evil northern overlord

I went for a walk just now. Technically because I needed to go get bread, really because I fancied a walk in the evening.

Also Tiddles is back and has been rocking the world of Storybook Weaver again.











I hear falling down holes is the hot thing these days amongst you kids. The lion is purple because there's a recolour function and because I like purple.

Did I mention this thing is way too much fun even if I have no idea where I'm going? Because it is. For the record this is the original SBW, mostly because it's available to download but also because I'm mostly sure (memory being fallible) that it's the version I played way back when. At some point I'm going to have to make an SBW page on Neocities, then I'll have double 90s or something.

I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW.

Also November 18th? Whyyy do you hate NaNoWriMo so much, Game Freak? Nah, I joke. But really, I must be the only person holding out for another delayed European release. I got words to do, people.

See below: a 100% accurate summary of my morning:



And it's only 07:20, kids!

(And hat and coat weather outside. Ew. Maybe the weather wants me to get over my hat hangups.)

I finally got around to listening to the Hidden Almanac because bookblather was posting about doing the same. I don't know how it took me so long since I've been a fan of KUEC all this time, but I'm glad I did. It was a little weird to get into at first because all I could think was "This is Kevin's voice. This is Kevin. At some point he is going to talk about beagles" but you get over that eventually.

It is delightfully weird in that way that Ursula Vernon's work always is. Each episode is really short, just a few minutes long, but that means that it's easy to catch up on the giant backlog, and also that you can sneak one in whenever you have a bit of time spare. Or several. I dare you to stop at one. I dare you.

Poke if you like weird history, weird saints, weird gardening, and used car salesman rising from the grave to threaten their business rivals in the sponsor messages. And Kevin's voice, which is the definition of relaxing.

I had a 90s bomb moment - anyone know this show?

My 90s memories never seem to line up with everyone elses'. I guess because I didn't have cable at home growing up and a lot of the big shows of the time were ones I didn't get to see often because of that. Some exceptions for the Disney Saturday morning cartoons and Power Rangers*, but aside from that, my 90s was not your 90s. Confession: I don't think I've ever seen a full episode of Rugrats. I know. I suck. And some of it's geographical, 'cause I don't expect people outside the UK to remember the Crystal Maze or Knightmare**.

But I had this moment where my brain was idling and got onto cartoons and hey, what was that show with the ox and the turtle and all the other talking animals and the paraphrased quote about chrysanthemums which for ages I thought I'd hallucinated because I couldn't find and nobody ever mentioned it. Thankyou Google. Now I know! And it turns out it was actually an 80s show but shush, I remember watching it in the 90s.

And now I remember it's the reason why kid me wrote several billion crappy stories about talking animals.

anyway SAY HELLO if you remember it so I don't feel like a weirdo is what I'm saying here.


*And that era on the internet where everyone knew how to make a website, rather than considering it some strange wizardry as they do today.
**Your tragic loss.

I feel awful right now (physically, don't worry!) but I managed to get this collection done.



At least one 6IV (perfectly statted) male pokemon for each egg group. Took me forever to assemble. So much running around in circles in Not Paris. (And I didn't get one shiny whilst doing it, despite all those eggs. You can't have it all.)

Anyone want leftovers? I have a crapton.

(Also it seems the images not showing thing is a problem on my end. Thanks for pointing that out! I still haven't worked out why that's happening but at least I know. Hopefully you can see this image okay.)

Watch the tortoise! Plus, he's so cuute. You nom that strawberry, little tortoise.

Finally caught up on Doctor Who. You could say I took the long way around.

Now, you know, I'm very laid back, very non-critical, very easy to please. So there are finales that will make me go "Eh, X could have been better, but I had fun." And then there are those that make me go "Ooh, that was fun!" and those that make me go "That was cool, I loved that!"

And then, those that make me cheer out loud because of how perfect they were.

Mag-fucking-nificent. And I can't wait for Christmas!

Stop reading the news. Stop watching the news. Stop whispering sweet nothings to the news as you both fall asleep. I know it sucks, but you'll feel better. Here's some ice cream.

(Worked for me!)

Anyway the sun is setting and I am off to London to sit in a bookshop for 12 hours with 40 other writers because I have no sense of self preservation or a healthy sleep cycle. See you all tomorrow when I will no doubt have collapsed on the floor, late in again because the trains here are shite!

I did some more screwing around with my Neocities page. It has a links section now. LIKE IT'S 1999.

I guess some people would say there's no need for links anymore because we have better search engines than we used to. And I guess that's right. But I think sometimes links can show you stuff you might never have found otherwise. They bring me back to my earliest experiences with the internet, hanging out in internet cafes ~1998, squeezing as much time as I could out of my money. It was mostly Petz sites. Hopping from one to the other, it felt like exploring a multitude of little worlds. That's what links are good for. You're not driving down a motorway, you're exploring a little trail through the woods. You don't know where you'll end up, but it's fun to find out...

(And contrary to popular belief, many of them were quite nicely put together. Granted I came in at the tail end of the 90s, when things were starting to get a bit slicker. But still personal.)

That's what I feel like my page is. A little world, all to myself. And yeah, nostalgic. That purple Courier on black look was My Thing back when. But it's also my home now. Sometimes you come across something and you think "yes, this could be my internet home" and this is one of mine. It takes a little more time and effort, but the end result is something that's uniquely yours.

Basically what you all need to do now is make pages so I can link to you and be all LOOK AT THESE COOL PEOPLE.