Which couldn't be more wrong if it tried.
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When I checked my post last night I thought the calendar looked quite red. So I scrolled down and discovered that I've made more posts in November 2006 so far than any month since I started this blog back in July 2002.

Last night I had a really nice meal out in the new Italian restaurant they've opened in town. I've been there three times now and had something different each time! I could even have the sorbet, which there was loads of. Only problem was that since it contained mushrooms it proved that I have developed an intolerance to them. So I spent the rest of the night watching videos to take my mind off it, and stayed up far later than I wanted to.

I realised that driving in the cold is not doing my hands any good, they're getting so dry. So I asked my mum for some driving gloves and she sent some. They don't quite fit - I've always had a problem finding gloves to fit, ever since I was little, no idea why. But I wore them to Tescos tonight and it was so nice to drive with warm hands, they're great!

The most exciting news is that I've finished my pico project. I wanted to write a radio script that I had started and had 673 words of, and it looked like I was never going to get anywhere on it. So I was determined to finish it for pico, and 5000 words seemed like a likely target. I have 5710 words, two of them being the fabulous 'The End'. I need to rewrite it now, though, not least because I realised one of the characters was redundant, so needs writing out. But at least now I have something to work from. And I have less writing to do, as my SG rare pairings ficathon piece is also done.

Work is looking to be really manic in December, so really not looking forward to that. My life might well end up consisting entirely of work and moving related things. My sister is also going to be moving in December, so she's offered to take me to IKEA on Sunday. So I might now be doing moving things on 16th and 17th December. I also found out one of the charity shops in town that sells furniture delivers. They're better for sofas than anything else. The flat comes with a sofa, but I might get an armchair later. I need to check out the other charity shop that sells furniture tomorrow.

97.0cm / 155cm (62.6%)

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Thursday I had tickets to see the English National Ballet performing Alice in Wonderland. I've never been to the ballet before (I'm amazed at the number of people I know who have) and since I like Alice that seemed like a good combination. I did realise just how many people there were in the strings section, violin is definitely the instrument to learn. I did like the way they used the props with the doors moving about, the table that grew and the massive bottle that swung from the ceiling with a note on it saying 'Drink me'. The actual dancing was boring though. It just seemed like they'd go into a scene, go here are some characters, thean randomly dance around for ages after I'd got bored. It probably doesn't help that half the appeal of Alice is in the words but all the dancing just seemed to consist of spinning and jumping, and how is that interesting?

The evening didn't start off well because I was talking to someone at work about work, so was late for the bus the one time it was on time. So I was planning to go to Borders and The Noodle Bar as I know I can eat there. I did try to get some beans and jacket potato but that meant relying on Waitrose for some decent potatoes, which was a bit of a vain hope. Instead I got Chinese from the new take-away, which turned out to be a bad idea because they put some disgusting sauce on their chicken and cashew nuts, which I discovered on Friday, had wheat/gluten in.

I went to work Friday morning anyway as there was work to do, but I didn't attempt breakfast. I went home not long after lunch once I'd pretty much done everything. Just that morning Doctor Who series 2 arrived, so I opened that up and watched the Deleted Scenes and Outtakes. It was just as well I'd already asked how to get to this stuff on the series 1 disks, since these had the same menus and I couldn't be bothered to plug my DVD writer in. Then I watched the School Reunion commentary, which did have a bit of David Tennant squee, and Julie Gardner complaining about how good Lis Sladen looked.

This weekend I went to Emma's. I definitely don't want to get the bus to Reading anymore cos it's horrendously busy. As was the train station. And I'm still annoyed I couldn't get a return - why can't you get a non-day return for somewhere close to, it doesn't make sense. We watched The Pillow Book which had a fair bit of Ewan McGregor naked in it, but was in general a very weird film. We discovered Sainsburys shut at 8pm on a Saturday, which is just not on when you need chocolate at 8.30.

We also went for a bit of Moulin Rouge and watched half a dozen episodes of Smallville, finishing off series 5, which was rather like torture. They rip off films, hit you over the head with the plot and you need a sick bucket for most scenes with Lana in. It all ended on a cliffhanger, but frankly, I don't care any more. I only watched it till the end cos I wanted to get to a good point to stop.

I have posted the latest chapter of Doctor Who: The Soap Opera but mostly I just really, really need to sleep.

I'm totally brain dead. Work was busy today, including the sudden discovery that we're going to be really stupidly busy in December again, as clients desperately need data just before Christmas, so they can sit on it till New Year. Then I had a driving lesson round the roundabouts of Reading. I am starting to get it, which is good, and my driving instructor thinks I should be fine, so no more driving lessons for me unless I decide I need some. Yay!

I must remember to set the video since I'm off to the ballet (for the first time ever) tomorrow night, out to a work dinner (at which I'm not going to eat) Friday night, and off to my best friend's for a weekend of Ewan McGregor. I'm going to listen to ISIHAC from bed now, I think, but first another Sex Tips for Girls extract:
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I was listening to mp3s at work yesterday while I played about with tons of data and it suddenly, entirely randomly, only giving me sound in the left ear. But only sometimes, which was probably more annoying than it just switching to the left ear. So I sensibly unplugged the headphones from the extension lead and plugged them into the laptop headphone socket rather than the docking station headphone socket. And since that didn't solve the problem it therefore follows that it was the headphones that were at fault. They were cheap and they have lasted a while.

But this was fine because I still have my old set at home. So I took those in today and still had the same problem. I went through the same steps with the same results. And this was with a different set of files and I even tried using Windows Media Player instead of Winamp and that made no difference.

Since I'll need an extension cable in my new flat as my stereo is unlikely to be so close to my computer, I went and bought one. But was so busy in the afternoon I never got a chance to try it. So I brought both extension cables and both sets of headphones home. From these experiments I have concluded that both sets of headphones entirely coincidentally have the same fault.

Luckily, I can use the headphones that came with my (my sister's) mp3 player, but I will have to shop for some more.

I enjoyed the Terry Pratchett interview on BBC4. I never knew he was from Wycombe. Suddenly it seems to be the centre of the universe. I didn't think they could spin it out for a hour but he was really interesting talking about his childhood and jobs up till he became a full time writer.

Yay, for Warwick just won on University Challenge! And I knew a few answers too.

It's just taken me ten minutes to get real player to agree to play the Doctor Who Children in Need concert. It does like to complain. It's always fine with ISIHAC though - which I entirely forgot to listen to last week. I must remember to listen to this weeks sometime this week.

Edit: SJA is going to be on BBC1 over the Christmas holidays - so that's three Doctor Who things over Christmas! (not incuding Torchwood, since not sure what they're doing with the end of that)

I've mostly had a day of doing jobs. I bought some petrol, even though I bought some only 16 days ago. I plugged in my old computer and charged the battery, which I hadn't quite left long enough to go flat entirely. Then I upgraded Firefox in Linux to 2.0. Which was not as simple as it should have been. Or rather, it was simple but that method shouldn't have been.

I can't say I've noticed any exciting differences in it so far, except that nearly all of my essential extensions work in it. I'll have to test it a bit more, but who knows what'll happen when I finally put it on Windows. Although I just went to look for a link and found this is another place I need to copy my bookmarks file.

I posted a new chapter of Doctor Who: The Soap Opera today as well.

I need more RAM too - Linux and Freeview are never going to co-exist in an hours time.

I've had a good and bad day in London, so typical trip to London, really. By driving to the nearest train station I saved myself the stress of getting a bus but had the stress of driving and it cost me slightly more. It won't in future, now I know that it's a lot cheaper after 11am. I still managed to get lost though. In my defense I had been to the station once before, years ago. The case for the prosecution is a tad watertight, though, as I had a sat nav. I'd be fine if I just followed John Cleese's instructions.

I managed to be only 10 minutes late to meet Sel, which was entirely the tube's fault. And since Beth and Kate were later, that was very good. So I had a nice steak for dinner. Well, as nice as steak gets, since I don't really like it that much. I suspect the other people in the pub might have got entirely the right idea about us, though.

After a while I went to go to the ZZ9 AGM. I headed to Leicester Square tube station and ended up at Charing Cross. Which I couldn't have done if I'd tried, since it was in the right direction. I picked the wrong tube line to take, though, as I failed to get on a packed train and ten minutes later they told us someone had thrown themselves under a train at Camden so there weren't going to be any more. So in a choice of two, I picked the wrong one, as per usual.

I then managed to get lost in the tube station and got a train on the Bakerloo line going the wrong way. And then got lost in London Bridge station, as they seem to think that the first time they need to tell you which exit is for St Guy's Hospital is until you get there. And then I failed to follow the instructions to the pub I'd been to before. It always takes me half an hour to get anywhere in London on foot, from leaving the tube, and today was no exception.

It had been such a crap journey I had thought about not bothering and just going home. Which I should have done because they'd all buggered off by the time I got there. On the plus side, I discovered at Paddington at 8pm that there were no fast Reading trains after 9pm, so that was probably just as well. And I got home in time to wash off the smoky smell.

And I entirely should reply to some LJ comments and posts I have marked unread but hhertzof sent me the latest chapter of Unexpected, so I'm going to read that instead.

It's Children in Need today, which QI tells me started in 1980, which explains why I think it's been going on forever. I didn't do the usual running about in the road collecting from cars, but got to stand in a slightly warmer, dry bit with a bucket. Because no-one ordered in the weather today. Tin collecting for an hour isn't too bad - certainly after you've sat around for six hours sending people out, collecting them in and counting money. You get to do people watching, which is always interesting.

Tomorrow I'm off to meet crazy people (I didn't say it first) in London and then to the ZZ9 AGM. Although I realised the reason why my asthma's been playing up is because my brown inhaler has run out (I wish there was a better way of being able to tell) which isn't a good time because London always sets my asthma off. I will be driving to the train station, for the first time, so I don't have to stress about the trains being late and not meeting the buses.

And I haven't forgotten, here's another Sex Tips for Girls extract:
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My BBC news email told me this morning that Channel 4 are planning to offer downloads. I don't actually watch that much on Channel 4 but it would be good to catch up with Teachers because I seem to have seen random bits of that.

The Guardian had a big article in the online section about spam, since it's gone crazy recently (I used to get about 50 a day, now it's 100). Except that they basically concluded there's nothing you can do. It's just took them the whole of the front page and part of page 2 to do it.

Last night I was good and sat down and now have 2511 words for my pico project, which is halfway.

And I had an email today to say I passed all of my checks for the estate agent, so I can move in on 15th December! Current plan is to clean the flat on the 15th and get some essentialy furniture (bed, hoover) delivered. Then move in on 16th and clean my room here. Then live out of crates for a week while I work out what furniture I need and what I have space for. Then I'll be buying some of that in January.

At the moment I'm trying to read books that I'm planning to charity once I've done, so there'll be less to move. Current book is What Katy Did, which I'm sure I read when I was younger but don't remember. The kids are mostly looked after by their aunt, which is making me think how much I'd like to see Sarah Jane as a child, growing up with her aunt fic.

I'm obviously in need of a new car. Or a new knee. Or both. I got up this morning and only got as far as sitting on the toilet and my knee went "ow" and I went "bugger". It's been fine on the short trips I have been doing but two hours of constant driving was too much. So I'm now not driving at all until Saturday when I'm going to leave it at the nearest train station. Which will mean I won't be able to drink at the ZZ9 AGM but does mean I won't get all stressed when the train back is late and I miss the bus. I've got another driving lesson on Wednesday, so that'll kill it again. So I'm going to Emma's on the train, I think.

I want to take my body back and complain. I'm sure there's more of it not working than is working.

Why is it that there are only about four things worth watching on TV, but two of them are on at the same time? Whose bright idea was it to put the Science Fiction Britannica up against the series finale of Spooks? Annoyingly, Spooks is easier to tape but then I have to watch it tonight so I don't get spoiled at work tomorrow.

And ISIHAC started again tonight (which I didn't realise cos The Bill forum's been down, I suspect) but that's going to have to wait till later in the week to listen to.

I've been doing the monthly back-up of my computer and since The Bill finished before it did (OMG so exciting - even the camera got splattered with blood! Although I can't decide whether Roach & Galloway with guns is more scary than the fact that Roach had had at least one pint by then) so I thought I'd take a look at some of the extras on the Doctor Who series 1 DVD I had finally got round to buying.

So I thought I'd watch the one mentioning Captain Jack, which was on Disk 4. After about three hours of exciting menu animations and I'd died of boredom, I finally got to a menu. They have a cunning design with one TV screen on the tardis console where you can see episodes, play all or select scenes, and another TV with the special features and set-up (which presumably gets you to the commentaries). Only trouble is that I pressed every single button on my remote and nothing I did got me to the second TV. I could do it on the computer because you just click on the mouse on the relevant link but surely the extras aren't only available that way?

I was feeling tempted to buy the series 2 DVDs but not any more.

Does anyone know what the secret key press is to get to the extras?

This morning I had a driving lesson on the motorway! Which was not as scary as I thought it was going to be. My knee didn't appreciate it terribly though. And then this afternoon I did some Rotaract stuff and then I was all dynamic and updated my website. And done some writing, although not my pico project. I haven't even gone near the comm because I already feel guilty. There is plenty of time yet this evening, though. Although it is quite annoying that Midsomer Murders clashes with Torchwood.

It turns out that my parents have two spare kitchen bins in their loft. Apparently because they don't fit in the strangely shaped space they have in the kitchen and dad wanted to keep them because he thought they might be useful for something. It's great that I can have one but that does go a long way towards explaining why they have a loft full of crap. And why I still have my old dressing gown, even though I've had a new one for a week.

I watched Wednesday's episode of The Bill earlier, as it had Sylvester McCoy in it (which my mum completely failed to notice). I thought it was a bit mad when they said his character (Morris Shaw) was Glaswegian but then he did come up with a few words in a Glaswegian accent. It didn't seem to last though. I wonder if whoever wrote Jack's line: "You know more about time than Stephen Hawking" did it deliberately, or it was just a coincidence (the DCI was talking about time inside). No screencap as I wasn't in, so had to tape it on the video and I can't get a decent photo off the telly. He is in the second picture down but wearing the George Bush mask (having just robbed a betting shop - his partner in crime was Tony Blair).

I actually quite enjoyed the episode. The crime parts were quite interesting, the soap parts I didn't care about. And they introduced a new character with a police-related thing about her. So now we know what sort of copper she is and incidentally a bit about her background, rather than the other way round. There seems to be a particularly dodgy between the new ginger super (so glad I knew what his rank tabs meant) and some bird who I can't work out who she is since her rank tabs don't fit into the usual station ones, so I don't know what they mean.

From reading the forum it sounds like this one was unusually good, and since the crime still seemed short enough to fill a half hour episode, I don't think I'll be going back to watching it on a regular basis. But I might watch it when I'm home at Christmas and mum has it on. I was quite excited to see Mickey in the new episode trailer, though.

My new flat is almost definite. The website now has it under offer and it's just waiting for a credit check, which since the only debt I've ever had are my student loans, I know I'll pass. Current plan is to have any essential furniture delivered on the Saturday (which one that ends up being since that's still TBC) and clean, then move in on the Sunday. Then once I've worked out what I need and what I have space for, then organise other furniture.

91.6cm / 155cm (59.1%)

I am moving! I'm going to be renting a one bedroom flat (the advert says maisonette but as far as I can tell that means flat) from about Christmas time. It's going to be great to have my own place and very exciting. And since it's unfurnished, my own furniture too. No more sleeping with ear plugs, or having to take the cat shit out of the bath before I can shower. And I'll get a microwave with a grill so I can make flapjacks. And I'll definitely have to make some chocolate mousse.

It's a bit scary, though, because I already know I don't understand the heating and I'm sure there will be other things that will be a mystery to me. And I'm not looking forward to packing. I definitely need to have a ruthless spring clean as I do so (the charity shops will probably be getting a whole load more stuff - mind you, a couple of them also sell furniture, so they'll be benefiting in more than one way).

There will be a housewarming at some point, probably in January. Although it is a house that is impossible to find - the car park's relatively simple but I couldn't find the house when I went to view it and the estate agent couldn't find it when she went either. Of course, anyone who wants to come and help me move is entirely welcome.

I'm feeling quite bad because I haven't even opened my pico project up for two days, but there's still plenty of time. As long as I'm still not telling myself that come 29th November...

I posted my Sarah Jane Gen Ficathon fic this morning: Home, Again. It's an AU where Sarah goes with the Doctor at the end of School Reunion. It's almost amazing I managed to limit it to 11,000 words!

On the plus side my SG ficathon piece has now made it to v3 and nearly 3000 words, and I'm finally happy with where it's going. And I know where it's going. Ish. But there's still nearly five weeks to go, thank goodness for long deadlines!

The rest of the night has been all about the Sarah-torture. Which is why I realised the SG piece wasn't going so well - it was too happy. I can write happy. I'm sure I have. Although come to think of it, it might be happiness tinged with sadness...

Wow, I've had a shit day at work. Shitter than I was expecting. Specially since it followed me home. And cos I had a programming meeting so I'm feeling all keen to go and do some programming and can't because I'm too busy with other work.

I've also made my wrist hurt again, I'm wondering if it's too much cross stitching, which is really annoying. I need to learn to be left-handed. I can use the mouse left-handed though, which is really handy for keeping my notepad to the right of my keyboard where I can write on it easily.

On the plus side, there should be lots of great stories for the SJ gen ficathon to read tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to spending my evening reading.

I keep thinking that maybe I should just get a completely mad new job. By mad I mean different to everything I've done so far, like, well, I don't know what really. I did think the other day that driving a hearse could be interesting, but since I'm necrophobic I think that would make it far too interesting. I don't know. I really want to go back to fencing but my driving's not just up to it. My wrist certainly isn't at the moment and I'm a bit worried about my knee and whether it'll be able to cope. Not that it'll be much of an option because I'm not going to let it stop me if it ends up being the only thing.