I’ve not posted in a pretty long time…hmm.

I have been busy on Twitter though – I have to say I’m quite addicted now However, I could do with your help; if you have an account, please add me, because Twitter has a stupid rule where once you follow 2000 people, you have to be followed by at least 90% of them before you can follow more people. Grrr. Once I’m past that, I will definitely add you back.

Also, I made a Twitter Plugboard, so check it out if you want more followers. There are lots of annoying ’sign up, give us your email and your username and your password and $1000′ type scams around, and I thought I’d give the Twitter world something free and genuine

I have to admit that I am looking into paid Tweets. Whilst I’ve never done sponsored blog posts purely on principle, Tweets are definitely less invasive and annoying. And I’d only advertise things I agree with, but whether it’s worth the time and annoyance remains to be seen.

I’ve been really busy all week with work, and then doing the plugboard, and I’ve finished another Photoshop tutorial but not ‘officially’ released it yet – I’m still working on a couple more things, then I’ll do a bumper update. But when, I don’t know. This weekend I’ve going to the Riverside Festival with a few friends, and next weekend I’m hopefully doing some DIY with my dad (including fitting a new bath and shower and completely redesigning/doing my garden). I also want a new kitchen badly, but I don’t think I can afford that as well just yet. Plus neither me nor my dad have the time!

This week was nice – wine bar with Tabi, Indian restaurant with Rich, and then collected Hannah from the train station last night for the weekend. Blogging at work now because it’s lunchtime, and I can’t believe that this is the end of my third week at my new job – it’s absolutely flown by, and I still absolutely love it. I’m more convinced than ever it’s the little things than can make something good or bad, and everything like being able to wear what the hell I want, having a free bus, having a big cross-over of interests and lifestyle with the people I work with has all contributed to the fun-ness. Plus the thought that eventually I’ll be able to get most Apple and Adobe products at cost price doesn’t hurt

I don’t normally do this, and I’m not convinced I ever have, actually, but I thought I’d do the Friday 5:

Your task is simply to answer these five questions without using any of the Taboo words or phrases. Challenge yourself not just to avoid using the words, but to think of fresh, new answers to these sort of cliched meme questions!

1. Who’s making a positive difference in your life?
Taboo words: friends, family, husband/wife/spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend.

I’m going to go with my co-workers. It’s such a happy environment here (for me personally – I know there are people that are dissatisfied with their own work stuff), but they are all having a completely positive difference on my life

Where would you like to be right now?
Taboo words: home, bed, anywhere but here.

I’d like to be in town, possibly at the beach or a bar – hell, it is Firday afternoon I’d also fairly like to be with Joe, but only another week to go.

3. What’s the first thing you’d do with a $5,000 (or your local equivalent) gift?
Taboo words: save, debt, vacation, payments, invest.

I’d probably give some to my dad, and put the rest towards DIY/house stuff.

4. What super-power would you really like to have?
Taboo words: invisibility, x-ray vision, flying, strength, transform.

I’d like to be able to read minds, I think it would be fun and amusing And of course I wouldn’t use it ethically or wisely!

5. What’s your favorite sound?
Taboo words: laughter, music, ocean, wind, ____’s voice.

Hmm…this is the hardest question, I actually have to think about this one! I love the sound of smashing glass, but only when I’m taking bottles to be recycled and throw them in the bank really hard – very stress relieving!

You know how you either have an internet connection or you don’t have an internet connection? Apparently it’s possible to have one and not have one simultaneously. On the same laptop. Yeah, I’m confused too:

Of course I wasn’t actually connected (shown in the bottom right of the image), but sometimes I think that if my Vaio were a person, it would be a senior citizen that occasionally forgets his/her kids’ names.

That’s because I got it just before I started uni, which would make it September 2005 – at least 4 years old? Yeah. It’s pretty old now, but in full working order apart from the wireless signal dropping quite a bit. My mobile internet works fine on it though, so I’m assuming a hard wired connection does as well. Oh, and the battery’s completely dead so it has to stay constantly plugged in, but it’s served me well.

For my 21st my family got me a small Samsung. It’s shiny and black and it’s easy to carry around unlike my old widescreen Vaio. However, it doesn’t like me playing Settlers, which is why at the moment I’m on my Vaio. I go through phases, depending on what I’m doing. The Vaio’s screen is much better for watching films. And plugging a laptop into my TV can cause problems because the TV doesn’t like Vista or XP (I think it’s Vista though – can’t remember).

My internet connection is actually pretty bad at the moment so I should really switch laptops. I can’t even log into FTP properly (yay for Wordpress image uploader).

However, I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the Apple.com discussion boards and reviews, as part of my job means I need to be familiar with the hardware, and the amount of things that have happened to people…I’ve read about power blocks setting on fire, brand new computers unusuable, the Macbook Air’s hinges being loose and having to replace the whole lid/screen because it’s all one part…yeah. I’m just grateful my Vaio’s still going, though I do tend to look after my electronics pretty well. I still have my ipod mini, which dates way back – the first thing I ever bought with money I earned myself. The battery life on it isn’t great any more, but it only has a few scratches and is in perfect working order other than that. And my digital camera. I bought my sister one for Christmas and she’d broken it within about a week, whereas my old Kodak’s still going strong. It’s mains charged, so again the battery life is getting weaker, but it’s had a good life.

Sometimes I’m just to tempted to go and buy a new camera, ipod, etc. because I’m so behind with technology in some respects. But I’m kind of sentimental about the old stuff, even if my Vaio does only have 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive, it still works fine

Weekend was fun, especially as living in my new place means my old friends and my family are just 70 miles away. So instead of getting back at 10:20pm on Friday, and having to leave around lunchtime on Sunday, I got back about 8:30pm and stayed until 7pm on the Sunday. It made such a difference to the length of the weekend – it meant we could go to the cinema and get a takeaway and play computer games on Sunday instead of me rushing around.

Saturday night was Em’s hen night, which was fun even though I barely knew anyone (it was mainly her family and uni friends). We had tapas, and went to the Hilton’s Sky Bar, and went on to a club. Good fun, but I was a bit knackered after my first week at work.

Pom was so cute this weekend – he was eating a dog biscuit off the floor and making a mess. Halfway through it, I said to him ‘Pom, you’re dropping loads of crumbs’ – and straight away he stopped eating the biscuit and licked up the crumbs he’d dropped!! Sometimes I swear that dog can understand English and just occasionally pretends not to.

The weekend went quickly, but was really good. This weekend Joe’s coming to visit, and then next weekend Hannah’s coming, and we’re going to the Riverside Festival. I’ve never been before, but the website says there will be a fair, market, fireworks, boat races and more so it should be good if it doesn’t rain.

Today I spent my lunchtime wandering around, and found the place where the free bus goes from. At the moment, I can choose between a half hour walk, paying, and then being slightly late or walking 15 mins, getting the free bus, then walking 15 mins and being on time. I got the free bus back today and it’s amazing. I know that sounds pathetic, but you know when lots of little things start going wrong and you end up getting really upset? Well at the moment, lots of little things are going right for me and (obviously) it’s having the opposite effect. Everything seems to be working out right for once

I have the foundations of my life sorted – degree, job I enjoy, my own house, fantastic family, friends and relationship, financially independent, website, and material things. Now I need to concentrate on other goals I’ve got in both the short term and the long term such as driving, eating more healthily, and doing a master’s. But now I’ve got the basics in place, it’sa question of juggling everything and working hard enough so it stays right. Obviously my life isn’t perfect, and I don’t want to suggest that because there’s always room for improvement But the basics of happiness for me are there.

At the moment I’m having a slump about 2pm, when I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I really need to address what I’m eating at the moment and get into a proper routine. I’m not as tired after work (though my energy drink fix mid afternoon is probably something to do with that), and so I need to start planning meals better. I think I need some kind of schedule, so I can balance preparing and eating dinner with relaxing time, website time, and paid writing time. I’ll be some kind of incredibly efficient machine if that all ever happens! Writing so much each day is quite tiring just from work, but it’s so worth it because I enjoy it and it’s what I want to do