...and I'll be damned indeed, cos the corner shop just down from Kynesim has started stocking Jones cream soda. *_* American cream soda is LOVE, and Jones is better than most if I can't get Fitz's. Meanwhile, speaking of classic American things, I'm still dying of glee over here after finally getting to see SummerSlam last night. I love DX so much. Especially when they bring tanks. ♥

Finally, I would like to draw everyone's attention to the fact that my job with Kynesim is up for grabs. If anyone needs any encouragement to come and work for this company, I'm posting from the office right now and behind me I can hear a conversation about how to get better Internet for Selwyn students by flying an airship above the College and stealing bandwidth from somewhere on Mill Road. If you want a job with a company that is genuinely NOT a haven for brain-dead drones and people who will think you're weird, unlike most companies... you want to work for us. Seriously. And the stuffed squid on my chairback agrees with me. (You get to inherit him, too.)

That's me, anyway. How's everyone?

Laters,
Rath

So I just went to look for the office coffee-making thing. I found it, looked in it, and made a strangled noise that made the entire office stare at me. Someone, about three months ago, has apparently critical-failed their sanitary check. O_O

There's also a mug containing a mouldy tea bag. It's news to me that this is even possible. Yikes. *gets fairy liquid and draws circle of Protection from Nurglings with it, before going to wash up...*

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 just had to move to sitting on a breakfast-bar-style wicker high chair at work, with my laptop, because I came back from the bathroom and found that one of my colleagues has stolen my sofa so he can play Lego Batman with the MD.

I ♥ my job.

Laters,
Rath

I feel really quite ill today. The muscles in my jaw and forehead are aching and I feel like I'm dragging my brain along by the scruff of its frontal lobe. Thankfully I can go home in about half an hour.

...also, I swear I'm going to EAT my colleague for that awful eight-bit-style classical piece she's got as her cellphone ring. I did not need that right now. *whines and clutches head* Everything seems to be so nuts at the moment. I just want to go outside and curl up on a bit of abandoned blacktop somewhere and sleep in the sun for about a week. At least my sis deepbluesquee is back on Monday, I've missed her. :/

In other news, does anyone not have, and want, a copy of Lordi's The Arockalypse? I... might just have kinda sorta cracked and bought the special edition yesterday, so my old copy is now free to a good home. >.>

Argh. Ow. Brain. Sod this, I'm leaving work early. *splat*

Laters,
The Navigator

Saw Wanted last night. I have... absolutely no idea what I thought. It's completely insane. ^_^

I definitely enjoyed it, because it's slick and grimy and beautiful and filled with breathtaking stunts and gorgeous cars and highly charged gun and knife play and the kind of lush, hot, breathless over-visualisation that Bekmambetov does so well; but I'm damned if I can tell you whether it's a good movie or not. And also, the words "evil rug" are going to be a feature of my memetic vocabulary for WEEKS. >.>

Meanwhile, my PC at work has started making a noise like an ailing flying saucer about to crashland five miles away. Should I be worried?

...and as I started typing this post, someone outside the window started up a barrage of light electro/trance complete with symphonic bleepy effects on what sounds like a concert-size PA. It's obviously THAT sort of day today.

How is everyone?

Laters,
The Navigator

For the benefit of those who stood by me and of those who had to go to bed - I'm not dead. Hello people. *s* Thank you so much (lj)fluffymormegil, (lj)oml404 (hope you're feeling better mate!), (lj)lonescorpion raisedbymoogles, deepbluesquee, lookingforsigns and sternenstaub for all being there for me in one capacity and another.

So yeah, I got out of work at two thirty yesterday. That is, two thirty IN THE MORNING. It's quite bizarre, my IJ posts show off the descent of my brain quite neatly. First post is a simple "oh bugger, have to work late," unlocked. Second is a panicked plea for help, locked down to a few close friends. Third, completely private, is the draft of a very ill-advised email that I'm really glad I didn't send, from sometime around midnight. Oh dear.

This is your brain on copy-editing...

Laters,
Rath

Because Rath is stuck at work and going to be here for a looooong time. O_O

Ah, well. I have, lessee... Live/Insanejournals, email, A-ha, Goteki, Sneaky Bat Machine, Rosetta Stone, Alphaville, Psyclon 9, Elusive, all the tap water I can drink and a bakewell tart to keep me going. Plus a sofa to sleep on if things go really wrong. See you... later?

(Anyone who leaves me comments, porn, songs on youtube, or other nice things will, however, be much loved. Thank you.)

Love and argh,
Rath

(I do like the "busy" mood icon in this set. Cityscapes are great even in mini pixel form. I'm picturing Deathwatch working late in his Manhattan office now... actually, that's cool, he can come over here and keep me headcompany while I work too. *yoink*)

Wow, it's all change around here. For those who care, current state of the Rath:

- The Lyndon is safe, and still fifty percent mine, the other fifty percent now being owned by my mum and dad. I'm paying her upkeep, but at least I'm no longer in debt on her. I no longer have much hope of turning her into a liveaboard boat - it was just getting too expensive - but she's going to be a weekend cruiser and general fun thing for me, my parents, and those of my friends who happen to be handy and want to play on a boat. So, this is good.

- Connectedly, I have managed to get my very own place to live! The Rathroom will be mine as of next Monday! It's just a single room in an old terraced house that's been converted to bedsits, but it will be my very own place where I can crash out and work and finally get some time and solitude to put my fragmented brain back together. I'm hoping that one of the consequences of this will be an upturn in output of Rathfic - watch this space! This is also all good.

- My plans to go to America this summer have, sadly, fallen through by this point. I'm sorry to those who would have been seeing me, I really truly am - but due to a combination of the incoming UK credit crunch and various other factors, I simply can't afford to go out there and have the time I'd want to have and do the stuff I'd want to do. And given that, I'd rather save it up until next year when I have more money and can plan more effectively and might even have my driving license... So this is bad, but it's okay. I'm regretful, but I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown over it or anything. The Road says she'll wait for me. *s*

- And now, I have the new Warhammer Undead novel to proofread - five hundred pages and change, received today. Deadline? Wednesday. O_O So, time to don the sacred hat of the Scribe Keeper Of Red Ink and bugger off to ancient Khemri for a bit. I'll see you all when I get back!

Lots of love,
The Navigator

Argh. I have nothing constructive to do right now. If it gets any worse I'm going to have to start putting things in date order just for something to do...

So instead here's my (slightly late) Beltane resolutions list (ie, things I'm going to do before the next time the leaves fall):

- get a room of my very own
- pay off my last credit card
- go up to Yorkshire at least once
- get my next tattoo
- resurrect my unfinished creative writing course
- finish and post at least one decent-length fic (I am really determined about this. So sick of never finishing anything!)

Anyone else got any summer resolutions? I think this is actually a better time of year to be vowing to do things than the middle of winter is - you can take advantage of the tidal surge of cosmic enthusiasm that hits as the world warms up and everything suddenly realises that it's time to burst out in spontaneous fits of flowers and leaves and singing and shagging. It's been so weird this year, too - from near winter to what feels like high summer in about a week flat. I don't think I've ever seen spring happen so fast.

What's everyone else up to today? Talk to me! Or to my boys. Or give me links to things. Anything is welcome right now!

Love,
Rath

Whew. It's been something of a big day for Raths today.

First, I've been reading The Ten Thousand, by Paul Kearney. You'll notice that it's not out yet, and given this, I'll give you three guesses why I was reading it and the first two don't count. *GRINS* Yes, this was my rush proofreading project. I won't give anything away, obviously, but I will say that I'll get my own copy when it comes out, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Raw, gritty fantasy so real and so emotive that I found myself red-inking through a haze of heartfelt tears more than once. Read This Book!

Secondly, and bigger news in many ways, a change of affairs with my boat Lyndon! Originally I was refitting her as a liveaboard; this plan has now been abandoned for reasons of cost and practicality. I nearly had to sell her; but my parents, gods love them, have agreed to buy a half share in her from me, and to spend some of their summer weekends going out cruising with me and possibly my friends. This gets rid of the debt I owed on her without taking her away from me, and you have no idea how relieved I am. I love my boat, I just couldn't pay for her upkeep anymore on my own, so this is in many ways an optimal solution.

Thirdly, my boss at my publishing job gave me a letter today that sums up my performance review last week. Basically it's glowing praise with an extra £1,000 per year pro-rata stuck on top for a bonus. I am... very happy about this. My parents always used to make a big deal whenever I got an award or a grade or a certificate, and they'd be all, oh, you should frame it! And I never cared, because, y'know, I was bred for grades and exams. They were just everyday bullshit to me. But this, this I almost do want to frame, because I chose to work for this and I'm doing well at it all by myself. I'm really proud, actually.

And now I want the rest of the evening off to play videogames, please. It's been a pretty draining day. So I leave you with a heavy metal treat from somewhere in the gutter of the eighties, in the form of Elvis Died For You by Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, because I love it and more people should be into this kind of thing.

*waves and flops*,
Rath

More work from Black Library today! I haven't even spent the £90 from the last job I did for them yet! I love freelancing. ^_^

I actually get a quiet kick out of the term "freelance", as well, to be honest. Allegedly first used by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe, it is, in origin, a term for a hired mercenary - a "free lance", logically, being an armed man who was at liberty to sell his services rather than being tied to a particular army, liegelord or country. It makes me smile that I can claim an etymological two degrees of Kevin Bacon separation from a lot of very, very kickass people. And indeed from several of my headcast.

Sometimes I wish I'd joined the armed forces when I was a teenager, like I was thinking of doing. If I had, by now I could have finished my enlistment and been working as ops control or something for a team of real mercenaries. I hope there's an AU somewhere where some version of me did that, actually.

But meanwhile, I'll settle for being a pen-and-paper-based mercenary hunting for a commission in the coolest fictional warzone out there. ^___^ I really hope they give me some of the core Warhammer/40K stuff soon. I'm currently only doing their other imprint which is random dark fantasy, but I'm crossing my fingers...

Love,
The Navigator

You know those study guides, revision manuals, and whatnot (Letts Revise, Cliff Notes and what-all) that our mums and dads used to set so much store by when we were munching our way through our A levels and degrees? I just found out that in the publishing trade, the primary market for these sorts of volumes is ACTUALLY REFERRED TO AS "the parental anxiety market".

I would love to pass on this piece of information to every clever, overpressured, miserable kid still out there. And to their parents. :/

Laters,
Rath

Or, why the Navigator ♥s postmodernists. I'm sorry, but I just had to share. From the book I'm currently proofreading at work:

"It may seem dysfunctional to blow 1950s Poetics up the trouser leg of a marching digital scientism, but..."



Seriously. What. I hope that for the author this line was one of those moments of transgressive genius that make you giggle hysterically as you type them out, both racked with mental images yourself and gleefully imagining the brain-bending impact you're going to have on your readers. I hope he laughed until it hurt, because I certainly did. Silently. With my nose held. Ow, my diaphragm.

Anyway. Work. Yes. I just need to get rid of a mental image involving a uniformed Nazi, a set of bellows and what looks suspiciously like several members of the cast of Dad's Army and then I'm sure it'll all be FINE.

Laters,
The Navigator