You had plenty money 1922

Spent last week on holiday in Falmouth, as is my wont. We had glorious weather, I am very tanned, and am stuffed. Went swimming most days, mostly out of some sense of masochism, as the water at Gylly is freezing, deep and the current is strong. Penzance - marazion, St Michael's Mount - is warmer, being merely cool, unbelievably shallow and clear. It's more like pool water than seawater. I had to swim halfway to the Mount before it got above my head at mid tide. and then I amused myself by frightening people by swimming to the castle just as the causeway was uncovered and emerging at the rockpools. There were many 'where the fuck did you come from?'s. Stuffed self, (put on six pounds, now have a stomach), meandered about, went on ferries, toddled around Eden. Bought... um...earrings, cute work shoes, sandals, a few vests, a t-shirt, fudge, Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter's Long Earth and Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman.

Started at new job. Which is a bit odd. Aside from desperately trying to learn all the new systems over the past couple of days (come back, old job's workflow and your step-by-step system! all is forgiven!) and convinced I'm going to forget them by monday. New team appears nice. The only really weird thing is - business park. weird green echoey space, there's a bit of a village at one end, right out in the middle of oxfordshire. Food is a couple of pubs and a couple of sandwich-shop type places. oh good lord was I spoilt in London.

Olympics - haven't seen much of it, but generally pleased at everyone who's taking part. And the general UK attitude of 'omg we got a medal in *that*? seriously? Well done, you!' (especially in sports that don't involve sitting down - our gawping at men's gymnastics was *impressive*). The opening ceremony was a thing of beauty and AWESOME and complete batshitness and reminded us of all the things we're proud of and showed us ourselves. Yeah, that's us: green and pleasant land, Industrial Revolution, women's rights, multi-cultural, Mr Bean and Chariots of Fire, the awesomeness of childrens' lit, the NHS, Abide With Me tribute, moths on bicycles, the Queen and 007 parachuting out a helicopter and some fucking banging tunes. And bursting into tears at the torch and lighting of the candle being about the passing on of the flame from the experienced to the young hope of the future and the cauldron being many creates one.

So, um, yes. more updating.

Job finished on friday. as a leaving thingy I got a Miss Chatterbox mug. At which everyone burst out laughing when I pointed out I was never given owt with her on it. (my Little Miss stuff was normally purple sporting a green bow.) Weirdly relieved in a way, experiencing this concept of 'normal sleep'. applying for jobs. Experienced today that utterly weird thing called signing on. Job Centre is this weird quiet place of depression. Who don't seem to have publishing as a career choice.

Saw Avengers yesterday. which: :flail: so awesome. so much fun. (giggling or outright guffawing every few minutes) So shiny. and yes, there is a requisite 'Joss you bastard!' point.

off to see norman rockwell exhibit at posh dulwich gallery. Also trying out new mascara. Hope over experience, i kid ye not.

Work continues with owning company obfuscating while we make 'we were not born yesterday' noises.

Today's random spotify pick: Cesaria Evora - spanish folk of some sort. Reasonable background/working music.

To do:

Update CV. Rai pointed out that one of the things I've been doing (creating and maintaining the production wiki) counts as project management. That's another of those mystical job experience requirements learnt, then. And then properly look for jobs.

Work is its usual bored out of my skull/coasting/behind the scenes bitching I tune out of. Recced the inclined-to-panic-if-procedures-not-perfectly-laid-out lad for a project of his own so that he can learn to improv and relax whenever a minor stumbling block occurs. Fingers crossed that this works. admittedly I'm used to being chucked in at the deep end since childhood and then did much the same to everyone I've trained or taught.

Get off my arse and do some exercise. Skirts riding up due to added poundage on hips. When you wear miniskirts as general workwear, this is kind of scary. Trying to work out when would be doable, and how to break the siren call of bed on weekends especially in this cold time. I occasionally think of getting a workout dvd but have to remind self that the tv is in the smallest room in the house and laptop is not doable due to house being too small and full of furniture to not have my dad
violently objecting to me doing it in sitting room.

As usual, writing is mostly comprised of snippets of crappy original fic, or AUs of AUs with added future snippets of those AUs. Sometimes these eventually blossom into readable, but this often takes years. Currently trying to write some more of the Inception/RocknRolla crossover, but no idea what to do beyond first scene. Same with the Dark is Rising future fic/Torchwood crossover - to do that crossover, I'd have to a) do more politics research and b) get the Torchwood bunnies active.

new Being Human. Squee is achieved, and Nina/George is frankly adorable now they've settled down from last series' angst. Watched the US pilot and ... hmm. it comes off better than most UK->US translations, as it reads more like a different adaptation of the same source text than the usual cringeworthy attempts. The humour's different, they've changed the characters to fit US archetypes, and so far it has a few too much preachy angst/voiceover bits for my tastes, but we'll see. Interesting change of dynamic to have the vamp as a nurse rather'n a hospital porter - indicates stability that might be seriously rocked. There is a distinct lack of tea, and they've added the cliché that vampires don't eat or drink, which was something i liked that Toby Whitehouse had done away with (if only because it was funny to have other people walking into the kitchen and getting freaked out that the vampire was tucking into beans on toast). Less subtlety overall.

Bought tickets for the NT cinema screenings of Jacobi in the Donmar King Lear and Cumbermatch/Miller in Frankenstein - anyone been to these? How decent are they compared to stage?

yes, I brought it on myself. it's that fabulous lack of sleep headache and wooziness. How to know Nano's really kicked in. Slightly peeved that I could've got a bit more last night but found at the parentals (finally back from holidays in south pacific. bastards.) had left the doors unlocked, windows open, *all* the lights on and the gas fire on. Please FSM let this smoothie work.

I completely deny I bought any more gosh eyeliner. It's not my fault. 3for2 and my mate had picked up 2 already...

The Geek Squad have installed a Stig advent calendar. Oh. Dear.

Supertemp!Sam (no, this is actually his nickname at our work) is back. one of those don't realise how much you miss someone until they turn up several months later. he's been on a 9 month tour of The BFG which got great reviews and paid really well, so he's now looking for work again. Saw one of the mangers intro him to someone and rugby tackled him - editor didn't know him and looked a wee bit startled when I rugby tackled and then said 'eee!, don't mind me, speak later, yes?'

nano chugging along fairly smoothly when I manage to convince myself to start writing. Damn procrastination gene.

so far, have not attempted to savage any passers by or work colleagues out of hunger, so at least the special k is filling me up.

Yesterday, there came the wail from IT of 'everyone getting this message, disconnect from the network and run your virus scan NOW' ... which turned out to include half our team. Then told everyone else to run it anyway. So that was somewhat amusing. The virus whatsit got rid of it on the infected computers, but it turns out everyone else had a couple of trojans lurking in user profiles that weren't their own, which tended to raise the cry of 'who the hell is joss01?'

This tourist guide to the tube speaks the truth. you will need no other map, tourist people.

Oh good god. I've just seen an ad for American Apparel, advertising '25 different one piece bodysuits available now'. WHY? Why would anyone want to resurrect these incredibly uncomfortable things? The poppers would come undone when you least expected it, or stuck, or would take ages to do up. And why do you feel the need to wear one of these anyway? What advantages does it have over a bog standard top?

Went hunting for old notebooks to find the notes on the nano ideas. On finding them, have got the upstairs downstairs notes (which was 1920s, not edwardian as I'd previously thought and a lot soppier - good god, valet boy, you were a *doormat*) and the psycho exploring officer (who is too bloody normal and what, precisely, is with this plot/character development? Plus some weird details which make no sense unless you knew the universe I was working on in another completely unrelated story.). can't find the girl who disguises herself as a boy to go soldiering, but am pretty sure I can remember how that one went. Slightly peeved that I don't have it since I remember there was some decent dialogue in those notes. What is odd is that I can find my recent notebooks, I can find my old notebooks, but not the ones from a year ago. Middle period of the last few years missing. Suspect there is an Eater of Notebooks. Like the Eater of Socks, but more into spiral bound cheap wood pulp than cotton and wool.

Looking at the 80s mining strike circle village one... gah, it looks a great idea, but I think falling back on the ones where I have some idea of the characters would be best this time. Because at least then I can write the dialogue. So, toss-up between 1920s upstairs downstairs, psycho girl chucked into the exploring officers, or girl disguising herself

Got back yesterday in time to be amused by mum hyperventilating a bit - she's doing the Macmillan Coffee morning thing on friday and had just got advance warning that the local Pathfinders group had got wind of it. The person who used to organise such things died a bit ago, so when they heard about it, they went 'ooo, they're starting again!'. Which ups her numbers by about, oh, 30 or 40 people.... food is not a problem (baking has been pretty much non-stop). It's the tea, coffee and crockery. Cue frantic ringing of the neighbours and pathetic bleating for spare mugs.

Trying to decide whether this Jay-Z/Rihanna track is bad or not. Chorus is decent, the first bit's good, it just goes on for-fucking ever and what was good starts to get really tired. Fuck it. This is not worth my attention, give me the latest Madonna and Mika and Chipmunk, for I must BOUNCE.

Running afoul of rules I didn't know about, and it doesn't help that new parent company is starting to get a lot stricter. problem being that we're not getting to know about said tightening until we do something that runs afoul of it, like non-work topic emails. And me being me, it seems I'm the person most likely to and thus get the telling off.

The latest one is... we work as a team. Or at least we used to. If you're not sure, you ask. Only it didn't used to matter *who* you asked. And at the section I'm in, everyone used to ask me, because I've been doing it the longest. Only now I've been told off for answering questions from the newer people (all of whom passed their probation) because 'they must ask the person in charge of their training it is very difficult to evaluate their work and plan their training if they are not approaching the correct individual'. I didn't even *know* people were still assigned to the person that was training them during probation. I didn't know training went beyond the 'this is how you do this', that it was formal now. And when I said I wasn't aware of this, that I never remember being told, I got a 'Yes, well you never listen.' (doesn't help that I'm from before the time of formal training, when you picked everything up in dribs and drabs) Since it is a wee bit difficult to remember something you didn't hear, have asked for all of the rules and so on (including the unwritten rules that I have no clue about which are apparently incredibly obvious to someone who worked at a more restrictive workplace previously) in writing so I have a copy.

Because of all this, I'm seriously confused and don't know if I'm getting it in the neck because I'm screwing up or getting it in the neck because I'm easy to get at. And starting to get paranoid that they're trying to push me out because I'm difficult. Someone advised me to set up a meeting. I don't *want* a meeting. I clam up during formal meetings where someone's telling me off and then I spend a good few minutes crying in the loos because I don't handle it well.

Just hoping that getting this lot in writing will at least give me an idea and somewhere to stand.

Outlook died on me (turned out to have been a version that tried to update and failed, leaving me with two dll files which greatly confused it). So in the quest for worksafe entertainment, I went looking up bsg stuff. one hour later : So. Bored. (boss had said she'd email IT, and if they didn't reply in an hour, phone them. She never told me that they hadn't replied, and it also turned out they never received said email. She now insists that she'd told me to phone them straight off. :strangle:)

So, new whatsit : wikipedia v. good for entertainment purposes when it's real life historical and science and so on (let me tell you of the lunchtimes I've lost to following the links in the tudor, stewart and plantagenet history section. 'oh, so this person was shagging... huh, and it turns out they're the great granny of...'). Dull as ditchwater when it comes to fictional.

Wish to hit Firefox. With the new comp, I dl'd the latest version, 3.5, which'd been working on previous comp. had made a list of all the themes/add-ons that make my life easier. And it turns out that if said add-ons haven't been updated for 3.5 and you're *starting* with 3.5, it won't bloody install them, even though they were working fine if you'd previously updated from an old version. Now that's a fucking stupid bug. Because firefox updates faster than the poor sods who make these nice little add-ons.

oh, that was special

my mouse is acting up. I need a new one. Due to some extremely stupid bad posture a couple of years ago, I screwed up tendons in my shoulder and hand to the point that I can't use a normal mouse (buttons operated with first two fingers) at work for more than five minutes without being in pain. I need a trackball that gets with big ball in middle, buttons operated by thumb and little finger, which everyone refers to as my Star Trek mouse. (usual trackball mice, you still have to operate with first two fingers)

So, request a new one. They ask me for the type and model number. I hunt it down, manager sends in request. Today, package. Open it, and... it's the bog standard trackball mouse. They clearly read 'trackball' and couldn't be arsed to read any further even though they'd specifically requested model number and type. Best bit, though? I did a google on the mouse they'd sent me. On amazon, it's £32.99. The price off the website for the mouse I want is £19.99. £14.99 on amazon. :headdesk:

Dammit. Girlie shopping last night, problem being that by the time we got to Topshop (the original reason for *going*) it was late enough that everyone else wanted to go home so I had to go in by self and couldn't get second opinion on dresses.

The style fits, they both look great, just can't decide on colour :

http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=true&catalogId=19551&storeId=12556&categoryId=162922&parent_category_rn=42344&productId=1167170&langId=-1 - blue one
http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=true&catalogId=19551&storeId=12556&categoryId=162922&parent_category_rn=42344&productId=1186611&langId=-1 - yellow one

opinions?

'course, they all managed to find stuff that looked great on them in H&M. Dammit.

Today's Dilbert? Showed it to Lissy and she went 'have they been reading our emails?' :twitch: We have never used this excuse with latex files. never. ever.

Hee. Got an email with 'temp receptionist wanted', I pouted because it meant that ridiculously competent temp's time was up, asked office manager if this was true. it is, sadly, but it turns out ridiculously competent temp is now going full time in horribly understaffed HR. So that's some silver lining. (We've done it before, we'll do it again. it's a good way of trialling people.)

Tracklisting been revealed for Daniel Boys' album. (large amounts of what I suspect is cheese, I think it's unavoidable on musical theatre performers' solo albums. It's like a disease.) One of the ones listed is 'They Don't Make Glass Slippers' and I'm hoping like hell that it's the Stiles and Drewe one from Soho Cinders because it was a lovely song when Gareth Gates sang it, and Daniel is far more talented than the Gates boy.

Hmp. Does anyone know if any of those lash-curling mascaras work? The No.7 I'm using doesn't smudge *as much* as all the others, but I still get smudges due to having short eyelashes. Lash curlers make them look really bloody odd and bent.

Oh good god. Not another american article on the trend of twenty-somethings getting tattoos. Besides the fact that your observations are about ten years out of date - tattoos being commonplace started in the late nineties, you're still trotting out that tired and completely out of touch line about tattoos being about rebellion and trying to be individual, and 'there's so many of them trying to be individual that it makes them an amorphous mass'. Flying Spaghetti Monster give me strength. Getting inked is about decoration or personal meaning. it always has been, and you're a fucking nitwit if you're getting it for rebellion. I think the last people to do it for effect were punks. (middle-class art students rebelling for effect and attention)