As people have started sending me grouchy emails about the lack of blog posts describing the adventures of the last few weeks, here is an obligatory update.

As it was my turn to be shown around Europe by Martin after the great Penny and Martin Adventure 2008_1 (NZ), I have been galavanting for the last 3 weeks. Since I left New Zealand, we have visited:

.ch: Zürich, Bern, St Moritz, Pontresina
.de: München
.fr: (near) Bandol
.it: Torri Ventimiglia, Genova, Firenze, Bologna, Ferrara, Mantova, Lovere

and: learned to make Olive Bread, got fat on salami, pate, beer, contentment and laziness, played frisbee in the sea, sailed, eaten snails and donkey (!!), done hardly any work, slept far too much, and drank a lot of beer (did I mention this?!)

phew! that's quite a bit. I'm now in London staying with dispersed parts of Mischief Bad Group until I find a flat, and have started back full time work, speccing out the Moodle Portfolio API which is quite a complicated wee beasty.

Photos from the trip are of course on flickr

Playing at Matterhorn on Sunday and afterwards via email, we came up with:

- a paradox of Pennys
- a crisis of Chrises

The jury is out on Davids but so far suggestions have been

- an obstreperation
- an unpleasantness
- a duplicity

(the token David suggested a charm but that idea was quickly discarded)

I am inclined toward the last, although obstreperous is my new favourite word.

bitsey update:

- I am far far too overloaded right now and there isn't really an end in sight. Need to learn to say no.
- zomg. Brenda and I are going to oscon. Fucking yay!
- I wish so so so so much I was at debconf right now. There are millions (ok, exaggeration) of people I would love to see. Particularly madduck, who, even though I asked politely, Andrew declined to smooch for me.
- mahara.org is finally live.
- andypants is coming back to Catalyst soon! This is excellent news.
- I have a giant dark purple bruise on my ass from weekend debauchery. I need to get a photo taken.
- Mischief Bad Group has moved to Sunday Roast rather than Sunday Breakfast starting this weekend. This is good as I can't deal with Sunday Breakfast in winter, but sitting in the courtyard at the Matterhorn from the early afternoon and drinking red wine under the heaters is seriously appealing.
- Dysfunctional naming scheme. Total lack of ability to call people by their names because it makes them too real. Instead I have to create creative descriptive (and often elaborate) names for them. And then when other people refer to them by name in front of me it's shocking.

I saw this:



We had a picnic.

Yup, I'm now 27.

I feel ... old ...

Or maybe like there's less excuse to be badly behaved and indulgent. Actually that might be because I'm wearing grown up clothes today because I'm going out for dinner after work. Nothing to do with the turning 27 thing.

How could I justify being part of Auctorus Malorum if I suddenly decided to start acting like a grown up?

Life has been just a little bit too chaotic recently, I feel as though I'm a little bit out of control.

Yesterday I moved my bedroom furniture around. I am trying to create less chaotic spaces to inhabit. It's much nicer now.

I think I need to spend less time rampaging and more time being at home doing interesting things like reading.

Yesterday afternoon was far too rampagey and then I went to Matterhorn and made a dork out of myself by hitting on a staff member (who as it turns out, has a girlfriend).

I have a giant bruise on my leg from being bitten during a grass squabble and today I have a hangover.

I need to get up and sort myself out and go to Auctores Malorum Breakfast at The Recovery Room.

A couple of weeks ago I started writing an article about what it's like to be a woman doing IT, open source specifically. Basically, what it's like to be me.

I didn't really get round to it though, mostly because I've been so busy over the last two weeks with work and other stuff, but I've been thinking about last night a lot today and I think I will probably actually write it now, rather than just think about it.

So, stay tuned.

Not right now, now is going out for dinner to the Flying Burrito Brothers with Mischief Bad Group. We are Auctores Malorum!

Sorry, I've been away/drunk/busy/obsessive.

I had christmas in the Sounds with my parents, which was ace. New Years here with a small group of friends and lots of muntery. Too much silly holiday boozery all around.

My sister addicted me to a TV show by lending me 4 seasons on DVD and I borrowed the fifth off someone else. I'm not going to elaborate any more because it's embarassing, but for the first time since I was about 12, I have an incredibly huge stupid obsessive crush on an actor.

Hotttt.tttttttt.....ttt.

So, errr...... There will be more inactivity around here while I try to watch every movie he's ever made.

I'm going to LCA soon, I'll try blog more while I'm there, it'll hopefully be well removed from The Crush.

I spent almost the entire weekend sitting in the sun drinking beer and bubbles and playing scrabble.

On Sunday, rather than have the typical hungover breakfast in a cafe, the usual breakfast suspects had a bbq at my house. Photos are (as usual) courtesy of Jo:

I convince Simon to put really hot chili on his sausage:



My back garden:



Simon is typically disgusting:


We like meat:



By the end of the day, we have chased the sun so far we're playing scrabble on the footpath:



We ended up playing dirty scrabble by the end of the day, and here are some of the words we came up with:

• VAG
• ANAL
• PENIS
• PORN
• YONI
• SCORE
• FELT
• JIZ
• QUEEF

Yes, that's right, we are actually 12 year olds.

- more margaritas than you can shake a stick at
- kidney stabbing with spoons
- very expensive, hotttt, new dress
- fitting mojo spoons in mouth
- more margaritas
- reverse bungee
- dressing very up to go out on saturday
- invading booth at motel
- astoria sucking for sunday breakfast
- giraffes at astoria
- mad supermarket shopping with simon
- dst eating my brain
- ricochet
- two different sales people touching my breasts while trying to convince me to buy things
- discussions about our new tv program, the adventures of oney, zerox and their sidekick, freezerdog
- darwinports > fink
- new euphemisms
- not enough sleep
- not enough sun

Such a good weekend. Friday night was drinking with various people and then Phoenix Foundation, which was, as usual, amazing. If 40 years doesn't appear on the next album I am going to be terribly upset. Saturday was birthday present shopping and then birthday dinner at Uncle Chang's and then Reverse Bungee oh my god I just want to go again and again, and then cocktails at Motel. Sunday was breakfast on the deck in the sun and then a visitor and Bloody Hamenga (a family recipe for combating hot climates involving, amongst other things, Vodka) with mint in it all day and more sun and then early sleep.

And over the last week - ish I have read three books, Cannery Row, John Steinbeck, A Spy in the House of Love, Anaïs Nin and Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jnr. And now I just read, while searching for a url for the last, that he also wrote Requiem for a Dream.

So I finally have internet on at home, I'm reading at a reasonable pace (which is a pleasant break from not at all), it looks as though summer is on the way, and today is pay day. This seems like a reasonable start to the week....

It's been a long time since I wrote anything. Lots of things going on. Here are some things that all relate to people called Simon.

So at breakfast on Sunday, I said to Simon, 'easy, little tiger' and in response he drew me a picture of an Easy Little Tiger:


I captured another Simon's book and sent him an SMS demanding a pony if he ever wanted to see his book alive again. I returned to work yesterday after lunch and found this:


And some non Simon related things...

• Cleary, I now have two flat screens with twin view. Mmmmmmmm.... yum.
• Next week I'm going to the Marlborough Sounds and then Christchurch.
• I'm far too busy at the moment.
• I'm going to be moving flat soon, I'm going to live by myself again. This is good.

Oh, and we're not doing the breakfast rating thing anymore. Still having the breakfast, still having it at different cafes, just not rating it. It's too hard to coordinate, we feel rude doing it at the table and doing it afterwards is too tricky with 10 people. Also, I'm lazy.

We're branching out. After breakfast on Sunday, most of us went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. True to Mischief Bad Group style, here's the ratings:

	David	Mary	Nem	Penny	Peter	Shanna
Depp (/10)	10	8	7	10	6	20!
Characters (/10)	6	6	6	5	4	7
Pirates (/10)	'yarr'	10	6	8	4	8
Atmosphere (/10)	7	9	6	9	6	13
Comedy (/20)	13	15	11	12	10	10
Movie Overall (/20)	14	16	12	15	7	10
Plot (/20)	12	16	14	16	?	0

There were a couple (read: at least 3) naughty people who didn't fill out the forms. Comments ranged from Yarrr to bitching about Keira Knightley in equal volumes.

Moodle Moot starts tomorrow and this morning M and I picked up Martin Dougiamas from the airport and went out for breakfast before dropping him at his hotel.

Checkit:



also, last night was great! Chris got drunk and cooked like an angel and I ate so much I couldn't move until the point that I had to be sick.

It was the combination of chocolate brownie, sherbert lollies, chocolate covered fruit, sour coke bottles, steak, cannelloni, emersons organic pilsner, salad and guacamole that did it.

And now the leftover brownie keeps looking at me.

I have added linkage between my gallery plugin and my breakfast plugin. This means that there may or may not now be photos associated with breakfasts.

I should also auto add a 'we are usually hungover and dysfunctional on Sunday mornings' disclaimer to any breakfast related photo.

Also, I don't think there will be breakfast tomorrow as we're dinnering tonight instead.