Okay, I have SO run out of money now, but life? Life is GOOD.

( Six things that have made me happy this week! )

So yes, that's what I'm currently being happy about. I hope you guys are all good, too. *attempts to hand around the happy in case anyone would like some*

Laters,
Rath

So, as those of you who read (lj)faithinfire will already know, yesterday I was formally diagnosed with depression. This is a good thing, arguably, as it gives me some framework for handling the overwhelming sense of "oh shit, universe falling to pieces" that I've been suffering for the last few weeks and assuming was somehow entirely my own fault.

So while I was at home feeling sorry for myself and very small indeed, koilungfish went out and came home with lookingforsigns, and they brought me presents! ♥♥♥ There were cookies! And Seiber bought me pizza! And... and, and, and...

There were also a whole five booster packs from the Pirates CSG that Seiber and me have been fangirling over lately! Including one from the "Fire & Steel" expansion that has the gorgeous Switchblade and Scorpion miniatures, which have tiny moving parts! Blades that turn on miniature plastic cogs! Now, Seiber had been lucky enough to get a Switchblade ship, HMS Salient, in our very first packs of boosters and I'd been profoundly jealous. But...

As I tore open the Fire & Steel pack, I saw the glint of silver. My eyes widened. Silver-stamped cards! Black super-rare corner tags! All of them! And...

...three entire cards that went to make up a great, pale, hideous monster of a ship. Grey and black and dust white, the pallid shade of old skin and the rotten muted red of dead, stripped meat. And dazzling, silver, twin scythelike blades...

A super-rare, Cursed-fleet Switchblade. Oh. My. GODS.

Her name is Skin Flayer and she is gorgeous. I cannot believe that a random booster pack my friends grabbed for me as a "please cheer up!" present could manage to be the single most coveted set in the whole expansion - witness the bit of paper that fell out after the Skin Flayer (not to mention the Silver Coffin, the Soul Mark treasure card, and Tabitha McWarren, the Cursed pirate girl who joined the crews of the damned when she threw herself from a clifftop for the sake of a dead pirate lover): a note that read "Congratulations! You just dug up the most sought-after treasure chest in the Pirates of the Cursed Seas Fire and Steel pocketmodel game! It contains every super-rare game piece in the set!"

I mean, how extraordinary is that, in those particular circumstances? I think something out there loves me at least as much as my friends do. ♥♥♥

Laters,
Rath

I just got a spam with the subject line "For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide". I... yep, it's definitely Monday.

( Random update. Cut for length (work, weekend, and general stuff). )

And (lj)lonescorpion just left me an email with hints on how to do the fourth mission in DoW, so I think that's my evening sorted, then!

So. How/what/who is everyone else doing today? ^_^

Laters,
Rath

I didn't post this when I got in last night in the end because it was late and I was exhausted. So Friday's six, first:

1. Finishing work for the holidays! This is very important, obviously.
2. Getting a pack of the bracelet-type glowsticks on our table at the Downing Christmas dinner! And being very amused that all my colleagues were too, ah, mainstream to know what they were and how to make them work. *g* I stole two green ones in honour of DX, and a pink and a blue one just for the hell of it.
3. The fact that the puddings at said Christmas dinner CAME UP THROUGH THE FLOOR. Murray Edwards College (aka New Hall), where we were eating, has a servery area that can be raised through the middle of the dining hall floor, and they used this to bring up the dessert plates! Dimmed lights, sparkthrowers on the corners of the counters, and the James Bond theme as an accompaniment (O_O) - it was a fantastic piece of spectacle. Whoever came up with that one deserves a bonus.
4. Managing, early in the evening, to hit the DJ with one of those long balloons that you blow up and let go of and they go flying across the room. SCORE! (I wasn't even aiming for him, but don't tell anyone.)
5. Playing air guitar to Status Quo in front of all my colleagues. Admittedly that was the only thing they played at the disco that called for air guitar at all, but still. And the video was up on the screens (Rockin' All Over The World, for the record) and my gods, the Quo boys were adorable when they were young. ^_^
6. Stopping off on the way home to lie on the grass out on the fens, just basking in the knowledge that I was free for the next two weeks. I love the night, and the sky, and being alone just sometimes.

Admittedly (lj)naranek stood me up for said dinner, but you can't have everything. *pokes and grins*

And today, ie Saturday:

1. Being on holiday, which is still making me happy!
2. The epic success that was the Triad early-Christmas-dinner. I made a full roast dinner with all the trimmings and ate until I can currently barely move. No fewer than FOUR kinds of pudding were involved. I rock.
3. Getting awesome Christmas presents from my friends, the absolute pinnacle of which has to be the pageful of chibis that deepbluesquee drew for me. There are no words for how thrilled I am with this.
4. Decorating the Christmas tree(s) and getting tinsel all over everything and everywhere, including on my own head (where it still is).
5. Spending the evening belting out Twisted Sister, Lordi, Zodiac Mindwarp, Blue Oyster Cult and Whitesnake. I fucking love proper hard rock. I love feeling my heart lift and my feet tap and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. And I love how easy it is to do anything from cooking to dishes to cleaning when I've got something to sing along with, too. Best of the night had to be Whitesnake's Saints and Sinners, which was one of the first rock albums I ever owned (taped for me by my cousin when I was only about fourteen) and I always love to hear again. I'm such a sucker for good memories. ^_^
6. The simple delight of hanging out with people I love... and who can reduce me to laughing until I think I'm going to turn inside out. Never underestimate the joys of daft, perverted, and completely deranged friends.

So yeah. Good day. Gooooooood day. *contented sigh* How are you guys?

Hail Slaanesh and happy Christmas,
The Navigator

[This is Thursday's post that I didn't make because the internet crashed. Friday's later on!]

More than half way! Though to be honest I don't know that I'm going to want to stop this after eight days... it's good for my mood as it makes me take a mental note of everything good that happens over the day. ^_^ So today:

1. lookingforsigns bought me a gorgeous opalite stone! Opalite is magic - in low light it's the blue-green white of winter ice, but any light shining through it comes out on the other side a deep, glowing red-orange colour. Like fire at the heart of winter... so beautiful I feel like I should have gone blind just staring into it. Thank you, sis. *s*
2. Looking at the moldavite pendants in Nomads, at sternenstaub's suggestion. I know exactly which one I want - it's a piece of rough moldavite held by silver wire, with a pink cabochon-cut stone above it. I held it in my hands for a few moments and my palms tingled for the next five minutes. Unfortunately it costs *whisper* a hundred and twenty pounds, so I will almost certainly never have it... but it made me happy to look at and touch it for a bit anyway. (Moldavite is earth that was thrown up by a meteorite impact and fell back fused into olive-green glassy stone, by the bye - it's weird and wonderful in the highest degree!)
3. Indigo's smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese bagels - awesome comfort food - and their caramel slices, which today were absolutely fantastic. Basic-style good food is one of life's most underrated luxuries.
4. Koi doing an impression of a set of bagpipes attacking somebody. This is a noise I don't think I can physically describe, but I laughed until it hurt. Koi is great at sound effects. ^_^
5. Various mental images involving attractive men, whips, and black leather. Why my brain is generating this sort of thing today I do not know but I am not about to complain.
6. Music! Within Temptation's The Silent Force is a gorgeous, gorgeous album. *sighs happily*

Laters,
Rath

Hey, it's my kind of meme. This is Sunday's post, since I always fuck up my datestamps by being awake late. (Monday's, all being well, will consist of me flailing about WWE Armageddon... oh my gods can't wait... ^_^)

Six things today that make me happy:

1. Seeing my friends when I haven't seen them in too long.
2. Realising that I CAN get the high part in Never Have More - I just need to have my hands warmed up enough to have proper circulation.
3. Playing Never Again. I cannot get enough of that song.
4. Lordi's cover of Accept's Midnight Mover, which I have a terrible song-crush on today. *swoon*
5. The way my hair is just the right length to swish across my face like flying silk when I bang my head (as a result of #3 and #4 above). It feels gorgeous.
6. Authors who can tell a good story without making more mistakes than I feel obliged to fix to earn my keep. *happy copy-editor!*

(Why six? Because. ^_^)

Love,
Rath

"Reply below and I shall reveal three nice things about you."

Only seemed fair to do it here too...

Laters,
Rath

Mostly for zeldenthuis, but if you need a Navigatorsghost:

( What I am doing this month. )

Laters,
The Navigator

So I was walking through town last night and spotted a double-decker bus with an advert on the side, as you see around English towns. My brain registered black, white, gold; sleek, hard, action-movie lines; a title, the face of the man at the bottom of the image. Thought process that followed went something like:

"Ooh, Bangkok Dangerous, must make sure I don't miss that... heh, I like that tagline.^[1] And ooh, Nic Cage is kinda hot in that shot - wait, what?"

*headdesk* Seriously, brain. I didn't even fancy Nic Cage when he was playing Johnny Blaze, for gods' sakes! Why now? What IS it about me and asdfghj long hair on guys?!

[1]A movie about a professional assassin with the tagline "It's all in the execution" is always going to have me on-side from the word go. Me and most of the voices in my head, for that matter. ^_^


*** Meanwhile, in other much more important news, I have a mysterious silver shiny in the post! And evidence suggests that this may be the fault of princess_kessie - thank you hon! *huggles* It's beautiful. ^_^ ***


And now, to work, wishing all the while that someone would come round, sweep me off my feet and take me out to lunch. I'm feeling a little worn down at the moment, not to mention hungry. Where's my handsome Prince of Darkness when I need one?

Laters,
The Navigator

Last night in the Triadhouse living room:

Rath: *peering at a strangely moving bottle* Why is my booze wobbling?
Koi: Cos your bra isn't working properly?
Rath: ...X_X BOOZE, Koi, not boobs. My boobs are not wobbling.
Koi: Are you suuuure...?
Rath: *looks down* Nope, all quiet on the... *momentary pause for thought* ...front.
Koi: *speaking simultaneously* BREASTERN front. *evil grin*
Rath: ... XD >.<   KOI-OIIII!
Mikki: *helpfully* Actually, Brest was a major sea port of naval importance in World War Two...

[followed by as many jokes as we could stand about the Assault on Brest, the Germans holding Brest, ad mammarium...]

Thank you, I'll be here all week... save me.

Love,
Rath