O Kay

The Ganterpies Are Taking Me For Granted!
I have made a rod for my own back, you know.  Yes, as you are surely aware* Conrad has a certain felicity with the written word; not the spoken one, he mumbles too much for that, but when it comes to putting words down on paper - alright, electronic font on virtual paper if you must be so literal - he can hit the gold.

This is a long bit of text so I thought I'd break it up with Edna, peering over the wall

     This, inevitably, means that folk at work have come to expect a bit of light doggerel as a matter of course, for leaving, birthdays, moving house, getting a qualification, putting matching socks on or indicating correctly when coming to a roundabout.
     No!  Conrad has other things to do!  A blog to compose, a novel to write, a mountain of books to read, cakes to bake - hang on, that's another thing taken for granted! - and a wargame to play.
     So, today being Kay's birthday, Conrad had not written a poem** for her.  
     "You haven't written a poem for her?" commented folks as we gathered to embarass her at 3:30?
     "You haven't written a poem for me?" enquired Kay shortly after the embarassment.
     "You hav -"
     "NO!" replied Conrad, playing the part of the grumpy old man to the hilt.
     Of course I relented and did her a limerick:

     "There was a young lady called Kay
      Who was carefree and happy and gay***.
      Her surname was Sutton
      She's as cute as a button
      And she brightens up the HRPS^ day"

Kay's desk, as subtly decorated by Dan.
Wedding planners everywhere do not feel threatened.

"Oh Wad Some Power -
 - the giftie gie us, tae see oorselves as ithers see us."
That's Rabbie Burns, that is.  I shall mercifully translate it, for there are people reading the blog whose first language is not English, and I don't know how they'd cope with Scottish dialect:  "Oh would some power give us the gift, of seeing ourselves as others see us."
     Yes, I know, I know, Conrad normally loathes poetry almost as much as pineapple or parsnips, but this stanza felt peculiarly apt today.  Why?  Because of this:

It was going cheap in the office shop, okay?

     I had a four pack of this ferocious brew on my desk, and without fail everyone who walked past made a comment about me drinking Red Bull.  Anna even enlarged on the topic, saying I normally drank Lucozade; this would have been cheeky on any other day as she chugs her way through a can of Red Bull daily - but today was the exception as she had a bottle of water instead.

The Foundations Of Cake Day Are Laid
Last night I made gluten-free chocolate brownies.  These are rather more chewy than the normal variety, thanks to the flour mix, and I may have to put baking powder in next time, but they still are apparently delicious.  Not keen on 'em myself, too much in the way of chocolate about them.

     As they say on Blue Peter, here's some I made earlier:

     Even as I type these words the Yorkshire Brack is baking in the oven.  In fact I shall go turn it round in a minute and check it's not burning round the edges - the recipe is frequently wildly out on how long it takes to cook and it may need tenting with foil.

  - and since it's in a silicone loaf tin I've put it on a tray, so it doesn't flex too much.

Cut Short!
I have recently been re-reading a Doctor Who fan-fiction I wrote about 7 years ago, featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler, written as an excercise because I didn't like Rose Tyler very much but wanted to see if I could sustain her as a character despite my dislike.  It's not bad, although it could probably do with a bit of polishing, but as I approach Page 115 I realise that there are probably up to another 30 pages missing, nowhere to be found on my PC.
     Dog Buns!  Now, if I want to complete it, I'll have to go over to the Fanfiction website and read it there, or copy and paste the pages there back into my incomplete version.
     The problems with virtual copies, eh?  I bet they didn't have problems like this back in the typewriter and paper era.  Oh, Phil?  Phil?  Do you have a comment?

"No, Conrad, but - we didn't have magic smoke flutes either.  Swings and roundabouts."

Simian Mobile Disco
No! Not a troupe of performing monkeys, a band.  Well, a duo.  Producers and musicians both, James Ford and Jas Shaw.  Conrad bought their "Unpatterns" CD at the weekend and although it does have some filler on it, he gives it a general thumbs-up.  And then thought hard about who else they sounded like, before deciding on - lightbulb moment! - Daftpunk.
     Just for your information.

"Curses!  You have sunk my Battleship!"

*  I hope you're aware, you are reading BOOJUM! after all!
**  Mister Hand calls it what it is, a bit of rhyme.  Milton was a poet.  Conrad - not so.
***  As I clarified, the bouncy giggly kind
^  Our department's acronym, which actually rolls of the tongue like a drop of mercury.  Metaphoical mercury, the real thing's much too dangerous to put on your tongue.