Beware, may prickle

From picking train times to actually being allowed to give someone my money... one phonecall, two websites, one (failed) support request and a record one hour and twenty minutes.

That really does have to be a triumph for Stupidity over Usability. Whatever happened to KISS?

Eh, it's been about three months since I did this, and I probably won't do it again until the holidays. But I could use a breather before jumping into Phineas's journals full tilt, and people have been mentioning things that sound fun. So... whatever's up before I put up the "ETA: That's all folks" note, which will be when I sign on in the morning. :D

ETA: YIPES! Just got up. Haven't read all the requests yet, but I think this is where I say, "That's all, folks!" (Last request is the anon at 8:16 local)

1. Donzo and Maurice, for mrs_norris_mous
   
2. Scorpius and Rose, for rotae
   
3. Daniel and Cho, for lucathia_rykatu
   
4. Regulus's return, for sonetka
   
5. Marauder afterlife, for sedri
   
6. A Donzo tour snafu, for xtineebee
   
7. Donzo gets his first guitar, for fizzylizard
   
8. Happy pregnant!Tonks, for neon_animals
   
9. Adult!Honoria, for kagehikario
   

It's Christmas, and Teddy has promised Frankie that he won't go back into the Maze without help, and since he doesn't have help around... And then he comes across the letter transcribed for him in Phineas Nigellus's voice, makes his excuses, and heads for the Room of Requirement.

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Nineteen: Nigellus, pt. 1 )

I went to Momma Mia with some friends from work this afternoon.

Any attempt to take this movie seriously will make you crazy, so don't bother. It's ABBA songs strung together into a loose plot... what's it going to be, A Midsummer Night's Dream?

But it has James Bond and an Oscar winner wearing shiny, bell-bottomed, v-necked, polyester jumpsuits. With sequins. No other movie this year will offer you that. One cannot argue with the sequins.

Personally, I'm going to put Polish immigrants to the UK getting advice on tea-drinking on my Best Things Ever list.

"Advice is also offered about the ritual of tea-drinking which it says provides "an opportunity to overcome shyness and make everyone feel more comfortable."

It goes on to say: "You may be asked whether you want your drink weak or strong, white (with milk) or black (without)". "

Hi, we're British. We drink tea. BE PREPARED!

The thing about trains (or any public transport) is that you have no control over them. This of course is the thing that many people find frustrating, annoying, maybe even frightening. A train is the ultimate no-control situation. Once you are on a train, you cannot speed to get to your destination more quickly if you are running behind. You cannot change your mind and go back, or at least not without waiting a good amount of time to get to the next station, and then paying an extortionate amount for your new ticket. You cannot even delay your journey by pausing at a truckstop until you are sure you have made the right decision and are going the right way. No, you are on a train. You have already made the limit of your decisions by buying your ticket, and turning up on time to climb on. Now you must sit and wait, to reach your destination, or to have
something so huge occurs that it becomes an impossibility to do so, whichever may come first.

Different people react different ways to the hazards you find on trains. Some will become impatient and upset as things begin to go wrong - the train is running late; there are engineering works delaying you; it is over-crowded; the air-conditioning has broken; you have missed your connection. Others though relax, perhaps grumbling a little about the conditions they find themselves in, but bearing most of it with a good humour.

We are the prepared; we have travelled the train before, we have brought books and food, laptops and drinks. We may glance at our watches certainly, we may call ahead to tell those at our destination that we may be delayed, but for the most part, we do not worried. We are on a train. And we know that of what happens here, very little is within our control. We will arrive when we arrive. Until then, we must simply wait, and enjoy the scenary.

Time slip-jumped forward, and it's now Christmas. The students, stuck there under the quarantine, made the the best of things by making presents for each other. The staff, meanwhile, has been working double-time on its own present, and has just come into the Great Hall with bags of mail. Sprout announces that they've been working with every portrait that has an analog on the outside, and now there's a message from home for everyone.

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Eighteen: Christmas Under Quarantine, pt. 4 )

Though the plague wasn't cured, some sense of the normal is restored when the recovered Maurice discovers a dreadful development--Corky and Honoria are going out! This causes him to call an emergency meeting with Donzo and Teddy, who have no solution to the problem, but once it's talked out, Donzo shifts the focus to keeping Teddy from going back to "brood" over things that aren't his fault. Teddy feels uncomfortable with it, but after an afternoon playing Tarot poker with his friends, he is more rested than he's been for some time.

This section is largely for passing time; not a lot happens in it.

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Eighteen: Christmas Under Quarantine, pt. 3 )

The potion is only partially effective, and the Quarantine is still on. Maurice is one of the lucky ones, as is Marie. Teddy is sent back to Gryffindor to rest, along with Marie, and when he wakes up, he finds Victoire alone by the fire. He's about to confess to being responsible for the plague when a Patronus--a nervous lemur belonging to Maurice--drops from the ceiling and informs him that he has to get to Ravenclaw, as there is a catastrophe. This started with this ficlet, though details have been changed to fit the context.

ETA: Funky, cool illo from rotae!

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Eighteen: Christmas Under Quarantine, pt. 2 )

This will likely be a four-part chapter--lots of time to pass.

Anyway, Madam Pomfrey's potion managed to get Maurice and Marie up and walking around, but while Teddy was out checking the Quarantine line, something apparently went wrong, as several other patients are back down... and so is Madam Pomfrey.

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Eighteen: Christmas Under Quarantine, pt. 1 )

Teddy, Donzo, and Ruthless try to sort out the meanings of the images in the mirror--or, more precisely, Donzo and Ruthless don't buy any of Teddy's lines, and tell him in no uncertain terms that he's not a murderer--then work on the Animagus transformation. On the way back, Ruthless says that she's not going to have a long heart to heart with Teddy about the mirror, but that she has his back. When they get to Gryffindor, an excited Victoire says that Madam Pomfrey has developed a potion for the Blistering Bloodspots, and she's going to try it out the next day.

Table of Contents and Summary So Far

( Teddy Lupin and the Daedalus Maze, Chapter Seventeen: Shapes, pt. 3 )

Rediscovered the photo while emptying my memory card. Felt appropriate.

It is 9AM. On a SATURDAY. And I've already been up over 2 hours.

But I did get the photos Kat wanted me to. Will upload later.

Kat, you better be keeping records of my pony allowance.

In case you wondered where my brain went after this.

( Frighteningly, this is normal for me )

Excuse the non-Teddy-ness. :) I just felt like writing some Potterlets. For the heck of it. I know I once named James's friends, but I can't for the life of me figure out where, so they're getting renamed here. Less a story than just a little vignette. (Sorry about that momentary lack of cut, if it happened to be the moment you were looking at your f-list. Dumb typos in tags!)

( Marauding Matters )

Yeah, I know I've been friendslocking posts for a while, but this makes it official, see. There's a banner and everything. =]

I've been coding a lot lately. Ingres SQL at work, MySQL and PHP at home. Stare at code for too long and it starts having effects on a smallfuzzy brain, especially code that hasn't been annotated.

( I think my brain is broken )

And that was the point where I realised it might be time to go home.

There might be a fic in that. Or a Nanowrimo. For a very small, code-focused audience.