*Proud*

Last night, I successfully took the old, clapped-out DVD drive out of my computer, and replaced it with a new one, which worked perfectly straight away! Rah!

I have never done anything which involved physically opening up my computer and doing stuff inside it before, and while I recognise that on the scale of things, what I did was not actually hard, I was still impressed that I managed to do it without breaking anything.

I was also interested to see just how much of what is inside my computer (it is a 'tower' type PC) is actually empty space. How does it still manage to be so heavy? That's what I want to know. I gave it a bit of a dust-out while I was in there, as it looked like it needed it, but only on plain metal surfaces like the bottom of the case: not anywhere that looked important or delicate.

I shall now at last be able to watch Christopher Lee's 1998 film, Jinnah, which I bought on DVD about 4 months ago, and haven't been able to see yet. He reckons it's his 'most important' film to date, so it should definitely be seen. I might just watch it tonight, in fact... It is a toss-up between that and another episode of Gormenghast on video: but either way, I get Christopher Lee Action^TM - yay!

Another pronunciation poll, this time about scones

It's confusing being a Midlander sometimes (for those unaware, I grew up in Birmingham).

( Long and short 'a's )

But I digress from the real issue at stake: scones.

( How this came up )

In any case, I now want to check up on where each pronunciation is most common with the help of you, gentle readers. I know that both are in use: but where does each prevail? Tell me which bits of Britain you think are busy eating skoans, and which parts are happily munching on skons instead.

[Poll #386998]
Apologies, incidentally, to the good people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for not providing the option to further subdivide your (our?) regions: I'm only allowed a maximum of 15 options for this type of poll question, it transpires, so you will have to comment if you think different rules apply in different parts of your country. Comments on the typical pronunciation in English-speaking countries are, of course, also welcome.