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| Sunday, May 18th, 2008 | | 2:11 pm |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) deborah_c, you should be able to see my angband filtered posts now - listed here. In the unlikely event that anyone else on my friends list wants to be able to read a (long!) series of posts about my winning angband game in 2003, and isn't already on the filter, comment here and I will add you. They're filtered for boringness, not secrecy! Current Mood:  nerdy | | Sunday, May 4th, 2008 | | 9:57 pm |
I became suddenly very ill today with an infection, and thanks to mobbsy was able to get to the out-of-hours medical centre in Chesterton for antibiotics and a prescription for more. No thanks to my body for picking the middle of a bank holiday weekend to make me Really Quite Ill. However, last night's party at D and J's was excellent and I had a very good time. Just hope I wasn't too drunkenly annoying at anyone. | | Thursday, April 24th, 2008 | | 10:43 pm |
W00t! Got 100% on latest physics assignment :-) Current Mood:  happy | | Friday, April 11th, 2008 | | 3:42 pm |
Our kittens have been especially naughty today. They rebooted my linux box and flicked one of the trip switches under the stairs, causing the lights to go out in the computer room. | | Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 | | 7:36 pm |
After all the tributes here and elsewhere to Gary Gygax recently, I'm amused (and pleased) to note that the latest patch to World of Warcraft (2.4.0) is dedicated to him. Cool - the Gary Gygax Memorial WoW Patch. | | Thursday, March 20th, 2008 | | 3:21 am |
| | Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 | | 3:50 am |
This is totally awesome and I keep listening to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBCJ68mC4c(a blind Canadian blues guitarist called Jeff Healey who I never heard of before, who died yesterday, and who plays his guitar in a really unusual way). | | Friday, February 8th, 2008 | | 12:55 am |
Film guessing meme from ghoti and beckyc Meme rules:
1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed. At sphyg's request I've taken the answers off again, but they're all in the comments if you want to check!
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions. Totally cheating, you dirty cheaters.1 I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. 2 You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else. 3 - Sometimes I think there's something wrong with me. - I've never met anyone born after 1965 who wasn't incomplete somehow. - Why is that? - Microwave ovens, I think. 4 - This landing is gonna get pretty interesting. - Define "interesting". - Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die? 5 We wanna go somewhere else. We're not threatened by people anymore. All our insecurities have evaporated. We're in the clouds now. We're wide open. We're spacemen orbiting the earth. The world looks beautiful from here, man. We're nympholeptics, desiring for the unobtainable. We risk sanity for moments of temporary enlightenment. So many ideas. So little memory. The last thought killed by anticipation of the next. We embrace an overwhelming feeling of love. We flow in unison. We're together. I wish this was real. We want a universal level of togetherness, where we're comfortable with everyone. We're in rhythm. Part of a movement. A movement to escape. We wave goodbye. Ultimately, we just want to be happy. Heh, yeah, hang on, what the fuck was I just talking about? 6 Dodge this. 7 The enemy can not press a button... if you have disabled his hand. Medic! 8 I'm sorry, the wind caught it... 9 You met me at a very strange time in my life. 10 There's a way out of this game. Kill yourselves together, here, now. If you can't do that, then don't trust anyone... just run. 11 What more do you want of us? We've come all this way, no thanks to you. We did it on our own, no help from you. [moves closer to steam valve] We didn't ask you to fight for us but damn it, don't fight against us! Leave us alone! How many more sacrifices? How much more blood? [jumps to steam valve. Steam burns his hands as he hangs there] How many more lives? [Starts turning valve] Belle wasn't enough. Acres wasn't. Now this girl! You want another life? Then take me! [Steam stops. Turns on valve to face survivors] You can make it. Keep going. Rogo! Get them through. [falls into flaming water below] 12 I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut. 13 Oh, man, I will never forgive your ass for this shit. This is some fucked-up repugnant shit. 14 Relinquishing junk. Stage one, preparation. For this you will need one room which you will not leave. Soothing music. Tomato soup, ten tins of. Mushroom soup, eight tins of, for consumption cold. Ice cream, vanilla, one large tub of. Magnesia, milk of, one bottle. Paracetamol, mouthwash, vitamins. Mineral water, Lucozade, pornography. One mattress. One bucket for urine, one for feces and one for vomitus. One television and one bottle of Valium, which I've already procured from my mother, who is, in her own domestic and socially acceptable way also a drug addict. And now I'm ready. All I need is one final hit to soothe the pain while the Valium takes effect. 15 - It's the same things your whole life. "Clean up your room.", "Stand up straight.", "Pick up your feet.", "Take it like a man.", "Be nice to your sister.", "Don't mix beer and wine, ever.". Oh yeah, "Don't drive on the railroad track." - Eh, Phil. That's one I happen to agree with. Update: Congratulations people, you got all of them :-) | | Friday, January 18th, 2008 | | 4:21 pm |
| | Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 | | 4:24 pm |
Review of 2007 I always get round to doing these a few days late (if I get round to them at all). It would seem wrong, or "tempting fate" in my mother's terms, to write a review of the year before New Year's Day, though - I might die suddenly on December 31st, or something else dramatic might suddenly happen right before the year ends. As it happens, something dramatic did happen to me on New Year's Eve :-) January The year began very badly: I was very depressed and confused about my life; my aunt had just died unexpectedly, leaving me with five living blood relations, and I went up to Aberdeen for the funeral with my parents, seeing my gran and cousin for the first time in more than a decade. I also went to see some psychiatrists at Addenbrookes, who asked me lots of personal questions in the presence of a grinning student observer, and wrote to my GP certifying me sane but gender dysphoric. My GP told me to request some counselling through the practice, and put me on anti-depressants (initially citalopram, later prozac). February Was depressed and confused, but the ADs helped a bit. Working for and studying with OU. No word from counselling service. March Was a bit depressed and still confused. Argued with G. April Was less depressed but utterly unable to get anything useful done while on medication. Still very confused. Still no word from counselling service. May Broke off one of my OU teaching contracts because I couldn't cope. Still confused. G got a new job at last, which was good. At end of the month, made a significant post. June Still troubled and confused. Went for a very long walk in the middle of the night to try to sort my head out (or maybe to try to run away from my life, can't really remember motivation now). Cambridge's new Revolution vodka bar opened, and I went to the launch with G, R and L, and had a great time. Also went to an all-night showing of the Alien trilogy (I know there's Alien Resurrection, but I hate it) at the Arts Cinema. I was basically nocturnal by this point in the year anyway. Still no word from counselling service. July Ran out of house again in the middle of the night, intending to escape my life, but got cold and came back after a while. Still evidently confused and unhappy. Unable to cope with OU teaching at all, so broke off other contract. Went to Durham for my physics residential course and had a great time away from my life. August Finally was contacted by counselling service and began seeing a nice counsellor woman. But after the initial meeting to discuss our plan of action (to help me work out my gender issues), I woke up one day and realised the counselling wasn't necessary now. My head had sorted itself out at last and I wasn't confused any more. I knew what I needed to do to sort my life out without having to run off into the countryside and live in a hedge. I needed to transition. I also realised I didn't want to teach for the OU any more, because I was sick of it. I decided to just be a student again for a couple of years, and live off savings. All this sudden realisation made me really happy (which has basically persisted since then) and I came off my ADs straight away. September My sudden burst of cheerfulness and confidence led me to do various inappropriate things with inappropriate people around this time, unfortunately. G was unsurprisingly unhappy about this, and about my new determination to transition asap. I came out to everyone on my friends list who didn't know already, to my parents, to G's parents, and set up a transition filter here on lj (comment here if you missed this and would like to be on the filter). Also, my best friend Adam came back to Cambridge for a few months, and we had a great time at the Trinity reunion dinner, also with DJSD. October G and I broke up this month, for various reasons. We also agreed to move house, and remain housemates. We found an excellent new house to move to. I got new glasses. November Angst between me and G. Finished off counselling on 15th, then went to London to see a gender specialist at a private clinic on the 16th - the day before my birthday. That went well, and I was sent back to my GP to get blood tests done prior to prescribing hormone treatment. At the end of the month we moved house, with much welcome assistance from many lovely people. We acquired two new rescued kittens, in addition to our existing cat Stella - called Gravel and Tarmac. December Starting seeing J. Much house-sorting was done, though various things still need doing (only managed to arrange getting deposit back on the old place today!). Took kittens for various vaccinations. Got a lift from someone who was arrested for being over the limit... Got blood test results back, and was rather surprised to find my cholesterol was high (I'm vegetarian, and scarcely overweight). This didn't stop my specialist prescribing hormones for me, though, since the other results were normal (natural testosterone at top of normal range, though :-) and I took the prescription to my GP on New Year's Eve. To my surprise he gave me my first shot there and then! Saw the New Year in at new Relativity. Happy 2008! | | Saturday, December 8th, 2007 | | 2:10 am |
Well, that's another first for this year, I guess. Just got a lift back home (with G) from someone who got stopped and breathalysed on the way. And arrested and taken off by the police. Happily we were nearly home anyway so it wasn't a big problem. Incidentally she was only just over the limit apparently.
I've been in cars on many occasions which got stopped for speeding (mostly driven by my dad when I was a kid) but this was the first time for drink offenses... | | Monday, November 19th, 2007 | | 3:50 am |
Birthday I am 33 now - rah! G and I went to Charlie Chan's and shared the vegetarian set menu for two, then we went to deborah_c and feanelwa's party, which was excellent. Chatted much; drank much; petted a lovely stripy kitten from next door; totally failed to persuade people to play I Have Never... I want to thank the many lovely people who got me this as a present ( razornet, mobbsy, robinbloke, mansunite, luthbeez, atreic, emperor, feanelwa, karohemd and fellcat). It looks fantastic. I'm going to watch the entire set in universe-chronological order, as far as possible. So, starting with In the Beginning. Current Mood:  cheerful | | Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 | | 9:09 pm |
| | Friday, November 9th, 2007 | | 8:49 pm |
Goodness me, Any Questions on R4 just now was very exciting! (Particularly the very last question, on ID cards.) I do suggest listening again if you didn't catch it. | | Monday, October 22nd, 2007 | | 7:22 pm |
New glasses! (In icon.) | | 11:36 am |
Today's APOD feed has the caption, "How will our universe end?" To which the obvious answer is, in a sepulchral tone, "In fire." (Though that's not exactly what they suggest.)
Well, although my life has involved a certain amount of emotional combustion recently, right now I could do with a bit more literal warmth. Our boiler packed up over the weekend (I know, we're not the only people this has happened to lately) and the flat is freezing and lacking hot water. Also, our upstairs neighbours have left an old bed in our garden; the cistern is still leaking and has wrecked the bathroom wall; there is mould and damp damage in pretty much every room... I am sick of this place. Roll on the new place (hopefully end of the month). | | Monday, October 15th, 2007 | | 6:57 am |
OK so I'm really wasted now. It doesn't matter. It's over. G and I are splitting up, in any meaningful sense. We'll still live together because we're still good friends, but that's all. Some of it is my fault, and some of it is his fault, and if you think you know the whole of it you actually don't. It's really over because we've just drunk the bottle of nice wine that surje gave us at our wedding, and we wouldn't have drunk that otherwise. Current Mood: none | | Friday, October 12th, 2007 | | 4:21 pm |
Because I haven't done this one for a while 30 years ago I was a toddler living in Bristol while my dad finished off his PhD. My memories from this time are limited to learning to walk (across a very dark room, towards my dad's outstretched arms) and my mother teaching me to read and write. I remember her berating me for writing lower-case joined-up Os the wrong way. 25 years ago I was a child living in a village called Towersey (which has now become mildly well-known for its folk festival - a much smaller event when I was there, consisting of a tent, a cake competition, and a bit of morris and maypole dancing!). I became much more thoughtful and self-aware around this time and decided there was No God (after some experimental prayer). School was relentlessly horrible and I had no friends and lots of enemies. We lived in a bungalow meant for retired people, with a cows' field behind it, and had lots of cats. 20 years ago my parents had moved us to another small village about 2 miles away from the previous one, into a house with stairs (quite a shock at first). I had been moved to a different but equally horrible school and still had no friends and lots of enemies. We had a BBC model B computer which I played games on a fair bit, and wrote small programs involving a lot of flashing cyan/pink text :-) I had become vegetarian shortly before this time. I was entering my teens and was about to become obsessed with gay literature, film, TV etc., and to launch a personal campaign to eliminate my parents' homophobia. 15 years ago I had just come up to Trinity, Cambridge to study ASNaC. Having escaped school, I made many friends, some of whom I'm still close to today (notably Adam, who lived opposite me in college). I began roleplaying, going out to bops and clubs and pubs and parties, and experimenting sexually :-) I had a fantastic time. 10 years ago I was half-way through my PhD in historical linguistics (having jumped department after my MPhil). I was sharing a set of rooms in college with Adam, and going out with IWJ, who was living at Midhurst Close at the time with damerell and Quartz, IIRC. A particular memory from around that time is of large numbers of our social group descending on Greenend on Sundays to watch Babylon 5. I'd begun going to SF conventions around that time too. 5 years ago...oh, I seem to have a livejournal entry from approximately then to remind me anyway. I was temporarily unemployed, having just finished a research fellowship at Trinity. I had got engaged to G, and we had moved into a flat on Mill Road (my first non-college accommodation since leaving home!). G was working at the Benefits Office in Cambridge. We spent a lot of time getting drunk and playing computer games. Now I'm changing pretty much everything in my life: my job, my sex, my academic direction. G and I have also agreed to move to a bigger place, and we've found somewhere that looks just fantastic, and that we can just about afford (and that accepts cats. Plural :-) I feel very upbeat now. It's been a strange journey getting here, but an interesting one. | | Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 | | 7:36 pm |
Any Douglas Adams fans out there should be aware that Radio 4 are currently dramatising Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on Wednesday evenings. I caught the first episode earlier and thought it was pretty good (if you missed it you can listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/dirkgently). Includes some very familiar Latin grace from the High Table scene (well, familiar if you've eaten at certain Cambridge colleges). | | Monday, October 1st, 2007 | | 4:22 pm |
...through this new frame of mind Just got back from a very thorough - but free - eye test at the Optometry Clinic at ARU. I was the first ever patient of a student optician - she said she would always remember me. There was also a supervisor there who checked everything after she'd done it and asked her lots of questions to check her understanding. I felt pleased that my eyes were so interesting - a small compensation for severe myopia! They commented that my pupils were unusually large - I couldn't help wondering whether this had been influenced by proximity to the student, who was very much my type... Anyway, it seems my prescription hasn't changed much, but I think I'll get some new glasses online anyway - I feel like a change of frame. Current Mood:  chipper |
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