Catching Up

So One is once again faced with having to catch up on happenings by having a catching up post which details all of One's catching up of recent times and should, hopefully, catch us all up on all things catch-upable.

We start our Tale many weekends in the past...

Suits You to Catch Up

First was the occasion of a fancy suit fitting in preparation for the incoming nuptials festival for Pirate Dave. It was an enjoyable endeavour but one does have to bak at describing it as excellent service when such terms as concealment, de-accentuate, hide, and work-around, were used so extensively during One's segment of the fitting.

Catching Up with Dromana Queen

The very next day Salsa Girl and I made a long haul drive to assist Hulk in attending a peer's birthday party. There was food and fun and also our first, and last, beach frolic of the summer, accompanied by the chatter of the teeth of many tweens that refused to exit the water.

Continuing into the next week...

Caught up by printers

One has been relieved to be entering the final stages of one's infinite printer rollout at work. However one did, after a hard days printering, find oneself caught up in a troubleshooting visit to attempt to deal with Freeloading Mum's home printer conundrum. Needless to say, an episode of madness ensued.

And the weekend...

Gardening catch up

One has gotten behind in One's maintenance of the garden and so it was that one caught up on the task by the expediency of having BestFriendSincePrep scour away the existing garden and commence a complete rebuild.

A Birthday board game to catch up on plays

For One's spawning celebrations this year I exercised the well known rule that guests must play whatever game I choose - whether they like it or not! In this case I rolled out Falling Sky a game of Caesar and the Gauls, for the first time since 2019. Pirate Dave won again - even though he had gone home and his tribe ran as a scripted opponent - so I shall be putting it away for another four years.

The gaming to dos...

Catching the Space Bug again...

The Tuesday Knights roleplaying group that meets on Wednesdays, commenced a new game that is a return to one's favourite - Traveller.

Catching a moment...

One, sadly was at a commemorative for a work associate - a fellow IT Man In LibraryLand - who passed far too early. One had bantered IT on many, many occasions over the years with him and sought advice on many a topic when in tricky IT situations. His full life story was quite a humbling experience and one can see that his family and friends will miss him dearly. Vale John.

The weekend again...

Catching the imagination...

One has long imagined reclaiming a part of one's desk from the accoutrements of working from home that have long laid claim to such prized realestate. Thus time was finally found to undertake a desk rearrangement and now the WFH things are the temporary items moved into and out of place as required. And now the gloriously revealed desktop space is finally awash with piles of gaming paraphernalia.

A quick catch of the fleetingly in town...

Circumstances aligned well enough for One to make a catch-up with Lord of the Small Fries. This was also blessed with the attendance of The Administrator, Supervisor Grand Chief K, and The Fox. Much was discussed in a throwback to our great days and it shall have to happen much more frequently.

And back at the old stomping ground...

Catching the changes

One attended an IT in libraries meeting at ones old home in Sandringham. While there One was lucky enough to catch up with Criket Cutter, Sonja Roster Queen,  Country Girl, and The Maple Maverick. One decided to head North and stomp around Brighton some as well, managing to catch Longstride L and The Historical Menace in the building.

So there you have it. Did you catch it all?

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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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The Double Feature

So a passel of events full of exciting happenings have occurred in the past month. However one has been too bazy (noun: to be simultaneously busy and lazy) to document them so those wondrous potential posts shall be forever lost to the sands of bazyness.

Instead I shall post forthwith about my  Friday last wherein one attended not one but two picture show theatres - and most likely completed one's yearly quota for release time viewing.

Picture the first was an afternoon group bonding exercise organised by Supervisor Grand Chief K, and attended by the rest of one's supervisory coterie: Supervisor S, Big J, Lord of the Small Fries, and  Alltogether Heather. The entertainment in question was Brooklyn. Twas a charming tale of Irish immigration to the USA and love against the odds and may have caused some welling up due to it's beautifully shot visuals and not at all for any emotional reasons, no way.

Afterwards there was a group discussion of the film over a drink and some snacks.


Picture the second was in the evening and was the similarly themed Deadpool. Organised against all odds by The Fungi Lady,  and attended by a cast of near thousands (if one rounds up aggressively) including Duff, Amoeba, Doom, Non-Gamin' Megan, and Twin Trouble. This one was a charming tale of a possibly Irish immigrant in the USA fighting a battle for love against the odds. It too may have caused some welling up and outbursts due to it's beautifully constructed crude absurdities.

Afterwards there was a group discussion of the film over pancakes.


In conclusion, despite their broad surface similarities, you should find them both to be good in their own ways.
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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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The Lazy Guest Post

 

Several weekends past one convinced Pirate Dave to partake in a gaming event that I was running along with Lord of the Small Fries at the library.

This is his story:

International Games Day @ your library, Brighton (Bayside) edition

One was pleased as punch to be recognised for one's "Mr. Boardgames" status and invited along - and chauffeured, no less - by Phill to Brighton Library's #IGD@yl 2014.

Bearing a cavalcade of new-player-friendly games gave us ample opportunity to accommodate the washed masses with fun and interesting boardgames they may not have seen before and enjoyed every minute of.

One was given the opportunity to personally introduce people to Articulate!, Castle Panic, and Love Letter before time was called. Thank goodness Castle Panic is cooperative!

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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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Desk-Shift Disasters

So today I unwittingly walked into, not one, but a series of disasters of epic proportions.

It all began innocently as I kindly offered my services up to cover a desk shift in the library since I was on the premises in my regular benevolent location rotation schedule and Lord of the Small Fries was feeling a little poorly. (There is no truth to the rumour that my volunteering was only because it was a meeting that I would covering for and one was glad to be out of the vicinity of all that meetingness.)


The first disaster struck when I found out I was to be desk-buddies with none other than Supervisor Grand Chief K!!

One would presume it couldn't get any worse but then ... disaster number two struck.

Somehow one's sense of time became muddled and it was suddenly time to begin the desk shift and one had not had a skerrick of lunch yet!! Quickly crunching my way through a carrot I was soon out there saving the world from improperly borrowed library books.

It didn't take long for one to become aware of both my gnawing hunger bringing me close to the edge of starvation and disaster number three. It came to my attention that the first part of the desk-shift was not to cover the boring meeting but to allow the branch staff to go to the local eatery and partake in an Xmas feast of grand proportions.

Oh world why do you taunt me so!
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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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The Innocuous return of Torchwood, and Movie Night

One is at somewhat of a loss.

Friday evenings "celebratory" drinks in honour of the return visit to our shores of Torchwood went off without a single noteworthy hitch or spectacle of which to write about.
Even with Supervisor Grand Chief K at her enabling best there were no sudden spills or embarassing statements and the entire night was only fun and frivilous conversation.

Sigh. How am I supposed to satisfy my content hungry readership if things continue to go well with no unfortunate happenings?


Slightly more eventful was movie night with MatrixMan, Vengeful Vic, and Couch Killer.
We had a trio of movies that fit the "good film that at least one of us hasn't seen" criteria - Big Trouble in Little China, The Losers, Martin - thanks to Fantomas and Legion2 - although I must point out that my identical copy of Big Trouble in Little China would have been superior to Fantomas's.
As has become recent tradition Couch Killer stuck himself to me and I had to control the wriggling, squirming mass for much of the first few hours. When I taunted Vengeful Vic that I was going to steal her child she replied with glee that she had a bag packed for him in the hall and we could leave straight away, so I was forced to recant my taunt.

Since that delightful eve I have had:

• an afternoon of gaming with some D-Day reenactment games of Memoir 44. Attending at the tail end was Amoeba, getting back into my good books with a very late but quite appropriate birthday present of dice and chocolate Fudge.
• yet another skipped gaming night - this one due to Torchwood, and The Administrator and Lord of the Small Fries organising a last minute dinner
  
• several cases of mysterious chocolate overdose
• my succumbing (? succumbation) to ElfBoy's boys cold that he has been dosing me with for the past month

I shall be on my sneezing, snuffling way now.
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... The Dinner with The Lords

After a hectic Friday which included:

• enduring a two hour meeting about carpet
• enduring a stuff lunch celebrating various things to do with Devil's Advocate, Lord of the Small Fries, and Oz at which nobody but yours truly wished to stay beyond the appointed duration
• having to leave the after lunch cake to rush off and fix problems at another branch
• spending hours tracking down a faulty piece of equipment and getting everything back working
• staying late to run some regular upgrades

The universe finally decided to smile upon me in the form of a last minute dinner invitation from Lord of the Small Fries. Not being able to turn down a free dinner after such a day - or indeed ever - I left my work at a run (fast drive) and made my way into the deepest darkest South Eastern suburbs for the appetite appeasing appointment.

Upon arrival, after negotiating acceptance from the hounds, I was delighted to meet Mr Lord and also discover that the evening was to include free beer as well.

So good was the meal and company that I stayed all evening enjoying conversation, a truly impressive media centre, opportunities to be a hound pillow, and free beer.

Of course the universe cannot allow everything to go smoothly so my post-midnight return home was cursed with red traffic lights at every intersection and trains at every crossing.

Still, all in all, a fine way to finish of the week.
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... The Do-overs

Well here we are at the tail end of attempt number three at "Be kind to AntagonisticAl week".

Week one ended after an hour and a half with only Lord of the Small Fries giving me any credit at all - "that was quite a long time for you to be nice to someone Phill".

The second week ended after a misunderstanding. Apparently being nice to someone entails more than just not being mean so I was hit with "you haven't been nice to me all day Phill so this week is a do-over".

At this rate I'll have to be nice until Xmas! So fingers crossed that I can make it through the remains of this week without running into Her Marketing-ness and her plethora of problems... dammit I think I just caused another do-over!



Also speaking of do-overs, at last nights gaming I was forced to retire my character after The Viking Hat GM stuck to his idea of what he should do and ignored my characters dice proven skill at deception while the The Blithe Bogan performed none of the rules-enforcing his game running position is supposed to involve and Exploding Ninja Pony cowered at his end of the table eating snacks that were destined to be mine.
My do-over character is fitting in to the team, for now, but revenge shall be mine, umm his, I have no character/player separation problem.
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... The Collection of Short Stories

My apologies for going almost a fortnight between updates however I have been suffering under the ravages of my unshakable man-cold and - yes Supervisor Grand Chief K - working quite a lot.

The gap has however allowed me to gather up a collection of small tales of the events that have occurred during my absence.

So let's begin...

The Duchess and the Admiral
I had the opportunity to play this with Pirate Dave and Juzzy J Thursday week.
Hmmm, perhaps I better point out it was a role-playing game.
Hmmm, maybe a better further point out it was role-playing in the dice, pen, and paper sort and not the other kind.
Anyway, with The Bastard's back problems re-surfacing I have been handed the gaming reins and, as I am so busy with work, rather than spend oodles of time prepping I have been experimenting with some quick random dice rolls for the initial set-up and then improvising the evenings episode. I have dubbed it Random Travelling and with this Thursday's game going well it seems to be a success.


The Corporate Image
Friday week I was back in the Corporate castle working hard imaging up a pair of computers for the library. Whilst slaving away there I was introduced to The Warden the new boss of all things IT.


Farewell to The Doctor
After the hard working week my Saturday was a reasonably relaxed day at home. I finished my watching of the second season of the new Doctor Who. I am really quite fond of it, although I suspect the emotional resonance bits that I like were virtually non-existent in the original so traditional fans may want to burn me in effigy.


Avoiding doom with Doom
After a coffee catchup with Rugrat Twin the rest of my Sunday was devoted to gaming. The main
game of the afternoon was Doom's sprawling Arkham Horror boardgame and we were surprisingly effective in preventing eldritch horror from manifesting and destroying the earth - yay us!


The Twilight Party
After two long, hardworking days back at work I was looking forward to crashing this school holiday event. However Lord of the Small Fries banned me from participating despite my claims that an old man hanging out with teenage girls was completely on theme for Twilight and besides I am only a third of the age of perfect Edward. Oh well at least I was able to console myself with leftover pizza from the party.


Setting the date
Thursday morn brought me back to the Physio and we determined the date for my return to soccer. Oh and since many of you undoubtedly though this was Svetlana related I should mention that I had myself a quite short haircut afterwards that would most likely not be approved of by the lady herself and will most likely see her show up on my doorstep to chastise me any day now.


A real werewolf film
After making it late to farewell drinks because of having lots of work to do I scooted home to catch up with BestFriendSincePrep to go and see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans a really and truly werewolf film. Considering how bad the second in the series was this one was quite enjoyable although it was quite dark and I did feel like shining a spotlight at the screen to see what was going on.


The Morning Nip
I resumed my morning walk/jogs this morning after a couple of weeks off due to illness and work commitments.
So calmly dragging myself along the path I was suddenly beset upon by a vicious pack of bloodthirsty yippy dogs. One of them took it upon himself to stretch up and bite me just below the knee (the good one thankfully) then as I was busy saying ow he nipped around to do the other side. It didn't seem to bad so I let the owner off with only a mildly upset look and was on my way again.
Now in the cold light of afternoon I sit here anxiously awaiting the onset of rabies - or perhaps even werewolfism (and I really don't relish the idea of turning into a yippy dog at the full moon).
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... Mr Sniffles

I've been laid low with a most vicious strain of man-cold for most of this week, however I dragged myself out of my deathbed yesterday in order to fulfill my duties as Mr Secretary and host the local chapter of SPUN, the LMS group, at Brighton library.

I arrived early in the morning to find a Sister Serials Sniffles Survival Pack of tissues and canned soup awaiting me on my desk. I knew I was still sick when I caught myself thinking about how nice that was and how it would all be very handy during my recuperation.

After a quick and easy room set-up (with loads of help from The Administrator) the meeting went well and the morning tea was fantastic - a selection of cakes and biscuits from a local bakery. Dubrovnik Hater was in attendance in her new guise as "one of them" as were many of the other usual attendees.
Most stayed around afterwards to watch my demonstration of the all-consuming RFID system including real live borrowers and minor bugs.

After the main meeting there was an executive meeting with Madame President and our late arriving new, us yet un-blog-named treasurer. In the pub. Hefty decisions were made and after those drinks were sorted out we moved on to official business.

On returning to the library for a good half-afternoon's work (halfternoon?) I was greeted by Lord of the Small Fries who was giddy with glee over my new workroom moniker of Mr Sniffles. I'm sure this was the cause of my making a mess of some updates to the RFID kiosks and having to stay until closing time to straighten it all out.

Returning home I had some lovely soup for dinner and then promptly went to bed, and sleep, at the early hour of 11pm for the beginning of what turned out to be 9 hours of sleep.

Such rest invigorated me with enough strength to face work for a second day in a row and I pottered through the day today before coming home for an end of the week quiet night at home tonight.

... Bowling with the Bayside Babes

note: this posting is sarcasm and nastiness reduced, as some people think that I never say anything nice.

This Friday last Mr Prada and I had the extreme luck to be out in in public ten-pin bowling with a bevy of the best Bayside has to offer. We were the envy of all around for the company we had while we lobbed spheres down the lanes.

It was all thanks to Torchwood's brilliant idea and excellent planning skills, and as a thank you for everyones work at the Literary festival. Of course, as I spent most of the festival at the corporate centre, I was just freeloading along for the night as was Sister Serials showing up only for the free drink.

There was much fun had by all with Big J's sparkling laughter a frequent backdrop, most participants striking at least once - which is important as Innocent Em said to me - "Scoring is what it's all about Phill!", Groovy Spirits, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, The Administrator, and Lord of the Small Fries all plugging away diligently on the aisles.

Of course I blitzed the field in the first game, despite re-injuring the knee last Thursday at soccer. My sense of honour prevailed in the second game and I stepped aside to allow others to claim the glory (there's a chance it may have been several drinks that prevailed actually now that I think about it).

We all played with a spirit of cooperation, encouragement and fair play. With the experts - Sonja Roster Queen, Days of Our Libraries and yours truly - imparting our bountiful bowling wisdom to all who asked and ensuring a much improved second game from both Big J and Kiwichick.

The food was good and Kiwichick came up with the fantastic idea of improving access to the sour cream for the wedges by smearing it all over the table.

All in all it was a grand night out and hopefully there will be many more occasions of it's ilk where I can spend an entire evening in the treasured company of those I work with.