The Musings of the Midnight Fox

Tired?

Grumpy?

Sleep cycle out of whack?

Unable to concentrate?

Oh that's right - I had my flu shot yesterday. No wonder I feel like I'm seroconverting. It'll be because I'm seroconverting! Yay!

Yeah, ok body. I'll play one quick round of this silly game them get a very early night.

From an email in my Gmail account.

Just after that, my software collected all your contacts from your Messenger, social networks, and email. *a*e*a*u is one of your passw0rds.

As I have never used that password in my life, I can only assume that the poor blighters who keep entering my email address as theirs have had one of the sites hacked and the passwords stripped. And as at least one of those sites then sent me the confirmation email with the password in plaintext inside it!!!!!, I can only feel sad for the poor guy. (I'm assuming it's a guy, considering all those lovely women looking for the right man in their life who have sent me their profiles...)

Because MyWitch is lovely.

( It's a process. )
It's a little slower than some of my others, and rather wordy, but I felt it had enough meat to make a meal of.

For MyWitch, with my very very best regards. Untangling.

Brought to mind by a post by the lovely Teddy R about Christmas Crackers.

So there is one issue with crackers.

Each cracker has in it a silly hat, a trinket and a tiny sheet like a fortune cookie paper that had a terrible joke on. Think "Dad Joke". That bad.

If you're feeling generous, you shell out for the more expensive cracker, which is bigger, bangs better, and has a nice trinket. So instead of a tiny plastic top or a cheesy alloy ring that will turn your skin black, they might have nail clippers or a mini screwdriver set - useful things.

But the joke is just the same.

There is, however, a use for the jokes. It's Christmas dinner. Uncle Joe has given up on the racist comments because cousin Sally shut him down hard and her girlfriend had excellent rebuttals, and Gran has told the same story about her dentures and the ham that she tells every year. You've all had a bit much to drink and far too much to eat, but the mood has gone a bit down.

Enter: The Batman Christmas Cracker Joke Game.

Think of the 1960s Batman series.

Setup: The Riddler has orchestrated a heinous crime. And as he always does, he has sent out clues to the crime in your set of Christmas Crackers.

Method: Three people read their jokes out. Then you try and work out the place, the crime and any other relevant details from the jokes, using the most spurious connections you can think of.

And anyone else playing responds to the final declaration with "Of course! That's the only possible answer!"

Example.

Who hides in the bakery at Christmas?
A mince spy!

What do you call a snowman who vacations in the tropics?
A puddle!

Why was the turkey in the pop group?
Because he was the only one with drumsticks!

So - a spy, in a puddle - in a pop group? I know! Wet Wet Wet are playing at a concert for the Queen and one of them is secretly a spy and going to kidnap her and stop the Christmas Speech from happening!

Although - hang on - a bakery, the tropics and a turkey? Maybe the Riddler is going to sneak away to a Holiday Location in the Tropics, disguised as a baker, and destroy the President's brain by making him watch "Gigli"!

But wait! Mince, drumsticks and a snowman. Maybe the Riddler's going to mince up the Drumsticks and use them to make a decorative snowman that's really botulism-laden leftovers that will poison the entire White House and let him take over instead!

Of course! That's the only possible answer!

(Inspired by the end trivia in this post by austin_dern).

I did the full Outward Bound course in 1990, and then had a few days holiday myself. On OB, you're drinking from streams, so you disinfect the water with Betadine. Clear water - 6 drops per litre, which you can barely taste. Cloudy? 12 drops, which is horribly obvious, even in strong tea.

Afterwards, I stayed at a hotel in Townsville. As in bars downstairs, sleeping rooms upstairs sort of hotel. I mistook a turn coming back late at night, and found myself in the back bar. Thought to myself "I shouldn't be here." That's what the guard dog thought too - he started barking, I stayed *very* still, and the owner came down to see what was happening. He asked me to go up to my room while he checked around - seems someone had been trying to break into the hotel just as I got there, and had got a locked door open, which I then went through, thus being in the bar.

So I went upstairs, almost at my room, when the dog reappeared. Blue Cattle Dog. Excellent guard dog. It saw me in an area it already knew I shouldn't be in, so it rushed past me and slashed my ankle as it did. Suddenly I'm standing on the carpet, bleeding away...

The owner took me to the Townsville hospital to get treated. I'm in the exam cubicle, foot still bleeding, and the doctor comes to clean it up before he can check it. He pulls out a kidney dish and opens a bottle of Betadine.

"Oh no - not Betadine!" I cry.

"Why not? What's wrong with Betadine?" he asks, puzzled.

"That stuff tastes terrible!"

The Livejournal Hogwarts Last Drabble Writer Standing Fest has started, and there's some amazing work in just the first week's post. Voting will start soon, so I recommend that if you like drabbles, love Harry Potter fic, and want to read things from sweet to serious to downright silly, head on over.

Yes, I'm in it. No, I won't tell you which one is mine.

April is National Letter-Writing Month and I'm excited!!

For me, the joy is seeing an envelope in the post office box that's not a bill, not a brochure, but a slice of life from another place. Sometimes it's a picture of a young correspondent, sometimes the latest hardship for a friend whose health is not great, and sometimes just silliness and glorious fun.

To quote the aforementioned Delphi, "As the Smithsonian Postal Museum says on their blog, letters are "physical manifestations of the senders. The loved ones’ hands wrote the words, folded the letter and sealed it into an envelope. Each letter still brings with it that gift, a physical connection that can’t be replicated through phones or tablets."

The challenge of National Letter-Writing Month is (*shock* *Horror*) to see how many letters you can write. I too have a large box of postcards, notepads and stamps. I will gladly write to an overseas address. I'll write to a local one. And I'll write to you.

So if you'd like a card or a letter from Melbourne, drop a line in the comments, and give me an idea of what you'd like to hear about. I mean, it's Melbourne, so if you don't tell me, it'll be 1001 variations on "Oh, the weather just changed", so ask for other things. What it's like catching trams. Paragraph 1024 of the novel (without edits, just as it comes). How Miss Bilqis and Mr Alopex boss me around. Or ask me a question.

Here's the deal: When you get my letter, you must write back to me. Nothing fancy is required - literally anything will suffice, even two lines on a postcard. Are you game? Of course you are!!

* Don't put your address in the comment; if I don't already have it, I'll send you a PM asking for it.

Monday 11 March 2019 2pm to 8pm (although we don't expect you to stay the whole time of course!)

To avoid putting the address up in public, DM me and I'll send it to you.

If you'd like to come, and also if you're bringing anyone else, please let me know below so we have an idea of how many to expect.

( Rest of the details below the cut. )