f4f3 | Ketchup

So, I gave in and bought myself a plasma screen. Luckily I did this before I spoke to my accountants, and found out I may be £3-£4k short come January. Oops.

It's a nice looking Samsung thingy, it's 42" across, and I really like the picture quality. So yay!

It looks like I've reached the top of The Roller Coaster Which Is Christmas, and everything for the next four weeks or so is going to get a bit blurry. So lets do a quick ketchup...

A week ago I went through to Edinburgh for my seasonal dialogue meeting. This just keeps on getting more and more valuable to me. We had a quick go-round about the fact that we've been meeting for almost two years now, and did we have the appetite to go on. One of the other participants spoke about a group he's part of, which he thinks is starting to do really good work. After 15 years. So, yeah, I think we'll all be back together in the Spring.

The weekend was busy, and fun. I've blogged about the concert on Friday, and Saturday afternoon was a little wiped out by a stomach bug. About a dozen of my friends all over the world seemed to have come down with stomach cramps and long book reading sessions on the loo. I was let off quite lightly, and was mostly fine for Saturday night's St Andrews bash chez

psychochicken and

zantic , which was lots of fun - great fublet.

Sunday I headed into town and researched the plasma screen idea. I'd done all that boy stuff of looking at reviews, doing price comparisons, and I wanted to see my candidates in the metal before buying. John Lewis had the one I wanted on display, but the picture off-air was a bit dodgy. There was a distinct lack of anyone around to ask questions too, and no one seemed eager to help. I went down to Richer Sounds, who were demoing the same screen with a Blue-Ray disk which looked fantastic, but then I don't have Blue-Ray. When I asked to see it with a standard DVD the manager clambered all over their very small shop, hooking and unhooking stuff, to give me the demo. It looked great, his service was excellent, his shop got my business.

After a bit of a Laurel and Hardy moment getting the screen into the car, getting it home and working went without a hitch.

This week has blurred a bit too. Tonight I was off to fencing, where fortunately there is new blood - yes, fencers who are worse than me! Yay!

I celebrated by going to Langs for one drink, which turned out to be a very nice Manhattan. I was only slightly envious of

curious_orchid 's Vodka Martini (shaken, not stirred) and not jealous at all of Greig and, um, person who's name I can't remember's cokes.

Now I SHOULD be packing for my jaunt to London tomorrow, but updating my journal is so much more useful. I'll try and hook up with various parties down there, but mostly it's about catching up with

littlescot1 ,

pshtaku and

scunner_darkly - I've arranged nothing but tomorrow evening, but I'll have the mobile with me, and let the cards fall where they may.

As I say, no idea what I'll be doing, but if you'd like to try and hook up, leave a comment here or give me a call.