I woke up at about 5.00am this morning with a splitting headache. Dragged myself out of bed, took some inbuprofen, the dragged myself out of bed again 10 minutes later to apply some 4Head. Managed to drift off after about half an hour when the drugs started to kick in, but still had a headache when the alarm went off at 6.45am. It had dulled somewhat, but was thumping, and was combined with the nausea of a small migraine. I managed to make tea or Tom and I, but climbed back into bed whimpering after taking more drugs, unable to face the shower I had planned this morning.

I stayed in bed until about 9.00am, occassionally testing the water by getting up, but would quickly get back into bed as while I was lying flat and still my head seemed copable, but standing up and walking round made my vision go strange and made me feel very sick indeed. Bah.

Called up the work sick line, and dragged my sorry butt down to the sofa to snuggle up in a blanket, watch daytime television, and feel sorry for myself. I forced myself to eat a slice of buttered bread which of course made me feel instantly better, and from about 11.0oam inwards I started recovering. I've been left feeling very tired, but not too bad any more. Tom was feeling a little off last night so maybe he caught some minor virus and passed it on to me.

The day has been spent playing Warcraft, watching tele (Quantum Leap and Lion Man!) and cooking tasty stew. To be honest I could have gone into work in the afternoon, but I don't have any way of getting in other than a two mile walk, a 43 minite bus ride, and another two mile walk along a main road with no pavement. By the time I got in it would have been afternoon coffee break, so probably not worth the trip.

I'm giving singing a miss tonight since I'm not yet 100%, and we have no pianist so this evening's rehearsal is going to be a lib talk-through. Seeing as I have about 10 words to say in the entire show I just cannot be arsed to drive all the way to Salisbury just to sit and watch other people say lines!

I've just had a fantastically geeky, unhealthy and slightly hick weekend - it was amazing! Tom and I headed up to Wilpa's (collective name for Will and Shilpa, apparently) Friday night, where we proceeded to muck about on World of Warcraft as requested by Will as a birthday present. We then spent all of Friday and Saturday playing the game, sat in a dim living room with the heat of a half dozen laptops putting strain on the network at the same time. We didn't do anything specific - just played about with a few quests, did a few low-level dungeons; generally mucked about doing the kind of thing we used to all do as a group before we started getting married and owning houses and didn't have the money or time for such intense gamuing. My diet on Saturday consisted pretty much of cookies, cake and tea. Thankfully Shilpa cooked us all nice chicken and pasta so we actually got some vitamins that day.

Sunday for a change we loaded up Will's work van with a recently cut-down hedge and headed over to his parents' field-come-allotment, where we built one big-ass fire! Will also brought his air rifle so when not burning stuff we were shooting stuff. Now I know what it's like to be a Redneck. Or come from the Forest of Dean. I did get some funky photos of the fire, which will get posted later.

Today seems to be payback for what amounts to a geek's weekend bender. I am very sleepy, and my stomach is not happy with me for eating rubbish all Saturday. I tried to make up for it by cycling in today, but it's been snowing on and off so I don't know if I'll be cycling home or not. I'd like to, as I hate leaving my bike at work - for some reason the cycling home is all the more daunting if I haven't cycled in the same day - maybe I need the warmup?

I think that's probably about right...

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (92%)
3. Liberal Quakers (83%)
4. New Age (67%)
5. Reform Judaism (67%)
6. Neo-Pagan (66%)
7. Orthodox Quaker (66%)
8. Secular Humanism (63%)
9. Mahayana Buddhism (57%)
10. Theravada Buddhism (55%)
11. New Thought (55%)
12. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (53%)
13. Baha'i Faith (48%)
14. Scientology (48%)
15. Hinduism (47%)
16. Eastern Orthodox (44%)
17. Roman Catholic (44%)
18. Sikhism (44%)
19. Taoism (44%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (42%)
21. Nontheist (42%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (41%)
23. Jainism (38%)
24. Orthodox Judaism (34%)
25. Islam (28%)
26. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (28%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (13%)

In other, less frustrating news, Tom and I headed over to Tom's boss's flat after work for takeaway pizza and Wall-E. Love love LOVED the film! Plus a lounge on leather reclining sofas with nice work colleagues watching Pixar wonderfulness was a much-needed distraction and relax I feel. We've decided to start a regular film night - next up is Ameie and Tom and my place, since several people haven't seen it and it is a wonderful film. :)

Spoke to parents t6his evening too - they're off on holiday to somwehere warm and sunny this weekend, since Valentines day is their 40th anniversary of meeting (awww!). I'm kind of pining to see my family again so will try and head down in a fortnight when they're back. I owe them some Christmas presents they left at our house, and they have a plant of mine I left at theirs (which has almost died after finishing flowering - oops!).

There was snow this morning - very bizarre! Heavy, wet, thick and short-lived. It didn't settle as everywhere is wet and it's not very cold at the moment.

Um - nothing else to report. Cat has definitely stopped vomiting and is happy and bouncy. Other cat is even more bouncy, and prone to moods of manic tearing round the house destroying anything that moves (and some things that don't). Miles, meanwhile, has become convinced that the secnd hand on the kitchen clock is in fact a small and fuzzy animal that needs to be chased, and keep staring and doing that funny silent meow thing at it! Daft edjit.

They found the string attached to the shower radio! They were being a lot cuter before I started filming them - proper tug-of-war stuff going on, but this is still pretty cute!

I managed to get some worming granules for the cats, which they ate when mixed with smelly sardines! They loved the sardines - even Miles with his bad tummy ate most of his (and polished it off later in the evening). Trying to feed them separately so they both got a full dose of the wormer was not easy, since Maya could smell the fish from behind the door and was desperate to come in and eat some! After lunch Miles looked a little sorry for himself - he slept a lot, and when he was awake he just sat under the computer desk. But by evening he was back to his old self, running round and purring and being affectionate so I guess he's on the mend. he was still well this morning, so hopefully he's recovered now. I could do without having to clear up any more cat sick!

Saturday evening Tom and I went out in Salisbury with people from work. We often have work lunch socials, but it's been a very long time since we had an evening do and it was nice to have a drink and a meal in town. When we got back we had some visitors in the form of Will and Shilpa. Shilpa had been to India on holiday with her parents, but Will obviously couldn't go because of his kidney disease. They'd just got back from Heathrow so stayed over at ours which is kind-of on the way back to their house. We had a nice lazy Sunday playing computer games and eating nice food, before the headed back. Always nice to see friends!

Tom and I spent a very long time playing Mario Brothers Wii which is crazy but wonderful fun. We finally managed to beat Bowzer after about half an hour of dying on the final level! Good stuff.

Miles has roundworm. :( I'm a little annoyed, because they both get defleaed ad dewormed regularly, but I noticed the latest packet of spot-on wormer only dealt with tapeworms, not roundworms, and now I feel like a bad mother.

The poor thing had vomited a few times in the night, and I noticed them in his vomit. I've taken away his food for now (not that he was interested in it anyway) and will find some wormer tablets to give him today. The good news is that after throwing up in various places round the house (thankfuly not on the rug! But on the doormat quite a lot - may just buy a new one) he's quite perky this morning and while not 100% his usual self, he's playing a little bit with Maya and purring when I stroke him.

Poor kitty.

Badger Badger Badger...

Couldn't resist! ^_^

SAOS is currently taking suggestions for the Dec 2011 musical. Suggest what we should do!

Bear in mind we cannot do anything ultra-new, like Hairspray. We cannot do anything that is currently touring or was touring very recently, like Chicago, and we cannot do Lloyd Webber because it's too damned expensive.

There are a few musicals I would adore to do, but don't think SAOS would consider them, such as Rocky Horror or Les Miserables. I'm thinking of suggesting Tommy, since we seem to be heading in a more rock 'n' roll direction at the moment.

For reference, the next three musicals will be Full Monty, 42nd Street and The Gondoliers.

This weekend has been pretty busy so far, but also very fun! Yesterday Tom and I drove up to Woking to meet fwuffydragon and husband, and exchanged my old Claud Butler bike for a lovely lunch and a walk in the park. They are both lovely people and it was woinderful to finally meet them!

After our visit we headed to Basingstoke to see Avatar in 3D. I thought the film was absolutely wonderful, though I'm not sure whether it was worth the extra cost and effort to see it in 3D (though it was quite impressive).

After the film we drove to Nailsworth to meet Tom's parents and sister in a little Italian restaurant for Tom's dad's birthday. We were wprried about being late, but the restaurant was running a bit behind, having a waitor shortage. We were there until 11.00pm, but the food was fantastic and the waitor was really sweet and helpful and although I was falling asleep at the table by the end of the night it was a really nice evening.

Today we're having a lazy day reading and playing on the DS's and waiting for tasty roast dinners. There are advantages of visiting the in-laws, after all!

I came back from work this evening, took off my shoes, put down my bags, and wandered in the direction of the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I stopped mid-stride in the dining room, and thought:

Why is there a sausage on the floor?

There was a large sausage, pleasingly curved, speckled with herbs (it was not a cheap sausage, clearly. We live in a middle class neighbourhood). A few nibble-marks gave the game away, as did Maya proudly rubbing up against my legs to show off her latest 'kill'.

I literally laughed out loud, until I was left wheezing slightly with the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Stupid cats!

I have no idea where they got it from though! I guess some neighbour has a very unsecure rubbish bin or compost heap, though what they are doing putting sausages on a cpompost heap is beyond me.

Beats clearing up bloody feathers any day!

In Excel, I have a number of graphs related to data in spreadsheets. If I have a single x and a single y value (for example, measurement a over time) then when I click on the graph, the relevant data is highlighted in blue and purple boxed which I can drag down if I add more data to the spreadsheet.

If I have more than one y value (for example, measurement a and measurement b over time) then I do not get these little blue and purple boxes. I have to go into ‘select data’ and manually ctrl-drag the data I want to include in my chart.

This seems to occur in both Excel 2003 and Excel 2007.

Does anyone have any hints? Apart from telling me not to use Excel, of course (since this is work stuff and I don’t have much choice in using different programmes).

( Edited to add images )

I was bored so drew my cats in crappy 5 minute mouse paintings. I'm annoyed with myself for using PSPX, not MS Paint but never mind.

( Craptacular drawings )

Yes, Miles is a boob-kneeder!

I realised I nev posted any photos of the snow we have been having for the past couple of weeks. Snow in this part of the country isn't very common, though we usually get it once or twice a season. However I have never known snow this deep, or lasting this long, in my life! It's pretty much unheard of for snow not to have melted away after a few days.

So, some pictures. Some artsy, some just showing the snow round where I live as proof of my reason behind not going to work on a couple of occassions. :)

( Read more... )

Second night back at singing, and everyone was in high spirits. Lots of hugs were exchanged, which is always nice. It's funny, because on Tuesday I went around to everyone saying hi, happy new year, have a hug, etc, but it seemd tonight was when people actually noticed me! I think Tuesday everyone was rather distracted with the weather and the arrival of the librettos, which were very late in coming. So, yeah - hugs tonight! I had a nice chat and gossip with Liv, who by the way is doing the Full Monty despite admitting Mikado would be her last show. There's no getting rid of some people. :P

We're still lacking a black guy to play Horse, but apparently if we fail to find someone we'll just cut the part. He has no wife in this show, so it wouldn't really affect anyone else too much, but it would mean the song 'Big Black Guy' has to be cut which is a shame. Plus some of the lyrics in other songs are just meant to be sung by a black guy: "baby got back, that's a fact, you could park a wide track Pontiac in that crack. Now that's the goods!". Hoh well.

We're also lacking anyone willing to audition for Jerry, the lead male who has a few songs but loads of dialogue. One guy would ber perfect for the role - plus he has a son of the right age to play the same role in the play who just so happens to be an excellent actor and singer. He's already said it would be too much for him though, and I don't think he would do it even though the audition panel will almost certainly ask him to consider the part. Not sure what else to do about that...

Snow here is melting, leaving my road in a horrible deap slushy mess which is much more slippery than the compacted snow and ice that was there before. Since the weather forecast is for rising temperatures we had a final snowball fight at work at lunchtime. There have been a few these past couple of weeks - some of them being pretty epic in number with site-wide participation, but today was just five guys who were playing football and me! It was quite good fun though - I had an advantage in that for the first five minute nobody wanted to hit the girl, but after I's whopped them all a few times I was fair game. I stayed out for 15 minutes until my gloves were soaked then came back in. Good times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/14/sledging-police-reprimanded

Policement get in trouble for using a riot shield as a sledge. :)

I managed to get to singing last night! Funny, really - I hadn't gone last Tuesday or Thursday because of snow, but those days it hardly snowed at all and the roads were clear. Last night it snowed loads and started settling on the roads, but I knew I had to go, having missed the first two rehearsals. I started off saying I wasn't going to do the Full Monty, and now I am. Then I said I was only going to go for chorus, and now I'm wondering whether I should go for a principle role or not! Last night was the first time I have heard the music, and it's really good - quite rocky and fun, jazzy, modern, a little rude in places. I'm not sure I could do justice to many of the roles, but I could certainly pull off one or two of the womens' parts so long as they're not meant for anyone too old (a lot of the characters are written as 35-50, but I think definitely suit the older range of those ages).

I asked the musical director whether the chorus need to audition for this, and he said I should just come along and sing something, which translates as he wants me to audition. I would really really like a role, but I'm reluctant to give up as much of my time as I did for Mikado, knowing what a drain on me that was. It's not the learning of the lines and the music that's the issue, it's the long drive into Salisbury two or three times a week and the 2.5 hour long rehearsals. It wasn't so bad when I lived in Salisbury, but now it's that much further away it's quite a drain on my energy.

Anyway, I'll think about it. :)

Ugh. I fail as a scientist.

Up late and I feel like typing. :)

( Lengthy Memeage )