Time Is Not An Infinite Dimension In Space

7:00pm: Hidden In Plain Sight?
Laura: So, today I had to drive to the post depot
Laura: And on the way I passed a road sign which read, I kid ye not, "Star Gate"
Anne: ...
Anne: .... did you go?
Laura: And my brain said "THAT'S EVEN WORSE HIDDEN THAN TORCHWOOD"
Laura: Sadly, I had to get back
Anne: NOTHING IS MORE BADLY HIDDEN THAN TORCHWOOD
Anne: NAKED JACK HARKNESS WITH "TORCHWOOD" TATTOOED ON HIM OR ITS SUBTLE
Laura: TORCHWOOD IS NOT SIGNPOSTED OFF ROUNDABOUTS
Anne: NO.
Anne: YOU JUST HAVE TO FOLLOW THE CAR
Laura: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=star+gate,+gateshead&sll=54.99319,-1.536207&sspn=0.01226,0.038581&g=star+gat,+gateshead&ie=UTF8&hq=star+gate,&hnear=Gateshead,+UK&ll=54.976629,-1.676445&spn=0.093198,0.308647&z=12&iwloc=A
Laura: IT IS REAL

2:24pm: Cars
I had a dream about old car last night. It was in a scrapyard with elephants. I think my subconcious believes my car ran away with the circus.

12:52am: Yuletide letter!
( Dear Yuletide Writer )

7:32pm: Someone needs to write this
Laura: Dude, they had an awesome bee piece on the One Show
Anne: you watch the one show?
Laura: ...mum does
Laura: Point is: Awesome piece on bees
Laura: Iplayer it
Anne: its a mum thing
Anne: what about bees?
Laura: How they communicate
Laura: Apparently if they wiggle dance up, they found food in the direction of the sun
Laura: And a wiggle dance down is food away from the sun
Laura: And a 5 second dance is 2.5 kilometers
Anne: so every second of dance is ha;f a km?
Laura: Yes!
Anne: they're *metric* bees?
Laura: I feel this should be used in a detective story somewhere
Anne: metric bees
Laura: "Aha, we found DNA on this bee... which did a downward wiggle dance for 3 seconds"
Laura: THE BODY MUST BE 1.5km FROM HERE HEADING AWAY FROM THE SUN
Anne: ...DNA takesweeks to process
Anne: the sun will have moved
Laura: Well, they can record the time and direction AT THE TIME
Anne: how will you catch the bee to get the DNA?
Laura: Very gently brush its back with a cotton bud?
Anne: "HOLD STILL, BEEE!"
Laura: IT WOULD MAKE AN AWESOME CSI EP
Anne: "WE'VE GOT IT, CAPTAIN. THE MURDERER WAS A DAHLIA"

3:51pm: Being Punny
Laura: I have been adult and moved my car insurance to NewCar
Laura: Now known as Jasper
Anne: why is moving your car insurance adult?
Anne: he is Jasper the car or the insurance is called jasper?
Laura: Do you see many five year olds doing it?
Laura: Jasper the Car-rott
Anne: *facepalm*
Laura: *runs*
Anne: OH MY GOD
Anne: I AM DED OF PUN
Anne: That's AWFUL
Laura: I KNOW

1:00am: Book Rec!
So, I picked it up by chance second-hand and today I ploughed through The Dark Ground by Gillian Cross.

I can't tell you exactly what it's about without spoiling it, but it STARTS with a boy waking up naked in a wood and assuming he's been in a plane crash.

A little slow to start, but when you're in you won't put it down. Very nice for those who like YA like me.

Disadvantage: Book is part of trilogy and ends leaving open questions that make you DESPERATELY NEED book 2. I may have just had an ebay slip.

11:51pm: Arolos Birthday Chat
Attention Arolosians past and present. On Saturday, our official birthday, there will be an anniversary chat for plotting and reminiscing

This will start at 7:30PM UK time and continue until uh... we want to go to bed.

Please bring cake.

11:39pm: How to export to CSV using microsoft office 07, a browser, notepad, and a declining will to live
sheguards: ...have you ever come up with a solution, and realised you cannot possibly document it because it's such a stupid way around?
Zechsym: Yes
Zechsym: It just keeps getting worse
sheguards: Create spreadsheet
Zechsym: His specialty was Traumatic Stress
sheguards: Insert extra columns in spreadsheet which hold ONLY " and ","
sheguards: This will create the right layout
Zechsym: yay!
sheguards: But there will be tabs
Zechsym: I would totally do it
sheguards: It will choke on the tabs
sheguards: So, copypaste to notepad
sheguards: Then do a find and replace that places br's at the end of each column
sheguards: Change file extension to htm
sheguards: Save
sheguards: Open in browser
sheguards: Copypaste
sheguards: Do a find and replace which replaces '" " and ' "' with '"'
sheguards: Save as "plsgod.csv"
sheguards: Upload
sheguards: IT WILL WORK
sheguards: BUT DEAR GOD

9:45pm: GARGH
Has anyone any experience at exporting CSV files from Excel 2007 for import into SQL? I'm about to throw the laptop out the window here and google isn't helping.

12:25am: Breaking News Gently
Laura: I forgot to tell you how telling mum went
Kat: Please do
Laura: She thought I was out, and then oopened the door and went "Oh, she IS in.. where's your car?"
Laura: So I said "There's good news and there's bad news"
Laura: "The good news is that I'm buying a new car as you wanted :-) :-) :-) "
Kat: bwahahaha
Kat: "Bad news is that I crashed my old one and then it got nicked." ?
Laura: "The bad news is... mine was stolen."
Laura: "...oh"
Kat: Wahahahaha
Laura: "...after I crashed it"
Laura: ".....oh"
Kat: WAHAHAHAHA
Laura: "Also, Nana kinda fell down the Leaning Tower of Pisa"
Laura: "She's fine"
Laura: "Except she has staples in her leg"
Kat: *rollls*
Laura: "And we don't do staples in this country. So the doctor's don't have a machine to remove them."
Laura: "But the hospital does! And she's uh. Phobic of hospitals"
Laura: "BUT OTHER THAN THAT EVERYTHING HAS BEEN FINE!"
Laura: ... :-) :-) :-)
Kat: *rolls*
Laura: And then Pat and Mal came around and told her she is never to go away again
Laura: As Joan has been trying to convince Nana her leg is not bad enough to miss dancing on Friday
Laura: And Nana refuses to put her feet up
Laura: And Pat basically had to threaten her with her foot falling off

12:31pm: MOT: £50
New brake pads and discs: £105
Friendly local mechanic who does you copies of receipts when your car is stolen: Priceless

Some things money can't buy. For everything else I'll have to wait for the insurance monies.

8:05pm: Give Me Your Car Thoughts
So, as the phone has not yet rung to tell me they have found my car, I can only assume it is lying in pieces in a scrap yard somewhere.

What that means is, when the insurance comes through in a couple of months, I will be hunting for a new car. I'm looking for second hand, costing around £3000 or less, tiny engine, preferably 5 years or younger with mileage of 40000 or less. Cheap and cheerful is fine, and the tinier the better. Really low road tax would be great but not compulsary, really low insurance will be kinda needed as I just wrecked my no-claims bonus. Reliable is a must. It will mostly be a city-car, but will need to handle at least a little motorway driving. Must not mind steep hills!

Thus far, from hunting on Autotrader for cars in my price range that don't strike me as really ugly I have the following list of hopefuls:

Suzuki Alto
Suzuki Ignis
Renault Clio
Hyundai Accent
Vauxhall Corsa
Kia Picanto
Citreon C2
Daewoo Matiz
Smart Fortwo
Smart City-Coupe

Give me your car thoughts, people!

2:45pm: At The Crossroads of Disaster and the Imperfect Smile
So, I crashed my car.

And then someone stole it.

Let me repeat. Someone took the time to STEAL a beat-up eight year old Suzuki Alto with a smashed front-left side ('cause I had just hit a barrier). What the HELL, people?

The smash was my fault. I couldn't get out of the middle lane to the lane I needed to make my junction, and when I did I thought there was just time to make the turn. Not in the rain there wasn't, and I went into a skid, and into the barrier.

Car was at this point pretty much off the road, so I got out, and after I stared at it for five minutes or so in shock a very nice lady (THANK YOU, AWESOME LADY) checked I was okay, and got me moving on Calling People. Called my breakdown service, who said they'd be about 2 hours so, as, even if the car was safe to drive *I* was really not safe to drive it, I called my boss and explained I was five minutes away and he came and got me and took me back for a cup of tea (thank you also, awesome boss).

Two hours pass, breakdown man arrives and I take him out to my car.

Er. To where my car WAS. Because now there is an expanse of road which looks oddly carless.

We look at the road. We look at each other. We call the tow agency. They have not been called to tow it. We call the Highways Agency. We call the police.

Finally he takes me back to the office, where I am sent home because while I am not hurt my hands are going shakey-shakey-shake-shake and my uncle comes to take me to my mum's. Where, I should add, mum is not. Mum is on holiday. The entire family is sworn to secrecy to not tell her til she gets back.

So, I have called the police, who have confirmed that they have double-checked and no-one official has taken my car -- currently they suspect it's been taken to sell for scrap. I have called my oh-so-helpful insurance company who are not sure if this is one claim or two and do not provide hire cars for stolen cars. They do for accidents. No, an accident straight before a theft does not count. I have called my boss to book tomorrow off as holiday. And I am now sort of staring into space because seriously. SERIOUSLY. This is not real life, right?

8:18pm: Yuletide!
Your nominations have been saved, and the list of characters has been updated for each of your nominated fandoms!

Your current nominations are:

Ann Brashares - Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
Diana Wynne Jones - Fire and Hemlock
E Nesbit - The Psammead triology
Elinor M Brent-Dyer - Chalet School series
Jacqueline Wilson - Girls
Robert Muchamore - CHERUB


You may change your mind as long as nominations are open. Just come back and resubmit the nomination form with the same name/email address. NOTE! This will OVERWRITE your previous submission.

10:00pm: Calling exArolos Members -- a party invitation
A long, long time ago, a tiny Weyr was set up on onelist called Arolos. People played, and they played some more. It turns out that time doesn't actually stop moving just because we're having fun, and the long and the short of it is that next month Arolos Weyr will be having its tenth birthday.

Clearly, this calls for a party. In those years, hundreds of members have signed up for our lists, created characters, joined plots or even just lurked. The children who were thirteen at inception are now grown up and finished college. Babies born as Arolos was created are now almost ready to join themselves. This is terrifying and wonderful.

If you are, or have ever been an Arolos member, this invitation is for you. For November, we'd like to hear from exmembers, and find out what happened to you. Our OOC list for the month will be home to many cries of "look at me, I grew up!" and "guess what I'm doing now?". If you want to play (and it's not compulsary to join the party) the Weyr will be holding a huge Hatching party to give characters every excuse to visit "from other Weyrs". There'll be competitions, and fun, and of course, lots of cake.

Even if you are no longer able to handle the mail, even for a month, drop me a mail! We'll be holding huge chats you'll be welcome to drop in for, and we'd just love to know how you are, what you're doing, and that everything's going okay!

http://www.arolosweyr.co.uk or email me at shewhoguardsATgmailDOTcom

Arolos Weyr -- Because ten years hasn't been enough for all our plots yet.

5:00pm: UKers!
I gotta £5 money off voucher for an only book shop. With no minimum spend and free postage.

http://www.priceminister.co.uk

AFFWELCOME5

Enjoy!

11:10am: Good News/Bad News
Good News

Car may not, after all, be on its way to the Last Great Scrapyard.

Bad News

Despite my occasional conviction that it's all in my head, still cannot digest melted cheese. Even half a toastie while I wait for them to work on my car. Argh.

8:29pm: DAMN YOU, WEATHER GODS
IT IS SEPTEMBER.

I AM NOT PUTTING MY HEATING ON. I REFUSE. IT MUST STAY OFF ANOTHER TWO MONTHS YET. I WILL NOT USE IT IN GODDAMN SEPTEMBER. (ESPECIALLY NOT ONLY JUST AT THE BEGINNING).

Oh, hello there couch blankets, yes it is good to see you all over again.

When was summer?

12:27am: And One Day We Will Be Rich
Laura(00:20:06):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8230138.stm

I know this is great and wonderful and important. I do. But.. I keep picturing our one little space guy, up his ladder

Laura(00:18:58): Maybe with an umbrella
Anne(00:21:31): it's a TRACTOR
Anne(00:21:36): ooarrr!
Anne(00:21:47): he's not up ther with an umbrella
Laura(00:21:49): A RURAL TYPE SOLUTION
Anne(00:21:52): he's up there with WELLIES
Laura(00:22:03): And some cow dung?
Anne(00:22:04): and Asda jeans
Laura(00:22:10): To throw at the asteroids?
Anne(00:22:34): HE WILL HOOK UP THE ASTEROID TO HIS TRACTOR
Anne(00:22:41): AND THENDDRIVE DOWNNARROW, WINDY LANES WITH IT
Anne(00:22:48): CAUSING A MASSIVE SPACE-JAM
Laura(00:22:51): ...this sounds like a kids show in the making
Anne(00:23:12): all those aliens abducting people and making crop circles?
Anne(00:23:17): stuck behind tractor guy
Laura(00:23:43): We could make a fortune out of this
Laura(00:23:50): Add kooky 2D animation
Caladria101 (00:23:58): GIVE THE TRACTOR A NAME
Laura(00:24:07): And a soothing, slightly accented, storyteller
Anne(00:24:22): ...Liam Gallagher's looking for a job
Anne(00:24:35): or... ill Bailey
Anne(00:24:38): *Bill
Anne(00:24:46): he would be AWESOME for that

6:26pm: Bein' A Luddite
Having discovered that my VHS player works, I have acted in outright defiance of new technology and bought a handful of videos for 20p each.

I'm trying to fight to progress of time here. For my next trick I'll call my neighbours to gather around my radio and hear the announcement that we are at war.

10:31pm: Five British Comedy Series You Should Totally Watch
It's August, and the world has run out of good TV, so this seems as good a time as any to shove series' you might not have heard of (at least, not if you're not British) under your nose and tell you to buy the DVDs. And then you can watch them, and I will have someone else to rave with about how good they are.

I'm skipping the ones that I think made it out of the country here -- the real classics like Father Ted, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder and Red Dwarf -- as I'm pretty sure those will have made it over the water (at least I hope not. If not, GO BUY THEM NOW.). These are the slightly less well-known-outside-my-country classics.

The Amazing Mrs Pritchard

That they never made a second season of this is something I'm still grieving. Roz Pritchard is a woman who got sick of all the political parties scrapping and arguing and lying, and started a political party because well, running the country isn't rocket science, is it?

It's wonderful. Especially if you like politics. Or if you're really sick of politics.

The Good Life

This seems surprisingly hard to get hold of on DVD for something that was once incredibly popular. Tom and Barbara decide they've had enough of the rat-race and try to set up as self-sufficient in the middle of surburbia (much to the horror of their neighbours).

Not at all harmed by the fact that both Tom and Barbara are rather good-looking. I'm just saying. I'm pretty sure an entire generation of British males grew up fantasizing about Felicity Kendal.

Lab Rats

Only just out on DVD -- actually, I might need to get myself a copy. I'm going to be really really sad if this doesn't get renewed. It's based in a lab, and includes giant bees, lab protests, a scheming Dutch boss, and really pretty hair.

Dad's Army

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler, if you think we're on the run?

Based in the Second World War, on the guys who were too old to go off to fight and stayed home to be the Home Guard, guarding Britain from the stealthy forces of the Germans. Don't panic, Mr Mannering! They repeated this for years, and it was glorious. I wish they still did.

Black Books

Another that ended too soon. You've got a cranky book shop owner with messy hair who drinks too much and hates selling books because then he has to order more and that means phoning the ordering place and you've no idea how boring and complicated that is. Watch it. Watch it now.

****

Brits, add more on. Americans, got any rare and precious gems (not the big popular ones that get syndicated, everyone knows those) I totally need to watch?

12:50am: In funnier news
This is hilarious.

8:48pm: NHS And The Spirit Of The Blitz
You're all getting sick of me talking, I know, but this is something which I think needs to be actually talked about and discussed and compared. Last night, I talked about the mechanical aspects of the NHS -- the bits that work, and the bits that don't work. Tonight, I'm going to talk about the philosophy -- the spirit that makes most of Britain, if not all of it, okay with funding someone else's healthcare with their tax money. Because I think there's a fundemental gap between me and thee which caused some of the disagreements in the last post.

( And cut, so you don't have to read if you don't wanna )

9:40pm: The NHS
Right. As my other, off-the-cuff post created a good deal more discussion than I expected, I'm going to sit down and talk properly about the NHS and try to put some information out to counter the misinformation that seems to be bouncing around the other side of the water.

My Stake In This

Here is the honest truth. Unless you guys are dragging us into wars the Brits don't actually care all that much about what is going on US side. Seriously, we kinda expect you to be crazy, and the most you're going to get out of us most days is an eyeroll and "oh, those crazy Americans."

Until your stuff starts insulting our stuff. Then it's personal.

It's your country. I'm sure you'll vote for whatever you want for it. But I feel the same way about "the Brits put their old and really sick people before a death panel who decide if they would live or die! Stephen Hawking would never have been allowed to live there!"* as if one of our mainstream political parties started running ads that shouted "DON'T VOTE FOR THOSE GUYS, IN AMERICA THEY ENSURE THAT THE POOR PEOPLE ARE COOKED INTO PIES!" Imagine if they did that, and we seriously believed it, and how we'd start thinking of you awful people-pie eating Americans. Not nice, is it?

There's good stuff in the NHS, and there's bad stuff. I'd rather that at least the bad stuff you knew about was the bad stuff that was actually true, rather than that you guys were wandering around going "Oh, Laura's grandmother's really old. Poor Laura. I bet they shoot her next time she's sick."

The plural of anecdote as we all know, is not data. But I can at least chat about some of my experiences with the NHS. I'm sure other Brits can chip in with theirs (Hell, US guys, chip in, tell us how this stuff works your side of the water). And possibly we can build a picture of what is expected and normal over here as opposed to over there, and get something a bit more accurate and realistic into people's heads. Edjumucation is good!

* He's British. And not dead. Seriously, guys, what the hell?

( This is gonna be long. )

My arm hurts now, so I'm stopping. But I will finish with these figures from the Beeb on life expectancy, expenditure and infant mortality. They make interesting reading.

Questions? Anecdata? Arguments?

8:35pm: The NHS
The Daily Mash said it better than I could.

But Dr Tom Logan, head of public health at the Institute for Studies, said: "The key difference between the United States and Britain is that we treat poor people rather than leaving them to die in a skip.

"It may take a few weeks or even months, and not everyone is happy about that, but we do at least all agree that it is marginally better than the skip."