Can now be found in one, easy to use, LJ community: roswrites.

There is a handy master list with links to everything.

That meme.

( 25 Opening Lines )

Thanks for all your helpful advice. I have now booked one night in a B&B near Stirling to break the journey and a week in a B&B in Dingwall with the option to extend it if needed. The B&B in Dingwall have agreed to give me a cheaper than advertised rate for the longer stay. So now I have to get everything here done in the next few days, ready for the long journey starting on Sunday.

You know, it used to take about 14 hours door-to-door when I lived in Philly. This (because I really can't do the drive all in one go) will take about 28 hours. Hmmm.

So, the flat that I was hoping to rent isn't going to be ready for another 3 weeks. Grr. It was originally listed as available from the beginning of August, then the landlady said mid to late August which would have suited me really well. Last time I spoke to her, a couple of weeks ago, she said first or second week of September. So I'm not feeling terribly confident that it will actually be ready in 3 weeks time.  The delay has been to do with an insurance claim to fix the leaking bathroom that has taken longer than expected.  ETA (because a few people were getting the wrong idea here), I haven't signed anything and the landlady has been completely upfront about the situation at every stage.  She wants to be sure it will be ready before any agreement is signed/money changes hands.

On the other hand, it is perfect: it's furnished, it's within walking distance of the college, and it's £100/month less than anything else I've seen.

The two options I'm left with are:

(a) Give up on the mythical perfect flat that keeps getting further and further out of reach and just rent somewhere else;
(b) Drive up next week and stay in a B&B for a week to ten days, and hope that my physical presence will speed things up a bit with the flat.

Or, I suppose, (c) Stay here for another three weeks and hope not to murder my parents in that time.

(c) is my least favoured option, not least because I'm really ready to get on with some work now and I feel like I'm wasting precious time.

I'm leaning towards (b) on the basis that, even if I am spending £25/night on B&B, it's still likely to come to less in total than renting somewhere else more expensive. On the other hand, I have seen an advert for a 2-bedroom cottage (rather than the 1-bed flat) which would be very nice (though I think it only has a shower, not a bath, which would be disappointing).

I think it's time for a poll:

Poll #1252364 Plan my life!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I think Ros should:

Track


Bristol


Willow


Piper


Elvendork


Trig

( Also, it occurs to me that... )

I think I just got a bargain.

I needed a new mobile phone (for the last couple of years I've just had a cheap and nasty pay-as-you-go phone to use in the UK) and I also wanted to get mobile broadband so that I can use it here, in Scotland and in the Old Shed. After a certain amount of searching online for good deals, I've just signed up with 3-mobile for a £30/month package that gives me 300 minutes and/or texts, and 15GB broadband download, with a posh new phone and a USB modem. This seems to me to compare pretty well with, say, BT broadband and phone at £25/month with a 10GB limit. And it means that when I move, I'll have internet already without having to depend on the whim of the BT tech people. Yay!

I was amazed at the number of people who came into the 3-Mobile shop just to ogle the phones. I like window shopping more than most, but phones? When the guy was serving me, he asked what I'd like the phone to do. Um, make phone calls? Send texts? Right. Do I care what it looks like? Not really. Anyway, this is what I've ended up with:



*pats shiny phone*

If you turn it over, it looks like a proper camera. Dunno how good the pictures are, though.

I was almost tempted by the deal that came with an HP mini laptop but for another £20/month it really wasn't worth it. Especially since I already have a more than adequate laptop. The little one is very cute, though.

ETA Do go and check out nineveh_uk's poll about the opening ceremony for the London Olympics.

On the whole, I can't help wondering if 5000 Morris dancers might not have been a better idea. The bus wasn't even a proper Routemaster, for heaven's sake. The hedge was bizarre. The dancers were doing their best, one feels, but I can't help thinking that most of the 90,000 spectators wouldn't have been able to tell what on earth was going on. And why, exactly, was the Blue Peter child walking on their backs? Leona Lewis was okay, I guess, though I did have to explain to my family, twice, who she was and that, no, it wouldn't have been better to have picked someone they'd heard of. Becks was rather sweet and the Chinese official who decked several others to get his hands on that football was clearly delighted.

I think it's fair to say that for precision organisation, sheer scale and spectacle, there is no way London is going to live up to Beijing. So it's probably a good thing that bumbling Boris is in charge. Just the way he looked so uncomfortable on that stage, first sticking his hands in his pockets, then behind his back, not to mention his ineptitude with the flag - it seems to me to embody what ought to be the spirit of the London games: self-deprecating, slightly incompetent, charming and disarming. Let's not try to be too cool. I think everyone will have fun in London, even if the buses are late and the trains overcrowded. I mean, beach volleyball on Horseguards Parade - what's not to love about that?

*Disclaimer: I have never read and have no intention of ever reading Twilight, nor any other vampire-based teenfiction*

But I did enjoy this piece explaining some of the, um, limitations of Meyer's work. Inevitably, there are several very het up responses to the article, pointing out the mean unfairness of expressing such criticism, because, you know, sparkly.

My favourite comment comes after some discussion of the number of times Meyer uses the word 'murmur': Oh, forgot to add: It’s STILL bad writing to use a single word that many times in one piece of writing. It’s redundant and unneeded. And redundant. Not to mention unneeded. ;)

I didn't get to watch the opening ceremony 2 weeks ago, so I'm watching the 'highlights' now (we don't have to watch all 204 nations enter the stadium. Just the Greeks, the Brits, the Americans and the Chinese. Interesting selections from the BBC.)

Um, Sarah Brightman? You can't tell me that no women in China can sing. So why her?

Also, I didn't know that 4000 year-old ancestors had been summoned at the start of the Olympics. Now it all makes sense... The drumming was pretty cool, though.

The BBC commentator: 'China is doing what it does best: mobilising epic numbers of people with strict discipline and precision.' Yup. Scary, isn't it? This may have something to do with how 'as China grew over the centuries it's "absorbed" other areas and ethnic groups.'

I'm pretty sure that, whatever else, the opening ceremony in London won't be characterised by strict discipline and precision.

George Bush's binoculars are bigger than anyone else's. In the world.

I like the British team's outfits. Though I'm not keen on the men's white-soled shoes.

It's weird that so many of the athletes are carrying cameras and camcorders. I'm pretty sure this is being televised.

Not just an excuse to use my Rebecca Adlington icon again, I promise.

Really interesting discussion on The Material World yesterday about the construction of the Water Cube in Beijing. The foam-like structure is the result of an improvement to a packing problem that mathematicians and physicists have been working on since the middle of the 19th century. It is, in fact, regular not random: the random appearance is achieved by switching the axes of the design away from the normal vertical and horizontal. Also, the structure is built from plastic to help with the acoustics inside the cube.

If you listen again, there is possibly the worst link ever between the two items on the programme. The water cube is in the second half of the programme.

For bookish327 who correctly worked out that Angelina Jolie who starred in Mr and Mrs Smith was once married to Jonny Lee Miller who starred in Mansfield Park. She requested: H/G, R/H stories with funny Weasley banter and teasing, especially involving Gred & Forge teasing the Magic Quartet and vice versa. (Who can leave Ginny out of the Trio?! Blasphemy, I tell you.) If you want to make it post-Final Battle (DH-compliant), I can excuse Fred from being there. Or it could be a Missing Moment or AU, if you want to set it while the Quartet are still school-age. which is way out of my comfort zone. Anyway, it's mainly R/Hr, though there are glimpses of H/G and there's a teasing George, but not Fred. I think this is the first Christmas after the Battle of Hogwarts.

( The Perils Of Opening Presents )

And I can't make the link work properly, sorry.

( Which mix of Hogwarts houses am I? )

I've never knowingly made a fiend in my life.

Natalie du Toit from South Africa who came 16th in the women's 10,000m open water swimming race.

With one leg.

Beat that, Michael Phelps.

The synchronised swimming is on!  I love this event.  I never see it except at the Olympics and I was worried I'd missed it.  I love it because everyone is always so snooty about it.  I love that they wear makeup and jewellery and that they lose marks if they stop smiling.  The Japanese girls are amazing in their interpretation of the music.  I have no idea how they manage to keep time with the music while they're underwater.

...with which to say yay and well done to all the British athletes in Beijing.

This is (already) the British team's best performance in 100 years. Back then, in London in 1908, there were about twice as many British competitors as from any other country, because people just turned up and had a go if they fancied it. According to the BBC:

Team GB's 16 golds is their greatest haul since claiming a British all-time record of 56 gold medals at the 1908 Olympics in London. That tally came amid a collection of 146 medals in total, but will almost certainly never be surpassed, given there were only British entries in some events including figure skating, polo, rackets and tug of war. LOL.

The cyclists have absolutely killed the opposition, taking 10 golds out of 12 events on the track. The rowers and sailors have done brilliantly too. But it's the little people who've been awesome. Louis Smith taking the bronze medal on the pommel horse was the first male gymnast to win a medal for the UK in 80 years. Germaine Mason winning the silver in the high jump today - who'd ever heard of him? Tina Cook taking bronze in the eventing, as a substitute after Zara Phillips' horse was injured. David Florence who won silver in a kayaking event - he's a mathematical physicist in real life, who only took up canoeing when he was 15. Jo Jackson who came third in the women's 400m freestyle - almost a hidden achievement since Becky Adlington won the same race.

This is a particularly interesting version of the medal table - you can view it adjusted for population, GDP and other factors. I still can't find the one where the UK are winning though...

So, in trying to get access to a Google Group, I seem to have disabled my gmail account. They've sent instructions for recovery to an email address I no longer have access to. In 5 days time, I should be able to reactivate my account (if I can remember the answer to the security question!). In the meantime, um, leave me a comment here?

Okay, I decided I couldn't cope for a whole 5 days.

NOBODY PANIC!!!!

Turns out I can access my normal email account, just not on Firefox. Anyone know why this might be the case? I can't even get to the temporary account I set up on Firefox, either.

Is on because I couldn't be bothered to find the remote and switch it off.

But I'm so glad I didn't. Simon Cowell was a contestant on Sale of the Century. He won a spatula. Hilarious.