Frelling fantastic!

First, check out my new icon! Isn't it kewl?

Well, this has been a fairly good week, aside from the really annoying project I'm doing at work, but I think I've gotten over the really annoying part of it. Anyway...

I have some good work-related news. We got a rush job from a client to format all these little kiddie education books (most of them are more like pamphlets) into our special mark-up code. The only way we could do it was for people to work overtime, so our boss talked it over with us and worked out a deal with the client. They are going to pay us our salary, plus a little extra, for time spent on the work. So I'm going to be staying late the next couple weeks, but it's worth it - I'll make a not insignificant amount of extra money. And by the time that's done, I'll be doing a drug study, which will also bring in a little extra. I have some old shares of Disney and Scholastic to sell too, but that might be hard to work out because since I got the shares as a minor, I have to jump through some hoops to get it on record that the shares belong to me and are no longer under custodianship. Then I have to sell them. I might talk to a broker about that.

Okay, that was boring, but this isn't...I finally got to see Neil Gaiman! He was in the area visiting Holly at Bryn Mawr (Holly, whom I've met before, apparently has a lip ring now, but I didn't see her so I don't know how it looks). He was dong a reading at Temple of a new poem that I forgot the name of (sorry!) and a science fiction story called How to Talk to Girls at Parties.. If you read his blog, you can get his account of how the evening went. scifantasy and arcessita came too and scifantasy was lucky enough to be the final person to ask him a question at the ending Q&A session. Neil also signed books afterwards. If I'd known I would have brought something, but I didn't, so...oh well. I have a copy of Good Omens signed by both him and Terry Pratchett anyway, though it was shinyhappygoth who got them both signed.

On the downside, this has reminded me that I'm not doing as much writing as I used to. I should at least finish this fanfic of mine I've been dragging along, and try to write more original stuff. I'm not doing much that's more worthwhile, anyway. I mean, the knitting is constructive, but fooling around on the Internet and playing computer games isn't. Maybe I should find a writing circle or something. I need someone or something to kick me in the ass and get me going.

Speaking of knitting, my Irish Hiking Scarf is coming along well. I've just about used up the first of the two skeins of yarn I bought for it. I think my next project will be Jayne hats - one for shinyhappygoth and one for my brother Daniel. Then perhaps...socks!