couchspudprotem
Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "couchspudprotem" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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02:09 pm
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Scrivener and Dropbox
No. I don't care. I don't care how many people have written really interesting and informative blog entries explaining how they use scrivener and simplenote and dropbox and thirty-seven other different programmes that are all easy to use and work with anything and *all* you have to do is remember to set everything to save as an RTF file or a zip file, and make a special folder in your dropbox but only save the last five versions and its easier if you use dates in the file names and you can do that automatically by... LALALALALAFINGERSINMYEARS! I don't want to know! Don't tell me. No. It's cat vacuuming!
If you will please just come round to my house and fiddle with the settings on my copy of Scrivener so that in future all my documents save themselves into dropbox whenever I switch off and that whenever I switch on my ipad the latest copy of my document is there ready to use and vice versa, well, I will gladly pay you one hundred English pounds.
In the meantime, my writing spot at least works. Reliably. And encourages me to write instead of cat vacuuming.
Current Mood:  cranky
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08:20 pm
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Computer blues
So, clued up computer-user friends, I'm looking at a table in a pdf file (made by someone else, I hasten to add!) It contains some data that I want to add to and then put onto my blog in a different order. Essentially I have a pdf of a four column, multiple row table that I want to sort and then discard about 90% of, and publish the remaining half a dozen rows as a table on a wordpress blog. I also want to discard one of the original columns and add a different column of my own. With hyperlinks in it.
I could type it all out manually, sure enough. But, you know, I'm using a computer and aren't they supposed to be able to do that kind of thing for you???? I also may need to do it again every now and then and, while I might be willing to spend a weekend copy typing to make a point, I'm buggered if I'm going to do it two or three times a month.
Anyone? It looks as if there's a thing called "tinymce advanced" that will let me build a table in wordpress, but how do I then get the data from the original pdf into it? Sigh. Looks like a time sink to me!
Current Mood:  pessimistic
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08:03 pm
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Update
Today's to-do list:Voted (in the local election, and in the local referendum on whether or not Sheffield should have an elected mayor) before 8am - yay me!
And then... went to Durham for a fast-track passport interview so that - with good luck and a following wind (and a reasonable correlation between my photograph fifteen-odd years ago and the unspeakably hideous no-smile no-specs photo taken on Monday) - I should have my passport next week. Next - book plane tickets for Wiscon!!! Organise the er visa thingy! Argh!!!!
While I was in Durham I also managed to have a catch up with Diane (my friend from Vane Women) who kindly collected me from the station, took me to a farm shop/cafe for a calming pre-interview coffee and sandwich and a post-interview drink and bowl of chips, and even deposited me back at the station. Lovely to catch up, and her publication record puts me to shame - a useful piece of metaphorical arse-kicking.
Must go. #am writing.
Current Mood: accomplished
Tags: #am writing, vane women
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08:21 pm
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Butterfly brain
This is the start of my fourth week of retirement/self-employment and my brain seems to have decided to baulk at the whole thing. I'm doing two different things; carrying on working on tax simplification and better regulation but from the outside looking in. That's reflected in my other blog, tiintax.com and on twitter. I've also written some stuff for a tax adviser's website and am waiting on the publication of an article I wrote before I left so that I have a calling card to see if I can get some more paid writing on the subject. So that's all going swimmingly.
And then there's the science fiction and fantasy side, where I went to Eastercon and spoke on two panels, went to the monthly meeting of the Sheffield group, got my Wiscon panel schedule and generally started to feel like that side of my life is opening up again. I've written one complete story (going to writers group with it tomorrow) and two more-or-less-but-need-some-brainspace stories, and I've also put down some words on the Fantasy Novel With The Cowboys.
There's even been some administrivia achieved, in the area of paying bills, getting the roof mended and selecting an arbour to be built in the garden.
But today... today I can't settle to anything. My brain doesn't want to write. It doesn't want to read. It doesn't even want to read fanfic. It doesn't want to look at pictures of cats on the internet. It's not (whisper it) particularly interested in looking at pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch on the internet!
Weird stuff.
I'm going back to London tomorrow for a quick pleasure trip - book group, writers group, meet up with my old team, some other friends; stop off at Leicester on the way back for dinner with yet another friend.
So I can't concentrate today? Well, that's why there are card games at the back of the computer. I'll think about Life, the Universe and Everything tomorrow. Or the day after.
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07:37 pm
[Link] | Back from Eastercon this afternoon, my first convention for, what, three years? Four? Longer? Quite some time, anyway. I suspect it's longer, and that the last Eastercon I attended was the one in 2007, just as Farthing was about to go bust. You certainly see conventions differently as an editor from the way you do as a civilian, anyway!
But I (mostly) had a good time, and got to hang out with some old and new friends, and the few times I was miserable were entirely down to my own inability to face talking to people and not to any fault of the convention.
And I nerved myself to do two panels, and felt as though I'd done myself justice - no spinach on the teeth, wearing the right number of clothes in the right order, no-one outright laughed in my face, and there were no angry crowds with pitchforks. Hmmm. Much as I'm looking forward to returning to Wiscon this year, maybe con-going isn't going to be the way I spend my retirement. Post con let down? Yea, I get this way after Christmas, too. Maybe some sleep. And chocolate.
As I posted on Facebook before I went, I very much didn't want to go to Eastercon. Nor did I, always, enjoy being. But I'm very glad to have been. Tricky stuff. Tempted to set the mood bar to "tense", but that's too lame a joke, even for me.
Oh. Apparently it isn't!
Current Mood: tense
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07:39 pm
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I think the word I'm looking for is "squee"
It's my birthday tomorrow!
It's my 56th birthday tomorrow, and also three whole days before I take early retirement and leave work.
It's my birthday/retirement party tomorrow!
It's the last. Time. Evah! That I have to get up early to catch the train to London to work. I'm going on the Master Cutler (the fast train. That serves breakfast!) instead of the cheapo slow train. I'm going first class on a FREE ticket that East Midland trains gave me because of some earlier shennanigans.
It's my birthday party tomorrow!
Squee!!!!!
(Um, you're all invited. And I may have a touch - just a *touch*, mind - of gate fever!)
Current Mood:  hyper
Tags: squee
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10:42 am
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Surprise!
It's been slow work collecting in the sponsorship money for my 100 Rejections project, but this morning brought a lovely surprise in the form of an anonymous cheque for £100! A big THANK YOU to you, whoever you are!
Anyone else? http://www.justgiving.com/Wendy-Bradley0
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07:58 pm
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Seven days to go!
Ha! Managed to work out how to reset my password and get back into my blog! Technological illiterate, moi???
Anyway, just to say that I take early retirement in seven days time... as the Boss says, just sitting here waiting for my life to begin...!
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07:43 pm
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Streaming, piracy, lovefilm, netflix
So Lovefilm sent me a mailshot offering me a months free trial and an Amazon voucher and I thought, why not? I'm going to be retired soon, sitting at my desk all day writing, so why not sign up? I can catch up with Babylon 5 in the background while I'm working - maybe finally get to see what The Wire was all about, not to mention Mad Men.
Signed up. Entered "Benedict Cumberbatch" in the search box. Pretty much what you'd expect, all the films that are out, but no series 2 Sherlock unless you want Blu-Ray.
OK then, what about TV? Babylon 5? No. The Wire? No.
Cancelled my account. Huh.
Then, later, I thought, what's the other one called? A bit of googling later and there's Netflix. A bit more googling, and I discovered how to sign up without signing up via Facebook (because, no, I really don't want to allow Netflix to announce on Facebook every time I watch an episode of, well, anything!) Logged out of Facebook. Signed up with a secondary email address.
Put "Benedict Cumberbatch" into the search box.
Huh. First result is The Berenstain Bears, a 2002 kids programme starring someone called Benedict Campbell.
Try again with actual inverted commas around "Benedict Cumberbatch".
Same result.
Try "Danny Boyle"
Random series of tv programmes, again entirely unrelated to the person I'm actually searching for.
Try "Babylon 5".
The result begins with recommended programmes for the 5-10 age group.
Another account deactivated.
Dear Multinationals, this is why piracy exists. Sell me the stuff I want to buy, FFS, and I'll buy it. I haven't followed any of the links that came up to peer to peer file sharing and bit torrent stuff, mainly because I'm too lazy and I know damned well that, really, the likelihood of me watching five years of Babylon 5 episodes as "background while I write the next novel" is kind of small, and I'm much better off NOT putting temptation in my way.
But, really!
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08:43 pm
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Cough
I have a cough.
Not a cold. Not the flu. Not even manflu. Just a cough.
A dry cough that's giving me a headache, preventing me from sleeping (don't even ask about whether you can cough in a CPAP mask... just... no) Just a cough. That goes on, and on, and on, and on, and...
I is miserable.
That is all. (cough. cough. cough.)
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