I've done quite well this weekend with getting things done. I was doing my backups, so watched the gymnastics, Stargate and Enterprise while it was doing it. Stargate I enjoyed, but I didn't get all the way through Enterprise. I was already reading during the adverts but ended up reading through the last third. In all fairness it was the first 'Last of the Jedi' book, which had some quality Obi-Wan angst.

Between those two and The West Wing on More4 on Friday night I saw the latest Barclays advert which is both funny and has Norman Lovett playing a computer.

I've had an email sitting in my inbox for a while now, reminding me (not very well) to talk about the MEFAs. There are loads of names I recognise in there. Congrats if you're one of them and reading this. Most excitingly the story I had nominated got an honourable mention! It was the first LOTR story I wrote, so that's very exciting.

I was good this morning and wrote another part of my Five Things fic. So I am now 4/5ths through the second draft, so it's getting there. Slowly. I worked out that my Sam/Jack slash fic should start off with Jack looking at Sam and thinking 'if only she was a man' but it's not got any further than that. It must have been SG8 last November when this was first discussed, so at the rate of a sentence a year it'll be finished, oh, sometime this century maybe. It could be a whole new record for me.

I've been quite good this week at catching up on things, although that did mean spending an hour this evening catching up on e-mails! I even wrote a drabble for tolkien_weekly: Rivendell Revisited. I don't remember the last time I managed one of those!

This weeks West Wing, that I watched on Tuesday, was excellent. There was a great bit at the beginning where there was a good few minutes with no talking, no music, nothing. I want to know what CJ and Toby were thinking during that time. I was nearly crying at the end, when CJ was too.

And then tonight's Spooks (which I've actually been in for, as it's half term for guitar lessons as well as for the schools) was really good. I wasn't expecting anything much, just a bit of [censored] moping, but I was pleasantly surprised. And nearly crying at the end of that one as well.

And it's nearly time to watch The Thick of It live!

I'm not quite as tired as I thought I would be today. Yesterday I got to beat people up. With weapons. Which was fun, except for the parts where I now have bruises.

Coming back to work after a holiday is always bad. Just one day off shouldn't be. With emphasis on the shouldn't. By By 12 o'clock I'd restarted my computer three times, the server twice, crashed my terminal server session twice, crashed someone else's terminal server session once and spent an hour with a colleague trying to work out why he and my boss had decided something was wrong with some data on a project of mine.

We eventually established that it was right the first time. Sadly, my boss was away so we couldn't ask him and he was the person with all the facts. The person who gets to liaise with the client didn't want to go back to them and tell them their corrected data is wrong. I told him what I thought about the data (sadly I mean that literally) and he wanted to go with the new set. He's a whole lot higher up than me so I decided doing what he said would hopefully stop me getting any flack.

It wasn't helped by finding out my boss had been on the phone to the company chairman (that sentence should be the other way round really) and I so didn't want him phoning me asking me what was going on.

On the plus side, my boss is back tomorrow so there'll be a whole load of things that will suddenly be his problem.

It was actually the same client making my life difficult in the afternoon. I have to write a database for people doing the research to enter into, rather than using questionnaires on bits of paper, as we usually do. This has to be finished and tested by Wednesday morning. I had two new versions of the questionnaire when I got in this morning and got another version late this afternoon. I just know that sometime on Wednesday they'll want to change it again.

My brain just can't take any more. I'm going to go and watch the Blunkett thing I taped on Thursday and see if the weather was good enough to tape Monkeys with sound this time.

It comes to something that 11 o'clock is a late night these days, and 10 o'clock is more usual. It feels like Sunday today, as I had Friday off. I saw Wallace & Gromit, which was very funny. And had bunnies in it, which were very sweet. I also found Lois McMaster Bujold's Falling Free in Borders, yay! Borders are doing £5 off vouchers if you spend £20 in the first two weeks of November, which really, really tempting.

I think my dad's addicted to QuizCall. He messaged me to tell me they had a matches game on. My digital TV is up and working and I watched Atlantis on it last night. Which isn't nearly as funny as watching it on my parents slightly crappy temporary TV which cuts off the edges, so you're actually watching Stargate Tlanti according to the credits. Starring some bloke called Vid Wlet.

I was good today and did some writing. I'm technically on the second version of my Five Things fic, although I've rewritten Jack/Daniel and McKay/Sheppard a bit. So today I completely rewrote Sheppard/Weir. Hmm. Could take a while. I also discovered a whole section on Wraithbait that it would actually fit it, which is quite cool.

Good

Payrise! Well, technically promotion but the only difference is the nice big payrise. Which needless to say, I've already spent. Dad had me addicted to QuizCall this weekend, so now I have bought a Freeview TV card, which is the size of a pen drive. So as of this weekend I will have three TVs....

I've read Thud! It was good, I enjoyed it. Specially Vimes's Gooseberry.

I've got Friday off, so am going to see Wallace and Gromit. I know it must be good because The Guardian likes it (they don't like anything).

Mum made me some muffins that are very nice and extremely chocolatey. We had chocolate mousse every night for pudding when I was home. Mum's chocolate mousse is 100 times nicer than any other I have ever tasted. She also made flapjacks but we all forgot that I should be taking them home. And even though they were a bit chewy they were nicer than ones you get in shops as well. She also made me bread, which isn't so good as it's white. And gluten-free, so dry and falls apart.

I've found a version of Hexic at MSN Games, although it's not as good as the Tablet PC version.

Captain Jack is getting his own TV show although it's on BBC3. It might be available on the internet afterwards though, like Confidential was, and The Thick of It will be for the second half of the first series/second series.

Very funny wikipedia take-off: Uncyclopedia. I particularly like the section on the religion of various particles (protons are catholic because they have mass) and various random things, like the links off the marriage article to slavery.

Bad

Broke a string on my guitar. Got it fixed fine at the shop. Went to lesson and the teacher pointed out it was the wrong type of string. So I'm taking it back again tomorrow. On the plus side, I now have an electronic tuner which makes tuning 5000% easier.

I've set off the RSI in my thumb again with my cross stitching, so that's out. It gets worse throughout the day after I've been using it - it is quite hard not to use your right thumb, specially given that it doesn't hurt until I've been using it a bit, so I tend to forget. On the plus side, I really should put my Australia photos in an album. On the minus side that does involve writing, which also involves my right thumb. On the plus side, I've just realised I could type the descriptions. How stupid am I?

Just travelling home Friday, back again Sunday, and walking round Bournemouth has completely worn me out. I'm still a bit tired from it.

My chocolate spread has vanilla on it. But I will see if my local health food shop will order me some Plamil Well, their chocolate is good, so I figure their chocolate spread ought to be good too. If not, there are other ones I can try.

Ugly

Which is really just a way of saying this could go either way. I've discovered spirits have a tendency to be made from wheat grain. The thought of having one drink and spending the rest of the evening doesn't really fill me with joy so my only options seem to be brandy (yuk) or wine (ditto). On the plus side, I'm a cheap date. And will be driving everyone once I have a car so I can remind them what they did the previous night. And increasingly, drink just seems to make me tired.

Looking back through old posts to categorise them is quite interesting. And it's reminded me, for some obscure reason, of games we used to play as children when travelling.

There was the alphabet thing. We did boys and girls names, but our favourite was 'I went shopping'. So the first person would say, for example, "I went shopping and I bought an apple". The second person would then carry on with, "I went shopping and I bought and apple and a banana"'. It would always start off sensibly and end up buying houses and planets.

Sometimes dad would challenge us to make up a story without using any e's, and less often, a's.

We would challenge each other to sing an ode to something. One person would think of the thing, the other person would have to use an existing tune or make one up, and sing a song about that thing. I say thing because it could have been anything. Perhaps not a small lump of green putty I found under my armpit one morning, but certainly as silly sometimes.

There was sausages - one person has to answer all questions by saying only 'sausages' and the first person to laugh loses. As we were kids we decided 'down the loo' was much more funny than sausages. It didn't matter either way, I laugh easily and always lost.

Another one I always lost was similar. One person was not allowed to say 'yes' or 'no' to any questions. I always forgot in the heat of the moment. Perhaps I'd be a crap politician

There would also be ordinary singing. A particular favourite I remember was 'There's a Hole in my Bucket' with one of us and Henry and the other as Liza. To save me reproducing it I found the whole version here.

There was the number plate game where you had to get all of the letters in the alphabet in order from number plates. My sister always won that one because she sat on the right and we always drove in the slow lane of dual carriageways (we didn't go on motorways because they were boring and we didn't always go out of the county).

There was I Spy - always more interesting when the thing you're guessing might no longer be in view. Although always manages to get boring quickly.

Another one we had was asking each other questions, the answer to which depended on the colour of the car passing. We'd gradually add in more colours and types. The fun in this question was to check what was coming up before asking (so the answer to 'are you clever?' had to be 'no').

Duck and Jump could be played at the same time as other games. When you went over a bridge you had to jump - lift your legs - and under one you had to duck (as best you could sitting down).

I looked something up on my website the other day and realised how out of date the episode guides were. I also had a load of fic and video recs hanging around, so it's now all updated.

I'm also down to just under 200 entries left to categorise and title. So I'm halfway there.

I spoke about childhood reads a while back. Since then I've found a few and read them, so I thought I'd write what I thought about them.

Sweet Valley High
This is actually just like I remember it. It's the OC, children only and a lot more vapid. I think that's the right word. It's amazing how little happens. I got through the whole book in an hour, which is fair enough because it's not that long. I also sat there for a whole hour reading it, so it can't have been that bad.

I'm still working on Sweet Valley University and I'm not planning on going back to Sweet Valley Twins. In the meantime I discovered there is Sweet Valley Senior Year. In High they're 16, in Senior Year they're 17. I wasn't keen on Senior Year though because they focused on a whole load of new characters. I don't care about new characters, only about Jessica and Elizabeth.

Cheerleaders
I managed to get hold of copies of both sets of cheerleaders - there's one group for about twenty books and another set, the following year, for the other twenty or so. It was weird, reading these, how much of what was in other books came back to me. Although that could have been because the books are apt to remind you. I preferred the first set although I think that's because I read more of those the first time round, so I remember them better.

Sadlers Wells
These turned out to be set in the 50s and written in first person, which I wasn't expecting. I absolutely loved them though. Each book introduces you to a new character but (so far) they're always someone who has been in a previous book, if not in a big way. They're quite old-fashioned in their thinking but it was still nice to read about english people, in contrast to the American Sweet Valley and Cheerleaders.

Gemma
This was okay and I really liked Gemma. I'm not so convinced about the rest of the Robinson family though, they are just so perfect. I can accept that they're all musical but not that they're all geniuses at what they do. Or just so nice, it grates after a while. And generally being happy and contented with their (small) lot.

The Demon Headmaster
I don't know how I didn't remember what it was about the Headmaster because I knew all the way through - although that's from remembering not bad writing. If you don't know then it's quite a good book, otherwise there's not much new in there. Being as it's about a girl who goes from a childrens home to be fostered I was expecting more about her settling in but then this is a childrens book and it is mainly about what happens in school, so I suppose it's not that unreasonable that it focuses on that.

After Sel's post on the Chalet School books I thought I'd try those as they seem to be popular and I've never tried any. I've only read a few chapters of the first one but I'm enjoying it so far.

I actually got my cross stitch out last night for the first time in a while - I've been tired and on the backstitch, which is never as interesting. But I wanted to watch Sunday's Midsomer Murders and it's slow, so needs me doing something else at the same time.

Last night I dreamt we had a company day out (although there was no-one in my dream I actually knew) and we had to split into teams to complete a cross stitch. The teams somehow managed to change into 2-people ones, although I have no idea how two people are supposed to complete one cross stitch at the same time. I spent a fair bit of the dream thinking about this. I managed to get out of the cross stitching though on the basis that I did it in the evenings anyway. I ended up helping two blokes who didn't really know what they were doing. It obviously got a bit strange(r) though because it started involving candles.

A meme, from Melli and Avon:

What are you working on? List your current writing projects (fanfic and/or original). Include a small segment describing the plot.

1. A long Gilraen/Arathorn one current called The Tale of Arathorn and Gilraen. In the Tale of A&A it's not stated explicitly that Gilraen loved Arathorn when they married, although he loves her. So I started from that premise and worked out reasons why she married him and didn't remarry and ended up writing the story of their lives together.

2. The HASA Tag Team Challenge fic that was due, er, last October. Never mind. Definitely untitled, and un-worked on by either of us for quite a while. It stars Aragorn and Faramir when they're King and Steward respectively but before Aragorn marries Arwen. It is not either serious or sensible at any point.

3. A Lord of the Rings fic I started two and a half years ago and haven't worked on for a while either. The plot is currently a secret to all but three of the people on my friends list who have beta'ed/read it at various points.

4. A have a file for this even though I haven't actually written anything, merely photocopied the relevant but of the Silm and forgotten the plot. In it, Elrond introduces his sons to the sunrise and explains it. It turns out he finds out something else is going on with his sons, if I could just remember what.

5. Because I still mean to write it one day, a Sam/Jack slash piece. Partly because it defies classification.

Following on from the other week when I wrote an Atlantis snippet I was trying to do a McKay piece and got sidetracked by trying to do a similar thing with Sheppard/Weir and accidentally writing Sheppard/Teyla instead. I could almost do a Five Things fic with Sheppard pairings (although given I ship Sheppard/McKay, Sheppard/Weir and Sheppard/Teyla, as well as Sam/Jack and Jack/Daniel, that makes five...)

Read more...

(Although I started writing this yesterday, so I'm technically a bit late with that, never mind)

You couldn't make it up: Drunken prank led to armed siege

I had no intention of seeing Serenity. I've seen 20mins of Firefly and that was enough. But there was an article about it in the latest SFX that mentioned they go to a remote place called Maidenhead. I mentioned it to Rotaract and there was a general concesus we'd have to check out this 'Maidenhead' place. (A small note - Maidenhead is a town not far from here. One of our members is going out with an ex-member of Maidenhead Rotaract).

I discovered today this WordPress blog has the best thing ever - search. We were having a Myers-Briggs discussion and I knew I had what I was on my blog somewhere but couldn't remember which month it was. But I searched for it and found it.

I'm really bad with names, it takes me a long time to learn them. For some reason I find it much easier if I see them written down - although if isn't pronounced as it's written that doesn't help. I struggled with who Weiss in Alias was for two series. I was seeing it written when people talked about him and assumed it was pronounced Veiss, and I couldn't remember anyone with that name.

I've seen someone called Halling mentioned paired with Beckett (Carson, not Sam, which doesn't help). I assumed it was the woman from Duet whose name begins with a C or K, but no, turns out Halling is a man. Is he actually on the series? Admittedly, it's taken me a series and a half to work out who Zelenka is.

I'm doing really badly on episode titles as well. I keep seeing episode tag fics, where they'll say it's set post 'Hot Zone' for example. Which is great. Except that doesn't really narrow it down very much. Which is why I started putting an episode guide on my site - I need it for me.

The way Lost introduces you to a character each episode is really handy because I'm learning a name per episode. I think I've learnt the same number now as I would have in the entire series. I did confuse myself though, as I temporarily named Sawyer, 'that guy' but then got confused and thought Adam was 'that guy'. I think the only ones I have temporary names for now are Adam, the pregnant girl who I think was Tess in Roswell High, that guy who's been in everything, the kid, the kid's dad, the dog, the one with silly hair. I've even managed to learn Shannon without her having an episode yet, which is pretty good going for me.

After the two-part starter for the latest Spooks series I realised there was a new character and I should make sure I remember his name. Needless to say I'd forgotten it a week later and I still can't remember. It's only one name and four episodes later it could be anything. Although the other week I couldn't for the life of me work out who this Fiona Adam was referring to was.