Author: Lou

So today, I get up and come downstairs to find that the computer is on, and this is open in a browser window. I don’t know how B found it, but yay!! I used to love that programme. Some of the later seasons had scenes from Bodiam Castle in Sussex, near where we lived, and me and Martin used to argue about discuss which bits were from where. Heheheh. It was just cool interactive fantasy, and it was the only prog, on ITV we really watched regularly. Ah, childhood nostalgia……

Testing remotely done dotcomments. *crosses fingers*

And wondering why Blogger doesn’t believe my ftp works when I just got in fine from here….

I took a little bloggy break. Cos lets face it, I type too much when I get going. *g* I had two days off, and shock, horror, I actually didn’t spend the whole time attached to my computer! Most of it, but not all like usual. B and I went to see Shrek yesterday, and then we had pubfood. It was good – film and food both. And when I wasn’t out, I managed to finish off re-doing my fic site. It’s now called Diavolo Nero, and it’s moved a bit. The index page of soulstar.co.uk now has links to all five of the sites that are hosted on it. Oh, and I closed the .nu webring, since it wasn’t going anywhere, and finally moved Soulstar Design to it’s own domain and gave it a slightly (but not much) improved design. Phew!

I need to remember to install dotcomments. Guh.

(19/07 – whoops, posted this yesterday, but forgot to actually publish…. d’oh……)

Now, I was reading Lanie’s journal, and a while ago she’d been wondering about some Briticisms, like what South West 6 was, and so on. Anyway, I sent her an appallingly long and boring email to her about these things, and when I was down visiting the parents (and going to the 4*m gig) earlier this week, I mentioned it to them. And as if often the case when I mention things I know some-stuff about to my parents, I learned a lot more. Did you know that the Tube and the Underground aren’t the same thing? Maybe it’s just me that didn’t realise – the terms are interchanged pretty much, and it’s all the ‘London Underground’. But the Tube trains are the lower, squatter, more rounded ones, like on the Northern line, and the Underground trains are the slightly taller, flat-sided ones, like on the District line. So there you go. And another thing I didn’t know – postcodes only started being used in this country in the 70’s. But in London, the postal districts (like SW6, etc) have been used much longer (they were extended to full postcodes in the 70’s) – when my Dad’s family moved to England (and London) in the 30’s, they were in use as far as he remembers. He actually lived in SW6 – Fulham. Heh.

All this reminds me of another story Dad told me. In the war, he and one of his sisters were evacuated (his brother was in the RAF, and the twins would have just about left school, and were probably doing something war-effort-y – must ask them some time) to Banbury (I think). Dad was about 5 or 6 years old, and thought that London was bigger and better than the country, and apparantly said so quite a lot *g*. He says he particularly remembers declaring that in London even the pints of milk were much bigger. In later years, he realised that of course, this was because the “pints” of milk they had at home were actually quarts. Heheheh. [/boring history ramble]

Oh, and Lanie, before I started rambling there, I meant to say, bummer about your car getting broken into. :-( Moronic bastards. Had a similar thing happen to me once – I was driving Mum’s car, parked it for half-an-hour to go to a quick rehersal, and when I came back, the window was smashed, and they’d stolen the tax disk. Lovely. So *hugs* – it’s such a horrible feeling when that kind of thing happens.

I don’t know where my diary is. My ‘real’ diary (as opposed to this virtual, public one), the one I’ve been writing on and off (mostly off, of course) for the last 11 years. Black hardback book, blank unruled pages, flimsy little lock, bought in France in 1990. I’ve had the impetuous to write in it twice fairly recently, but when I actually went to look, I realised I’m not sure what I’ve done with it. I know where it used to be, when I was in London. But since I moved up here… *shrug* Actually, I don’t know where a lot of things are. I really need to finish unpacking those last boxes, sort everything out. It must be around somewhere. I also realised the other day that I don’t know where the key for it is, either. Which is annoying, because the keyring it’s on also has the keys to the padlocks on my rucksack (looking for those was how I discovered my keylessness) and the key to my little lock-box. So now I can’t lock the zips together when I’m travelling, or get to things like my birth certificate, should I need them. I thought I had the keys, you know – thought they were where they’d always been, in a certain drawer, under a certain pile of stuff. But nope. Whoops.

Much improved weather today – still muggy, but lovely and grey, and slightly rainy. Sooooooo much better! Things aren’t boding well for the trip to the cricket on Sunday, though. Not only are the Aussies comprehensively thrashing us (not that that’s anything new) and look like they won’t take long to finish us off, but rain is forecast. So it’ll either be over, or rained off. Probably. Not that those options would be the worst thing – what would be really annoying would be if there were only a few overs left for Sunday, or if it got rained off after just a few. Because that’d be a waste of a day, and we wouldn’t get a refund, either. Hmph.

Braved McDonalds at lunchtime. Dinner time. Whatever. My mid-shift break. Cos there’s nowhere else to get food at that time of day, unless I want chinese. Which, I do, but it always takes me two days to eat it, so that’s not an option since I’m off tomorrow. But anyway, the girl behind the counter was in a right strop. Twas quite funny really. Heh. Oh, and I picked up the Four Star Mary album in Andy’s Records – can’t believe they had it. Must remember to take it with me to the gig and get the cover signed. :-)

You can tell it’s warm. I’m wearing shorts. I was actually surprised when I rummaged in the cupboard…. I’d forgotton I even owned any. I’m also wearing this top I picked up in Jakarta airport…. god, that was six years ago. It’s tan-ish coloured, and it has embroidered elephants on it. It’s odd to be wearing this colour…. not my usual thing. But the shorts are black.

When I first started this page/site/thing, I intended it to be a blog, and basically non-Buffy. That didn’t really happen. I ramble too much, and spend too little time hunting down links to do a blog, so I suppose this is more of a journal… though not totally that either. It’s rambling space. Heh. And as for the Buffy-ness… well, I wasn’t trying to avoid Buffy things – after all, most of my other sites are Buffy-related. But I have life that isn’t. *g* And I don’t think I do really talk about Buffy here. But if you take a look at my links list…. the majority of those journals and blogs are people I know or know of through the BtVS fandom (and damn, is there anyone who doesn’t keep one of these things any more? *g*). Thing is, I’ve read lots of other blogs, including the trendy-to-read ones… and they haven’t held my interest for whatever reason. The ones in the list over there do, Buffy-related or not. Maybe it’s having the something in common, I don’t know. But I like ’em.

Oh, and hey, while I actually am on the topic, in a lot of other journals I’ve been reading about the bitchfests that happen in the Buffy fandom. OK, yes, I could hardly miss some of them (those that have sites, for eg.). But by and large – huh? Am I not on the lists, or in the cliques where this stuff takes place? Or am I really oblivious, because I haven’t noticed it? Or perhaps I’m just lucky not to have had any of this vituperation directed at me. Hmm.

I discovered the other day that Transformers is now Beast Machines (or something). Optimus Prime is a big mechanical gorilla. Interesting. [NB – my brother used to watch it religously (and Mask! Does anyone else remember Mask?) and had the toys… I even had to take him to see the movie, and it was good, damnit!] And then today, Sandycat has a picture of a bloke dressed as Optimus, in all his pre-primate trucky glory. Yay! However, I’ve also discovered through this how deeply and tragically sad I am. Because you can get yourself made into an action figure. And I want one. Oh dear god. A small plastic me to shamelessly jump small plastic Spike. I can’t believe that actually crossed my mind. Though on that topic, Angel and The Master still seem to be at it, though they’ve somehow knocked the candlestands over. I so don’t want to know how….

Once again, very very tired. Would probably help if I didn’t keep staying up until stupid times on work nights doing site redesigns. D’oh! But anyway, I like the new designs. I now just have the job of carting content into them, and that’s a bit tedious. Stuff needs rearranging, too. Hmm.

One of the things I’m looking forward to about doing this site for Barry is that I’ll just be able to do the design and coding, and then go “There you are.” and leave him to it. Well, pretty much. He’ll probably need the odd html-ing hand. But no content creation for me, no sir!

My brain keeps kicking out odd phrases and things that are leading me to believe that, despite outward appearances (I hope), I’m not actually completely awake. I still seem to be dreaming. Very disconcerting. Chugging caffeine before I turn round and say something way offbase to someone.

When I was in the train today, my mind tried to pull out of the station before the train did. Strangest feeling, going through the back of my head. Luckily the train did start off a few moments later, so I caught me up. Again, I think it was because I was partly asleep. I’m pretty damn sure, you see, that the mind/spirit/whatever can go wandering on it’s own when the body is sleeping. Because if it can’t, then either (a) I’m barking mad and haven’t noticed yet, or (b) there’s some even weirder shit going on. I’ve ‘dreamed’ of things and places that just can’t be explained any other way. The most detailed was the time I dreamed of a rocky river with a waterfall at the end, in a forest/wood, when I was in my early teens. There was a path running alongside the river was made from cream stone chippings…. I thought that was strange, because the only stone chippings I’d ever seen on a path were dark grey. A few years later, I was on holiday somewhere in the middle of France with my parents and brother. We went out for a random drive one day, and by chance passed an area of forest that advertised a picnic area and nature walk…. decided to stop for lunch. And it was the very same place I’d dreamed years earlier, cream chippings and all. And no, it can’t have been a premonition, either, because in my ‘dream’ it was a different time (the waterfull was only a trickle when we went there, but in the souvenir shop, there was a picture of it at full flow, like I remembered it) and (duh) nighttime. There are lots of other odd little details, too, like the path leading down into the river that was somehow hidden on the way up to the waterfall, but in both cases I saw on the way back. Makes me wonder just where else my mind has visited that I will never physically go, or probably even remember.