This weekend I was watching some of the publicity The Bill actors did the morning the last episode was shown. By publicity I mean appearing on things like GMTV. But they mentioned that Sean Bean was in episode 4 (back in 1984). It just so happens that I have that one on DVD and thought some of my friends list might be interested. So I have some screencaps. Read more...

It's been that sort of few days. Life was much simpler when it consisted of working out what toy the cat was going to play with that involved him doing more work than me.

In a couple of weeks time I'm going to the first wedding that's not an aunt's. Or I thought I was, it turns out I went to one when I was a baby. Funnily enough I don't remember that. So this'll be my fifth wedding. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends, but I don't really like weddings much. They're just overly sappy, and this one's in a church, just to make it worse.

Friday I booked to go and see the SJA preview screening, which will be good, but I'm going on my own. So then I spent a while wondering why I only have friends who like the same things as me but live too far away to do them, or don't have enough money to do them, or friends who live nearby but have no interest in the same things. Until I remembered that this is all ridiculous and having a good time doesn't require someone else to be there to have it with. Sometimes having someone else there is a hindrance. And when it comes to going to the theatre you can't talk during it anyway and I'm perfectly capable of reading a book before it starts.

So then we came to Saturday and I went to Rotary's Last Night of the Proms. This year they had a quartet play various things, then we sang some patriotic songs and waved flags. It was good. Specially as I won a £30 voucher for a really good Chinese near here. But I ended up the only Rotaractor there. I did know other people and I did talk to other people, but they all came with their other halves (the modal age was probably about 60).

And then I came home to an email from my (younger) sister to tell me she'd got engaged. Which is not unreasonable given that they've been going out forever (actually forever as well, not just my idea of going out forever which equals more than a couple of months). And given that I keep getting his name confused with that of her previous boyfriend, it's just as well that there won't be any other names to remember. At least she won't be getting married in a church, but I will only know various annoying relatives. Assuming she can't get away with not inviting them.

So suddenly it feels like the whole world has boyfriends or girlfriends and I'm strange for not having one and not wanting one either. Plus I only fancy arseholes, which isn't a help. I have to remember that actually, it's all these other people that are strange and most of my friends are single.

I'm having a month of getting things done at the moment. Today I've been going through my shelves and drawers, getting rid of things. I clearly haven't gone through them for a while, because I'm sure I don't need water bills and car insurance details for two houses ago. I've filled up a bin bag and a recycling bag and have a big pile of stuff to sell, charity or bin. Which would be a bigger pile if I didn't keep taking stuff off it and putting it back on my shelves.

On Monday evening I updated the plugins on my blogs, most of that time was spent trying to work out why OpenID didn't work. Eventually I discovered that it does work, it's just LJ it doesn't work with. But I can now choose my icons for this post on LJ and DW without leaving WP. If I just remember, as long as I remember to do it.

Today I've done so much that I'm completely worn out (although that's not helped by my neighbours waking me up at 7.30am by talking for ages). So I intend now to do nothing that requires getting up for another hour, at which point I have to go out anyway.

This afternoon we sat down to listen to the tennis we taped last night... and discovered it had rained in New York so they hadn't played. So now we need to listen to it tonight and tomorrow instead (depending on when they finish and if it rains).

So with the afternoon I suddenly had free, I re-did my LJ layout. It's less red, although I think it looks more red. It's all a bit academic anyway because the only people who will ever see it are people looking at my actual LJ, and me when I come across an unreadable one.

I also discovered the layout I have for Dreamwidth now has a sidebar on the left variant, which I've wanted ever since the layout existed. So now I have that. It's also red, suffice to say.

Since people are suddenly talking about Dreamwidth, I'll mention where I am. I write my posts in my blog, which automatically cross-posts them into my LJ: paranoidangel42 and my DW journal: paranoidangel. You're welcome to read or post in any of those three, I don't mind. But if you're reading by RSS then I would read the blog's RSS (or Atom) feed because it has more useful stuff in it.

Since I read by RSS, I don't care whether I read people's LJ or DW - unless one of them doesn't allow me to see full posts. So if anyone is crossposting to both and would prefer me to comment in one, then I can just change my link and I'll never notice the difference.

I've been meaning to post for days but have been distracted by too little sleep and a kitten. These things are mostly related.

I'm having a week's holiday from work at my parents with the new kitten. Who is mad. He was scared of me at first, but this morning, just after I'd caught up on my sleep and then stayed up late listening to the tennis, he wanted to play with me at 7am. Whereas I wanted to sleep... But I have been putting up photos of him on flickr. Basically, he's small, sweet, talkative and a complete pest. Whatever's going on, he wants to be in.

In between playing with the kitten I have read the latest Discworld book, I Shall Wear Midnight, which was good. And I've been reading lots of LOTR fic. Well, lots of Elrond fic, to be specific. I'm on the MEFA nominees that haven't been self-nominated now. I intend to write some reviews, but then I intended that the first year they ran and I still haven't written any...

At some point I will write some fic. But I looked through my archive and I have written a lot of drabbles. So I really want to write stuff that isn't drabbles. And I've decided to take this month off to do other stuff, like go through my bookshelves and get rid of some rubbish because I know the telephone manual is there, I just can't find it. And play some games - I've played a bit of The Fellowship of the Ring the Lego Harry Potter so far. I like that the former is third person but has a first person option. The latter is a bit of a pain because it doesn't recognise the mouse, and I'm used to using it to move with.

I like elections - I think of them like birthday presents.

When I got home today there was an electoral roll letter on my doormat. Well, in fact it had missed the doormat and was just lying in the hall, but that's not the point. I opened it, thought, "I suppose I just put this in the envelope and post it" when I looked closer to check. I discovered that if you don't want to change anything you can text them (which I didn't do because it didn't say if it costed, plus texting takes me forever) or you can call them, free. You just dial, press some numbers and that's it.

To be fair, it could have been like that for a while, but I've always had to change it. But I was quite excited about confirming I want to vote by phone. Of course now I have a form I don't know what to do with. I suppose to be on the safe side I should take it into work and shred it (as I'm too cheap to buy my own shredder).