Why can't all weekends be bank holiday weekends?

I had a good time this weekend. Saturday we had shots, cocktails, dinner at Nando's and lots of cleavage. And Annie freaking me out by ringing me and saying 'Are you my mummy?'. Which was very cool, but I'm so glad she didn't just put the phone down because mine didn't recognise the number and it probably would have been more scary. This was before Doctor Who as well.

I saw the first 20mins of Doctor Who Confidential, as the friend I was staying with has Sky. I don't really feel a need to watch the last 10. Although it was really strange to see the BBC3 logo so close to the corner of the screen - watching on the BBC website, it's in the centre.

I finally saw Kill Bill. There was more blood etc than strictly necessary, but then it is a Quentin Tarantino film. But I really enjoyed it, it was good.

We managed to spend an hour on Sunday afternoon cooking a fry up that ended up being breakfast, lunch and dinner combined, being as we ate at 3.30. Which is pretty much an essential component of a lazy weekend. I saw Superman, which was amazingly boring.

I also got to see the first series of Coupling. I was a bit sceptical about it but it was funny - it got funnier as it went on. Now I have to go back to see the rest.

I wasn't terribly impressed, in Comet and PC World, at their collection of DVD+Rs because they were all 8x. I've got a 16x DVD writer though! It's just as well I still have 22 left really. I will have to get some more over the internet, which at least saves carrying them.

I also went to the Tesco free from section which was bad because I now have chocolate muffins and chocolate cake. To add to my chocolate brownies and raspberry ripple ice cream from Waitrose (I had the chocolate before the raspberry ripple). And I still haven't finished my stamp collection bunny (it's quite bitter chocolate so it's taking a while - which is probably a good thing).

I started this last week but had problems with Q4, which I've finally finished. So Q3 is a bit out of date, but still.

1) Total number of books owned?

I had a count of the ones I had here and it came to 96. I have rather a lot more books and space for books at home so it's certainly a few hundred. I need a house with a spare room just for the books. In all fairness, I come from a house with shelves everywhere, most of them full of books. We have a room called the library, with, unsurprinsgly, rather a lot of books.

2) The last book I bought?

I bought a load from amazon: The Science of Discworld III, The Science of Hitchhiker's, Secrets of the Jedi (latest Jedi Apprentice/Jedi Quest book), Star Trek: Titan (which looked interesting) and Una's new book. Although one of those will be my birthday present from one of my friends.

3) The last book I read?

The last book I finished was Shard of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold, which I really enjoyed. I've reserved some more of her books from my library. I also read bits of the latest Angel guide and I'm now reading The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C Clarke.

4) 5 books that mean a lot to me?

Alice in Wonderland. It was my favourite book as a child, and still is now. I remember having debates with dad over the difference between saying what you mean and meaning what you say, and other similar word games. I also have a distant memory of reading out The Walrus and the Carpenter for a Brownie badge.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have so many different versions of it that must count for something. It's something else me and dad have in common - I lend him all my related books etc. I went to Australia and my cousins could quote me bits of it. I've made friends through ZZ9.

And I suppose Lord of the Rings for similar reasons. I've met people through it and wrote fanfic in it. I even used it (sort of) on my CV.

The Importance of Being Earnest. Which is more of a play than a book but I have it in book form. I remember when I was younger my mum used to go round the house saying 'in a handbag?' but in a funny accent - there had been a version on the TV, I think, and that was what she was copying. But for a while that was the standard expression in our house for expressing surprise.

Little Women. Not so much the three that came after because I got less interested in the sisters once they grew up and their children grew up. I liked Jo and Beth - Jo because she was the sort of person I wanted to be and Beth for the same reason, just more unlikely. And they had interesting lives. Their ideas for games probably influenced mine and my sister's, I think.

And poor Obi-Wan! But I foresee plenty of angsty fan fic from it, with [censored] in as well, which I'm really looking forward to.

I have been good and updated my website, and more importantly, written up my Australia diary (beware of loading times, there are 46 photos on that page).

I am confused though, due to watching The OC and Enterprise on a Sunday afternoon (usually while doing other things). From the first episode of The OC, Ryan really reminded me of Trip Tucker. For no reason at all. But when I watch one after the other I can't quite get it into my head which character I'm watching.

I'm also very glad last night's Doctor Who was early because I got to watch it just before I went out. On the one hand I kind of don't want my phone to ring now - last night's episode was a bit scary. But I'd kind of like to ring someone and say 'are you my mummy?'. Which would only work on someone who'd seen it and had the right sense of humour. Or at least, my sense of humour. Which pretty much narrows it down to my dad.

I also have a big Enterprise rant. Or at least, an Enterprise fan fiction rant. NOTE: THIS RANT CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR POTENTIALLY EVERY EPISODE OF ENTERPRISE EVER. See, the thing is I've been reading some Enterprise fic recently (well, Trip/T'Pol) and it hasn't improved. I read some when the series first started and I was disappointed at the quality but it was a new series and a minority ship. So you'd think that four years later and a canon ship would help but it hasn't seemed to. Perhaps I've only found the bad stuff, I don't know, I would love to be disproved on this.

Admittedly, a lot of my problems with it are found generally in ship and slash. There's a lot of cutesy living happily ever after in there that you need a sick bucket to wade through. I checked the Star Trek Encyclopedia (which came free with one of dad's computer magazines) because I felt sure Spock was the first Vulcan-human hybrid and Sarek and Amanda the first inter-species marriage. Except that I couldn't find any evidence for this beyond a post on a message board where someone said that Gene Roddenberry always assumed this to be the case.

So, canon isn't entirely against Trip and T'Pol marrying and living happily ever after, it's just unlikely given the xenophobia on Earth (and Vulcans aren't too keen on hum

TV

I thought last night's Doctor Who was sad, but not sad enough to make me cry. It didn't help that Rose's eyes looked so black I couldn't help but wonder at the amount of make-up she was wearing when I should have really been being sad. And the Doctor's smiles are getting distinctly Avon-esque - I get worried when he smiles now.

I also saw the last ever episode of Enterprise. I got all nostalgic and actually sat through the theme tune without muting it, for possibly the first time ever since they changed it for the beginning of season 3. I enjoyed it, it made me cry. Although whether the episode was any good I can't tell yet - I wasn't expecting to miss Enterprise at all. It didn't help that it managed to make me miss Star Trek. Although as I haven't seen all of the original series, it's not finished yet.

Alias has been interesting although I can't quite work out whether Jack likes Sloane or hates him. It's all got a bit confusing.

Real life

I managed to stay up till 2.30am election night, which was just after my constituency, Mid Dorset and North Poole (I'll have forgotten what it's called in a few months) announced. It's gone from a 392 Lib Dem lead over Conservative to a 5000-odd lead, mostly from Labour. Although it's impossible to tell how much that was people switching allegiance and how much was tactical voting to stop the Tory getting back in.

Interestingly, the constituency I'm actually living in now has a 8000-odd Tory majority over Lib Dem. Up till now Labour and Lib Dem have been equal, but the Lib Dem's edged ahead this time. It will be interesting to see what happens in 4/5 or however many years time.

I also opened my presents and got: rabbit socks, chocolate bunny, rabbit cross stitch, a rabbit hot water bottle type thing and a photo album. And a contribution to my DVD writer, which arrived last week and is very cool. I wrote a CD on it in two minutes. I now have six CD players, three CD writers and three DVD players. And technically, a DVD recorder as I also have a TV card.

I'm in the process of writing up my Australia diary but it's going to take a while, as I also need to sort out the tenses in it, explain a few bits, put it into HTML and sort out some photos to go with it. And find some time to fit that all in.

4D Rubiks Cube

Make a Mr Man

Quizzes in Excel

Time Travellers Convention

The Guardian's 2005 Election Interactive Map

And as I was tagged by Sel and Saz:

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video:
DVD - 17
Video - I have 15 here and more at home, not sure how many

2) The last film I bought:
Prisoner of Azkaban. The weekend before last it was on sale for �7.99 at Reading station (although I kept trying to tell people I'd bought it for $8)

3) The last film I watched:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
2001
Clueless
Trainspotting
Pirates of the Caribbean
Moulin Rouge
(although I don't watch any of these often and they don't mean a lot to me, I just like them slightly more than the rest)

5) Tag 5 people and have them put this in their journal:
No - I give you all a birthday present and let you all get away with it.

I should really post this when I'm feeling more awake but I just won't get round to it otherwise. I'm tired because I've just been at Rotaract National Conference. Which was really good fun. Except for the lack of sleep part - that's the lack of sleep in the week preceeding it, not during.

I got up at 6.30am(!) on Saturday and failed to follow the instructions on how to get there. They mentioned a big roundabout - we found a big roundabout but sadly not the right one. So we drove round Bristol a bit, went round a few roundabouts more than once and eventually made it early. Which turned out to be handy because they let us go in for (second) breakfast. Where I put scrambled eggs on my plate because I realised that would not be a good idea and completely failed to find the toast. I was tired - it was still pre 10am at that point.

Anyway, Saturday morning there were Conference sessions. People spoke. Probably about something, not sure what. Wasn't really awake, oddly enough. I found biscuits with the coffee and biscuits I could actually eat but very nearly didn't have any lunch. One of the hotel employees seemed to think that cheese didn't contain milk. Which was a tad worrying.

In the afternoon we did a spot of karate and then were actually allowed to check in (yay!). At which point lying down sounded like a good plan while we watched Charmed, Buffy and made me a mask for dinner. I'd read the 'Masked Ball' part of the info and failed to read the word 'mask' at any point. It was just as well as they were trying to fine anyone who wasn't wearing their mask as we walked into dinner. At 7.30. We left the room before 7pm to avoid temptation. Although later in the night someone took wine¹ with anyone who considered, even for a minute, coming down to dinner late to watch Doctor Who. Quite an alarming number of people stood up but we were all very good and were actually there.

We were, though, on a table with nine girls and one bloke. Who was married. Which really was quite poor planning (we fined the person who planned it). Although the single men who stood up for take wine didn't look worth bothering with to me anyway.

I was so tired I was dead to the world at 12.30 (I didn't even hear my roommate come in or the big thunderstorm in the night), quite depressingly. 14 people made Wide Awake club, which although really hard is great fun and a good way to meet people.

Sunday was more conference sessions. I was still tired, even after eight hours sleep. Lunch was much better and we made the most of our free time by going ice skating. And getting lost in Bristol. We did make it back in time to finish off my roomate's fancy dress costume. The fancy dresses were interesting, as always, although was interrupted by the fire alarm (the thing that people took out first was their drinks).

I did dance in the disco, drink lots and stayed up till 1.30. I would have stayed up later but most people had gone to bed, from staying up late Saturday and having to drive the next day.

The Monday morning sessions were quite good. They consisted mostly of giving out awards. Our district did quite well out of them, and we won the anagram competition by being the only people to actually answer all ten questions. The auction was much funnier than most I've been to - the signed Colin Baker pictures ended up going to someone who didn't actually bid (Colin Baker being a Rotarian, hence the reason we had them).

We were let out on our own for lunch, which actually turned out to be quite stressful.

On the whole, though, I really enjoyed myself. It's always good to hear what other clubs get to up to, outside of our district. And talk to different people, some of whom I haven't seen for a year. Now I just need some sleep in preparation for Thursday.

¹ Take wine is where you pay �1 to take wine (ie stand up and have a drink) with a person, or group of people, at the conference.

I got back and watched Doctor Who. It was the second episode I didn't like. Warning: there is bit of a spoiler here

I really liked the Dalek, and admired the way it manipulated people and killed rather a lot in one go (didn't looke like 200 though). On the whole it just seemed a bit cliched and bored me, really. Anyway, I'd already had a Cyberman and a dalek this weekend (there are apparently photos of the dalek in bed with someone).

And Hitchhiker's. Warning: there are more spoilers here

I didn't like it. Although I did think it was a good film and there were definitely bits I liked, some old and some new. I liked Stephen Fry, I hated Trillian saying Zee Zee 9 Plural Zee Alpha, that's just not right. I'm not convinved Marvin sounded depressed enough and I didn't like his look - you couldn't tell how he felt from the suit. I actually quite liked Zaphod's second head and his third arm looked really real. I loved the little things they put in but didn't explain like the sign telling us Arthur lived in Cottington, the jeweled crabs, and never explaning why towels were so important.

I wasn't entirely convinced by the point of view gun until Marvin used it. I was really sad when it looked like he was dead, although I couldn't quite believe they'd done that. I liked Ayers Rock being painted and I thought Bill Nighy was a good Slartibartfast. I spotted Marvin in the queue and Simon Jones as the answer machine. I think they really missed a trick though when Slartibartfast (which really is a bugger to type) asked Arthur if there was anything he wanted changing and he looked out across the fields. I thought he'd say no, it's perfect and we'd get some Louis Armstrong. At least they had Journey of the Sorcerer, although not for long enough.

I can kind of see how they're going to do a sequel although not how they'll get Zaphod into it.

I am really looking forward to the radio series tomorrow, specially as they're actually putting it up after the first episode rather than the repeat, so I can listen to it when I get back from Rotaract rather than while I'm trying to eat and write the agenda. I listened to the trailer - there are some things in there I recognise from the books and some other bits I don't but sound like they follow on from the Secondary Phase.

I also had a look at the Serenity trailer. Which was quite impressive - I wasn't certain whether I wanted to see the film before I saw the trailer. Now I definitely don't want to see it. So good trailer there.