful musical taste. I tend to want to throw headphone catalogues at them.

Although, if it means that I get to see Hulk-sized skinheads miming along (with eyes closed and apparently *meaning every word*) to Celine Dion again, maybe I can forgive it once in a while.

Today I went to give blood.

I have now registered a formal complaint with the Blood Donor Service. The person who didn't seem to know what he was doing and the curtness aren't much fun by themselves, but what really got me riled was when they stuck the needle in a muscle instead of a vein. My arm still hurts. Plus, you know, after all that they couldn't get a full donation from my arm. Honestly, it's making me seriously reconsider ever donating blood again, and that's depressing.

To cheer myself up, I went and bought myself the latest edition of Brewer's Phrase and Fable. It has successfully cheered me up. I had forgotten how awesomely eclectic it is.

( BPAL reviews: Hollywood Babylon, Dragon's Tears, Red Devil, Khajuraho, Harvest Moon '05 )

Grocery order showed up, soaking wet. I mean, really wet. But not in the sense that it had been rained on, more in the sense that it had been left in a puddle of water somewhere. Not such a problem for cans and bottles and even the vegetables, but not good news for the flour or cornstarch.

So I have phoned ocado to complain, and they're refunding the cost of the damaged items (and also the missing one, some kitchen towels). It's not much of a victory (especially since I had half an hour of being on hold even to make a complaint) that I've claimed back the few quid, but I feel better for having griped at them.

Yay, I thought. Dinner will be easy tonight! Frozen quiche and frozen waffles!

It would really help if I'd put the quiche in when the oven had pre-heated, instead of noticing it sitting out on the counter 40 minutes later when the oven timer went off.

Sigh.

Yesterday I attempted to give blood.

One collapsed vein and many apologies later, there is now a big warning message in my blood donor notes informing future medical workers that I am correct when I tell them not to try taking blood out of my left am. There is also a large swollen purple bruise on the inside of my left elbow, but at least it doesn't hurt like it did yesterday.

And just now the plumber called to say that he *can't* come today as planned, so instead he will be coming tomorrow. Someone remind me what it is like to have a shower that isn't permanently cold?

Today I had a very nice day; we went to the British Museum, then I bought a jigsaw puzzle at the games shop nearby, then we went and sat outside a pub in the sunshine.

Then we went to easyeverything to log on and check emails. Bought a credit slip thingy, found a computer, logged on, checked email and lj and ifmud, logged off. Then discovered my handbag was missing.

The bag had in it: my purse, my keys, my wallet, my mobile phone, my digital camera, a copy of a Canticle for Leibowitz, my hairbrush, my tobacco and filters and papers and lighter. On the plus side, I did *not* put my iPod in my bag this morning (thank you thank you thank you) and I had my travelcard in my pocket. Plus whoever took my bag didn't take the bag with my newly-purchased jigsaw puzzle in it, for what comfort that gives.

Sigh. I couldn't even have a cigarette to console myself. What's most annoying is the camera and phone; because I lost my wallet a while back there was nothing non-replaceable in my wallet this time, and there's no address anywhere in the bag so the keys are not a huge loss. All the numbers in my phone memory are lost, though; that's a blow, replacing some of those will be impossible since that's the only place they were stored. And my digital camera is replaceable (and had no photos on it, even) but wah that was a present from huskyscotsman, dammit.

Growl.

Bleah.

Antsy, lack of concentration, short attention span. Today, I am fidgetwoman. Even my usual tactic of putting on the most dance-y music I have and then bouncing around like a possessed yoyo is not working to make me less twitchy.

Sigh.