Since I just added some people to my LJ friends list, since they might decide to read my LJ, I thought I'd write a quick blurb about me.

I wrote a fairly long post about my job a while ago and since that's not the most important thing about me, I won't expand on it further (unless anyone wants me to).

Mostly what I've been talking about recently is moving, since I'm moving house in just under two weeks and it's true that it's one of the most stressful things you can do. The other most important thing in my life is Rotaract, which is a club for 18-30 year olds to have fun and raise money and help the local community. Our club has seven people in it, so we all get involved with everything we do. But I'm also on the district exec and am on the committee that's running the national conference next May. So that keeps me quite busy.

Fandom-wise it's mostly Doctor Who at the moment. I seem to have become known for having a thing about Harry (if the SJA signing was any indication). But I've never quite left (if only because I'm clinging on by my fingernails) Atlantis and Lord of the Rings (with the latter I was known for having a thing about Elrond).

Two years ago I managed to get myself into roleplaying on LJ, where you do get to play fandom major characters, where I play mostly Harry (which surprises everyone, I'm sure) and if you want more of my writing about Harry, his LJ ( shot_my_shoes) is the place to find it. There's also Jo Grant, Ian Chesterton and Teal'c, who is new and scares me. A bit.

A quick note about how I use my LJ. Everything starts from the blog, which is a far better way of finding old posts. I read my LJ friends list by RSS Feed, which I prefer lots and lots and don't know how anyone can read anything on their friends list any other way. In my case friends list is a very big misnomer, it's actually a reading list. I have friends who have LJs who I don't read, for whatever reason, but there is a life outside LJ. And I rarely friends lock stuff anyway.

It's weird - I got so used to being busy at work during the week that the weekend seems so relaxing it's hard to motivate myself to do anything at all. And I definitely have things I should be doing because all I've done towards packing so far is to tidy and bring in the crates from the car.

Yesterday I took my old printer to the tip. I've never been to the tip before, so that was an adventure. Fortunately, it was signposted and wasn't hard to find. I was a bit scared about it because it was off a 60mph road, but fortunately wasn't that busy. I had to ask somewhere where I was supposed to put the printer because I wasn't sure. So having stopped at the household waste part I had to go round to the green waste. I hadn't even got as far as opening the boot when the man came round and took it out and away for me! When I was putting the printer in the car in the first place a man who happened to be walking by asked me if I wanted help. I did have my hair up because I was going swimming afterwards, it must have made me look a lot younger.

Although then I got chatted up in the swimming pool. Well, I exchanged names with the bloke also in the medium lane and then he asked me if I was single. I had to think about it for a while because I was going to automatically tell the truth, but then I decided that was a bad idea and told him I wasn't. And then he went away after that, thank goodness.

I keep meaning to talk about TV stuff. After having seen the first two episodes of Survivors (minus a five minute bit in the middle of the first episode because I thought it was only an hour long and started it a few minutes late), I still can't decide whether I like it or not. I will talk about SJA, but I'll leave that till Monday to annoy hhertzof because I'll be talking about the wrong episode. I won't talk about Spooks, so melliyna can't be tempted, but I will say it's been very good so far. The other week we had a discussion at work at lunch about what was going on in it, and none of us could say

And I finished Lost in Austen - it was very good. But apart from spending the whole thing recognising most of the actors, I also spent most of it wanting to know how Elizabeth was getting on. I was almost tempted to read the book, except in the Making Of documentary they said about how a lot of the characters were quite different to how they were in the book, so now I'm not so sure.

I am so tired. Today I went in to work early, worked through lunch (which mostly consisted of running macros in excel while I was on the phone to BT) and then left late. Everyone in my office is stressed, which doesn't improve the atmosphere in there either.

Time spent on the phone to BT today: 52 minutes (the work phones show the time of your calls on the display)
Progress made: Back to where I was Monday lunchtime
Total number of people spoke to at BT: 7
Number of different pieces of hold music heard: 1, more than once through too

And this is going to be long... Read more...

Time spent on the phone today: 1 hour
Progress made: Backwards
Total number of times called BT: 4
Total number of different stories told by BT: 4

Given that yesterday BT told me that Zen couldn't possibly sort out my broadband until the phone line is in, I called Zen at lunchtime (since you can only ring them between 9am and 5pm on a weekday). They said that was rubbish, to call BT and get a sim code from them.

So I rang BT, they insisted the sim code number was the same as my order number, even though Zen said it wasn't. They also told me Zen wouldn't be able to do anything for 48 hours after the phone line was activated.

Then I rang Zen again who weren't sure about that story, not least because I was confused about what BT told me. But they checked the sim code anyway and told me it was wrong. Moreover, most of the sim codes they get from BT are wrong.

This evening I rang BT (at least you can call them till 8pm) and spoke to someone who told me they can only get a sim code when you put an order in. So they cancelled my order for a new line (that cost £125) and then discovered there's a line in my new address with a different company. Which meant they couldn't do anything, but put me through to someone else.

After lots of hold music I told someone all this and their computer failed to find my new address. But they checked with the post office to see that it was a proper address. They told me that what they need to know is the current phone number there, then they can see if they can change it back to BT. And if they can't, then a new line with a minimum contract of 12 months, but you can have your calls and broadband with someone else (I didn't know you could ever have your calls with someone else) is £125. But a minimum contract of 18 months, with your calls with BT but your broadband with someone else is only £30. I know which one I'd rather have, given that I'd quite like to move never after this.

So now I have to email the estate agent - which I needed to do anyway to send them some stuff and ask them some questions. And we'll see what new thing BT tell me next...

I tried a different tack with BT today - I rang them up and told them exactly the same thing. Now, instead of not wanting to know, they are sorting out putting a line in, since the one there can't be changed back to BT and without a BT line I can't have internet. They tried to sell me broadband as well, but given that they cut my phone off completely twice in two years I don't trust them. And I want to go with Zen.

Last night was our Human Board Games Event and I have the bruises to prove it. Well, not bruises exactly, but my knees really hurt from kneeling down on a hard floor to tape out a 8x8 grid for Snakes and Ladders and Draughts. My legs ache from walking around the Snakes and Ladders board picking up the big dice (although I've seen bigger) and passing it to people. And I have a couple of cuts on the inside of my fourth finger (what everyone else would call their ring finger, but then everyone else counts them wrong too). Those I have no idea how I got.

But I had great fun watching Snakes and Ladders and I got to play a couple of games of Hungry Hippos and one of The Game of Rotaract (loosely based on The Game of Life). Everyone has had great fun too, which was the main thing. Even at the end when there were four of us left on our hands and knees, polishing the floor that we'd cleaned with the masking tape...

Why is nothing ever simple? Since BT require 14 working days notice of moving house and I move in 15 working days, I thought I'd ring them to get that sorted, ring Zen to get my broadband sorted and ring Pipex to tell there where to stick it.

Except that there's already a phone line with a different company at my new place, so BT refuse to do anything! So I'll have to ring the estate agent on Monday, get them to find out when the tenant is stopping their phone line, then ring Zen and BT to find out just how likely it is that I'll have broadband in the new place this side of Christmas.

I'd have gone off moving if my neighbours hadn't decided to wake me up at 7 this morning with their very loud washing machine.

I think DWM is trying to tell me something. Before I went to Canada I decided that when my subscription ran out (in the spring) I won't renew it. Increasingly the magazine annoys me, especially with the space they take up with the comic. I've never worked out how to read comics or understood why the pictures are there, apart from being in the way. And even when I do make the effort to read them I can't remember what's happened in previous parts months before.

They also annoy me by reviewing episodes that have been on telly. The whole point of reviews is to tell you whether to bother buying them, but I've seen all the stuff on TV, so there's no point in reading their review of it. It's just more space being taken up when they could do something with it.

Also, I can get it two days earlier in the shops.

When I got back from Canada there were two packages, each with my name (differently) spelt wrong. Inside one was a The War Machines DVD and inside the other with The Ultimate Adventure on CD, each with a note to say that I won a DWM competition. Now, I enter all of them on the basis that you do win stuff occasionally.

The Ultimate Adventures I got round to listening to today while writing a very will-to-live-sucking database and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The extras with them talking about how the stage play came about and how they adapted it were very interesting. The play itself is a lot like a panto in that the actors clearly aren't taking it seriously, so you have to listen to it in that vein. Plus it has Colin Baker in it, who comes across as just such a nice man.

Then when I got home today I found a parcel propped up against my front door. My postman might wake me up at 7am with the post on Saturdays and then not make it until lunchtime any other day, but at least he has a brain. Anyway, inside was a very cold copy of The Writer's Tale! So I was quite excited about that because I'd been meaning to look at it so see if it was anything I wanted, since it has such good reviews (although it'd have to be very good at £30). But now I have it!

I am so braindead. In my office the only answer from anyone to the question, "How are you?" is "Tired". I'm so glad it's Friday tomorrow.

But this is about my level.

+ stop! what you're doing.
+ print screen of your current desktop
+ if you have last.fm open, print screen
+ if you have a music player open, print screen
+ pick a folder, open it, print screen

Read more...

My Yuletide fic is up to second draft and 2000 words. I ought to have it finished this weekend. It was helped a lot by my neighbours being surprisingly quiet, although not helped at all by work being stupidly busy. Today was one of those days where every time I started to do something I got interrupted by having to do something more urgent. But I got two projects launched and another should go tomorrow so that'll help a lot. Maybe I'll even get a chance to listen to the SJA audios I bought at the weekend.

I've been watching Lost in Austen courtesy of Lovefilm. I didn't watch it when it was on TV, I think it was because it clashed with something else. I liked the idea of modern girl in Pride and Prejudice, I'm just not that excited about the book. I've never actually read it, but I've seen a couple of adaptations. I think. I have a feeling the only part of the Colin Firth one I've seen is the bit where he comes out of the water. But I am liking Lost in Austen, it's interesting. But only half of it was on one DVD, so it'll be a little while before I get the next part, depending on what Lovefilm decide to give me - you never can be sure with them.

I finally managed to get myself out of holiday mode and cleaned the house yesterday. It's hard to motivate myself to do it when I know I'm going to be moving out of it, but I'll be even less motivated when I'm not living in it, and the dirtier it is then, the worse it's going to be to clean. But it does all look so much better now I have cleaned it.

I also finished the book I started while I was away and it felt never-ending. I'm now a third of the way through The Graveyard book. I have two piles of books from the ones I bought in Canada and the Pratchett I finished just before I went. They're just the right size to fit my laptop on in front of the TV, so I can plug the TV into it. Now I've changed the books the two piles are more level too.

I made the mistake, when I got back, of watching all four Spooks episodes, which included the one from BBC3. So although I put it on last Monday because I was too tired to take it in much the first time, it's not the same as watching it new. So now I am back on watching them on Mondays because Monday needs something to look forward to, since I only watch SJA every other week. Suffice to say I enjoyed tonight's, even if I spent most of it wondering where I knew the bad guy from. Turns out it was one of the recent Poirots.

And just to make all the other people doing Yuletide jealous: I have a first draft of mine. At 1200 words I'm doing better than last year where I managed 1006 (but any padding to that one would have been just that, padding). I'm aiming to get it finished by the end of the week and hopefully writing every night will get me back into it and who knows, I might even get round to the requests I asked for back in June that are sitting in my inbox...

PB150218

Originally uploaded by paranoidangel

Look who I met yesterday! Well, first I met cosmic_llin, revolutionaren, carawj in a coffee shop and ladyvivien in the queue. Given that I got there at 11am and wasn't on my own till 5.30pm there was a lot of chatting going on. And a lot of queueing. We joined the queue a bit before 1pm, since the signing was scheduled to start at 1.30pm. It was 3.45pm by the time we got through. it was supposed to finish at 4pm, but judging by the size of the queue behind us, I don't think it did somehow.

Borders is, of course, the world's hottest bookshop. So now my left arm actually hurts from carrying my coat over it for most of the queue. cosmic_llin gave out badges, some people gave out a sample chapter of a book and the official BBC people gave out some wristbands. Which it turns out I'm allergic to.

Daniel Anthony (who plays Clyde), Lis Sladen (who plays Sarah) and Tommy Knight (who plays Luke) were all really nice. The two boys were taking the post-it notes off the stuff to be signed and having a competition over who had the most.

Afterwards he went back to the world's hottest coffee shop. After all that I was quite happily walking around with no coat or jumper on, I was so hot. But it was a good day. It was mostly just good to discuss all manner of things with people who knew what you were talking about.

Edit: I'm quite impressed I can post this from flickr to my blog, which then gets crossposted to my LJ and it can still cope with the lj user code, which is converted using a plugin in WP!

It's Children in Need again, this time a week early, for some inexplicable reason. It's a big event in the town I live in with people collecting money on the streets from 7am to 6pm. Normal street collections are only usually from about 9am till 3pm, but because this is a nationwide thing it means everyone knows it's going on. What's also extra for this one is that we collect from cars stopped at the traffic lights.

This morning I got up at 6.30am when it was still dark to go and run around in the road. Which sounds like a crazy thing to do, but it's good fun. You have to run when the lights turn green and you have to get back to the front by the time it turns red again, so you can get as many cars as possible.

Although some of the interesting parts come later when you compare stories. I had one bloke who told me he didn't believe in it, one who forgot he hadn't wound his window down and hit his hand on it giving me some money, one lady who gave me a bag full and someone who gave a £20 note.

Every year I get hot doing it, so I tried to not overdress. But I got hot just walking to work to dump my stuff and I then I got really hot running around for an hour and a half and nearly ended up just in a long-sleeved shirt and my tabard. Except that my coat would have been a pain to carry, so I left it on. The sun didn't go in until later, so it was lovely and warm.

When I went out to the pub at lunchtime I could see loads of yellow where people were collecting. Although because I know most of them I ended up rationing my change so I could give each of them a bit while I spoke to them.

Have you ever wanted to play chess with real people like on Harry Potter? Well, at Rotaract we're holding an event where you don't get to do that. But you can play the likes of Hungry Hippos and Snakes and Ladders amongst other games.

It's on the evening of Saturday 22nd November and if anyone wants to come it's £6 and my sofa is apparently very comfortable. BYObreakfast.

I'm so excited about Yuletide this year. An eighth of my LJ friendslist are participating and I am excited about my assignment for four reasons, none of which I can give because then it wouldn't be secret any more.

Dear Yuletide Writer

First of all, feel free to ignore anything I've said in the prompts. If you can write any of those then that'll be great, but they're mostly just what I'd most prefer to get. At the end of the day I’d far rather get something well-written than something you’re less happy with but fits in with what I’ve put.

I don't have anything to add specifically about the fandoms I requsted. Generally speaking, I love stories that have an emotional punch in some way. Whether it makes me laugh, cry, be happy, be all gooey inside, be shocked etc. What particularly fascinates me, as you might have gathered from my prompts, are relationships between characters, whether they're romantic or not. I'm quite happy to read about canonical ships, but you can't go wrong with gen. I'd just rather not have any sex above a PG-13 rating.

I did watch last fortnight's episode, even if it was on a laptop in a hotel room in Toronto while doing the washing. And then this fortnight's I watched tonight. So I should talk about them both (even if it's just to annoy Hilary when she's doing tonight's soniclipstick) and spoil them a lot for those who haven't seen them.

Cut for spoilers: Read more...

Yesterday, while driving back from swimming, I suddenly picked my four fandoms to request for Yuletide: Spooks, Quantum Leap, The Hobbit and Merlin. They're not necessarily the four that I'd most like to see, out of all the fandoms listed, but they are the four that I can think of something specific (ish) that I want. There were some that I'd love to see stories in but couldn't even decide which characters I wanted. Although The Hobbit feels a bit like cheating because that way I get Elrond fic. I was surprised to see it in there given that they'd disqualified all fandoms that were part of a larger one. But I'm not complaining. But I am looking forward to reading all the fic at Christmas.

I also wrote a fic! Well, actually I wrote it just before I went to Canada. It's Jo and the Eighth Doctor getting the goodbye they should have had in the Eighth Doctor book, Genocide. I put up a poll ages ago about whether I should crosspost my fanfic blog to LJ. The results came out even, so I decided I'd go with the answer that involved the least amount of work. But, the other day I've temporarily got a paid account to see if I'd use any of the extra features that it has (so far I have, but it has required extra effort, which isn't quite the point). With that I was able to set up an LJ for the RSS Feed for the fanfic blog. Sadly, though, LJ has decided it doesn't like it and won't update. So you can read the fic here instead.

Gluten free bread is a pain. It's dry, it falls apart and it never tastes nice. The best I can say about the bread I eat (which I make myself, from a mix) is that it's the least disgusting one I've ever had. When it's just made and still quite warm it's actually quite nice. But after it's spent some time in the freezer, it really isn't. And you can't not freeze it because it only lasts about three days before going off because it has no preservatives in it.

However, in Ottawa I found a loaf of bread that I would describe as nice. It looks like normal bread, behaves a lot like normal bread (although goes off faster) and tastes almost like the real thing too. I looked up their website and they do deliver to anywhere in the world. However, each loaf costs about £3.50, plus a minimal shipping charge per order, plus £5 airmail shipping per loaf.

Which is annoyingly too expensive to justify. Although I'm almost tempted to ask for some for Christmas because I have enough left for lunch tomorrow (assuming it's not too blue by then) and then I'm back to the old stuff, which I'm really not looking forward to. I quite liked being able to eat lunch without having to read to take my mind off the taste of the food.

None of the online free from places sell this bread, which if it costs that much isn't really a surprise. You'd think someone in this country would come up with a similar recipe, but it seems not. It's like the best soya milk comes from New Zealand, which you can't get in this country (but can in Romania). I don't think there's anything free from we get here that's better than anywhere else.

While watching HIGFNY and watching them make jokes about the Daily Mail, as per usual, I remembered hhertzof telling me, unsurprisingly, that she didn't get some of the things they talked about. And I thought of the bit in Yes, Minister where they explain the different British newspapers:

The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country
The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country
The Times is read by people who actually do run the country
the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country
the Financial Times is read by people who own the country
The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country
The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is
Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits

(there's a clip with this info in it on youtube)

My favourite bit is from Yes, Prime Minister, I think, where Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how market research works:

Humphrey:You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard:Oh...well, I suppose I might be.
Humphrey:"Yes or no?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told her you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one.
Bernard:Is that really what they do?
Humphrey:Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result.
Bernard:How?
Humphrey:"Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:"Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard:Yes
Humphrey:There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample.

(this one you can listen to on this site)

For anyone who doesn't know what Yes, (Prime) Minister is, it's a very clever comedy from the early 80s about Ministers trying to stay sane in the face of civil servants. It's also apparently very true to life on often on BBC7 since most of it is just three men in a room talking, but still manages to be very funny. And if you're not cynical about government before you watch it, you certainly will be by the time you've seen an episode.

As the flu jab clinics at my doctors surgery were while I was away, I had an appointment with a nurse this morning. I got into work, chatted to people about Canada and stuff that had gone on while I was away, discovered I had about 200 emails to go through (of which I needed to read about 2) and then went down to the surgery.

There, their computers had gone down, so it was complete chaos. I didn't help by not knowing the name of the nurse I had an appointment with. It hadn't seemed important to write down at the time (I only knew the time of my appointment because I'd put it in the work calendar). They were writing things down on bits of paper and the nurse gave me an asthma review since I'd had a letter telling me it was due. She was trying to remember the questions the computer would ask her about my asthma and neither of us had any idea if my peak flow was normal.

Even though I'm not that keen on needles I know a flu jab doesn't hurt and I don't have any reactions afterwards. Except that this one did hurt, both when she stuck the needle in my arm and when the stuff went in there. I didn't think much of it, except that just now I leant against the arm of the sofa and my arm hurt. I looked in the mirror and it's bruised. Great.

I thought I'd look up what constituency I'll be in when I move. Turns out it's the same one - I'm not moving far enough away. It's a pain because it's rural and therefore Tory country, and the second place is so split between Labour and Lib Dem that it feels like your vote doesn't count (not that it will ever stop me voting - you could offer me £1 million and I'd still rather vote, thanks to John Major who made it so I was 22 before I could vote in a general election).

On the subject of the US election, I forgot about it when I first got up this morning. Ordinarily my alarm goes off at 8am to the news and I'd have heard it then, but since I'm not going back to work until tomorrow, I didn't wake up until much later. The Guardian has a collection of US election maps that are quite cool (the trick is to remember that the colours are the wrong way round).