Oh yeah, I am in geek heaven at the moment - got myself a Blackberry Curve 8900 a few days ago. Been playing with it very happily indeed. Had some trouble with MMS at first, and unfortunately the techie people at Orange weren’t able to help, but I’m more of a nerd than the entire department apparnetly cos I managed it myself. Also hooked up to my home wifi, connected to my pc via bluetooth, calendar and contacts auto-synced with my gmail account, and I will never get lost again thanks to the inbuilt GPS - well, you get the picture, I am very happy. Once one or two programs get updated to be compatible, I’ll be so tricked out. I can definitely see myself turning into a Blackberry gal. They’re not business phones any more, not just business phones anyway - the scope of these things is massive and they’re not restricted like, for example, Windows smartphones are by their Microsoft stamp. It’s good.

In other news, I have my first Nephew The wonderful Jude had baby #2 on Tuesday night. As with the Sapling this one got nicknamed in the womb - as the little Dove. Woohoo! *happy dance*

So…an interesting sorta few days.

First my motherboard fizzled. Fortunately that was after I’d finished and validated my nano else I may have gone insane…I was bad enough just being without compy generally for 3 days! Heh.

Back now, though, s’fine, though this new thing makes my fancy graphics card overheat, even with 4 fans and the side panel off, so now I have to buy a cooling system which I really can’t afford, but can certainly afford more than I can afford this thing blowing up and taking everything else with it…

Getting closer to Christmas…and I haven’t finished my Christmas presents yet…decided to knit them this year, due to being impressively broke (which is about usual, actually) and am not quite finished yet…

But I can now play Storm of Zehir (with many breaks to allow the afore-mentioned graphics card to cool down) so I’m ever so slightly distracted…

 In other news…gloves - gloves are evil. They sit there looking smug, then when you’re not looking they dash off and hide someplace so you think you lost one or both…then it/they turn up ages later after you get sick of trying to look in a place you know you already looked a hundred or so times - still looking smug and superior.

Frankly, I think my gloves are plotting to take over the world, and losing themselves is just an extra hobby to make them smile. I’d buy a second pair, but I don’t want to give them either allies or enemies, cos that could prove to be my undoing.

 Gloves…I’d keep an eye on yours if I were you…especially through the winter months…it’s when they are most alive…

Other than that, not much else really, general lifey stuff. Still fighting that stupid virus (which, come to think of it, only arrived after I dug my gloves out of where they’d been hiding all summer…oooooh…). Knee still hurting, but am determined to keep walking and will be registering to do a 20k walk next May just as soon as I can afford to. Friend Jude will be moving in 13 days and then I won’t see her for…16 days, which will be the longest time since we first met over 3 years ago since when we’ve hung out basically every week. This makes me sad. Just like it did when the family Taylor moved. And my Wednesdays are going to be very strange for a while.

But, speaking of Wednesdays and Jude, time to toddle off to visit her and the Sapling. Be well all.

You know what sucks?  Being ill. That sucks. A lot.

I don’t so much mind being ill, as not being able to make myself feel any better.

See, I had this horrid and very bad cold which laid me flat out for like 4 days. But I also have asthma, and as usual a couple of days before the cold arrived I got chesty, then asthma got bad, and then I get ill. First off, I was more ill, and for days longer, than I can ever remember being with a cold before. Second off, my chest, instead of getting a bit bad with the cold, then retreating with it too, kept getting worse.

And the fun thing is, with a cold, I have a giant selection of lovely tasty things to make myself feel better - menthol sweets, sore throat tablets, lemsips, painkillers, and so on.

For asthma due to a chest which is bricked up with phlegm, I get a bit more inhaler, and cough medicine with expectorant in it. So when they don’t work, I am, as I am now, screwed. My sleeping posture resembles sitting upright more than it does lying down cos I can’t breathe otherwise. My ribs and stomach scream every time I have a coughing fit, which is approximately every two minutes when I do anything which makes me forget to only take shallow breaths. And my chest sounds like it has rice krispies in it. So last night I got to sit in a hospital with a nebuliser stuck to my face, something I’ve not had to do in over a decade. And now I have a spacer again to help me get more of my inhaler down into my lungs which, again, I haven’t had to use in like 10 years.

 And it’s annoying simply because it’s a virus. A horrid, nasty virus. And the only thing I can do is keep trying to control my asthma, while waiting for it to decide to go away.

So as I said, being ill sucks when you can’t take stuff that makes it feel better.

But enough of that, I don’t bitch very often but I’m quite grumpy due to total exhaustion and so on.

I was thinking the other night about angry mobs. Like…how uninventive is the collective consciousness? They break into where the bad guy is, drag him out and hang him or just stomp him to death depending on how impatient they are. Or they corner him in some building somewhere and set him on fire.

And I just really want to see an angry mob come up with something inventive for a change, something fresh and new for the young folk out there who are tired of the same boring old mob stuff and want something dynamic and exciting to persuade them to get into the angry mob business - heck, it’s a profession just as about old as prostitution. As long as there have been people, there have been other people wanting to lynch them for real or imagined crimes.

I’m thinking I may have to fit in a death by angry mob scene into my Nano novel this year.

Cos yes folks, it’s that time again! November 1-30th, I will be writing a novel of at least 50,000 words.

I’m working on editing last year’s now, so that should be up for reading soon, it doesn’t take long cos with the Nano novel all I really do is check spelling and wording and basic formatting - I wouldn’t know where to start in actually trying to edit that stuff into a proper novel, it’s just fun, and funny.

If you remember - or if you just go back and read about it - last year I spent the month accepting challenges for things to include in murder scenes - cos I had my main character murdering all her exes, who were all based (usually quite loosely) on male friends of mine.

Well this year, I am once again accepting challenges for things to use in suicides - because this year there is an evil little imp by the name of Rappel who gets his kicks by convincing women to kill themselves in strange and surreal ways. The females in question will, of course, for balance, all be based (probably loosely) on my female friends. So suggestions are welcome, and I will do my best  to use as many suggestions as I can to create the most insane and surreal suicides I can possibly manage!

So I’m actually not doing so great as of yet. Had a couple of days where I’ve been too tired to type anything, one day where I was just never in front of the computer. And tonight I was doing OK, but then spent an hour giving telephone assistance to my Dad, who is slowly learning the logic of computers and hasn’t quite got there yet.

On the plus side, he got into my nano novel because I lost my thread completely and ended the day with a speedy recap of the conversation. Hehe.

 Meantime, I have so far killed 3 of my male friends. Paul got death by papercuts. Ben got an overdose of boiling hot Lemsip (with added paracetamol) via an IV drip. And Sam got set alight while, when roasting marshmallows, he stood on a carefully positioned open (ie, jagged-edged) can of sardines and fell face-first into the electric fire.
Next up is going to be one of 2 Andrews I have to do. And this one is going to be my first entry for the Best Slapstick Death 2007 competition. But not tonight.

Good things about nano:
I have an excuse to talk  nonstop complete and utter nonsense for 30 days straight - and I’m taking advantage of it, believe me!
When attempting to write and stuck on the next sentence, I’ve been teaching myself to juggle - I’m getting better! At this rate, I’ll be ready to join the circus by the end of the month (which, at this rate, will be the only thing that might keep me out of the nuthouse!).
I’m living on sugar, caffeine and snacky foods - which is giving friends the opportunity to be kind when they see me by a) buying me snacky foods b) topping up my sugar and caffeine rush and c) feeding me properly. It’s a good thing. I’m allowing them to offer me the gift of kindness and friendship. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it (for now, at any rate).

Anyhow, after all that, I am actually a bit behind, as I mentioned. I want to hit 80k before ending the story (and I’m lining up a fabulous Acme-style death gauntlet for Annie, it’s gonna be ace), but I’m only on 12,845 words so far, when by now (day 7) I should be on 18,669. But that’s fine, I’ve just had a busy first week - mostly it was my Street Pastors night on Friday that’s messed me up, I should be better without that for the rest of the month. But, y’know, we’ll see.

At any rate, I will get myself up and over 80k by the end of the month. I will!

I was a marshall for the Nottingham Robin Hood marathon today. My first time marshalling such a thing. And I didn’t send a single person running through the fields instead of round the corner. go me.

I was posted just under 15.5 miles so they’d gone a good way by the time they reached me. Lots and lots of clapping. And, increasingly towards the back runners, lots of encouraging words.

It was quite great. I had a large grin on my face most of the time cos I was having lots of fun. It amazed me all the different types of people running it. Also amazing me was their response to my feeble little bit of applause! They’re all thanking me and applauding me back which I really didn’t get given as they’re the ones doing the running. Something else I ever quite get are the randoms who stand around and watch and applaud - same reason I don’t get the people who sit and watch the London Marathon on TV every year. I was there in a bright orange bib being all…marshally. But I’m not sure what possesses a random person to stand and applaud another random person jogging past looking rather exhausted. Respect, I suppose. Perhaps a touch of awe. Envy. Sadism is probably in there somewhere too.

Heck, those runners had my respect and ave - though definitely not my envy, I was very glad they were running and I was clapping rather than the other way around. Even those who walk most of the way, that’s still 26 miles! It’s not exactly a stroll to the shops!

So hurrah, huzzah and hooray to all the runners of the Nottingham Marathon this year! Especially those who aren’t runners at all, but did it to raise money for their various charities. Go you guys!

Tell you what though, standing up all that time and clapping away like a nutter has worn me out too. I was really trying to encourage myself to get back out the house, rather than curl up on the sofa, simple because I would like to go to church and it has been a few weeks since I’ve been to any, and especially my particular one…but I’ve failed miserably…ordered takeout to chomp on and am about to take possession of my sofa for the day.

In other news, I’m getting tattooed tomorrow! I have one, behind my left shoulder; it’s a scroll with RAOK in it (that’s Random acts of Kindness). This time I am getting a black latin cross on the back of my left hand, the main vertical axis to follow the line of my ring finger; thus signify nicely, to me, to anyone who knows me and has a small amount of sense, and to anyone who asks that I have basically - what with the whole dedication of my life, vow of chastity thing and such - married myself to Jesus. Hurrah!