This is a surprise to me, because I honestly can’t remember when I last did that. But we’re talking a seriously long while ago. A proper fall, as well; I was trotting down some steps towards the Thos. Parry library and the toe of my right shoe caught on the edge of the last step, and I went right down on the floor. Gravel rash on my hand, and everything.

The jolt surprised me, and then there was the ‘I just punched tarmac’ feeling of warmth, and I seem to have twisted my back and my knee out of joint. All very exciting, but I’d rather not make too much of a habit of it, if I can.

It really has been forever since I fell over, though*, (I’ve tripped, a few times, but always caught myself again) so mainly I’m just going ‘Hey, that was novel!’

I’ve left my phone in the Uberflat. I’d go back for it, but have decided not to. Kindly communicate with me by e-mail until 19-00ish; I’ll probably have it back by then.

I wonder if I can have a cup of tea before I go to count shelves…

*Skiing doesn’t count, on account of I was on two planks of wood in ice and snow and the middle of Europe, so it’s not like falling was a surprise, or anything…

I do concentrate better with music in the background, as long as I know it relatively well (otherwise I have to keep breaking concentration to listen to the words!), so it’s nice to have an office where nobody minds on the grounds that ‘it does help you concentrate, especially when you’re doing something repetative.’ Colleagues WIN, I think…

…On the other hand, there’s something very, very wrong-feeling about playing Red Alert 3 while a background copy of Winamp belts out, uh, Leningrad.

On the plus side, every faction in RA3 seems to have adopted the traditionally Soviet policy of only employing women with tight-fitting costumes as their chosen military liason to the Completely Untested Commander With No Experience Of The Week…

Back still hurts. Knees still hurt. Left elbow seems to be setting up to hurt on a regular basis, the bastard. If I’m snappish that’s possibly why. The backache is a sod because I don’t know what will set it off, and the elbow is making me really irritable because it’s never happened before, so I’m not used to it giving out knee-style pain, which is making it much harder to ignore the damn thing than it would be if it was just a knee, and only doing what I expect of it. /whinge

Upside: field trip to the archives today, I’m looking forward to that!

I think that’s everything, for now, though.

Don’t wear chunky gold-coloured signet rings on your little finger.

A pair of fists that proclaim ‘LOVE’ and ‘HAT’ are never going to look cool.

Just a thought…

Since it’s less than a fortnight since I was spectacularly failing at changing the washer in a tap (although, to be fair, a plumber had previously said the whole thing was seized; I was mainly there as a checking-he-isn’t-a-lying-git capacity), that one struck a chord.

I’m feeling fairly cheerful, at the moment. I expect it’ll wear off presently, when I finally come to my senses, but I’m doing OK. I was a bit worried when I went to bed yesterday, because I’d developed a splitting headache behind my eye, and I thought it could be caused by the mixing of wine and whisky last night, but I’m fine this morning, so I was probably just tired. Still am, actually.

(I think work ought to give me an incentive to get out of bed in the morning*; we only have a single storage heater, so getting out from under the covers means making my knees start to hurt unless I immediately get some trousers on, except that [because we only have one storage heater] any trousers I can find are also really cold, and turn out to speed the chill into my bones. Plus, y’know, it’s a bed. Nobody likes getting out of one of those, even to make their phone stop playing ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard, when it’s nice and warm and cosy.’)

I have spent most of the last few days having meetings. The first one was with Hugh Preston, who is the Admissions Dude** out at what I think of as DILS, but which now seems to be simply DIS; the Department of Information Studies. It is looking increasingly like doing a Masters is a sensible thing to do; not only do I get the M out of it, but (because of the way the course is carefully set up) it’ll qualify me for membership of CILIP, too. Both of these things seem to have a fairly immediate impact on the kind of jobs one can get, so it’s looking like a good plan.

The second meeting I had was with Mike Smith, whom I may have mentioned before, way back when I was being a Student. Essentially, he is awesome (which I’ve thought for ages, but he gets bonus Awesome because it turns out he seems to really like me, as well, which is shiny) and will give me an academic reference, which I’d need to actually get onto the aforementioned course.

I’m still a little torn between doing the course Part Time and doing the course Full Time. The main difference is that if I do it Part Time it will take 2 - 5 years, and I have to be in a Relevant Job, but I can start this April and the University will pay my tuition for me while I’m working here (until the end of June), and after that I can run off to The South, or something. With the sole exception of that last point, all of those are both Pros and Cons pretty much equally.

If I do it Full Time it will take about 12 months, I don’t need to worry about finding a Relevant Job or else in the meantime, and I have to stay in Aber for at least 9 months (although once I’m down to the actual Writing A Diss stage, I can go and do so from ‘pretty much anywhere.’ These are all relatively positive, and the only major problem is that I will magically Not Have Anything Paid For, although since the University would only be paying the first two or three months of my tuition if I went Part Time, that’s not so huge a thing as it might otherwise sound.

So… we’ll see.

And that’s all you people are getting from me, for now.

O, except I finished the Allied campaign on Red Alert 3, and I really need to write to EA at some point, to find out why they’d preffer me not to buy any of the games they’re releasing.

(Yeah, I know I keep banging on about this. It just bugs me that these people are sufficiently retarded to think that making a game with invasive anti-piracy measures which you don’t get on the inevitable pirate copies will encourage people to pay hard currency for the inferior copy-protected version, rather than pirate it for free. I just can’t help but feel that anyone incapable of spotting the FAIL inherent in that philosophy is probably someone who shouldn’t be allowed metal cutlery, never mind influence over the gaming industry…)

Anyway, I don’t mean to keep you from your surfing with an argument you all know and agree with; I just figured all of the EA executives might swing by on a Googlewhim***, realise they’re all cretins and commit seppuku in pennance…

Enjoy…

* Money doesn’t count. Or, at least, not this ammount of money.
** Actual title may vary.
*** You can use this word. I don’t mind.

I had toothache the other week, and that hurt like crazy, as well. (Although, to be fair, I find that re-assuring, since it means I now have a dentist such that I’ve not got toothache all the time and cease to notice it.)

Next month I have a dentist’s appointment, in (of course) Shrewsbury. Very kindly they’ve given me the time off work gratis (rather than my having to book it from annual leave). Only for this one occasion, of course, but all being well I won’t need another check for at least six months, so I hope I can dodge that bullet and hang onto my leave for when I need it.

Wedding venue scouting was good. It actually did me a Hell of a lot of good to sit and re-read all the brochures everyone sent me, just so I could remember how angry they made me. I mean, seriously, who in the name of God sends out brochures that say (when you boil off the insincere congratulations) “You will give us large sums of money in used Treasury notes, and in return you will get to do exactly as we tell you, eat what we tell you to, throw yourselves out building you’ve paid to use when we tell you to, and then you can give us more money.”

…I think what baffles me more than anything about that is that it must work, or it wouldn’t be profitable to keep doing it. I just find it annoying. One of the things I like about Prospective Venue A is that it gives a firm impression of being flexible. It gives a fairly strong impression of Turquoise as well, of course, but mainly it’s an impression of flexible. And I think the turquoise will be quieter with the shutters open and the lights on.

And, finally: if you’ve not seen it already, zoom your browser* now to this beauty of a story over at El Reg, which has got me literally laughing ’till my eyes watered, and everyone looked at me funny.

*’chug’ in IE

On the other hand, I came down with Fresher’s Flu good and hard, through my usual tactic of stressing out, sleeping badly and consequently waking up with an immune system that saw an infection and went in like the US Marshalls*. Consequently I got pretty well slaughtered within a day.

By last Wednesday, however, I was up and about a bit more, so I came into work, for which I am entirely made of grateful, since I got to attend a little lecture about the awesome books they have over at Lampeter (featuring my personal highlight: getting to touch a book printed by Wynkyn de Worde in Caxton’s workshop in 1470, also a book of hours from the 1490s) and go on a Field Trip to the town library, which was also really good fun.

A downside of that, however, was that it comprised my usual overstretching-myself-while-ill routine, with the result that by Wednesday evening I felt so lousy I couldn’t even be bothered to play CoD4 & just went to bed. On Thursday a doctor told me I was horribly infectious and banned me from work, so I went home and proved her right by infecting everyone in the Uberflat. Hm.

Finally feeling better, apart from the cough, which is still a real pain, but which I assume is going to clear itself up a bit presently.

Assuming I can be bothered I’m starting to think I may have to do a review of the re-release (basically) of Colonization. I’ll have to see if I can grab some time when Ruth isn’t using the laptop next week.

Am currently looking into the Masters-ness. Hmm. Looks expensive, but I’m booking a meeting with a chap out at DIS, so it’s possible. Although since I never even had to do an undergraduate dissertation I look at phrases like “not more than 15,000 words” and my head hurts. But, meh. Continued vague postings as events warrant.

It is getting colder and darker, once more. This means two things:
1. We need to light fires to coax the sun back to us so it doesn’t go out.
2. It is waistcoat-wearing season again, huzzah! (For, incidentally, about the 7th year in a row).

In consequence of 2 (and the addition of my Drizabone, a nice gusty wind & my hat) I got described as “Looking very steampunk,” the other day. So that was nice.

Think that’s everything. Enjoy.

*Cite the source (where, who says it, and to whom) “Go in like the US Marshalls!” for a free pint at the Ship & Castle. Jimmy, I’m particularly looking at you, here.

Still, for those of you who may’ve wondered, the unsolved songs are the following,with full first verses for context.

1. Veracruz / Warren Zevon:
“I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns /
“I heard Maria cryin’ /
“Late last night, I heard the news /
“That Veracruz was dyin’”

2. Body of an American / Pogues:
“A cadillac stood by the house /
“and the Yanks they were within /
“and the tinker boys, they hissed advice /
“‘hot-wire her with a pin.’”

3. I don’t need this pressure, Ron / Billy Bragg:
“What was that bang, it was the next big thing /
“Exploding over out heads, and soon the next generation /
“Will emerge from behind the bike-sheds. What’re we going to offer ‘em /
“The exact same thing as before, with a different way to hear it, and the promise of a whole lot more.”

6. Time will show the wiser / Fairport Convention:
“My mind keeps on tellin’ me that this is no good /
“And my heart is aching, and tells me I should /
“But only time will show the wiser.”

7. 7-year bitch / Slade:
“You’re going round the circle /
“Through another phase /
“Your temperature rising /
“You’re wining and dining /
“A girl who’s half your age”

8. Low / REM:
“Dusk is dawn is day /
“Where did it go? /
“I’ve been laughing /
“Fast and slow”

Sins of the family / Oyster Band:
“She had a bad childhood while she was young /
“So don’t judge her too badly /
“Had a schizophrenic mother, who worked in the gutter /
“Woulda sold her soul to the devil gladly.”

…And that was it. You got all the others. And out of those even I doubted people would get 3, 8 & 9. Congrats!

I’ve just noticed a really weird thing. Lyrics don’t actually look as good if they’re written down than when someone says ‘em. Huh. Still, if’n any of them appeal, you’re welcome to come over and have a listen. Unless I’m feeling antisocial, in which case don’t.

And now I’m going to bed.

The barber in Hadley was a decent guy, once I got to know him, and Gino in Newport is the only chap I’ve met who knows what I mean when I say “Er, well, a general trim, I guess. Sort of a short-back-and-sides, but short on top as well, and I don’t want a fringe*”.

Also, of course, the hanging about while the queue depletes before your very eyes can be pretty lame, especially if you’ve not got a book. This haircut only took twenty minutes, though, thus getting me to the “really uncomfy feeling of hairs stuck down the back of my collar” even faster than I expected. Whee.

My face has mysteriously become oval**, and my eyes seem to have got bigger. Like I say, I don’t get hair.

On the plus side, I shouldn’t need it cutting again before the Spring, which means it should be able to grow to a nice warmish sort of length before the frosts come, thus providing me with further insulation. Win.

Supreme Court meme:
Sarah Palin has famously (in America, that is, over here we didn’t notice; I got this from zoethe) been asked to list some Supreme Court rulings, and came up with a grand total of One (Roe V. Wade, natch) before descending into silence. This pleases me, because that means I know more about American law than a prospective Vice President of the United States of America***. I can name two Supreme Court rulings, only one of which is Roe V. Wade.

Anyway, there’s now a meme. It goes like this:

Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historical to your blog. Any decision, as long as it’s not Roe v. Wade.

…then there’s some stuff about spreading the fun, but you all know I’m just showing off my dubiously-aquired knowledge.

Anyway, I pick the Only Other Supreme Court Ruling I’ve ever heard of (not bad going, really; I didn’t even hear about the Supreme Court until I was 19 or so).

I pick Hustler Magazine, Inc. V. Falwell.

Background to the ruling is as follows:
- Jerry Falwell is one of those famous TV Fundies.
- Campari is an alcoholic beverage, which in the 1980s ran an ad campaign where famous people “talked about their first time” (drinking Campari. See what they did there?)
- Hustler Magazine is a porno mag, the kind men read “strictly for the photos of the naked women.”

…y’can all see where this is going already, right?

Back in the early 1980s Hustler printed a mock Campari Ad wherein Falwell “talked about his first time.” The clever twist was that it was his first time having sex. With his mother, while they were both drunk on Campari. In an outhouse.****

Falwell wasn’t too pleased about this, and sued for libel, and hurt feelings, and what have you. Very long story short: it went to the Supreme Court in 1988. The Supreme Court had a think and then, by 8 votes to 0, came up with the following ruling:

The creators of parodies of public figures are protected against civil liability by the First Amendment, unless the parody includes false statements of fact made in knowing or reckless disregard of the truth.

Since the Ad in Hustler was listed in that edition’s contents as “Fiction; Ad and Personality Parody,” and since the fake Campari ad said it was a parody, and they didn’t actually think Falwell lost it to his mother whilst drunk on Campari [I'm paraphrasing], the ad wasn’t made in knowing or reckless disregard of the truth, but more in a spirit of fun.

Basically, “It’s OK to say such things about famous people, just as long as you don’t try and pass them off as being actually true.”

Given that Sarah Palin is a prospective Vice President of the United States of America, I’m growing really fond of that ruling… I mean, dinosaurs. Ffs.

Well lunch is nearly over, and I’ve got hairs all down the back of my neck. Guess I’ll leave the post about the N95, and the Answers to the bits of the meme nobody got yet for another time, huh?

Enjoy…

Footnotes:
*I’ve never worked out what a fringe is for. It spends three months growing into my eyes, gets chopped off, and then starts all over again. Why?

** Still, pudgy, but oval. Less moon-like, anyway, which is a start.

***For a given, and mainly wrong, value of “know,” anyway.

**** I honestly don’t know which bit of that paragraph I find more disturbing.

A service provider that does this when I’ve not paid them for three months I can deal with. A service provider who does this when only the other day I gave them the full balance of my account is something I get stroppy about. Especially when they let me wade through their stupid automated system for ten minutes before it rings at the other end and then cuts me off because “Calls from this number are barred.”

Anger.

So I called them from Ruth’s phone, sat about for twenty minutes whilst Hold music looped at me and finally got to speak to someone who, to his credit, did a good line in apologising to the curtly civil customer who’d been, it transpired, an unfortunate victim of the automated system not picking up on the payment. Yes, they had taken the money, and they hadn’t lost it, and his colleague was removing the bar even now, sorry for the inconvenience.

…Was there anything else he could do for me?

Actually, yes, thank-you for fixing that mistake. But whilst I was there: when did my contract run out?

…pause…

I got put through to somebody. Now I was asking because I’ve not treated my N73 very well; I’ve dropped it a lot, and it’s developed some infuriating quirks. Like taking a full minute and a half to show me the contents of a newly recieved text message. Like turning itself off in my pocket. Like waiting for five rings on the other end whilst it has a think, before it actually tells me who is calling and gives me the option to pick up.

No, really. I tested it by calling myself. The landline rang five times before the N73 stopped lighting itself up to no avail and told me the Uberflat was calling. I can’t be having with that, in a phone. I get called relatively rarely but I do need to answer the blasted machine when it happens.

So I asked about getting an upgrade. The availiable upgrade phones at the minute are mostly not great - from an N73 user’s perspective they’re mostly downgrades, with an odd sidegrade thrown in for dubious measure. Except, of course, the N95 8Gb. Which I’ve faniced since El Reg talked about it.

Orange customer services have really gone up since I last checked. They’re sending me out one of them. And a new contract that kicks in on October 15th, which’ll give me 1,200 free minutes, 500 free texts (I was on 100, and I’ve taken to using all of them of late) and a choice of free landline calls, free Orange-Orange calls, unlimited texts or unlimited data. Per month. For about a tenner less than I’m spending now on my current 300 minute, 100 text, 30Mb setup.

Om nom nom*! Sure, it’s not the N96, but I’m getting it now, and it only set me back £30. Win!

I’m really quite chuffed. So much so that I didn’t even mind when the N73 turned itself off for three hours yesterday afternoon, apparently unhappy with the way I’d, uh, laid it down on the desk. I think this’ll be the first mobile phone I’ve ever thrown away; I’ve always given them to other people before but I’m not sure I’d give this raddled playmobil reject to a dog…

Still, N95. It’s meant to turn up on Tuesday. I am, for once, looking forward to the end of the weekend, and the arrival of Next Week. Although I am going to have to do the ironing, later…

The Meme seems to be causing people a strange mix of interest, ire and feelings of isolation. I think I shall do another one, presently, and break the rules by carefully tailoring the results to things I anticipate people being able to get. In my defence, I did wonder when the results started coming out of Winamp, but I figured that whoever thought up the meme might have considered such potential weak points. Remind me to have less faith in such people in the future.

* Review link included solely because spluttered tea once I got to the phrase “A definite improvement on the vanilla N95.” Because that’s how tech [and you could argue, society] works. When the N95 came out you’d've been laughed out of town if you called it vanilla. Hell, it did everything. the N95 8Gb does pretty much the same thing, but with a heftier battery hidden in a slinky black number. Quick way to get the older model boosted down a notch, by the looks of it.

It’s one of those memes that has Rules, which I’ll chuck up for your benefit at the start, so you can work out what you’re doing, even if that turns out to be “thumping PgDn good and hard.”

1. Put your music player on random. (having first loaded all your MP3s into it, I assume)
2. Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. (Unless it’s spoken word, or entirely instrumental, or has a first line which consists entirely of the title of the song, in which case I’ve skipped it, as it’d be unfair on yez.)
3. Let everyone guess what song and artist (or musical) the lines come from. (Comments enabled. Knock yourselves out.)
4. Embolden the songs when someone guesses correctly. (Uhm. Kay.)

Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING! (In capitals, an’ everything. Must be serious…)

I’d just like to point out that 20 doesn’t seem like very many. I mean that’s, what, 1 song opening per 3 Gb of MP3s? [62Gb/20=3.1; please correct me if that doesn't make sense.]

Still, let’s see what kind of a mood the RNG’s in, shall we? (& nuts to Popular Culture.)

1. I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns / I heard Maria cryin’
2. A cadillac stood by the house, and the Yanks they were within
3. What was that bang? It was the next big thing / exploding over our heads
4. They passed me by / all of those great romances

–One of us / ABBA


5. I’m dancing on the White House lawn / sipping tea by the Taj Mahal at dawn

–Life is a minestrone / 10cc

6. My mind keeps on telling me that this is no good / and my heart is aching, and tells me I should
7. [large quantities of saying "Woah"] You’re going round the circle / through another phase
8. Dusk, is dawn, is day / where did it go?
9. She had a bad childhood while she was young / so don’t judge her too badly.
10. Turn away / if you could get me a drink of water / ’cause my lips are chapped and faded

–Cancer : My chemical romance My chemical romance


11. Everything has a beginning / everything comes to an end / Take it or leave it, you’d better believe it / be my lover, be my friend

–Hero (Sweden ; Eurovision, 2008) / Charlotte Perrelli


12. O is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel? / Ah, just twenty thousand people standing in a field?

–Sorted out for E’s and whizz / Pulp.


13. Michael wears his tan like a flasher wears his coat / he’s full of mad adventures, he’s full of anecdotes

–Dangerous / Fairport Convention


14. Isaac, nice chap / died of cancer / I gigged with him / many times

–Death song / PBH


15. I tried to come down from you / tried with your voice in my head, knocking me back, every inch I moved

–Curve of the Earth / Matt Nathanson


16. I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me / I still feel your touch in my dreams

–Every time we touch / Cascada


17. Papers in the morning / bowler hat on head

–Cardiac arrest / Madness.


18. A malady / has taken him over

–London lives / Blur


19. It was eyes down at the bingo / on that lucky Friday night

–Tux on / Marillion


20. Ron and Nancy got the house, but Sid and Nancy rule / I died eight years ago, I’m still a legend at my high school

–Alleluia / Dar Williams

… Hm. I’ve erred on the side of verbosity there, because I think the RNG is in an Obscure mood. Well, I say obscure. What I mean is “Things I don’t expect you people to know.”

[Out of curiosity, I just ran all my destinations through Google's patent Evil Maps Of Global Domination (beta), and it turns out I actually drove for something like 720 miles. I've got a map, and everything, but since putting an image of the map onto the Internet would require Technical Skill, I can't. No, really. Hardware I can footle about with, and DOS I'm still pretty hot on, but all this Internet stuff really isn't my line of geekage. Sorry.]

Anyway, 720 miles. Although there weren’t floods this time. There were BNP rallies, and dual carriageways with inexplicable 40 mph speed limits in the Staffordshire moorlands, and there was an Audi doing 35 mph down a hill (why even buy an Audi then, guys? Why not just get a Ford Mondeo?), but there weren’t floods, so it was a step up on my first driving experience. But it was still really quite shockingly tiring.

That got compounded by Freshers Fair on Monday (back in the Sports cage, again, I see), where I was mostly standing up and waving bowls of sweets at Freshers. And, of course, 2nd and 3rd years. And, inexplicably, students wearing Penglais School sweaters. Uh, no. Kids, if you’re going to blag your way into places you shouldn’t be, and people are going to see you doing that, at least try and dress the part. I worked this out when I was 16. What’s wrong with you people? Also not looking like a beaten rabbit might help.

I got loads of free stuff. It was great.

However, it was also pretty tiring, and every night since, um, Sunday I’ve said to myself “I must get an early night and become Rested.” And every night it hasn’t happened.

This is partly because I wake at 07:30. I suspect, although I’m always too tired to remember to check, that the very first thing I do in the morning is realise the alarm is going off, and promptly swear. I’m fairly sure my eyes keep opening in the middle of some word or other, but I never seem to catch it.

From 07:30 until 08:45ish I’m mostly running on autopilot, I think, and then, as the day goes on, I run on Autopilot but with less and less energy, and more in the way of yawning, and frightening myself when I look in the mirror.

This peaks (or troughs, I guess) in a period of utter exhaustion around half past four, when my limbs get all sluggish and don’t fancy moving much. Then, for no reason at all, it gets to about 19:00 and I wake up. At that point I become fresh as a daisy until at least 23:00, and even if I start to get tired then, it’s more of a “Huh, I should sleep at some point, because I’ll probably be a bit worn out in the morning” than the proper “Seriously, I’m turning off now. Don’t bump into anything while I’m out. Love, brain.” that normally tries to nobble me around mid afternoon.

I’m not sure why this should be the case. I think there must come a point in my sleep cycle where my body decides that since I’m obviously never going to take its advice, it may as well just go with the flow until I finally come round to the idea of bed myself.

…Why it doesn’t act like that in the mornings, when I actually need to be up and doing, I honestly don’t know. But I wish it would.

On the plus side; ’tis nearly Saturday. I’m hoping I can manage to get a lie-in, on Saturday. Probably this will mean I wake up at 8, full of beans, and go and play some Call of Duty until noon. At which point I’ll find myself not only exhausted, but also unnable to have a nap for no obvious reason.

O well. Thursday afternoon. I think that means they’ve got me searching for the finis africae counting shelves up on F. Should be fun. :-)

* This one’s a bit harder than usual. Not just beer but a rare ‘JTA is impressed’ face if you cite it properly.

Otherwise, I’m sorry to say, I shall be very much responsible for my actions.

That is all.

[JTA] is genuinely confused by the way people are objecting to New Facecoke.

In spite of that being my status, I still got another two invites to join thickwitted “Have A Mardy Fit About New Facebook” groups. That, frankly, is just insulting. (Because it means either a) you’ve done that on purpose to annoy me or, b), which is more likely, you’ve not actually bothered to think about whether or not I wanted to join your brainless little group in the first place.)

Gah.

I am in a slightly grumpy mood anyway, though; I’ve been trying to drink slightly less tea & coffee, and I keep getting headaches. You’d think the solution would be to drink more tea & coffee, thus soothing away the headache, but apparently not. Hmm.

I’ve contrived to buy a car, and to drive it through some truly appalling weather, which was interesting, especially the bit in the middle of Stafford where I had a choice of drowning the exhaust or aquaplaning, whilst driving through a good foot and a half of water.

Still, the machine is still running, which is good. The sunroof has developed a leak, which is less good, although I can see how huddling in the carpark of Morrisons, Stone, with the rain so loud on the roof you can’t hear yourself speak might be a factor in that.

It feels very odd to get into the car and just go somewhere. Admittedly, so far I’ve only gone out to Morrisons, but even that felt peculiar, what with there only being me in the car.

On the plus side, there only being me in the car helps, because I’m still getting the hang of the difference in ‘feel between this new one and Mike’s, uhm. Corsa?

Anyway, I’m being incredibly boring, so I’ll shut up about that.

The reason I was out in the dreadful storm was because I went up and dug Annie out of Cheadle (which appeared to have some sort of a bookshop), and we (viz, Annie + my mother and sister) went to Gladstone. Any AGS people have a recollection of visiting it? I’m sure I went once before, back in the mists of time.

It was really fun. There were tasty savoury oatcakes (as opposed to the breakfast-with-syrup variety I’m used to in South Shropshire), and a light up model, and some toilets. And a gorgeous Sunburst-style deco washbasin. With the same taps as we have at home. And a set of bath taps, the same as we have at home. And a recipie for pobs [hard to find a good link for that].

This happens every time we go to a museum. Just once it would be nice to walk round all the exhibits without having to think “That’s not an antique, that’s our cake tin / jam pan / thing in the back shed. That’s what it does, is it?” But, then, I’d probably miss it, if it didn’t happen.

I made a pot. (Kinda. The Woman Who Pottered did quite a lot the work, with helpful explanations of why I had to do something different, to make sure I didn’t foul it up utterly.) I am quite pleased with it. They can’t afford to run the kilns, even with their pile of Free Coal which is sitting in the courtyard getting damp, but I have got hold of a really nice guy who works in the Arts Centre, and was completely unfazed by my phoning him up to ask if I can borrow his oven. He reckons I should go back after term starts, and put a glaze on it. Annie seems to think it will not explode in the kiln, so I shall try and take it up to the man on Monday, and I shall have a nice pot. Hooray!

Then, at some point many years from now, it will get dropped, or toppled or otherwise accidentally broke, and I can feel miserable about losing it. Sigh.*

Survived, as I said, the storm. Came back to Aber, by dint of giving Dan a lift, and seem to have had a very long week, mainly comprised of resolving to go to bed Early, and then doing nothing of the sort. Badminton was fun, however, and Statto and I got some topical news satire done, which is good.

I know there’s a whole other pile of things which have been going on, but I’m not sure I can remember what else I intended to blog about. I am not now going to York, so I am spared a completely stupidly long journey, and can do a mere stupidly long journey, instead.

EQ is now on a new server, but this should work anyway.

That seems like a broadly opportune point to hit the “publish”-y button. Although I notice, in saying that, that I have stopped using phrases like “marginally sensible” in favour of “broadly.” I am not sure if that is an improvement.

I am hungry. Poxy Llanbadarn and it’s poxy total lack of shops. I shall sulk at it.

* I include this observation because I think it provides a valuable insight into my psychological makeup, and the nature of the bulk of my fretting about everything. (Yes, I do normally trim these things out.)

I read a lot of webcomics, partly because it helps me to work out what day of the week it is while I drink my morning coffee (For example; if it’s a day without a new Candi, but with a new menage a 3, and not a new Darths & Droids, then it’s Saturday, and I can go back to bedn without bothering to finish filling myself with caffeine).

But this is the first time I’ve discovered a webcomic told through the medium of a Round Robin game.

Lots of different artists each get one panel to advance the story, and that panel can contain as many frames as they can fit in that one panel. The effect (so far as I’ve managed to read it!) is fabulously anarchic, and very funny. Or, at least, it’s got me sniggering over the keyboard, which is typically a good sign, even if it is confusing everyone else in the room.

O - and did I mention that it’s a round-robin style comic where the only fixed element of the plot is that there’s been a murder? Win!

It appears to live over at http://whokilledroundrobin.blogspot.com, and you can read full pages as they happen from this link here.

Unless, y’know, you were all going to spend your Friday afternoon being super productive, or something…

Buzzed over to D&A this morning (I say “buzzed;” I was there until the bank shut, which is going to slow everything down a bit). It seems there’s been some very minor shift in my left eye, but the difference is “less than half a lens” so it’s not actually worth changing my prescription. Win.

On the other hand, since they had a sale on, I’ve got some new glasses, because the frames on my normal ones are now three years old and getting a bit fatigued-looking. That and it’ll give me two pairs of glasses that have the anti-glare protection, which I anticipate being useful in the event that I get any insurance, ever. Which, to be fair, I will, it’ll just cost me lots.

It’s not the “costing lots” that I object to, per se, it’s more that the reason it costs lots is because they think I’ll use the car to get drunk and try and impress girls by doing dangerous things. I find that insulting; it’s like they think I’ve got to be 23 without realising that there are better ways to waste petrol than trying to make women fancy me. Pouring it down the drain, for instance, or into the water supply. Bah. I shall cough up nonetheless, and then fling the damn machine off the road when I fail, yet again, to tell my left from my right, I expect.

Anyway, I’m getting new glasses. More encouragingly, the optician woman seemed to think I was likely to stay on more or less the same prescription I have now for the forseeable future, which is a big step up from the last time I went and had lights shone at me.

I’m still finding work fun, and I’m still finding work tiring; come Thursday mornings I’m really having to struggle to get out of bed which, when I’ve got a reason to get up and start doing things, is unusual for me. I think, however, that I’ll get back into the swing of things relatively well; I’m still getting more sleep than I was when I was commuting from Wallingford, so I think it’s just a matter of adjusting to having a routine that revolves around more than “when the CoD4 servers are least busy.”

In other news, I was listening to, er, something, on the Radio yesterday, and caught a fabulous quote, viz:

“The Potteries, in the North of the West Midlands, are an unlikely setting for a revolution…”

Yes, that’s right, there’s never been a Revolution in the Midlands. All those integrated kilns and transport networks are just an example of a cottage industry that was allowed to get out of hand.

Well, it made me laugh. But then I had to slog though an entire Geography project on How The Industrial Revolution Changed The Area*. It seemed to involve a retail-cum-business park, but I could be remembering a different trip.

Ah well. On with the Weekend Tasks of Everything I Didn’t Do This Week…

*I didn’t actually do the project, I think I just handed in a few scrappy sheets of A4. But I was meant to do it, which is good enough for me.

D’you ever get one of those days where everything seems to be going well, and then it all goes arse-over-tit? (Usually, we call these ‘Thursdays’)

This isn’t one of those days.* Rock!

Indeed, having Passed My Driving Test, and had someone buy me a beer during a working lunch, I’ve come home and found an official-looking letter.

Reading the sender’s address I concluded “But I don’t know anyone in Worthing!” and chucked it to one side while I rang Charlie, the mechanic, who is “doing some work on the car,” which sounds expensive (although it didn’t feature that scary backwards whistle, probably because he knows I’m pretty broke).

Having then got rid of my coat, switched on the tower, and found there’s no Mountain Dew in the fridge, and that, therefore, I have to crack open the Thatchers, I opened the envelope.

Inside the envelope was a pamplet and a letter.

The letter explained that, after I sent my P45 off to the tax, they didn’t just send it back without looking at it (which is what I’d assumed they’d done, when it turned up again three days later). Instead they got to work Doing Maths And Things.

Basically, I overpaid on income tax last year, so they’ve sent me a cheque. A nice cheque. And, also, a really quite large cheque. Hell, if I cash this thing, I can probably pay for whatever work is getting done on this bloody car. Or else insure myself for three days, or buy petrol for six.

Although, having written this entry, I’ve discovered that Thatchers take orders for cider over the Internet… Hmm…

*Well, it is, I’m sure. But not for me, which makes for a nice change.

I have passed my driving test. Huzzah!

Over slightly-more-than-40-minutes-because-the-traffic-in-town-was-horrible, I got no majors (obv), and lone minors in:

• Footbrake control (coming through the massive jam in town),
• Moving off control (thank-you right turn out of Waunfawr),
• Following distance (down, I suspect, Penglais Hill),
• Undue Hesitation, and
• Junction Observation (I have no idea where this was, because if I had, I’d not have clocked it.

Win. I can now go out and start causing real accidents!

Mike seemed glad to see the back of me, an’ all. Examiner was a nice guy, quieter than the last one, and with an intersting habit of marking the sheet only when he thought I’d not notice (eg, not immediately after I did something wrong, but some time later, which was damn unnerving when I realised that was what he was doing it). Friendly enough, though. And I got to find out what it is they say when you haven’t failed. Which was shiny.

More work with cataloguing this afternoon, which is good; I’ve enough experience of that for the lunchtime celebratory Spitfire kindly bought for me by my colleagues ought not to cause much of a problem…

This evening, I must ring Charlie Next Door and ask if that car of his is still knocking about. And the I can goconfusedsupermarket.com and be asked to present my nose for the purpose of offering payment…

’s a nice day, innit? :-)

* I came up with this post title yesterday evening, as I was trying to go to sleep (”Quote, Unquote” gets rare points for sending me off faster than chloroform). The point being, it’s from “On the Rise,” the song from Dr. Horrible where Dr. Horrible concludes the line “The world’s filled with filth and lies,” and Penny’s line is “Is the world finally growing wise.”

I figured this would be a nice any-eventuality title for the post. Yeah, I think about these things too much.

That’s the bulk of your background. And then the Daily Mail, of all things, did a bit of digging into her past, which prompted further enquries and a hotly protesting denial and I find myself confronted, on my nightly-before-I-go-to-bed check of El Reg, by the following headline:

‘Yes! It’s Joyce McKinney, admits Joyce McKinney,’ which made me laugh so hard I spilled herb tea in my lap.

It’s a shame that I desperately need to go to bed; It’s suddenly occured to me that this is a really good reason to watch Orgazmo, and it seems a shame to waste such a once-in-the-history-of-anything occurance.

On the other hand, I’ve got a warm bed, and pillows, and Tomorrow, Today! is about to start on the radio…

SHOCKER as JTA listens to Radio 4. Because it’s only been happening for the past twelve years. G’night.

* Winner, ‘Best Internet-related Pun of Summer 2008.’

Of the five people I’ve spoken to on the phone this week, three have said how much more cheerful I’m sounding (and the other two aren’t people I speak to often enough for them to know how I normally sound anyway).

I discovered yesterday that my little tinny electonic alarm clock, which gets me out of bed by cunningly playing a very tinny, monotone, rendition of one bar of Lone Ranger-y finale bit of the William Tell overture until I stumble out of the duvet and thump it, doesn’t actually require re-setting. I’ve been dilligently making sure it’s primed to go off at 07:30 in the morning every time I’ve gone to bed this week, but it turns out that it automatically re-sets as soon as you hit the ‘off’ button.

That spoilt my plan to lie-in yesterday, but it did put me into a nice shallow sleep full of cool dreams about the Crimea, narrowboats and assorted awesomeness, so I forgive it for waking me on a Saturday.

So far this weekend I’ve had Yet Another Driving Lesson, in preparation for Another Driving Test on Wednesday (*sigh*). I’d really much preffer it if they’d just hurry up and give me a pink liscence now; I’ve been learning since 2004, and I know for a cast-iron fact I’m a damn sight better than some of the bloody clowns on the roads these days. Frankly, by this point, the question of whether or not I pass the test seems to be pretty much coming down to luck.

(F’rinstance, the reason I failed last time, on paper, was “Bad observation on a parallel park.” But the reason I displayed bad observation was that I was parallel parking after starting to move out from where I was pulled up to be told to parallel park, and paused while moving out, to let a cyclist go by in the opposite direction. Which meant I was very slightly on a wonk when level with the parallelising car. Ordinarily that’d not bother me, but since this was The Test I fretted over it¹, and was thus gawping out of the back window like mad, trying to make it work out OK. That was Bad Observation, which was a definite fail. Although it would’ve also been just as Faily a Fail if I’d gone out and caused a nuisance to the bloody cyclist. I’m not trying to say I didn’t deserve to fail for the badness, I just think the fact there was badness was due more to chance events than a lack of technical comptence on my part. Actual competence, yes, but I knew what I was doing. It’s not my fault the hypothetical Boy Racer had to potentially slow down a bit.)

Well, ’s give it another shot when we get to that, shall we? Although “Shot,” in the context of Penparcau might be an unfortunate choice of words.

This afternoon I’ve been doing further ironing whilst watching Firefly, which took me a mere two episodes, instead of last week’s four, so I seem to be speeding up as my arms remember what they have to do.

That doesn’t include the extra 30 minutes I spent trying to force the new ironing board cover to attach itself to the ironing board, though (Paul: we have a new ironing board cover, the old one was manky and wearing thin). Thank-you Woolworths, for your generously providing a one-size-fits-all that doesn’t until you take a Swiss Champ to the bugger (Paul: we have a new ironing board cover. Do not attempt to unpick the string binding it to the underside of the iron-rest. It’s a right pain to sew on with a Victorinox).

Meanwhile I’ve played through the whole of S101 [Link to S101 at Abandonia, a site where a large number of the screenshots seem to be from the Island of Horny Women. Hmm. A better link might be this one...], and am now started on S201, which, though I’ve been playing it for, hmm… *does maths* sixteen years I’ve only finished once, and now I can’t remember much of what to do.

O, and I’ve done all the washing up, although I’m about to create some more, unless I decide to just go hungry. That would be less effort in the long run, I suppose…

Still, given that I did pretty much zilch yesterday, and only really got round to Being Domestic today, I’m fairly pleased. I like having a structure to me life. Even if it does involve getting up at 07-30 and coming back home at 18-00 (and, actually, that’s a big step up on when I was commuting to Oxford, where I’d generally spend at least twelve hours from every day outside the house).

Going to go shower the bathroom in little bits of beard trimmings, now; trying to keep the thing to a respectable, summer-y length, rather than the usual “Neglected Russian Bear” I’ve been touting since October.

Apologies for the minor Meme spate yesterday; I was trying to write this, but it didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, at the time!

2. Yeah, an actual HTML-ed footnote for a change. Pretty snappy, eh reader? Doesn’t work in the LJ version, though. Lack of external linkage, presumably.