As if giving myself more blogs to read wasn’t distraction enough, last night I installed Trillian. Named (presumably) after a certain Hitchhikers’ Guide heroine, this handy little program combines four different Instant Messenger programs (ICQ, MSN, AIM and Yahoo) plus IRC all into one useful package.

It’s been on my installation to-do list for a while now, as I have gaming friends on ICQ, family on AIM and message board friends on MSN – no-one seems to make my life very easy.

So far, I’m very pleased with Trillian – does what I want it to do and them some with minimum fuss and effort. Best of all, no more annoying ads (although I’m using the pro version at $25, don’t know if the free one has ads). Only problem is, I can now contact double the amount of people I could before when I should be writing the novel instead…

I’ve just signed up for Blog Explosion – possibly a fatal mistake, given that I’m supposed to be weaning myself off hours of web surfing on the run up to NaNo. However, so far it seems quite good.

The principle is similar to how BlogSnob used to be, before it went all commercial and naff, only Blog Explosion has a twist – you earn exposure to your blog by viewing other people’s blogs. For each blog you read for more than 30 seconds, you get credit – I think it works out for every two blogs you visit you’ll get one visitor in return. Plus I’ve got to read some really good sites I probably wouldn’t have come across any other way.

As I say, fatal mistake just before the novelling attempt. Oh well.

This picture desperately needs a caption…

… against my better judgement I’m going to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I have no time to do it in, no plot, no characters, no bloody CLUE why I want to put myself through that again… but I’m going to do it anyway. Because it’s there. And no, I shan’t publish it on here this year – either it’s going to be so dire due to lack of time, energy and imagination, or I’ll want to reserve it for editing and submitting to publishers (HA, yeah right!), so I’ll be able to bluff merrily about what a masterpiece it is throughout the month.

I predict total mental breakdown by November 3rd.

I now have two weeks to somehow prepare for this novelling extravaganza. Does watching copious bad telly count as preparation?

Interesting article on the beeb today which issues a warning on internet health advice. Contrary to what I expected, this is not a diatribe on incorrect information but a study that more knowledge appears to leave people in worse health – one of the theories being that the more you know about your chronic condition the more complacent you may be over the long term risks of your behaviour, while previously you might have just followed your doctor’s directions explicitly.

I’m a little dubious, to be honest, but then I’m someone who (when has more knowledge) worries more but does feel more in control. I wouldn’t like to go back to the days where you have to rely on an overworked generalist (your GP) to have the up-to-the-minute research on a specific condition at their fingertips. Then I got to this paragraph:

Further, well-informed health consumers may not, as expected, drive down the use of health care but may increase it by demanding specific and possibly more costly treatments.

Ah… now that’s the real complaint, isn’t it. Heaven forbid we spend more money in the short term on something more effective in the long term…

… where did the weekend go?!

Convenience food… I have a love/hate relationship with it. We’re having a ready meal chinese tonight because I’ve been cooking up a storm ready for weaning in a few weeks time and can’t be arsed to do real cooking tonight, so that’s obviously okay.

I can sort of understand buying ready made yorkshire puddings and ready made white sauce, because it took me a while to learn both those recipes – now it feels a whole lot easier to make it myself rather than use the convenience, but I can appreciate why there’s a market for them.

Frozen roast potatoes has me on the verge of raising an eyebrow, however. It’s not *that* hard to cook a roast tattie. I will acquiesce that time may be a factor in that purchase. None will ever darken the freezer compartment in my home, but I wouldn’t laugh too hard at someone else purchasing them.

Today, while I was looking at the ready meals for tonight’s decadence, though, I spotted the ultimate rip off: Baked Potatoes with Cheese all nicely packaged to stick in the microwave and eat.

Oh PURLEASE! How hard (and cheap!) is it to buy a couple of tatties yourself, pop them in the microwave then stick cheese on them?! Even the most culinary challenged amongst us MUST be able to nuke a potato. Hell, most microwaves these days have an automatic baked potato button which is just as fast as the instructions on the packet. Is grating a bit of cheese considered too time consuming for a busy professional?! And they want £1.65 for this “convenience” ! You can buy a baking potato from the vegetable section for around 30p. For the rest of the money you could buy a whole pack of cheese that would last you the rest of the week…

… aiming for the more money than sense market, obviously.

While we’re on the subject of privacy issues…

We went to our local Wacky Warehouse yesterday and before we could go in and play they asked for my postcode and house number. This was for a cash transaction of a couple of quid! What possible legitimate reason could they have for that information in exchange for a mere hour’s worth of play?! (My friend did jokingly suggest that maybe it was in case you were tempted to skip out and leave the kids behind…)

According to the Data Protection Act I am entitled to know what they are using the information for. I should have called them on it then and there, but Akra Jr was getting rather impatient to play and Li’l Bhaji needed feeding. I sense a strongly worded email coming on…

Okay, I know I now only need to see Blunkett’s name in a headline and I start frothing at the mouth, but …. *scream*!!!

Got the City & Guild photography course materials through today… am trying very hard not to feel too intimidated! Completely insane, as I should be used to academia type wording by now, but I suppose the difference is that this is academia in an arty context and I don’t really consider myself artistic at all!

Oh help.