| Argh. |
[27 Dec 2009|06:16pm] |
Karma better be planning something VERY NICE for me. I didn't take my D faithfully enough, so I have the spouse's cold. My throat is sore and somehow disgusting. My nose is either kind of stuffy or running. My eyes are scratchy, but sometimes I'm overheated. Bwah.
Meanwhile, the ulcerated part of my lip, that I chomped like I was trying to give myself a lip piercing with my fangs, is still hurting -- sufficiently that if I say more than a few words (which I can't easily, with my throat all turned into sandpaper), it starts hurting. Very sharply.
Ze spouse has said that if it's not better tomorrow, I need to see the doctor. I find I agree.
I also have an appointment for back-cracking, which may help some of the residual soreness from my slip on the stairs.
On the plus side... I cooked omelets today! Yay?
INwatch: Core Rules: 445 (yay!), Lilith: 379, Eli: 359, Liber Umbrarum: 224 (yay!), Litheroy: 217, Asmodeus: 191, Infernal Player's Guide: 123, GURPS In Nomine: 82, Zadkiel: 71 (no change for 1 day), Liber Canticorum: 29, Game Master's Guide: 20.
Adventures: City On Fire: 116, Strange Bedfellows: 93, Feast of Blades: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4132, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2692.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 77, GURPS IOU: 62 (fell off bottom), GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 61 (fell off the bottom). Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 227.
           
( Dragons under fold )
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| The haul, part two |
[27 Dec 2009|03:54pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 festive |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
James Taylor and Natalie Cole, "Baby It's Cold Outside" |
] |
DVDs
Kung Fu Panda
Tin Man
MANGA
Bleach, v.29: The Slashing Opera
Yotsuba&!, v.7
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| Holiday woes |
[26 Dec 2009|07:54pm] |
I bit my lip very hard shortly before my mom showed up. It's basically been painful ever since (though ibuprofen seems to help a little), with this mandlebrot-looking (if I recall the term) ulcer on the inside of my lip. It rubs against my teeth. It hurts. Often it hurts to talk. O:(
I slipped on the stairs and landed hard on my left hip/buttock. It's bruised and stiff. (Overall, the OW there was worse than the injury; it always is on my hips and upper leg.)
And spouse has horrible cold which makes it very hard for him to sleep, 'cause it interferes with his CPAP machine.
All in all, minor stuff, but I felt like whining a bit (it's the headache). I hope everyone else is doing better.
On a plus-side, I rewrote a chunk of chapter for LA book 2 (formerly book 3), so it's about 2-3K shorter. Go me.
e23 is not responding. It is back on-line! Go buy stuff. O:>
INwatch: Core Rules: 444, Lilith: 379, Eli: 359, Liber Umbrarum: 224 (yay!), Litheroy: 217, Asmodeus: 191, Infernal Player's Guide: 123, GURPS In Nomine: 82, Zadkiel: 71 (yaaay!), Liber Canticorum: 29, Game Master's Guide: 20 (yay!).
Adventures: City On Fire: 116, Strange Bedfellows: 93, Feast of Blades: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4132, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2692.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 77, GURPS IOU: 62, GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 61 (fell off the bottom). Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 227.
( Dragons under fold )
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| Hoppy Holly-Day! |
[25 Dec 2009|09:07pm] |
I hope the winterbunny left you lots of egg-nog in your stockings, and none of the eggs broke 'fore you got the nog out safely.
Spouse is sick. *headdesk*
e23 is not responding.
INwatch: Core Rules: 444, Lilith: 379, Eli: 359, Liber Umbrarum: 223, Litheroy: 217, Asmodeus: 191, Infernal Player's Guide: 123, GURPS In Nomine: 82, Zadkiel: 69 (no change for [five?] days, alas!), Liber Canticorum: 29, Game Master's Guide: 19.
Adventures: City On Fire: 116, Strange Bedfellows: 93, Feast of Blades: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4131, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2691.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 77, GURPS IOU: 62, GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 61 (fell off the bottom). Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 227.
( Dragons under fold )
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| On a cold winter's night |
[26 Dec 2009|03:07am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 happy |
] |
It's late (almost 3 am), the sky outside is clear and sown with stars and a half-moon, it's 8 below zero C and the wind is rumbling through the trees. Inside it's warm and toasty and quiet. A wood-burning oven creates much nicer heat than electric panel ovens, mmmm.
To the disappointment of friends and colleagues, I made it home on little Christmas Eve as planned. It has become something of a tradition and entertainment for the abovementioned gits to follow my plight on facebook and text messages whenever I get stuck at airports. Travelling by plane in Norway in winter is risky business. But this time, there were no delays on the flights, hah!
I've been to church twice now, both on Christmas Eve (which is when we Scandinavians do the main celebration and gift thing) and on Christmas Day. While what we here call the Christmas Gospel (Luke 1:1-16) is lovely, my favourite remains John 1:1 which is read on Christmas Day in our church. That's probably the single greatest piece of poetry in the entire Bible. "I begynnelsen var Ordet, og Ordet var hos Gud, og Ordet var Gud..." Otherwise, I'm not so big on the religious part of Christmas (and grateful that we don't even call it Christ-mass here, it's still Jul (yule)), but some of these texts are lovely works no matter what.
I hope the wind calms down a bit tomorrow. I want to go outside and see the auroras without being flash-frozen into a giant icicle, thank you very much. The forecasts say next week will be in the -15C area. I think that's a bit excessive, even if it does mean clear weather, which means more semi-daylight and better chances for seeing auroras. Brr!
In closing, I bought Epica's live orchestral album the other day and I'm listening to it right now. They have earned my eternal love now. They're a symphonic metal band to begin with, complete with a classical soprano lead singer (who is GORGEOUS; Simone Simons I will happily go gay for you!) and all. And they did a concert in Hungary with a big orchestra and choir. Pompous does not do this thing justice, it is mindblowingly awesome. I like Nightwish just fine, but Epica? I bloody worship them! This is a two hour long power/symphonic metal orgasm.
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| Review: Never After (Anthology, LKH ed.) |
[25 Dec 2009|08:33pm] |
Never After is a collection, selected by Laurell K. Hamilton, apparently, of four stories -- at least one of them is probably more Novella length than short-story. I picked it up and looked at the first one to see what smut might be there, and was startled (and pleasantly surprised) to find... NO SMUT in the LKH one! Having read several pages into it, I figured I'd better buy the book.
The theme of the book is "traditional romance trope, twisted," basically. So you have your princess, and you have your arranged marriage, and the rest is up to whatever.
The first story is ( 'Can He Bake a Cherry Pie?' by LKH. )
The second story is ( 'The Shadow of Mist,' by Yasmine Galenorn )
The third story is ( 'The Tangleroot Palace,' by Marjorie M. Liu )
Fourth story is ( 'The Wrong Bridegroom,' by Sharon Shinn )
So 3 good stories out of 4, and one kind-of-yawner-unless-you-like-the-world-already. The theme's the same in each, but since there are only 4 stories, the reader isn't likely to become jaded on that theme before the end of the book. I approve.
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| Christmas leftovers |
[26 Dec 2009|01:05pm] |
|
I started making a turkey sandwich for lunch. I found the loaf of bread we bought two days ago had gone mouldy. Not just a little bit on slice or two, but the entire loaf was riddled with mould. Darn humidity.
So I went up to the shops to buy some bread. Everything was closed of course - the supermarket, the main bakery. I found a tiny Asian bakery open and bought a loaf of bread.
Got home, cut two slices, put turkey on it. Opened the cranberry sauce jar... and it had gone mouldy.
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| The Haul, part one |
[25 Dec 2009|05:46pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
festive |
] |
Wow, I didn't realize how long this list would be, formatted.
( Books )
|
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| Christmas |
[25 Dec 2009|11:20pm] |
So far the Christmas has been very nice. On Christmas Eve we went to my brother's for dinner, and had a great dinner of pork ribs, sausages, sauerkraut and roasted elk, followed by cream with cloudberries and coffee.
The pile under the tree was huge - a clear consequence of having a child there :-) He was 2 in August, and behaved extremely well during and after dinner (despite being slightly sleep deprived, as he didn't want to nap during the day). After finishing his dinner, he picked gifts from under the tree and brought them to the table - patiently giving them to the right person if they weren't for him. To his delight he found some gifts for himself, too (statistically not that hard since probably 2/3 of them were for him!), and carefully unwrapped them and walking to the garbage can with every piece of paper he tore off the packet (once for each piece).
After a couple of hours with this he was beyond bedtime - he unwrapped everything himself and was even able to appreciate each gift before going on. Not too bad from a 2 year old! (Well, at least until he got a nice blue tractor this worked well...) We went home around 21, and continued with our own pile of gifts at home. Lots of nice stuff there, too :-) I got several books, including one on knitting socks, a biography about Grace Hopper, a couple of pretty different books, The Sewing Circles of Herat and four crime novels by relatively unknown authors to me - and earlier books by these authors, so I could read them and see if I wanted to read more of their books. Brilliant! We also got some books for both of us, plus a rubber duck with thermometer for the child. I got three pairs of earrings, some soaps (including with penguins), penguin toilet paper, and for the kitchen we got a medium coffee press, lemon-olive oil, pumpkin jam and a bottle of Mikkeller Fra Til (a Christmas Porter with a traditional to/from gift label as label).
Today we were going to my parents' for the traditional Christmas Brunch, which has been gradually postponed from around 10 when I was a kid, to noon after I met Anders, and this year it was at 14 - so I guess we could call it a lunch now. Just as we were leaving the house, Anders heard a strange noise from the living room. It turned out the Christmas tree had lost to gravity and tilted. We noticed it wasn't staying straight up yesterday and also today, but as it didn't feel unstable when we touched it, we thought it was safe. Well, not really. Luckily not much was broken: a shattered penguin foot, a lost pair of angel wings and two broken penguins on a ball. The latter are beyond repair, but the rest can be mended. We quickly raised the tree and dried up some water before leaving, and cleaned up further tonight - including securing the tree to the wall with strings. The problem is the Christmas tree holder, where one of the screws lack a plate at the end, so it's hard to adjust properly. We're certainly fixing it after this season!
Well, we finally got to the Christmas lunch, only ten minutes delayed. The food was great, with a wide selection of meat, fish and cheese, followed by dessert after a while. Once again we were stuffed! We ended up spending a few hours there after dinner too, before we finally got home around 22 - and could secure the tree properly.
I brought some old apples for my brother so he can feed the roe deers around his farm. Unfortunately he forgot to take the apples home, so they are still here - which is perhaps as well, since there are roe deer tracks in the garden now. Maybe we should feed our own roe deers, so they don't feed themselves on the cherry and apple trees?
Edit: Silly me! Of course it wasn't a roe deer. It was Rudolph the Reindeer! No wonder we got lots of gifts under the tree.
Tomorrow it's time for the annual traditional beer tasting festival at Berrihytta in Hegra, not far from the airport. This is not a beer festival in the usual sense, but a traditional event where the locals bring their own smoked yule brew for tasting. Anders has been there for the past few years, and says it's a very including festival - as a stranger and a newcomer he still felt welcome, and this isn't always something that happen at these kinds of events. I don't particularly like the beer - it has a VERY distinct taste and smell of smoke, and I can't taste that anyway - so I have been the designated driver for getting there. So also this year - I plan to dress well and warm, bring some books and my laptop, and head for the airport if it's too cold to remain in the car (everything else is closed). And I get a good amount of brownie points for being such a nice wife :-)
Still no Christmas tree pictures to share, but I will try to get them off the camera tomorrow and as an extra bonus you'll get at least two traditional Norwegian trees to enjoy.
Last but not least: Happy Birthday to my nephew #2 who turned 2 years old today! Hurray!
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| White Christmas, whee |
[25 Dec 2009|06:59pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 chipper |
] |
It's been snowing and snowing and snowing and Oslo is all white. Very pretty! Continued happy holidays to all! When I'm less lazy I'll iconize my favorite present this year, the Target Star Trek Enterprise model. So pretty! (Even got a couple of action figures, but Kirk broke his leg coming out of the box... fortunately part of a bridge set came in the same package so I could place him in a chair and hide him behind the console :) Cat and christmas visitor are playing checkers in a rather impressively competitive way, so I think I'll just hide here behind the computer until they're done.
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| through a slight alcoholic haze |
[25 Dec 2009|05:28pm] |
Got home safely. As did all other family members.
Having lovely Christmas day. Presents went down well. Also got some very nice stuff myself.
Ate too much. (Goose.)
Merry Christmas everyone.
|
|
| Happy Holidays! |
[25 Dec 2009|11:31am] |
May all of you, friends or strangers, near home or far afield, have the best and brightest of winter holidays. I hope that peace, joy, and wonder fill your holiday season, and that these are only the smallest fractions of the happiness that will come to you all in the next year.
Best of wishes to everyone, and if you're in an area where the snow is falling, please be safe!
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| Hoppy Holly-Day! |
[24 Dec 2009|01:43pm] |
Yes, the Christmas Rabbit, with holly ears and a snowball for a tail, will come hopping down your chimney tonight with a bag of eggs for good little girls and boys...
...I gotta draw that sometime.
Anyway. I hope that your day is going well, whether you are celebrating a holiday or not, or even trying to avoid it. (In which case I hope that you're able to avoid it to whatever degree necessary for your peace of mind.)
INwatch: Core Rules: 444, Lilith: 379, Eli: 359 (yay!), Liber Umbrarum: 223, Litheroy: 217, Asmodeus: 191, Infernal Player's Guide: 123, GURPS In Nomine: 82, Zadkiel: 69 (no change for four days, alas!), Liber Canticorum: 29, Game Master's Guide: 19 (yay!).
Adventures: City On Fire: 116, Strange Bedfellows: 93, Feast of Blades: 92, The Rats' Revenge: 86.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 4131, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2691.
Not IN: Sahudese Fire Drill: 77, GURPS IOU: 62, GURPS Classic All-Star Jam 2004: 61 (fell off the bottom). Not IN or mine: Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG: 227.
 
( Dragons under fold )
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| Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, God Jul, Season's Greetings! |
[24 Dec 2009|01:52pm] |
Christmas Eve is the big day here in Norway (and in the other Nordic countries). The celebration usually starts at 17:00. Before people used to go to church then, but now most of those going to church attends a family service some time during the afternoon. Christmas Eve counts for a large amount of the annual church visits in the Church of Norway, and in addition to May, 17 (the Constitution Day) and Confirmation Sundays it's the only day the churches are full. My family never went to church for Christmas, and it's been at least 15 years since I attended a Christmas service.
In stead the day of Christmas Eve is spent watching TV - the traditional films Three Wishes for Cinderella and The Journey for the Christmas Star, followed by Disney's Christmas. Well, at least we've watched some of them, but we've seen them several times before (they have been shown on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember, so at least since ca 1980) so it's not really hard to jump in in the middle of the film :-)
The last gifts are wrapped and placed under the tree or in bags to bring for my parents and brother. We're going to celebrate Christmas with my little brother's family at Kvål this year, I am sure it will be nice and traditional - no experimental pork ribs for dinner, that's for sure!
I took a day off from work yesterday, realizing I wouldn't be in the mood for much work anyway (it's something about being able to take a day off combined with, what should we call it, not exactly an office full of eagerly working colleagues (they were 6 (of 17) at work yesterday)), and I am really glad I did that. I spent a nice and relaxing day at home, doing the last Christmas preparations over the day, cleaned some snow off the driveway and stairs, baked oat crackers (yum!) and did some shopping for "a few of the latest items" (which meant four full grocery bags - I am glad I took the car for the short trip!). In the evening we drove around to some friends with gifts, before heading home to decorate the tree, relax and let the mood settle. The tree looks great, by the way, will post pictures later.
So I wish my readers a Merry whatever you celebrate these days - this includes solstice - we don't really see much difference here yet anyway, Hanukka, Id and probably some other holidays I have missed over the last month. God Jul!
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