The Patent Dragon's Zone of Soul Retraction

Back to work tomorrow - and yet again, my day took some time to start to my satisfaction. We had a partial power-outage following ANOTHER bout of stormy weather, but that was all due to a circuit-breaker tripping, not wind or falling trees - and right after that, the Christmas decorations absolutely HAD to come down...

I am only now getting my arse in a seat, to try and make some use of what little remains of my work-break. I'm already exploring options for my loooooong-overdue hardware upgrade - damn all these multi-core processors - and some other shopping may be done before week's end ...ooooh, new LEGO minifigures...

Now may be the time to start planning on, or in some instance complete, some of my major creative Mission 101 Tasks, such as

88 - Create usable stage/screen/cosplay props of three pieces of costume or equipment from my own projects
91 - Create a "personal goddess"
94 - Make a PD-worthy pair of boots from scratch!
97 - Build a diddley bow

- pity we're now short a craft shop...

Time, perhaps, to go looking for more leather and some faux suede, for two projects outside of the Mission "portfolio". Yes, I'm in the mood to make stuff - weather permitting.

Trying to be positive now...

Shopping News... In a round-about way, we swapped the problematic heater for a smaller version. With careful management of its operation, things should be okay - hopefully. At least that should mean no room-swap, and the elimination of one source of grief. Good. Just hope it does the job - or the next few months are going to be testing.

Still no sign of this month's comics - and hopefully the comic boxes I ordered several months ago. If there's no sign of those this delivery, I will be asking questions (like "where are my fucking comic boxes?").

If I wasn't watching last night's Packers @ Falcons, I'd probably be hard at work sourcing Mission 101 Task materials, mainly for prop creation - as in

88 - Create usable stage/screen/cosplay props of three pieces of costume or equipment from my own projects

I had considered augmenting one design with electronics, but my jury-rigged solution just doesn't seem to be coming together. A little more applied cleverness - and a somewhat cruder solution - and this could work! All I have to do then is learn some electronics - which just might help with

97 - Build a diddley bow

If my environment can be made more conducive to creativity, both physically and psychologically, things will go a whole lot more smoothly. Guess I should draw up a "wants" list, if I'm going to progress with some of these creative Tasks.

REDSKINS 2-0...

And for the rest of the evening, it's back to the bedroom and DAB radio for live coverage of Patriots-Chargers. This'll probably become a regular thing - I enjoyed Redskins-Giants last week (obviously).

So, How Was Your Day...? Surprisingly productive, actually, as far as my Mission 101. I have a plan in semi-motion for a different design of home-made book... I have made progress with my diddley-bow... and I can chalk up what I'm counting as a classic movie - the 1948 Hitchcock movie Rope. Hey, if the IMDB Top 250 rates this as an 8.0 (at number 234), equalling the already-seen All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), at number 217, then it counts.1I still have a backlog to deal with, but this was a most welcome chance discovery in the TV schedules!

Hmmmm, seem like I'm getting too relaxed here. Gonna post this, and go "low-tech" for thr rest of the evening - don't want the trusty netbook in bits on the floor...

The sun came out today, making it a day fit for venturing out of town. Grabbed a DVD 3-disk special edition Avatar, *gasp* a new Amazon MP3 gift card - the like of which I honestly never expected to find again - and...

...I may just have the necessary parts for one of my Mission 101 Tasks, and that's

97 - Build a diddley bow

and that's because I now have (excuse the photo quality)



- FOR NOTHING courtesy of Kenny's Music, in Dundee. Gentlemen, if this all works out, tea is definitely on me!

Also... It's very sad to hear that The Red Arrows lost one of their pilots today. The RAF's display team have had such an excellent safety record over the years, and they will be, I'm sure, expected to fly at the Leuchars air-show in September, as was Vulcan XH558, the iconic Cold war V-bomber which has been withdrawn from several other displays with a fuel leak. Without these two elements, the Leuchars display won't be the monumental affair it deserves to be...

NEXT WEEK - DOCTOR WHO.

Destination - Weekend... Right, that seems to be the DVR operational now - haven't tried recording yet, but I do have playback, so that's half the battle.

So, what else is on the list? for a start, I can also cross off some boot-maintenance, as the heels of the boots that are now indoor-only took a little punishment during Mission Task 100. I'm also thinking of posting the first chapter of TDD-701 "A Star Is Rising" tomorrow...

...and there's work to be done on a chunk of wood that'll be a diddley-bow fairly soon...

...a new monitor to order (there's really not enough room for a big boxy one)...

...and a heap of stuff still to sort out from The Move!

I should be thankful there isn't a movie to go and see this weekend, 'cause I really don't know how I'd fit it all in! Argh, and the British Grand Prix...!

It's a bit weird today - I'm still energised by yesterday, but when I sit down, boy am I tired. THOR gets a full big-screen week starting Friday, so I might just go and see it again on my birthday... :)

The Weekend Of Madness may be over, but where to go from here? There are certainly a good crop of blockbusters still to come, but what else can I cram into the summer? Are we looking at a Summer Of Madness?

I have craft things in mind - I made a set of Emotional Spectrum "prayer beads" in preparation for Green Lantern (June 17), and there is still a couple of Mission tasks along those lines...

51 - Create something to sell, and sell it!
52 - Complete some craft projects I've started
84 - Learn to make my own paper...
85 - ...and make my own books!
91 - Create a "personal goddess"
94 - Make a PD-worthy pair of boots from scratch!
97 - Build a diddley bow

Still got Rush in three weeks, remember (Task 90)... oh, and no CLAN to fanny things up!

Development News... There's every chance I might just have TDD-701: After The Fall finished before REIGNFALL even starts posting! There wasn't a great deal of writing done today - I actually managed to do more yesterday - but progress is progress, and the rest of the story is pretty much writing itself on the scaffolding of pre-planned story threads. A bit more work tonight will push things ahead, maybe even reach completion...