The cubs have been intently browsing the new Lego catalogue, commenting hopefully about the things they'd like. Heh.

Chapter 14 is progressing nicely. One of the trickier things I'm having to negotiate with SFSG is avoiding the use of terran-centric words and terms. It can be really awkward. Early on I realised there was a whole range of adjectives I couldn't use - chocolate, coffee, creamy, milky etc; - because those substances don't exist in this worldframe. Well, not under those names, anyway.
I thought I was pretty good at finding alternatives for terran terms, I'd had practise in the Alliance Chronicles after all, but I was still surprised at just how much of my vocabulary I was using without thought. I'm more careful now though at times it's a real headache trying to find a different word for a common item. Eh, I'll manage, I'm sure... : )

<happy squeak> The Golden Arches of Doom in the US is having another run of Neopets! I've seen the list of critters for the 2005 release. I want the kugras! And the meercas! I'm really hoping they'll be released down here. Can't see why not, the last lot did astonishingly well. I'll just have to be patient I spose.

Caught the tail-end of a program on (our) ABC this evening - a weekly half-hour show about collectors and collections. The subject today was wooden toys and I made the cubs shush while I was watching. Some of the older toys were works of art - not complicated in form at all, but the craftsmanship that had gone into them was fabulous. A lot of the 'minimalist' animal figures were bordering on the totemic and I was itching to play with them. I like wooden toys, I always have. I used to have some that my grandfather made for me and I played with them for years. I don't know where they've gone, alas. You can still find wooden toys about but the quality of materials and workmanship varies I've noticed, as does price. I think they're more versatile than the majority of mass-produced plastic toys. Think of wooden blocks, they can extend a child's imagination because they're not fixed in form, they can become whatever the child makes them. Unlike things like the Hot Wheels playsets, which present one scenario, no matter how whizz-bang it looks. Steiner schools use this minimalist principle in all their toys, deliberately keeping everything as simple as possible to encourage a child to use their imagination. (I used to think the dolls, with their pinpoint dots for eyes and mouths were kind of creepy but, without the fixed and painted smiles common to other main-stream dolls they allow you to project any sort of emotion on them.)
So anyway, looking at these beautiful toys made me want to try woodworking for the first time. <g> I'll add it to the list...