Shed Week

Shed Week was heralded in with a weekend party in honour of Agent Smith's newly constructed residence.

While transporting Legion2 and BrotherStealer to the shindig along with myself I may have become lost amongst the unfamiliar - and inadequately signposted - surrounds of the other side of the city. (Perhaps it should be other-other side, since work is already on the other side?) However it merely added to the sense of accomplishment once we did arrive.

At first the affair appeared to be merely a family one, and one did feel out of place amongst the relatives but soon the familiar faces began flowing in. There was The Valkyrie, and Amoeba, Mechwarrior Wayne, Camo Spice, Redneck Ben, Doom, The Doctor, and a most unexpected appearance from The Fungi Lady.

All in all a great night highlighted by Agent Smith and his band belting out some rock favourites in the pool room. The only downside was the good Agent outdoing my drumming prowess by also singing for several of the numbers - such five-way coordination having always been beyond my capabilities.


Early in shed week I snuck back into my home branch to try and recall what it was I had been missing these past few weeks. Alas no luck as the harassment soon drove me to spend the next few days in the IT shed at the corporate castle, ostensibly working on new PCs but actually just secluding myself from society.

Those days did allow me to finish reading The Men Who Stare at Goats which I found to be fun and interesting. It did confirm a lot of my conspiracy theories about the US military. Thanks to Badger for the birthday gift of the book.


A definite highlight of Shed Week was an Old School D&D bash, with The Viking Hat GM and others, in which stupid rules were enforced with TVHGM's usual forceful vigour. Despite all that my poor little Gnome character managed to survive and looks forward to serving his god Sumdertgud in future dungeon delving escapades.


Shed Week was wrapped up with a full day installing new PCs with my trusty sidekick Ms Magpie. Unlike my solo working style we got a lot done with minimal fuss - something it may take me some time to get used to experiencing.
.

... Welsh Cakes!

I was somewhat surprised and disappointed this morning to discover that Torchwood's invitation to come along to cultural diversity morning tea and check out her Welsh Cakes was not nearly as salacious as it sounded.
Still said cakes were a rather tasty treat from the scone family (pronounced skoen) and as yet I'm not experiencing any poisoning effects plus they were free.
The Aussie side of cultural diversity was shown rather appropriately by Big J's buying of some lamingtons "down the shop" on the way into work.


In stark contrast to the excitement of free elevenses the rest of my past few working days has been consumed with hellish nightmare of vexing printing problems in both old and new PCs. It is as if the printers can sense their coming demise at the end of the contract and are all giving up in the final weeks.


I should have guessed at how technology would fail me this week after gaming Sunday's main attraction game of Battletech, aka Giant Fighting Robots, ended with my 'Mech collapsing under me and my replacement 'Mech overheating and freezing on the battlefield.
Mind you it was once again a case of "everyone get Phill" for reasons I am unable to fathom so having ElfBoy, Badger, Legion2, and, surprise surprise, Mechwarrior Wayne all pummeling my 'Mech didn't really help it's uptime.


Tonight I managed to forget most of the weeks stresses with a good phone talk with the much missed Svetlana, at home on a sick day after poisoning herself with something that was probably in her fridge when I was enjoying the Svetlanaland winter on my recent jaunt to the continent.

... A Year of The Tales

My how the time flies. Today marks the one year anniversary of the humble start of The Tales. Perhaps fittingly I have been far too busy to post this last week. In fact the idea of closing The Tales on the anniversary had crossed my mind - going out on a high and all that.
However I think I'm going to carry on and grind The Tales into the ground, shedding readers until I am once again typing only to myself - after all I can't let 113 posts go to waste.

So, on with the show...


Mad March
My recent hecticity has been the beginning of what I am referring to as Mad March. Many projects are being embarked plus the social calendar has been busy and shonky electrics at two of the libraries have conspired to rob me of any chance of spare time blessing me with its presence.


The Prelude
The evening before the beginning of Mad March was a drinks and dinner evening for the staff of Sandringham and Hampton branches organised by Mr Prada.
Arriving late - I had to sample the free consumables being provided at the council social club happy hour - I discovered that apparently Supervisor Grand Chief K was now based at our branch. Even her renowned enabling skills couldn't get any more than a handful of staff to stay for the dinner segment of the evening - herself included.
The evening went pretty much as expected given that Sandringham has now now taken the title of smuttiest branch from Beaumaris thanks to the hard work of Mr Prada and Days of our Libraries. The ordering of the spatchcock by Kiwichick was greeted by the expected gales of laughter and Innocent Em's requests for a lift home from yours truly at the end of the evening lead to all sorts of wonderful innuendo based comedy. All in all not a bad evening as far as such self-funded events go.


A Little Geekery
My Saturday disappeared in quite quickly after I spontaneously decided to buy myself a cheap document scanner. It turns out that a combo scanner, printer, copier fit perfectly into my tight budget so I was busy unpacking and installing for most of the afternoon.
In the afternoon I tootled off to Alecto's for dinner with her and Rugrat Twin. After dinner we had Rugrat Twin and my first viewing of Shaun of the Dead. It was a good humorous addition to the Zombie genre - although if it were a book I think it would have a genre sticker a little like this:

A Bit More Geekery
Sunday began with the resumption of my watching of my Farscape season one DVDs which I have managed to guilt back out of Scully's hands since my return from Svetlanaland.
The afternoon and evening was the return of the monthly-esque Sunday afternoon gaming. There was a bumper turnout this time with Badger, Amoeba and Mechwarrior Wayne all putting in their first appearances ever.