I HAVE PEPERNOTEN!

It's highly likely that, by the end of the day, I will no longer have pepernoten.

OM NOM NOM.

NETSUITE MUST DIE.

That is all. I now return you to your regularly scheduled silence.

Last night, I got to the bus stop at 6.10pm for a bus that was due at 6.18pm.

It finally showed up at 7.30pm. (Just after sessifet25 had agreed to run me home if it didn't show up before she finished her shift.)

Today, I'm in a lot of pain. Strangely enough, an hour and twenty minutes in the cold will do that to you. Really doesn't help that I work in a pretty unpleasant area.

Work is going fancy dress on October 30th. I have absolutely zero money to spend on a costume (the dentist stole my money) so I'm trying to work out what I've got from among my existing clothes that I could wear.

I think the most likely is probably my Victorian-style dress, although it needs a fair amount of work doing on it. I also need to whip up a couple of petticoats for it, because the frame of the crinoline shows through too much at the moment.

One of our vendors has brought a giant bag of Chinese junk food. I'm rather fond of the nutty boiled sweets but the Brown Rice Roll (Chocolate) has an odd after-taste. I'm being very English and refusing to touch the dried squid.

I have salty liquorice, courtesy of sessifet25! To celebrate this, I offered some to my coworkers, because I'm just that nice.

My coworkers didn't think it was nice of me to give them salty liquorice. Silly coworkers.

Just for that, they aren't having any of my stroopwafel.

Anybody who has a mobile number for me - I NO LONGER HAVE A MOBILE.

If I've given you the number in the past year or so, it's even more important that you don't try to contact me on it, because it's a work phone that I've had to hand back!

May 1, Mark Thomas, Parr Hall, £15.

Who wants to come?

the_hatstand, you might be interested in this, specifically the bit starting at 0:28:40.

Email went round last week saying, "On Jan 2, the canteen will be serving all-day breakfast and lunch but will close at 2pm."

I just went down for lunch at 12.30. The canteen was closed.

THAT IS NOT 2PM. NOW I HAVE TO GO AND HAVE A SANDWICH INSTEAD. BASTARDS.

ETA: THE SANDWICH SHOP IS SHUT. SO IS THE CHIPPIE. DAMMIT, YOU BASTARDS, TODAY IS NOT A BANK HOLIDAY.

So I'm fucking off home when the next bus comes. If that's running, of course.

Today, sessifet25 very kindly brought me a bag of shiny things and I was finally able to get my desk looking suitably Christmassy. Hurrah! I have a selection of tinsel and snowflakes and baubles and stars and beads in red and silver and it all looks GLORIOUS.

Christmas can now begin.

The Parr Hall's on fire!

Only a little bit on fire - only one fire engine and the firefighters don't look especially excited - but still on fire!

Hopefully it'll result in the place being redecorated with a colour scheme that isn't teal and orange.

The trouble with making up random Oysterband slash stuff with which to horrify Emma is that it's now stuck in my head.

Convention report: People are fantastic. Specially Pol, who drove me there and back and bought me chocolate and put up with me being a grumpy bitch.

I did, alas, spend more than half of my time asleep and went to a grand total of five programme events (opening ceremony; Terry's bedtime stories; Toast & Jam Unplugged; hedgehog party; Toast & Jam). But I spent a vast amount of time in the bar, chatting happily with people, so it was all good.

I did enough Watch duty to feel useful but not so much that I got bored. (I like Watch duty.)

There were people I was sad not to see (Peter and Julie, Supermouse, Gid'n'Suzi, Aquarion) and people I was very happy to see (too many to remember but special mention to Ali, Menno, Vicky, Ben, Hunter, Random, Ruthi, Cookie and eighty-five trillion others.)

And I swear, by the time the next Con rolls around, I will have actually completed one or two of my in-progress sewing projects. Or at least got them to the point where I can wear them.

DWCon 2008 photos.

Yes, two great tastes that taste great together.

Bring your spare books*** to Discworld Con and they will be lovingly rehomed in an environment where books are treated with respect and affection.

Alternatively, bring no books to Discworld Con and head home with an entirely new library!

The latter is, of course, dependent on people doing the former. The ideal situation would be for people to bring shedloads of books and leave with shedloads of entirely-new-to-them books!

So! Bring books! Lots and lots and lots of books! Release them into the wild!**** Make people happy!


* Bookcrossing: n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise. - Oxford English Dictionary. See bookcrossing.com for more details.

** A world that's carried through space on the backs of four elephants who, in turn, stand on the back of Great A'tuin the Star Turt- Ah, screw it. If you don't know Discworld, you're unlikely to be at the Con.

*** Yes, I know this is a difficult concept for most of you. Books you accidentally bought two of. Books you bought and didn't especially enjoy. Books that no longer fit your interests. Books that live in the attic because you've filled your entire house with bookshelves and they still won't fit on the shelves. Books you got as birthday presents from well-meaning aunts. Books that spontaneously generated under your bed.

**** 'The wild' in this case being the BookCrossing table.

Wendy!

The Fug Blog I was telling you about last night.

So, perhaps I'm not going to the Middle East.

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call to say that BMI had changed the time of my flight home. Which was very RARGH-inducing but there wasn't much I could do about it. I asked the travel agent to confirm that my current e-ticket number would be fine for the time-changed flight.

"Oh, it's never been an e-ticket," she said. "We've been waiting for you to come in and pick up your hard tickets."

*headdesk*

Anyway, she said she'd check whether I needed new hard tickets and call back to let me know. I didn't hear anything so, at the weekend, I went into the travel agent to see what they had to say.

They hadn't checked.

They couldn't check there and then because the company they needed to speak to didn't open at the weekend.

They'd call and let me know.

They didn't.

I went in last weekend and was told that there were no worries, my existing hard tickets would be fine. I asked about the possibility of getting on an earlier shuttle from Heathrow to Manchester, to save hanging around at Heathrow for eight hours. They said they'd call and let me know.

They didn't.

I went in today and spoken to a woman who didn't give the impression of having been hit very hard on the head with a sledgehammer. This was novel and quite encouraging.

She promptly rang another company and informed me that, yes, I did need new hard tickets and they'd be available for me to pick up from Wednesday.

I pointed out that I fly out on Saturday at 7.30 am and work (allegedly) 9-5 during the week and they, unlike every other shop in the mall, don't do late night opening. So there was no way I could get the tickets. Post them special delivery to my home? she suggested. Except there would be nobody in to sign for them because, oh yes, I'd be at work. Could they post them special delivery to my work? I asked. No, it has to be to the billing address for my card. Could somebody else come in and pick them up? she asked. No, I said, because all my friends work.

I've left it that they're going to see if they can get an e-ticket, rather than a hard ticket. If they can't, I'm going to have to take a half-day's holiday. And considering I wound up working 84 hours last week, I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to manage that.

This time next week, I'll be on my way to Syria.

*flails madly*

How did it get so close? Last time I looked, I was a month away from going! This is my last weekend! To do stuff!

*panics*

People at the pub on Tuesday, this is the vid I was talking about.