An Unfortunate Lack Of Tea
May. 25th, 2020 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeIt's amazing how I refuse to let myself relax, the only excuse being if it's a sunny day which I know are few and far between in this country. Caught between job applications, German learning, guitar practice, Animal Crossing and my daily walk, weekdays have started to become scripted and this has put pressure upon me where no pressure is needed. Things reached crescendo on Tuesday when Wolfie wanted to spend some intimate time with me, but this added to my schedule and made me get very stressed. It wasn't pleasant but he insisted I relax, with Wednesday fortunately being a very nice day to just sit outside. This saw me finish some books at least - Michael Palin's Erebus and later in the week Dom Joly's The Dark Tourist - and added to the sense of relaxation which was something. Caught between the stress of a fourth interview, which took place on Friday, in many respects this was well received.
Pony Chat went ahead as normal on Tuesday, but I could only stay for one forty minute stint, while Thursday's Clap For Carers did see me where the fursuit for the first time in four weeks, much to the delight of the neighbours. As the weather on Wednesday and Thursday was so good, I largely just sat outside and drank beer, while Friday was given over to some of virtual Confuzzled. As I've said previously, I prefer face-to-face meetings and so the online stream was no real substitute, but at least we didn't have to endure the shonky Hilton. I watched some of Taskmaster, which was a little cringey as four of my friends were participating, and made me feel a little regretful that I didn't have a bash myself (I thought my camera quality wouldn't be too good, and yet compared to some, I realised in hindsight it would be fine). I also got to listen to the Fox Amoore plus Pepper Coyote plus Jake concert, which enabled me to do some job searching at the same time. It was a really nice event actually and I learned a lot of guitar fingering from Pepper's strangly digits, not to mention a sense of connection to some of the great tunes being played.
I didn't do much else of virtual Confuzzled to be honest, although Gothi's livestream on Friday evening was fun, where I got to introduce the likes of Oomph and Apulanta to some close friends. The evening lasted five hours, and I had a great time interacting with the group on there. The split between Discord for the social and Twitch for the stream was awkward for someone with just one screen, while we tried to enter the pub quiz on the Saturday evening but were turned down. Consequently, I saw little point in tuning in so we ended up playing Jackbox games on Stray's server as a bigger group, with Skavi, Dorje and Procyon there as well as the usual numbers. Stray himself did a quiz which I got 32/64 on, a respectable second place considering about two thirds of the questions were on films and I barely watch any. I am quite liking the virtual stuff, but as I say, it doesn't compete with real life interaction and I have started to get antsy, wanting to see somewhere new and do something different. I hope there will be significant easing of restrictions next Thursday, and indeed I am starting to wish that I can go back to work after two months of furlough, but they haven't been in touch this week either so I have no idea where I stand. Racing could be back next week, with the Premier League the week after, although I think both are optimistic. And even if they are, as my job is not uber critical, my feeling is I'll likely be out of work for another month at least, which in lockdown is starting to frustrate.
Sunday was quite a busy day, with me ringing Pinky at noon followed by tuning into the Emergency Remainiacs Livestream to hear their thoughts on the snowballing Dominic Cummings scandal. If there was any pretence that the UK was a serious nation, I think the last shred of this has now gone, with today's defence being even more woeful than the lies which had preceded it. The country is restive though, as are some Tories, and I suspect this has significant cut-through but we shall see. It has also been interesting hearing a lot about Barnard Castle, a town I know well as this is where my mother lives. However, the fact that Cummings seems to think he can do one thing and the little people have to do the opposite really rankles, not least because of my own agitation in wanting to get out.
Later on Sunday, I enjoyed our usual pony chat which contained the usual suspects, with some of the American ponies in particular now being incredibly good friends. This was continued later in the evening by the inaugural Furry Brew Crew Bar Meet, which saw twelve of us gather on Discord for an evening of beer discussion and drinking. It was great seeing Pacer and Ipequay again, even if I didn't recognise them initially, as well as a few of our closer friends as well. There was a nice mix of Americans, British and Evi and Namonium, who had dialled in from the Netherlands, with Arakin joining later in the evening too. We cracked open some special beers - Siren's Saints and Villains being one - as well as a couple from Foley Street Brewing, a brewery very close to one of the Brew Crew furs from Vermont. I did feel I had to moderate the chat a little, trying to bring people in as I was the connection that everyone knew, but aside from this bit of admin, it was a fun night and we spent nearly seven hours together.
There was a virtual con this week too, but without a headset, I didn't really see any point in going. I have set up VR Chat now and Arakin has kindly taken me through it, but I had to get a new graphics card to get it to work. A week last Sunday was my runthrough and I must admit I got frustrated quickly, but that's because the graphics card I had was not sophisticated enough, ruling out some of the key menu options and making the menu move all jerkily. It's better now certainly and I need to find an avatar next. I may even look at getting a headset, we shall see. Speaking of Arakin, on Saturday morning I got up early to enjoy another live stream, this time of the entertaining Japanese version of Jack and the Beanstalk from 1974. Having a corporal punishment scene, it was pretty drastic, but the animation was sweet and the tale was a good one, so it was a thoroughly great start to the bank holiday weekend.
Pony Chat went ahead as normal on Tuesday, but I could only stay for one forty minute stint, while Thursday's Clap For Carers did see me where the fursuit for the first time in four weeks, much to the delight of the neighbours. As the weather on Wednesday and Thursday was so good, I largely just sat outside and drank beer, while Friday was given over to some of virtual Confuzzled. As I've said previously, I prefer face-to-face meetings and so the online stream was no real substitute, but at least we didn't have to endure the shonky Hilton. I watched some of Taskmaster, which was a little cringey as four of my friends were participating, and made me feel a little regretful that I didn't have a bash myself (I thought my camera quality wouldn't be too good, and yet compared to some, I realised in hindsight it would be fine). I also got to listen to the Fox Amoore plus Pepper Coyote plus Jake concert, which enabled me to do some job searching at the same time. It was a really nice event actually and I learned a lot of guitar fingering from Pepper's strangly digits, not to mention a sense of connection to some of the great tunes being played.
I didn't do much else of virtual Confuzzled to be honest, although Gothi's livestream on Friday evening was fun, where I got to introduce the likes of Oomph and Apulanta to some close friends. The evening lasted five hours, and I had a great time interacting with the group on there. The split between Discord for the social and Twitch for the stream was awkward for someone with just one screen, while we tried to enter the pub quiz on the Saturday evening but were turned down. Consequently, I saw little point in tuning in so we ended up playing Jackbox games on Stray's server as a bigger group, with Skavi, Dorje and Procyon there as well as the usual numbers. Stray himself did a quiz which I got 32/64 on, a respectable second place considering about two thirds of the questions were on films and I barely watch any. I am quite liking the virtual stuff, but as I say, it doesn't compete with real life interaction and I have started to get antsy, wanting to see somewhere new and do something different. I hope there will be significant easing of restrictions next Thursday, and indeed I am starting to wish that I can go back to work after two months of furlough, but they haven't been in touch this week either so I have no idea where I stand. Racing could be back next week, with the Premier League the week after, although I think both are optimistic. And even if they are, as my job is not uber critical, my feeling is I'll likely be out of work for another month at least, which in lockdown is starting to frustrate.
Sunday was quite a busy day, with me ringing Pinky at noon followed by tuning into the Emergency Remainiacs Livestream to hear their thoughts on the snowballing Dominic Cummings scandal. If there was any pretence that the UK was a serious nation, I think the last shred of this has now gone, with today's defence being even more woeful than the lies which had preceded it. The country is restive though, as are some Tories, and I suspect this has significant cut-through but we shall see. It has also been interesting hearing a lot about Barnard Castle, a town I know well as this is where my mother lives. However, the fact that Cummings seems to think he can do one thing and the little people have to do the opposite really rankles, not least because of my own agitation in wanting to get out.
Later on Sunday, I enjoyed our usual pony chat which contained the usual suspects, with some of the American ponies in particular now being incredibly good friends. This was continued later in the evening by the inaugural Furry Brew Crew Bar Meet, which saw twelve of us gather on Discord for an evening of beer discussion and drinking. It was great seeing Pacer and Ipequay again, even if I didn't recognise them initially, as well as a few of our closer friends as well. There was a nice mix of Americans, British and Evi and Namonium, who had dialled in from the Netherlands, with Arakin joining later in the evening too. We cracked open some special beers - Siren's Saints and Villains being one - as well as a couple from Foley Street Brewing, a brewery very close to one of the Brew Crew furs from Vermont. I did feel I had to moderate the chat a little, trying to bring people in as I was the connection that everyone knew, but aside from this bit of admin, it was a fun night and we spent nearly seven hours together.
There was a virtual con this week too, but without a headset, I didn't really see any point in going. I have set up VR Chat now and Arakin has kindly taken me through it, but I had to get a new graphics card to get it to work. A week last Sunday was my runthrough and I must admit I got frustrated quickly, but that's because the graphics card I had was not sophisticated enough, ruling out some of the key menu options and making the menu move all jerkily. It's better now certainly and I need to find an avatar next. I may even look at getting a headset, we shall see. Speaking of Arakin, on Saturday morning I got up early to enjoy another live stream, this time of the entertaining Japanese version of Jack and the Beanstalk from 1974. Having a corporal punishment scene, it was pretty drastic, but the animation was sweet and the tale was a good one, so it was a thoroughly great start to the bank holiday weekend.
