it was a dark and stormy night, except when it was not stormy

Tomorrow one of my coworkers who's been on annual leave gets back. Thank goodness. I need to check with her about a lot of crossmapping stuff.

I also need to get the last choice/deposit on the Work Christmas Lunch List and then take it down to the selected restaurant, who will hopefully still have free booking space on the selected day. Mutter mutter.

No, really, things aren't that bad. I'm just tired.

I'm also trying to remember which of my Edmund Crispin books (he wrote crime fiction about Gervase Fen) has the bit where bullet grooves are faked by first shooting the bullet out of the pistol in question, then wrapping it in moss or similar wadding and shooting it out of a gun with a larger barrel in order to preserve the first gun's "print". I think it was one of the short stories. Will just have to reread them, I guess.

---

It was a dark and stormy night and the rain fell in torrents -- except
at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of
the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

-- Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

drabble for krecik: applied incentive

Title: applied incentive
Requester: krecik
Series: Yami no Matsuei
Requested Topic: Yami no Matsuei x Knitting, please.
Due to http://incandescens.livejournal.com/589115.html

"It's the newest fund-raising initiative," Tatsumi explained, a mad glint in his eyes. "No longer will we be constantly in debt. From now on, we shall supplement the Department budget by knitting socks! And other useful items to be sold at a below-market price for profit!"

"But we don't have yarn," Hisoka said.

"Yarn will be provided."

"But we don't have needles," Terazuma pleaded.

"Needles will be provided."

"But we don't know how to knit," Tsuzuki whimpered.

"You will find," Tatsumi said, driving a shadowy knitting needle through a telephone directory in a single spike, "that you learn extremely fast."

drabble for archangelbeth: somewhat illogical

Title: somewhat illogical
Requester: archangelbeth
Series: Sherlock Holmes / One Piece
Requested Topic: Anything Sherlockian. Bonus points for crossing with One Piece!
Due to http://incandescens.livejournal.com/589115.html

My friend was never the best of sailors. Even when we were travelling on a cruise liner, he remained belowdecks and attempted to cure his mal de mer with tobacco. When I informed him that we had recently seen a passing sailing ship crewed by a boy in a straw hat, a swordsman, a cook, two immodestly clad young women, a catapultier, a bulky fellow with a metal nose, and some sort of horned mascot, he merely enquired whether I attempted to distract other patients with this sort of fable, before once again groaningly burying his head beneath his sheets.