Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

I found my wife! She was in the last place I looked. Also, found my keys. I have left a series of communications post-it notes.

Finally coming up for air but work is work and it will no doubt drag me back in again. Drugs, gangs, dead bodies, corrupt police force -- almost as if it is a big dirty city consumed with issues. I wish I had more money for staff but it is what it is until the Crown is plausibly stable.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

I polished off a large body of work and put some of it to rest to my own satisfaction. It is, admittedly, a rather long-term project but after a round of summary judgments and a round of arbitration, things are moving in the right general direction. All good on that front.

Things are feeling a bit more settled these days.

But I am currently packing up important things -- clothing, toothbrush, papers, books, Valentine -- and planning on a long weekend in Paloma hanging about with Adrianna in my father in law's house. I am feeling the tinges around the edges of an episode and feel it best to simply be somewhere quiet for a few days. It was a hard call between heading home to Begma City and Paloma, but I am less likely to get frowned at upon sitting about without trousers in Paloma.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

I have been so tremendously busy that I just realized that I am not currently home trying to score up tickets for the All Begman Song Contest. Not that it is particularly... good, really, and in all honesty it is pretty horribly awful but it is an excuse to drink rather quite a bit, pretend to be engaged, and tick off marks on little not very secret ballots. Then I could come back to Amber and hum the songs for a week until they drive everyone around me to complete and utter distraction and they throw muffins at my head.

Mornings like this I truly believe that if we had an All Golden Circle Dance Contest we could end war and strife and let member countries just dance it off with a catchy song and dance routine.

Although I am a bit nervous about a Rebman Entry. It would be rather inappropriately jiggly.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

It isn't so much the luring staff away with free Montevalnan vacations as it is luring staff away with free Montevalnan vacations in Serminia. While certainly I have a Cheap Day Return to Montevalno, it is to Paloma in specific which is superior in every way.

Also, this muffin is like a stone. One could kill by digging out these cranberries and flinging them like deadly missiles. (phew phew phew) I need to send someone out to the bakery up the street.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

The last time I was in a duel, I cheated and shot my opponent with a pop gun and then put his soul in a broach. This time, I hit my opponent once lightly with Nex Fovi and then offered him cookies.

Granted, they were Valentine's cookies. But better they get eaten then going stale. Nothing in the universe worse than stale, unloved cookies. One must have cookie standards!

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

This job has its share of miseries: the cold, the wet, the smell, getting robbed, mounds of paperwork, terrible muffins with suspicious cranberries and occasionally putting myself up to get stabbed for the right to living a life unmolested down here in the Lower City.

... Well, unmolested by those other than your neighbors, that is.

I am still unclear what other choice I had.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

My Begman republican sensibilities say one thing; my knowledge of how the universe actually functions says another. I want Freedom and not Dictatorship, Liberty or a jar, but I also want a place to keep all my stuff.

And so on.

In the face of impending Civil War and the Golden Circle spinning off into the cosmos leaving little glittery tails in their wake and the Seas rising up to meet the Stars, I continue to go to work, worry about trade groups coming to complain about Crown tariffs on coffee, think about the gangs of New Lyonesse, and eat muffins. I have a new Watch Commander and it is Niklas Shadowdancer-shaped. We haven't had major issues from all the ships in the bay (yet).

Etc. and Etc. and Etc.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

Some small lizard hindbrain is telling me in quiet strobing colors of pinks and greens that perhaps all the ships now in the bay before the Docks full of men with guns drinking rum is not the best possible thing for the City.

But then the part of my brain who wants to smoke a big stogie and say "Hrm" rather alot and be surrounded by sycophants hoping to leverage off the Mayor's (somewhat imaginary) power says that loads of ships in the bay? Men in port? Why, that is money to the City, boy! Cash! Willing to spend! And money to the City means money to... well, the City!

Then I ask myself: why do I not have hordes of sycophants? Why do I not have a stogie? Why do I not say "Hrm?" And I stop listening to the small lizard brain entirely.

Also, my sister needs a hug.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

It is either a sign of the times or a sign that I am becoming jaded and cynical that absolutely nothing surprises me any more. I attend events simply to have be reinforced in my assumptions; nothing more. Although the little nibbles circulated in the before-party were rather tasty if not a bit unidentifiable.

However, I clearly need to start walking into Courts, foreign and domestic, with every possible Court case I can even contemplate because off the top of my head is not a winning strategy. The only time I can be beaten in Court is if I am caught flat-footed in an unfamiliar legal system.

Also, donuts. The position of the Office of the Mayor comes entirely with breakfast pastries.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

On reflection, I will give the Regent Emrys of Weirmonken a solid and respectable 7.5 but give the Viscountess of Blukhav high marks with a 9. Although I am relieved that we were not descended upon in a more public place.

Someone, and I am not mentioning any names but she looks suspiciously just like me and even has some surname bits in common, clearly wandered off to have some serious Girl Talk after tea the other day. And it went horribly awry.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

1. A bicycle and goggles are good things to have in the Lower City for any number of reasons.

2. *Lady Beatrice Solaris does not approve of my unrequited man-love for Regent Emrys of Weirmonken.

3. I have donuts which, in my opinion, are an upgrade from muffins.

My work list is rather quite long right now, much of which requires me to go to various minor invested parties all over the Lower City and explain to them why and how the new Government is good for them and their people/business/drug trade. Politics occasionally looks a bit like sales.

* A tiny joke! Honestly!

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

Sitting on the porch this morning. I have donuts.

An insane last several days: Kings and Crowns and weddings and my sister (whom I love) and banking and troops and walks to Montevalno and Feldane and inexplicable insanity and little tiny sandwiches with tea.

Yet I have donuts. And a cup of coffee!

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

Dawn. At work.

I have donuts. This is an upgrade from muffins. They are the best guarded and protected donuts in all of Amber. No one, and I mean no one is going to mess with my donuts.

Except me. Since now I've eaten them.

If one eats a donut is it legally considered donut homicide? Or is it the True Destiny of the donut to be consumed and thus fulfilling its Promise as part of the Universe as laid out by the Pattern at the Beginning of Time and thus one is playing ones mandated part by consuming said donut?

Donuts. Deep. Heavy. And cream-filled.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

I spent all evening reading the latest papers and journals out of the University of Begma on urban policy.

The academic Begman do-gooders, who do quite mean well -- I know all these people who wrote these papers personally -- are predisposed to stare at piles of census data from the comfort of their posh University offices and divine answers from rivers of statistical assessments. Then they declare X or Y or Z about the urban poor, usually something along the lines of "they are lazy and hate work and are kept down by the Man!" And then they give these studies to me, who quite earnestly wants to fight in Court for the rights of the under represented.

I am continuing my New Lyonesse project but I wonder if this statistical approach to assessing policy isn't just a bit, well, incorrect and, perhaps, the results are a bit too simple.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

In return for the outright bribe of tasty donuts, Valentine has seen the wig. Which is sort of funny; I never thought much about black robes and the bench wig but Valentine is clearly endlessly amused by it. He wants me to wear it all the time. It's law in Begma to show up to the bench in proper attire. It is not my fault that Amber Court is full of underdressed savages.

Thus the City has given Valentine de'Mandrake a second major function as Deputy Mayor: Head of Diplomacy when Not Involving Wigs and the Bringer of Donuts.

Speaking of formal dress: I am contemplating a kilt in Feldane colors.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

Perhaps dancing upon the Road of Death among the tangle of dead buildings and dead souls and dead autos rusting in the greying twilight while following the soul of the Strangefolk to its horrible, terrible, awful home Shadow and yelling, "I am Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds!" was a bit much.

But then again, perhaps not.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

You don't want to end up in Court.

The outcome of standing before a Judge, or in this case a sitting Regent, is unlikely to get you as good of a deal as the same issue going to arbitration. Yes, you may win big if your arguments are particularly sound and the Judge comes around to your way of seeing the issue, but you're more likely to be already working on your Appeal because whatever the Judge decides is going to be unpleasant. Except, in Amber, there's no Appellate Court. If you take your issue to arbitration chances are that the hammered out agreement between all parties is going to be much kinder and settled without much fuss. As your attorney, I advise you to take the arbitration and this bottle of gin and these little brown pills, mate.

My speciality is Constitutional Law which largely involves, as a working lawyer, sending off an awful lot of very Sternly Worded Letters to Government Officials but the occasional case of ending up at the King's Bench and walking about making things up while wearing a funny wig. Law's not about truth or goodness or order; Law is about making the best damned argument and I've quibbled in Court over the order of prepositions of one section of one bit of law before.

Law is sort of this nebulous body in Amber and occasionally entirely driven by eel pies.

As for the City, as I sit here and contemplate a muffin and coffee, I have to move forward under the ruling. I have five or six items to follow through, most of which I will push off on Valentine to deal with. I'll enumerate them, get them hammered out, and move on with the next thing. So it goes.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

Leading against a barricade down on the Docks watching the Naval ships again. I have a belly full of hot coffee and cranberry muffin and thinking about classic, simple game theory problems:

Four men are sitting at a table at a bar wanting to pick up some girls. A smoking hot girl walks in with four of her slightly less smoking hot friends. Smoking hot girl is smoking hot and naturally, the four men sitting at the table at the bar all want to go home with smoking hot girl. But now she is a resource under contention; they cannot all go home with smoking hot girl. Not unless they are all into strange sex things.

If all the men agree that they want smoking hot girl, they all now have to compete with each other for the resource, leaving them in a (100%, 0%, 0%, 0%) position. This produces a clear winner and clear losers with clear side effects. But they have a secondary choice: they can choose to ignore smoking hot girl and pursue the four other not as smoking hot girls. They do so; they all walk away with not as smoking hot girls (80%,80%,80%,80%). Four winners, no losers. A clearly an optimized result meant leaving the best and most obvious choice on the table.

Politics is all about the secondary choice. Politics is about hoping for 300% over your intended result and walking home with 80% in your pocket. We can't all go home with the smoking hot girl.

Then again, Rose is pretty smoking hot. So. There goes my math.

Notes from the constant running log of the Circumgyratory Spooling Noticulator-MK2 in attractive black. The quality of the penmanship, and thus the pen used in question, are both high. All running log entries in the noticulator start with a date and then entered one per ruled line by number and time.

Leaning against a barricade down on the Docks watching the Naval ships slowly move into position. The Crown military presence should make me feel more comfortable but in reality it only reminds me that everything rebuilt is fragile. I have on-land terrorism worries - attacks on the financial center in the Quay. The Navy is verification that I am not seeing ghosts or shadow kabuki theater; I am not crazy.

Not in that way anyway.

My other thoughts go to evacuation should the worst happen and make a mental note to talk to Valentine to get with the Watch and get them to draw up plans to move civilians in the case of attack. Food? Shelter? There's the Palace. And some of the warehouses are made of stone. We learned that the last time.

My secretary clears his throat and says, "Major."

I pull away from the barricade and shove my hands in my trenchcoat pockets and wander off and pretend the most important issue of the day is making sure ethnic Golden Circle voices in the various barrios all have a say in tax reapportionment. But it's the ships that sit on my mind.