Siren Tides

Ah yes, I’ve been gone for quite a while. At least, from posting here. Things are just hectic and exhausting and…. it goes on. And my blog is now two years old! Fancy that. I don’t know where to start on where I’ve been or what’s been happening…

How about we try for a list of somewhat major goings on?

• I turned nineteen waaay back in January. I’m half way through the year now, though, so I’m almost twenty. Good lord.
• One of my cats had to be put down because she was having seizures.
• I have an iPod Touch, which while not especially news, is awesome! (even if apple are market controlling idiots.)
• The Government is actually giving me a semi-decent paycheck every fortnight for looking after Mum, the house, and Lily. (Mum had two minor strokes, for those out of the loop. So she needs help, I’m her carer. The government gives (somewhat crappy) pay to those who fulfill these roles.
• We have a new dog. Her name is Galinda. Yes. Like from Wicked/The Wizard of Oz. And she came named that way. A lot of animals around here are getting named after witches, recently.
• I hate American companies who won’t sell me the things I want. DO YOU HEAR ME, SONY? BARNES AND NOBLE I’M TALKING TO YOU TOO. Or that will sell to me, but charge way more than the exchange rate difference.
• My computer died, taking with it virtually two-three years of art, writing and photography. A week or so before I was getting a new back up drive (the old one went a bit dodgy). Fuck you too, fate. (side note – anyone who has any of my writing/photos/whatever. Sendies, please? I’d love you forever. :D)
• I started a new RPG, on my new domain name. The game is floundering a little, especially since the great computer crash of 2010, but I’m going to try to put more effort into it (and things like blogging, since I forget to tweet. Whoops.) It’s called Unearthly Tales and is a freeform (i.e. everyone can make up storylines, not just the staff), Multi-Genre, Multi-Game forum based rpg. If that sounds complicated, it’s really not. The basic gist is that you can have “small” (i.e. not needing a lot of players) or even private (games for only a few members/a game that is invite only to new members) games, within the most appropriate genre board, or you can play in a “large” game that has a main board as well as various sub-boards, sub-sub boards and etc. These games can even have their own theme set, as the software I use allows me to set a theme for any select board that’s different to the main theme. And it has the benefit of being part of a (hopefully someday) larger community.
• I really, really, really want an eInk Reader device. It’s like star trek in real life. So AWESOME. And yes, I did like ST way, way, WAY before the reboot. So ner. :pissed:  Silly youngin’s. I wanted a Nook, and while I could give one of my American friends the money to get me one and send it on… I think I’ll get something that’s more customizable and directly available to me to purchase myself. Even if not now (I need a few thousand for a new laptop. Sigh.) A.S.A.P. I’d really love a pocketbook 360, though. MobileRead is feeding my obsession.

..Uh there was probably more, but that’s the best I can think of for the moment. Anyone have any good cheap/free ebooks suggestions, by the way? And I’ll try to be around more!

Oh also, on Siren Tides the comments are disabled for the moment as I am getting spammed an absurd amount, and for some reason akismet isn’t just kicking them to the spam file but I promise I’m trying to work it out, and for those few who care, they will be back A.S.A.P.

Nevermind, apparently it got disabled somehow O_o

Oh and… anyone happen to have any good ideas on how to raise money for a new laptop? I know, saving, but at the rate food costs that’s going to be a century or two before I have my own laptop again (the old one really tanked) and thus can actually do things. I’m borrowing a computer for the moment, but obviously that can only go on for so long.

Which makes me happy to stupidly ridiculous levels. Beause there were a few years when we never spoke and I rang him about a month ago and we talked and now he’s rung back.

But I have a small problem. I want to make him something for Christmas (that I can mail, he lives in Queensland) and I don’t know what to make. And he says he’s colour blind, which sort of makes my normally colourful things sort of moot. Any ideas? He likes red.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we will remember them.

Lest We forget.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again,
They sit no more at familiar tables of home,
They have no lot in our labour of the daytime,
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires and hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the night.

As the stars shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are stary in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

As much as I love NaNoWriMo, in theory, I just. No.

It’s not that the story isn’t there to be written, it is. NaNoWriMo just ends up making me feel crap because I fall behind, inevitably, often because I have things to do. A mother and sister to look after. Christmas things to make, and honestly I’d like to go to bed this Christmas Eve rather than stay up till four am stabbing my fingers to finish gifts. It’s not as though I don’t write all year, because I do. I write fics and stories and poems and ridiculous little drabbles.

I just… ugh.

Stress = Steffi getting her second grey hair before she’s 19.

Four years ago today, when I was fourteen I started my domain. It was…different to what it is now and I had no idea what wordpress was… but I did it. Simple PHP and html and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to make what was something that could become so dear to me. Most of the first layouts where horses. I didn’t even realise at the time that I had opened the site on Frodo and Bilbos birthday.

I certainly didn’t realise back then that four years later I’d be sitting here on a subdomain of my site, on my blog, and writing about it. Briefly, but still. I’m working on ideas for a redesign – I was going to roll it out today but I didn’t have time to get to it.

Thanks guys. I hope to be here in four more years.