This time every year there are a rash of adverts promising “Buy now, don’t pay till 200(x+2)”. I guess 2008 seems like the distant future even though it’s only just over 15 months away. The ads tend to die down in October, probably because by then we’re all starting to think about 2007.

Last Friday was the deadline for a big christmas-themed project, and I spent the week listening to festive pop / classical / carols. Now I’m all christmassy. Not fair. If anybody wants to help out by buying me presents, feel free

Hope everybody had a fun couple of days. Yesterday was crazy here. Three year olds are so very, very noisy. Granted they have redeeming features, but the relief when it quietens down is quite remarkable! Megan was her normal crazy self, and early on in the day decided it was her job to guard the turkey. And that she did. Although not managing to get any of it, she did manage to grab a turkey bone in a rare unguarded moment in the late afternoon, which was fun to wrestle away from her.

I managed to escape and watch Doctor Who in the evening. I thought it was great - I definitely approve of the new Doctor! How you can have a dramatic sword fight while wearing pyjamas and still come out of it looking cool, I have no idea. The great acting and dialogue mean I’ll overlook the massive anti-war political comment built into the plot…To be fair, it was a theme of the series too, so wasn’t unexpected. The preview of the upcoming series made it look very exciting - the brief glimpse of K-9 was fun!

I’ve spent much of today and yesterday playing my main present, a Yamaha electric guitar. It’s great I’ve been learning for nearly a year and although I’m not good enough to play in front of anybody else, I can make a passable attempt at more simple Oasis songs. I have discovered that electric guitar is far, far easier than acoustic. The strings are far easier to push down, and I can now play barre chords at roughly the same speed as standard ones - I need to reposition my hand far less than before. Bending the strings is much easier, too. My fingers hurt like hell this evening, though
I’ll head back to the flat tomorrow and decide on any plans for the rest of the week.

The presents have been dropped off at the appropriate houses, last-minute shopping is complete, the table’s laid, I finally found a copy of the QI interactive game and I’m back with Mum and Dad for the weekend. I’m staying here until boxing day. Tomorrow there’ll be thirteen of us crammed into the house, including two three year-olds. And, of course, there’s Megan. I’m looking forward to seeing her reaction to wrapping paper
I still think this is the best day of the year. There’s a certain atmosphere that only seems to manifest itself on the 24th december, I think, and everybody seems to be just that little bit more pleasant.

I’m off to watch Miracle on 34th Street (1947 edition) and scoff chocolate
Merry christmas!

If you’re in charge of the military, it’s clear that you would want to know about anything in the skies. For this reason, NORAD track Santa every year and make the data available online. You can also follow his progress using Google Earth.

I was out at a christmas party last night. Towards the end of the evening I was passed a note by somebody who shall remain nameless¹:

I can see her wishing me this on palm sunday, but christmas? Or maybe she just wanted to subtly call me a wanker I should frame it!

Later, as we were leaving, I decided it would be a good idea to draw pictures in the condensation on Ben’s car window. On seeing this, he did the same to mine.

Now, this is me. You would expect nothing more than some pictures of fish, a monkey that looks like a cat, and perhaps ‘doggingmobile’ written on the back window. Ben, though, is high class. Ben is a physics graduate at Oxford. Surely our scribblings would be dissimilar? No:

At midnight, this was very funny indeed. I’m 22, he’s 23. Do you think we should have grown up by now? After giggling over this for a while, we moved onto a nearby vehicle².

1. it was Lynsey [↩]
2. Nod’s [↩]

I like making the site all jolly¹. I had falling snow for a while, until I found it was crashing Firefox. For a festive desktop, I recommend TwinkleBulbs, which is quite remarkable in its ability to polarise opinion - you’ll either love it or completely despise it.

1. Don’t like the decorations? There’s an option to turn them off here. [↩]

It’s nearly christmas, and you know what that means. I have a cold. Weirdly it disappeared on Sunday, but is back this morning. Uck. Am dosing up on Lemsip so I can hit the shops this afternoon to pick up all the christmas presents I hadn’t even thought about until yesterday.

After checking out the prices for boiler repair etc., we decided to get a British Gas contract. It’s ~£300 per year, but it’s likely that the initial examination and repair would have cost that much anyway, and the BG contract includes all parts and labour. That wasn’t built into the budget, though! The BT engineer should be around tomorrow morning to work on it, which is great as it’s a little chilly in here this evening. Am glad I didn’t phone two days ago…

Is it me, or are ITV dramas generally disappointing? Yesterday’s episode of Secret Smile was so promising…Ah well, never mind.

Somebody I vaguely know just sent me a helpful email with news of a fantastic website for avoiding speed cameras! I had to delete it before I replied rather bluntly. Bastards. [deletes rant].

Four days were all I had to last on dial-up internet without muppetry, but I just left it connected for three hours by accident. Dammit! My excuse is that I was cooking at the time, but that doesn’t really cut it.

I have a christmas tree! It’s most pretty. Doesn’t take up *that* much space, either
Things keep exploding outside my window, in the street. It’s either fireworks, kamikaze fairies, or I should get ready for an evacuation.

Expensive day. The initial shop at Tesco for food, cleaning stuff and general supplies came to more than I was expecting¹ and I also picked up a couple of christmas presents that needed early posting.

The boiler here is desperately in need of a service. It keeps turning itself off, which is annoying, and hasn’t worked at all since about 2000 this evening. I haven’t been able to do any washing up yet² - how annoying Actually it is bloody annoying. The flat’s actually quite warm generally, but my inactive computer habits don’t help with keeping at a reasonable temperature. I won’t want to get out of bed tomorrow morning!

After reading on various forums that indoor aerials could work well for freeview I tried one out, but still no joy. The analogue picture is pretty dire, too, so I’ll need to do something. I have the number for a local aerial company who will apparently give me a quote for a proper loft installation, but I dread to think how much that’ll be…Given that the signal checker for Stratford recommends an “amplified extra high-gain” aerial, it’s probably best to let the experts handle it. Either tha

I went to pick up a christmas tree this evening, but B&Q didn’t have much left. I’m back in Solihull tomorrow for my guitar lesson, so will pick something up from one of the massive stores there.

Ooh, I received a letter! A bill, naturally, but a letter for me nonetheless
Kinda lonely today, although I deliberately kept myself busy whenever I felt it coming on. I’m hoping this is something that passes, rather than one of those things you just have to get used to.

It’s getting chilly in here, so I’m going to curl up in bed.

1. and I was being thrifty, really! [↩]
2. I could just use cold water, I guess - or does the heat help to kill germs? [↩]

Just a quick shoutout for xmas.podshow.com, which has new independent christmas music daily. Some good stuff imho, which so far has ranged from classical to rock¹. Subscribe to the RSS feed in a regular newsreader or your choice of podcatcher and they’ll be delivered to your computer too.

1. I like ‘Christmas here on Mars’ [↩]

Qoop are a photo printing company who can link into your flickr account and produce high-quality bound books. They’re reasonably customisable too: you can select from various page layouts, change the book title, select different types of stitching etc.

A few weeks back I ordered a Qoop book of the photos from my friend’s daughter’s 21st birthday party. I ordered it on a Saturday evening. 132 photos with a four-per-page layout. The total cost, including delivery to the UK (from the US), was just over £17. It arrived the next Friday, which was quite remarkable - I’ve known UK deliveries take longer! The full-colour result was very impressive and the birthday girl was very pleased with it. You can see various examples of the books here, and they also print posters. I’ve asked for their help a couple of times and they’ve replied very quickly and helpfully. I like them.

So here’s the thing: you can order books of other people’s photos. They would make great presents. However, the photo owner needs to set their flickr printing options, or nobody will be able to buy them the book as a present. Hint.

There seems to be a slight issue right now to do with your flickr location, and for the moment I’ve needed to set my own location as the USA to see the Print options for other people. This is either a slight glitch that they’ll fix, or I’m being a muppet and misunderstanding the process. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s the latter, as there’s a bell ringing somewhere in my brain that I can’t quite locate…(update: now fixed. The site, not my brain.)

So please go set your options, for all frustrated present-givers out there. Then, if the option isn’t there at least we’ll know that it’s a deliberate choice

I haven’t got an advent calendar. Crap. Every year I do this…Shall attempt to find one this afternoon. I avoid the chocolatey ones as they often repeat pictures, which is crazy - how difficult can it be to find 25 christmassy images?

Update: Found a decent one hiding at the back of John Lewis.