I've just been watching Broken News which continues to be funny. Usually I tape it and watch Shakespeare but 15 minutes of Johnny Vegas turned out to be all I could take. The only annoying thing about Broken News is that you can't concentrate on what's being said and the ticker tapes that go across the bottom. The money and sports channels are even worse. Most memorable joke was right at the start:

"...destroyed four storeys, including the latest JK Rowling..."

I also loved that they as well as looking at tomorrows/yesterdays papers they also looked at the obituries, the crosswords, the sudokos and the horoscopes.

I managed to concentrate for long enough tonight to get the Sheppard/Teyla part of my Five Things fic up to v4. It's a stick-fighting scene, so I looked up some screencaps to describe the gym and I remembered how much I love the place. It's so pretty. And I love the whole stick fighting thing. I'd love to try it, even though it's mostly just spinning and hitting each other's sticks - much like lightsabre fighting but with a weapon in each hand.

Tomorrow at work I get to try and match up 511 questionnaires with 442 bits of data (or technically speaking, the other way round). Which is going to be a complete nightmare, except that I quite like it in some sort of masochistic way. Perhaps because it's a bit of a logic problem. Plus I quite like playing with data in excel.

My computer is all better now. Basically, something in the screen had broken, so that after a few minutes the screen went so dark you could barely see anything on it. And when it wasn't dark it was a bit red (my old computer, on the other hand, has had a distinctly red screen for years now). Luckily, it is still under warranty, so I spent three hours on the phone on Wednesday night to Dell technical support, trying to get them to send an engineer out.

If you've never had to phone them up before you're lucky. They've moved their call centre to India, so you get to speak to people who know less about computers than I do and incidentally, don't understand a word you say. 30 minutes of that three hours was spent trying to give her my address. I've rung them before and they've either just made the problem worse, or just told me to reinstall Windows and not really cared about trying anything else. They do have a tendency to try and get you to go to a website as well, which is a bit tricky when your computer doesn't work. I only ring them as an absolute last resort.

Anyway, the engineer was great, fixed it in 10 minutes. Now my screen looks a bit blue - that could just be because it was a bit red before Wednesday and I had got used to it. It's also very clean, which, strangely, is making everything look quite textured. Dell do two types of laptops, Inspiron and Latitude. The engineer told me that Inpsiron is dealt with by the Indians, but Latitudes are dealt with by the Irish. I've spoken to them many years ago before the Indians even existed (you know what I mean) and you can't understand a word they say, but they're very helpful.

Possibly all the stress of that, and work, and not sleeping has got to me. Friday night I very nearly went to bed at 7.30pm. Saturday morning I got up to go to the ZZ9 AGM in Nottingham, fell over half the stuff on my floor because I was dizzy, and went back to bed instead. I impressed myself last night by staying up till 9pm. I also have the office cold, so I am wondering if it's just me being more tired than usual, or whether I have flu (despite having had the flu jab).

In slightly more exciting news, I am rec'ing Lord of the Rings on Crack Van for December. I've managed to get my recs list down to the maximum allowed, which was hard enough. I was feeling quite accomplished until I realised I need to work out what to say as well. But as I'll not be posting any of them until Friday (I'm busy on the 1st), I'll worry about it later I think.

...my computer is sick - hardware sick, which means it'll take longer to fix than if it's software sick. I think I know what's wrong (it seems to be a common problem on the Dell Inspiron forum), which is a start. I do have my old computer but I only have emails I've received since about 8am this morning, and I can't remember what I had marked as unread in Abilon.

The only good thing is that I emailed a couple of fics I'm writing to my gmail account, so in theory I should get a lot of writing done in the next few days! (It's all backed up on a 750mb zip drive. My old computer will only read & write 100mbs, my new computer will read all but only write 750mbs. Oh, the fun.)

I've got a Rotary shoebox to fill with things suitable for a teenage boy. It will be going to Eastern Europe to a child that's probably never had a present. And I've got two weeks to fill it. And not much in the way of ideas so far.

It can't contain any war-related things or anything that requires batteries, and it's not that big, so needs to contain small things.

Has anyone got any suggestions? I'll post the silly ones tomorrow, when I have more time.

This morning I thought I'd look up the train times home and it would only take a few minutes. Not a chance. The website told me there were no trains between 4.30 and 7.30. But I felt sure id got one at 6.30 before. I looked up the journey in bits (as I can't do it in any less than three trains - my record is five so far). I ended up getting so lost I decided to ring them instead - this usually doesn't work as they often just look it up on the same website.

I spoke to a girl who tended to whisper and not finish her sentences, so we had a long conversation. She said there was one at 5.30, which was a start. She did eventually admit there was one at 6.30 so but I'd have to get separate single tickets for it. It took a while but she first told me this was because I'd be using different train operators. Which was quite obviously a lie because Poole and Didcot are on different lines, so you can't do the more journey using the same train operator.

Having pointed tins out she then decided it was because I'd have to change at Oxford, which is further away than Didcot. Once I told her to look she did admit I could change at Reading, but then there were no trains at all to Didcot all evening. Another obvious lie. Especially as she then found me some trains.

However, all of this was no help at all. The train companies recently decided that if you live west of Bournemouth the best thing to do is to time the trains so you stand at Poole and watch the virgin train go past, then get on a Southwest train timed to get to Bournemouth so you can see the Virgin train leave as you arrive.But part of my reason for hearing in the evening is so this doesn't happen excerpt that now, it does.

Interestingly, when I looked up the 6.40 train from Bournemouth (the one the 6.30 train is timed to miss) it quite happily told me to change at Reading. But the 7.40 tells me to change at Oxford! And to think the government wants us to use public transport more.

The practical upshot of this is that dados taking me to Bournemouth. I'm so looking forward to being able to drive the joinery instead, as it it'll be quicker and simpler, even though I hate driving and you can't eat and read at the same time.

First, there was Doctor Who on Children in Need; which was quite interesting. Although its only a month till the Christmas Invasion now. The funniest part was when Terry Wogan introduced it, saying it was exclusive - for all of three hours, anyway! Then he was easily spotted in Harry Potter, along with Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger) and George from Drop The Dead Donkey. I enjoyed it, despite the length and the annoying under-12s who didn't shut up.

Yesterday, I got up early to collect money for Children in Need from people in cars waiting at the lights at the crossroads. It was actually not too cold, once you get going, although it did help that I ways wearing loss of layers. I then had the day off, so I went back at 12pm to stand in the sun (which was actually quite hot!) and collect more money.

I was really tired after that, but last night Merlin was curled up at the top of my bed looking smug and not leaving me any space to sleep in at all. Luckily, he doesn't mind too much being moved and was happy when I stuck bits of me under him. Once he settled down and stopped purring I actually slept well, although at 3am he wanted to go out and I discovered he'd been making me quite warm. And blocking my noise up. last night during Atlantis he'd made my eye itchy so I am definitely allergic to cats (I've lived with them all my life, so its probably safe to say I'm not that bad!)

I told myself I would be good and practice guitar for half an hour tonight, watch some crappy TV (I am seriously addicted to Switched, although tonight's was quite boring) then do some writing. So far I've managed a sentence. It would help if the crappy TV wasn't quite so depressing!

It's really cold here at the moment. My landlady likes the cold, so I'm wearing two fleeces and a scarf, and have two pairs of slipper socks and some actual slippers on my feet. Granted, my slippers are falling apart and I need to talk my mum into taking me somewhere to buy some more on Sunday, and one of my pairs of slipper socks is thin and holey and should really be thrown away. But even so, my feet are still cold. My hands are vaguely warm but that would be the hot chocolate I've been holding (it smells good, but only tastes good with the addition of milk).

It's just occurred to me I could put my rabbit in the microwave and bribe myself to write with a rabbit on my feet. That's suddenly sounding like a really good idea. Plus the hot chocolate has just hit me and I think I need to take the scarf off.

I think I have officially given up on watching Lost. I got so behind with my TV last week that I still haven't got round to watching it. This was, in part, because there were other things I would rather watch, but it's reached the point now where I'm just not going to get it in before this weeks. And I haven't missed it at all, so I'm taking it as a sign and giving up. I just can't quite bring myself to care about any of the characters, or the island's secrets any more. If I get really curious I'll just surf a bit, or ask some Americans who I know watch it.

I'm feeling virtuous about my writing, too. The Sheppard/Weir Thing is now on v4, complete with, shock horror, some description! And a couple of adjectives! I mean, really, what more could you ask for? I think there's some action (ie a bit of movement) I could probably describe - I mean I know where they're moving, what direction they're facing etc, but it's not all in there. I'm trying (note the important word here, trying) to get it to the stage of needing beta'ing by the end of the month. Hopefully that'll be v5 or v6.

I had to remind dad that I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue started tonight (having previously reminded him last week when MiniMinder reminded me). He'd forgotten. I'd got a tape out ready to record it while I cooked/ate dinner. Sadly, though, I was washing up when I realised it was halfway through and it might have been a good idea to have actually pressed the record button. Hopefully it'll be up after Shakespeare and I can listen to it in bed. I wish TV had listen again, it would be so useful for people like me - unless I set everything to record I forget to watch it! (although I have on occasion forgotten I've recorded something and accidentally taped over it)

I now have a working Firefox! This really should not be a big think. For some reason the javascript and flash wasn't working. So I thought I'd actually get round to uninstalling it and installing the latest version, just to see if that made a difference. It did, and everything was good until I tried to open a link from Abilon. Nothing happened.

From looking at the forums I finally tried Safe Mode (which is great!) and it didn't work in there either. Someone suggested making IE the default browser, then making Firefox the default back again. Sadly, no matter how hard I tried IE refused to be the default. I reached the stage where Firefox didn't think it was the default either but Windows did. Hmm.

So I ended up making Netscape my default, then back to Firefox at which point it worked in Safe Mode. In the end it was one of my extensions that was causing the problem, which lots of people say is a problem in the forums. So I have upgraded it and now absolutely everything works, including the chat room on the Dairy Free forum, which is good.

I taped The Avengers on Thursday (off BBC4, which was quite cool, although didn't half take up a lot of space on my hard drive) and I really enjoyed it. I'll definitely be taping next weeks as well. I am slowly making my way through the weeks TV, I just have Lost, Taggart and last weeks Have I Got News For You left now.

I've also been good and updated my website including lots of new music video recs for Farscape, Stargate and Atlantis, and a few photos from SG10. Wow, my photography skills are really bad.

I was determined to make it to v3 of my Five Things fic, which I did. I was supposed to have put some actual description in there, and maybe a few adjectives. I've made a start. The Sheppard/McKay one is the one that's casusing me problems - I think it might need a bit of a re-write because I've written myself into a bit of a corner with that one.

I did get sidetracked with a long plotty McShep thing, whoops! And was very good and wrote 800 words of it (when I should have been writing Five Things), although I only actually managed one scene and a description of the next few. But still, that's four scenes just to start the plot. I'm thinking of it as a good sign at the moment, and not at all like the Arathorn & Gilraen thing where I keep cutting the first scene because it's not needed and have now got the whole thing down from taking place over six years to four.

I'm also quite impressed that I have less than 100 posts to categorise! And I've redone my LJ - it does have slightly less red and annoying symbols instead of links to post/read comments, but it's not a tiny thing down the centre of the screen any more, which is useful for reading Tolkien Weekly (can't read it in RSS cos it's titles only, can't read the actual site cos the design means it's a tiny little thing down the right hand side). Not that I've actually read it since, but hey.

Work wasn't quite as bad as I was anticipating today, at least on the work side (although that could be because I've ignored some of my emails). What I had forgotten is that we're having the office painted (suicide yellow) starting last Monday. So I spent half my time trying to find my stuff, smelling paint fumes and sitting in the cold (open window to try and get rid of said fumes).

On the plus side, my USB extension leads arrived, so I can actually move my keyboard close enough to type! On the downside somehow my computer is set to install Windows updates at 4pm, then annoy me every 10 minutes for the next 2 hours by asking me to restart (and if I don't get rid of it within 5 minutes, it'll restart anyway). So I was ecstatic about that, especially given that I can't change it for some reason. They IT guy is away, but I bet he's done something really strange, will have a really bad reason for it, and won't change it back.

I also went for my flu jab, at which the nurse decided to stab me as well, just for some extra entertainment. Which hurt.

But I have made it to version 2 of my Five Things fic! Yay! I'm still not happy with most of it, though, so it'll go up to at least v4 before beta.

I have also given in and put my winter coat on. So now I'm warmer with fewer jumpers, which is quite cool. The hat is not coming out yet, I'm not admitting to that much cold, and the scarf is coming out for Harry Potter, but that's mainly for the coldest of colds.

And why does this LJ plugin keep thinking I want to post with my old default icon instead of my new one?

I actually really enjoyed SG10, which surprised me. I was more worrying about food, and thinking how much I didn't enjoy SG8 that much (at least the actual con part). David Nykl (Zelenka) turned out to be a great guy, Eric Brekker (don't ask) was very good at telling funny stories, Tobias Mehler (really, no idea) looked nice, Dan Shea (stunt coordinator and Siler) was really interesting talking about stunts, Cliff Simon (Ba'al) was mad, Neil Dennis (Ry'ac) was mad in a different way, Alex Zahara (just about everything) was also great.

The annoying part of the weekend was just being really tired really early. I also managed to eat an entire bar of Plamil chocolate in a day. Whoops!

I an unimpressed at the shops round here and their grapefruit. They have recently decided that instead of actually getting some pink grapefruit (which I think is the nicest) they would just split the red grapefruit into two and call one lot red and the other lot pink. So now I'm on porridge for breakfast instead.

My watch battery died on Monday (it's been dying for a week). The last time I got a new battery I remember it being expensive, so instead I bought a new watch. It's great, and has a metal strap, which I've never had before. Only problem is I can get it on without undoing it. The instructions for making it smaller tell you for lots of different watches, so I don't know which one applies to mine. And none of the options seem to work. So I now have a watch I can wear that doesn't tell me the time and a watch that tells me the time that I can't wear. How helpful.

This post brought to you by I'm too tired to be coherent.

For how much LJ has just annoyed me. I was going to post about work for the delight (?) of everyone on my friends list but it didn't like the current time and refused to let me post. At which point I said bollux to it - I'm just posting from WP in the future.

Although I see I have been stupid - I can friends-lock posts from here.

Which is entirely true, but sadly, I can't write it. I might put it in a friends-locked entry, though.

In brighter news, Blunkett has resigned; there's a new spoof news program on BBC2 Monday nights that is quite funny, and has Claudia Christian in it, plus some other people I recognise but can't remember the names of; I don't have to go back to work till Wednesday; I have chocolate spread that doesn't have vanilla in and is in date.

On the bad side, every Green & Blacks chocolate I looked at has vanilla in. It's probably not enough to make me ill, as long as I don't eat too much in one go. Hmm. I went ice-skating last night, which turned out to be ice-dancing night, so there were quite a few really good people about trying to trip us up. But apart from that the ice was quite empty, which makes it much easier to skate. I'm surprised how many people have been to Ice Trax at Tower Park.

I watched Rome tonight. Or more accurately I watched the first half hour while putting my Australia photos in my album, at which point I couldn't take any more and ended up watching The West Wing instead, which was good. I'm starting to get quite bored of the election though, I wish they'd just get it over and done with already.