Got to be Alonso, hasn’t it? And at the end, when Schumacher was being a complete ass, and sulkily pushed the camera out of the way, Fernando’s cheery and accommodating personality shone through and showed the older man up.

Broadband!!!! A day early and not a day too soon. I was about to get on here and start saying how great dial up was compared to stealing intermittent broadband. Dial up?? What was I thinking? How will we ever manage to get any sleep tonight when the entire internet is out there just waiting for us to get caught up?

Since the world and his wife started blogging, comments have become a very popular thing. Everyone wants more and more comments, recognition of the writing and opinions, and generally, nice compliments and that feeling that you are not alone in this crazy world. You would think that commenting should be a good, positive thing. A forum to share opinions, discuss important issues and find out what other people think about the things you think about.

A few days ago Wayne Rooney kicked a football. Yesterday, David Beckham got on a plane. Today, Frank Lampard drank some water. This is what constitues news at the moment? World Cup fever has seriously gripped everyone. There is no escaping from it. It’s in the news. It’s on the television. It’s in every single advert ever. An advert break on television now may contain only one advert that doesn’t mention football. Even the National Lottery are cashing in on the craziness, by saying “Buy a ticket and it might take your mind off the football.” Yea, right. I’m not that stupid.

A friend of mine from work is jumping out of a plane today… on purpose… for no apparent reason. The plane isn’t going to be on fire, and he’s not going to have to jump out to survive, apparently this is all in the name of fun. And charity. Thankfully, he will have a parachute, and a whole other qualified person strapped to his back, so he is likely to make it to the ground in one piece.

You know, I was so excited that Big Brother was back on our screens. Looking forward to the opening credits, to seeing the lunatics they’ve picked out and, of course, the new diary room chair. A few days in, and I’m bored. It’s not the people, though, I think previously, they would have been very entertaining. It’s me. I’ve changed. It makes me so angry when they won’t listen to each other and end up arguing over nothing. I wish they would just take a step back and see what is actually being said.

Every year since I was allowed to stay up that late, I’ve watched the Eurovision with my mother. One year, my friend was staying over and we watched it together. We all were allowed one vote and had a fabulous time laughing at all the entries and deciding which one was going to be worthy of our vote. Last year, my parents were on holiday in this area, and I went and watched it with them in their hotel room - so anxious was I to keep up the tradition.

The thing I hate most about being ill is the lack of productiveness (is that even a word?). For the past two days all I have done is sit under the duvet, work through boxes of tissues, drink buckets full of Lemsip and my bodyweight in orange juice. All that Vitamin C - yuck.

Well, today’s race took a turn for the better - not so much frustrating as boring, really. However, Schumacher didn’t win, so that makes everything alright. Button was rubbish, but at the moment I expect nothing less. Have you seen those adverts on the television at the moment for Mars? They’re in support of the World Cup and telling everyone that to win, we need to really, really BELIEVE. Oh, and buy Mars Bars, obviously.

I was reading one of the websites on my RSS feed list, and came across this question: Which is your favourite Tom Hanks movie? At first, I thought the answer was obvious - Cast Away. But then, when I thought about it a little bit more, there are so many others. Obviously, Forrest Gump, and I am a little bit partial to You’ve Got Mail, which although a weird film, is very loveable.

Today, there was a man in a blue t-shirt and he was floating around the weights section. Every now and then he would lift a really heavy weight a few times, make a lot of grunting noises and let us all know that he was very strong. Then he would put the weight down, and wander round for a bit. He would stalk around the weights in a predatory way, as though he and he alone was man enough to lift those weights. Then he would “accidentally” end up by a mirror, and just happen to check himself out. “Oh, I am so strong and so beautiful.” He would tense his muscles, check his goatee beard for perfection, then return to his routine. Another couple of weights, another wander round, another five minutes in front of the mirror.

There’s a woman who works at the gym, she’s actually the one who gave us our induction, showed us how all the machines worked, and expected us to remember which machines worked which muscles and which order to do them in. She’s pretty in a tomboyish kind of way, with spiky dark hair and a piercing on her face. I find this woman very intriguing, and I think it’s because she’s the kind of person I think came out of my old school. The school was very sports centred and there were people everywhere, bouncing around in their little shorts, beating other schools at netball, and studying for their physical training and biology classes so that they could ace them and do some kind of coaching/physiotherapy/gym stuff.

Another frustrating race, not much to say really. The first pit stop was exciting, just wish that it would have carried on for the rest of the race, but Schumacher had the edge today. Driver of the day goes to Rosberg, who kept his head down, kept out of any scraps, and came storming through the pack from the very back to end up seventh. It’s not a stunning position, but an impressive run from the rookie.

What is it about being near a policeman/woman that makes you feel incredibly guilty? I just walked behind two community support officers on my way to the shops. As I was walking, I couldn’t take my eyes off the guy’s handcuffs and kept thinking to myself that I should never have left the chopped up body parts in my handbag - what if they turned round and searched it? Of course, I don’t have a dead body in my handbag, and I don’t have illegal weapons in my house, but I might as well have done, for the guilt I was feeling. Something about that kind of authority and power that makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong, even when the reality is I’m squeaky clean.

I watched the first episode of the second series of LOST. I thought about staying up to watch the second one but midnight was just a little bit too late for me. Anyway, you know what it’s like, by the time you actually get to bed and get to sleep, time is ticking on. That means, this morning I am tired. I set the alarm to get up to go to the gym, but went straight back to bed. Another hour’s sleep.

Since watching The Apprentice episode where they went on board a cruise ship and basically made a mess of their tasks, I’ve been wanting to go on a cruise. I’m not sure it will ever happen because they are way too expensive and usually involve flying somewhere before getting on a ship. Days after I had given up on the thought, we see in the paper that the Freedom Of The Seas, the biggest cruise ship ever, is going to be docked at Southampton until Wednesday. Since we were in the area yesterday, a lovely Bank Holiday Monday, we decided to pop along and see if we could spot it.

So, basically, this race sucked and did nothing to improve my mood. I’m not even going to talk about Jenson Button because there aren’t really enough words in the dictionary. Alonso should have won but didn’t. Schumacher won. He’s an idiot. A spectacular rolling crash from Albers at the beginning was about the only incident, which makes for quite a boring race. Everyone seemed to have bad luck, Raikkonen was nowhere to be seen, Coulthard slipped out of the race without making any impact whatsoever.

Today we got up feeling a little bit tired. The reason for this is a little thing, it’s called Tomb Raider. That’s right. Another game we’re obsessed with. It came out on Friday, and whilst I was at work, Mr C purchased it, played it and sent me an email saying how it was. It went something along the lines of “Controls a bit better, but not great. Graphics a bit better, but not great. Puzzles good, shooting people bad.”

Have you heard about the Guinness Surger yet? The official site (link retired) can tell you about it. It only tells you how to do it though, because no one knows how it actually works. Something to do with fairies, I think. Anyway, it’s only available in a certain supermarket that begins with a T and ends in Esco, and so now I have to return there to get the required cans, and end up doing my shopping as well. Those marketing people are good, aren’t they?

The Boat Race 2006 was held over the weekend. We accidentally watched it, what with live coverage being on directly after the Grand Prix, and us being way too tired to switch it off. I’ve never watched the Boat Race before, never really been interested, and I can tell you now, after seeing the entire thing in all it’s glory – I so am! The first thing that grabbed my attention was the fact that the build up to the race was almost an hour long, whilst the actual event was over in a third of that time. ITV put a lot of effort into their pre-race coverage, including very expensive looking adverts and title credits, although they did try and ruin it with the choice of presenter and guest speakers. James Cracknell was the only one worth listening to, and even then he was being decidedly diplomatic.

I wanted to write this after we finished watching the race live. Mostly to prove that I was up in time to watch it (5am and I didn’t fall asleep two seconds before the start this time - go me!), and also because I like to write about the driver of the day when the race is fresh in my mind. But the problem with the race this time round was that it was so busy and there were so many incidents that I couldn’t really concentrate on who was going where and who deserved the accolade.

Because we live in England, and wanted to go out and take some pictures with the new camera, it rained all weekend. But that’s okay, instead of moaning about it, we decided to go back to the scene of the crime and get a picture of that damn turtle. This is the new picture. You obviously have to ignore the fact that the water is murky, there’s not much I can do about that, especially as it was feeding time and the fish were churning up the tank something terrible. The fact of the matter is, the turtle is in focus, and that’s all I care about.

I’ve just realised that for the longest time, I haven’t had that feeling of suddenly working out the answer to a question. You know what I’m talking about, when you’re watching a film and you go “Who’s that, what have they been in?” or if you’re just having a conversation and realise you don’t know the answer to something, but later on, the penny drops. I went through a period (I think it’s called growing up), where I had a lot of these moments. I would suddenly understand the meaning to those well known sayings, or I would suddenly understand what Dirty Dancing was all about (even though I’d been watching it for years, it’s actually about more than just dancing!). My mum will tell you, sometimes we went for walks and the penny dropped so often, we thought it was hailing.

Those that read instruction manuals, and those that try everything in their power not to. After the fiasco of the snapping turtle incident (see what I did there? Snapping pictures, snapping turtles? Oh, come on, it’s Monday morning!), Mr C decided to go out and buy a new camera. It is the best camera ever. The first thing I did, was take it out the box and root around for the battery pack. Mr C, however, picked up the instruction manual, turned to page 1, and cleared his throat.

To be honest, it didn’t seem like any of the drivers were on top form and no-one particularly stood out for me. I thought Heidfeld put in a great race, kept his head down and was pootling around in fifth place, until his car gave up and he had to retire. I won a bet with Mr C that Massa would finish in front of Schumacher, despite him protesting that team orders would reverse the situation.

Today, I woke up at 5:30am in the morning to watch the ITV3 coverage of the Malaysia grand prix. This means I am either the best girlfriend in the world, or I am secretly starting to like F1 as much as he does. You decide.

I’ve decided that Woke Up This Morning needs a lick of paint. I haven’t changed my site for about a year and a half. That’s a ridiculous amount of time - especially considering I used to chop and change every week before that. I suppose it’s a lack of time at the moment, and with so many other projects on the go at once, WUTM has just been taking a back seat and keeping its head down. But with 101 Words looking so snazzy (well, as good as it can look on a hosted template that I have little control over), I thought it was about time that WUTM had the same treatment.

Last time I went to an aquarium, I mentioned how difficult it is to take a picture of a fish. Firstly, they are behind glass. Secondly, the lighting is usually terrible. Thirdly, these damn fish like to swim around - a lot. And fourthly, I have the worst camera in the history of the world, ever! I took Mr C to such an attraction this weekend, and whilst we got some pictures of stationery things (eg. starfish, anemone, coral), the best bit was the turtles.

A brilliant race to kick off the season with, I was already convinced that there would be four teams vying for the win: McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and Honda. We had our money on Schumacher clinching the first win of the season, but our hopes rested with anyone but. Räikkönen put in a sterling performance, starting last on the grid and storming his way through the pack to end up third. Although this would be driver of the day material, we’ve seen him do this before, and I wasn’t surprised to see him on the podium today. Montoya must be a little bit embarrassed though, having a very quiet afternoon and finishing a lowly fifth.

I was sitting in my car on the way home from the most awful day ever. I was stopped at some traffic lights. The Feeling came on the radio, with the lyrics of the title. Suddenly, the sky got really, really dark. It turned a beautiful blue that I’ve never seen before and all the clouds merged into one giant dark mess. The sun was shining in from one side, and lit up the entire street. The trees were almost glistening. Even the rundown Chinese takeaway and the ex-petrol station took on a whole new, glossy image.

This weekend, I was commenting on the fact that shops are soon going to run out of a need for sales staff. Especially in places where they don’t actually know anything about what they’re selling and merely run the products over the beep. With chip and pin, I have to put my card in the machine, I have to type my number in and I have to take my card out again. It’s only a matter of time before I can scan the products myself as well, thus eliminating the need for any staff (except perhaps security guards).

So, it’s Must Comment Monday again today. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t go on about it every single Monday. In fact, this will be the last time I will mention it, okay? Okay. Good. I’m only bringing it up, because I bribed Mr C to make a fabulous button. So, if you agree with the Must Comment Monday thing, you may want to display it on your website and encourage the comment phenomenon.

My to do list has reached epic proportions, and doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. For a long time I just ignored it, hoping that it would go away. But it didn’t seem to, it stuck around, and so I went back to it. Thankfully, I’ve now started to cross things off, which makes the day seem just a little bit brighter. I love crossing things off my list. If I’m about to start doing something that I know isn’t on the list, I will write it down, just so I can cross it off when I’ve done it. It’s the sense of achievement, and the feeling that I’ve actually managed to do something productive.

With a couple of spare evenings, I thought I’d get some more writing done. I’ve not been doing very well of late. There was a brief period when I wrote three chapters in quick succession and then everything came to a halt. I’ve been struggling with a conversation that two characters have to have to make the story progress onwards. I can’t seem to get the mix of dialogue and the right chemistry to make the scene progress smoothly. It’s driving me crazy.

Okay, you see these things all the time. Photo Friday, Talky Tuesday, Question Saturday. Some of them are genuinely cool things to take part in (Photo Friday being one that I do whenever I can), and some of them are just a way for people to come up with ideas to fill their blogs, because they don’t have anything sensible to talk about. I have considered doing some of them, but have so far restrained myself, because I don’t really like the idea of someone else controlling what I write about.

I wish I had an idea. I’ve been reading all these blogs from people who had an idea and started their own business and now they work from home and are very busy but having a wonderful time. I’m looking at all these people that self-publish on things like Lulu, and produce all sorts of interesting books and calendars that you would never normally think of, but still sell magnificently well.

Last weekend, whilst watching the few remaining episodes of Baywatch that we had stored, I thought to myself “That’s two days of my life, cooped up inside.” Although it was brilliant fun and I absolutely adore Baywatch, having done the exact same thing for the previous three weekends as well, I was starting to think maybe there was something else I could be doing with my free time. Now Baywatch seems to have been taken off the air so we have an entire weekend to fill, and no idea what to do with it.

Towards the end of December, I ordered something off the internet. I really wanted to support the project, because I’m becoming more and more interested in people self-publishing. Plus I like photographs. The money was taken in early January but I didn’t see anything for a month. After emailing to chase it up, I discovered the order had got lost and would have to be redone, meaning another 2-4 week wait. I wasn’t best pleased with this, so I chose the refund option instead.

UKTV Gold have been playing repeats of Baywatch. Man, I love this show. I think I got into it when I saw my brother watching it, but that wouldn’t have been until about the seventh or eighth series. We’ve been watching the first series. It was on every weekday, so I recorded them all up and we’ve been settling down to watch them at weekends. Five hours of Baywatch certainly sucks up a lot of time. It’s totally worth it, of course, but there’s always a niggling doubt that I could be doing something better with my time.

I can’t remember what it was like before I read and wrote blogs.

Every night I set my alarm for the morning, and at some point during the night I will always add an extra hour to the time. Then when the alarm finally goes off, I know that I have to get up - there is no option. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get up when I want to. I’m tired, yes, but I’m always tired and this shouldn’t make any difference. I can count the number of days that I have woken up feeling refreshed on one hand, so you’d think I would be used to it by now. Maybe it’s ‘cos I don’t want to get up and go to work, but I’m trying to convince myself that I could use the extra time in the morning to do something useful.

I didn’t win the lottery. It buoys me somewhat that no one did, however this means I will have to buy another ticket this week and go through the whole process again. For the last three months or so, I’ve been volunteering to design and update a website for a friend. I’ve spent days on this website, making the different sections, writing the content from the information I’m given, and sorting out all the pictures. I also spent a very long time getting a database up and running for visitor polls.

Last week, I saw that the Euro Millions Lottery had a jackpot of £85 million. This amount of money is beyond my comprehension, but it sounded like fun and I was tempted to buy a ticket. I didn’t. This week, the jackpot rolled over again and is now up to £100 million pounds. This time, I thought a ticket might be worthwhile. So, I bought my ticket, chose my numbers and now sit and wait for the draw. I absolutely detest playing the lottery, or competitions of any kind. The practical person inside of me is saying “Don’t be silly, you’re never going to win, look at the odds. And you’re the unluckiest person in the world so don’t even think about it.” But there’s always a tiny voice, deep down in my toes that pipes up “Someone’s got to win it, why couldn’t it be me?”

As usual, when I proclaim that this weekend we will spend no money at all, we go out and find something to buy. Perhaps one day I will say “You know what? Spend all the money you can,” and I will not come home with anything new. (This is not a good idea.) Thankfully, I didn’t buy the bulk of it, and merely adopted the toy as my own: A PSP.

We went to Autosport International this weekend. Needless to say, I was ready to leave on Saturday morning quite a long time before Mr C had even contemplated packing his bag. The headless chicken phase kicked in and he rushed around looking for shoes and toothpaste and the usual rubbish. He sat in front of the computer and struggled to print off the directions we needed to get from the NEC to the hotel. He cursed and kicked the machine and eventually got it to print out. I mentioned checking the traffic, but it went over his head and we were soon on our way.

There’s a drain right outside the door at work. Every time I leave the office, I grip my keys very tightly, in case they fall in. Even if they’re in my bag, tucked at the bottom, I still have to make sure I hug it close to me - they could jump out and fall in, you never know. Tomorrow is Friday the 13th - unlucky for some. I am the unluckiest person in the world - it’s official. Although life is pretty good, there’s always something. Like my car breaking down a week before I’m buying a new one, and other things like that. But traditionally, Friday 13th has been lucky for me. Good things happen on that day.

Although we do try and insist on no Christmas presents, some people still prefer to buy us some things - my future mother-in-law being the main culprit. Mr C returned home one Friday night with a box full of presents. Oh well. This year, if you ignore the copious amounts of chocolate and wine, there were actually some very useful bits and bobs in there. A mini tripod for the camera, a tow-rope for the man, and some very nice torches.

I was like any other young girl in the world, and wanted to be a famous pop star when I grew up. I would prance around my bedroom, with my hairbrush as my microphone. I would get very excited about finding a karaoke album with up to date pop songs, so that I could really show off how great I was. Problem was, I could never actually sing out loud in front of other people. Not a good start to a career in the music business, eh?

It was kinda a tradition. To sit down and relax with a glass of something strong, a duvet to snuggle under and the remote control. Now I find out this: …If we’re not whooping it up and dodging strangers’ saliva in someone’s nasty flat as Big Ben bongs, we feel consigned to the socio-economic sector that picks its spots in its anorak in front of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny - which I recently found out, to my naive disappointment, is filmed much earlier in the day, even though they’ve got a great big clock and all the celebrities cheer at pretend-midnight. Not that I’ve ever seen it, of course.

Blogging This is the one that has my attention most at the moment. I’ve been thinking recently about changing the layout of the blog, and I did a couple of test designs, but they didn’t really seem to work. Then I realised, I like how my blog looks at the moment. And once I’d decided not to change it completely, I realised that the scope was there to make it better. Don’t ditch it, make it better. So that’s what I’m trying to do.