After two days I'm actually getting to grip with dad's keyboard. I'm home for the weekend and not going back till tomorrow (I have Monday morning off - which will of course mean that I'll come back to loads of work). There was snow here, but not further north, where I came from, which is really odd.

I've completely failed to find any jeans that fit - it doesn't help when most of the shops think that you only want boot cut, and I don't. I was really good and tried on loads as well. And came back from town with DVDs. Er... they were cheap though, promise! I forget how good Poole is for cheap and second-hand shops - I could have bought up the second hand video shop now they sell DVDs.

I went to see Big Fish this afternoon. The trailer doesn't make it look particularly interesting, and I was still skeptical at the beginning, but I really enjoyed it. I can't help feeling there's a deep and meaningful message in there but I was just too busy drooling at Ewan McGregor.

More of the penguin craze: Bloody Pingu

Some meme's from fileg:

♥Paranoidangel and ♥Orlando

Doing their best to conceive some rockin' kids. Wish to arm-wrestle periodically. Are metaphorically attached at the hip.

Orchestrated by ianiceboy

A ~ Age: 24

B ~ Band listening to right now: Coldplay

C ~ Career in future: Something interesting that involves earning lots of money and doing very little work

D ~ Dad's name: Steve

E ~ Easiest person to talk to: Judging by SG7 that would be probably be Sel at the moment.

F ~ Favorite song at the moment: Haven't really got one

G ~ Gummy bears or gummy worms? Neither

H ~ Hometown: Wallingford (although it's really more of a market town)

I ~ Instruments: Organ

J ~ Job title: Database Specification Writer

K ~ Kids: no, thank you

L ~ Longest car ride ever: I don't travel all that far by car, but my longest train journey was from Blackpool to Oxford which should have taken 4.5 hours and actually took 9. There's also the one from London to Poole which should have taken 2 hours and took 5 and a quarter.

M ~ Mom's name: Sue

N ~ Number of siblings: one sister

O ~ Oldest sibling? Yes

P ~ Phobia[s]: Dead things

Q ~ Quote you like: Whichever one's on my e-mail sig at the moment

R ~ Reason to smile: It's nearly the weekend!

S ~ Song you sang last: Probably Dido Life for Rent

T ~ Time you wake up: 7.50 on weekdays, weekend varies

U ~ Unknown fact about me: I did three of those the other day

V ~ Vegetable you hate: sprouts, brocolli, cabbage

W ~ Worst habit: laziness

X ~ X-rays you've had: On my teeth and jaws. I've never actually broken any bones

Y ~ Yummy food: Tim Tams, cake, sausages (specially if they're the kosher ones from the Sainsburys in Whitechapel)

Z ~ Zodiac sign: Taurus

And in great excitement it snowed yesterday! For a few minutes and didn't settle but it does go to prove it's bloody cold at the moment.

I haven't done a lot at work or at home so why am I so tired?

Some memes from edrys

bold five that apply, strike five that don't

May
Stubborn and hard-hearted. Strong-willed and highly motivated. Sharp thoughts. Easily angered. Attracts others and loves attention. Deep feelings. Beautiful physically and mentally. Firm Standpoint. Needs no motivation. Easily consoled. Systematic (left brain). Loves to dream. Strong clairvoyance. Understanding. Sickness usually in the ear and neck. Good imagination. Good physical. Weak breathing. Loves literature and the arts. Loves travelling. Dislike being at home. Restless. Not having many children. (a bit hard to tell at this stage!) Hardworking. High spirited. Spendthrift.

Three Things:

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME
- Fire
- Sensory deprivation
- Public speaking

THREE THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND
- People who like clothes shopping
- Fashion
- The universe

THREE THINGS I'D LIKE TO LEARN
- French
- A musical instrument with strings (eg violin, guitar)
- How to survive on less money without going without

THREE THINGS I AM WEARING RIGHT NOW
- An old black jumper that I haven't worn for ages and am only just remembering how comfy it is
- T-shirt with pit droids on
- Slippers with bunnies on and says Simply Adorable

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK
- Rabbit lamp
- pencil with a picture of a $100 note on it
- CD I was making when my CD writer crashed and now has a line around it on the underside

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE
- Be able not to say 'I wish I had...'
- Find something I am good at, as opposed to average
- Learn sabre

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY PERSONALITY
- Um, indecisive
- Curious
- Logical

THREE BAD THINGS ABOUT MY PERSONALITY
- Shy
- Tend to hold a grudge
- Too trusting

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE
- English
- German
That's it. My mum has researched her family history, so I can say that with confidence

THREE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
- My arms. Although they do seem to have got more musclely than I remember, not sure why
- My feet. As long as I don't want to try and find shoes to fit them
- The colour of my hair (it was the same colour the day I was born, and the idea of it not being that way seems really strange to me)

THREE THINGS I DON'T LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
- My jaw
- My entire torso, from the front (I can't see the back so I don't care about it)
- My thighs

THREE THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME
- Although I really, really hate public speaking, I'll quite happily play the organ in front of people (well, not quite happily but I won't be nearly so nervous)
- My first kiss was with another girl
- I'm probably going to get arthritis in my jaw (and I'm so looking forward to that day)

THREE THINGS I SAY THE MOST
- ever so slightly
- I'm fine (in answer to 'how are you?')
- Bugger all

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO
- Scotland
- Ireland
- Canada
(and that doesn't include places I've been to or are planning to go to in the near future)

THREE NAMES THAT YOU GO BY
- Nic
- paranoidangel (I will actually answer to it)
- technically my full name but I only answer to it when I remember it is my name, which usually takes a few goes

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE OR HAD
- paranoidangel
- paranoidangel42
- phuzt (sort of)

I've succombed to the battle cry (I blame undonne)

There was no TKD tonight so there was all these things I could have done. And so didn't.

I'm really not happy with amazon.co.uk. There's an American book I want that comes out on 1st March, so I thought if I put an order in now it would arrive about then, being as they don't rush for free deliveries. But they've decided it's limited availability so they won't let anyone buy it. I could get it from amazon.com or amazon.fr though.

I seem to have been sucked into Frodo/Sam slash. I definitely remember thinking I didn't want to see their relationship that way - I like the idea of them being friends to the extent that they'd do anything for each other. It's quite hard when reading ROTK to see it any other way. I'm kind of seeing it both ways now. Which is kinda strange, I admit.

I remember hearing about RPS fairly recently and thought it was something I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. Which I'm fairly certain I don't remember thinking about slash. I did read one low-rated piece with no slash in, which was quite funny (and I'll read anything funny). It's not something I'd read because I'm just not interested in the characters but I'm thinking it's not quite so icky any more. I think I'm being gradually worn down.

Yesterday I took down all of my posters, washed the walls, dusted the posters (which I didn't think I'd have to do) and put some of them back up (Orlando is now by my bed where he belongs). I bought the holographic Middle-earth map in Oxford on Saturday but didn't think about getting more blu-tack. I have now used up the most of the packet I had left and there are still gaps. On purpose, but it makes my room look so dark and cold. In my opinion anyway. I so need my own house to decorate. The LOTR one is so going in the lounge.

How many quizzes can I fit into one post (while listening to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue on BBC7)

You're a Centauri. Your hobbies include serving the
Republic, re-applying your hair gel, and
arranging to have your enemies assassinated.
You also have six sex organs instead of just
one. Go you!

What species of Babylon 5 alien are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which Blake's 7 rebel are you?

this quiz was made by Auntie Krizu(:>)

What's Your Daniel Fetish?
brought to you by Quizilla

What Farscape Character are you?

Memes, memes and more memes.

From fileg:
Write a random phrase from each of the following

nearest book to you:
Didcot (n.)
The tiny oddly-shaped bit of card which a ticket inspector cuts out of a ticket with his clipper for no apparent reason.
Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, The Meaning of Liff

nearest cd insert:
Wind them up, all robots and run them on a nine volt transformer
Take them out, of business class and re-seat them in cattle class
Situation Comedy
The CD is Subcircus, Are You Receiving, the song is Situation Comedy
(it's been ages since I listened to Subcircus - I don't have many CD inserts since that actually requires spending money

nearest piece of paper that you wrote on:
Send Matt Jody's e-mail
(although I keep having a mental block - her name's actually Jodie, and yes, I did send it)

nearest piece that was written TO YOU:
"Apophis" was here!
Peter Williams, London Excel 2002
(was it really that long ago?)

identify a random writing from something on your desk:
Press->
My World's Smallest Laptop - it looks good and when you press the button it says You've got mail

Which actually sounds quite accurate.

From the Friday Five:
When was the last time you...

1. ...went to the doctor?
Um, just before Christmas, I think. I do need to go again soon though, annoyingly, as it will hopefully involve drugs and therefore money.

2. ...went to the dentist?
I actually don't remember. I'm trying to pluck up the courage to see if I can register with a local one. But I don't even like going to the hairdressers, never mind the dentist.

3. ...filled your petrol tank?
N/A

4. ...got enough sleep?
Last weekend, I think

5. ...backed up your computer?
Also last weekend. Well, I did a drive image of C and E. I need to back up some of my files this weekend onto zip disk.

Oh dear. For some reason freeserve (who I have my e-mail with) like to randomly bounce yahoo messages (including from the groups sometimes), so I had a cunning plan - I'd get a hotmail address, which I can download in Outlook Express. So far, so good. So, someone already has my first choice of username, fine, I have some backups. It's really confused Roboform because I already have a Passport, but since I hardly ever log into it that should be fine.

The one big problem I had was with the security question. Up till now I've stuck with mother's maiden name because when I tried to get clever and use something else I couldn't even remember which question I'd picked, never mind what the answer was. They all seem to have changed to father's middle name instead, so I'm going with that one. I've used it once with no problems. But hotmail have decided you can only have five or more characters in a name. Tiny problem, my dad has four.

So here's a word of warning - if you ever have kids their names must all have five or more characters otherwise your grandchildren will have problems. Idiots.

Incidentally, if anyone has a yahoo account and wants to contact me, send me an e-mail to my spam account (which I do check) paranoidangel@gateworld.net and I'll tell you the hotmail one. Yes, I do have a lot of e-mail addresses.

I distinctly remember leaving work on Friday (on time!) and thinking it wasn't that dark. I also thought I was imaginging it - after all it is the middle of February. But today, when I left it was definitely not dark. It was dark enough for the streetlights to be on and it was getting quite dark by the time I got home, but woo hoo, it's spring! I know it's not, it's just that the shortest day is before winter really hits properly but we've got used to it being quite warm now, let's hope it stays that way.

I should have said last night the link to the virtual wedding came from The Orlando Bloom Files but the date on it surprised me because I was still thinking it was Sunday night. And I was watching Alias at the same time.

I am so stuck on Fellowship game though it's ridiculous. All I have to do is to get into a pen and get some herbs without the dog barking. The game even tells you to through rocks to distract the dog. I just can't seem to make it work. I found the rocket launcher and flak cannon on one of the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo levels though, so that was more fun.

Important Angel news: TheWB.com - Press Release

Next Davis Cup tie will be away against Luxembourg 9th-11th April.

I saw Return of the King again last night. I was impressed to see you could see the marks the chain was making around Frodo's neck due to the weight of the ring though. I don't understand where the horses went though. They're in front of the black gate, then retreat. Next thing they're fighting the orcs and there are no horses in sight. Did I miss something?

SG7 photos to follow - hopefully I'll sort myself out and get some up from SFX and Paris since I haven't done any for a while. I so need a digital camera though (now I'm not quite so likely to run out of space). Any suggestions?

I managed to get first time lucky on this one:

Your Own LOTR Sequel by AngelicDEVIL
Your Name
Your LOTR Name is	Ivanna Humpalot of the Shire.
Your side-kick will be	Witchking
and the two of you will	go to Fangorn Forest
and	spy on Aragorn
and in the end	you go to Edoras
and	some person dies.
Anything else?	I'm BORED.
Created with quill18's MemeGen 2.0!

I've been watching the TT DVD - now the Faramir bits make sense! I'm happy now - we have elven rope, trees at Helm's Deep (so they didn't just miraculously win then? I was wondering), Merry and Pippin eating and smoking at Isengard. And Aragorn opening the doors but that was in there already

Then there are the extras, which include nice shots of Orlando Bloom as he is without all the make-up... Excuse me there, I seem to have slipped and fallen into a puddle of my own drool.

The coolest part was the fighting documentary where they said that the person in charge did Princess Bride, Zorro, did Darth Vader's sword fight against Obi-Wan and was Errol Flynn's stunt double. In fact, all the fencing films! Which explains a lot, frankly. Although I did notice that every time anyone got an orc at Helm's Deep it was because said orc had lifted their sword miles above their head. Stupid orcs.

On an entirely different note, I think one of the LEDs has gone on my modem - I'm sure it used to be brighter. And I hate XP. It's so nice and helpful it takes me twice as long to do anything. Thanks Microsoft for treating everyone like idiots.

Oh yeah, this weeks LOTR drabble - The Sword. 0 guesses what it's about.