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I thought this last week would be quite quiet, I'd get lots of things done... I don't know why I thought that. It didn't help that I kept waking up at 6am - except on Friday when I woke up at 5am. Monday it snowed during the day, and I was sick of waiting in the freezing cold for a freezing cold bus and getting home half an hour later than I would have if I'd driven, so I drove to work on Monday. I contemplated leaving my car at work, but decided to drive home. It was the scariest thing I'd ever done - not helped by two police cars and two ambulances going past me in the opposite direction with their blue lights flashing. They couldn't go above 20mph the same as the rest of us, though, so the blue flashing lights didn't exactly do them much good.

But now I know what it's like, I won't be driving in the snow again. But I'd only ever seen it snow and settle during the day once before, so I assumed it was a freak event and it would just go back to snowing in the night again. But I also live further North than I grew up, and there it snows every year, which I find utterly ridiculous weather, but moving back South would mean I was living far from anywhere, so I supposed I'm stuck with it. If the Gulf Stream ever goes away, we're seriously buggered.

On the plus side, I have a week off work and it is now Boxing Day, which is miles better than Christmas Day. Except that for some strange reason all the good TV is on on New Years Day.

And I have a Yuletide fic! The site's really slow, so it's best visited in the mornings before the Americans get up, but it's a Quantum Leap fic: Returning Home and Meeting Memories for the First Time. Reading through the rest of the archive is taking time, not just because of the slowness, but also because I find the contrast between the text and the background gives me a headache. But fortunately, the other week I came across a site called Readability, where you can decide what you want the page to look like, then create a bookmarklet. So all I have to do, once the fic is loaded, is press on the bookmark, then hey, presto, I can read it! And to think that when I found it I never thought it would be useful...

Which I've been meaning to write for the past week...
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From today's advent calendar at The Sarah Jane Smith Wardrobe Appreciation Society
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Now that we've had ten (ish, since two of them were stuck together) episodes of Stargate Universe, I thought I'd demonstrate just how crap I am at working out people's names in TV programmes. Although, it has to be said the Confidential-type programme after the first (two) episode(s) helped a lot.

There might be spoilers below for the episodes that have been shown. Read more...

I am so busy at the moment, it's crazy. Yesterday at work was terrible - I worked straight through lunch and didn't leave till late. Today I didn't think it would be quite so busy. I did get a lunch break, but didn't quite manage to start on today's work until 4pm and then left late. Tomorrow I have so much to do I can't see how I'm going to start on tomorrow's work. Then I'm off on Friday and Monday and going to the Balance Clinic on Tuesday afternoon. Which means the only way I can get tomorrow's work done in time is going to be to do it at the weekend, I think. Everyone else is busy at work too. The only good thing is that at least there are only two weeks left after this one.

I'm still catching up with stuff I need to do at home after spending my week off ill. I got really anxious about Yuletide and wrote the first draft while I had a really bad cold and felt awful. Which is something I've learnt to do from being ill for so long, it's just something I'd rather not do until I have to. And then I had to work hard to get it into something vaguely readable. Tonight I managed v3 - of 5500 words! I should just have to read it through a couple more times, then it can go to beta. Which is good because I need to get it out of the way so I can do betaing, treats and my TR secret santa. And maybe catch up on my viewing.

This would be me not working on Yuletide, but it's all ISIHAC's fault. They mentioned the rhyme, I remembered it from Brownies, I had to look it up and it all went downhill from there. There were various funny songs I remember from Brownies, usually based on another song, or just using the tune. Here are a selection: Read more...

44.96 / 50kg (90%)

There were all these things I was going to do with my week off (apart from watch/listen to a lot of tennis). I knew I'd be fine because I'd get a lot of sleep and wouldn't have to do much.

At least, that was the theory. In practise yesterday's random asthma has turned into a cold and sore throat. I don't have a blocked up nose, but the rest of me feels bad enough to make up for it.

So everything will have to be wait and I'm just hoping I'll feel well enough to go to Collectormania on Saturday, not least because I've paid for some bits of it already. I really wish I was the sort of person that sleeps when they're ill, because at least then I wouldn't feel like this.

My week off means posting more often, now that I have nothing better to do apart from watch tennis. And do all the other things I need to get done this week (Yuletide, Ch secret santa, baking, Rotaract stuff...).

I got to thinking last night about how people use their journals/blogs mostly because I keep coming across people who use it completely different to me.

Personally, I post everything in my blog (which is so much better to post to than the LJ/DW interface) and have a plug-in that crossposts to Livejournal and Dreamwidth, so people who want to read on those sites rather than by RSS feed can do so. On the extremely rare occasion I post something I don't want the whole world to see (which is usually a rant about something/something specific and I don't want them to happen upon it), then I password protect it on my blog and friends lock it on my LJ and DW. Anyone can ask for the password and if you look back in my blog carefully enough (or use the search, it's pretty good) you can find the password.

When it comes to reading, I read everything, no matter what site it's on, by RSS Feed. It means I don't see LJ cuts and I can mark things as unread if I haven't got time to read them at the moment. Or I can mark things as read without reading them if I know I'm not interested or know I'm not going to get time to read. I also don't have to try and remember where I got to, like you do on the LJ friends page.

My LJ friends list is a copy of all the people I'm reading by RSS Feed. If I stop reading I take them off and if I start reading I add them on. I never use filters because I personally feel like that's lying to people about whether you're reading them or not. I sort of expect other people to do the same thing - so if they have me friended then they're reading me, and it annoys me when they defriend me the minute I defriend them - it feels as if they're too much of a coward to take me off their list before I do.

Dreamwidth is a bit different because on that one I allow access to everyone that has friended me on LJ but i haven't friended back. That way they can see my friends entries, but I'm not reading their journal, and they know I'm not. I am subscribed to a few people on DW that I'm not on LJ because they're the ones I'm occasionally interested in reading and I read my DW list on the site every few days ish. Course, that system falls down rather a lot because a lot of people have accounts at DW but aren't posting there.

To conclude: My LJ friends list is nothing more than a reading list and the word friend is a misnomer.

So, how do you use yours?*

*I know it's not Easter, but I haven't had a Cadbury's Creme Egg since 2004 and I don't watch adverts

It's that time of year again... Well, it's a new time of year. This is the first year the ATP tour final (formerly known as the Masters series final) has been held in London. So, we went yesterday afternoon. As a result I feel terrible today while not lying down, but I have the week off, and anyway, it was worth it.

We saw Nestor and Zimonjic play a Polish pair I've never heard of, can't spell and certainly can't pronounce. They're ranked 8, so they're the lowest ranked pair in there. It was a bit odd because they played a variation, so when it got to deuce whoever won the next point won. And if they won a set each they'd play a tie-break, but to 10 points. It made it very quick, but it felt like it all turned on those deuce points because the Polish pair broke once per set on those points. But it was a good match and now I'm reduced to seeing the rest of the doubles matches online.

We had half an hour's break after that and then there were a lot fewer empty seats for Murray's match. This was back to usual point scoring and because they spend a lot more time than the doubles per point, made it seem really slow. The doubles match was an hour long, this one was two and a half. But it was a battle and Del Potro played well, apart from in the middle of the first set and towards the end of the third. That was a good match too, but we really wanted it to end because the seats just go so uncomfortable after sitting in them for the best part of five hours, I was really dizzy and it was really hot in there, which didn't help.

But we had a good view, even though we were near the back. People at work were trying to tell me we wouldn't be able to see a thing, but it was no different from being at the back of Centre Court.

And there are photos, some of which are a bit blurry because they're all taken with the flash off and the lighting was terrible (really bright on the court and we couldn't see a thing, which made eating lunch interesting).

I keep meaning to update more often but I'm just so unmotivated by everything at the moment. I think all that time reading and watching videos and not doing a lot else and I've got used to it. But there isn't nothing on tonight (I'm most upset that The Bill's off for Celebrity nonsense), so I am determined to do something constructive with my evening.

In Yuletide news I am currently reviewing the source material in the hopes that I might manage a plot at the end of it. I'm quite excited about what I'm writing and it helps that my recipient likes a lot of the same things that I do. I'm hoping that writing that will help remind me about the whole doing something constructive thing.

It's Children in Need tomorrow, so it's guaranteed to rain, since it's not that cold. Normally I'd be running around in the road with a bucket before work, but I'm not well enough to do that, so I am counting money after work instead. I don't think I can quite cope with the idea of not doing something for Children in Need any more.

I'm having a week off work next week, which I will mostly be spending listening to the tennis, since the BBC aren't showing much. I was very excited by a twitter post of Andy Murray's today because he revealed that he's playing Sunday afternoon and that's when I'm going. We're further back than we were for the gymnastics, so expect pictures of ant-sized people.

I am most distressed my today's paper when they announced they are discontinuing the Technology section in the Guardian. I liked it best when it was the Online section with the Science section inside, but it's still been worth buying the paper once a week for it. Without it there'll be no reason to buy the paper any more - and I don't like reading the paper online, it's not the same. These days I tend to get my news from Radio 5 on the way home from work.

I've been wanting to write about this for ages, but wanted to wait until I had the complete story first.

Back in January, once I'd settled in, I remembered that the last time I moved the water company insisted on installing a water meter, on the basis that I'd just moved in. I didn't get as far as ringing them up about it before they sent me a letter. So that was all good because it costs a whole lot less to have a water meter.

So a man came round, handily the day I had off before I went to Redemption. He told me there was already a meter there, it just needed connecting. It all went a bit downhill from there... Read 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 you're proud of than something you’re less happy with but fits in with what I’ve put down. Feel free to add in any other characters you like to these prompts - as long as the one(s) I've requested are in there, you can bring in to the story whoever else you like. There aren't any characters in these fandoms that I dislike.

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 don't mind whether you write something shippy or gen for any of the prompts, so long as you stick to canonical ships. I’d just rather not have any sex above a PG-13 rating.

If you're writing for one of the British TV show prompts and you're not British, then please get your fic Brit-picked. There's nothing likely to annoy me more than characters being out of character because they're speaking American English when they should be speaking British English.

If you want to do more research then my fic recs can be found at this site. There are recs from a few people on there, mine are the ones that say they are recced by Paranoidangel.

Just a few notes about the prompts: Read more...

I had an MRI on Monday, which I've been meaning to write about all week, but it's been a bitch of a week. So have a review of my week, including what it's like to have an MRI (when you're dizzy). Read more...

This is really hacking me off now and I can't find the answer, only lots of people complaining that you can't turn Gmail's threading off.

I have random emails that aren't being threaded at all. And other random ones that only thread if I keep the previous emails unread. Sometimes. This is in my RPG account, so most of the emails I have are LJ notifications. None of the non-LJ emails I get have this problem, but there are so few of them it's hard to be sure.

I haven't had this at all in the nearly two years I've had this Gmail account and I can't even work out a pattern of why it's happening. Someone please tell me they've got the same problem and it's not just me? Or someone tell me they know the solution, which would be even better. It's just really driving me round the bend.

Gmail's help tells me that sometimes it doesn't thread emails properly, which is basically a catch-all for anything that might have buggered up so they don't have to deal with it.

I didn't have anything on this weekend and I didn't have to go anywhere, so I thought I'd get a few things done, housework and writing and so on. Well, I managed the first. I thought I was doing well for getting all my washing done, until I thought "that's making a bit more of a watery noise than usual", opened the kitchen door and found water on the floor. Which is just what you want from your washing machine. It was just the waste water pipe from the washing machine that had come out of the pipe that takes it to the drain, so it was at least easily fixed.

Recently I discovered Pidgin, which is the messenger program I use on my netbook, doesn't belief AIM exists any more. Since I was awake annoyingly early this morning I thought I'd get up and see if anyone was in any of the RPG related chats. Which they weren't, but I discovered that Trillian in your browser doesn't do chat. After lots of searching on the forums I uninstalled Pidgin then reinstalled it. At which point it refused to open. But I did discover why it refused to open links in Firefox and just did nothing. In the end I installed Kopete, which I've decided I like far more than Pidgin anyway, but not as much as Astra.

Just because it seems to be that sort of weekend, the netbook keeps randomly disconnecting from the network (it just seems to be a common bug with it, which is unhelpful, but at least I know how to get it back on without restarting). And I watched a DVD using my computer as a DVD player and the wireless keyboard as a remote and twice the computer decided that every keystroke was actually me right clicking and wouldn't acknowledge me left clicking. Why it decided it didn't like the wireless keyboard today when it's been fine up till now, I don't know.

On the plus side, since Azureus kept disconnecting my computer from the internet (which also seems to be a common problem with Vista) and there's something clearly not right with it, I thought I'd install μTorrent, which seems to work perfectly and looks pretty much the same.

So that was my weekend of trials and tribulations. Next week I have an MRI, a flu jab and a trip to the dentist and the week after is a trip to the balance clinic. So it'll all be a bit medical.

This post contains spoilers for the latest SJA episode, but nothing else.
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I am very behind in talking about SJA, not surprisingly given that I was at the gymnastics when the first one was broadcast and my copies of the audios had only just turned up that day.

There are going to be spoilers here for Prisoner of the Judoon, The Mad Woman in the Attic, The White Wolf and The Shadow People in that order.
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Last week I went to a quiz and one of the questions was who was Superintendent in The Bill. I was amazed to find it was Jack Meadows, although less so when I found out he took over when they went to once a week because I don't think they'll have got to those episodes in Australia yet.

So I thought I'd watch an episode.

I quite enjoyed it, although I was struggling not to fall asleep halfway through, but I think that was mostly due to me being tired. It was, amazingly, all crime. I can't tell you anything about the personal lives of a single person in it and neither was the case uncannily like something that had happened to one of the coppers. Mum told me it would be like that but I didn't believe her - I thought she was exaggerating! The only trouble was that it felt like a half hour episode that was stretched out to 50 minutes (I presume that's how long it is without adverts since they have so many these days and they're so long).

I had remembered that they'd said at the time that they were getting rid of the music, but I had thought they were replacing it. No. I still miss the days of the pullover, but at least the intro was short, even if it wasn't at the start (I hate the way British programmes are doing that - it gives you less time to sit down and get yourself sorted before it starts). I don't quite know why they felt the need to show shots of London where Sun Hull isn't even vaguely close to. I was a bit paranoid that they'd suddenly moved it to a part of London where they could show the well known landmarks, but they haven't, so I'm relieved.

My netbook was a big help because I could look up people on thebill.com and work out their names as it went along. Well, I didn't need to look up Jack, Dodgy DI, Smithy or Roger. I just need to see an episode with Terry and Twiglet in and I'll have the set.

I wondered what they'd done with the DCI's office now that they don't have one. My question was answered when they showed various parts of the station and the only part I recognised was reception. They had a room with coloured tiles on the floor and flatscreen monitors on the wall! Admittedly the last episode of The Bill I watched was from 1985, but I only stopped a few years ago and it's moved on a lot from then. Their radios look a lot like my first mobile phone, which confused me at first.

I disliked the incidental music, which I knew was going to be there. It was only in a couple of places but I felt like they were trying to make me feel sympathy, which I already did, but I didn't need it hammered into me with the background notes that made it hard to hear what they were saying.

Overall, I think I'll watch some more. There's been a bit lack of crime drama in my viewing schedule recently, although I really ought to get some Old Bill on DVD.

In other crime related news, the episode of Midsomer Murders that's on next Wednesday had some scenes filmed outside my office featuring Jesse Birdsall dressed as Neptune(?) who had a dinghy covered in fish and lobster etc. Although my TV guide answers the question that bugged us as to what on earth was going on.