Ages ago The Guardian had a list of top 100 websites, including various music-listening ones. I like last.fm - it's learning quite well and actually plays a better variety than Pandora did before it stopped. And then I discovered the last.fm website and you can play specific tracks and it tells you which ones you've, which is really useful.

Since then I've been using Spotify, mostly to play albums that I have on CD but can't be bothered to get up and get... But for Christmas I asked my sister for copies of some of her CDs because I know she has some I want, since I heard The Killers at Reading (on the TV, I didn't actually go).

But I tried some others - Jango and Deezer and blip.fm. The first two I did bookmark in case they were useful when I couldn't find a track. The latter I didn't. But today I had an email from it to say someone had friended me on it. How they found me I don't know. So I went in, created a picture and then thought I'd play some music. At which point it all fell down because I can't work out how to do it. The FAQ is more concerned with blipping, which I don't want to do, I just want it to play stuff. It says it's all about creating your own radio station, so I thought I'd give it my loved list from last.fm and Pandora, if I can find where I saved the screencap. But I literally can't work out how to do it. Which doesn't really say much for it, other than I'll stick to last.fm and Spotify - and they don't use up a tab in Firefox.

And my body's still in GMT - I was so tired this morning but awake now, even though I've been used to going to bed at 10pm.

Because I haven't got the energy for anything more substantial.
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Proper update later when I have convinced my stomach it is BST, had dinner and woken up a bit.

1) Comment to this and I will give you 3 characters.
2) Post this meme with your answers.
3) Provide pictures and the names of 3 people.
4) Label which you would marry, shag, and throw off a cliff.

I can't be arsed with the photos, though.

netgirl_y2k gave me Harry Sullivan, Alan Jackson and Jo Grant:

Jo Grant: Cliff. Not that I dislike her, it's just I'm not going to marry or shag a girl, being as I'm "so straight", according to Sel. Plus there's also the irony of Cliff Jones.

Harry Sullivan: Shag. I couldn't marry him, I'd end up throwing him off a cliff. He's very sweet, but he'd drive me mad.

Alan Jackson: Marry. Mostly by elimination, but also because he is cool. The downside is that he comes with the baggage of an ex-wife who's always around and a daughter.

I have a car! Well, I don’t have it exactly, there’s still boring admin and money-type of things to do, but once that’s all sorted, then I’ll have my car in my sticky little mitts. Figuratively speaking, because it’s quite big. It’s a Toyota Yaris, it has exciting things like power steering and a light in the boot, but most importantly, it’s red. Very red. Exactly the right sort of red, whereas Honda do three reds: two are too dark to be of any use and one is quite pinky, which is a horrid colour for a car. Although I did choose the Yaris because I liked it more, not just because it came in a better colour. I mean, I’d have lived with bright blue if I’d had to.

I am definitely still ill - after I’d gone out and chosen a car all I could do was lie around watching All Creatures Great and Small. According to the NHS Direct website it should last for one to three weeks, which was right for the last time I had it. But it’ll be four weeks tomorrow, and the website I found that says it lasts for three to eight weeks is probably more accurate in this case. Which means I could be ill till nearly the end of April. Which I could live with, as long as I knew I’d definitely be better by then. The only good thing is I don’t think I have the variety of labyrinthitis where you’re ill for years because I’m not ill enough.

I am freezing. But then I am only wearing one jumper. I have stupid heating that comes in on or off and as it's so warm during the day I have it off, otherwise I wake up boiling. Because it's still really cold at night, it means it's quite cold in the mornings and evenings, plus my body clock seems to have decided it's BST a bit early.

I'm definitely still ill. I put on a New Who episode and the beginning credits are the worst thing ever. Definitely not recommended if you're dizzy. I have until Wednesday to get better, then I go back to the doctors, who are pretty much incapable of diagnosing anything I can't work out for myself, so I'm not hopeful, but I just want to get better. I want my life back again.

I am going to decide what car I want this weekend, which'll probably knock me out for the weekend with the half hour drive each way. But I definitely need a car that's less effort to drive, because part of the reason I didn't for so long while I was ill was because I didn't have the energy to turn the wheel. The trouble is that they don't make custom cars and what I really want is a Toyota Yaris at the front and a Honda Jazz at the back. And no, I don't want James May to make me one.

I have discovered the source of one of the funny noises my car makes! I currently have four: one is something rattling in the dashboard, one is a squeaking noise when I break, two are squeaking noises when I'm going along. The squeaking noises are all louder with the window open, which hasn't really been improving my drive home in a stuffy car with the sun right in my eyes. But while I was backing my car up after I'd turned it off, by the method of sticking my foot out of the door and giving it a push, as it's on a slight slope, I discovered that when I move the car, it creaks. I'm quite looking forward to owning a quieter car.

I thought I'd try out a DVD in my computer this evening. It took me ages to work out which program it had installed as the DVD playing program and then I found I hate it with a passion. It's rubbish. It takes over so much that you can hardly run any other program at the same time, and it takes the taskbar away so you can't get to any other program (alt+tab refused to work). I couldn't work out how to fast forward in any useful way and there's no right click menu to tell it that actually you want subtitles/commentary. I was looking forward to getting an upgrade from WinDVD, but it turns out WinDVD was the pinnacle of DVD playing programs (and to be fair, I loved it, it's far better than a DVD player). Am I right in thinking it's the free version and PowerDVD is the paid for one that lets you take screenshots? Can I get it somewhere? Can I go back to Windows 98? (actually, since I have it on a virtual machine on this computer, the answer to the last one is yes, technically).

Well, I mentioned it to selenay936 at Redemption and she went "Yes, please". Only using more words.

So I have created a copy of my fanfic blog on LJ at pa_fic. I can't crosspost the old entries without a lot of effort, so the entries got back as far as... today. All the rest of my fanfic is on my fanfic blog. I want to say "I hope you appreciate it because it took me ages" but I can't because that was mostly due to me not reading the instructions and therefore putting the wrong information in the boxes.

I am crap at announcing on here when I've posted something new - I usually just bung it on the relevant LJ comms and relevant archive, but now it doesn't matter. If you want to know when I've posted a new fic you can just follow my fanfic LJ. Which is a community, but that's so I don't have to login to edit any of it. Hopefully it'll email me if someone comments - for some reason LJ seems to have stopped emailing me if someone comments to an entry I've made in a community...

Also, I have changed my default icon for the first time in... two years maybe? I like LJ icons being like avatars, so I change my default rarely and rarely use others. This one is me-specific without being fandom specific and if I was in the habit of using management speak I'd say I'd streamlined my online self, since that's the same avatar I have on Twitter and Facebook. But since I speak proper, I couldn't possibly say that.

I have a writing-related question that's bugged me for a while and only now occurred to me to ask.

Third person omniscient I get is where you have a narrator who knows everything and can get in everyone's heads. I've seen examples, I've read descriptions of what it is on the internet, everything is fine.

Except, what's the difference between writing an omniscient point of view and just switching between points of view in a way that's wrong? I can't find an explanation of this (perhaps because people only give examples of what's right, not what's wrong) and I just don't know how to tell whether something's been written in the correct point of view or not.

Is there anyone who can explain it to me?

My trouble when I'm ill is I tend not to want to talk to people, mostly because I have to be polite and I don't have the energy for that extra thinking. So it's usually better just to shut up and ignore everyone. Which has extended to me not wanting to post in here either, although I do have things I want to blog about.

I am getting better, if slowly (and don't have concussion, which is good after I hit my head on the kitchen side on Thursday night) and this has been marked as unread in my emails for a while:

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given.

tanaquilotr gave me Doctor Who, Elrond, food allergies, Davis Cup, fencing: Read more...

Last night I had nightmares about Conference and driving - two things I can't do much of while I'm still ill. But Boots are ordering me some medicine that'll make me feel better (but not make me better, as it's a virus). The doctor who's not my usual doctor was quite good at liaising directly with Boots to find something I could take that didn't have lactose in, and would therefore make me more ill.

Today I seem to have decided to have some existential angst about my age, even though my birthday's not for another two months. I think it's Miles Vorkorsigan's fault, as I'm re-reading those books and he's thirty where I'm up to at the moment.

I'm still not better - the labyrinthitis is lingering. Which is annoying. It's meant I've been getting the bus to work (I drove to Tesco this morning, five minutes drive away, and that was such hard work I'm not doing again anytime soon). And it's meant that I can only get to a small number of the things I should be doing. And I was just about caught up on everything too. It's almost like there's a conspiracy to stop me getting anything done this year.