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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The Malicious Malady

Not much to post on lately and one's head is currently eminently fuzzy.

You see, after struggling valiantly through the beginning and middle of a deadly Man Cold, one has seen out the end of this pernicious condition at home today.

Upon informing one's workplace of the dire situation - and requesting the requisite response - one was mocked by Supervisor Grand Chief K and The Administrator, and finally LibraryBFF responded that one had to be dying to have flowers sent to one's home.

Did they not hear me when I said it was a MAN COLD!!
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Strategic Dining

'Tis the season for much dining. And one has fully embraced the spirit of the occasion.

It began with a strategic lunch with Supervisor Grand Chief K et al where one made sure one was strategically placed near the sharing bowl of chips.


The next occasion was The Administrator's birthday lunch - strategically timed to be on a fasting day and therefore requiring the sacrifice of that particular days abstinence.


The next occasion was the strategic flying of the library flag at the divisional lunch in the park. Supervisor S and I were the only library survivors making it up the gastronomic beach to raise said library flag. One made sure to honour the absent with some good hearty feasting.


Occasions still to come include the library Xmas party evening lunch - sure to provide a wealth of strategic opportunities - and the councils Lawn Lunch lunch, which one strategically delayed one's holidays by a day to attend due to the strategic imperative to show good team spirit.


All in all it seems that the weeks ahead may also raise a need for some tactical naps to offset all that strategy.
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A Tale of Four Parties

Well, except one of them was a gaming event - but I am not one to let facts stand in the way of a blog entry.
And in any case, said gaming event did involve more drinking than one of the parties!


The celebrating kicked off on an unknown day with a Grand Final watching extravaganza. The event was hosted by The Wiggs and was only a short drive from work - and therefore long drive from home.
The day involved no less than three costume changes from yours truly as beginning the party in one's Collingwood jumper was against the rules of MrRogers and The Electric Tiger; and then one's lesser-of-two-evils coloured attire seemed rather pointless after, oh, 10 minutes or so of footy.

Lack of exciting footy action did allow one to have a catchup talk with Mrs BestFriendSincePrep and also indulge ones fondness for snacks.



The very next day saw another long drive to the vicinity of work. This one was in order to attend a milestone soirée for Supervisor Grand Chief K.

The event marked Hulk's introduction to high society as she, and Salsa Girl, fit perfectly into the Spring Racing garden party theme - oneself also fit perfectly into the sub-theme of car park.

Along the way to being shown the finer points of Croquet by Hulk - just hitting the nearest ball is apparently how one does it properly - one was able to pass pleasantries with the likes of Devil's Advocate (or should that be Devils ), The Administrator and Sonja Roster Queen.



One's third party was the regular all staff training day of which all I can bear to bring myself to mention is the provision of merely adequate amounts of food. Oh Mr Prada why to you torture me so!



Gaming Sunday, being the final of  the parties, began with Hulk's first board game - The Little Mole Who Knew it was none of his Business - big thanks My Guitarist for the poo-themed book, game, and plush mole bundle.
Gaming partying continued with a plethora of games and attendees - Legion2, Pirate Dave, Amoeba, and Miasmakat finally putting in an appearance after 15 years on the invite list - all of us dosed with lashings of the finest whiskey.


All in all a grand series of good times - and a jolly good reason for not posting anything for a month or more.
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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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The Arrival of My Young Apprentice

Last week one had the fortune to be shadowed at one's workplace by My Young Apprentice who shall be covering for myself, should Hulk ever decide to make her appearance and kick off my six week holiday.

Yes that's right, Supervisor Grand Chief K, has finally, albeit indirectly, acknowledged the huge amount of work that one has to do.

It was an interesting week. Much of my time was spent educating My Young Apprentice on the ins and outs and other important parts of the job: computer systems, hardware, standing up to Big J, pleasing The Administrator, which branch has the best cakes and so forth.

The most important job however was getting him to understand the importance of not finishing all my long-standing projects in the first week lest one return to some awkward questions or - worse still - find that one has been usurped as the paragon of IT in the eyes of one's librarians.

Thankfully the IT department has seen fit to restrict his privileges in such a way that several things may well be impossible for him to achieve which means one will be able to sleep soundly for the duration of one's absence.
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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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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 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 Return to Normalcy

So Wednesday was the scheduled day for my triumphant return to LibraryLand and the usual hum-drum of the day to day workday. True to my amazing recuperative powers I was all ready to keep my scheduled return date and was even looking forward to having some human company as The Tiger seemed completely oblivious to my need for careful nursing over the previous week.

So Tuesday night was when a major server decided to "fall over", as we say in the high jargon IT world, just so that many things would have trouble first thing in the morning. Did I mention my plan to take it easy on my first day by arriving around eleven?

So anyway, there I was, up early to do my knee-ish physio exercises - least The Viking Hat GM come around and knee-cap me for being one of those people that don't do the recovery exercises and then whine that the operation didn't fix anything - and lo and behold the phone begins to ring.

So of course it was Sister Serials with some query, only she would be callous enough to value her record as my chief tormentor over my health and call so early on my day of return.
Alas she was not the only call that morning. They followed in quick succession and before long I was busily trying to fix things remotely from home.

So eventually I was able to make it in at about 1pm - just in time for my lunch break.

So that evening there was normalcy at the regular game hosted by The Viking Hat GM as he once again made us face a deadly enemy - luckily we were too good for his shenanigans.


So Thursday there was even more normalcy as I had to struggle through roadworks and Punt Rd traffic to get to a regular morning meeting.
Refreshingly I was subject of some very abnormal behaviour as a chorus of workmates greeted me joyfully as I walked late into the meeting. We even had a post meeting lunch in honour of The Administrator having a birthday that day. Honestly, what some people will do to steal my limelight!

So while we're on the subject of limelight stealing let's not forget the dinner I attended that night in honour of Comrade Treasurer's change of job. You can guess which recently operated upon IT man was not the centre of attention there as well.


So, sigh, only a week after being operated upon and the universe had already run out of sympathy for me.

So such is the normalcy under which I live my life.

(So I've found out with this post that you can start any paragraph with so. Amazing isn't it?)
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... A Proper Level of Service

Finally it was here, the day I'd been waiting all year for, Xmas Eve, which also happened to be a much more important date this year - the day of the free Xmas lunch courtesy of the council!

After disentangling myself from the perfidious RFID machines at Beaumaris I made my way to the Corporate Castle to partake in the feasting.

Upon arrival I was informed that due to my slightly late arrival I had missed out on the turkey.
As disastrous as this was I was able to keep it together and hold out my plate for the ham, potatoes, and salads that remained. It was all made better by this years twist to procedures that had the Senior Management Team serving us and one of the seniors was Supervisor Grand Chief K herself. I took a moment to revel in receiving the kind of service I should be receiving all the time.

After fetching myself a nice glass of red I found the library table joining The Administrator, AntagonisticAl, and Devil's Advocate as they finished off their repast. In an unnerving repeat of several weekends ago the dessert was whisked away from our table before I could partake.

Strangely consoling myself with work I went to harass SoccerBuddy about network issues. After growing tired of that I decided to head back and try my luck with obtaining dessert. Luckily there was another library table in the second sitting and I seamlessly joined them and had some wonderful hedgehog and conversation.

After the excitement of lunch there was not much left to the day and I wrapped up my day with a quick trip home and a quiet night in.
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... The Abandonment of Mr Prada

(Ex:  ... Abandoned by Mr Prada - apologies to Fridgepower)

This morning I was looking forward to tackling another classroom full of 2.0 recalcitrants with Mr Prada my partner in crime only to have him cancel his appearance for the measly reason of having to open the library and serve the borrowers.

Shouldering the immense burden, I soldiered on and proceeded to instruct Ms Magpie, Bomber Babe, Alltogether Heather, The Beaumaris Ballerina, and The Administrator in the mysteries of the 2.0 world.


In other new AntagonisticAl's printer pranks have continued to get worse as a follow-up phone call today revealed that the the part I ordered on Thursday is "Not in Stock" and has to be back-ordered. So not only did they not inform me of the extra delay I also found out that the order wasn't put into their system until after 12 the day after my call!
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... A Very Library Xmas

Well the big event of yesterday was the library staff Xmas Party.

Sonja Roster Queen had foolishly offered her residence as the venue. It was a miserable day with constant downpouring rain but I was determined to get my free complimentary drink and dinner. So I made my way across town through the monsoon rains to eventually arrive on the doorstep only mildly bedraggled.

I had barely swigged my first Cointreau Kiss and started on the dips before Supervisor Grand Chief K, making a brief cameo, officially opened proceedings with a big thank you for the years work to all staff and especially the IT Man who had been working tirelessly all year.

Food was very good and a strangely cowboy hat festooned Kiwichick was quick to claim credit although I suspect food that good can only be the work of Days of our Libraries.

There are not too many crazy goings-on to report - the usual karaoke accompanied by The Administrator's fine air-guitar work featured for many hours, with a bonus Mr Prada and Days of our Libraries Bonnie Tyler duet this year. There was also the yelling contest that is the kris kringle ceremony. This years unexpected fall was Devil's Advocate's collapsing chair mime-routine, complete with unspilled champagne glass.

I spent a large part of the evening cloistered under the veranda roof keeping out of the rain with the dirty-smokers as that was the place for contemplative conversation. It has been so long since I came home with the stench of smoke upon myself that I don't begrudge anyone for the remainder of the bad old night out side effects.

I completed my night with my usual taxi duties dropping Beeby and Groovy Spirits off in quick succession before taking The Maple Maverick on the long haul back to our neck of the woods.

Oh and AntagonisticAl did absolutely nothing to be ashamed of all night.
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... The Black Crusade by Richard Harland

I knocked off this reasonably entertaining humorous horror story this morning. It would have been last night but a full house at gaming made for a later night and I was ending up with book-dents on my forehead as I tried to read those final 5 pages.

I've liked Mr Harlands previous detective scifi books (yet another case for multi-genre stickers!). This one was amusing with only the slightest touch of the trying-too-hards - it even has it's own fiction as fact website!

One of the reasons to finish off the work in question this morning was to free me up for The Administrator's birthday lunch. Not a free one, but I think paying my own way shows my appreciation for her shouldering of the many tasks that I shirk.
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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.

... The Lunchless Launch

Now that a few days have passed I have had time to recover from the severe lack of lunch at Monday's RFID launch.

The day started badly with Sister Serials having snuck in over the weekend and processed a huge mound of new magazines which yours truly had to load onto the tagging machine so they could be put away before the launch event happened.

The launch itself went without a hitch which is surprising given technologies usual reluctance to work properly under pressure. I was surprised to learn from the assistant to the minister's copy boy (or something like that, the minister couldn't make it) that up until RFID we'd been tagging books with up to seven tags! But then I'm not a librarian so what would know.

Now to be fair to Supervisor Grand Chief K there were some nibbles and bubbles supplied but there also appeared to be some sort of conspiracy to keep me busy and away from the table as guest after guest was trotted out with questions for me to answer. In the end I did manage to wash down a few crumbs of cheese with the dregs of the last bottle of bubbles - all under the pressure of Devil's Advocate hovering around to reclaim my glass like I was some sort of thief. Suffice to say I wasn't able to complete my set of champagne flutes.


Also this week:
Monday night I once more foolishly subjected myself to The Viking Hat GM's torture disguised as game. Perhaps it the abundance of snacks that keeps me doing it?

Tuesday night I had eight blokes pretending to be cowboys as our latest game - a supernatural western - began with some crazy hijinks on a train.

Wednesday Sonja Roster Queen and I began blasting (or zapping if you're SGCK) the Brighton collection to activate the RFID tags. I don't think I will every tire of the "blasted books" joke.
As it turns out blasting is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. The process involes waving an antenna wand over the books until they are all done - it actually feels more like you're caressing their auras than blasting them.

On Thursday The Administrator and I tag-teamed to train the public for a day consuming couple of classes due to trainer illness.

My week ended on a high indulging in a small after-work tipple with Groovy Spirits, Shirl, and Nurse Janet after the days duties were done.
Once Home I watched the footy until I was joined by Pirate Dave dropping off some cards for the next tournament. We tried to puzzle out his new World of Warcraft boardgame until late in the evening. Eventually he left when he guessed I was tired from my subtle move of passing out from exhaustion.

... 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.