Tonight we finished the over three years long Victorian WoD campaign. Amy ran us through a well played ending, where we all got to contribute thanks to our own special skills, defeated the big bad, saved the universe (again) and even got to run through a quick year after montage. It still hasn't sunk in that I'm no longer going to hang out with Templar the Highlander, Vitess the Werewolf pilot, Heartford the mad Botanist and Mr Smith the Kitsune trickster. Amy's suggested we do eulogies at a game-wake some point in the future, I think that's a great idea. It also means digging through the memory to find eulog-worthy moments.

My-char-centric things that stick out for me include Smith getting possessed by every one of the blasted bane swords, Smith leaping into a gaping crevasse filled with the eyeball of a massive creature bane-sword first and then having to climb up its disintegrating skeleton to escape. Lots of stuff with Ayane, his old friend and desired girlfriend. She didn't get a good end of that deal. Never getting to meet my Sempai. The near endless pranking of Templar and Vitess and... well, nearly everyone. Smith's bishi-hairflick-of-doom. *sigh* So many cool things.

That's not even starting with Vitess' "leaps of faith". His getting accepted by the roof-top dwellers of London by leaping off a cathedral roof onto a bad guy. Templar calling out "Hey, squid-bitch" before shotgun blasting a sea serpant-woman-demon right in the face. Abigail getting possessed enough to nearly take out both Smith and Vitess, and still pulling all our butts out of the fire. It was a great team - even with some of the powerful intraparty conflicts such as Smith finding out Abigail was experimenting on Vitess to try and "Cure" lycanthropy.

Damnation, but it's been a fantastic game. Here's hoping after a rest game we can return to Amy's 'verse and see what their kids are up to.

Finally, thanks awesomely to James, Amanda, Scott and Amy. It's been a thrill.

THIS is how the Professor will hide his chocolates.

I really must get enough money to order some stuff from here. Mahogany chocolate boxes, it's what's missing in my life!

EDIT: Defeated by frames! The above link was meant to go to chocolate inna book.

This cracks me up. I need to find the mp3 somewhere.

Today I turn 100,000 in binary. Pretty cool.

Regruntling has made a bold return to Griffith.

Jos and I went to Baguette last night for dinner and cocktails. We were taken straight to our table by great waiters, had a cocktail each and a baguette while ordering, Jocelyn had a Cucumber Collins and something, and I had a Lusty, Busty Maiden. Yes, I was too embarrassed to ask for it outright, I had to ask for suggestions and then nod when that one was pointed out. The food was great. Jocelyn had a fish dish of some description that actually looked tasty, and I had rabbit. For the record, Bugs is very tasty. Dessert pulled Jocelyn's attention with a passionfruit souffle while I had a chocolate treat. Jocelyn amused the waiter by asking for the entree menu after dessert as she wanted something savory. Jos is strange.

Today I woke up early to truck out the ol' Professor outfit once again to join Amy, Scott, Nel and Martin in steam-punk finery for Supanova. Well I think we veer more towards steam-pulp, but anyway. Scott and Martin had to get in there early as this year they are judges - the last few years their costume has been excellent and award winning so they decided to no longer compete. Quite charitable of them, however be assured their costumes were still awesome. Those four were getting pulled over for pictures frequently wherever we were. Many of the puller-overers were asking what series or anime we were all a part of, goes to show the detail that they all put in to their costumes. James and Amanda were also there, Amanda in the best Carmen Sandiago costume you're likely to see. She too got pulled over a few times for snapshots. Jos went plain-clothed and was happy enough with that, thank you. For those interest, of course I have pictures.

Supanova this year was a bit underwhelming. The stalls were all very commercial, the artists alley/ independents area was tucked away and small, everything awesome got sold out very quickly so there was nothing much of interest for me to purchase. Jos bought a few DVDs from JB because they were handy, and Amy bought SingStar 80s for my PS2 so we could further embarrass ourselves in front of Connie. Jos and I went to join everyone in watching the Cosplay - the auditorium was so damn packed Amy and I decided to go back into the shopping area and Jocelyn had a nap. Seriously, organisers, last year we were already starting to spill out - organise it better next year! Amy has a good suggestion, do it thematically - Anime in one group and then The Rest.

All that aside, the guests this year were great. I didn't interact with any or get autographs, but just standing near the line and seeing Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Serenity/ Firefly), Teryl Rothery (Dr Frasier from SG1), James Kyson Lee (Ando from Heroes), Lou Ferrigno (Incredible Hulk series), Michael Winslow (Sgt. Larvell "Motor Mouth" Jones from Police Acadamy) - twas full of win. Jos noted that Jewel and Terryl looked stunning IRL (well, she didn't acronym) and every one of them was so genuine and nice to people getting autographs/ talking to them. It's things like that which make events succeed. Awesome and engaged guests. Just in case any of them find this page via Google, I salute you.

Thanks to Amanda, Scott and Nel for the encouragement to Professorialise. However, I definitely felt the sting of 'not-good-enough' about the outfit so some serious work will have to commence for next time.

My postings here have really died down since I got into Twitter. I feel less guilting posting crap when I'm limited to Twitter's word count compared to here. Ah well, I'm also not been doing much I've felt like writing up for a while, I suppose. Lessee, what's stuff-worthy?

The trip down to Coolloongatta for Jos and Amy's birthday was neat. Did some more in-the-sea swimming, bleached some pants in a highly chlorinated spa, saw Horton Hears A Who (great fun) and other such things. I could get used to extended weekends away like that, I'll have to save up some leave time to do that more often. Great company and a great time had.

Last Saturday was Dracula's for Amy's birthday party. Costumed up in my rather weak Professor von Explaino outfit and joined the group for some silliness. There are photos available to see how awesomely dressed everyone was. This weekend is Supanova, the Anime and Comic convention - the guys are trying to convince me to come along as the Prof while they all come along in their steampunk outfits. Unfortunately I'm getting a big case of the over-shadoweds, so I'm uncertain if I'll go along or not. Currently, I'm still leaning towards not.

Connie has settled in nicely now. She's a complete madcat most of the time, but recently when Jos and I have sat down to watch Heroes she's lap-catted which has been awesome. Something really comforting about a lap-cat. Except when she decides it's time to attack the hand that pets it.

I need to get more Fog Ring guns so I can take them apart to use their bits in devices downstairs. Took the guns into work today, the key-ring sized one appears dead but the larger one worked fine. I played chicken with the smoke detectors for a while, people found it amusing.

Our roleplaying game continues it slow wrap-up of loose plot-lines. We're in another pseudo-Smith arc (I like calling them Smith arcs as they're to do with a trio of magic swords that Smith has had a rather bad time with), and I've finally had a chance to use the Abigail Disabler to fantastic effect. Abigail, our mage, has become slighty... unhinged. Since the last time she tried to kill Smith and Vitess, my Kitsune has worked on a suitably Kitsune-minded Abigail counterer. When she tried it last session, Smith illusioned himself into an object-of-her-affection and then used Seduction(gift) to ensure it worked. Worked incredibly well, but unfortunately had to include her fiancee as well as he was getting violent also. Still, Smith's open minded. And disturbingly bishi. And terribly clueless about such things.

Talking with Jos, I've really decided I need to put a lot more effort into getting the lab more lab-esque before I have any more gathering days downstairs. I've been too damn lazy in not finishing the walls/ finding floor-rugs and doing anything else to actually get the lab downstairs looking anything other than a large collection of pseudo-fun stuff. That, and I need to pull the finger out and actually make a proper Professor von Explaino look. I've got the neat hat, the goggles, a decent bag (shouldn't have zips though), good boots and a nice vest with a possible overjacket. Now I need good pants, shirt, and all the trinkets/ accessories that make a man mad.

Call this a call to self-encouragement.

Today I managed to convince someone to wash my lunch stuff for me, in the interests of fun. I must use my powers for good and not for evil. Eventually.

Yesterday was mixed. I gave Jocelyn her Valentine's Day Pressies, and she liked them a lot. The day at work was mixed, as it always is when the PVC knows who you are and comes to visit because of something you did. Thankfully, that turned out to be (a) something that was very important that it get discussed at a high level and (b) the PVC came back down later and told me not to be too concerned and that the high ups thought it was funny.

Dinner, Jos and I finally made it to try Fasta Pasta at Annerley. I had expected something a bit nicer in the food department, but oh well. Turns out I just don't like the fancy, thicker pastas in general. And I'm sure that's useful information for all concerned. I did get to take the Homburg out, so I enjoyed that.

Today I'm at home, sick. Couldn't talk this morning, throat is very scratchy and sore, I may be reduced to playing Smith in RP tonight via semaphore. Then again, that's probably in Smith's character so that's not too bad. I do have access to my Work email, so I can check in through the day to ensure things are still going OK. New Team Leader jitters.

Connie the kitten-cat's going nuts today I think she's excited having someone still here after go-to-work time so she's making the most of it. My toes disapprove.

It's time for another Lab Building day, and soon. I'm canvassing for times that friends will be most able to come and organising in advance for a change. So far the targets are turning the boarded-up-door into the Lab Multi-Portal, working on the Chemistry area and painting a boatload of MDF for walls and the Cupboard. Any ideas for sciency knick-knacks are also encouraged.

The guy who does Nodwick's new comic on The Crispy Gamer, Backward Compatible, has an IT Ninja called 'Morris'.

...

*glee!*

After struggling getting Vista working last night and this morning, I reactivated my Steam account. Maybe I'll be able to use it this time, as my old PC was far, far, far too ancient to do much gaming save for cool Indie titles.

While struggling through the reactivation thing, I had a sad thought. Whenever I'm in a social situation, and someone I don't know is talking to me/ getting to know if we have things in common that sort of thing, are they actually trying to be friendly or social engineering all my password hints out of me? The easiest things to remember for hints are the things important to us, after all, and who doesn't like talking about those?

Short week back at work, much viva for that. I'm finding more links to my article around the internet, this makes me happy. Even if I was confusing a fellow Colin Morris when our name was popping up all over the place.

Good game on Friday night, and then Jocelyn stole me away to Kate and Alek's place for a party; as my Indian Doppleganger Colin was there. This was a Colin that Kate worked with, and claimed was my twin. We hit it off fairly well, we did seem to share veins of humour, and I drank apple schnapps so all was right in the world.

Saturday, woke up very late and painted the lab. Booya.

Sunday, visited Nan and my parents before coming back and putting on the second coat of paint. Now the lab walls are finally painted so we can start moving furniture to where they're supposed to be and work on fixing things to the walls and putting together science-y things. Should keep me in trouble for a while.

The new Mac is growing on me, slowly. I have the old HD in a cage and VMWare runs it tolerably, but there looks to be no games playing until I buy Vista and bootcamp it as the Mac refuses to boot from the drive. Very vexing, but no matter. The fact I can't use my upgrade versions of Windows to install to bootcamp is frustrating. Still, I'm sure everyone's done what they can.

Very tired now. On Kate's suggestion, via Jocelyn, I've downloaded BookSmart - a book making program that interfaces with iPhoto - to put together a photo book of Jocelyn and my trip overseas. If this works out, we'll scan in all our wedding photos and do the same there. I'd like to have a wedding book in the library. It'd be nice to just flick through.

Oh, and I finally found the poem about the Triantiwontigongalope that encouraged my Nan and I to play silly finger-puppter-creature-things. Yay!

Dear World,

Please keep your abject morons abed and off the road between the hours of 7 and 8 in the morning. The number of trucks that had no idea what indicators were, especially the one reversing up a fairly major road on the wrong side with an indicator on for no readily apparent reason, and the abundance of people who queue through traffic lights that already only let three cars through were beyond the pale today.

Love,

Colin.

According to We Feel Fine, Brisbane is one of the most loved (or loved-in) cities in the world. Awwwww.

Another weekend come and gone far too fast. So what did it encompass?

( When did I start becoming more verbose with my typitude? Darn you forum RPers who make me reconsider my writing structure! )

VoicePost 722K 3:38

(no transcription available)

For those playing at home, these are the questions:

1) What's your name?
2) How old are you?
3) Where are you from? Are you living there right now?
4) Is it cold where you are?
5) What's the time?
6) What are you wearing?
7) What was the last thing you listened to?
8) What was the last thing you ate?
9) What was the last thing you watched on tv?
10) What's your favorite tv show? Why?
11) Quick! Find a book, or something with text on it! Flip to a random page and read some of it! GO!
12) What was the last movie you saw? How was it?
13) Do YOU think you have an accent? Talk about that.

Thanks to broken_klaive for getting me in on the meme. Posted using the Gizmo LJ thing because it's cheaper than a phone call, the Melbourne number said something was wrong and hung up on me, and because the sound quality on my microphone is crap.

Anyone know what that metorite thing was a couple of hours ago? Right on dusk, giant glowing meteorite fell from the sky shedding other bits then disappeared behind the houses that block my horizon view. It was the largest meteorite I'd ever seen, really looked like it was going to hit the ground somewhere.

A thought struck me this morning. Two beings who you never see at the same place at the same time, yet are remarkably similar. On getting into work a quick Google search revealed an expert who confirmed my theory.

( World Spoilers )

Meet 'Bob'.