I feel like I've done nothing this week and still not had any time left. And since I haven't written much in here this week, I thought I'd talk about what I've been up to this week.

Tuesday we had a film night, which I must write up for the Wallingford Rotaract blog. One of our members has a widescreen TV with surround sound, and as they got me 2001 on DVD at the end of my year as president, it seemed like a good place to watch it. The problem is convincing the rest of the members that! In the end we watched Galaxy Quest. Of the five of us there, one hadn't seen it, the rest of us had but were happy to watch it again. It just never gets less funny, and every time I watch it I spot more things that are based off other sci-fi and other things I've missed. It's such a good film.

I also wrote 25 drabbles in four days, which is a hard way to write 2500 words. Although it helped that work wasn't that busy at the start of this week. I also wrote 25 different characters, which wasn't how I planned it to start with, but I quite enjoyed writing characters I'd never written before. I also really enjoyed writing LOTR again. I'd forgotten how much canon I'd forgotten as well. I've actually been catching up on my LOTR reading now, and reading the Atlantis in between for a break. A lot of the stuff I've been catching up on is quite intense, so a bit of crack!fic is always good for a change. I'd also forgotten how much I liked writing drabbles, so I will have to make more of an effort to write some more - I have some ideas on that front.

I've been trying to get through my Bugs DVDs too. The one I watched last night was the first to feature a future The Bill regular as a guest star, in this case Terry, although he only had two lines.

On a similar note, this weeks The Avengers had Peter Cushing in it. Despite some really ridiculous plot holes it was still an enjoyable episode. The one thing that got me was Emma Peel referring to her bag as her purse. I know, from surfing round, that the only reason these got made was because they were able to sell them to America in advance. I still don't think that excuses the Americanisms though, especially when they go to so much trouble to make it very British.

I've been listening to the podcasts Wil Wheaton's been doing this week. They've been surprisingly listenable. I say surprisingly because often I can only take so much of constant American accents, depending on the accent. The ten minute ones I've barely noticed, but today's (technically yesterday's) was 73 minutes. I did have to stop near the end to watch My Family (just started watching it after only previously seeing bits - it's very funny) but I think it only got grating after that, and I had reminded myself what no accent at all sounds like (relatively speaking, of course.

At some point, when I get round to it, I want to write up the character-related post that's been going round my head. I also need to talk about LOTR for b2mem. But World Rotaract Week starts on Sunday, so I'll be blogging about what we're going to be up to, and talking lots about Rotaract. Really, you'll be sick of it. Unless you're 18-30, in which case you should be joining it. If I get to it between breakfasts on Sunday I'll tell you why, otherwise it'll probably be Monday.

I spent the weekend (ok, well, some of it) updating my website. I now have a contact form that works and I ended up with a ton of music videos to rec on there. I also reorganised my fanfiction page, so its actually grouped by fandom now! Plus I went through my drabbles and indexed them at the top of the relevant pages. As I was going through all of this I kept finding other, little, things I wanted to change. I've been thinking for a while that I want to go through and tweek some of the back-end stuff, perhaps I should actually get round to it.

Just after I uploaded it, I posted a new fic to Langford U - Divide and Subtract, which is a Sheppard and McKay friendship piece. I'm tempted to do some more with those two because they're so fun (although it was so tempting to go slashy!) and work my way through the rest of BODMAS (brackets of division multiplication addition subtraction = the order you evaluate an equation in, and is actually useful in my job!)

I really enjoyed Life on Mars on Monday. The DCI is so much like Burnside. I feel when he told Sam he had asked to transfer there that was important to the mystery of how he got to 1973 in the first place, although I have no idea how. I notice that, like Spooks, they've gone for the American style of starting with a bit of excitement before starting properly and telling us the names of the actors and giving us some pretty pictures. Which annoys me because it means you actually have to be ready at 9 o'clock, rather than just thinking about it. Unlike Spooks, though, they have actually kept the credits in and saved the trailer for next week till afterwards. The BBC are seriously pushing it, though - there was even a trailer for it before Doctor Who on BBC7 (which was the last one *sob*)

Last night we went to see Brokeback Mountain, which was very good and I really enjoyed. The only downside, apart from the 70s sideburns and that terrible moustache, was I couldn't always understand the Southern accents and as a result I have no idea of most of the characters names.

From the A people on my friends list - annmarwalk, avon and altariel - I am going to read my height in books this year. Because it is a good idea, and also because I'm only 5 foot 1 - which is 155cm in books, so shouldn't be too difficult.

And just to finish off, as I asked Una one of these:
Top 5 Meme: You post a topic, list, category, whatever, in my comments section (examples: "Top 5 Johns & Jacks on TV" or "Top 5 pairings in Atlantis"). Then, in a separate post, I'll post the answers to all your Top 5 ideas, according to me.

The day before the first night of Chanukah always seems to drag. We got there in the end though, but not before discovering my parents have four boxes of candles squirreled away in the cupboard, and not one as they first thought. Although one of them is white.

The usual fun ensued when lighting the candles, when mum suddenly popped up on messenger on dad's computer when he was in the middle of a prayer at the time. Then mum and my sister mainly spent the song laughing. Me and dad were doing a good impression of two people playing the same song entirely separately. He wanted to go quick, I didn't let him. At one point we were a whole note out, which certainly sounded interesting.

I got my dad The Uxbridge English Dictionary, which turned out to be good because he said only a few days ago that dictionary definitions was his favourite ISIHAC round (mine too). I got socks (which I needed but couldn't be bothered to shop for), Peacekeeper Wars on DVD (for when I next watch Stargate), another two cross stitches (I think I still have three to do apart from them), a little Hutch (from Wallace and Gromit) and four Lois McMaster Bujold books - one I haven't got to yet, the others I've read but do include the first two, which I like best.

Doctor Who was excellent. We listened to the commentary track this morning, which was also interesting. Dad got the Hitchhiker's reference before the Doctor mentioned it, my sister got the Lion King speech before the Doctor pointed it out. There were also definitely Star Wars and Independence Day bits in there. It was nice to see a big alien spaceship over London for a change and not The White House! And I did like Harriet Jones effectively telling the US President where to stick it.

Basically, I entirely agree with the review in The Guardian, and the Doctor is brillian when he wakes up and does his stuff. I'm really looking forward to the new series in the spring (as well as series 3 and the Christmas special next year, and Torchwood).

We've just got back from Narnia, which I really enjoyed. Peter's sword was absolutely beautiful - not quite up to Anduril's standard but that is quite difficult. I remembered nothing about Narnia except that it's at the back of a wardrobe, although my sister remembered more and told us over lunch. Some of it vaguely comes back to me now.

Just before the battle when Peter is riding up to the others me and mum were both wondering whether the unicorn's horn was stuck on or CGI'ed later. Which was probably not what we were supposed to be thinking at that moment!

It comes to something that 11 o'clock is a late night these days, and 10 o'clock is more usual. It feels like Sunday today, as I had Friday off. I saw Wallace & Gromit, which was very funny. And had bunnies in it, which were very sweet. I also found Lois McMaster Bujold's Falling Free in Borders, yay! Borders are doing £5 off vouchers if you spend £20 in the first two weeks of November, which really, really tempting.

I think my dad's addicted to QuizCall. He messaged me to tell me they had a matches game on. My digital TV is up and working and I watched Atlantis on it last night. Which isn't nearly as funny as watching it on my parents slightly crappy temporary TV which cuts off the edges, so you're actually watching Stargate Tlanti according to the credits. Starring some bloke called Vid Wlet.

I was good today and did some writing. I'm technically on the second version of my Five Things fic, although I've rewritten Jack/Daniel and McKay/Sheppard a bit. So today I completely rewrote Sheppard/Weir. Hmm. Could take a while. I also discovered a whole section on Wraithbait that it would actually fit it, which is quite cool.

Good

Payrise! Well, technically promotion but the only difference is the nice big payrise. Which needless to say, I've already spent. Dad had me addicted to QuizCall this weekend, so now I have bought a Freeview TV card, which is the size of a pen drive. So as of this weekend I will have three TVs....

I've read Thud! It was good, I enjoyed it. Specially Vimes's Gooseberry.

I've got Friday off, so am going to see Wallace and Gromit. I know it must be good because The Guardian likes it (they don't like anything).

Mum made me some muffins that are very nice and extremely chocolatey. We had chocolate mousse every night for pudding when I was home. Mum's chocolate mousse is 100 times nicer than any other I have ever tasted. She also made flapjacks but we all forgot that I should be taking them home. And even though they were a bit chewy they were nicer than ones you get in shops as well. She also made me bread, which isn't so good as it's white. And gluten-free, so dry and falls apart.

I've found a version of Hexic at MSN Games, although it's not as good as the Tablet PC version.

Captain Jack is getting his own TV show although it's on BBC3. It might be available on the internet afterwards though, like Confidential was, and The Thick of It will be for the second half of the first series/second series.

Very funny wikipedia take-off: Uncyclopedia. I particularly like the section on the religion of various particles (protons are catholic because they have mass) and various random things, like the links off the marriage article to slavery.

Bad

Broke a string on my guitar. Got it fixed fine at the shop. Went to lesson and the teacher pointed out it was the wrong type of string. So I'm taking it back again tomorrow. On the plus side, I now have an electronic tuner which makes tuning 5000% easier.

I've set off the RSI in my thumb again with my cross stitching, so that's out. It gets worse throughout the day after I've been using it - it is quite hard not to use your right thumb, specially given that it doesn't hurt until I've been using it a bit, so I tend to forget. On the plus side, I really should put my Australia photos in an album. On the minus side that does involve writing, which also involves my right thumb. On the plus side, I've just realised I could type the descriptions. How stupid am I?

Just travelling home Friday, back again Sunday, and walking round Bournemouth has completely worn me out. I'm still a bit tired from it.

My chocolate spread has vanilla on it. But I will see if my local health food shop will order me some Plamil Well, their chocolate is good, so I figure their chocolate spread ought to be good too. If not, there are other ones I can try.

Ugly

Which is really just a way of saying this could go either way. I've discovered spirits have a tendency to be made from wheat grain. The thought of having one drink and spending the rest of the evening doesn't really fill me with joy so my only options seem to be brandy (yuk) or wine (ditto). On the plus side, I'm a cheap date. And will be driving everyone once I have a car so I can remind them what they did the previous night. And increasingly, drink just seems to make me tired.

Why can't all weekends be bank holiday weekends?

I had a good time this weekend. Saturday we had shots, cocktails, dinner at Nando's and lots of cleavage. And Annie freaking me out by ringing me and saying 'Are you my mummy?'. Which was very cool, but I'm so glad she didn't just put the phone down because mine didn't recognise the number and it probably would have been more scary. This was before Doctor Who as well.

I saw the first 20mins of Doctor Who Confidential, as the friend I was staying with has Sky. I don't really feel a need to watch the last 10. Although it was really strange to see the BBC3 logo so close to the corner of the screen - watching on the BBC website, it's in the centre.

I finally saw Kill Bill. There was more blood etc than strictly necessary, but then it is a Quentin Tarantino film. But I really enjoyed it, it was good.

We managed to spend an hour on Sunday afternoon cooking a fry up that ended up being breakfast, lunch and dinner combined, being as we ate at 3.30. Which is pretty much an essential component of a lazy weekend. I saw Superman, which was amazingly boring.

I also got to see the first series of Coupling. I was a bit sceptical about it but it was funny - it got funnier as it went on. Now I have to go back to see the rest.

I wasn't terribly impressed, in Comet and PC World, at their collection of DVD+Rs because they were all 8x. I've got a 16x DVD writer though! It's just as well I still have 22 left really. I will have to get some more over the internet, which at least saves carrying them.

I also went to the Tesco free from section which was bad because I now have chocolate muffins and chocolate cake. To add to my chocolate brownies and raspberry ripple ice cream from Waitrose (I had the chocolate before the raspberry ripple). And I still haven't finished my stamp collection bunny (it's quite bitter chocolate so it's taking a while - which is probably a good thing).

The good news: Enterprise has been renewed (http://www.trektoday.com/news/200504_01.shtml
The bad news: Richard Biggs has died (http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17099)

I went away for 26 hours at the weekend and returned to find 198 e-mails, of which 144 were spam. I've been answering them while listening to "Six Characters in Search of an Answer" on BBC7's Listen Again. Which is so useful because I never listen to anything on the radion on time. I only remembered to watch Have I Got News For You on Friday because the video came on (in my defence I'm usually out).

On the plus side this weekend I established that Hobbycraft still doesn't have any rabbits I can cross stitch. I might have to go on a hunt on the internet, or end up doing cats. Which are nice, but not as nice as rabbits. I've still got a fair bit of The Librarian left to do so it's not urgent yet.

I also made about 20 CDs and did all my backing up. At the same time I finally saw Miss Congeniality. I meant to go and see it when it was out at the cinema. I meant to get it out on video. I even meant to watch it on TV, but forgot. That's a record, even for me.

I re-injured my toes tonight, exactly the same way as I did last week, so they hurt. What's worse is that I had my glasses punched twice on the same side, so the floor now slopes. Which is not helpful.

I finally got round to doing these quizzes, this is from Selenay (I can't quite bring myself to use the word gacked, to me it sounds like the cat's about to be sick):

Good stuff, you are "Wedding? I love
weddings! Drinks all around." You're the
life of the party and nothing gets you down,
not even certain death at the hands of your
zombie nemesis or the Navy. Come to think of
it, realism isn't your strong suit...

Which one of Captain Jack Sparrow's bizarre sayings from Pirates of the Caribbean are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

How true!

This I first saw on fileg's journal:

Yep, that would be me

After two days I'm actually getting to grip with dad's keyboard. I'm home for the weekend and not going back till tomorrow (I have Monday morning off - which will of course mean that I'll come back to loads of work). There was snow here, but not further north, where I came from, which is really odd.

I've completely failed to find any jeans that fit - it doesn't help when most of the shops think that you only want boot cut, and I don't. I was really good and tried on loads as well. And came back from town with DVDs. Er... they were cheap though, promise! I forget how good Poole is for cheap and second-hand shops - I could have bought up the second hand video shop now they sell DVDs.

I went to see Big Fish this afternoon. The trailer doesn't make it look particularly interesting, and I was still skeptical at the beginning, but I really enjoyed it. I can't help feeling there's a deep and meaningful message in there but I was just too busy drooling at Ewan McGregor.

It's really odd that people are talking about queuing up to go to the cinema. I remember thinking the same thing when people in America queued for weeks to see The Phantom Menace. There's this wonderful new invention called booking in advance - through the internet, the phone or simply going there. Admittedly I don't go and see many things on opening weekend and those I do I book in advance. And Warner Village do annoy me by being expensive and not having reserved seating, even for busy films, so you still have to get there 15 minutes in advance.

I know this is the extended LOTR films people are talking about. Even if they were on I wouldn't go to see them - I have to work for a start. I also can't sit in cinema seats for that long. Warner Village do have very comfy seats but even then spending three hours sitting in one on Saturday was plenty. It's odd that L3 was the most comfortable. It didn't seem it in lectures.

OK rant over - I left work on time today! Actually I left early but that was to go to the doctors. And I did work through half of lunch but that was probably just because I was so used to having a short lunch. An hour suddenly seems like such a long time! It was very nice to be home in time to listen to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and catch up on last week's Buffy.

I went to see Love Actually on Saturday, I ended up accidentally downloading it last night, and tonight I printed the cover. That must be the fastest turn around ever! I'm going back to watching it now and writing some Elrond & Arwen bonding stuff. My hand's going to drop off - but in a good way (ie it has nothing to do with work for a change).

And yes, I have given in and copied this to my livejournal. I realised it had a use - the friends-locked (and other-locked) posts which I may use. Possibly. But if you're reading this in lj and I refer to a link on the left - that means its in my blog ok?

Greetings from an internet cafe in Reading! This is from fileg's journal:

I know very little about some of the people on my friends' list. Some people are real-life friends who I see frequently. Others I know relatively well: I read your fic, or we have something else in common and we chat occasionally. Some of you I hardly know at all. Perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me and I thank you.

I'd love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then post this in your own journal.

So here's my piece:

I was born two days after the election in which the Conservatives won. The next election they lost was four days before my 18th birthday.

I have learnt to drive but have never driven since I passed my test - I hate driving and I hate the idea of having to.

When I was younger I wanted to go to Mars.

I'm crap with all technology and am usually years behind everyone else - except when it comes to computers when at least money is an excuse.

My all-time favourite film is 2001. My favourite TV series is Red Dwarf.

I never moved house until I went to university. In fact, most of my stuff is still there since I don't have enough space for it all until I can afford a house of my own - which won't be anytime soon with the current house prices.

Anyone who wants to write something about themselves either in the comments here, or you can comment in my livejournal if that's easier. Don't feel obliged but it would be cool.

On an entirely different subject Love Actually is good. I mean you have to suspend your disbelief but its still funny and you come out feeling good (trying not the use the phrase feel-good movie here). Plus you can spend your time spotting people you've seen in other stuff - certainly that bloke from The Office and Rob from The Bill I didn't know about.

There was also the trailer for Return of the King. I was getting worried about what they've done to Elrond in it but then I realised there would be some Elrond & Aragorn interaction, which would hopefully be good and loads of decent Frodo & Sam stuff - which is what I always thought Lord of the Rings was all about until I discovered Aragorn. There's definitely something about him opening the doors - that seems to be when everyone who fancies him realised they did.

I actually managed to write drabbles this weekend. One for TPM100's elements challenge - Rain and one for LOTR100's on contentment - Beloved

It's odd, I have this tendency to write angst for LOTR, but when it comes to TPM, certainly as far as the drabbles are concerned, it's been happy stuff. There are plenty of people writing Obi-angst and I'm really enjoying writing Qui & Obi training/bonding sessions.

I saw the extended TT in town at the weekend. The ordinary one is �27.99 and the one with an extra disk and a Gollum to dust is �44.99. Given I don't even have space for the 4 DVDs, I know which one I'll be buying once I get the annual gift voucher from work.

I also had a bit of a film session this weekend. Went to see the Matrix. Some girl's phone went off and she answered it! Admittedly it was only to see she was in the cinema. I didn't mind because it was in one of the sappy love scenes they really could have done without. I'm left with all these questions now - like what happens next - but then you're talking about a never-ending story. This one was better then the second - the action was better and a lot less gratuitous.

Then there was One Hour Photo, which was good and not scary at all. Michael Varta had really dodgy hair in it but since we also got pretty much a full frontal shot I'll forgive him. Shallow Hal was good and funny. Blue Juice was okay, despite Ewan McGregor having long hair and doing a London accent in it.

I realised last night, while watching The West Wing, why I trust the new VP for no reason whatsoever, and also think he's a bit of a twit. Then it occured to me that was because he was the captain in Crusade! And for another West Wing connection - the old VP was in One Hour Photo. I never trusted him and that really was for no reason. But I think I was right to given what I've vaguely heard about what happens at the end of the fourth.

I have a cold, which means I can't smell anything. Well, no, that's not true. I can smell cigarette smoke. Well, cheers, that's really helpful.

Just found out Ned Kelly is out this weekend, which I might go and see. I'd still quite like to see Calendar Girls and Down With Love is out next weekend which I'll have to see given that it has Ewan McGregor in it.

Your Life: The Movie by mintyduck
Who will play you:	Nicole Kidman
Who will play your love interest:	Orlando Bloom
Weeks you will stay in the box office:	23
Song that will play during your love scene:	Guns n Roses - Sweet Child o Mine
Song that will play during your death:	Prince - 1999
Your name:
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

I have to admit to cheating there - I liked the Nicole Kidman answer I got when I used paranoidangel (same name) and the Orlando Bloom answer I got when I used paranoidangel42 (my lj name, since some other bugger got there first).

I realised that yesterday was the last bank holiday until Christmas. Which is depressing. Apart from today and Friday they're my last days off till October (although I'm not here for a third of November, so that's something at least). Unsurprisingly, the weathermen got it wrong. I dread to think how much crap I'll have tomorrow when I go into work and I have to take the Rotaract meeting tonight, which I could really do without. Specially as I have to go and write the minutes afterwards. And I need to re-read the first chapter of LOTR and write a drabble on it. I also have 7 CDs worth of Smallville and West Wing to watch. I could really do with not going to work so I have more time to fit my life in...

On the plus side, there's now a very nice Weatherspoons in Poole, Pirates of the Caribbean was good, Legally Blonde 2 was better than I expected, American Pie 3 wasn't.

I have established that I can't find DVD Easter eggs even when I have exact instructions. It just doesn't work! Its no use typing numbers in, they just refer to menu items. Aah! It's doing my head in. But I do like the zoom button. There are some quite interesting documentaries on the LOTR DVD, its just hard to find anything amongst all the stuff on there.

Quick Nemesis review - it was good. I think there were some other bits they could have done differently and, going by the length of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, it could have been longer. But it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. And I noticed one of the ships they were headed towards (but never got to see) was the USS Archer. Ever since Virtual Voyager had a shuttle Mayweather (last week, admittedly) I remembered to look out for anything like that.

I added some fic recs, one for LOTR which is one of the few I've seen that isn't slash. She's also written some other stuff, all focusing on hobbits. The Elves one is very funny. Also strange, but thats the point. I'd add another journal, but unless you've seen Buffy season 7 so far (in America) it will totally spoil it. I can't even add the link without the address revealing so many things. So its not going in here until we're halfway through it on BBC2. Assuming this journal, and mine, still exists, that is.

Quick Farscape review - I thought we found out in Look at the Princess that Crichton has two sisters? I could have heard wrong though. It was very interesting, and sad at the end. Now we're back to the rest of the season after that 2 week break on Earth. And hah! to all the Americans out there.

Star Trek was good. Even though I was eating during the first scene. Put me off my food till the middle of the next when I managed to forget about it. Loads of flooding, trains probably horrible, haven't looked that closely yet (or gone in that direction really). Got the wrong type of lightbulb for my rabbit lamp so now need to go to Tescos - will have to wait till the flooding goes, although will carry them around in case I see one. Still tired. Going to bed (cold) to play with my DVD player (yay!). Maybe something more coherent when I've recovered (middle of next week then).

Saw Die Another Die today. Very interesting fencing kit Madonna's wearing. But the rest of it was so white! I know thats because its new (and expensive) but even so. And I liked the way Bond was magically hooked up to the electronics.

The definitely cut a bit out of Farscape. When they're in the doctors office and D'Argo is feeling Noranti's 'intense pleasure' he goes towards Crichton, who tells him not to come near him when he's feeling like that. I remember it as well. Only one more episode, then we'll be ahead of the Americans, yay!

Have actually updated my website, must upload it, write an e-mail to the mailing list and update my bookmarks as well - I'm getting to the point where I can't see all of them any more.

Went in search of T/T fic on Fan Fiction.net. Went in search of decent Alias fic at the weekend on there. It doesn't improve, it really doesn't. There is some good stuff in there, there's just rather a lot of crap as well. The good thing about the Enterprise section is that you can list the fics focusing on certain characters. I will have to finish working my way through the T/T archive sites instead.

Saw The Road to Perdition tonight, as I was ushering at the cinema. It was good, I was pleasantly surprised. The showed the One Hour Photo trailer as well, which mainly consisted of Robin Williams bits, but Michael Vartan was in there a bit too. Can't decide about his hair in it, but will have to wait till it comes out on video to see it and decide properly, as they're only showing it from tomorrow to Friday and I'm busy on each of those nights.