And Then There Were Three

In the interest of organisation and simplicity I'm creating two complementary blogs to keep this one company in the cold dark waste of the internets.

Additional Blog #1

I tried formatting my Reading List as a page attached to this blog but after a certain amount of books, the page refused to show any more and either deleted entries from earlier in the piece or didn't show later additions.

After temporarily conceding defeat (i.e. ignoring it for a while), I've finally created a separate blog to list all the books I've read and what I thought about them.

It's as much a personal record as a way to share these books with other people.

I'm afraid my descriptions and reviews tend to run to superlatives and generalisations but I can promise you 'no spoilers' because I have a soul and some common decency.

So here I give you Ricochet's Reading List which I will be bringing up to date shortly.


Additional Blog #2

As one of my freshly made New Year's Resolutions, I vowed to make one comic for every day of this year.

As I've found public accountability a great personal motivator, I've decided to post them all online.

That and the fact that whilst art for art's sake is an excellent and worthwhile pursuit, it really is much more fun when you share it around.

So in order to avoid cluttering up my normal blog space with comics, or allowing myself the cheat of pretending that they pass as normal blog posts instead of writing normal blog posts, I hereby declare this corner of the internet Pinball Panels.

Once I've spent some quality time with my scanner and had a fiddle about with the template settings and whatnot, I hope they will be made welcome and that the elder sister of the three blogs won't feel jealous of the twins and start bullying them.

They're just little, Pinball Mind, they don't know any better!
And they're both kind of one trick ponies so you've really nothing to be worried about.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Two things:

1. Being Earnest is VERY important.
2. I am now in love with Oscar Wilde.

I know I'm not the first heterosexual woman to make this declaration of a long dead gay male writer but oh my goodness!

The wit!

The words!

The waistcoats! Oh, the waistcoats!

We're living in a fascist dictatorship now, right?

That's what all the papers and crazy national and international 1984-type laws being introduced seem to be indicating.

If this is the case, who is in charge?

I need to talk to them about making it mandatory for all men - ALL MEN - to wear three piece suits at all times.

Hot.
Damn.

And Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell?
Perfect.
Just perfect.

I am, of course, hopelessly in love with the completely useless Algie.

Partly because of the character, partly because of Patrick Brammall and A LOT because he seemed to be channelling Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster for his performance.

I mean look at him!

Just look at him!

He's a complete waster and you'd either have to restrict him to an allowance or prepare yourself for the poor house but I just want to tip him onto a picnic blanket and hand-feed him dainties by a river*.

The whole cast was magnificent and the set was inspired.

I haven't been to the theatre in a while and almost missed out because of the sheer speed at which the original shows sold out, but luckily they extended the season and I pounced.

I am so glad I did because it was just such a wonderful production that I could have watched over and over again.




*This may seem to support the 'all ladies like bastards' school of thought but in my experience, most of them only like fictional bastards. In real life Algie would either be under the thumb or out on his ear. Fictional Algie is like a puppy you can't get cross at for widdling on the rug.

Once More Unto The Breach

After a year off from resolutions, which was spent improving my life in other ways in any case, I'm ready to commit myself to a bit of resolving once more.

I am resolution ready.

• Resolution the First: Punctuality
  My problem isn't technically punctuality. It's optimism.
  If I know it takes 10 minutes to drive somewhere, I'll leave 10 minutes before I need to get there.
  And then if I miss a form of public transport, hit some bad traffic or can't find a park or am unfamiliar with the area, I'm late.
  I've been reigning this particular personal failing in quite strongly in the last few years but I'm making a special project of it this year.
  If I leave half an hour before I need to leave to get somewhere, the worst thing that happens is that I get there half an hour earlier than I need to and I need to entertain myself for a while which is not a problem.
  The best thing is that if things go completely bonkers wrong I'll probably still have a chance at getting there on time or a lot closer to on time than if I keep assuming the best case scenario for every trip.
  This is a bit more general than the resolutions I usually put myself down for but considering how much of a person's life can be affected by how well they organise themselves, I'm making it a priority.
  
  
• Resolution the Second: Ease Up On Social Media/The Internets
  Recently I've been spending what I consider an excessive amount of time dicking around on the internet.
  Some general surfing but a lot of checking in on my various social networking type sites or favourite websites to see if anything has happened. Usually not a lot has and what has could have been checked later. I'm spending time on this that I could be spending on actually achieving things.
  I'm not sure yet whether I'm going to assign myself a specific amount of time or time of the day for internet access or how I'm going to approach this but I'm definitely cutting right down.
  I slipped off the 'stop taking your laptop to work' wagon at the start of this year for a few reasons but I'm climbing back onto it.
  And I'm not going to flick the darn thing back on the moment I get back home either.
  I'm treating it as an extension of my efforts not to have unnecessary noise going on about me all the time, except in this case it's visual noise.
  Putting off doing things of my own or doing them really slowly because I'm checking up on what everybody else is doing is silly and beginning to cheese me off which means my enjoyment of the art/writing/interactions I like is being lessened.
  No more of that.
  
  
• Resolution the Third: Draw One Comic For Every Day
  I keep intending to start drawing more little comics but without a solid plan I don't really sit down to do so.
  This year I'm going to try do a comic for every day. Probably not ON every day because there are plenty of things that might get in the way of that.
  But yes, for every day.
  365 comics.
  My current comic skills are a bit basic but hopefully a year of practise will help me improve and work out what sort of style I'd like to develop.
  I'd love to be able to draw like Lucy Knisley but considering all the art school she attended and all the practise she's had or all the not-sucking-at-making-herself-draw that she's in possession of, that ambition will probably be a long time coming.
  Just putting pencil to paper every day or every couple of days will be a good start.
  And once I've got myself organised I'll start posting them here or somewhere linked to here as a record.
  As my one solid specific-thing-that-you-do-a-specific-number-of-times resolution for this year I expect to focus most of my usual 'argh, am I accomplishing things!?' resolution angst on this - my brain's way of messing me about and keeping things interesting instead of doing anything useful like helping - but on the upside that means I can draw angsty comics about drawing comics and everybody loves that, right?
  Right?

Catch Up

Alrighty, during generalised fretting and getting distracted I got halfway through writing this handful of posts and I've only just now got my arse into gear to finish and post them.

And I figured seeing as I bothered to finish them I should bother to point them out.

So, yeah, I wrote some things.

26 January - Iron Maiden!

05 March - Soundwave!

13 March - Take No Prisoners, Show No Mercy, Leave No Witnesses

19 March - Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash Crash

2 April - One Or The Other Or The Other Or The Other

10 April - Where To? Where From?

16 April - That's SIR Terry Pratchett, I'll Have You Know

24 April - The Enormity Of Everything

Secret Family Recipes!

This Tuesday I drove to my aunt's house where she, my cousin and I started assembling one of our family's traditional Christmas dishes.

It's one of those 'nobody ever writes anything down' sort of sets of recipes where you just have to keep turning up year after year to help until you start to remember how it's done.

You know how it's supposed to taste because you've been eating it every year for your entire life but it takes a while to work out how to get it right.

It probably would be easier to write everything down but where would be the fun in that?

All the rolling, blending, chopping, tying, stirring, tasting and seasoning is fun all by itself.

All the yelling at each other over the sounds of the kitchen, asking for consensus, making everybody else taste things and give advice and take turns at things is fun too.

This year only a few of us could make it for one reason or the other but it's different every year.

There's no set time, there's no set procedure.

Every year is different but every year is the same.

The recipes are secret not because it's that different from what anybody else can do.

There are probably plenty of similar recipes in cookbooks and being handed around by other families, amongst themselves and out to friends.

It's secret because then it's just something we do together.

It's secret because then it's special.

It's slightly different and it's all ours and it's just a hell of a day and damn if it isn't delicious every single year.

Health Update

It's been a bit over a year since my body betrayed me with all of my various composite bits staging seemingly independent but actually interconnected rebellions, and since then we seem to have arrived at a truce.

As a result of my immune system and other various bits agreeing to end the strike combined with the healthy eating habits and sheer amount of walking I've incorporated into my life, I feel pretty normal for the most part and consider myself to be exceptionally lucky.

Recently, I've had another round of blood tests and the news is decent.

Various scores that were up and shouldn't have been are continuing to head downwards in an orderly fashion, and are almost where they should be, and the most important score has taken a step in the right direction so I'm no longer right on the borderline where relapsing into an inflammatory condition seemed like a question of which way the wind was blowing.

Of course, the most important score is the one my doctor has warned me may never completely recover. She described it as being like a marker that shows something has happened to me, much like an X-ray will show a healed fracture.
As a result, barring some Wolverine-esque recovery it looks like I'm a teetotaller and decaf drinker.

I'd be more upset about that if I hadn't decided right from the start to treat the situation as if it were permanent.
That way if I was wrong, rejoicing!
And if I was right, well then, I'd be used to it.

I don't have to miss coffee and tea too much as I've found some tasty decaf versions and have a whole range of hippy-dippy herbal teas available to me.

I know carob in no way replaces chocolate but I've always had a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome for carob thanks to my primary school canteen and I've recently discovered that you can get caffeine-free chocolate, no idea what it tastes like yet but we'll see.

So the big'un is alcohol. Alcohol-removed wine smells like wine but mostly tastes like grape juice so it's not the replacement that decaf coffee/tea is. I can cook with alcohol as when you cook things properly the alcohol evaporates off leaving you with tasty foods.
Of course, considering I didn't start drinking until I was 19, I was late to the game and leaving it just makes it feel like a phase I was going through :-P

I do miss alcohol and chocolate but thanks to my scare I have absolutely NO TEMPTATION to have any because if I got sick again I'd probably get RSI kicking myself at which point I would hire other people to kick me. Forever.

A lucky feature of my weird memory and my adaptive personality is that it's been a year since my last drink and I just about can't remember what being drunk/tipsy feels like. I have this vague impression but it just doesn't seem to actually have anything to do with me. Booze still smells delicious but as far as taste* and effect go it's almost like thinking about something that I've read about but never experienced.
Thanks, weirdo brain! That's actually a huge help!

I'm going to keep taking care of myself and appreciate every day that I feel good because worrying about what might happen later down the track is just a waste of what I have now and I am certainly not about to take that for granted.

All in all, things are going well, so hooray for that!



*As long as I don't actually stick my nose in a glass or bottle of something and take a big sniff at which point my tastebuds start excitedly explaining how they remember it tasting and getting nostalgic.

Ricochet's Random List Of Slightly Unconventional Men That She Thinks Are Tasty

Disclaimer #1: The men themselves may not be unconventional but they're not dudes I routinely notice other people phwoar-ing over. I know many of these fellows have their admirers but they're usually not as vocal as the admirers of others. So here I celebrate them.

Disclaimer #2: Yes, this is a pictures instead of words post.

Disclaimer #3: Despite the use of the word 'tasty' I still respect them as unique and complex human beings. Who are tasty.


Richard E Grant



Matthew Willig



Oliver Platt



Sean Astin



Grant Imahara



Stewart Wright



Alan Rickman



Richard Ayoade



Martin Freeman



Andy Serkis



Paul McGillion



Seth Green



Peter Lindgren



Clancy Brown



Danny John Jules




OK, I'm going to stop now before Google Images takes out a restraining order against me.