A Bug's Life

... people who can sleep. Which now does not include the chap in the room next to mine. I'd been footling with my Eee, and clicked on one of the Games, which launched with a very tacky and jaunty tune. How do you switch off the sound? I panicked, and closed the lid, but it tootled on. Stuff it under the duvet. Tra la la tinkle tinkle. On the cluttered game screen I can't see a menu item for "turn the frigging noise off!" Fn+F7 has loudspeaker on/off icons, so I try that. It doesn't work. PLOKTA! PLOKTA! Mash mash mash! Initiate emergency shutdown manoeuvres! Insert headphone jack into socket and restart. Sorry... I seem to wake at 3-4a.m. about as often as not, here. Perhaps it's the heating cycle; or the "dribbling tap" sound of the boiler which makes me want to get up and check the bathroom taps are off properly. I can sleep through a lot, in 87-90 I lived in Edgware and slept through the Northern Line, but certain noises do rouse me to action. I can sleep through "Happy Gerbil repeatedly hitting a fishtank with a jamjar" but wake for "Escaped Gerbil trying to be vewwy vewwy qwiet".Maybe now I've confirmed the sound is just the boiler, I'll sleep through.

ewx asked people "What do you want for Christmas?" I replied "nice writing paper, books, brussels sprouts" and got all three at dinner last night. If I'd known this was going to happen I'd have put "writing paper, books, nice brussels sprouts". The food was good, particularly the butternut squash stew (om nom nom), but it is so hard to do sprouts nicely in bulk. Perhaps I should take to carrying a colour chart around with me, and not eating sprouts cooked paler than a certain threshold, say, #99FF33 (I only eat web-safe sprouts).

Sekrit Santa brought me an intriguing gift: Milton's Paradise Lost, which I've never read and which I'm horrified to discover I have been conflating with Swallows and Amazons for decades. What convoluted chain of reasoning brought me to that conclusion?? It appears to have broken the Curse of the Novelty Socks, of which I am profoundly glad. (And, um, maybe I totally overdid the sock rant at the pub on Thursday a bit.) I did do a quick check through the book, to make sure no one had added socks to the etchings, but they seem to be safe. I wondered how the art would make distinct the angels of heaven and hell, for surely the devils are angels too? But the strong, downy white bird wings of Lucifer and his crew gradually turn into wizened, taloned bat wings (which is quite neat, though denies a layer of ambiguity).

I 'ad a comedian in the front of me cab last night: "You were going to walk to $destination? That's a long way," 'e says. I says to him, "That's nothing, I walked twice as far this morning, delivering cards." [details route] "I've a tip for you for next time," says the cabbie: "you can buy little squares of coloured paper, which you tear off and stick on your cards, then you put them in these big red canisters you see on the corner of the road." Oh yes.

Wed/Th/F are swiftly filling up, so today I will be mostly doing Java and hiding from the Internet.