New Car

We got our new car yesterday. It's a Citreon Xsara. It's three years old, but only has 13,000 miles on the clock. It's a lovely shiney blue with a spoiler on the back.

The even better news is we no longer have a car loan, which is a good way to be.

In case you haven't got enough to read...

Two bloggers I've valued over the years, Maura McHugh and Daev Walsh, have both gone a bit quiet of late.

Maura, it turns out, has changed her blogging software, so I was no longer picking up her feed. I've syndicated her new blog at babblogue. Maura is an American living in Galway, and posts an interesting mix of politics and technology, with plenty of wit thrown in.


Daev is a paranormal investigator and webmaster, who has written for the Fortean Times and worked for Greenpeace as webmaster on the Rainbow Warrior. He is currently travelling the world, and his adventures can be found at abroadfeed.

Mobile Fone

I need a new mobile phone.

My current Nokia 6610 has a problem that the charger cable pops out wheever I plug it in. In order to charge it, I have to push it in hard and then wrap the cable around the phone so it can't move. I could see if they'll replace it under the insurance, but I'd be stuck with whatever they think is the current equivalent of my phone (which might be okay).

Alternatively, I could get a new shiney model as an upgrade.

My question is, what phone should I get? If you love your phone, please post the make and model and why you like it. Equally, if your phone is a pile of pixie shit, please post so I'll know not to get it (with the reasons you hate it).

Writing Update

I'm sure this writing lark is supposed to be easier. It's probably my own fault for not having a detailed plan when I started. Sometimes, though, it's hard to come up with a detailed plan until you know how the characters pan out, and things don't always work out as you expect.

I wrote the first draft of a short story, and it had some ideas I like, but the overall story was rather dull and failed to engage. I'm not going into detail, but it was largely about a single chracter on a journey, and it didn't have enough opportunities for her to engage others. I thought adding a second character for her to sound off might help, and it did, but while the original character improved, the new character come off rather one dimensional, only there to support the main one.

In the meantime, Ive had a bunch of new ideas, and come up with a stronger end for the story. I've decided to seperate the second character, to give the two very different reasons for being there. I'm also going to change the antogonist a bit to make him more relatable. He does some irrational things, so I want to try to show that in his mind they are both rational and reasonable.

I was about to set this story aside, to work on another idea I've had for a while, but suddenly I''m excited about it again.

It's a good feeling.