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

ZOMG, Slaanesh loves me, seriously. You guys will not believe this...

A couple of years ago, I got a custom scent made for me by S'Amuser perfumers in Cambridge. It was basically perfect on me, the only scent ever to be so - all vanilla and amber and molten gold, and I adored it. Unfortunately, being all-natural, it eventually died on me... and S'Amuser closed down a while back. I thought I'd never have it again.

I managed to find their email address, back in June, and sent them an email. The email bounced, or seemed to. I figured they'd gone out of business and that was going to be the end of it. Much quiet mourning ensued.

Only tonight I just got an email from someone at the company, apologising for her mailbox having mislaid some of her mail! And she has all the supplies! And she's willing to make me up a custom batch just because I was dedicated enough to chase them down! I can have my perfume again!

You all have no idea how happy this makes me. ^_^

Laters,
The Navigator

Thank you Wacken and Iceland, for the solid month of heavy-duty exercise and not a lot of food by comparison;

Thank you Whitby, for the constant supply of hills, steps and indeed Steps;

Thank you food poisoning, even, I guess, because I sure didn't eat much for the last week;

...I FIT BACK INTO MY VELVET JEANS! AND MY LEATHER JEANS! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO! I don't need to buy more trousers after all! And when I do they might even be size twelve!

And now I don't even have to go to the laundrette in my pyjamas, how d'you like THEM apples...

Laters,
Rath

PS Hail Slaanesh. ^_^

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

"Universe," said I, waving a hand from the depths of a half-proofread treatise on analytical theory, "everything sucks. I'm feeling bitter and resentful and nothing looks fun. Cheer me up!"

"No problem," replied the universe, riffling through its box of LPs (which, as we all know, is of infinite dimensions and contains every song ever written in all possible realities). "Here, you might try this."

"^_^!"

"Also, for the record, Gödel's incompleteness theorems are exactly the kind of kneecap-shot theoretical result you love. Go look it up."

"^____^!!!"

"You're welcome. ^_^"

There we go, all better now. Who says there's no benevolent Providence? ^_^

Laters,
Rath

Hello everybody...

First, I'd like to just direct anyone who doesn't read my Livejournal ((lj)faithinfire) over there briefly to this post featuring a photo of my NEW TATTOO! ^____^ Mostly I posted this as a thank you to everyone who's donated to the Rath Tattoo Fund over the last couple of years - so if that's you, please go and see!

Meanwhile, in other news, I am having terminally bad luck with matters musical today. A moment of silence, please, for a fallen trooper - the half-dead ghettoblaster in our kitchen saw fit to irretrievably chew up my old cassette copy of the Last Action Hero soundtrack. :( It's not that I can't replace it, but that tape was one of my old tapes, from when I was a teenager; one of the ones I picked up for cheap in one of the tiny, dusty old record stores in Bradford that I haunted on Friday afternoons when I'd sneaked out of school. Those tapes, the ones I bought with stashed dinner money back before I was even old enough to go to gigs on my own, are practically like horcruxes or something - there's a piece of my soul in every one, and to have one of them die such a sorry death is more gutting than it has any right to be. "Farewell my friend, you will be missed!" :(

And in the meantime, I also just discovered I've lost my copy of The Rasmus's Dead Letters, which is really annoying because I've had the gorgeous "F-F-F-Falling" stuck in my head for a day and a half now and really want to play it again on something other than YouTube. Did I lend that CD to anyone, by any chance? *peers forlornly into the abyss*

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

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

Because it's frankly awesome to realise that you're watching history in the making... I would just like to raise my glass *lifts, er, a McDonald's soda cup since that's what I currently have* to President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama II. Congratulations to the man who stole America's heart, and may he take good care of it now he's got it!

*applauds*


And now a meme, since everyone else is doing it. From deepbluesquee and raisedbymoogles:

One little compliment can make you feel amazing.

So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal, so I can return the favor. And once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag so that when you are feeling down, you can go to that entry for a quick pick-me-up and a smile.

Backhanded remarks, friendly insults, and general abuse are also okay because, hey, I know some of my friends have issues with the idea of ever being overtly nice to another sentient being. *grins*

Laters,
The Navigator

PS Is anyone else who also uses Livejournal finding that their clever security checking measure for their new "find a friend" feature is killing their browsers? I mean, at least they're trying to do what their membership want (ie, allow people to opt IN to intrusive data searches rather than OUT) but nul points for the coding, right there...

(lj)oml404 told me this last night but I only just got around to checking the internet for details - Goteki have reformed! I am stupidly happy about this. Apparently, they had as much fun at their one-off show in London as I and the rest of the audience did. ^____^

New songs. More gigs! Gotekiiiiiiii! *strings self with party lights in celebration and races away to dig the CDs back out of the top of the stack, waving arms gleefully*

(Also, have the Myspace page open in the other tab and the onboard player just randomly spun up Shinjuku Lullaby. ♥)

Laters,
Rath

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

Remember my post yesterday about that CD I couldn't afford and should've bought when (lj)oml404 got his copy?

Well, he only went and GAVE me his copy when he saw me last night. O____^ Not only that, but he also threw in another even rarer EP that I also love and didn't own for the same reason! Thank you so much mate!

It's funny to think that this kind of impulsive act of human kindness could come from the same guy who was responsible for this video blog post. Warning: funny, in a very sick way, but NSFW, NSFbrains, NSFanything, really. Though anyone who's ever been annoyed by a certain badfic trope may find this deeply hilarious - I won't say more for fear of spoilering.

Oh, and speaking of spoilering (or not), The Incredible Hulk is good, go see it if you fancy a fun four-star superhero movie; it would have had to be as powerful as Ang Lee's old version to rate a five, but I can't point to any actual flaws that would take it below a four (unless of course you count Liv Tyler, who can cost any movie a point off its rating just by wandering onscreen and who was clearly only there to provide slashproofing). Though speaking of slash, for those who enjoy such, it does have one of the best "...you didn't just say that" slanted sequences I've seen in a long time, between Emil Blonsky (here excellently portrayed by Tim Roth) and a minor cast member. I will say no more, but I honestly couldn't stop laughing. ^_^

So yeah, today is a good day, although I still need more sleep. How's everyone?

Love,
Rath xxx

I haven't updated in a while, so... first of all, THANK YOU to everyone who turned out for Fire & Forget, Corrosion and Screaming Banshee Aircrew on Saturday. It was great to see so many people there and having fun, and it was lovely to finally play again especially with all the new songs to spin up. Fantastic. Special thanks to (lj)alixandrea for being my rock and my sanity, our driver on the day, and for organising a kickass after-show party!

Music seems to be taking over my life again, at the moment. ( Thoughts, songs, and a heart on a string. )

Current top five Rathsongs:

1. Elusive, Ride (pounding, passionate trad-goth - I saw this band opening for the Mission once and I swear they stole my soul)
2. New Model Army, White Coats (I've only recently grown up enough, I think, to appreciate NMA properly. Now the buggers keep making me cry. I'm sold on this particular track right now. "Hey, hey, I listen to you pray - as if some help will come / Hey, hey, she will dance on our graves, when we are dead and gone / When we are dead and gone!")
3. Slash's Snakepit, Landslide (a random find, courtesy of Koi, but it's got one of those choruses that comes back to haunt me in quadrophonic earworm form no matter what I do)
4. A-ha, The Living Daylights ("I've been waiting long, for one of us to say / Save the darkness, let it never fade away-!")
5. Fire & Forget, When I Touch You (because the bass part is like fire on the fingertips to play and I keep getting the chorus stuck in my head. What?)

I'd post more, but it's late... maybe tomorrow. Night, guys.

Love,
The Navigator