a lovely evening

john_arundel and bidger and I used to have weekly "painting" sessions to get together, ahve dinner, chat, and paint wargame figures; I say "painting" because they frequently didn't include any painting at all, if someone had gotten a new game or we ended up watching The Simpsons for four hours.

Somehow we got out of the habit of doing this (I think it may have been when redactrice and I were doing couples counselling). I ended up seeing Peter rarely and Aaron never at all. Boo! But now we're starting up again. Yay! And while Aaron couldn't make it last night (he was waiting for deliverymen who never came...), we've all blocked Tuesday evenings off on our schedule. And Peter *was* able to make it over, and we had a lovely time. He and I and shy_kat played foosball, then she went off to feed her hard-working redactrice and Peter and I ordered Indian food, drank beer, and talked over the world's problems*. Then, after Da Gurlz had had their dinner, they came down and pestered us :-) into palying games with them. I won a game of Apples to Apples; Peter one a game of Guillotine and Melissa (I think) won a second game of Guillotine. After which we all wandered, yawning, off to our respective beds.

It was a most convivial evening, and I look forward to next week already. (After all, Aaron says he has some new games...)

* Peter, one of the two articles I mentioned is here
http://www.livejournal.com/users/robbysmom/15942.html

For the life of me, I can't remember what the other one was; what was the other point we were discussing?

(no subject)

In another conversation, someone said:

...what chance does partner A have of finding someone suitably compatible while partner B remains on the radar as this tremendously good friend with whom they share everything but sex?

... If you're interested in having a partner rather than just a good friend you're going to lose part of the commitment to the friend when you start looking elsewhere for a partner.

As anyone who knows me will understand, I have a vested interest in believing this not to be true. But it's a coherent expression of a response I've had from a number of people I've been interested in dating.

Comments?

[And, Max, if you object for some reason to my quoting your post, let me know. I figured it was more appropriate to do so without direct attribution and without linking to the original discussion because I wanted to discuss my reactions but I didn't want to hijack the thread the discussion originally took place in.]

If I'm going to keep being beardless...

I need to make a new icon.

(no subject)

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=551156§ion=news

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=551156§ion=news

Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday.

The official daily al-Sabah quoted the sources as saying the missiles were discovered in trenches near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said.

They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation.

The Reuters reports says"Al-Sabah opened last year with backing from the former U.S.-led administration in Iraq," so "official" is an adjective open to interpretation.

I want to know if the concrete had finished drying yet when they found the missiles :-)

BTW, the Iraqi government is calling the report "stupid" and denying its substance.

oh joy

An entire chapter where the contributing author has spelt "fiber" as "fibre" (and, yes, both are accepted, but "fiber" is more common in our field and has been used through the rest of the volume). And I get to go through the whole thing and correct each one. Because, see, the chapter is interespersed with quotations form a treaty which have to be left in the treaty's original UK-English spelling and format. So no "search and replace" note for me.

Very warm in here; I should have put the shades down earlier. I'm dozing; just a few minutes ago I suddenly realized the Humbert Humphrey was saying, "Yes, I *was* at those meetings, and [sarcastically] of course I knew then what I know now."

No, I have no idea where that came from. Though apparently it had to do with point source pollution in a major lake...

Sometimes I think my head just receives radio waves from other places and times...