Saturday Photo Hunt --- Entertainment

PhotoHunt


ENTERTAINMENT

Josh is one of the regular entertainers/buskers who sing at Granville Island. We often see him on our walks and he was there yesterday when we passed. He favours French songs, especially those of Edith Piaf and I have on occasion bought a CD from him. The entertainers have regularly scheduled times and he was just finishing up, while another was ready to take his place.

A violinist, inside the market, sitting amongst the garbage/recycling cans

These buskers are always a big hit with the tourists and locals alike.

I <3 NY

I Love NY. Yes I guess I do love New York and I miss it.

It has been just ages since I was there, not since before 9/11. Manhattan is human sized, despite the skyscrapers. It is easy to get about in. Last time I was there it felt real safe too. I guess Rudy did a good job there.

Why am I reminiscing? Well blame JMB. She went and did a book review and I thought... why not?

Not for me the intellectual rigour of the more literary stuff she reviews. Oh No.. I happened to find myself in the book store and there it was with a buy one get one ½ price label on it no less.

So a mental lightweight... aaaand a cheapskate you will be thinking.

This is your printed equivalent of chocolate. Your, not too hard work, easy read, funny, romantic, feel good, type novel. Coincidentally titled...

I Heart New York, by Lindsey Kelk, ISBN: 9780007288380.

It would probably make a good romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock in the lead, provided she can manage a convincing Brit accent.

The heroine is Angela Clarke.

Her life is quietly trundling along, nothing spectacular, dull. She lives with her fiancé Mark. They have been together for 10 years.

It is at her so-called best friend's wedding reception that things come apart spectacularly. Mark is the best man and Angela is bridesmaid. She is wearing a great but uncomfortable pair of shoes, realises no one can see them under her meringue of a dress so she decides to change into something more comfortable.

She sneaks back to their vehicle only to find someone else already did that and they are still there... having sex on the back seat... and it is her fiancé. Big Shock!

It turns out this is a long term thing. It turns out her best friend knew all about it. In fact she and her new husband had played tennis doubles with cheating wretch and his new squeeze.

This proves too much for poor Angela. She ends up making a scene, breaking the groom's hand with her shoe... And after sleeping on it decided she can't face going back home or to stay with her parents. No she needs to make a complete break.

She needs to get away, to put space between her and her unravelled life, far away.

The following morning she goes to the airport, against her Mother's protests and puts an ocean between herself and her trouble. Grabbing her overnight bag for the wedding with her change of clothes she heads to the airport and gets the first flight to New York. Then grabbing a taxi asks to be taken to a random hotel.

On being dropped off at the Union hotel and then the reinvention of herself and her adventures really begins.

Almost instantly she manages to make friends with a savvy New Yorker Jenny Lopez (No relative to J-Lo).

This is a fast paced amusing story. One of those validating, "I so wish I could do stuff like that if it happened to me" stories. No rocket scientist-ery involved. But it will make you feel good.

Vancouver -- How about that Sunset?

Saturday evening we had a very noisy thunderstorm in Vancouver, which is a fairly rare occurrence here. When I went outside to turn off the hose, the sky had the most amazing orange glow and I called the Old Scientist to come take a look. He suggested it was some phenomenon due to the storm and later I saw this photo online, taken from katcam.ca. which I thought I would share.

Do click to enlarge, it's worth it. The view is of the harbour looking west towards the north shore mountains. Katcam is a view of Vancouver taken from an office of Telemark Systems and which is captured every five minutes and the site describes it as Weather and sunset cam from Downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada, city of perpetual change and natural wonder.



A couple of hours later, even though the storm had not completely passed, the sky was lit by a wonderful fireworks display as it was the South Africa who put on their display for the Celebration of Light, an annual pyro-musical fireworks competition held in Vancouver every year.

Vive Le Tour! The King is Crowned!

It's all over now. The champagne has been drunk by the happy winner, while cycling along during the last stage of Le Tour de France, a longstanding tradition, for the last one is largely a ceremonial stage. The winner has always been decided by the penultimate day of the race and the only thing that may change, barring some disaster of course, is the winner of the maillot vert (green jersey) as the sprinters fight to be first across the finish line on the Champs-Élysées to gain the most points and try to take this coveted prize.

It is taboo to mount an attack on the leaders during the last stage and thus Alberto Contador, the 26 year old Spaniard, won Le Tour for the second time, although frankly he had such a commanding lead that it would have been virtually impossible to overtake him even if they did. In second place was one of two Luxembourg brothers riding Le Tour, 24 year old Andy Schleck, with Lance Armstrong, a grand old man at 37 years, taking the third spot on the podium.

Yesterday's stage was most interesting as it was one of the most demanding of this year's race and it occurred in the schedule at the very end, after three weeks of very grueling cycling. It would have been hard to overtake the leader but Lance Armstrong was very vulnerable in his third place spot as two riders could well have toppled him off the podium. But he is nothing if not a great competitor and he held on to the spot at the end of this stage.


The 167 km stage began in Montélimar but it ended in an extremely difficult 2okm climb to the top of Mont Ventoux, also known as Mount Baldy since it resembles a barren moonscape of white rock, well above the tree line. So difficult is this stage that for more than 25 years it was omitted from the race, but this year it came at the end of the long race which made it even more demanding.

Besides the jockeying for positions this past week, the big surprise came in an announcement by Lance Armstrong that he would be riding again in the 2010 Le Tour, but as leader of a new American team, sponsored by Radio Shack and it is expected that Johan Bruyneel will join as manager. Next year he will no doubt have better conditioning since he will ride for the whole season, but then again he will be another year older. It will also be interesting to see who will ride for this new team, as Lance Armstrong convinces his favoured choices that he is capable of winning another tour. I think with his third place finish this year he has shown that he still has the ability and the drive to pull it off and with the support of a strong team, he could well win it next year. But there will be plenty of riders who will be trying to stop that happening. It will surely make for a very interesing Tour of 2010 as his presence in the 2009 race has done.

Congratulations to Alberto Contador, the winner of this year's race, but also to all 156 riders who completed the course. You are all winners!

Saturday Photo Hunt --- Utensil(s)

PhotoHunt


UTENSIL(S)

tnchick has really come up with some tough themes lately and it will be very interesting to see what people come up with for it. I did consider skipping this one but no, despite this probably being the lamest photo I have ever posted, here is a photo of a couple of utensils which make my life easier in the kitchen. In fact no kitchen should be without them so I often give the microplane graters (centre) as gifts. It's funny how something like this switched from its original use to become such a hit as a kitchen utensil.


The two knives on the outside are just cheapies, but I find serrated knives essential for cutting tomatoes. So much so that I gave one to my son and to my daughter so that when I am visiting and using their kitchens I don't have to shred the tomatoes into mush with a non serrated one. Am I the only one who finds that annoying?

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE

Around and about in Second Life

There is a surprising amount of beauty to be found in Second Life. It is built by its occupants. A lot of creative work goes into it.

I like to snap stuff when I see something interesting. I use the snaps as a basis for digital art. Here are some pics. Many of me and my various looks. Some are studio posed.

That is one of the things I do love about SL. The way you can try out different looks with no plastic surgery involved ^_^


I thought the scene here was beautiful. The tree against the sunset over the sea. I do love the coast, I like to live beside the ocean in SL. There was the sound of the ocean in the background.

Here is me in one of my incarnations. I was hanging out in a diner listening to the juke box and drinking milk shakes waiting for my date. I was dressed mostly in pink. We went dancing shortly after this pic was taken. I had a lovely time. I do like the 1950s.

Here I am (hopefully) looking sophisticated, if not quite in period.

In the background is Mr Eiffel's Tower built just over a decade ago for the Universal Exposition. It is a triumph of modern engineering as you can see. I went to the top before meeting up with a friend. We decadently drank 'la fée verte' and then visited the Moulin Rouge, where I saw the marvellous elephant there and we danced. Paris is lovely in the spring of 1900.

This is mystical Moggsy

Here is a more dangerous side of me. Ready to do mayhem in the style of 'Kill Bill', beware my katana. It can cut a silk scarf as it falls...

Here are three different Moggsies.

A punky Moggsy. A Bambie type Moggsy... and A surfer chick Moggsy



And this is Pin up Moggsy!

Genealogy Update --- No Convicts, Sad to Say

Having taken his family tree back on both sides back as far as he could, the Old Scientist then turned to mine. I was of little help to him since my knowledge was so scanty. On my father's side, I knew my grandparents, immigrants from Scotland, although funnily enough not their Christian names. But he quickly had all that information, however he needs to pursue the Scottish records to find out more and that awaits him someday.

Of my maternal grandmother, again I knew very little. She was a widow and had been married to a policeman and I have the impression that her husband had died prematurely in the line of duty. She was Nana to me and died when I was a teenager and I didn't know her Christian name either. But the OS is pretty good at this now and he has traced my family on that side back to a certain James Bull, who seems to have been a very early settler in the young Colony of Australia.

Born in Staffordshire, England, in 1780, James Bull came to Australia in 1800, with his wife Ann and their two daughters, with one born on the journey. They "came free" on the Minerva and by 1809 had settled on land at Liverpool, which became known as Bull's Farm. Probably the most interesting thing about this man, was that he died of gunshot wounds in 1822, having been accosted by "ruffians" on the Liverpool Road.

James Bull seems to have been a man of some importance in the young Colony for a book describing the first couple of generations of the family in Australia, was written by one John Franklin, "The Bulls of Bull's Hill near Liverpool, NSW."

Sadly, no convicts have turned up in my family and the same is true for the OS, since his Australian forebear, Thomas Jenkins, born in 1826 in Kent, England, reached Sydney in 1857, on the Matoaka, accompanied by his wife and two children. His was an assisted passage so he must have had some skills which were considered useful and in fact he assumed work at the Berrima Gaol in an unknown capacity.

The Matoaka was a fully rigged sailing ship, built for the migrant trade. A mere 1092 tons, it carried a total of 192 men, 145 women, 91 children and 47 crew members in that tiny space on the journeywhich took many months. Small by today's standards, the ship was built in the USA and was considered the Boeing 747 of its day, designed to carry large numbers of passengers in relative comfort. Mmm. The ship later departed from Lyttleton, New Zealand for London in May of 1869, never to be seen again.

That is as far back as either of us goes in Australia and it seems we came from English stock ,although Thomas Jenkins married a French woman so there is a drop of that blood in the OS.

Like me, he now has a vast network of email correspondents whom he has never met and it would be the pot calling the kettle black if he were to think me odd for that reason.

I guess he may well be turning to my Scottish forebears for his next trick. My maiden name was Gray and while there is a Gray Clan, with the name a Norman one, Grays were also connected to the Stewart family, probably mucking out the stables if the truth be known. I wait with baited breath.

Saturday Photo Hunt --- Rock(s)

PhotoHunt


ROCK(S)

I have a small collection of rocks, which I have acquired over the years. Most of them are purchased but some I have picked up on my travels.

Below we have one of my favourites

A chunk of petrified wood, basically a fossil where all the organic
materials have been replaced with minerals

On the left, three stones I picked up on the island of Vulcano, a small
volcanic island off the north west coast of Sicily.
They used to smell very strongly of sulphur but no more

On the upper right, a piece of lava I took from the slopes of Mount Etna, or
Mongibello in Italian, the very active volcano in Sicily

On the lower right, a stone I picked up on the beach in Cannes,
on the French Riviera


HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE

A New iPhone, Not!

My cell phone has been problematic for the past few months, mainly not holding a charge. So I thought I should investigate getting a new one. With the huge range of cell phones out there these days, it should not have been a problem. Or so I thought.

I am one of those whom the cell phone companies hate. A Pay as you Go customer. For the princely sum of $10 plus GSTax, my cell phone account is topped up every month with extra credit and because I use the phone so seldom, I never exhaust each month's allowance and it accumulates. My current balance is $504, which is a large number of phone calls and/or text messages. No I don't have the internet on my phone although I could if I wanted to pay an extra charge and I don't take photos with it. A very simple cellular phone.

The phone companies like the customers who sign up for the expensive monthly plans which start at $30 per month and require a three year contract, plus have all kinds of hidden extra costs, like a $7 monthly connection fee. Huh? To connect? I don't have to pay that. These places just nickle and dime you to death and people accept it all.

Despite all the choice in cell phones out there, including the new 3G iPhone, my service provider makes only two or three available to Pay as you Go Customers. So it was pretty much a no brainer as to which one I chose. Since I always have my camera with me, I chose the one without the camera and luckily it was cheaper since I had to buy a new car charger, even though it is a Motorala, exactly the same brand as my old phone. They carefully change some little thing every time so that you cannot use the old one with the new phone. Not only that, it costs 40% of the cost of the new phone which is totally absurd.

Now despite the great advances in technology, there is one feature which has deteriorated progressively over the three phones I have owned. That's the address book. In my first you could quickly find someone by using a little search area and typing in their name, sort of like google search. The next "improved" phone did not have this feature, nor does the latest. Mmm. The second phone had a symbol against each name indicating cell phone or home phone. So if you had both the cell phone number and the home phone number of the same person, you could choose one quickly and away you went. Luckily my old phone did have a SIM card so I was able to transfer my address book over to the new phone without typing in the long list all over again. But it just shows the same name twice without indicating which is a cell or a landline number. Now you have to view each to see which is the one you want. How is it that we are losing these good features while adding all kinds of others I don't give a hoot about? Mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble. And no voice activated dialling either. I did like that on my old phone. Home I would say and it would dial it. It even recognized my accent!

You know how I love the "techie toys". Yes I would love to have an iPhone to play with. But frankly I just can't justify the horrific monthly bill that would entail. After all I don't use all of $10 per month now, how could I justify paying five to ten times that, depending on the options.

Oops, it's crooked. Lucky I don't earn my living from this
photography malarky

So I will have to console myself with my iPod Touch. Almost the same, but without the camera and the telephone bits. I have it loaded with some neat Applications, the same ones that you can load onto either the iPhone or the iPod Touch. Of course you have to find a WiFi connection but that is becoming more common now. As if I don't spend enough time connected to the internet!

But I am sure it will be fine, fine, fine.

Washington Sex Arrest

I bet that title got your attention. I could not resist bringing this to the attention of the waiting world when I... to use a phrase, came across it while surfing the net.

Now it seems to me that this is a natural part of human... intercourse, even a wifely duty and if she enjoys it so enthusiastically then good for them.

Maybe the good folks and the forces of Law and order in Washington in Tyne and Wear in the UK could give them a break?

It did occur to me that if it was really bothering the neighbours then maybe a four poster with hanging drapes to soak up some of the sound might help.

Maybe she could try a gag and, who knows, some restraints... to discourage too much wild movement, you understand?

Mmmmm.... But that might even enhance the experience and lead to increased offending ^_^.

Locking her up seems to go against natural justice and human nature. I figure she needs a good lawyer and a writ of habeas corpus. (Literally; "you (shall) have the body", but not in her husband's case right now I guess)

Who will the sex police.. come for next? She innocently conjectures ^_^

"Is that a nightstick? Or are you just very glad to see me?" ^_^

I would have thought that went against European Human Rights legislation under Article 8 - The right to respect for one's private and family life, correspondence and home and Article 12 - The right to marry and found a family.

I bet she is glad the government didn't get away with trying introduce 90-day detention without charge.

Oh to be on the jury...

Le Tour --- Armstong is back!

Cycling along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, during the final stage
of the race

For many years now, since OLN began broadcasting TV coverage of the event, we have faithfully watched the Tour de France, the annual professional bicycle race which lasts for 23 days in the month of July and roughly circumnavigates France, covering around 3500 kms. This makes it one of the most gruelling sporting events in the world.

I don't think there are many, even non followers of the sport or indeed sport in general, who have not heard of Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist whose career was interrupted at age 25 by treatment for testicular cancer, which had spread to his brain, abdomen and lungs. He was sidelined for two years but returned to cycling in 1998 and in 1999 he won his first Le Tour.

Yes, his first. This young man, who overcame this terrible disease, went on to win an unprecedented 7 Tours in a row and then in 2004 he retired at his peak.

We continued to watch the race every July, all 23 days of it, as it was the turn of other riders to take the coveted prize. As usual, drug scandals have continued to plague the professional cycling world. One hero after another has been toppled from his platform into periods of suspension. Somehow, while being incredibly disappointed as each rider I have followed succumbed, I am still enthusiastic about Le Tour and it has lost none of its magic for me. But Lance Armstrong, despite the many allegations against him, has never been convicted of doping and he is certainly tested often enough.

During his retirement Lance concentrated on his Lance Armstrong Foundation which raises money for the fight against cancer. He continued to cycle in charitable events and even took up marathon running, competing twice in the New York Marathon and once in the Boston Marathon. But it seems he missed cycling too much and in October 2008 he announced his return to professional cycling, with an eye to competing once again in the Tour de France. A broken collarbone, suffered early in 2009 during a race in Spain, seemed to be a small setback on his journey to compete in Le Tour and after one week of the race he is sitting in third place out of the 180 cyclists who started the race.

For the first few days of the race, you have to sort out the confusion and try to remember who rides for which team and the colour of the team uniform. Riders change teams constantly and those who were rivals last year may well be team mates this year.

But above all, cycling is a team sport. For the years of his victories, Lance rode firstly for the US Postal Team which morphed into the Discovery Team, when its sponsor changed. This year he rides for the Astana team, sponsored by a coalition of state-owned companies from Kazakhstan and named after its capital city Astana, a new squad put together several years ago by Johan Bruyneel, the manager of Lance's old team. Many consider this the cycling "Dream Team" and it certainly is a very powerful squad. Nine members of twenty teams ride in Le Tour and Astana's 9 riders are some of the best in the world, including Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador, Andreas Klöden and fellow American, Levi Leipheimer. Contador, at 26 and winner of the 2007 Tour, along with the 2008 Giro d'Italia and the 2008 Vuelta a España, is considered the number one rider for the team, but Lance at 37, is wearing the number 2 jersey for the team.

They have already won the Team Time Trial and at this point, one week into the race, they have four riders in the top six places. I think Armstrong's presence in this year's race has added enormous interest for many people. I don't know if he has a serious chance to win it for the eighth time. Despite his success so far, it is still early days, but I think there are many people, including myself, who would be delighted to see him pull it off. What a coup it would be!

So for the next two weeks we will be glued to the television coverage, catching the end of the race early in the morning and watching the full coverage rebroadcast each evening.

Now when a certain young person comes to visit us in July, she is also quite enthused by Le Tour. "Let's watch the bicycle guys, Grandpa." A photo from last year.

Grandpa is busily either muting or unmuting the ads - heaven preserve us if we have to listen to them - while Miss S is obviously concerned that her favourite rider will not be wearing the coveted yellow jersey or maillot jaune (worn each day by the leader at that point in the race) at the end of the day.

Would you believe that I have actually become a follower of the tweets of Lance Armstrong on Twitter? Of course you would. After all he has 1,386,336 folllowers and you too might be one of them.

Go Lance, go!

Saturday Photo Hunt --- Garbage

PhotoHunt


GARBAGE


This was an ugly sight I saw on our walking group outing yesterday. Click to enlarge.


This view of a little scenic pond, marred by someone carelessly leaving their garbage on the grass. Actually there is no excuse for it whatsoever, since there are garbage cans all along the path.


HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE

Virtual Law?

This one is a serious, if not actually hard hat, post that even serious, political type guy, bloggers ought to be able to comment on without embarrassment. Go on boys you know you want to.

Scientific American published an article about Second life in their July issue. Well, to be entirely honest it was not just about SL, it touched on World of Warcraft also.

It was suggesting that maybe real life laws ought to be applied to Second life and similar virtual worlds.

They mentioned an instance where a Chinese guy loaned a virtual sword to someone's avie who promptly sold it for $800. The guy tried to report it in Real Life to the police but they felt unable to deal with it. So he killed the guy instead. In RL that is.

They (Scientific American) quote “If somebody is going to die, and somebody else is going to spend the rest of his life in jail for a virtual crime, then we better take it seriously,”

Excuse me! No way is RL murder a virtual crime. People can even get murdered because other (frankly nutty) people think they looked at them funny. Crazy is crazy. That is a real life crime.

I don't know World of Warcraft but I wonder if the lending of a sword would not be outside the rules of the game. Maybe if it was, a RL contact he needed to have it written down and witnessed/notarised with penalties, surety. Maybe he could have sued the guy then? Or kept the surety.

I guess he must have had some serious gullibility, anger management issues and maybe rationality issues also. The place to have done the killing should have been the virtual world. “Kill” the thief there and take his goods where it is part of the game.

Now it seems to me that a “crime” in, say SL, is not necessarily a crime at all unless it is against the rules. If there are laws in SL or any other virtual world then don't they need to be in-world laws? Not imposed by national courts?

For a start what nation's laws would it be? Where the servers were? Where the players were? And if the players are in several different countries what then?

All this talk of laws is quite relevant just now, as your intrepid feisty reporter, can reveal. The virtual space trading "world" (universe?) Eve has a real crisis just now.

One of the biggest banks in that virtual world just had a run on it. That was caused by one of it's financial controllers embezzling 200 billion Kredits (the in-world currency), converting them into RL £3,115.00 and running for the outback (he is Australian).

The theft happened in June. Eve is based in Iceland.

I figure you do need rules. And for rules read laws. And there should be sanctions against those that break them. You don't need many of them. But there are financial transactions within worlds such as SL and you need some sort of regulation/security.

I do think that RL courts and legislators should keep their hands off/out of the virtual worlds. If laws/rules are needed they should be in-world, and dare I say it as few and as simple as possible.

The Age of Dreaming

It's quite a while since I've done a book review. Not because I haven't read any books lately, but nothing has stood out as worth mentioning. Until this one: The Age of Dreaming.

Nina Revoyr is a new author to me, although this is her third novel. I picked up the book in the Library, perusing the dust jacket and thinking that sounds interesting. What I did not expect was a book which impressed me so much with the writing that it made the story almost secondary. Well not quite.

Jun Nakayama was an unlikely superstar in the early years of the silent film industry in Hollywood. Unlikely and quite remarkable, in that he was Japanese but filming in the western world with all that entailed. Abruptly he retired in 1922, at the peak of his career and the book finds him in 1964, an elderly man living a very quiet dignified life.

Nick Bellinger, a young writer, seeks him out for an interview, supposedly for an article on the early film industry. However he has written a screen play which he hopes to have made and with Nakayama in mind for the part. Jun's interaction with the young writer brings back a flood of memories of his glory days and the book goes back and forth between the two eras, as Jun recounts the stories of those days and introduces us to the cast of characters with whom he worked. Besides the director who made him a star and who was murdered at that time, Ashley Bennett Tyler, Jun also tells us of the three women, actresses, who dominated his life at the time.

He embarks on the task of seeking out people from his past life, trying to come to terms with those long ago times and events and this leads to some interesting revelations which I shall leave unspoken.

Besides being beautifully written, I found the story of the early days of the silent film industry to be quite fascinating. I think Jun is beautifully portrayed by the author and on the whole I think it a remarkably good book. Here the book has been summed up so much better than I could.

The Age of Dreaming explores the history of Los Angeles, the heady beginnings of the movie industry, and the interplay of race and celebrity. It is part historical novel, part mystery, and part story of unfulfilled love, all told through the voice of a forgotten star who must gradually come to terms with his past.

As one of the best books I have read in the last few years I can highly recommend it.

Saturday Photo Hunt ---- Pink

PhotoHunt

PINK

This is the second time tnchick has set pink as the theme for Saturday Photo Hunt. Last time I had no hesitation in what I wanted to post. My daughter and I called the occasion the Princess Birthday Party and I was sure that I could not top that one. But this photo of an Astilbe in my front garden is quite pink, in its full glory last week when I took this.


There were bees buzzing around it but I was in a hurry and did not have time to take one of those great insect macro photos that everyone seems to capture. Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Along with Hostas, Astilbes are my very favourite plants which you could tell if you came to see my garden.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE

AND HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO THOSE CELEBRATING IT

There's a man in my bed! Eeeak!

Well it has been a week or so since I last posted. I have been pretty busy, both in Second Life and Real Life. In fact RL has been getting in the way of my visiting SL and blogging. Sigh!

Oh check out my new pic. What do you think?

This post is about Second life and something that creeped me out a bit...

I recently moved to a temporary place (and am now moving again asap, to somewhere with better security).

JMB had popped by to visit with me. I showed her some of my SL art that I had hung on my walls (I like to make things homely)..

Anyway, I had to go do some stuff in RL but JMB stayed to look over my work, here is one of them “Surfer Girl”.

While she was doing that some strange guy just appeared!

On my bed! Definitely uninvited!

I am not sure what I would have done if I had been home. Either run, flipped out and/or attacked him I guess.

I have been hanging out in some rough places lately and at the time I had knives strapped to my arms in quick release holsters, so if I had remembered.... he might have been sorry.

Well it wasn't me but JMB, she confronted him armed with nothing but her indignation (and possibly an umbrella) and saw him off. Yaaay JMB! Apparently he was randomly hopping in on people.

Not a handsomely raffish, masterful but gentlemanly, art thief then... Sigh.

One of the dangers of a world with teleportation and the odd d@#k head I guess.