I keep seeing <3 posted on blogs but it looks like it's used to mean love, not less than three. I am entirely confused now. Can anyone tell me what it is that I've missed?

Flickr's RSS feed thing is great. I discovered, while working my way through my feeds that my dad had updated theirs. They went to Monkey World today and took photos of bunnies, specially for me. Which makes me happy. (Doesn't take much, I know)

And now for something completely different, more from Sex Tips for Girls:
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This weekend's been a bit mad. After not making it to a Rotaract dinner on Friday night because of work I was still going to have a Rotaract meeting on Saturday morning. Except that it was cancelled because the other person had to work!

This morning I was happy because I managed to sleep in till 9am. Which doesn't sound like much but I did keep waking up at 8am and it was getting to 7am and earlier, even if I didn't have to get up. I was still in bed when my driving instructor phoned to bring my lesson forward - so it was just as well I stayed late at work Friday instead of going in Sunday morning before my lesson.

Last night I changed my LJ to Plus on the basis that I can't see any adverts. It took me a while originally to work out that it was because the Adblock extension was getting rid of them. So I looked at the new Expression layouts and they're very nice. Apart from the breaking in IE part. And having to change everything with CSS rather than selecting options. Plus I decided when it comes to reading my friends list when I'm away then I like the one I have now just fine. And the tags list doesn't work properly because I have parent and children categories and the only way to find anything by tags is to go to my WP blog and look that way. Not least because there are more posts and they're all categorised.

I managed to spend £13 in a second hand bookshop where most of the books are 80p. It's one of my driving challenges to drive to Hay-on-Wye and shop till I drop (the books). The boot of my car is TARDIS-like so I'll be able to fit plenty in.

One of the books I bought was Sex Tips for Girls - written in 1983 and American. It's written very much tongue-in-cheek but mostly I bought it because it fell open on the section on manners:
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I was anticipating a nice quiet day today with not too much work, after the past couple of days. So I left at about 8.10pm. Hmm. Especially given that I was going out to dinner with the 2009 (or 2008) Conference crew at 7.30. Er, yes. Never mind. I did get myself some Chinese takeaway though, as I wasn't anticipating needing dinner tonight. It was very nice and non-poisonous. And I have half left for tomorrow night.

I can't write any more, my brain's died and my eyes have gone funny. I am not made to deal with long hours and late dinners.

I drove by myself for the first time ever tonight! I went into town to usher at Superman Returns. Although seeing planes, boats and cars crash did not help my anticipation of the return trip. I survived, although I managed to take longer to drive than it took me to walk (mostly due to my parking by the side of the road - it's really hard). The whole thing was really scary and I'm not doing it again until Tuesday. I would say go me but I haven't stopped shaking yet and I've been in for 20 mins.

I've actually seen five episodes of Firefly since I last mentioned it. Not that I can remember the episode titles of most of them but I've just finished the second DVD, so I've seen the first 7 episodes.

So far I like Kaylee, Mal is very like Angel, Jayne really has some masculinity issues (why doesn't he just shorten his name to Jay and not tell anyone what it's short for?).

But, most importantly there was an episode with swordfighting. Okay, so it was television swordfighting rather than actually trying to hit each other but still, you have to take what you can get. Why did no-one tell me there was swordfighting in Firefly? I would have watched it years ago if I'd known.

69.7cm / 155cm (45.0%)

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I may have posted some Sarah/Harry sort-of crack!fic this weekend, namely:
Aliens Made Us Do It (So We Made The Doctor Talk Them Out Of It) and The Path of Irresistible Temptation Does Not Lead to Enlightenment

I went swimming with my sister again yesterday and don't ache too much today - we did stand in the showers in the changing room, stretching, which probably helped I did do some playing about under the water, which I used to love but now seem to be crap at. For some reason all the water goes up my nose and hurts, but I think I am getting better at blowing bubbles through my nose without having to think about it, which is good. And also, the leisure centre is next to an Asda where the petrol is 4p cheaper than here!

Today I did some tin collecting at the Bunkfest, which is a local folk festival. I watched some Morris Dancers, of which there seemed to be many. They got a bt samey after a while. I also watched some dances that seemed to involve putting some long, bendy knives together to make a star. I have no idea what the point of that is at all.

I watched Superman II last night, in preparation for seeing Superman Returns on Thursday. I only got to see Superman last year (I'm a bit behind on this) and was assured that Superman II was better. And it was. Apart from a few things they just didn't seem to think of. Like how Clark was supposed to get back from the North Pole, in the middle of nowhere, when he's lost his powers. Or how come he gets them back - I kept expecting that to be explained but it never seemed to be.

I was good last night and posted my whofest fic: Tango, where the Doctor, Rose and Jack visit Victorian England and regret. Well, except for Jack.

I also signed up for the SG Rare Pairings Ficathon but as the assignments don't go out until 1st October, I don't have to worry about that for a while.

I also realised that the Dream sequel might be solved with Torchwood, which is a good excuse for not finishing it (not that I've started, I'm being good and finishing other things first).

I also moved Firefly up to the top of my amazon rental list. Because it's been around for a while and so many people have seen it, I already knew the names of the characters, it was just a case of putting them to the faces. I'd seen 20 minutes of the first episode (Serenity) before so I was a bit skeptical. But, nonetheless I was determined to watch the whole DVD before I made up my mind.

7 minutes into Serenity I was bored. 20 minutes in I'd lost the will to live (although that wasn't helped by being really confused about where I was with my cross stitch). 35 minutes in, the plot kicked in and it actually started to look interesting. My conclusion by the end was that it was ok but I was still confused. Why do they have a companion on board again?

So then I watched the next one, where they rob a train, and this is the point where I forget episode titles after I've clicked on them. First episodes are generally crap for seeing whether you'd like a series because they bear no relation to what the other episodes are going to be like. This episode, I liked, it was interesting. I was less confused - or when I was I didn't care, there was actually some subtle stuff going on there were actual clues to and Mal didn't sound like Angel half the time. Although Jane seems to be Avon half the time.

In conclusion, I might watch the rest of the series. And the film. It was entertaining enough but I don't yet see what everyone is raving about. And Joss Whedon cannot name his characters for anything. I thought Buffy, Willow, Xander, Rupert were bad enough, but Jane? Jane was half the reason I was determined not to watch this because I can't get over there being a bloke called Jane. Do you think someone could give Joss Whedon a baby naming book and point him to the places where it tells you whether they're male or female names please?

I left work at 6pm yesterday only because I brought something home to do. So today I thought I'd get up an hour early. So the network was down and I didn't get to start until 9.20. Grrr. And it meant I didn't leave until 6.30, but I did finish everything I wanted to get done before I left. Hopefully it'll all be working at 8am tomorrow morning.

Just before I go to check my whofest thing one more time before the deadline's up, a meme from Una and Marta where you link to a story of yours beginning with each letter of the alphabet:
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I'm all yay! at the moment because I just drove to bowling in Oxford and back. I even had quite a good score in the first game, it all fell apart after that. But driving home was the first time in a long time I've driven in the dark - it's quite scary because you can't see very far! And I used the full beams for the first time ever in my life. And only forgot to turn them off once - after being really paranoid about turning them off in time.

And I put Dream up on Teaspoon just before the weekend and got some really nice reviews, so I'm feeling good about that. Although less so about my whofest thing which has to be done by Thursday. I've been really bad at proscrastinating on it and it now needs more work than I really have time for. Which isn't good.

Work, though, looks like being really busy this week. Could have done with it being five days really!

I've had a busy weekend, which is good cos otherwise I'd have just been bored. Saturday and Sunday I spent at Banbury Camping Rally, which is a big Rotaract event I've heard lots of good things about. I only went up for the day but I still really enjoyed myself. It's great to catch up with people from the District and from other districts that I only really get to see at these sorts of things. I have photos that I must put on my computer, although most of them were of the welly wanging competition (or welly wanking as they mistakenly announced it as).

The only thing now is I seem to have ended up with lots of potential things I could be doing in 2007 and 2008. Next year I already have Peg2 and Redemption in February and I've booked for RGBI (National) Conference in May (for my birthday! - anyone who wants to come and help me celebrate is welcome). And there's potentially a District Conference at the beginning of April.

And then EUCO 2007 (European Rotaract Conference) is at the end of April in Milan, which sounds good (I've wanted to go to Italy for ages too) and there's Deben trying to talk me into going skiing in March.

If these were all spread out it would be fine but I'm really not sure I have enough money and holiday time to do all of these. If only it was possible to get paid for doing nothing...

I kept reading today that Pluto is no longer a planet which confused me because I thought they'd alreay decided there would be 12 planets in the solar system (with the addition of Ceres, Charon and Xena). But I must have read something that just said that's what could happen and I liked the idea. So, I reserve the right to have 12 planets in my solar system, rather than 8, so there. *sticks tongue out*

I'm quite tempted by the sg-rarepairings ficathon as it includes all pairings that aren't Sam/Jack, Jack/Daniel, Shep/Weir, McKay/Shep. Which doesn't rule out most Atlantis pairings I'll quite happily read. I know the 11th December deadline looks a long way off but it won't be by the time assignments are out and I'm distracted by something else.

I also had a drive tonight, with my landlady's boyfriend, who was really good to drive with. The roads were quiet, which was good. I was thinking I might just about manage to go round the block but we actually went through town then round it on the bypass and it went okay. So I might well drive to bowling on Tuesday (with a new Rotaract member who is training to be a driving instructor).

I've also been playing with my sat nav. Not only do I have John Cleese's voice on it, but the daleks too. Not that you can really understand their instructions but it works for entertainment value. And Sel, you're right, it can't find your house. It manages your postcode but gives me another road and then refuses to deal with house numbers. So I'll be able to get in the vicinity of your house for Peg2, then there might be some ringing of your house to tell whoever answers John Cleese can't find it

I'm all excited now! I'm off to Banbury this weekend - it's a big Rotaract camping weekend, so I'm going up for the day today and tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Conference bid, so I have been told I have to be there Tonight they are having a big Christmas party - which is their theme. Don't ask.

But it's a bank holiday weekend, yay! Except last one till Christmas Monday I'm going to defrost the fridge, do my monthly backup of the whole computer and clean my room. Wow, don't I live an exciting life.

I am now up-to-date on where BBC4 is up to in The Avengers - at least once The Proms have finished. The one I had missed was a funny Scottish one with Steed in a kilt. And, in fact, most of the men in it in kilts. And lots of bagpipes, which are thankfully a lot quieter on TV than in real life. Although I still don't quite understand what the plot was all about I enjoyed it anyway.

I was good tonight and updated my website. And remembered why I hate putting fics up on ff.net so much. Although it says it accepts quite a few formats it actually refuses to even look at half of them. And the other half it ignores all the formatting on. HTML is the only one I can get to work and then, for no explicable reason, it stripped out all my between scenes symbols. After two goes I gave up. I have better things to do with my life, frankly.

I've also done my wrist in. It wasn't happy a few weeks ago which I realised was probably to do with doing too much Hanjie. Except this morning it got too painful to use the mouse with, so it could be a combination of both. Now I am practising my mouse use with my left hand and handily the tubigrip I bought to protect my skin from my guitar (as I'm allergic to it) fits on my wrist.

Last night while trying to sleep I came up with part of a plot for the Dream a Little Dream sequel. I'd sort of planned doing one anyway because I realised I'd not so much written a hurt/comfort as a comfort/hurt, and while I don't plan on making it all better, I should probably be slightly nice and let the characters recover a little bit.

I've not read anything on the subject but I see from the links in metafandom that it seems to be an issue again, this time about music vids. The issue seems to be that vidders want to be asked before someone links to their vid in a rec. Er, have I missed something or have I misunderstood the nature of the internet?

I can understand that you don't link directly to the vid - I would personally want to read more about it first anyway - and I understand that people might have bandwidth-related issues. But that's only really going to come into affect if a rec is read by a lot of people. OK, so I don't make vids, so I don't really know how many it all works exactly, but chances are, one chance comment on someone's LJ/blog/website is not really going to make that much of a difference.

This all seems to tie into the asking before linking thing. Does the BBC tell people they must ask before linking to them? No, because it would be ludicrous. If someone was to ask me if they could link to my website I would ask them what they were on. Letting me know they have is something else altogether because it's nice to know that sort of thing.

Similarly, if people ask if I mind them friending me. Um, great, but how do I stop you? And if I said no, what's to stop you reading my LJ anyway? Nothing. It's great when people tell me they have because otherwise I have no idea, and I'll friend them back if their LJ looks like it's worth reading. Admittedly, I don't have any friends-lock issues because I don't. If I don't want it on the internet for every Joe Bloggs to read, I don't put it there. My life is simple like that.

So, tell me dear readers (since I imagine you exist), what is it I've missed?

I told dad about Stargate being cancelled and he said, and I quote:

You mean Stargate is ending after onoly 10 series?

Sometimes, he can actually be quite cool.

All I thought when I saw it is, 'yay, Atlantis is continuing' and 'that'll be one less thing to watch'. I see from next week's TV guide that next week is going to be the third week in a row that I watch nothing at all on TV because none of it is worth watching.

OK, this is quite cool, although I have no idea what some of them are supposed to represent (and there are LJ-specific links in there so I had to fiddle so it would work).

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...you finish one thing and try to fill in your timesheet before starting the next.

(Trying to dial 9 before a number is another one I kept doing for a while).

I can see this week is going to be crap, and probably next week too, so I worked through half my lunchtime and left slightly late, with the result that I felt completely brain dead by the time I got home. I was fine once I've eaten dinner.

For some inexplicable reason (except that it's Trillian) Trillian decided to lose my Jabber connections (to Google Talk and LJ Talk). It took me ages to find the LJ Talk instructions, mainly because I couldn't remember what it was called, then it turned out pretty much all I needed to do was tell it my username and password. So I am feeling slightly more connected to the world (although not much because it kept msn, which is where most of my contacts are - which does mostly consist of my parents, mind you).

And I almost forgot about it for the fourth day in a row, but I posed an Epilogue to that long Doctor Who fic: Dream a Little Dream Epilogue.

I should really go and reply to some emails and think about stuff for tomorrow's Rotaract meeting.

I have a car instead. Well, all I've paid for is the insurance and a sat nav. I'm so looking forward to understanding the cost of petrol and the fun of services and MOTs next summer. And trying to understand the lights, the fan thingy, the windscreen wipers (ok, they're simple) and de-icing. To say nothing of cleaning and painting related activities. Why is owning a car so complicated? It's very strange to see dad's car parked outside my house, though, that's not right.

If only I could drive it... I need to convince people to let me take them round the block in it. I did get dad to take me to Tescos before he left, which was just as well because they've moved my milk to the highest shelf possible, then stacked it up. So there was no way I was going to be reaching that.

I hurt from swimming yesterday as well. I discovered just how much my arms ached when I started my driving lesson this morning. Yesterday I just felt really tired and couldn't be bothered with anything. I have got a bit more done today, though. Except when I looked at the clock on my computer and saw it was 21.39. How did that happen? Where did the weekend go and do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?

I went swimming with my sister today. Now I hurt and am completely knackered. The trouble was we were actually there to get fit and I soon discovered that backstroke does that quite nicely - my muscles are obviously more used to breaststroke. In theory this would be a regular thing, if I didn't have quite so busy weekends.

But when I got back I did get to watch the 200th episode of Stargate. (spoilers) Read more...