I enjoyed it. More specificness and SPOILERS if you haven't seen it behind the more:
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I will talk about tonight's SJA (or, as my PVR called them, 'Sarah Jane Adventures-2' and 'Sarah Jane Adventures-2-2' because I have too much crap sitting on it) when I'm more awake (suffice to say I liked it and I laughed at Mr Smith so much during part 1 that I have no idea what he said - they really need to sack Alexander Armstrong).

But I am going to do the same thing as last year and only watch it every other week so I can watch a whole episode at a time and not half a week. So this is a plea to everyone who talks about it to please warn for spoilers (and by that I mean make it obvious you're talking about SJA, that way I won't read it for a week). Somewhere in the subject/title and/or first line would be a fantastic place - I dislike having to read the first paragraph to work out what you're talking about only to find I now know what the cliffhanger is.

It goes without saying that whenever I do talk about episodes that will spoil it for people who haven't seen it, it won't be hard to spot.

Anyone who violates this and spoils me through no fault of my own will be taken off my friends list. No second chances. I'm that kind of a man girl woman damnit

I've just spent fifteen minutes on the phone to Air Canada. Ten minutes of that was spent trying to convince them that I did in fact have a booking. They constantly asked me for pieces of reference that I didn't have, and when they came up with one I did, they couldn't find me. And then they did, so what their problem was I don't know.

When you book a flight you get to choose one type of meal from the drop-down list, so I chose non-lactose, since that only takes an hour to make me ill. So I asked them if I could have gluten free too to keep it simple, as if I listed everything I couldn't have they'd throw a wobbler no doubt.

But then I spent five minutes trying to convince them that's what I needed, otherwise I wouldn't be able to eat at all. At the end of that time all she could tell me was that I could try and ask them when I check in. Which is really helpful.

When I last flew to America Virgin managed to get me something I could eat from First Class, but there's no guarantee of that, so I'll have to bring enough to eat for the whole flight.

As if flying isn't stressful enough, given that I get travel sick and worry about getting there in time.

I've been promising/threatening for ages to do a post about what I actually do, since it's insanely complicated to describe. As I haven't been there since Friday lunchtime, I'm not feeling too much like 'ugh, work'. I hate talking about work outside of work, it makes me feel like I've never left.
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Thank you to all the people who made suggestions for book swapping websites. I registered on bookmooch and readitswapit.co.uk. At the moment I don't want any more books, because then that'll be more to move. So I put ten on bookmooch and have had requests for three already. So I'll see how that goes and maybe try readitswapit.co.uk later too.

Having taken those ten books out of my to charity bag I can now lift it!

I've been trying to be good recently and go swimming once a week. It fell down a bit when I had a cold and it won't happen while I'm in Canada (but all the walking I'll be doing'll make up for it). Along with that I've been trying to do more lengths each time and more lengths in a row and more lengths in a row of a particular stroke.

Today I got really excited because I suddenly managed to be able to do breaststroke putting my head under the water! Up till now I've managed to do three strokes before it all went wrong, but for some reason it just started working. After a length and a half I get tired and it starts to go wrong. And I don't get up as high as the Olympic swimmers, but I'm still very excited that I managed to do it at all.

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Originally uploaded by paranoidangel

I had this afternoon off. So I went home and painted my two little daleks pink. Which I think is a productive use of my time...

I went to the art shop to buy the paint after lunch (in the pub) and it was handy it was just a little independent shop because it meant I could go in, pull out a dalek and ask for some pink paint that I could use on it. She did try to get me to mix it with white because it was a bright pink, but that was the exact colour I wanted. And it's turned out well. The one on the right does look a bit patchy but that's partly due to my lack of painting ability, partly due to its fiddliness and partly due to the fact that it was black to start with (the other one was gold).

Apart from that, the only other thing I did this afternoon was to phone David Tennant. Well, I rang up for the Children in Need competition and they had David Tennant doing the voice at the other end to say what you needed to say after the tone. So it was nearly the same.

I have a bag of books that's sitting in my room waiting for me to add to it, then I'll take them to the charity shop. Although by charity shop I mean one of the five in town. But I think some of them are a bit unlikely to sell in this town. And I know a lot of people keep talking about book swapping sites, so I thought I'd maybe investigate them since maybe it would lead to me buying fewer books.

So which ones do people use? Bearing in mind I have to be able to swap with people in Britain - I'm not planning on sending any overseas because that'll just be more expensive than buying them.

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Originally uploaded by paranoidangel

It almost feels like there's been constant tennis this summer, what with the French Open, Stella Artois, Wimbledon, Olympics and now the Davis Cup.

I had some overtime to take last week, so I went home to watch Friday's matches. Saturday I went to Wimbledon, today I just lay on the sofa and despaired. Well, towards the end.

The trouble with Davis Cup is that as much as you can admire the tennis the same as at other times, it's just not the same when our guys don't win. And they didn't, which was all depressing. That it went down to the last match helped a bit at least. But in the programme Jamie Murray said that it often hinges on Saturday's doubles match - the team that wins that one goes onto win the tie and he was right in this case.

I've still enjoyed watching the tennis and had a good time at Wimbledon yesterday. It's just that... we lost. And now we're back in Euro-Africa Zone 1 where we can't fail to lose, and then go on to play another World Group qualifying match next year. Then if we get into the World Group we then lose our first match. And so the cycle continues... Until our two doubles specialists improve and the British number 2 has a lot higher ranking (inside the top 100 would be a start).

I've been watching quite a few new things recently.

First I tried Chuck. It confused me no end when it was on because there's a Chuck in Pushing Daisies and that was on at the same time. I kept seeing people talking about Chuck expecting them to be talking about one series and then finding they were actually talking about another.

However, with the aid of lovefilm, and giving them money for extra DVDs, I watched the whole series this month (and a bit of last month - it was quite handy that the time I decided to try it was not long after it came out on DVD). And I really liked it. There are some characters I wouldn't be sad if they were never seen again. But whatsisname who plays Casey does make up for them. (I find it quite amusing that he played a character called Jayne in Firefly and I know a girl called Kacey...)

on more than one occasion put me off watching The Middleman by describing it to me. But then I finally saw someone talk about it in a way that made it sound interesting, so I tried that too. I got two thirds of the way through the first episode before I gave up. It's just not very interesting at all.

Goodness knows why I thought trying Tin Man was a good idea, apart from it coming out on DVD a couple of weeks ago, because I'm not that into The Wizard of Oz to start with. I made it through one hour and 24 minutes: it's just so slow. All of that could have been done in half an hour. I'd go and read the rest of the plot summary somewhere, to save myself the bother of another three hours of that, but ultimately, I'm just not that interested. I'd have tried it sooner if I'd known it was only one series, though. I assumed it was the usual American jobbie of hundreds of episodes over several years.

Then tonight was Merlin. I confused my sister completely today by telling her I was going home to watch Merlin, until I pointed out it was a new TV series. It's the same thing the BBC have done with Robin Hood, with putting a long (13 episode) series into the Saturday night slot to get family viewing figures across the year with Doctor Who. (One more series and they'll be able to do the whole year) I found this one quite interesting, although I was really surprised to see whatshername who plays Gwen in Torchwood in it, doing an English accent. I'm not sure about Merlin and his cockiness and his angst yet, but it does look as if it could be interesting. So I'll be watching that next week. (I think I lasted an episode and a half with Robin Hood).

Talk about the tennis, with photos, will be tomorrow once I've chewed all my fingernails off and I know the result.

Ahoy there! Today be talk like a Pirate Day!

And that subject line is really misleading - it's actually the title of a comedy show I found on Radio 4 yesterday where they get celebrities to try really ordinary things they've never done before. Last night they had Phil Jupitus, who had a Findus Crispy Pancake, foie gras, Pigs Trotters, colonic irrigation, shaved a man's head and read a book by Jane Austen.

So that got me thinking about ordinary things I've never done that most people have. I've never been to Spain or Stratford-Upon-Avon. I've never had pancakes for breakfast, although now I never will. I've never read Watership Down. There's probably more, but I've been thinking about it all day and that's all I could come up with.

In the spirit of the original programme, I'm going to say that by the end of 2009, I am going to have been to Stratford and read Watership Down. Going to Spain being slightly more difficult to achieve.

Edit: I knew there was something else: I've never seen an episode of House. So when I spot an episode on (which could be the tricky bit as they're on Channel 5 and I never read that column of hte TV guide - I'm still not used to be able to watch Channel 5), I'll watch one.

So, the rest of you reading this, what ordinary things have you never tried?

There's a cold & sore throat virus going round our office, so surprise, surprise I have it. Technically I've had it since Saturday, although I wasn't going to admit it then and felt well enough to go swimming. Today I'm constantly blowing my nose, have a headache from it being blocked up and sound all croaky. So at least it's obvious I'm ill.

The only people who've been off work with it are blokes, so it's a point of pride that I haven't. Although annoyingly I am not at tonight's Rotaract meeting.

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Over at one of the RPs I'm in, they had a thing the other day where we wrote some cliched drabbles for various characters. I managed six (well, five and one drabble and a half), so I thought I'd share them here. Read more...

Someone at work today sent round an email from her boyfriend pointing out that what could be that incredibly exciting physics experiment isn't actually going to end the world.

Please tell me there aren't intelligent people in the world that thought it was serious. I might have to go and stick my head in a bucket.

I got up this morning, put the telly on and there was Paralympics. I enjoyed the swimming and now I'm even watching wheelchair basketball, which is far more interesting than normal basketball.

And Andy Murray & Rafa Nadal have to finish their semi-final this evening, hurricane permitting.

So that's me not getting anything done for another week and a half.

I knew today that Andy Murray was through to the semis and Jamie Murray was into the Mixed Doubles final. And he said that maybe he's better at mixed, which is really unhelpful given the number of opportunities he has to play mixed doubles vs doubles. Anyway, his match was due to start at 5.30pm BST. Which is really good timing as that's when I finished work.

So I got home and went to 301 & 302 and there was... no tennis. But there was sports news, so while my computers started up I thought I'd see if there was any news of the score. Andy Murray was mentioned, Jamie Murray might well as not have existed.

As I was hungry I went and put dinner on and turned the radio on. The radio in the kitchen is permanently tuned to Radio 5, purely for Wimbledon but I found their news at 6 is handy to listen to while I cook dinner and try not to die of boredom while I do it. Jamie Murray got mentioned in the headlines.

Turned out it was on 5 Live Sports Extra, so I've been listening to that all evening. It's really strange how different the US Open is to Wimbledon. When the players sit down they have the big screen picking out random people to win a George Foreman grill. They played a final on a Thursday during the day US time, which seems mad. And the commentators end up having to stay up till 3am to commentate on matches! I mean, I do like all day tennis, but there's a limit.

And the strangest thing of all was sudden death at deuce in the doubles matches. Which made that one point so, so important. And utterly pointless, since it was only done for the TV schedules. Keeping the number of deuces in a game is going to make the match shorter, but not by much. And it isn't going to make it any more unpredictable either. Crazy.

But first, a link: http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/007474.html

I spent ages and managed to download an episode of Chuck last week. I remember when it was on in America and I was just confused because there's a character in Pushing Daisies called Chuck. Anyway, it was interesting enough, but impossible to tell what the series is like because the first episode was just setting it up. Lovefilm managed to do something right for a change and sent me the first DVD like I asked them to. So I sat down tonight and watched the next two episodes, then had to switch it off because I ought to go to bed at some point.

Suffice to say, I really like it. The only downside is that the rest of the DVDs have a short wait on them, but then Tin Man comes out on Monday, so I'll see if I can get them to send me that instead.

On the subject of TV, I also watched last night's Mutual Friend. I'm still trying to work out if there's anyone in it I don't know, but I am enjoying it. Mr Smith is never going to be the same after this much Alexander Armstrong.