Alex Harries's diary

I barely slept last night - six hours in bed and I reckon I counted more sheep than I've had hot dinners (but I *am* half-Welsh, so counting sheep is at least 50% more satisfying for me than it is for most people...).

I don't often feel pressure, but I think it's fair to say that there's a certain - unavoidable - element of stress connected to this whole elections campaigning thing. That's not to say I can actually identify when I'm stressed; I don't have that kind of introspective ability, but I do tend to wake up very early. Shame I was never really that stressed at school then... ;o)

Anyway, this nightmare: at one point in the night, I bounced myself awake after dreaming that I'd I slept right through Candidates' Question Time. After that, there was no hope for me getting a good night's sleep - despite it being dark outside, every time I woke up after that I checked the clock to make sure I wasn't going to be late.

Of course, not actually *having* a clock in my bedroom meant I had to crawl over to the laptop, wiggle the mouse to wake it up, remember my password, check the time, then try and get back to sleep with the screen flooding the room with light... Maybe I should get a proper, real clock?

Peace out :o) /al - off to boil the kettle...

I've been pushing more code around the blogs diaries (when will I learn it's not a "blog"?!) part of the site. This is more for my reference than anyone else's, but feel free to take a nosey and (once enabled) post a comment. Here's the latest changes...

• added my interests info, and added code to allow searching of interests (not completed the results page though)
• added forum title to user's info box
• made it easier for us to add more custom fields - location, etc
• fixed the page so viewing "my diary entries" shows up with "my" information instead of generic side- and top-box text

Still to do

• get calendar code sorted (and tied to the current user, where applicable)
• add icons and clean up/make uniform the date/author info in mamblog and com_content (any way to make a db call to get the mamblog Itemid(s)?)
• add [blog] link in forum (titled, for example, "View AlexH's diary - " . blogtitle)
• edit comments code so admins/article author/editors/publishers/managers can see unapproved comments (and can approve them) and can also un-approve comments (can/should we allow post-moderated comments in blogs? probably not).
• add "my clubs & societies" keywords (much like "interests") to allow searching for other members in the same clubs/socs.
• add a way of listing all posts by a diary-keeper for a certain month, and add code to automagically show a link to that month where entries exist by that user (also apply to browsing all the blogs - show first 5 and then links to the rest).
  

After "miniminogue"'s request for a singles/dating/lonely hearts section (whichever title you prefer) I'm also wondering whether it might be a good/interesting idea to add the option to say whether you're single or not, male/female, what you look for in a person and who you are. Could be good. Or it could simply end up as a nice bit of space on UPSU.net where you can hear the gentle rustle of passing tumbleweed...!

P.s. there's a lot to be said about pixel-pushing when you've only had 2 hours' sleep and a dodgy kebob. Not much of it, though, is complimentary...