Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in Telpher's LiveJournal:

Friday, September 26th, 2008
11:22 pm	Blurgh Well, Lehmans Bros sank so I'm back out on the job market. Or more specifically, staying at home on the job market. Trying to justify yourself to total strangers all day every day gets very old very quickly. On the plus side, I was only doing this six weeks ago, so some the firms actually recognise me from last time. On the down side, I was only doing this six weeks ago, and I was pretty sick of it then. Ug, argh, humph. Current Mood: depressed Current Music: Mechanicsburg theme song (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
12:00 am	If I'm stressed, surely I should be able to tell? My latest sport is "finding people who are wrong on the internet".  Usually obscure philosophy forums.  I've just had a particularly funny and long running exchange with a couple of people who assumed that because I disagreed with them, I must know less about the science of the relevent topic than they did. Unfortunately, the subject was psychology and philosophy.  I've done a degree in it, they had google.  Not much of a contest. Of course what worries is that I usually only engage in this kind of ego-reinforcing behaviour when I'm really unhappy about something.  Guess work is getting to me more than I thought. So now I'm anxious about not being anxious.  Or more precisely, anxious about not being anxious about my apparent anxiety.  Because I don't really feel proper anxiety. At least I don't think I do.  Maybe I'm just spending too long posting with people determined to prove me wrong? Current Mood: confused Current Music: Maybe you're my love! (J-pop) (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
9:52 pm	Don't be surprised - I post _every_ year Another year, another post. Life continues strange.  In general terms things are better than they've been for a while.  My flat in Hammersmith is working well, and has plenty of room for entertaining/crash space.  We can sleep three-five guests before we start having to put people on sofa cushions or the floor.  So that's definitely yay.  And I have a huggyrei, and that's working well.  And my job is working out.  They're paying me money, which is always good.  On the downside, we own the flat, which we bought just before the big housing crash.  And my company has just announced, due to the recent aquis- uh.. merger with ABN, that everyone will have to reapply for their own jobs.  I've just had a big arguement with my boss, and I'm new and inexperienced in my new role, so the timing isn't great.  Also, I'm the only person in the department who isn't a accountant.  If someone on high decides that that is a logical requirement for my job, I'm toast. That said, there are only 4 or so people in ABN who do what we do, our team is expanding because we're all overloaded, and we have several contractors who, by policy, should be first to get the chop.  So in theory, none of us have anything to worry about. ... .... Still wish my boss liked me though. And on the guest front, while lots of people in theory live in london, few of them are willing to travel all that far during the week, which means socialising in practice gets crammed into the same precious two weekend days we use for everything else.  So socialising is still less frequent than we'd like. Roleplaying still continues apace.  I'm still running my BESM game, where the Japanese schoolchildren PCs have crushed the Humanitas Instiute with their uncanny powers, tried to reform the cult that still insists on following one of the PCs around and worshipping him as the bringing of the apocalypse, have foiled the dastardly plot of the media aliens, and used the clone launcher to deliver a mad scientist through the roof of the sentient bathhouse that serves as the demon base.  Better yet, from my point of view, one of the PCs have finally uncovered their identity as a princess of a transdimensional royal line known as the Oke kings.  Falling through holes into the world of giant bunnies didn't clue them off, and neither did the bad guy openly referring to her as princess Oke, but they put the peices together at last.  The other PCs are now looking at their backgrounds with suspicion, including the guy who keeps on being hailed as the 'crawling chaos, destroyer of worlds, he who will consume the earth', the orphan girl who has been trying to work out how to heal the universe and has decided that it may be not so much sick as actually dead, and the other girl who doesn't return the phone calls from home saying how much they love and miss her, because she's fairly convined she's the reincarnation of a goddess raised in a lab, all the calls come from a military style helicopter, and strongly suggest that wherever she really is from, she doesn't want to recover her memories about it after all...  People seem to enjoy it, and I'm enjoying running it.  We're getting near the end though. I'm also still playing in the same ArsMagica game, officially one of the longest running games on the planet.  We're still dabbling in faery politics, my character is getting increasingly eccentric, and I still can't work out what kind of item to build to replace my character's lost eye.  My present idea is to enchant a spherical astrolobe, and put that in there.  The practical effects of this are a little harder to determine, and with Ars M being as mechanistic as it is, I have to specify precisely.  Finally, we also ran a freeform game in our flat, the Final Voyage of the Mary Celeste.  An excellent game, which I recommend to anyone who wants to run a game.  The players, most of them new to roleplaying, and all but one of them new to freeforming, did excellently.  We had the last minute squabble over the macguffin, and a spectacular triple cross, where two characters kidnapped a third, tried to torture him, one double crossed the other to free the captive, then turned on the captive to blame him for the death of the other torturer, who managed to extracate himself and summon the captain, leaving no trace that he was ever there.  The captive, confused, then turned on the captain, who blamed that on the doublecrosser, who blamed the guy who now claimed to have never been there, who in turn said that the entire thing was the fault of.... a fourth guy who wasn't there, but was 'probably there in disguise'.   People really enjoyed it, which made it all the more of a shame that we didn't fill all the spaces.  We'll try running another of those at some point. We're also planning to rerun Foundation as a one-off game for GenCon.  Scary, but we're in the program, so there's no turning back now.  Getting another co-GM would be handy though. After the game, people had chocolate fondue. We've been doing that a lot recently, and it seems to work well, with increasing bizzare things to dip into in.  We've also found five different people complaining that they don't have anyone to play their copy of 'Arkham Horror' with.  We need to get them together. My mother continues strange.  She booked a room in Norfolk in July in case we wanted to go to Norfolk then.  She got very upset that I didn't like her plan for us to move house to a property she'd found.  We got around it, and that situation was resolved, but these confrontations are stopping or going away.  She needs something to run, and her children don't want her to run their lives any more, not even a little bit. I'm also spending a lot time doing what I've been calling 'finding people who are wrong on the internet.  This last month I've found a whole nest of determinist to argue about free will, mainly around Libet (1977).  I'm enjoying it, but I worry that only some of the people I'm arguing with are.  Some people take their beliefs very seriously, and if you head out looking for people to disagree with, you're bound to run into them.  I'm also worried that the standard of accuracy isn't very high.  It's been a while since my psych degree, and I'd like to be sure I'm not misrepresenting anything. So yes, happy, stressed about familiy and work,  worried about the immediate future, and not socialising nearly enough.  Listening to: Zadok the Priest Watching: West Wing series 2 Reading: The Atrocity Archives Current Mood: anxious (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 4th, 2007
11:46 pm	Over a Year since my Last post... And time for an update. I'm still doing too much roleplaying Monday - BESM, run by yours truely, in which I diuscover that I can run a high school game.  It's not commedy, it's not high jinks, it's certainly not horror or romance.   Closest I can tell, it's basically mystery/puzzle combined with rather a lot of fan service.  So far our intrepid school goers have discovered that nothing is quite normal, including eachother.  Oh, and that you donb't really need a good reason to get everyone into the hot baths. Tuesday - Oswtyn Ossillubry strides out as the King's Tailor, in an Oxford-style weekly freeform game.  My feeling on this are... complicated.  Basically I think the games works really really well on some levels, and less so on others.  The setting is unusual, based on renaissance England, but with demons, magical cannon, a rather militarily powerful England for no obvious reason, and for some reason that I still don't understand, bees.  Thursdays - Arsa Magica.  After over 5 years with the same characters, the system is starting to break down a little.  Our home island of Malta has just been invaded and we're trying to stay neutral, and thankfully not suceeding. On top of all that there is LG, aka living Greyhawk aka 'that really dreadful game I don't know why you play it...", which I get to about once a fortnight on average.  I'm just finishing off a 125 page module written for the game, which is likely to be distributed towards the end of the year.  About 150 people will play it, which is about as close to a publication as I've yet got - it will be interesting to see what happens, adn how many people hate it. In work, I'm moving to new job in London.  Really looking forward to new job, to not working in old job, where I am not really appreciated (or trained!), and really really looking forward to cutting my present hour and half commute in half.  Not working in Maidenhead means longer travel time to Oxford, but also more sleep, so I think on the whole, an improvement. And for those who havn't heard, yes I'm engaged to huggyrei.  Still hav'nt quite got used to the idea and hoping I never quite do get used to it... :-)  and yes, we're still in Fulham.  With a foldout bed in the living room if anyone gets caught in London and needs a place to crash... Life is general is looking strange.  A lot depends on my new job, but things are in general looking clear and bright.  I'm suspicous of this new development, but so far it doesn't appear to bite. Current Music: Music of the Spheres (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 21st, 2006
12:31 am	Too much roleplaying? Am I doing too much roleplaying? I've been trying to review my time, and I'm starting to think it may be possible... Monday evening - Running an AD&D game down at the Green Man. Mostly combat-heavy with limited roleplaying, but I'm persevering. The fact that I run the game myself is helping. I've taken them through the ( Dark Tower ) It's possible I'm not being entirely fair to them, but they claim to be having fun. I understand that my use of plot is a confusing but welcome change to their normal game. Tuesday or Wednesday is wargaming. I'm generally playing either Warhammer fantasy battle, or more often ( Living Greyhawk ) The day I don't spend wargaming, I spend with huggyrei, a weekly evening that is most welcome in the middle of a busy week. Thursday is Ars Magica, the same game that I've been playing for 6 years. We're up to session 253, and the game shows no sign yet of coming to an end. Friday and the weekend is generally spent with huggyrei, which means running Foundation every other saturday, or occasional other games, such as ( Ragnarok Sky ), ( Temasek ), and the Wheel. Too much? I am having fun, but the pace of life is a bit punishing at the moment. Hectic is good, but maybe a bit more variety early in the week would be better. I suspect one or other of the AD&D games may have to give way... Current Mood: busy (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
5:36 pm	Another 6 months, another update... So much for my pledge not leave several months between updates. Now that I'm in a more IT focused job, maybe I'll get better at posting regularly. Maybe... (cue flying pigs swooping up into the air to be met by graceful winged monkeys.) Either way.... Updates, updates, updates... First off, I had to move out of Leytonstone. Apparently I'm missed, although how much of this is politeness is hard to say. At first I went to Singapore, which is a whole passel of strangeness I may get back to at some point. Then I got a proper job! In London... So back to london at short notice, and moving into my brother's house, which was vastly awkward, not least because of my new sister-in-law, and their new baby. Three months of that and then... I'm now living in Clapham, in a flat with Claire, a magazine picture editor, and her black labrador, Brave. Brave is a highly trained gun dog. I know he's highly trained, because Claire takes him out every morning, every evening, and most weekends to strange competions in far-off counties. There are also mysterious hirlings who come in the middle of the day to also take him out. There are also hunting prints on the walls - 28 of them at last count, and a general feel to the decor that suggests that the owner would far rather be in a drafty hunting lodge in the middle of Wiltshire. She's nice enough, but since neither of us really get in much before 11pm, I don't feel I really know her. Standard Bank. It worked out well, they loved me, I did some good stuff for them. After 5 months I got headhunted to join a software company in Maidenhead, doing risk software for investment banks. I was little nervous giving up a City job to go to Maidenhead, but it still seems like the right thing to do. So I'm no longer broke, am paying back debts at a rate, and generally life is looking good. Or least tenable, which is definite improvement. Current Mood: working (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 6th, 2005
12:07 pm	Interviews and bounce More interviews, more strangeness. "How do you feel about not having a PhD?" "Hi, thanks for coming, please sit down. I'm fairly sure we don't want to hire people like you..." "Why do you want to move on from programming?" "I've never been a programmer." "Oh yes.... Well maybe you could answer the question anyway?" "Why do you want to work with interest rate derivatives?" "I don't, I'm here for another job entirely." "Oh.. so you are. We don't actually offer that job. How would feel about doing this one?" "Why do you want to become a consultant? Why not stay in... ah... whatever you were doing before..." "Consultancy?" "Yes. Why the change?" "We are the world's premiere firm in information intelligence! We promote cutting edge data storage and sharing to move beyond mere documentation and into real-time business knowledge pooling. Any questions!" "If I were hired, which department would I be working for?" "Um.. not sure." "Oh. Well what kind of projects would I be working on?" "Don't know, I just do interviews and write the report. So! What did you do when you were working in Greece!" "I've never been to Greece." "You haven't? But it's on your CV." "That's not my CV." "Are you sure?" "Well it's labeled 'Emily Fraser', and that's not my name..." My present great white hopes are Detica (interviewed, report written and posted on internal web site, now need to hope someone likes me enough to want to hire me.) and JP Morgan (no interview yet, but they did interview me previously for the wrong job, and gave me a glowing report.) Both good prospects, but so were a lot of places that turned me down. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 6th, 2005
12:53 pm	Another year, another update... Well yet again I've managed to go several months without updating. I really must stop doing that. What's happening to the me? Well.. job hunting mostly. Well, ok, entirely. Relentlessly. Crowding out almost everything else in my life. Pressing down like a weighted block upon me. On the plus side? Lots of positive responses. Every seems to like me, thinks I'm competant, has a good CV, etc. Lots of companies have said I'm exactly the type of person they want to hire. (well, ok, two, but it seems like lots) On the downside? Noone has actually extended this enthusiasm to actually hiring me. And I'm flat broke. As are the 'rents. The basic problem seems to be specialists. Whenever I apply for a job, there's an out-of-work specialist in that area, who applies for it as well. Often I'm better qualified in general, but can't match their expertise in the particular area they're hiring for. Basically, there are an awful lot of other people who are in the same position I was - dropped out of consulting when the market crashed, want to get back in now they are hiring. Still I'm getting interviews. Had three last week. Gotta keep hoping. Other news... I'm officially an uncle. Penelope was born last tuesday. Seems like a nice kid based on the few inches I've seen of her. My brother is now experiencing the wonderous joys of staying up all night with no set goal in mind, and it's driving him to distraction. I tried to help - I got him Pirates for Christmas, but as far as I can tell, he still hasn't even crinckled the wrapper. Oh well. Actually my brother's house is.. somewhat strange. He has the whole thing wired up to his remote control. The TV, the video, the stereo, the speakers, the DVD player, the radio, the lights, the closed circuit baby cam. We basically all gathered around the kitchen flatscreeen and watched the baby asleep upstairs. I remember fondly his gesturing with the remote at the TV, pressing a button, and hearing complaints from upstairs as the bedroom lights went off. Much frantic button pressing later muted the kitchen speakers, tested the burglar alarm, turned on a spotlight over an empty chair, flashed the lights in the hallway, and eventually turned on Eurosport, in what I think was Spainish. Good luck kid, it's a weird world out there. Current Mood: restless (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 13th, 2004
5:29 pm	And again Ah well. Looks like the college course next year is oversubscribed, so despite the rather comforting insistence that there's usually a place for everyone, there isn't, it appears one for me. Purely an administrative matter, no reflection on your ability, etc. etc. I've been advised to "go find myself" - advice kindly meant, but not much use. So I'm basically buggered for another year. Time to find a job. Most of the people I met in college will carry on next year, and I'll likely not see them again. Meanwhile, I'm still going out with huggyrei, splitting my time between London, and Oxford. Both locations have their problems. Far harder to visit people in London, and a great strain getting anywhere. I seem to getting on with my housemates, but in all honesty I'm probably not there often enough to tell. They are, at least, all now talking to me, which after only a year is, I understand, fairly high praise for the people involved. Certainly they are willing to put themselves out on my behalf, so I should probably assume all is well. In Oxford, its very much easier to visit. There is a huggyrei, of course, and I get on with her housemates fairly well. There is the reoccurring problem of elleblue and noise. It looks like elleblue simply can't tolerate levels even very moderate levels of noise, and complains about noise several times a day irrespective of what she may be doing. At times, people could indeed be slightly quieter, although it is hard to label such restrictions as 'reasonable', but at others, her demands are simply unrealistic. Worse still, any noise is automatically blamed on huggyrei, irrespective of who is causing it. I've tried my best to smooth the path, clearing up non-existent problems laid at huggyrei's door, and watching the Chronicles of Narnia as much through lip reading as anything else, but it isn't solving the problem. Its hard to stand by and watch what occasionally amounts to bullying, but I'm not sure there is much I can practically do. That elleblue is clearly suffering from a genuine problem doesn't help. The great FLRP debacle continues. Its now abundantly clear that there is a problem, and equally abundantly clear that there won't be a discussion, if only because it would expose people to too much public stress. Its not a huge problem, but there isn't an obvious way to resolve it, and its unlikely to simply go away. The most obvious solution to my mind is simply to have people run LARPs to their taste, but whether that is practical is something that only time can tell. Otherwise, I'm basically scouring the world for a career. I've not been in proper paid employment for far too long. This kind of thing has thrown me seriously off kilter before. I hope that doesn't happen again. That's about it. I have a cousin dying of cancer, but noone (including him) wants to talk about it. I guess I won't be seeing him again. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 30th, 2003
1:35 am	Hanbury's 'week off' Technically speaking, its half term, or consolidation week, or 'arrghh, arrghh arrghh what a huge pile of work I haven't done' week, depending on who you ask. Whatever the reason, no actual lectures for a week, so I'm up in Oxford, with a big pile of notes and Rei's broadband internet connection (ahhhh!). Should be getting my own soon, or so I hear on the far too rare occasions I actually end up spending a night at home. Seeing people is still a problem. I've got Victorianna on sundays and tuesdays, either Ryan, Rupert and co or LG on thursdays, work commitments on monday, and tend to see Rei on friday, which leaves tuesday, wednesday and saturday to socialise, work and finish arranging furniture in my new place. So life's busy again, but not totally so, which is probably a better balance than I had before. Question - why do car repair places only exist in locations only reachable by car? Current Mood: awake (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 19th, 2003
12:55 pm	Return And from the deeps a might sound arose, as if a thousand bowsprits split their lengthy storm tossed lives in one final crack of shattering seals and sundered rock. From below a greyish shadow formed in the stygian darkness, a growing stain of amphorous horror, dragging the upswell with it to pelt the sailors with sands of ancient times and tiles from long sunken lands. At last, the sea bubbling and foaming, it broke, and the Beast did rise, casting its gaze across the shattered wrecks and bobbing forms, to discover where its dread bulk should first fall. Yes Hanbury is back in the lands of the living. Burrowing into obscurity when life gets tough is a really bad habit, and one I should dispense with. But I'm back from the brink, and ready for... well.. something. Interesting to see what really. :-) Current Mood: pretentious as heck, but alive (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 14th, 2003
9:35 pm	Tah Dah!! Well I've finally managed to wrestle this to the deck. Various people's names appear in a vareity of unpredicatable colours. Can't see anything that any of them have written. mind, but LiveJournal assures me that's because they don't really like me after all... :-) So, anyone out there? (8 Comments |Comment on this)