Things were going well last week until a few unexpected expenses materialised.

First, there was deliberate shiny buying in the shape of a cheap Sound Canvas 55 off ebay. It's somewhat more modern than the MT-32 I got a while back - the piano actually sounds like a proper piano and it can be mapped for proper General MIDI compatibility (even if it's capable of a superset of that) although my modern standards the note polyphony is a bit low..

Then the UPS died at home (it was cheap, and has lasted a couple of years) encouraging the purchase of a second hand with new batteries one (this also showed that the old one was never doing a fan test, which may be why it failed). The new one carries on the tradition of the old one in continually trimming the input voltage - it appears the household voltage is a bit high.

Eye and dentist appointments hit simultaneously, and I think it's likely I'll need a new prescription - probably the same frame though.

Thus, despite the fact there are lovely people I wanted to see in London, I stayed around Manchester - particularly as it was therainbowqueen's 30th birthday, and that only comes around once!

Due to the rainbow theme, there was a last minute dash on Thursday to grab some orange machine dye. An old pair of white jeans magically became burnt orange, coupled with my Stuff Is Awesome orange t shirt with a rainbow on it :).

Saturday consisted of going to Futuresonic with T. I was confused here, and actually thought it was Eurocultured - which is on the coming bank holiday weekend. Anyway, it was a decent diversion and some drinks and chat were also had. Then, onwards to see the RQ in all her splendid rainbowy glory together with various colours in the rainbow friends (S in green and C in an orange jumpsuit were particularly good).

Sunday was spent vegging on games (it rained) and Monday a bit of snoozing and a quick 17 mile bike ride - jolly good.

Last night was Biphoria.. I'm pondering looking at running Manchester Bifest in November.. Any suggestions or offers of help (workshops, cake, crafts, decorations, entertainment) welcome!

Bollox was rather good (C said it eventually finished about half 3, because no-one wanted it to end!), Bifest was pretty damn quiet.

I'm not entirely sure what went right/wrong. The weather was undoubtedly a factor - something I don't quite understand, but certainly if I take yoga classes as an analogy weeks are either busy, or quiet. You get the committed/insane people who come every week; the ones who come with their friends and then there are the others that have no relationship with each other, yet still decide en-masse whether to come or not. Given what the taxi driver on Friday night said ('it's been too quiet because of the rain'), I can only conclude that people really are put off by grim weather[1] Me, I'm only a bit put off when it's torrential.

There's also the Harry Potter factor, no doubt. Beyond that, although there wasn't a huge lag between advertising and the event, adverts were sent out to various online places, leafleting and a entry in the Pink Paper. Maybe the time of year is also a factor?

Still, the workshops seemed to work. They did get people talking. There was cake, and crafts. There was a fair bit of a banner made. I made a splendid 'Don't Blink' badge (although some people thought it a bit scary).

Something was wrong though - not enough energy. Perhaps it needed more of a critical mass, or are there more activities and so on that would inspire people?

Sunday, I've mostly spent sleeping. After getting up late-ish, having lunch, discovering water is coming through the ceiling and that the sealant on the bath has obviously failed.. (have just now located the sealant and resealed the bath), read a little then had a lie down for a moment. I woke up four hours later(!). Perhaps I have a low level lurgy of some type.

Pondering whether to buy that book tomorrow. I'm really not particularly fussed by HP, and consider it unoriginal and derivative. Unfortunately I also feel obliged to know how it ends, damnit.

[1] I know for a fact that more than one friend will not go out if it's miserable.

Woke up this morning feeling cold. Briefly considered if this was because I was perhaps still ill, before deciding that, no, it's actually because autumn has arrived with a vengeance. Dark mornings and nights loom soon, and I suppose I should hack away at my DVD backlog seeing as there's no suitable person to snuggle with. Time to put the central heating on.

biphoria was good last night. 19 people! Good chat about Bifest and relationships. Discussed different organisation of Bifest, timings, seperate events and so on.. haggis made the good suggestion that my Coming Out workshop needed a bit more interactivity, and if I run it again I was planning on perhaps running a quiz/board game 'Risk Factor X-treme!'

'It's late at night. You haven't come out to anyone else. Someone you vaguely know and like is online, and you could reveal your bisexuality:

What's the risk factor? Piddly/Small/Moderate/Huge/X-Treme!
Change factor to your life :
What are the plus points?
What could go wrong?'

Silly, but perhaps worth it?

ION we're looking at repairing some US Courier modems at work (some models have unreliable power supplies), and were pleased to note they have a lifetime warranty. I suppose there /is/ an advantage of buying £200+ modems..

Bifest went jolly well. There were 60ish people there for the vast majority of the day, many of which I'd not seen before - as opposed to last year, with 100 people most of whom I *did* know. Some were friends of people such as shinydan or others, plus a lady that heard about us from Shout! magazine for one. Let's see what the feedback forms reveal.

Overall thoughts :

Everyone pitched in and helped make it a success - thanks for that.
Lots of fantastic cake - thank you for that everyone. Some of it was terribly tasty. It was claimed the gorgeous chocolate cake was making me show my 'sex face' - bah.. a) it wasn't and b) it's a long time since I've had chocolate..
Workshops went quite well - huge numbers of people to the bi diversity/myths session!!
Coming out was much smaller but also went well. Bit nervous during both but managed to get the right points across I feel.
Splendid decorations and suchlike. Lots of fun badgemaking.
At least one disabled person attended, so providing the access was well worth it.

Evening was spent munching chinese food and having a few drinkies. A good effort alround. Post mortem at the next biphoria no doubt.

My loft is full again (not that it's actually that large), and the house is almost tidy, and conceivably not far off Mother Tidy. It's amazing what getting down to it and not faffing around too much online will do.

Anyway, on a side note I met lots of nice people at bicon, who would be nice to see again, yet life always gets in the way. Given that after Bifest, apart from a visit to my sister for relaxation and Extremely Purry Welsh Kitten Goodness my time is completely free up till the activist weekend in November that I'm probably going to, a visiting and holiday poll. Also, I'm pondering a party sometime :

Poll #825558 Would you like to help me fill up my spare time?
Open to: All, results viewable to: None

Would you like to visit, or be visited by glorious moi!? :)

Would you like to

Other things you'd like to do

In addition I should go one of these places for relaxation, culture and food

Other exciting places I should go, or camp

Weekend was indeed spent tidying, which despite a certain amount of sleeping in and arsing around was generally quite productive. Tonight's tasks are sticking stuff in the loft, making sure the airbed is ok and finishing the planning for the Bifest coming out workshop so I can integrate what hieroglyphe wants to do as well.

Speaking of hieroglyphe I went to one of their birthday celebrations last weekend at Fab Cafe in Manchester. Beer was drunk, very silly conversations were had as well as a bit of a bop. Splendid. Went for a nice long walk round the terraced gardens on Sunday.

This Sunday I visited my parents, had a decent chat with my dad and did yet more tidying.

Lots to do this week, but if I don't dawdle it shouldn't be a problem to complete..

I appear to have purchased 91m each of two types of pink and one of blue and purple ribbon for making sashes. Plus some stencils. Plus some double sided sticky tape. Craft shops are evil.

On a side note though - sellotape alternatives are never as good - the key difference is that you can cut sellotape by shearing it across with your nails, whilst the others can't.

Also a CD wallet, to tidy up this mess of a study, and a copy of Serious Sam Gold Edition for only 3 quid. Now for more tidying.

This weekend : House sorting, decoration making, workshop planning for Manchester Bifest. Pub tonight. Perhaps out somewhere tomorrow night - any suggestions?

I also appear to be a bit more tired than I should be, and my joints are in slightly less than perfect shape. May have to look at my diet as I've been reducing my meat consumption, and perhaps I'm lacking nutrients in some area.

I've also received the joyful "Horwich and Blackrod Focus" (local lib dem newsletter). This features the admission they lost by 130 votes because of the bins (basically, the bins have changed from weekly collection to fortnightly with green bin and bottle box on the other week. It notes that the Tories voted against a cardboard recycling scheme despite their professed green credentials (surely not! and as a side note - isn't their new logo incredibly bad?)).

However it then goes on to have sour grapes, saying that going back to weekly grey bin collection and increasing recycling is 'a con'. Well, let's just see, shall we? The assertion that it will lead to 'a massive reduction in recycling' is not yet proven, and the pledge that 'increasing the capacity to recycle so that you did not have to make trips to the tip and recyling centre ... and on the surface appeared like a reduction in service'.

It *was* a reduction in service. You can't spin a fortnightly grey bin collection any other way. The fact other services were provided on alternate weeks is not relevant to the main service reduction. Have the grace to accept democracy and fix the sodding problem!

Manchester Bifest is go!

After last year's success, we have an action packed repeat performance on September 23rd - International Celebrate Bisexuality day.

Workshops! Cake! Fruit Juice! Badge Making! Crafts! Games! Lovely People to Talk To! Literature!

The event will be held at The Manchester Lesbian & Gay Foundation and is fully wheelchair accessible. It is not, unfortunately, open to children (sorry, but we did try).

The Programme is as follows :

12:00	Doors open
12:30	Welcome
12:50	What is Bisexuality?	Icebreaker Games
14:05	Bi Diversity & Myths	Drugs
15:20	Coming Out	Student Bisexuals
16:35	Activism for slackers/Bi families	Silly Games
17:40	Close / photos

( Programme detail )

Please note there is no official evening entertainment.

Manchester Bifest is sponsored by the splendid Operation Fundraiser, and run by biphoria the Manchester Bisexual group, plus various illustrious members of the UK bi community.

Hope to see you there!