Not much to report this week, as Thursday appears to be behaving itself so far. However, via ZooBorns, I learnt that the one and only baby panda cub born in the US in 2010 has made it's appearance at Zoo Atlanta. Not sure referencing the size of a cell phone is particularly helpful when they vary so much! I don't really like the scrawny panda cubs, they normally get cuter …

Before today, I had brought my iPad to work with me three times, ready to read some books over lunch. I've been reading the Kindle App on my phone which is great, but it suddenly occurred to me that to other people, it probably looked as though I was staring at my phone for an hour every day. I was torn between being the type of person who stares at …

What a month! Goodness me. The weeks and weeks of setup we have been listening to are finally starting to pay off. Where do I start? Kathy and Jamie I had kinda thought, and hoped, that with Kenton out of the picture, we would hear a bit less of Kathy. Wrong! Jamie has turned into a horror teenager, I won't argue that, although there are quite some depths he has …

This past weekend, I went for a little trip to Longleat with my very good friend. I was driving through the safari park, which means it's a little bit tricky to take pictures and steer at the same time, but I did get a couple of good shots. I did enjoy the house, despite my normal dislike of anywhere you are not allowed to take pictures. There is so much …

That's easy for you to say. I recently added a new item to my Life List in the form of No. 63 - Solve a Rubik's Cube. When I was quite a lot younger, I had a Rubik's Cube and I couldn't do it at all. My mum found The Book for solving it, and even with the answer in front of me, I still couldn't do it. So now, …

With a new month, comes a new batch of headers, and with a new site, we have a new start. Instead of the Smarter Than Your Average banner of old, I've changed to the new site name, and that gives a bit more space. For this header, the first inspiration came from the colours - I wanted to mix a deep red/purple with a nice cream. Et voilà! Made with: …

It has been a couple of years since I sat some exams, and I have been very happy spending my time in more creative pursuits. I have got out of the house a bit more, examined the world of podcast and community creation to a greater extent, and spent a lot of time with my family and friends. Now, though, I am getting the craving to learn again. I am …

A quick look at Etsy this week. Sliding Invitation Cards It looks like the panda is actually crushing the text, but in fact, it slides around a bit. I'm not quite sure why, but it's fun, and I particularly like a purple panda. Etsy Link: simplypearlee Silly Fuzzy Pandas Aww, these are so cute. The wool is definitely fuzzy, so I wonder if it might be a bit itchy and …

I spotted this a while ago, but keep on coming back to it - the Adipose Stress Toy. The Adipose made their debut at the same time as Donna Noble, and although technically they are quite gross (born from the fat and yuck of humans), they are also enormously cute. Far from having to squish and squeeze the stress away, simply looking at the Adipose's toothy grin makes me feel …

That's wicked in a bad sense. A while back, we had some issues with our Sidepodcast wiki. It was hosted on Wetpaint, and... well, it basically didn't work for a lot of people. There were intrusive ads that could be removed for a reasonable (!) $20 a month, and there were a lot of virus warnings floating around as well. It was time to move, and Wikia seemed like the …

Franck's next assignment takes place at the beginning of November, when the LMP1 class of cars turn up at the Zhuhai International Circuit. The 7th November will see Franck partnered with Stephane Sarrazin, whilst a second Peugeot car will be fielded by Bourdais and Pagenaud. That's still a couple of weeks away, of course, so while we're waiting, here's a photo gallery (on Facebook) of Franck at Petit Le Mans. …

A note from my dad: Congratulations to Christine for completing the 5k run. Only a few months ago she couldn’t even run to the end of her garden. She was showing me the picture of her crossing the finishing line and I thought that at last she has managed to grasp the idea of a race. I was remembering a certain playschool sports day in 1987 or 1988. I have …

I've become a little bit obsessed with a new game on the iPod/iPad, and it's called Train Conductor. The premise is quite simple - trains appear on the tracks and you have to direct them to the correct destination. Sounds like a million other Flight Control/Traffic Control style games. There are lots of extras, though. There are two kinds of levels - the daytime shift has you steering trains to …

The votes have been pouring in, thanks to everyone, and we have our winning header design. The winning design is the rather whimsical Gretna Green signpost. Excellent stuff! That will be the header for the next few weeks, whilst I gather inspiration for the next batch of designs.

The first two-part Doctor Who episode of the New Who era, and we are back to London to find out that Rose has been missing. I was slightly confused by the entire introduction to this story. Whilst it was quite revealing to see the impact of Rose's departure on her family and the friends she has left behind, isn't the TARDIS a time machine? Once they realised they'd returned a …

I recently stumbled across the site Kickstarter. It's an interesting way to raise money for a creative endeavour you want to do, for instance, make a film. You set a time limit and a goal, and encourage people to donate to the cause. If you reach your goal, excellent, you can go on and make your film. If you don't reach the target, though, no one pays anything, all donations …

We have reached the end of another batch of headers, and as is the custom, we're going to have a vote. All you need to do is pick out which is your favourite of the ten headers featured over the last few weeks. I'll keep the vote up for a few days, and then the winning design will be up there for the rest of October. That gives me a …

Today I can cross another item off my Life List, as I only went and completed that pesky 5K race. It feels like I've done nothing but talk about running forever, but in actual fact, I only picked up the Couch 2 5K app in June. Since then, I've built up my stamina, and my patience, and certainly improved a lot, but I can tell you one thing for certain: …

I am ridiculously nervous. You might even call it "freaking out." It's not so much the running, although it is a little bit the running. The last few attempts haven't been as good as I might have hoped. They do say that a bad dress rehearsal signals a good opening night, though, so I'm pinning my optimism on that. So, yes, it's not so much the running, as the running …

I think this little one likes being petted.

You've got to love it when randomly browsing the web, you come across a company who have named themselves after the exact thing you are trying to achieve. Step forward Underground Living Ltd. It looks like they do one thing, but they try and do it well. It's more of an addendum to a house, rather than a complete underground living area, but the gallery and the animation on the …

Another tiny quote from Mr M: We were the fastest on track again this year. We didn't steal this. Same car, same team, same results - the only difference was the rain! Last year's race clearly affected him more than it appeared!

I've been getting more and more dissatisfied with Wordpress, and although I still maintain it is an excellent place to set up your first blog and start getting published, it's limitations were beginning to get to me. In point of fact, all I wanted to do was to change the font on my template. Typekit fonts are a bit ahead of their time, whilst the Custom CSS function was not …

Here it is, then, the final header of our second batch. We've reached our twentieth design, which honestly blows my mind a little bit. This one came from the background texture, which was a kind of wallpaper, I think. I wasn't keen on it being wallpaper, so I tried the stripy filter to sort of bring it to life a bit. It could almost be a curtain, with ripples in, …

Franck, along with Sarrazin and Lamy, won the 2010 Petit Le Mans yesterday. I didn't watch it but all I've seen suggests it was a great race, interesting throughout, and it wasn't until the final couple of hours that Peugeot seemed to have it in the bag. They took up two steps of the podium with Allan McNish for Audi in third. A snippet from the Autosport report: ...the Audi …

Time for a change. This site is moving from Wordpress to Squarespace, and that means you'll need to update your feed subscriptions and suchlike. Please visit: http://www.mrschristine.com for the new site. I'll be waiting. (This will remain for a while, until I point Smarter Than at the new place.) A change is as good as a rest!

I got to have a peek at the brand new Kindle today, and although I was expecting to want to steal it from my brother - who is the proud owner of the device - it actually turned out that I wasn't that keen on it. I love the device from a distance, I love people that have a Kindle, and I encourage people to get one if they want …

Finally, Kenton and Kathi have split up! Who else is completely and utterly relieved? It started at that golf club dinner thing, when Kenton was doing his best, as per usual, and Kathi was being annoying, as per usual. She told him she didn't need any help, then complained when he didn't help her. Granted, he did punch her boss, and when he moved out, he immediately got drunk and …

Instant Search has been out and about for a while now, and I can't see that it's made my life any better, but I don't particularly hate it either. I've been catching up with some TWiT podcasts, and Leo has talked extensively about why they would choose to implement something like this and what purpose it serves. It's an interesting subject, because search is so very fundamental to the way …

I completed a couple more runs and they were at my usual level of about 45 minutes. I went about my normal routine, but on one outing, the My Tracks app got stuck halfway round. I know I completed the distance but it told me otherwise. Far from being annoyed, it was an excellent way to break the cycle and I suddenly started thinking about what I was doing. After …

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the new Tumblr account for Sesasme Street. I'm not exactly a huge Sesame Street fan, although of course I watched it as a kid. I was more interested in the fact that it was an official account, using YouTube and in-house videos to show snippets from the show. I looked around a bit more and found they also have a regularly updated podcast …

Back to a bit of simplicity, I found these brushes that seemed to me like twigs and sticks rather than brush strokes, so I went with a sort of tree theme. I was also testing out filters on the text to try and make things stand out a bit more. Made with: Pixelmator Brushes: Brush Pen marks Filters: Motion Blur Font: STFangsong

Not a lot, but at least it is something: I want to win at least one race with the 908 this year! But I’m going to have to hurry, because there are only two races left! I would especially like to win Petit Le Mans because the atmosphere is so special. It’s unique, and I like that!

He has seemingly disappeared completely. Still no word on his official site, he's not in the news for any rumours, and he's definitely not participating in Superleague - Girondins de Bordeaux went and found another driver instead. Silly people. I miss him. He will be back though! He is on the entry list for Petit Le Mans, which takes place next week - the race itself on the 2nd October. …

You know, I do not remember this episode at all. I must have seen it, and yet nothing stands out in my brain. Although, that isn't at all surprising. It's not a particularly good episode, when it comes down to it. The first historical character new Doctor Who introduces, Charles Dickens no less, and it's a bit of a let down. It's unsettling from the beginning, because the episode is …

After a conversation on Sidepodcast, I remembered that I still own the one and only autograph I ever got. My friend and I were taken to see Michael Rosen, and I think he must have been doing a talk, or reading some poetry aloud or something. I know that I liked whatever it was he was doing, and afterwards, my friend hurried forward to get an autograph. I was sort …

I have just discovered this rather handy tool from the Good Run Guide - the RoutePlanner - where you can map out a track and find the correct distance. This is really useful when Google Maps only wants to give you directions and distances for the road routes or more obvious pedestrian areas. I figured it was not just for runners but would actually come in handy for measuring any …

I stumbled across some brushes that show off city skylines, and I was intrigued. Admittedly, most of the hard work for this one was done for me, but I still think it's a lot of fun. My only question is, which city is it?? Made with: Pixelmator Brushes: Famous City Skylines Font: TW Cen MT Filters: Sunbeam and cloud generator

After a rather long week, Mr C and I decided to retire from our desks early last night and take to our respective books for reading. It was fun. Mr C is currently enjoying Joe Saward's latest book - The Man Who Caught Crippen. At the moment, it is only available in paperback, and it's the first physical book we've ordered from Amazon in a long time (and it may …

This definitely was a crazy idea. But still, sponsor me, won't you? Lots of very kind and lovely people have sponsored me already, and I am very grateful. Although that does mean the pressure is on. The numbers are moving in the right direction, but it is still quite rubbish. T minus 30 days Total distance - 5.02km Total moving time - 45:49 Average moving speed - 6.57km/h Really terrible …

For Giggles and Joe and anyone else who is having a bad day. Credit: { just jennifer } / Flickr

The last few attempts at running have been a little difficult, and I must admit to have been getting a bit dispirited by this whole 5k thing. That race that seemed so very far away is now looming closer and closer, and I am still being overtaken by people taking their dogs for a walk. Last night, I had a dream about the race and it was a bit of …

I was browsing around the interwebs, as you do, and came across the company Cavallini & Co, who make some good-looking stationery, with a vintage twist. I found two particular favourites: These rather good Sticky Notes come in a fancy tin and cover every eventuality. From a simple to-do list, to a reminder, and even a day by day note. They look quite small, but I love the variety. Sadly, …

All I can say is this is my favourite header that I've ever done, I think. Made with: Pixelmator Font: Rockwell Filters: Just a bit of motion blur on the text

The minute this episode started, we got to see more fearless attitude from Rose. As the Doctor was busy trying to impress her, and take her futher and further forward into time, she was happy to say: "Fine by me, let's go further," without actually seeing any of the things they were passing. She trusted that he was doing what he said, and she was happy to wait for the …

LEG! Credit: San Diego Shooter/Flickr So fluffy.

Last month, I blogged about a new show starting on Revision3 - Dan 3.0. It seemed like a great idea, Dan was already an established video blogger with a good fanbase, and he was intending to turn his life over to the viewers. You'd get to suggest and vote on things for Dan to do with his life - and the project was set to last a whole year. It …

So, this is how the BBC brought back Doctor Who - to a skeptical viewing public. At the time, it was ever-so-slightly ruined by a certain Graham Norton, but now, watching it back having purchased the series on iTunes, it's as it should be. It's fun watching things with the benefit of hindsight, but I tried to go into this with an open mind. The first thing I noticed was …

I have a question. I've been thinking I should really graduate from running about in tatty t-shirts, as it worked wonders on my feet when I treated them to some proper equipment. So... when did sports wear become quite so complicated? I haven't been in an actual shop yet (that's a whole other bridge to try and cross), but browsing about online, I found this very pretty vest. I don't …

LibriVox is an organisation with a simple goal - to make all public domain works accessible in audiobook form. I've been involved for a long while now, part of an enormous group of volunteers who record chapters, poems and entire books to attempt to reach this goal. To take a break from the Grace Harlowe world, I picked a travel book called - British Highways and Byways from a Motor …