Last update: 28/03/10 at 22:27
(Now stickied for great justice!)

Just realised I have a "to write" list without actually creating a "have written" list. This speaks volumes.

NB. Does not include stuff written prior to the creation of this DW, except where fics are in progress. Check Pharmakon for older stuff.

( Stuff wot I has writted goes here. )

Wow, have I really not put anything on here for over a year? Sheesh. Weeeeeeell, I guess you all got the hint that I was on an unannounced hiatus.

Here is what has happened to me in the last year:

-Got burnout. Got signed off work and slept about 20 hours per day (seriously not exaggerating) for about three months.
-Went back to work (eventually). Realised I was still pretty ill and took a good long while building back to full time.
-Went to Cuba for best friend's birthday.
-Quit work because job was the problem and was going downhill again.
-Grandpa went into hospital. Visited him at least every other day.
-Found new job, with toy company!
-Grandpa died the day after starting new job.
-Met cousins I didn't know I had at Grandpa's funeral.
-Moved house.
-Got permanent job at toy company.
-Car failed MOT and would need an engine rebuild to pass. Sold car.

In short, I had one of the worst years of my life, and it's only just now building back up again.

So this hiatus is likely to continue ... for a while.

I am going to do something I have never done before, and recommend that you watch Top Gear.

Not Top Gear in general. Oh no. Just this one specific Top Gear. And not even all of it! Once the main programme starts, skip along until the time reads 48:52.

And watch something of pure beauty and joy, during which I laughed so hard I stopped breathing.

EDIT: Bollocks, forgot BBC IPlayer doesn't work outside the UK. Have a YouTube version, part one. And two.

As is probably obvious, I've not been around much for the last little while.

Part of the reason I've not been around much is evidenced by the fact that I just got paid £250 in overtime. Yeah, my work went bananas, but hey, they paid me moneys!

Which I promptly blew on a PS3 and a couple of games.

...so I probably won't be around for another little while.

And while voting I found that the BNP are standing in my area. Ugh.

Speaking of the BNP, it is rather awesome that this got caught on tape. BNP candidate being filmed telling a couple of Asian men "there's more of us than there are of you" and throwing the first hit in a punch-up? Fabulous. Please continue to expose your bigotry in a public and embarrassing manner.

(And it shouldn't need saying, but just in case: I did not vote for the BNP. I nearly voted for the Pirate Party, though...)

...and your first two don't count.

I spent the entire night vomiting roughly once every hour-hour and a half. This is not as much fun as it sounds. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your perspective), my Mum is also off with norovirus; hers started earlier in the week. Anyone who tells you it's a 24-hour bug is LYING - the nausea and diarrhoea can continue for much longer.

This weekend I saw the play Ghost Stories. It was, quite frankly, terrifying. I hadn't realised that I'm that much of a wimp. Any play that manages to make the phrase, "Daddy's got meow meow" into the creepiest thing I have ever heard is deserving of commendation. (I want to see it again, since I spent most of the play this time around hiding my face in my friend's shoulder and therefore missed a lot.)

Anyway. One of the ghost stories takes place while someone is driving on a country road late at night.

Today, I visited a friend who lives in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and had to drive back.

Late at night.

In the dark.

On a country road.

Needless to say, I was irrationally terrified and had the lights on main beam nearly the whole way back.

I tried many ways of distracting myself. I spoke out loud. I tried plotting fic. I thought about the next thing I have planned to do in the game I'm playing. Nothing really worked, because the sensory inputs I was receiving were too similar to the play to break the association.

Then I had a brainwave! I would turn on the radio! There wasn't a radio in the play, so a) it was different and b) I could listen to music.

So I reach over and turn on the radio. And from the speakers comes the haunting refrain:

"What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster..."

Dittoing dragovianknight's recent case of the dun-wannas, I dun wanna finish writing this application form.

It's a freakin' awesome opportunity to be paid upwards of £15K per year to train as a social worker. I've got the skills, I've got the experience, I've got the desire...

...but I dun wanna write the application.

It's due tomorrow. :(

I was digging through my folder of half-written fics (there are twenty-two separate fics in there, I kid you not) and found this, which is still only half-finished but what the hell, I'm posting it anyway.

Title: Ugly
Pairing: Er. Sort of Sai/Sakura? With background Naruto/Hinata.
Warnings: Sai. Being Sai. 'Nuff said. Aaaaaand I'm writing het, but it's awesome because it's Sai and Sakura. Well. Sort of.
Summary: “Hey, Sai, if you’ve got the hots for Sakura, why do you keep calling her ugly?”

( Ugly )

Dear Customer,

Thanks for preordering Dragon Age on PC from GAME.co.uk.

Your Begans Bow In-Game Weapon code is: ****-****-****-****,

To access this please follow these instructions:

Create a PlayStation® Network account by visiting eu.playstation.com/registration on a PC.

* Sign in to your PlayStation® Network account.

* Visit PlayStation® Store by visiting eu.playstation.com/registration on a PC.

* Select the Redeem Codes icon, found in the top right hand corner of the Store Top.

* Enter the 12 character promotion code shown above and select Continue.

* Follow the on-screen instructions to redeem the promotion code.

Thanks again for preordering from GAME.co.uk.

The GAME.co.uk Customer Services Team

Please Note: The code is case sensitive and must be entered exactly as displayed. The above code is required to access your pre-order bonus. Keep it safe and don't share it with anyone. It cannot be replaced if lost. Codes are limited to 1 code per PlayStation Account.

I pre-order the PC version of a game and get a PS3 pre-order bonus. WTF.

Not that I really care about the pre-order item. But still. What.

Edit: Okay, I can still get it in the PC version. Even so, major fail.

I just put a load of washing out on the washing line. And now I'm out of breath, shaky, and exhausted. I hate being ill.

I have flu. Not just a cold, flu. Temperature, sweating, oh-god-someone-cut-my-head-off-my-sinuses-are-killing-me flu. And this is my fifth day of being ill despite being at home mainlining orange juice.

...This is my excuse for why I just bought the PS1 versions of FF7 and FF8 off Amazon.

(I also have the Dragon Age expansion pack, which will be released tomorrow, on preorder. And the next "Gentlemen Bastards" book by Scott Lynch on preorder, although that's not going to be released until May. Shh.)

I feel that I must now update you all on what I did when I did not have internet.

Its name is Dragon Age: Origins.

There are many reasons why Dragon Age is awesome. Many, many reasons. Canonical gay is one of them. (There are four romance options in the game - two male and two female - and regardless of your PC's gender, you can have a romance with three of them in one playthrough.)

Other reasons are as follows, with informative headers. ( Very informative. Yes. )

I hate my metabolism. On average, when I'm sitting on my arse doing nothing, I last maybe two or three hours before I need to eat something.

I am one of those people who can eat anything and everything and not put on weight. I'm constantly told, "Oh, you're so lucky!" What the people saying that don't realise, however, is that I have to eat that amount to stop myself from feeling horribly unwell.

I have to have three large meals per day and I have to eat at least one snack in between each meal, or else I get joint aches, headaches, can't concentrate and end up sleeping twelve or fourteen hours a night because I'm so exhausted. Since glucose levels also affect the serotonin system, if I don't get enough to eat I can easily have a depressive episode and stop thinking rationally on top of all that.

The "not thinking rationally" part really does not help, because I have before ended up trapped in a cycle where I've concluded that I will feel better about myself if I lose weight, so I eat even less, so I get more depressed and more irrational and - the phrase "downward spiral" is rather apt.

The point of all this is that I have a date tomorrow, with a girl who is bubbly and weird and wholly herself and generally awesome, but who is also a model and a natural size six (UK size - US size two, I think) and doesn't understand my pain. I know from experience that she can function perfectly well for 72 hours on one meal - that one weekend I had to do the same, and I was so unwell as a result that it took me a full week to recover.

And. Um. I'm not sure there are any food places where we're going. Oops.

I am alive. I have been hiding from the internet for personal reasons. I should have known it would take RAGE to bring me back.

LJ suspends 186 accounts of sex offenders registered in New York.

RAGE.

Let's start from the top, shall we?

1) Having read through the comments and the link provided in the post, neither LJ nor the New York Attorney General's Office have provided a reason for the suspension that is more than "they're registered sex offenders".

2) Apparently, pissing on a tree in public can get you on New York's sex offender register.

3) So LJ have suspended these accounts apparently without proof either that the internet was related to the offender's offences or that their current use of LJ is questionable.

4) Soooooo... That little human right about not receiving punishment without trial? Yeah.

5) Soooooo... That little body of research demonstrating the links between social isolation and sexual reoffending? That body "little" enough to form the basis of professional work with sex offenders (like the Thames Valley Sex Offender Treatment Programme) and government-funded projects (like Circles of Support and Accountability)? Yeah. Not that a social networking site like LJ has anything to do with valid social outlets. Of course not.

If those accounts were being used by people to commit further offences, or if those accounts were the accounts of people who had already been convicted of internet-related sexual offences, fine. In that case, LJ's move is a good move.

The problem is that neither LJ nor the Attorney General's Office are saying that's the case. They're just saying they've removed the accounts of registered sex offenders. And that's not good enough.

Law enforcement agencies have a duty to protect the public. However, any actions they take in the execution of that duty must be proportionate to the crime and/or risk, and must not unduly increase the risk of reoffending. Actions must also be accountable.

These actions? Stink.

I have had no internet since 22/12/09. Posting this from friend's house since I don't know when I'll get internet back. If you need to get hold of me, call!

1. It's snowing outside.

2. I may have swine flu.

3. ( Now for the TMI. )

Can anyone recommend any good anime series/tv programmes/movies that I can stick on my lovely new iPod? Its screen is so beautiful, I must put pretty things on it, but I can think of nothing.

(Technically, the iPod is my Christmas present, but since I bought it with my own monies and people are going to give me contributions towards it which I don't actually get until Christmas, I'm damned well using it now. XD)

Dear Nose,

We've been together a long time. You may have a tendency to itch at the most embarrassing moments, and you may be unable to decide whether you want to be straight or snubbed, but generally speaking, you've done your job and I have no complaints.

Right now, however, you and my sinuses are ganging up on me to make my life hell. I am a snotty mess and my bin is overflowing with tissues. My head is pounding and my cheekbones feel like they're going to explode. Just remember, if they do, they're taking you with them.

I would quite like to be able to breathe again and maybe actually taste what I'm eating. I'd appreciate it if you'd cooperate.

Best wishes,

Your body.