There were all these I was going to do this week but then I got ill. There is a cold thing going round - I, of course, manage to turn it into flu. Doubtless because I am getting a flu jab (free) on Thursday. I'm sure there were things I was going to comment on, and I was marking as unread, but then it all got a bit silly, and I'm never going to catch up if I'm constantly behind.

To start off with I'll talk about last Saturday and answer Gemma's question about the new Bullring.

Cadbury World was great. We each got a Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk with Wafer, Buttons and Curly Wurly, and we got to try some liquid chocolate. Bits of it were better than others but the best part was seeing the packing in the factory. Although this was because the box making machine broke, so the machine putting the bars into the box threw a wobbler. Which was fun to watch (especially the poor woman who had to sort it all out!).

We had an hour in the Bullring before we went there, and then another hour afterwards, so I can say I've definitely done the Bullring now. The toilets were quite nice, the Borders wasn't quite as small as it originally looked, and there was a Lego shop. Where you can go an play with lego. In all sorts of colours (including pink and purple!). There's not really much to say for it apart from that - it's a bit like the Oracle in Reading: full of expensive clothes shops. We're planning to go back for a Christmas shopping trip at the end of November, so I will definitely spend most of my time out on the streets in the shops there instead.

Sunday I went to see Wimbledon (the film that is). It was okay - it's not as if the plot isn't obvious - but I think the most interesting part of it will be the behind the scenes stuff when it comes out on DVD. I was quite impressed that the actors did look like they were tennis players. For some strange reason there didn't seem to be a fourth round, and the shadows on Centre Court were quite obviously wrong for the time of day it was set (well, obvious if you've watched a lot of Wimbledon, and know they filmed it on middle Saturday last year before any of the real matches started).

Tomorrow I'm going to Superset Tennis at Wembley. They only play one set and can appeal to the videos for line calls, which given that John McEnroe is playing, could make it interesting.

My landlady recently bought a set of electronic scales. So I took to weighing myself once a week, just to see. My weight changed about two-tenths of a pound (I think, I don't tend to remember it in that much detail) in about a month. Except for this week. Sleeping all day and therefore not eating much took me down a pound and a half. It's probably just as well I don't need to lose or gain weight.

However, establishing what all the numbers on it meant was a trial in itself. I really don't understand the metric system, so I could quite happily stand on my parents scales and give a number in stones, half-stones or quarter-stones, but no more accurately than that. Which is fine with a dial, the numbers were confusing though because they were:

a.bb.c

a I could tell were stones, but bb and c I had no idea. It was dad who suggested leaning on it a bit and watching the numbers go up. He also reminded me how many pounds in a stone and ounces in a pound, which I always forget, so I knew what to look out for. It turned out bb was pounds and c was tenths of pounds. There's nothing quite like making it complicated. It would make life so much easier (in the long term, if not the short) if we just went metric.

And lastly, cos this post isn't long enough, there's a meme on Blogger's front page:

Ask your readers to think of three photos they'd like to see posted to your blog. (Things around your house or whatever.) When you have enough requests, post them!

Since I have a digital camera, I can totally do this. I also have photos from Wimbledon (which I can't post), Monkey World, and of the cat and the baby fish lying around if anyone has a burning desire to see them.

The BlogThis! button on the Google toolbar is great. I'm at a site I want to mention in my blog, so I just press the button and save it as draft. Then come back to my blog a few days later, decide I can't be bothered and delete the post.

In other news: I ironed tonight. I think the last time I ironed was last winter. I actually quite like ironing. It's not as bad as other housework-type jobs (like dusting - I haven't dusted for a month and I can see fingers marks on the video and stereo). But when I say I like ironing, I mean I like ironing, I don't like getting the ironing board out, putting it up, finding the iron from where it's buried under a pile of stuff, finding some clothes that need ironing. Then putting it all away afterwards, after giving the iron plenty of time to cool down. I'm also slow at ironing, although it's probably not helped by me watching TV at the same time.

I still haven't put the iron away and I finished at 9 o'clock.

It's quite weird how work can change so quickly. This time last week I was buried under it. Today I did about an hour of my job, the rest of it was spent helping other people because I had nothing else to do. It is nice to be quiet for a change because I have a load of adminy things to catch up on but it would be nice if it was a bit more even sometimes.

I listened to Hitchhiker's on Tuesday. Live, as well. It was a bit surreal to hear the usual music and then listen to something I hadn't heard before. I liked the way it followed the book, had a few extras in, explained the plot for people who were trying to work out how you got there from the last episode, and for people who hadn't listened so far. And the Eddies in the Space-Time Continuum joke still makes me laugh as much as the first time I read it.

It also made me think of something I could ask for for Chanukah, since up to this point the only thing on my list is a potato peeler (mum's got a cool, new one, I want it) and I only have the radio series on tape. It might even be something my grandmother can be trusted to buy.

I am going to Cadbury World on Saturday. And possibly the new Bullring shopping centre, depending on traffic. Saturday just happens to be Yom Kippur. You can tell I'm religious

And because I know I'm going to get questions on this, Yom Kippur is the most holy day in the Jewish calendar where you're supposed to fast from sunset to sunset and spend your whole time in synagogue. And not watch telly or use the computer. And that's all I remember. I hate it when I was younger because it was another night of no TV not long after two no TV at New Year. Although my parents don't really do that now. I started it - I got my e-mail address at uni sorted out the day before the first night of New Year, so they had to go on to read my e-mail. And I joined J-Soc to meet people and get apple and honey. There were two people there who weren't religious and they knew more than me. And the apple and honey was a piece of apple dipped in a jar of honey, which isn't nearly enough honey.

And that was supposed to be an aside. I'm going to listen to Hitchhiker's (again - novelty value) and do the puzzle. Or play Gryffindor Mah Jongg, which is horrible but addictive.

Work does often seem a lot like a soap opera. It's been weddings recently but it's good old technology doing it again. We have the main site with the main server at Wallingford House. Then we have a little second site above the Bakers Oven, which has it's own little server, which data entry use, and the printers there are connected to.

We came in Monday morning to find we couldn't connect to the main server. Or the little one, which was a bit odd, because there was nothing wrong with that. Half an hour later the IT guy told us it was because the modem that was our link to the main server had died and we had to wait for an engineer to get us a new one.

I then spent the best part of two hours going between the two sites, and setting up everything on someone else's computer on the main site. I have Windows 98 and most people now have XP, which means that as far as XP is concerned there are no programs installed and all the settings are the default really annoying ones.

Then I spent three hours trying to fight off a migraine (with the benefit of pills, that usually work) and I eventually gave up and went home ill, for only the second time in three years (the first time was for a migraine as well). I'm still really tired and a bit dizzy but I'll be better tomorrow. But that didn't really help things.

Tuesday morning I was on someone else's computer again. Since I was there all day I did actually set up more things this time. Which was good because I managed to get the same computer again today, but other people were taking up meeting rooms and the staff room.

We'll be back there again tomorrow though. Apparently, the modem is American and there aren't any in this country. So it has to be shipped over. I think. My short term memory's still not working properly. But everyday we come in and hope it's fixed and it isn't. There are more people off towards the weekend because it's a bank holiday weekend but going between sites is a complete pain. It takes five minutes each way and it keeps raining.

On another topic, I had bangers and mash three times last week (not on purpose, it just happened that way). Of the three, the best was mine, even though the other two were from pubs. No idea why though.

How can it be Friday tomorrow? Where did the week go? I was planning to get loads done this week and have not done too well so far. My to read folder e-mail folder is down to 12, although I also have some bookmarked and just mentally bookmarked in my head. I really need an early night though. The past two nights I got tired about 10.30 and eventually made it to bed at midnight. Whoops!

In other exciting news I cooked swede today and yesterday. That may not sound exciting but my dad doesn't like it, so the first time I tasted it was at Burns Supper in January. I love it. I only cooked it for the first time last night. It's a bugger to peel, but very nice. Which brings my selection of dinner vegetable options to three. And doesn't increase the amount of washing up if I'm having boiled potatoes as well, which is always a good thing.

Thursday does mean an update to The Shoebox Project. Although I don't know how I'm going to last till next Thursday to read the next chapter!

I am liking The Daily Snitch because it comes up with some interesting stuff. Like a Harry Potter Conference next July. I want to go because it's at Reading Uni, not sure about the conference part though. It will depend on the program I think. I can't quite decide whether I like the idea of academic discussion on Harry Potter (Sirius and Remus fancy the pants off each other - what more can you possibly need to know? ).

I was going to make some CDs tonight but discovered my program that makes videos smaller now makes them bigger. I made the mistake of fiddling with the settings and thought I'd put them back. Obviously not. But because I back everything up, I replaced the ini files and it's all ok now. Apart from it screwing my computer up I could totally marry Drive Image.

I am also completely in love with Abilon. It ignores locked posts, cut tags and you can mark posts as unread. Which is particularly good because I always forget to come back and re-read things. It doesn't tell you how many comments people have made on the entry though, but then I never usually looked at any of them anyway.

I will now go on a printing session and see if I can make it to bed before 11pm. Although making it to bed in half an hour would be something of a record (it usually takes an hour). There really aren't enough hours in the day, and who needs sleep anyway?

How much have I just completely failed to get done last night and tonight? Lots. And what have I been distracted by? So glad you asked...

Clay Kitten Shooting - my best is 7/10

The Sightings section of the Bad Baby Names Forum, which led me to American Baby Discussion Groups because what's here are the worst sigs ever. Trust me on this one - just have a look at one of the testing sigs threads. There are also lots of scarily young mums there - and older ones, who frankly, have no excuse.

And because reading forums was fun: Godawful Fan Fiction and not just fan fiction either, bios, names, journals, the lot. And this led me to journals where I found the Sextips Livejournal. I had to read it because I couldn't quite believe it. I started at the userinfo page where there are 10,809 members. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Why, yes I would like to describe my sex life in detail in public.

Today's Dilbert turned up mid-afternoon and made me laugh, it was so true.

The final results for Fantasy Wimbledon went up and I am 99th! I'm amazed. I didn't win a DVD of Bjorn Borg (don't know how I'm going to survive without it) but it means I make the leaderboard (Note: the link is to a picture is 100k so it's readable and I doctored the page so you can see the bottom and top of it - it's only available if you log in)

I also rediscovered How I Spent my Summer Vacation by Elladan son of Elrond and its sequels. I'll have to re-read it to review it on Sel's site (poor me).

And having had great trouble with birthday/mothers/fathers day cards I found sympathy cards are much easier to find - some of them are really good. And nearly made me cry - just as well they were in the corner.

I've also trying to do a healthy eating thing and eat five fruit and veg a day. It would be a lot easier if fresh fruit and veg lasted longer or there was a decent source of them nearby. I really wish Waitrose would sell half melons though. Melons are so much nicer than the kind in packets, which I had forgotten, but I've now eaten most of a melon in three days. Practically every meal involves melon. I love the stuff, I just don't know how much I'll still love it after eating it that much in a few weeks time.

And now I'm going to listen to the new Corrs album and do something productive. Really.

I put all the bits of my Isildur/Haldir fic together. It started off as one 160 word scene. It's now 12,000 words! I have more I want to add as well. I'm quite impressed at the amount of plot there. I have some nasty thoughts about the Farscape epic (might not be quite as epic as that at this point!). Have been listening to my CD of 180megs on my DVD player. The manual for my stereo says it plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs. This one doesn't work on it though. So what it actually means is it plays CDs. So why bother saying that in the first place?

Got desperate for lack of Cornflakes, and determined not to order anything from Tescos till after Easter, so I had a choice between Kellogg's and Waitrose. Picked Waitrose as I know Kellogg's are crap. Turns out Waitrose ones taste of cardboard. At least I know now. I think they might actually be worse than Kellogg's cornflakes, which is quite impressive really.

Working on a pizza project really makes me want to eat pizza. I'm so tired, I feel bed and a book might be a good idea tonight, otherwise I won't last the weekend (no idea what I'm actually doing yet, mind you). Looking forward to lie-ins, downloading and Passover food at Easter.