Freedom Days

 One is pleasantly surprised to see so many celebrations of freedom these past weeks.

It is quite humbling to see what seems like the whole world turning out to celebrate one's two year anniversary of being freed from the dictatorial control of Supervisor Grand Chief K.

Yes, it's hard to describe the sense of relief one can feel when such a yoke is removed and one has to no longer kowtow to the completely unreasonable demands that actual work be done and projects be completed.

It is sad to no longer be "working" with the likes of Sister Serials, Psycho Chicken, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, The Maple Maverick, Lord of the Small Fries, Longstride L, Bomber Babe, LibraryBFF, Sidekick, Days of our Libraries, The Administrator, Roysgirl, Sonja Roster Queen, and Mr Prada - but they too had their incomprehensible demands that things be fixed, technology be made to work, procedures written up, and could one please stop eating all the cake in the staff kitchen.

So, here's to one's freedom, may it be everlasting!

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The Holiday is Over

 So, One's holiday break is over and it's time to apply oneself to the task of getting The Tales ticking over again and hopefully reach the heights of last years 13 entries (and then on to top 2008's one hundred entries you prompt? Madness I reply).

Since One's last communique many things have passed:

• One's first XMAS gathering for the new workplace, wherat Sis drafted one for table wrangling duties as apparently "other duties as required" also applies at this workplace.
• A hybrid remote and in-person boardgaming session for the birthday of BestFriendSincePrep
• A zoological XMAS gathering (a gathering at the Zoo as opposed to a Zuulogical gathering which would involve the underling of demon Gozer the Gozerian)
• A traditional Legion XMAS with the wider Legion clan.
• More boardgaming with in-person guests, instigated by Hulk who left the game after turn one to do something else. instead
• One's annual beaching.
• A return to Zoom, I mean work, including zoom-training the whole workplace prior to upgrading.
• Bunnings-ing up some minor repairs on the household.
• Seeking Sanctuary in Healesville where Hulk rushed Salsa Girl and I from exhibit to exhibit in order to get to the nearby playground as soon as possible.
• Upgrading the work system without leaving one's home office
• Marking the return of footy with a visit to The Great Sandro wherein he could not stop remarking, over the top of the footy broadcast, about how "doesn't look right mate" One's lockdown beard was.
• Attending the celebration of the life of Fifi who had finished her 29 year battle recently outlasting the predictions by a measly 26 years. It was this quiet determination that, during one's 6 or so years of sharing an office space, caused one to fix Fifi's problems pronto and also imbibe many a team coffee run, lest one fall afoul of those looks of portent. The celebratory tone was enhanced by also being able to reconnect with the likes of Sonja Roster Queen, Big J, Lord of the Small Fries, Longstride L, Days of our Libraries, and the increasingly incorrectly named Supervisor Grand Chief K
• And finally a relaxed, run of the mill, odds and ends weekend.

So, as you can see, there was not much to write about and no stories lost to the vortex of not being got around to writing them down.

Hopefully some interesting times shall arise this coming year...

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Packin’ Up The House

So, one has been a tad busy this past week or so packing up one’s old stomping ground in preparation for a Grand upgrading of facilities. 

Along with the likes of Mr Prada, Days of our Libraries, Country Girl, The Maple Maverick, and Sidekick, One has been dismantling technical equipment, moving furniture and uncovering dust bunnies not seen since the Jurassic (and the other half of that delicious biscuit one lost down the side of one’s old desk back in the Spring of ‘08). 

It has been quite an exercise in lifting, carrying, and cord untangling and it has proven tiring for one to direct all that frenzied activity. 

Going Solo

Of course previous weeks have also been busy as One was left to one’s own devices several weekends ago and forced to go solo with Salsa Girl and Hulk off to the sunnier Northern climes of Bendigo. 

... With Solo

The first solo occasion was marked by spending the evening with Sneaky Pete and BrotherStealer watching one’s copy of Solo which refuses to play on one’s blue ray. 

It was an enjoyable evening of of visual and gastronomic feasting. 

... with The Great Sandro

One’s next solitary activity was an expedition to that horrible stadium that is far from Marvel-lous to watch the Pies not play at all. 

Joining one in solitude were The Great Sandro and Sneaky Pete. The less said about the experience the better. 

After all that Solo activity the following weeks became a blur of work and school holidays - I am fairly sure that I attended the correct one. 

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Farewelling Supervisor S

So this week we have farewelled Supervisor S who has alighted (alit?) for other pastures with other duties that presumably don't involve having to supervise any of the most immovable of objects - the library IT staff.

It was a tender and teary farewell do, with lovely hot foods and drink and a magnificent multi layered abstract recreation of the Brighton library in cake (and oh no I've eaten too much) form courtesy of Days of our Libraries.

There was speechifying, and hugifying, and the final happy goodbyes where one was able to head home with an enormous aluminium swag of leftovers.

All in all it was good to see the fruit of one's Machiavellian machinations born as now two of one's workplace BFFs - LibraryBFF and Mr Prada - shall be filling the seat for much of the coming year, freeing one from the horrors that Supervisor S used to inflict upon one - such as being expected to do one's job.

But still, her pragmatic approach to the work of libraryland shall be missed.
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Take Hulk to Work Day

(Settle down Zombie Monkey, this isn't a superhero-related post!)

So, two days ago one undertook an expedition with Hulk to the furthest reaches of the city in a long planned visit to one's locations of daily toil, various.

The plan may sound grand but rest assured I had Salsa Girl's full support in leaving her Hulk-less for most of the day.

Leaving at the bright and early, finally fully dressed and everything packed, stroke of half ten we played "Daddy why is that car next to us?" for our hour long journey.

Upon arrival we were beset by besotted librarians all cooing and oohing at the level of cuteness on display. Hulk received her fair share of compliments too.

Once the likes of Bomber Babe, Lord of the Small Fries, Big J, The Administrator, Groovy Spirits, and sundry others had received critical exposure levels we moved on to the next branch.

This was a more relaxed experience with Country Girl, Sidekick, and of course Days of our Libraries, all being wowed.

After a short long-rambling-walk to a nearby park and back, we were off again to our final destination.

This vastly underpopulated building saw us dazzle The Beaumaris Ballerina with advanced toddler-ness before Hulk decided we needed to take much of the library furniture home with us.

Disentangling from that situation I thought I was home free for jumping into the car and zooming home until a nearby playground hove into view and proceeded to engage us in a short half hour play digression.

Eventually we made our way back north to safety - and one of us was even able to sleep for most of the journey home.

All in all about the same amount of work was completed as any given work day.
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Hulk Buba and the Forty Aunties

So the other day Salsa Girl and I packed up Hulk and her travelling requirements into the faithful vehicle and made the long trek southwards to visit one's workplace for the requisite showing off of cute new child.

Having listened to the tales her father had been spinning during her short life so far Hulk made sure to delay our departure - with feeding requirements and nappy changes - until there was no chance of encountering mean Auntie Supervisor Grand Chief K who makes daddy do all that hard work for no reason at all.

The downside of our delay was that our entry changed somewhat from the carefully orchestrated small group then meeting group to more of an everyone at once the moment we come through the door kind of thing. I'm told that the mass cooing could be heard suburbs away.

Young Hulk was quite blasé about being handed around from Auntie to Auntie, enjoying stays in the arms of the likes of: Auntie The Administrator, Auntie Big J, Auntie Lord of the Small Fries, Auntie Nurse Janet, Auntie Shirl, Auntie Alltogether Heather, Auntie Miss Amanda, Auntie Groovy Spirits, and sundry others in the parade of Aunties. I'm pretty confident from the empirical evidence before my very eyes that Hulk out-cuted Auntie Bomber Babe's recently acquired grand daughter.

Anyway after a reasonable stay there - and finding a disappointingly low snack level in the workroom we decided to head on to my spiritual home branch for a much less crowded meet and greet.

Upon arrival it was Auntie Days of our Libraries who monopolised the holding - so much in fact that Uncle Mr Prada didn't even have a chance for a hold of his own and had to stoically insist that he didn't need to prise Hulk from Auntie Days' arms as he wasn't affected by Hulk's overwhelming cuteness.

After that visit was over we had ourselves some cafe lunch and then made the long journey home to spend most of the evening trying to calm an inexplicably overstimulated Hulk.
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Children's Events

Over the past few days one has attended several children's events.

One such event was yesterdays first birthday party for the esteemed progeny of Sir Clive Pitbull.
Salsa Girl and I attended a little late after failing to heed the common sense advice to "never go down Punt Road".

Legion3 also attended along with Madmog and their little one and we all partook of many nibbles, sweets, and lashings of free soft drinks. As the afternoon progressed there was much child play - the pit of small round doom being a baby favourite - and at one stage I was even employed as a horse by The Evil One's offspring.

We left well fed and worn out. As befits such an outing.


The next children's event was the evening musical performance of Days of our Libraries' musical issue.

It was one's first concert attendance for quite some time but one did remember to bring the appropriate accoutrements as one's earplugs were well and truly needed - both from the "metal" music and the direct into the ear conversations with Days.

All in all it was a good to see the up and coming talent. I do have my suspicions that the follow-on act was a parody of death metal given that all their songs sounded the same and the lyrics consisted of constant low pitched growling. Still, each to their own.

Quite good as far as children's events go, and the free beer from Days certainly helped.
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The Strain and The Fall

No the title of this post is not referring to any unfortunate results of the festivities of one's just-passed birthday week.

Instead it relates to the last two books that one recently finished reading - The Strain and The Fall are two books by famed moving picture director Guillermo del Toro. They are the first two parts of his vampire trilogy as recommended to me by Groovy Spirits via Mr Prada. I found them to be a quick and entertaining read that was reminiscent of the very cinematic oeuvre of Matthew Reilly. I await my reserved copy of the final instalment to arrive from the library.


Speaking of the birthday week it has gone rather well - despite Legion2 stealing most of the glory with his 40th.

As it turns out when turning 42 the meaning of life is friends - or rather Facebook Friends as one received bountiful birthday wishes on the actual day. I was also pleased to see that one's birthday twin CC celebrated hard enough for both of us.

The birthday week produced many wishes and a pile of chocolate as cake substitute from Days of our Libraries rightfully shamed for her culinary oversight.

Finally a day of presents arrived on Friday, although one did have to gift many of them to oneself - those being the latest supplements in one's favourite gaming line, the Commands and Colors(sic) series.
Further gifts awaited one's return home with the arrival of an overseas order of gaming cards and the special gifts from Salsa Girl.

Early Saturday morning BestFriendSincePrep did his part in making one's birthday special by thrashing me soundly in Memoir'44 Online all the way from Denver - and whilst preparing dinner.

The birthday week was topped off with drinks and nibbles at a local establishment attended by the likes of Salsa Girl, Freeloading Mum, Handy Dad, Legion2, and Badger.


All in all a good birthday week - although a little light on the feasting side, which one shall correct in only another 51 weeks.
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Xmas Parties, Various

One has spent the past several days getting well and truly into the Xmas spirit - well the feasting side of it at least, the rest shall have to come later.

It all began on Friday with the very important end of year Xmas lunch for the user group at our suppliers headquarters. Once again the user group insisted on holding a meeting beforehand, but finally after several hours drawn-out with productivity we were treated in the manner to which we have become accustomed over the years. Many were in attendance - Supervisor Grand Chief K even put in an appearance to make sure that I received my just desserts.

After waddling home I was soon off to another evening of food and cards at the Double Jays with Salsa Girl by my side. The feasting was not too excessive there as I had an unexpected feeling of fullness part-way through the meal. Sigh, there's always next time I guess.


Saturday was the big event. The Library Xmas Party.

This years soiree was being hosted by Kiwichick (who's husband lucked out on not being able to use the get out of party card he earned by attending last years event). The catering was done by many with Days of our Libraries having many a hand in the comestibles.

The night did include a rather embarrassing tribute to the recent Facebook relationship-status change of the good Salsa Girl and oneself, replete with gifts unasked for but appreciated greatly - especially by The Tiger who commenced sleeping on our new serving dish the moment it was revealed to her.



The latest Xmas partying occurred when Salsa Girl and I made the trek to the family demesne to celebrate Freeloading Mum's birthday. There was a dash of Xmas thrown in due to known Xmas day absences. A magnificent feast was on offer, including 5 desserts (which only count as 3 as one mixed several into the same bowl).
There was rather a lot of post feast tiredness to be dealt with on return home before getting the evening meal squared away.


In unrelated news, one's past month of increased exercise regime appears to be having no effect at all.
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Challenged Again

It's that time of year again that a young blogger's thoughts turn to walking all over the place.

Yes I am once again taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge - 16 weeks of pedometerising my steps and getting my team to take a virtual walking tour of the world.

I have managed to be included in the Library team this year lead by  Mr Prada, and including such luminaries as Days of our Libraries, Fifi, Country Girl, The Pragmatist  and Mrs Football.

Of added interest this year is the fact that Salsa Girl and her office are also taking part. In the spirit of encouraging better participation one aims to help my team beat the pants off hers.
So far so good on day one as my team has the lead. I am a tad worried though as I know how far Salsa Girl walks every day in comparison to oneself, and also her team haven't entered any scores yet.

Still one must enjoy the winning position while one holds it.
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Back to the Grind

Well yesterday marked one's return to work after the extended Summer holiday.

One found it to be much the same as one had left it - scads of emails to be answered, mysterious equipment failures, looming deadlines, jovial work companions, etc.

A noticeable difference from business as usual was the quite apparent lack of any sort of "Welcome Back" cake or even small pastry. It seems that while I have been away tragedy has struck and Days of our Libraries has lost her cooking mojo. Kiwichick's kind gift of a thorny IT problem to sink my teeth into did little to alleviate my suffering.

Anyway, I seemed to have gotten my email under control and achieved not much else yesterday. Perhaps I shall return to work today?
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Tales of Xmas Survival

This busy Xmas period has seen several examples of great courage, willpower and general mental fortitude in the face of nigh-overwhelming adversity.

The first such example was the attendance of Salsa Girl at the annual Library Xmas party. It all really began in the afternoon when, after arriving early at my place of work in order to feel more relaxed about the looming party, Salsa Girl was pounced upon by the inquisitive Days of our Libraries and Kiwichick. Unfortunately one was busy rescuing some forlorn computers so who knows of what was spoken between them whilst I was out of earshot.
After such shaky beginnings we were soon making our way to The Administrator's abode for the event proper. All in all it went well and Salsa Girl held up under the pressure of  several dozen inquisitive librarians.
One did wonder if one had made a mistake when conversation with The Beaumaris Ballerina turned to the subject of the non-attendance of her beau. Her statement - "oh, I would never expose him to this" - did give me pause for thought as to what I was putting my good lady through.
In the end though we managed to get out unscathed before the karaoke - which I think is a big win on our parts.


The second celebration of survival involves my trekking north for an Xmas day feast with the maternal branch of Salsa Girl's family.
After braving locust swarms of biblical proportions - well a smallish bible anyway - we arrived in time to relax before attending to afternoon tea which soon became Xmas Eve dinner.
Xmas day itself saw the arrival of a sumptuous trifle, along with Grandma, and then the unveiling of a grand feast. I survived the lunch and believe I made quite the good impression by restricting myself to a heaped plate of seconds rather than returning for thirds and appearing greedy.


Our third tale of survival involves the mad dash from the northern regions back to the surrounds of Melbourne for attendance at Xmas dinner at one's aunties residence.
With consummate timing Salsa Girl and I arrived just as the main course was being commenced. We quite easily slipped into line several times until we'd had our fill of mains and then patiently awaited the desserts. There were introductions, and conversations, and general laid back family Xmas type goings on.
Upon departing Salsa Girl seemed to have survived her first meeting with my larger family with no lasting trauma. Oneself did suffer from some inexplicable stomach pains. Still nothing one hasn't survived on many previous Xmases.
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A Gastronomic Week

It seems that, for a change, this week past has been all about gastronomy.

It began slowly with the regular Sunday gaming day at which we sampled ElfBoy's strange snack foods and played the annual Pirate Dave's birthday game of Talisman. This event attracted The Valkyrie as usual and apparently the aim of the game is now to play until my character dies in the game and then declare everyone else the winner.
The evening portion involved sampling varied pizzeria delights from one of our usual providers.

The next stop of the tour was, once again, gaming where we took advantage of the non-appearance of several of our usual coterie to sample further heretofore unknown pizzeria delights from one of our usual providers.

The main gastro event (I have to come up with a better shortening for gastronomical!) was the biennial Clean Up Your Desk Day. In the previous instalment I had only managed to clean the shelves beside my desk but this time I launched straight into snacking from the abundant table of food that everyone had brought in to help turn the morning into a celebration rather than a chore.
Suitably sated my attention turned to my desk proper and, amidst the sounds of consumption of yummy food, I managed to excavate my way down to the desk surface and I am now the proud owner of "enough space to work in". Next time we have one of these clean up days I shall have to delve into my desk draws and sort through the detritus of four years (six by then) worth of hard work at the library. I shall also endeavour to sample everything that is on the table of bountiful food - a task I fell short on this time.
Having completed enough cleaning I zoomed off to join the birthday lunch celebrations of Groovy Spirits before returning to an afternoons languid work.
That evening I suffered a mysterious stomach bloating as if I were about to burst from the inside. I could not for the life of me think what may have caused it. Even the application of a spaghetti dish supplied by Days of our Libraries in full Strega Nona form, was unable to make it abate.

My next few days were light on for gastronomy - particularly as one has to conceal one's healthy appetite when in the presence of Candidates as they may not yet have come to appreciate it for the great thing it is.

It remains to be seen whether the coming week shall be a further gastronomic one - astute readers of The Tales should have a fair idea of the chances of that though.
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Going on the Market

With the lovely Svetlana extending her return to Svetlanaland indefinitely the time has come for yours truly to return to the status of eligible bachelor.

Well actually the time came several months back and a discussion was had with Svets about my ending the patient waiting and returning to dating. However the plethora of projects and other distractions has kept me from making much of a start on it in the intervening months.

So in true Tales style one of my many seduction plans is to go into online dating with a brutally honest profile that reveals both of my faults.
This should ensure that no Candidates are surprised by what they get and should, in fact, result in them self-omitting themselves from contention if for some unfathomable reason they don't find me suitable.

Amongst all of this preparation I have garnered another Caution for you.
Be careful about asking the girls at work for a little help to make sure you are on the right track. There is a high chance that the likes of Days of our Libraries, Kiwichick, AntagonisticAl, and Lord of the Small Fries, will usurp full editorial control and force a whole lot of help upon you. Including incentive-cake to get you to go-live months before your slow and steady pace would have had you do so.
Of course the good side of the help is that they are making sure I don't make bad choices by enforcing their rules such as "no crazies and definitely no gingers".

So having gone live with my profile yesterday it is now time to sit back and wait for the responses to begin. I expect it shall be much like waiting for popcorn - starting with a few odd pops but quickly becoming a deafening chorus.

In the meantime I shall be busy enjoying my incentive-cake.
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My Week of Cake

This year my birthday week has been focused on baked goods - specifically cake.

I started the dessert theme myself, as one often has to, by concealing subtle hints within my weekly update to my library staff concerning my projected whereabouts for the remainder of the week.
Here is an example of the level cunning subtleness I employed:

Tuesday Feb 2: At SAN library all day fixing computers and possibly getting surprise birthday cake.

At first it appeared not to have worked as I went a whole day without cake. However my Wednesday arrival at BEA branch was greeted with not one but two cakes - joy!
It seems that Devil's Advocate had supplied a largish piece of Emergency Cake in case there was a critical lack of cake in my system.
So having polished off the Emergency Cake I moved on to tackling the larger, yet just as delightfully chocolaty, cake supplied by The Beaumaris Ballerina. Some time after that I started fixing computers and other things IT in a state of cake-induced fugue.

Thursday was such a blur of meetings and schnitzel lunches and crazy weather that I failed to notice the lack of any cake-ish things.
This serious lapse from my compatriots was rectified on Friday morning when I stepped out of a morning meeting into a cake wonderland - complete with the second present (no wait Pirate Dave gave me some Dolphin Clips Thursday night - let your imagination run wild about what exactly a Dolphin Clip is...) I mean Third present.

See how happy I am with my giant RFID tag cake courtesy of Days of our Libraries
(couriered in secretly by Bomber Babe).

My cake euphoria carried me through the remainder of the day and into the evening where I caught up with birthday twin CC having drinks to celebrate her attaining a measly total age on the morrow.
I stayed only long enough to down a couple of drinks and treated the whole exercise as a training run for this evenings main event.

Now I'd best be off to gussy myself up for my time in the limelight tonight. After all there is such an awful lot of gussying to be done.

I'll end with a caution for you oh good readers of mine: with what BestFriendSincePrep has planned for this evening, and knowing his track record, I fear that this missive may very well be the last time you hear from me alive...
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The Longevity of Immaturity

I just finished reading Radio Free Albemuth by Phillip K ... (tee hee)... Dick!


Now if you'd been sitting beside me then you would have witnessed a reversion to my teenage self and subsequent sniggering about the Author's name, as always happens amongst Legion when we discuss this author's works of literature.

Obviously this juvenile amusement at how easily anything can become a smutty turn of phrase has stuck with me for a long time and is firmly embedded as a Pavlovian behaviour of mine that would take an almighty effort of willpower to dislodge from those habitual centres of my brain.


Thankfully I am not alone in my juvenile depravity.
Many's the time at work when Days of our Libraries, Mr Prada, and Ms Magpie will let loose with hugely snigger-worthy comments on simple innocent things uttered by other staff.

For example recently Country Girl purchased a set of blinds from The Pragmatist, and enquired of her, "How do I mount them?"
Naturally my eyebrows shot up and I raised my head to see Mr Prada eyes wide and eyebrows heading roof-wards. Of course this duplicated smuttiness multiplied upon itself and we were both in hysterics for many minutes afterwards - in fact it still brings a sniggery smirk to my face just thinking about it now.

Anyway I digress.

The Dick book itself was a reasonable read, although rather low on the weirdness one expects from a Dick. Apparently it is a first draft published posthumously but does fit in with several of other Dicks in that way that many Dicks are about the same thing.

Tackle it if you are a Dick fan, however others - such as Ubik -are better if it's going to be your first time with a Dick.
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The Missing Weeks. Part the Third

As we continue on with our investigation we find ourselves coming to one of those regular seasonal events that seem to occur naturally whenever the season is right.

The Branch Xmas drinks
This years occurrence was located at a different establishment than is the usual case for events such as this.

We gathered in a drinking house recently converted from being an automotive repair business - one presumes that easily hosed concrete floors are an exciting thing for those who earn their livelyhood from the alcohol imbibing industry.

Anyhoo, in attendance were: Mr Prada, Days of our Libraries, Kiwichick, The Pragmatist, Fifi, and even Supervisor Grand Chief K put in an appearance after fixating on my costume accessories for the next evening's party - in particular the handcuffs which just happened to be a part of the pack - and showed a shocking amount of ignorance of who the character I was going as actually was.

Much fun and frivel was had by all. The evening finished relatively early which was fine as the rest of my evening could be spent storing up energy for the next big event.


The 40th
The very next evening was the 40th birthday affair for BestFriendSincePrep. As is his want he had made the whole thing slightly more annoying as it was a costumed ball and therefore costumes had to be prepared. I do suspect though, that it was done purely so that he could wear a wig and experience a warm head all night.

Legion2 and the Brotherstealer where there as were Gavman, StumpyRudolph, MrRogers, MatrixMan, Vengeful Vic and Couch Killer.

My choice of costume - the legendary Snake Plissken - revealed some shocking statistics.
95% of women at the party had no idea who Snake was (one guessed the actor)
20% of men had no idea either - and that's allowing Gavman's guess of Jack Russell in Little China to stand as a success.
This country is obviously in need of a strong education campaign in the area of B-grade sci-fi movies from the early eighties.
I'm not even going to talk about the horrendous sub-100% recognition rate for Legion2's Han Solo costume.

But aside from all that the brilliance of BFSP in having a slushie machine was just one of the many masterstrokes in the nibbles department. All in all a good night and perfect preperation for the next days adventure.

up next: in which our hero traipses from one end of town to the other
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The Missing Weeks. Part the Second

Continuing on in my attempt to document what happened to me in those missing weeks we come now to the biggest event in the library social calendar:

The Library Xmas Party
This year the extravaganza was held at The Administrator's demesne with many of the usual party planning committee being involved in the orchestration of yet another gastronomic triumph.
The theme of the night was apparently "unfinished renovations" as we all had to carefully tread across a floor replete with stiletto catching drill holes and marvel at the true to life renovation look of the party setting.

It was really my kind of party. There was plenty of home carved Days of our Libraries pizza to start and just when you thought you were full out came not one, not two but three kinds of lasagne courtesy of Days, Sonja Roster Queen and others!
And then to top it all of there was a dazzlingly table-collapsing number of deserts whose claim to fame could well be "not even Phill could sample us all".

To top it all off in it's perfection there was a decided lack of librarian karaoke antics throughout the night.


The Knee Update

When the Monday after the party finally arrived it was time for the three week check-up on my knee. According to the specialist all is well.
Below are some pictures taken by the camera that they forced into my knee.
Top right is the before shot where we can see a lovely blossom of cartilage material floating freely around the joint just waiting to catch in the worky bits and cause problems.
Middle right is the after shot with the clean smooth surfaces just waiting to get back into unrestricted moving.
And finally in the bottom two we can see the shadowy lines of future arthritic troubles for our hero in decades to come.

up next: drinks and a 40th
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... The New Laptop and the Spelling Mistale

I'm currently in raptures as I am an IT Man with a new toy in the form of my new work laptop.

The only drawback with it is the fact that it is an itty-bitty "book" type laptop and after last weeks extensive and accurate testing at the hands of The Viking Hat GM I am now aware that my eyesight is 20/200. I am also aware that 20/200 means that at 20 metres I see as well as a perfect vision person sees at 200 metres. But really not allowing the test to be performed with glasses on and calculating a corrected character value is just another example of TVHGM running roughshod over the PLAYERS IN HIS TYPICAL DICTATORIAL STYLE!!!
But I digress.
Suffice to say that the little screen probably means a lot more IT hunching over the computer just to make sure I don't make any embarrassing typing nistales.


Speaking of mistakes, Days of our Libraries and Kiwichick took great pleasure at an insignificantly minor spelling error in my previous post despite the ease with which said typo could have been interpreted as yet another clever play on words within this magnificent oeuvre that is The Tales.

I mean really, next thing you'll know I'll find myself being severely berated by LittleBigGirl for perceived misuse of apostrophe's!
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... The Free Food Frenzy

So I spent most of the last week in training sessions in the heart of our beloved city.

Many and varied was my company including: Devil's Advocate, Sister Serials, Sonja Roster Queen and Miss Amanda for the majority of the time and special guest appearances by Mr Prada, Days of our Libraries, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, and The Pragmatist.

All of these exciting training companions were overshadowed by the fact that this particular round of training was accompanied by an incredible four days of free lunches!!!

I don't believe I have ever had it so good. I didn't even mind heading out for a girly shopping expedition on behalf of Svetlana.

On top of this bounty of brunches came the Friday farewell party for a libraryland associate of years past - complete with free drinks and circulating snacks!


However, as with all good things, the universe had to right the cosmic karma imbalance and, during my Saturday attendance at the footy with Legion2 and The Great Sandro, my hunger got the better of me forcing the purchase of sustenance in the form of one $20 pie.


Things did swing slightly back in the other direction today when I was able to take advantage of a free trip to NSW care of BestFriendSincePrep.
I was recruited for my excellent company on the long drive and possibly to put my strength into lifting the package we had headed North to collect. Many hours of great conversation and camaraderie was had before we returned to his abode and he 'remembered' an IT issue he had that required urgent proffessional attending to.
Sigh.
It seems I can never escape IT on my weekends.
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