It’s been brought to my attention that I didn’t really explain myself properly when I was talking about Blogathon a couple of posts ago. Some people may know what Blogathon is, and some may not, and it was remiss of me to just assume that everyone would know what I was babbling on about. That being the case, I would like to introduce you to the world of the Blogathon.

I’m doing Blogathon this year. I thought about it last year, but wasn’t sure if anyone would bother to sponsor me. However, I have a bit more faith in my blog this year, and a charity that I want to blog for, so I’m going to go for it. I don’t know how I’m going to stay awake for that long, but I’ve got some ideas what I’m going to talk about. It’ll be interesting, I promise.

I don’t know if you noticed the adverts that appeared on the left hand side. I always said I would rather stick a fork in my eye that put adverts on my site, and let me tell you, if I could find a fork, I might be heading towards a hospital right about now. My only defense is that I was talked into it. With five sites to my name, most of them still under construction, domain and hosting prices are creeping ever higher. I didn’t want to do it, but it’d be nice to recoup some of those costs.

Yesterday, finally some good weather arrived, and we went to see a friend who was about to jump off a cliff. Don’t worry though, he had some kind of parachute wing thing strapped to his back, and said it was all in the name of sport. Some people really are crazy. Although he tried several times, the weather wasn’t really suitable for flying off a cliff, not windy enough apparently. So, we snapped a few pictures and went for a beer instead. Mr C was very interested in how much the wing cost, and how long the training took.

I think I’ve told you about how I read the entire first season of LOST through transcripts before it was aired in the UK. This wasn’t the cleverest thing for me to do, because I was discussing each episode with a colleague of mine and suddenly started getting confused with what I had seen and what I had read. I stopped watching, but kept up the pretence of talking about the show without actually saying anything.

I had to think for a while about this one. It was a quiet day for a lot of the drivers. I don’t remember even hearing Webber’s name, Alonso kept his head down at the front, Button had a quiet day until Coulthard overtook him. The main focus was on Schumacher, desperate to catch up to the front, and Villeneuve, as it was his home race. Either way, I was going to put Raikkonen down as my driver of the day, because he did a superb job of holding back Mr S, that is, until the last minute when he had an issue with a chicane. Regardless of whether it was his fault or not, letting the red car flash past is an unforgiveable action.

The comment spam has caught up with me. It was only a matter of time. Actually, there was a spate of it a month or so ago, (it started the day after I commented on someone else’s website to say I’d never had any - now that’s irony!), but we put in a temporary fix by closing the older comment forms. However, I came across some spam on my latest entry. It may have been a one-off, but it’s unlikely.

I was watching the football last night - Argentina vs Holland was promising to be a fantastic game and yet there were no goals whatsoever, how disappointing - and I suddenly realised how much sport I watch these days. When I was a kid, and I was a little bit plump, and PE was hell, and they turned my school into a sports college which was my worst nightmare and I am not bitter about at all, I hated sports. The only sports I could stand to watch was Wimbledon because hey, Tim Henman was going to win one day!!

The good thing about moving house is that it means you can get rid of a lot of junk. You can dig through all the stuff at the bottom of the wardrobe and throw a good proportion of it out. However, you have to learn not to be sentimental about things. While we were digging through all our junk, I came across our dartboard. We haven’t used that thing for ages but, for some reason, I couldn’t bear to throw it out. I loved having a dartboard in the house, and when we buy our own place someday, I know we’re going to have a dartboard up somewhere. It’ll probably be a new one, a better one, and one with plenty of cork padding around it.

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.