Thursday, September 24, 2015

I Did Find A Couple Of Hats For My Eleventh Doctor, So That Was Cool.

Aaargh. I am supposed to be spending today cleaning, in anticipation of having houseguests. What have I been doing instead? Frittering away the whole damned day playing this stupid Doctor Who-themed game on my phone. And it really is pretty stupid. I mean, it looks very nice. But the gameplay consists of nothing but endlessly attacking things by, essentially, playing Bejeweled. Which a) makes no sense, and b) hardly seems appropriate for Doctor Who. Also, I suck at Bejeweled. And yet, I cannot stop playing. I am beginning to suspect it is part of some evil plot. Possibly by the Cybermen. Send help.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

To Quote The Fourth Doctor: Sleep Is For Tortoises.

In the space between two twelve-hour night shifts, I have traded an adequate amount of sleep for the opportunity to watch the season premiere of Doctor Who. I regret nothing! I probably will, late tonight, but for now, I regret nothing. Except for how long I have to wait for part 2.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Woo Who!

We won the Doctor Who trivia quiz!!!! Rather to our surprise, really. I mean, I was optimistic going in, and we started out reasonably strong, but there were a disturbing number of questions we missed due to misinterpreting the question, or picking the wrong person's guess, or, most annoyingly, writing down the correct answer and then erasing it and putting down something else instead. (Hey, Telos is almost Mondas, right?) And then there was that one question that was just plain wrong. Seriously, Prisoner Zero is an individual (well, sort of), not a species. Doggone it.

So, we were falling behind quite a lot in the middle, but managed to pull a turn-around in the end. I think it helped, oddly, that the last round turned out to be all about behind-the-scenes and non-canon stuff. We weren't expecting that, but probably neither was anybody else, and some of us happened to have the right kind of random knowledge there. So we ended up tied for first! Which led to a five-question sudden death round... Which we tied again! Apparently both teams got the same question wrong. (Stupid Torchwood.) The tie-breaking tie-breaker was then a ridiculous arithmetic question. Something like: take the total screen time of the 9th, 10th and 11th doctors according to io9, multiply by the number of years Rose traveled into the future in "The End of the World," and divide by the number of letters in "Raxacoricofallapatorius." Though I think there were more terms than that; it's all become something of a blur now. Interestingly enough, both team's answers were pretty close to each other but we were closest to the actual answer. Thus, VICTORY! (Not of the Daleks).

Ha! Take that everybody who ever shook their head over me remembering "useless" things. MY KNOWLEDGE OF DOCTOR WHO IS WORTH ACTUAL MONEY! I feel as if my whole life has been vindicated. Heh.

Sunday, September 06, 2015

September Currentlies

Here it is, September, and suddenly it's obvious that we're on the descending arc of the year. It's still summer here, no question, but there's something in the air that makes you think the world is finally remembering the idea of winter.

But enough waxing poetic about the weather. Here's the usual meme thingy.

Current clothes: Red sweatpants. Black t-shirt from LibraryThing ("LibraryThing.com: What's on your bookshelf?"), because LibraryThing is freaking awesome. Black socks. Brown boots.

Current mood: OK. A teensy bit tired or groggy, as I've just switched off night shifts, and my circadian rhythms are currently less traditionally rhythmic and more like one of those weird avant-garde modern compositions.

Current music: In addition to the usual whatever-random-stuff-my-iPod-decides-to-give-me, I've also been listening to a lot of actual albums lately, while doing various things around the house. Most recently Warren Zevon's My Ride's Here and Chameleon Circuit by Chameleon Circuit. That second one being a manifestation of my excited anticipation for the new season of Doctor Who.

Current annoyance: Mosquitos. I have a mosquito bite on my hand. On the palm. How the hell does that even happen?

Current thing: Yeah, I have definitely been in a state of Who-fannish excitement lately. Not only am I very much looking forward to the season premiere, but I'm also going to be participating in this nationwide Doctor Who trivia quiz. We did really well on the Star Trek one, so, hey, maybe we can take home the prize this time!

Current desktop picture: Still this. I have been vaguely thinking about changing it again, but we'll see whether I ever actually do it.

Current book: Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, which is an omnibus compilation of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. Very weird and interesting, but it's kind of slow-going. I'm thinking I really shouldn't have started it while I was on nights; it's not a good book for tired brains.

Current song in head: All kinds of odd stuff has been drifting in and out, but it's pretty quiet now. I think most recently was "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, which I am now going to try not to think about too much, lest it come back, ridiculously sticky tune that it is.

Current refreshment: Nothing, but I'm thinking of going out for a bacon cheeseburger soon.

Current DVD in player: Disk one of season 3 of The Legend of Korra. It's not as good as Avatar: The Last Airbender -- which sets an extremely high bar -- but I am enjoying it. And season 3, so far, actually does feel like it has more of the sensibility of the original show, in ways that I can't quite pin down yet.

Current worry: I've got the crack where water was coming into my house all sealed up, in such a way that I really can't see how there could be more problems with it, but I nevertheless can't shake the worry that my bedroom will somehow get wet again the next time we have a good-sized rainstorm. And then I won't know what to do.

Current thought: I could have gone with a different "current thing," which is that I am slowly but surely making improvements to my material environment by replacing old, worn-out, or non-existent furniture and appliances. I just bought a new headboard for my bed, because the old one finally fell apart completely. I'm much happier with this one, in part because it actually bolts to my bedframe -- the old one was the wrong size -- and thus does not immediately fall over whenever you move the mattress away. (This was, needless to say, one of the reasons why the old one was in bad shape.)