With a teddy-bear clamped between her knees

Went to Temperance for the first time, had a free drink from the MSD team and then headed off to Kazu to wait for evie_fae, argentbear, & panda_pitt. I think we are all addicted to Kazu's karragge. I have this vision of being fed karagge by porcelain geisha until I am bloated like a bloated thing. Then it was up to Expressaholic where I was amused by the juxtaposition of posters, an advert for a Shakespeare performance next to a WWF (or similar) one; the ad for Robert Fisk's talk next to one for "The New Pornographers". Home early, with the wind biting.

Saturday was a lazy day of nothing much. I did get chores done. I scanned some pages from an old White Dwarf and spent far too long cleaning up the scan. Realized I can actually do sub-degree rotations down to .01 of a degree in Paintshop. Why didn't I realize this ages ago? I attempted to clean up some ancient Grenadier dragons, with the intent to paint them up. Yeah, actual paint applied to a figure. Don't worry, hasn't happened yet. What I need to figure out though is how to remove a surface layer of corrosion from old lead figures so I get a good surface for the undercoat. I'm thinking some sort of weak acid, maybe vinegar? I tried Coke on a piece, but while it cleans brown coins nicely, it doesn't do that well on lead. I should google it. Stayed up late re-watching the Truman show coz it was on TV.

Sunday I got up and started cleaning house for Ele & Ben's father's day visit. wasup_bro was very helpful, getting dishes and floor mopping done. I went shopping. Found my progress impeded first by elderly Sunday drivers who had to go round corners at about 5Km/h, then by people in coloured lycra who insisted on running and riding bikes down public roads.

Got back, and relaxed with coffee and ginger-nuts. When Ben arrived I opened my pressies. I got chocolate, Lindt chilli from Ben, Bailey's Irish Cream choccies from wasup_bro. I got a khaki shirt with a picture of an M1 Abrams and the words "Frank the Tank" on it from Ben. Even though he is away on world trips, ferrouswheel remembered to leave a present for me, and it was a very well thought out and occasion appropriate one too. He'd collected photos of all four of the boys and had them printed on a mug! Lovely idea! Thanks, ferrouswheel!

Ben had also spent the morning creating a multi-page Father's Day card, by cutting out pictures of all the movie and TV fathers he could think of, including such as Elrond (father of Arwen), Will Turner's father from Pirates of the Carribean, and, of course Darth Vader.

We had lunch, a nicely set table with flowers in a vase, set up by wasup_bro while I was out shopping, and French toast also made by wasup_bro. The French toast was filling which means there was lots of bread left over! A couple of weeks back it was the week of pizza. Last week, due to the lovely chicken tikka & pumpkin curry khaybee & danjite made for me, it was the week of curry. This week it shall be the week of bread! :)

Later in the afternoon, I picked up evie_fae in her jaunty grey check trilby, to recover jarratt_gray from the airport. Such a cute couple! :) Watched Mad Men and the second part of the Dr. Who double-ep about The Library in the evening. I really enjoyed the concepts in that, from "Dr.Moon" to the line "these are our forests". Finished off with a lovely chat with seraphs_folly. Fell asleep, warm, fed, and chocolated.

This morning, I had new music on the train due to spending parts of Friday filling the remaining 2Gb on my phone's 4Gb mini-SD. Like Nick Cave's Supernaturally.

That is not dead which can eternal lie...

This Washington Post article makes an apt comparison between Google and the Cthulu Mythos.

Why I have Heavily Sugared Coffee

Sometimes people joke at the amount of sugar I put in my coffee. I play along and tell them that its the sugar that more important than coffee, and that perhaps I should just have sugar dissolved in hot water as a drink. It turns out that I maybe right about that!

According to Ars Technica, a study is showing that heavy mental effort leads to eating bigger meals. But interestingly, one of the explanations is that :

The brain is especially reliant on glucose, and the blood tests revealed that both glucose and insulin levels changed during the KBW tasks, while they gently sloped off during the relaxation. The differences weren't consistent—the two KBW tasks sent the levels in opposite directions—but the instability of the levels was large for both of them. The authors suggest that the eating may simply be an attempt to give the body the chance to stabilize blood glucose.

So perhaps my desire to suck down huge amount of glucose, combined with a little coffee, maybe associated with this? It may also explain why I'm just as happy with a St. Johns Wort tea with a couple of teaspoons of honey in it. Ah, that pure crystal! Glucose , my drug of choice!

Of course, in Mega-City One, my sugar habit would make me a criminal.