I was woken from my early-evening doze in a rather unceremonious manner, as the bus driver’s dulcet tones overrode my iPod’s rather more appropriate offering of Thelonious Monk, to inform me that my transport home was stopping about a mile and half short of my home, rather than more or less outside my front door, as had been advertised when I got aboard and paid my shiny pound for the priviledge of travelling by London Omnibus.

I was, as you might imagine, more than a little put out with this. It substantially cut down my chances of getting the dinner I wanted from M&S from one thing, to say nothing of having been stiffed out of a quid by London Transport. And it looked like it was about to piss down with rain, like it had all the rest of the day.

So it was with uncharitable thoughts about the world and everyone in it that I set off on my impromptu forced march – I had ten minutes to cover about half that distance, and get to M&S before it shut, and if it hadn’t started to piss it down by then, cover the same again to get home. Well, OK, if had started to piss it down, I wasn’t going to be in as much of a hurry, but it was going to be unpleasant.

Thanks to an astonishing turn of speed, I made it to M&S (undampened by rain) in time to grab my dinner, noting as I dived in that there seemed to be an awful lot of police about.

I left M&S, still in a foul mood – they hadn’t had what I wanted, so I grabbed a quick sandwich instead.

At that point, I saw the cause of the cancelled bus, and the police. There’d been an accident, and the police were sealing the road off in both directions. The accident had involved a motorbike and, I think, a bus. It did not look like the kind of motorbike accident that the rider walks away from with scrapes.

I made it home unrained on.

A little lesson in perspective, I think. If the worst I have to complain about is an unplanned brisk walk, and the fact that the rather nice dinner I had wasn’t the rather nice dinner I’d had in mind, I’m think I’m doing pretty well.

I hope that the poor bastard on the bike recovers.

Saw it. Loved it. Am inclined to agree with burge, although I didn’t find the ending sad, just really, really moving. Thus far, this and Lost in Translation are my favourites for the year.

For those keeping score, I fell asleep shortly after midnight, although I did wake up within the time period that redscharlach predicted, which would a lot creepier if it had been a smaller window of time. Still, I say we burn her as a witch, just to be on the safe side, as she clearly sent some kind of horrible demony-thing to plague me in my sleep.

Well, this is either going to be very stupid or it’ll answer a question for certain. I am sitting here with a pint of coffee, at seven thirty in the evening, because I’ve got quite a lot of work I want to get done. Anyone want to bet on what time I’ll manage to fall asleep?

You know, the one where everyone reaffirms what a trendy liberal they are

So, what happened to me this weekend? Well, I got an unexpectedly early night on Friday – I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, then retired to bed with a book. I didn’t get a lot of reading done, though, because while I remember retiring to bed, the next thing I recall is it being seven-thirty on Saturday morning, which was something of a shock to me.

Saturday afternoon, and coffee somehow turned into a quick drink, which turned into several more drinks with redscharlach, mrtreacle and elethe which was a good laugh, although I’d like to take a moment to echo other people’s amused remarks about plateaus and precipices.

Sunday anw, marysiak and I took a wander down to Merton Abbey Mills, since we hadn’t been down that way in ages. Somehow, I got talked into buying a walking stick/cane thing. I also managed to buy some of my favourite orange juice, that Sainsbury’s one that’s Fresh orange, with strawberry pulp. My local Sainsburys doesn’t stock it, which is really bloody annoying, as they could make an easy tenner a week off me from that alone if they did. (OK, it’s hardly going to keep them afloat, but still, I figure if I’m willing to buy four or five bottles of the stuff a week, there must be other people that like it well enough to make it worth them stocking it…) I have also investigated the price of flats in that development, and found them to be out of reach, I fear.

Then I got home, and I do seem to have been well and truly bitten by the urge to run a game again – I’ve started writing up the NPCs, which is ace, because it’s forcing me to stretch creative muscles I haven’t really used in the last year or so, and I’m quite happy with what I’m coming up with. Mind you, I’m pretty sure that half the interesting bits of the dozen or so I’ve already written up will never come to light, but it’s nice to know them anyway, and it does at least make me feel like I’m being properly creative again…

In other news, I should be seeing “The Black Rider” in early June, and it looks worryingly like I’m going to be going to Glastonbury this year as well. Haven’t quite made my mind up yet, as well, it involves camping, and I have Views on camping, but I’m certainly leaning that way. Other than davebushe and rockoctopus is there anyone else on my friends list going?

The topic’s come up a few times recently, my Mum has switched back into “Nag him about it at least twice every time I see him” mode, and my hairline is beginning to recede a bit. I don’t think it’s going to go much further than it already has, touch wood – my hairline pretty much resembles my Dad’s now, and his has been static for the last thirty-odd years. Still, I’m thinking about cutting my hair short, and I’ve got a family wedding coming up that would give me a decent excuse to do so. So, should I:

If you’ve go anything else to say, or just want to be particularly emphatic in your views, please leave a comment

Friday night in, it seems – the general consensus seems to be that no-one can be arsed with any of the clubs that are on tonight, so everyone is staying in. Conscience says “Go to the gym, you’ve only been twice this week”. Lazy bastardry says “Yes, but one of those times was last night. You can go tomorrow, or something.”

So barring the re-appearance of flatmates (and that’s not going to make massive difference, either), or a better offer in the next hour or two, I suspect I shall hunt out a DVD or two, and curl up with booze.

I bought my first RPG supplement in something like three years today. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Of course, I don’t think I’ll ever get any use out of the thing, but in so far as I have One True Game, White Wolf’s Mage is it, so I had to see how they’d packed it up. Haven’t read it yet, but a quick skim reveals that it is, at least, not awful, which is pretty good for an RPG supplement.

But now there’s a voice at the back of my head saying “Go on, run a Mage game. Just a small one. You can handle it.”

I’d like to note that I blame winterthing almost entirely for this. I suppose in fairness, I probably ought to blame davedevil as well, but he’s not exactly likely to be reading, unless it’s pointed out to him…

(Hypothetically, if I were to run a small game, say, once a fortnight, is there anyone in the London area who might be interested?)

So, after years of making “I’ll never be able to afford to buy property in London” noises, I finally did some actually investigating of possibilities. (Well, OK, what I actually did was say to my mother “Look, I don’t think I’ll be able to get anything, but if it makes you happy, then sure, go on ahead and ask some questions on my behalf.”)

It turns out that I probably can get a more-or-less affordable mortgage that would allow me to buy somewhere. In fact, as a quick look round property websites has just shown me, if I’d looked into this a bit earlier, I’d have had a good chance of being able to buy the (rather nice looking, from the photos) flat two doors down from where I currently live.

So, time get my finances in better order over the next few months…