Author: PeterMBall

So I was going to post something about computer games the next time I appeared in the wide and untamed lands of Blogistan, but time has been a bit short for putting together the second part of that particular expedition. Navigating the bog of deep thinking requires time to rethink and edit, and time’s been at a premium this week. I keep casting furtive glances at my to-do list and it keeps scolding me for not getting things done. My sole achievements this week have been marking student assignments for the dayjob I actually like, and finally sending off a round of emails for a gaming project that I was meant to send back in January before Brisbane flooded and things got derailed. There is a Flotsam story due this week. Today, in fact. I’m running late, despite my best efforts, and thus I am frustrated. Very frustrated. There have been attacks of itinerant insomnia. And so part two of Emotion and

I’ve been in Perth for the last four days, having a very nice time at the fiftieth National Science Fiction convention. Generally I’m not good with the con-report type things, since I get frustrated by my inability to summarize things, and so come up with glib one-line descriptions like awesome, with too much curry, which, yes, does encapsulate my con experience, but doesn’t really describe it in any adequate manner. It’s not actually hard to explain why I enjoy Cons. About twenty-five minutes into Amanda Palmer’s Berlkee Music Clinic recording she launches into a description of the life most artists and musicians dream about – something akin to Paris in the twenties where you could wander down to the west bank and step into a bar and immediately be surrounded by like-minded artists and thinkers who are happy to see you. She theorizes that most artists aren’t really interested in money or success so much as the wine moment where you

I’ve written and deleted five blog entries today, all because I couldn’t address the thing I wanted to address without devolving into whining. This on top of yesterday’s thwarted blogging attempt for much the same reason. So, yes, perhaps not quite as back as I thought. I no longer feel like swearing, but my head is far from being in a place where I can communicate like a reasonable human being.

The curtains in my bedroom do a poor job of keeping the morning out of my face. I’m not going to speak about the week that was, because no-one really needs to see me complain and swear and generally carry on, but suffice it to say that the inability to keep out the morning sun was a source of great distress to me this morning. My first real night of sleep in weeks turned out to be not so full of slumber, and not for any of the good reasons, and I really wanted a sleep in to make up for it. Alas. Alak. The daystar strikes again and I my internal monologue now inserts three swear words between every thought instead of the two curses that were my default throughout the week. I mean, you should see the words I’ve had to edit out of this entry. It would have read like an Erving Walsh novel in its original

There’s people on leave at the dayjob this week, which means I working a lot of overtime this week and my dayjob has gone from “seriously, wtf did you hire me for, there’s nothing to do” to “not enough hours in the day to do the work of the two people I’m covering for.” I have the next installment of Flotsam to write. My house is a mess, I’m sleeping four hours a night, and I’m living on baked beans ’cause I don’t have the time to go shopping at the moment. I’m incapable of communicating with the world in a language other than panic and bile this week. In the words of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge. See you next week when things are calmer.