I've got an appraisal/MAPs review crap thingie tomorrow. Its all a complete load of bollox cos frankly I've done last years goals (apart from the one that says I will do my job (well, d'uh!)) and have entirely new ones for next year. Like, maybe, Ruler of the Universe. I lie, actually that's planned for the year after. Pay rise would be nice though, but suspect this meeting is to review this years goals, then we have another one to make up next years. Who knows. Indeed, who cares? Not me, that's for sure.

I looked at my pay for the (tax) year to date on my pay slip today and it came to an odd �999.98. Which is fine, except, I want my 2p! I earned that 2p and I intend to spend it! (won't be hard, let's face it). Can't decide whether to stay up and watch Dead Poet's Society, or tape it and never get round to watching it. Oh, the decisions!

*Grr at Blogger*

It's really crap that it's nearly April and I still can't publish my template (ie update the archives). The address of them is fairly easy to guess from the addresses of the others though. I have another recommendation that I will add in there for when it eventually decides to behave. It's another LOTR fic (have I been reading anything else recently?) called Captain My Captain. It's VERY long and has, if not all, many of the Mary Sue cliches in it, but it works. And is very good. And I think I've fallen in love with her Elrohir. And I haven't even finished reading it yet.

Today is special. Mother's Day, first day of BST and its a palindromic date: 30-3-03. Although we'll get a few of those this year. In fact every month except for February, October and December. It occured to me last night there is no such time as anything from 1 to 1.59am on 30-3-03. Which is quite strange to think about. It's like when we lost 10 days in September all those years ago when they changed the calendar. It's reallt hard to understand because it just doesn't make sense. The trouble is the days go on one after another, we just assign arbitrary days and times to them. Which, unfortunately, don't work because they don't give us whole numbers.

Hopefully, now we'll have darker mornings I won't wake up at 7am (8 on weekends). Thought I was doing really well this morning by waking up at 9, but I didn't go to bed till after 2am (BST) and my body clock is still on GMT. I know this, because although the clocks say midnight I'm hungry. Which always seems to happen about 11pm. Should maybe go to bed with an undemanding Buffy book.

Sauron is your LotR Bad boy!

Who is your Lord of the Rings bad boy?
brought to you by Quizilla

I thought I ought to write something as I didn't yesterday and won't tomorrow. POLLY! There you go.

Okay, I've also found my name in Quenya is T�relie. Buggered if I can pronounce it though. Apparently it means victorious people (or victory and people), which according to the Sindarin dictionary would be Turgwaith. Hmm, I think I prefer the Quenya version.

Uruk-Hai Unhappy with Portrayal in Films

Have booked my ticket to America, yay!

Discovered all these funny fics I'd missed on Bagenders because I hadn't discovered LOTR slash the last time I looked.

Have no hot water in the house, but at least have water and heating. Will have to get up early to boil water to wash with though.

Have been re-reading TTT VSD's, hence style of today's entry.

According to humanforsale.com I'm worth $1,362,000. Not sure anyone's going to buy me though. I've sort of sorted out my life this weekend, which was the plan. I have a job-related plan at least. I got myself all excited about the idea of getting a car as a solution to my fencing-related crisis but I realised yesterday that I would actually much rather spend the money on other things - holidays for instance. Getting excited about booking for Las Vegas this week though.

I meant to work on some fic today, which I did a bit of this evening. Had an idea for some serious Elrond-angst so had to write that up this morning. I think its a reaction to all this happy stuff, my head can't cope with it. Fan fic is all about making the characters unhappy, that's the whole point!

Going to have a busy week next week, which is good, as everything is back on. Work is going to be boring, I can already predict that, but then it always is. But only four weeks till Easter. Sod it, haven't had enough sleep this weekend. Going to do the puzzle instead.

I now have two new stories up at ff.net: I Can't Do This, which is a Star Wars TPM one I wrote a few years ago and found abandoned; and Dropping Eaves, which I've got finished before the challenge deadline, yay! And I wrote 2000 words tonight and downloaded a load more mp3s. I was nice to Haldir for a change, Isildur wasn't.

I noticed last night it was a full moon, so I thought that must mean something. According to my calendar it's Purim, which I have no idea what that is. Suggests apples for me for some reason, I don't know why. Probably has nothing to do with apples. But what it also means, and this is much more important, is that it's a month till Passover. First night is the Wednesday before Easter. Yay! Looking forward to nice food and a long weekend. And getting the spyware off my computer so it'll hopefully mean it won't spend ages thinking about nothing.

Finished Rendezvous with Rama - now I need to re-read the other ones, if I can just get hold of them. Have discovered loads of interesting stuff in LOTR Appendices though about the kings of men, so will have to read that, I think. I really want to watch The Bill but I need to save it till about 50mins before I want to go to bed so I can go to bed to watch it and be warm and warm my bed up at the same time.

Need a spell checker on Blogger! Not enough to pay for it though.

I was happily (er, sort of) writing a database today and Haldir and Isildur were trying to do some 18 rated stuff in my head. Which is really not very helpful. Especially as I'm not writing it. They get a fade to black. I didn't plan it but they got two in the same scene (sort of) as well.

It was really odd - they've just done a quick weather thing on the radio and said it was going to be nicer this afternoon - I hadn't realised its tomorrow already. I can't believe I actually managed to get up this morning. I could have done with another couple of hours sleep. 10 o'clock's just a nice time to wake up if you want time to do stuff in the day as well. Later is better of course if you want a lazy day. Or a shorter one cos you're bored.

Will have to go to bed cos I'm really cold. I couldn't feel my feet an hour ago, which is bad cos the heating had only just gone off at that point.

What I want to know is: who were the blokes with the suitcase of money in Auf Weidersehen, Pet in Comic Relief on Friday? I can't help feeling I should know, but I think they probably used to be big. Plus I never know what any musician (if that's the right word) looks like anyway. I now have a hole in my inflatable chair that I can't fix. I think I'll have to buy a new one next week. Just as well I picked up a new Argos catalogue last time I was in Oxford.

Slept till noon yesterday, which was good. Went to bed at 1am though cos my feet were cold. And I was bored. Still haven't watched the Angel episode I finished downloading on Friday. Might do that after Cold Feet if its finished virus checking. But probably not as I have loads of mp3s filling up my hard drive. I'm trying to get enough to fill a CD, so far I have just under 400megs worth, which lasts about 6 hours. I've got a few more ideas of songs to download yet though. Should keep me going at work and at home when the radio's really annoying me (so always then).

Very nearly have the final version of Dropping Eaves done (go me!) and managed to write another 1000 words of Isildur/Haldir. The latest bit is angsty though, which is my forte. Love writing angst, its so fun to do nasty things to the characters.

Spent most of today helping out at the world pooh sticks championships. I got to sort the sticks out again as I did it last year. But the marshalling of people went much better this year with more people. And I got time to have a go myself. I did spend the day facing the sun though, so it seemed really dark when I got in. Plus my face feels hot and looks a bit red, so think I have got myself sunburned already! And technically its still winter - although explain that to the daffodils.

Went out for milk and a pizza yesterday and came back with three books as well. Damn those charity shops! Although I don't have to worry about not having anything to read now, specially as I don't think I'll be going home before Easter to get my books and doubtless borrow one of mum's. Very annoying - they're resurfacing the hall at the lesiure centre so no Tae Kwon Do on a Monday for a bit. Now that Farscape's finished. I won't know what to do with myself - although I should really finish the LOTR DVD. And then start working through another one.

I actually remembered to watch Red Dwarf on Thursday. I thought it wouldn't be that exciting as I've seen it so many times before and it was only series 1. But it was great - I haven't seen any Red Dwarf for so long I'd forgotten how go it was (prior to series 7 of course). Must watch some more soon, I think. Blogger template still a pain in the arse, surprise, surprise.

I feel like I've achieved a lot of things today. I dreamed I sorted out the Blogger template problem - I haven't, but I have an idea of something to try. So if it looks like a bit of a mess at some point in the near future, that would be why. Its reached the point now where I don't even get an error message, I just get the [more info] link after it. Which, of course, tells you nothing. The forums don't work and there's nothing on the status page. All of this is a big minus point against Blogger, in comparison to other similar programs. If it keeps being a complete arse then I might have to change to something else.

I spent this afternoon (as I had no work - there was stuff I could have done, but it doesn't need to be done till next week and if I do it now I'll have no work to do then. I can't win) looking at IT-related stuff. If I did decide I needed more training (like a certification or something) then the thing that worries me is how I'd ever learn it. Admittedly I learn First Aid stuff, but then there's a fair bit of that we practised quite a bit. The stuff I found easiest to learn at uni was physics - learn a few proofs, change the value of a constant and integrate or differentiate - it's just a case of knowing which to do when - then bung some numbers into it. I usually had to do that last part 3 times as I seem to be particularly useless at it.

Nearly the end of the week at least. Saw an advert for this week's Midsomer Murders (Wallingford was in last weeks) where they made a big thing of Orlando Bloom being in it (looking very nice as well) and the couple of LOTR references in it. I've seen it before though, and would probably be able to tell you whodunnit after watching a bit. Plus it clashes with Auf Weidersehen Pet on comic relief and I know which I'd rather tape.

The William Shatner Acting Simulator is so funny. You click on buttons to get him to say random words (complete with silly actions) and it makes a sentence the same way the real one does! That picture of Aragorn from my last post is a very nice one. Can't write much because I keep looking at it, and also because I'm cold. Might have to go to bed to watch something.

Farscape - they're not dead, I tell you! Denial is not just a river in Africa - not least because they had plans for a fifth series and didn't get any time to change the last episode. So there.

Your lust object is Aragorn! But, sadly, he's
already got Arwen and Eowyn pining after him.
Grab your chance by kidnapping him right after
the battle (he'll be too exhausted to fight),
run off to Avathar (surely no one will look for
you there) and shag the living daylights out of
him.

Which Helm's Deep soldier do you wanna shag?
brought to you by Quizilla

(I didn't cheat either!)

Before Monday I never knew you could get green inhalers. Tastes horrible as well. My asthma's been bad this week so no Tae Kwon Do or fencing, so I've been in all week. I didn't go anywhere at the weekend either so I thought I'd be really bored. But I haven't been. I've read, watched videos and wrote a fair bit as well. I'll be back to going out again next week though.

I've updated my web site today, will upload it later. Haven't changed much, but all the links now take you outside the frame (I think I found all of them). There's hardly anything to download at the moment, so I've been doing a few mp3s, but other than that there's only really been Angel. Surfing is so fast though! I'm so used to downloading stuff constantly that I'd forgotten its not all that slow.

It must be spring. There are daffodils out (my favourite flower) and I can get watchable quality out of Channel 5 (just the pictures, not the programs, obviously) and the picture's back on Meridian. Just in time for Monkeys as well. Although I suspect it may have started before today and I just didn't notice. After I go to all the trouble of climbing up the newspaper racks in the newsagents to get the South version of TVQuick as well.

The Isildur/Haldir thing from the random slash pairing generator has been going round my head. So I wrote a fic for it. I was inspired, I have to admit, but someone who'd got Isildur/Aragorn and managed to carry it off.

My landlady went out this morning so I watched The Bill on UKGold and it was the excellent A Question of Trust part 2 from 1999. Every time I watch these old ones I wish we still had those characters in it. It all changed so much on the day CID were all suspended. Today's episode featured DS Boulton and was delightfully ambiguous as well.

I think I was going to write something exciting but I can't remember what it was. I could be lying though. The Bill was actually quite exciting. Not really looking forward to next week's though. Luke is not gay, it's so obvious. He wasn't gay when he was in it a few years ago, he's not gay now. He was just someone convenient they found to muck up Gilmore's love life (because you can't have anyone being happy any more, can you?).

I saw Alias last night - poor Jack. And that's all I'm going to say. Trying to avoid watching Blakes 7, should be finishing the LOTR DVD - only half the film to go.

I think I will just go and watch Angel.

I would update my template to put March's archives on there, but sadly, Blogger can't find it. Which isn't very helpful really. I want Blakes 7 on DVD. Having said that, the videos of people who buy it on DVD, not least as it'll be cheaper. I can't remember which series 2 episodes it is I've missed and I can't remember the ones I have seen very well. I only have 6 episodes of series 4 to go though.

General smoking rant: actually I'll cut it short and just go why? and attempt to answer my question.
I can't say I've done extensive research on this, nor can I prove it with statistics or a pretty graph but, smoking is inversely propoertional to intelligence. In other words, only thick people smoke. I have learned this through observation. The explanation: what a bloody stupid way to kill yourself. Smells horrible, kills you slowly, annoys everyone else while simultaneously killing them (slower) as well. Hmm, perhaps there's a conspiracy at work here.
Solution: Add something into cigarettes to make everyone who smokes them sterile. Then they won't have kids who grow up thinking smoking is normal, plus the average intelligence will go up. Problem solved!

Scorpius/Sikozu makes me go *bleurgh* the idea of Scorpius/Braca is not so bad though. Not sure why.

Very odd. Blogger keeps telling me it can't publish, yet when I check it has.

Redemption was good. I learnt about stage fighting, tried belly dancing, made an Enterprise out of CDs and bog rolls, helped film the models made out of rubbish, talked about hunks, biology, Crusade and doubtless other things I've forgotten. I met people I haven't seen for a while, people I'd never met before, got chatted up (why that surprises me, I don't know), drank a lot, slept a little, showered a lot (it was a very nice shower). Had to come back to reality though, but not before booking for 2005.

I mentioned to a couple of people that I had just discovered LOTR fan fic and both said that they felt fan fic based on a book was wrong. I can totally see their point and I do agree. Not that it stops me though. I don't why some things rather than others compel me to read and others to write as well. Just looking at them:

Star Wars: TPM - this was the one that introduced me to the whole idea, so I've read masses of it, mainly Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon stuff and some slash. I've also written quite a bit of this one.

Quantum Leap - read Al-related stuff and written an episode for the virtual series

Babylon 5 - have read some Sheridan/Delenn stuff but then only really read Dark Mirror, although I got lost somewhere in there and need to start again (for the third time!)

Stargate - have written a bit and read quite a lot, mainly Sam/Jack and Daniel-centered stuff

Angel - have read a few things, all of which were quite good. Strangely, haven't found Buffy fan fic so interesting, not sure why. Perhaps because it was reading about Wesley that brought me into it in the first place and there's not really any characters in Buffy I want to read about so much

Farscape - only really read John/Aeryn but that does have a tendency to get boring. Have started stuff, but not finished any

Star Trek - the only Star Trek stuff I've really read has been Paris/Torres, but now that the virtual series has finished I've changed to Enterprise and thats all been Trip/T'Pol. Must catch up with the stuff on Trip/T'Polers.

Alias - mostly read Syd/Vaughn but there's some really good stuff there there's not as well

LOTR - mainly been hobbit stuff so far, but I have just discovered Aragorn now as well

Bugs - I was reading and writing in this before I knew it was fan fic. Wish I had kept in this fandom now, there's much more fic out there, specially ones which solve the end of series 4 cliffhanger