Salt on my face

A David Attenborough Satnav voice set

"Heah, the tiny roundabout, safe in its natural habitat, carefuly peeks out onto the motorway..."

"As we traverse the migration route, we turn left at the earliest opportunity"

If that doesn't exist, why not?

Edit: let's do a twitter campaign! It'll liven up a friday. Go here and add your suggestions please :-)

79%

Upgrade disc arrived. Got it going last night - I started the actual upgrading between 00.00 and 00.30. Left it on overnight (new machine is soooo nice and quiet) It is now 13.52 and it's at 64%.

This is on a brand new machine that had only ever been turned on once since its vista install - I gave it a name and made a user account. That's it.

Something tells me this is not right..

I finally got to see the hunting tower in Horwich, bit of a fraught climb as the steps were icy (down was eeky) but a great view up there. I am clearly very Dutch and went "Eee! High hill! Far views!"
Then we went down the not-a-road in the Landrover (which could try out for a dry river bedding with extra stones) and then, because it was fun, we barrelled back UP it again, and I couldn't stop grinning for a while after that.

Birthday gift to self - new netbook! It'll replace the late great Acer One (which is now with Pol, who can deal with its OS weirdness) and my elderly Acer laptop. It has a honking massive battery - bit over the top for my regular use, so I shall see if I can find a cheapish 4-cell battery for normal use. I'm very happy with it so far - I've really missed having a mobile writing device since I started writing again :-) 

I'm waiting for the shop downstairs to heat up enough that I get warm as well. I've recently discovered that my heating wasn't coming on at all and it was still 24-25 degrees; seems that's a freebie from downstairs. I'm grateful, as it's a much more even heat as when my own heating comes on. And 24-25 is a perfect temp if I'm spending most of the day sitting still working.
Does mean that I'm currently in my 'define interesting' hoodie sweatshirt, with a HWB in my back, and STILL feeling cold in a 20c room. Does that seem right to you?

I have suddenly started coughing with that deep chest cough that feels like I'm trying to choke fire out of my lungs. OW DAMNIT.

Now there's a shiny new super fast computer sitting next to my desk being useless while I await its upgrade, the slowness and loudness of the Fishtank is even more annoying than it already was...

I have 518 tracks on this playlist. WHY OH WHY does Itunes insist on only playing about 25 of them? I should NOT be hearing the same tracks over and over. It's starting to piss me off. Does anybody know how to make itunes truly randomise? (no, I'm not willing to change away from itunes)

New 'puter. Aspire M5201. Now to get everything across from the Fishtank.

Also, brain full of treacle.

Edit: things I do not want to see on my shiny new Windows 7 pc: BLOODY VISTA! That's right, it has Vista on. Will be calling the shop tomorrow to ask how they intend to remedy that. Grrrr.

'Repost this (social cause) to your journal/facebook' memes are the new chain letter. Discuss.

OK, so the Acer Aspire X5810 isn't suitable because not upgradable. Two options that seem suitable to me follow. Please your pros/cons/that brand is shit/etc for the following:

Acer Aspire M3203
AMD Athlon II X4 620
4gb RAM
1 tb HD
ATI Radeon HD4650 1gb
Dual Layer DVD/rewriter/blu-ray player
Win 7

HP Pavilion P6130
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
4gb DDR3-SDRAM
1 tb HD
DVD/RW supermulti whatever
ATI Radeon HD4350
Fiahwiah
Win Vista with Win 7 upgrade

I have no clue how the processors compare. I think I understand that the Acer's videocard is better. The DVD drive isn't a priority. Firewire is nice but not hugely important. Both are at local shops and cost the same. Your opinionating is very welcome.

 I love christmas dinners that are more about the cooking than about the eating. "Right, it's ready, everybody sit down" and then quickly set the table is quite a nice way to go about the whole thing. Fun, unofficial and YUM. 

O HAI FACEBOX HOOMAN!

The outdoor shop called yesterday that the coat I asked for had arrived, and the busses seemed to run okay today, so I ventured out to try on coats. Considering the weather it's a bit of a priority!

The Haglofs coat I asked for was really nice - but just not a great model for wide-hipped people, and the pockets were awkwardly high (I like to stuff my hands in my pockets). The Mammut coat was really nice and quite flattering, and I found a North Face coat with a nice lining that also worked quite well, if a bit less flattering because it's more boxy. I tried the Mammut and the North Face on about 1000 more times (the fitting service of the future has a camera that lets you put images of yourself different clothes next to each other to compare!) and decided that I liked the Mammut better, but not 125 euro better (which was the difference) so went with the North Face coat. Which is dark green, lovely and warm, nice and long so it doesn't ride up, and makes me happy. With my awesome boots and my great coat I have no excuse not to go out more, so I intend to do more of that.

Then I bought a load of strings of lights. They were on heavy discount, so I couldn't resist. The house looks like a cracked out electrician puked lights all over it. Oops.

And it kinda sums up how I feel about Christmas :-)

bitching about HOW BLOODY COLD I AM I MEAN SERIOUSLY THIS ISN'T EVEN FUNNY

nb: I'd probably quite enjoy this weather if my body could actually hang on to bodyheat instead of chucking it all overboard. I should not be cold in a 21c room temp, especially not with double thick socks and a jumper on!