I'm feeling pleased with myself because tonight I wrote a first draft of my SG Rare Pairings ficathon fic. It's far too short at the moment, mostly because it's mostly dialogue. And I think it needs something else in there, I can't quite think what - I've used all the prompts it's just never going to be particularly long.

I am not used to GMT yet at all. I thought that being ill on Sunday would have sorted that but I keep waking up about 7am and I'm as tired as if it was an hour later. The last hour of work is so much worse as well. Perhaps it's as well that this week is quite quiet, so I can go to bed early and just move my day about a bit.

I managed to get on chat with an Indian from dell to get a new adapter. It was only 25 minutes and I had one in the post. Result! I really hope that solves the problem because the next thing to try is flashing the bios. I had a look and how to do it and it doesn't look that complicated but I'm quite scared it could all go horribly wrong and I'll end up in a worse position than I am now.

I have now seen Torchwood's pterodactyl in the summary at the start of last night's episode. I thought Owen was a crap DS in it, he was supposed to get information out of the woman as they made the tea, not complaing about the amount she talked. Has he not watched The Bill? And please tell me the reason Jack is cagey about his sleeping arrangements is because he is working his way through the population of Cardiff. Neither me nor mum recognised Gareth Thomas straight away. Which is an improvement for her who had no idea who he was in Taggart. And based on what he said to me about it, would make him happy.

I followed a link in metafandom because although I didn't care about an Atlantis hospital AU, I was hopeful it would tell me what an OB/GYN was. I ended up googling it and it stands for Obstetrician/Gynaecologist. So something to do with pregnant women. And I feel that's probably all I need to know.

But it reminded me of a topic I thought about the other day about American/British words that you don't know what they mean. For years I thought a faucet was a type of spanner. Used with water pipes, so I was close at least (it's a tap). A friend of mine thought it was some sort of tool as well. I read on a random blog a while ago of someone who thought a fortnight was twice a week (it's two weeks). Until then I never really thought that was misunderstood, even though I knew it wasn't a word in American.

Anyone got any other American/British words they've misunderstood the meaning of?

Yesterday morning I got up early and stood around at a Rotaract stall at a sort of societies fayre thing. Then came home for a couple of hours, watched The Sontaran Experiment which I bought off Amazon Jersey. Then went out to tinshake and watch a couple of weddings go in and out of the town hall (how the women could walk on the cobbles on those heels, I don't know). Came home, watched the commentary on aforesaid Sontaran Experiment, then went out to a Rotaract Halloween thing.

Which was great fun but there's where it all falls down because they (the chippy) must have done something to the chicken and chips I had because I've spent most of the doing nothing, and certainly not eating. Except I watched the documentary on The Sontaran Experiment. And finished that DVD.

I also saw the first episode of The Bill series 2, which I really enjoyed. It's a bit slow but still so much better than it is now. And had all these characters I remember: Uncle Bob, Auntie June, Jim Carver, Viv Martella, Ted Roach. And Mike Dashwood I vaguely remember, I think, although I seem to recall him coming back for an episode years later. When I needed a DC OC in a fic I used his first name and his looks. The last name I changed and since he didn't actually appear in person, a personality was not really required.

One of the stories they had was of their first black PC. How times have changed. The main plot involved Galloway being the Lone Ranger, as Cryer called him, sending CID off on an obbo without telling Uniform, so Uniform unknowingly mess it up. Except they don't because Galloway's snout is stringing him a fast one. How times haven't changed - well, when The Bill still had crime, that is, instead of pretty people. Stick Mike Dashwood from twenty years ago in with that lot and nobody'd blink an eye, despite the fact that he is really quite handsome.

My sister came round to borrow my calculator. She sat in my car and didn't have as much trouble reaching the pedals as I do, as her legs are longer. I sat in hers and without any cushions and without the seat all the way forward (unprecendented in my experience) not only could I reach the pedals but my legs weren't anywhere near straight when I had the clutch pushed down. When dad's car finally goes, I'm definitely getting a Yaris (red, obviously).

I am so tired, I'm going to have to go to bed after I've posted this. I have to get up early tomorrow for a societies fair and I'm going to a Halloween thing tomorrow night, so I'm quite glad the clocks go back. Except that I'll be completely confused and it means today was the last day of leaving work in the light

I ushered at the cinema tonight for Little Miss Sunshine, which isn't the sort of film I'd pick out as something I'd have to see but I really enjoyed it. I love the music in it and it's quite clever the way you start off by not caring about the characters because none of them are particularly likeable, except you like them all by the end. And I realised that also they're not all pretty. It almost looks like it could be a British film it that respect.

I drove and I was quite impressed at my parking and ability to stop it from stalling. I got quite excited that dad had put some kitchen towel in the door, so I could use it to wipe the windows, as they were steamed up on the outside.

I bought a new microfilter off amazon last night, and since I needed to spend £12 more to get free delivery I might have bought the first series of Doctor Who as well. I'm now paranoid about my car, but I can guarantee next Wednesday/Thursday will be dry since that's when it's booked into the garage so they can fail to find anything wrong with it. I'm really hoping it's dry this weekend as I have a driving lesson on Sunday and a two hour drive with a car that's a pain does not really appeal.

There was a point this afternoon at work (4.30pm) that I just couldn't be bothered any more. It didn't help that I'd just been listening to a Benny audio while I wrote a database and it was so emotional I couldn't think about doing anything else. But it's also just that I'm fairly useless after about 4.30pm. Although it could have been catching cos my boss said the same thing at 5pm. And it's only Thursday. Most Friday afternoons no-one can be bothered.

A useful link: a list of fandom newsletters on LJ, as researched by me and coded by Sel. And a very long list it is too, I was surprised. Especially by the number of Harry Potter ones.

It's all go here. First my microfilter (splitter) doesn't work, so I can call people while being on the internet (people can call me, though) so I need to research to work out where get a new one at a decent price.

Then I went to Tescos this evening and the car stalled constantly. When I phoned dad he said he had that as an intermittent problem when it rained and he found the solution was to press the brake and the accelerator at the same time. And no-one could work out what the problem was. I'm having enough issues getting to grips with the choke and the actual driving, without this as well. So tomorrow I'm going to be calling a friend of mine's dad, who's a mechanic, see if he can help.

Is it the Christmas holidays yet?

My Tesco value DVD player arrived today, and it seems to work ok. It's not as nice as my old one but since my old one seems to be going, at least this one works. And I do have two on my computer as well. I finished off Fourth Doctor and Leela story Robots of Death, which I really enjoyed. I want to see more of Leela, although I now seem to have done all her stories on DVD. I was quite surprised to see Brian Croucher in it. I already knew it was written by Chris Boucher, so I was looking forward to it.

Edit: The minute I posted this dad found a microfilter on amazon. Oh, what an excuse to buy some books.

I think I am addicted to saving. I got a statement today from my nice high interest savings account with some nice big numbers on it. I keep thinking that one day I'll be rich enough to buy all the DVDs and books I want but I realised with the amount I save per month there's actually nothing to stop me. Except then I wouldn't be putting so much money away each month and my system can't quite cope with that. It's a bit silly really because apart from being emergency money so I wouldn't starve/would be able to buy a new computer and so the saving up for it afterwards, it just sits there, hopefully gaining me more money than my student loans are c
costing me

It is better than the opposite though.

I liked Torchwood. But then it turns out that Torchwood = cop show with aliens. With Captain Jack. Although I am entirely confused at how Declassified can be 25 minutes ridiculously early this morning, 15 minutes ridiculously early Friday night, and 10 minutes on the website. How does that make sense? But on the plus side I have found that the videos section of the website is labelled Autopsies. Yep, that's definitely the connection I would have made with that one.

But there is a Tosh, which is wrong because there can only ever be one! And I miss The Bill when it was good. Torchwoos and Life on Mars aren't quite acceptable enough alternatives. And was it only me that was sorry for the bad guy at the end of episode 2?

I widgetised my blog only to find that I need to CSS it, so can't use it. Then found that WP won't let me log in, so really can't use it. And I'm too tired to care any more, need my bed.

Yesterday felt really short because I lazed around in bed (for a change, specially on a Saturday!) and then had to go out to our Barn Dance. My left leg no longer works, possibly from all the driving I've done this week. I might have to adjust the chair back and play about with the cushions.

I have worked on my SJ ficathon fic and it is now done. Apart from the beta. I got quite annoyed yesterday morning at my landlady's boyfriend being in and therefore watching crap on TV at high volume, until I discovered John Barrowman was on Jonathan Ross on Radio 2.

I had intended to change my mobile network to Tesco, as they're cheaper. But not only will they not let me buy it online but when I phone them they let me through the button pressing bit, leave it ringing for ages then cut me off. I wasn't 100% happy about having a network that's really a food shop, and Orange does have some extras, so I took it as a sign. I now have a cunning plan to top up my phone at Tescos and get a voucher for petrol (assuming they're still doing that) and then buy petrol. For the first time ever.

I have just bought a DVD player from them, though. My dad bought my grandmother one, as it's just under £20 (my DVD player was £120!). The Tescos one is just as good as my current one (I think, without checking). But hopefully not dying - it tends to pixellate DVDs until you stop them and start again, and tends to make funny noises that can't be a good sign.

I've also written some more Who OTP drabbles lately, that I haven't linked to on here: Martha/Harry, Four/Sarah, Nine/Sarah, Sarah/Duke Giuliano, Sarah/Bessie, Sarah/Giles, Sarah/Harriet Jones, Sarah/Three/Five, Sarah/Sonic Screwdriver, Sarah/One/Two/Three/Four/Five/Six/Seven/Eight/Nine/Ten with girl!Doctor.

I've just discovered that LJ now has the Kubrick layout, which is pretty cool, although not quite as nice as the WP one. The new styles on LJ are annoying me though, because:

• you can't change the text size on any of them, and most are too small, so I spend half my time on LJ pressing control+
• the 3 column variations of Expressive break in ie
• you can't have parent and child categories

This weekend I might try and get to grips with widgets on WP, which I've been meaning to do since they released them.

Everything technological seems to be going wrong at the moment. My computer complains when I start it up that it can't detect the AC power adaptor. Which I've had before but it's usually gone away again. It's been doing it for a while now though and it means that it won't charge the battery. Which is a problem. A friend of mine has tested the adaptor and said it's fine which means either the BIOS needs updating, which looks complicated and scary, or there's a problem with the motherboard. I don't like the sound of either of those options, frankly.

Last night I made a phone call, then five minutes later, needed to make another one. Except that after I dialled, nothing happened. I could ring my phone but not the other way. I played about with plugs in sockets and have established that it's fine in the extension lead, but not in the splitter. So if I want to ring someone, I have to come off the internet. I'm hoping Pipex will give me a new splitter.

I'm currently running down my mobile phone credit so I can switch to Tesco, as they're cheaper (I feel so dirty for it, though). As I was having this issue with the phone, I thought maybe I should get myself the IM card now (well, last night). Except that the site was behaving so slowly it took a few minutes to load each page. And when I got to the end and wanted to submit my order, it said there was something wrong with it. I couldn't find what it was, so I thought I'd go away and try again later. Later on, it was at least faster, but only let me get as far as the address page before throwing me out. So I'm going to ring them tomorrow night and order it over the phone.

Then, I was waiting to send back Serenity to amazon DVD rental, so I could get The Sontaran Experiment. When I posted it, it was available now, now, of course, it's not, and I'm getting whatever's next on my list, which I hadn't really thought about. I was looking forward to watching it this weekend as well.

On the plus side, I did drive to Didcot on my own tonight, with only the aid of John Cleese (my satnav). Which was quite handy because it told you what the road was doing, given that you can't really see much in the dark with no markings on the road itself and a whole load of parked cars around.

86.6 / 155cm (55.9%)

I saw the Torchwood trailer last night, before Robin Hood and at the end it confirmed 22nd October on BBC3. I'm quite disappointed there weren't more rumours about it.

My blow-up chair had definitely developed a hole, so I spent the first two-thirds of Robin Hood alternately blowing up the new one and trying to get the air out of the old one. I'd done about as much as I was going to by 7.30 at which point I realised I was just too bored with Robin Hood to watch any more of it. Plus I worked out that I'm not actually going to be in for a single 'nother episode, so I gave up and finished off the Serenity extras.

I updated my website last weekend, which includes the diary I wrote for my Northern Ireland trip.

I also uploaded a couple of fics onto ff.net that I hadn't got round to - and it decided to delete half my text. As if it's not useless enough already.

Every time I turn my computer on it complains it can't detect the AC power adaptor, which is obviously a lie because it's running on AC power. I've had this problem before but it's not usually lasted as long.

And there's a pterodactyl in Torchwood, apparently. And I thought the date rumours were crazy.

I am so tired. Because of ZoneAlarm I didn't go to bed till late Sunday night. And Tuesday I thought I'd get an early night but ended up finishing off the second draft of my ficathon piece instead. (It's now 7000 words, but definitely going go get longer because I'm still not happy with large parts of it). And last night I had a Rotaract Exec meeting, so didn't get back till late - and then I just fell into bed when I did. Tomorrow night my sister's invited me to hers for a girly party with DVDs, so that won't be an early night. And we're following it up by swimming on Saturday morning.

I think she is doing me pizza, so not quite sure how that's going to turn out or where she's got stuff from. The funniest part was her text message where she said to bring DVDs. Somehow I don't think she'll appreciate mind all that much.

So tonight I'm having a relaxing TV watching night. Tonight's Avengers was great, and kept you guessing up till the end. It was well acted by Patrick Macnee as well. Then in a bit there's a thing about the Chanukah story and then there's Mock the Week, which seems to be a cross of Have I Got News For You and Whose Line is it Anyway. And is very funny.

I also need to finish off the Serenity extras (didn't like the film as much as the series) so I can get The Sontaran Experiment next. Speaking of which, Doctor Who Magazine has a list of who is doing the commentaries on the series 2 DVDs and Elisabeth Sladen isn't in the School Reunion one They did also say that Torchwood is 22nd October, which is the second to last rumour I heard. The Radio Times website has To be announced in its slot, so could be right. The official website is up but they've labelled their links in a 'clever' way and I can't be arsed to work out what they might mean, so no idea what's on it or whether it's up to much (navigation notwithstanding). Note to me to remember later and Sel when you read this: this would be a good thing for the panel, esp as a way to really piss me off.

From llin, a very cool toy: Radiophonatron. And Habitat for Humanity has announced their 2007 dates, and I really want to go to the Romanian one in June. I just need to think of a way of raising at least £350. Anyone any ideas?

I only came up with my adventure weekend post after I saw a short program on Friday night about an island of bunnies: Skomer Island, off South West Wales. It's open from April to October but given that we are talking about Wales here (although it apparently has less rain than the mainland) it's going to be better in summer. Plus there should be more baby bunnies about. So that's something I'm going to do one weekend next summer. Expect lots of bunny photos. (Incidentally, the one in my icon my dad took when they went to Monkey World - they have a few bunnies there, so dad took some photos of them specially for me).

On the theme of bunnies, this reminded me that the Donkey Sanctuary not far from here has bunnies. You can only really get to it by car, and as it's nearly on the way to Tescos I ought to be able to drive there myself. So at some point, in the light, I'm going to up there to prove I can, then see about being able to help out with the bunnies.

On an entirely different note, last night's Spooks, noooooooooooooo! I'd say more but anything I tried to say non-spoilery and therefore cryptic would give the game away to Melli. I had started on the second draft of my SJ ficathon fic just before it, intending to continue later but I forgot Spooks tends to make you not able to think afterwards. I think I need it on DVD.

On the plus side, my ZoneAlarm is now fixed. Phew!

Dear ZoneAlarm,

Why do you bother having updates if they work worse than the previous version? I didn't not plan to spend my Sunday night staying up late trying to fix you.

I want a refund,
PA

Dear computer,

What do you mean, can't detect AC adaptor? I can see it fine and you should be able to see it too, given that it's plugged in. Beeping loudly at me everytime I turn you on or restart you due to ZoneAlarm driving me mad is not helping.

Please sort yourself out,
PA

In sort: this weekend's been quite crap, really.

There's an island off the south west coast of Wales full of bunnies. There are other animals there: lots of birds and seals, and dolphins have been seen there. But naturally, this is my idea of paradise (for the bunnies obviously). Being not to far away, it's possible to go there for the day and only take a weekend to do it. So I did.

It's only a 15 minute boat trip there, so not enough to get ill. I walked round the island, it's not that big. I felt I should see some other animals. After I'd done that, I sat down (the ground was dry - it's an unusally dry place, for Wales) and waited for the bunnies to come out.

And come out they did, all brown with white tails. Since spring was late there was still some little ones, that were late babies. Not that bunnies know too much about spring, after all they are at it like, well, bunnies.

Luckily, I thought to bring some digestive biscuits with me, so while I ate my lunch among the flowers and bunnies, they nibbled on the biscuits. I really wanted to bring them home with me, of course, but I had to settle for stroking them a bit. They weren't scared of me at all.

I've just been to Tescos. Bearing in mind that I also went to Halfords and fiddled around with cushions in the car (and the rear view mirror, which just doesn't go far enough to the right for my liking) and went with a friend who lives ten minutes away in the opposite direction, it only took an hour and three-quarters. And nothing went wrong. And, to top it off, I parked perfectly by the side of the road for the first time, without having to go backwards and forwards a lot.

I also finished the first draft of my SJ ficathon fic. It's 5000 words. Hopefully it won't take me as long to do each subsequent draft. I really want to get started on my SG ficathon piece but I really ought to get on with the SJ one first, as there's nothing wrong with finishing before the deadline.

My arms and legs don't work very well now, though. I don't think I can drive dad's car for longer than half an hour without having to rest, it's such hard work. When I come to buy a car one day, I'm going to have a red Yaris (cos my parents and my sister have Yaris's, so it's just necessary, the red I shouldn't have to explain) and it's going to have power steering and air conditioning.

I am still tired, although possibly slightly less so for missing one day of my antibiotics. The doctor (and I just typed that with a capital d!) basically told me I could stop taking them but it might come back. So then I'd end up doing this all again, so I'm back on them again. Although with me two weeks of pills lasts longer because I am incapable of remembering to take them everyday. According to the memory section the BBC had up a while ago when they had a programme on it it said that if you get into a routine then you remember. Except that doesn't happen when I take stuff for my hayfever for three months.

I got my SG rare pairings assignment, featuring two prompts I can't write. But it all got sorted out the same day and now I am in the apparently rare position of being able to write either. If I just went and found out who one of the people is I'm looking forward to writing it because it should be a nice vignette. Unlike my SJ gen ficathon thing which is up to 4000 words and still not finished. And that's just the first draft which I'm feeling is definitely not detailed enough.

I have started typing up my Northern Ireland diary and since I have a couple of quiet weekends coming up I'm planning to spend some time on website-related stuff during that time.

A bit of silliness courtesy of The Guardian's online blog: but type "search" into Google.com and see what you get.... then type the same word into MSN Live Search, ditto (msn live search being at msn.com). I was quite amused.