The Christmas Bakery—er…
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006OK, so I’ve just prepared the first batch for the oven, but of course blogging the recipes will be one day behind.
Fingers crossed, I’ll have something to write about tomorrow.
Archive for December, 2006
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The Christmas Bakery—German Style Cookies
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006During the coming days, in the lead-up to Christmas, I will try to resurrect some recipes for spiced cookies which I remember from my childhood. All of these are easy to make at home (or I wouldn’t try it—I’m crap at patisserie!). The recipes have been drawn from various sources, usually in German and tweaked as necessary/convenient.
The fun is most likely to start tomorrow, unless I’m out of so many ingredients that I’ll have to make a shopping trip first.
No chance at Second Life
Friday, December 8th, 2006Virtual communities have been touted since the early nineties, but I expected that they went out with the VR hype back then. Not so. A sort-of hybrid virtual ‘world’, Second Life, has braved it out since 2003 and its popularity is about to explode. SL has been in the headlines lately, because its currency is exchangable with US$—a real economy in a virtual world—and it is the setting not just for real businesses and jobs, but also for real scams. Besides, a lot of real-life companies set up shop there, including IBM with its secret island headquarters to name but one example.
In short, everyone’s doing it and as one SF writer put it: ‘go there—it’s where you find your audience now’. So I did, assuming the ridiculous name of Kila Kovacs (in my defense: Kila’s a character in ‘The Centuries Summer’ and Kovacs is one from a limited list of surnames on offer). But am I a citizen of Second Life now? Hell, no.
In a throwback almost to the nineties, the site insists on installing software on my computer. As if that is not bad enough (I mean, how do I play on the road/by mobile phone, eh? Riddle me that! It’s the twenty-first century, people), the thing then promptly throws a fit because I don’t have 32 bit screen colour and shuts itself down.
How come that I can watch the promotional videos and high res graphics just fine, but when it comes to playing, it’s a no-no?
Right now, they like me to have at least an 800Hz processor and 256 MB RAM, which I do, but only just. This machine (upgraded) is 3-4 years old, the computer next to it (our old Linux box) 8 or 9. Some of the internet café machines I saw in Asia were older. Our (landlord’s) washing machine dates from 1990 and has just been fixed. I believe in making things last. With the speed with which these people upgrade their software, would I need a new computer by Christmas? And how is that ‘democratic’? Can only the rich kids play? Plus see above: I’d like to play on-line and on the road, please.
So, SL is a non-starter and the virtual universe currently only exists in my head. But at least I can have sleek blue-black fur, swim with the dolphins or float in a castle made of clouds whenever I want. And, come to think of it, one life is enough. I still prefer feeling the sun on my skin to imagining it.
So there.
‘Tis the Season
Tuesday, December 5th, 2006To return to blogging to go Christmas shopping.
What better location than a traditional Christmas market, situated on the medieval streets of Bath?
During a break in the current monsoon, John invited me to tag along to one of his management meetings, held in a nearby hotel. As we drove through the hills towards the town, Bath—with its many crescents coating the slopes like layers in a cake—presented an amazing sight as the sun poked briefly through the clouds. Alas, by the time I got to the city itself, the clouds had drawn back in.
That didn’t matter much, because a traditional Christmas market was in town. Among the many rows of quaint wooden huts, there was the ‘Raincheck Bar’ serving mulled wine and plum strudel, bratwurst and Stollen. Aside from the German influence, there also was a British organic sausage ‘n’ Burgers stall and an Austrian retro-bar serving hot Goulash soup and shots of ethnic Schnaps.
It left precious little time for shopping.
Shopping was my excuse for being here in the first place. I mean, how can I get any writing done when I have Christmas shopping to do? There are only 20 days left, you know…
Alas, the display made me wish I had children to buy presents for. The toys, baubles, hand-made garments, picture books etc. were cute to-die-for—but not quite right for my hirsute husband or biker-chick big sis and her squeeze.
I left Bath behind with a warm glow and logged on to Ebay to buy the presents.
I’m Back
Friday, December 1st, 2006The NaNoWriMo madness is over for another year, and I’m rejoining life 🙂
Meanwhile, things at the bomb factory Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment are hotting up. A White Paper on the future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent is due to be published on Monday. I’ve just emailed Tony Blair and pointed out that not replacing Trident/building new nuclear weapons does not appear to be among the options to be discussed, seeing that the new supercomputing facility and Orion laser are already under construction. Such a shame that I never received the message which I needed to confirm my email. The website blames my email filters—of course the Number 10 website does not filter out incoming messages with troublesome keywords.
Pointing out such omissions matters, because parliament is only allowed to vote on the options set out by the government.
Looks like all I can do is show up at the site yet again. I missed a big demo last Monday, but I only heard about it on the news. Well, I know for Dec. 11th.
30/11/2006:
I ended up at just under 51250 words, and that’s where it has got to stop for now.
For those who are crazy enough, there is always NaNoFiMo, but I’m not that much on a roll. Plus I’m stuck—again—on the verge of big shit hitting the interstellar fan when my starship AIs (and the other level I AIs in the Sol system) are dragged into meatspace conflict as the Nephos being, to whom they are linked, gears up for a battle for survival.
To the AIs, humans are tools for interacting with meatspace. Meatspace may just turn on them.
’nuff said. If this doesn’t sound completely preposterous by January, I’ll continue with it. And even if it does—I’ll rewrite it.
My major problem is that the characters still lack soul. This is purely an ideas-driven piece, and that may be its death knell.
Whatever.
What irks me now is that I can’t get a nice purple bar and a WINNER’s ICON, dammit. I want one! Not having one feels like I’m not really part of NaNo—boo-hoo.
Well, I wasn’t really part of NaNo. I have expanded an existing work and I haven’t completed it either. I reckon that makes me even more of a winner than last year, because last year’s effort didn’t get as far as this year’s already has done (being submitted and rejected, natch) and will do (ditto, by a publishing house).
Now I will go offline and try to forget this NaNo madness until midnight is gone, or else I’m going crazy, staring at that wordcount validator.
Denni