In which it’s way better this way, but still not ideal.
I think my ability to perceive the glass as half full is actually a character flaw.
I think this because I can slog through a fairly unacceptable life and yet still be convinced that I’m happy, even when I’m patently not. I learned this about myself when I was married: I was terribly unhappy for years without realizing it. Even developed a panic disorder, that’s how deep in denial I was about not getting my needs met…
But that’s a whole other post. I’m probably not, in point of actual fact, living a life that is unacceptable: it’s probably just PMS.
I love not bleeding for 29 days out of every 30. It’s awesome. It’s fantastic. I’m frantic with joy that I no longer have to fear my life is leaking out of my uterus. (Rollerball ablation has been very, very good to me.) But. I still get evil, wicked PMS and I hate it. Bloating is evil! No one should have her ankle bones disappear every month! Feeling despondent, tired, and quasi-depressed for a third of every month is just plain sucky.
I remember when I was young and bullet-proof I thought women who complained of PMS were just complaining for attention. Now I realize the truth: hormones are hell.
Maybe I’ll luck out and be born male next time. While males may have shorter life spans, at least their reproductive processes are eleventy-hundred times less complicated!
In which I’m foiled.
I was just about to install my new 120Gb hard drive into the laptop when the whole project was derailed before it could even get going.
I lack a 2.5mm Allen wrench, first of all. And my Windows XP installation disc is missing.
I could probably get the thing open anyway, but even if I did I have no operating system to install.
Well, that’s not true. I have Win98SE, Win2kPro, and Vista, but not only do I not want to install any of those operating systems, I don’t have drivers for them anyway.
I wonder what the hell I did with that XP disk.
*sigh*
In which I’m still boring and you shouldn’t even be reading this.
My new 120Gb hard drive arrived yesterday. I got it so cheap I can hardly stand myself! It came in an envelope instead of a box… I’d forgotten how tiny laptop drives are. It’s still sitting in its anti-static container, waiting to be installed tomorrow.
I bought an AC adapter for this little hard drive enclosure I rescued from the trash back in Iowa. Maybe it’ll work, maybe I’ll end up with a six-dollar adapter that I have no need for. Who knows. It would be cool though if I could put my old hard drive in it and have it work, because it’s small and has a cute little carrying case.
Today I bought an ebook for my 1150. I love that thing. (The reader, not the book. (Well, I’ll probably love the book too since it’s second of a series and I loved the first one, but I was talking about the reader.))
Hmm. What else? Well, I’m freakin’ tired. I’ve been complaining about having to work full-time, so just to kick my ass the universe suddenly causes me to find myself working overtime. Not only that, but instead of getting up at ten like I normally do, I set my alarm for 7:30 and then Bindu woke me up at six because she needed to go outside. She’s a good dog and I’d rather have her wake me than make a mess, but suddenly getting up four hours early hurts my head.
I’m supposed to go out tonight and see the Coyote Kings play, but I might just blow it off and stay home. I could probably manage to be social for a couple of hours, but I just don’t think I can stay awake until two or three when I could get a ride home from one of the musicians.
I need my own damn car so I don’t have to depend on others for rides.
In which I talk about work.
I was informed today that I have received a raise.
A raise of one quarter per hour. Yes, a whole quarter. Per hour! That’s two dollars a day, if you do the math!
I haven’t gotten a raise of less than a dollar in years. But then again the last two places I worked promised reviews but rarely managed to conduct them. This company is going to review me every three months for my first year, so if I get a quarter every time that’ll be my dollar and all will be well.
I was also informed today that I now work Saturdays. (Note: This means I am working six days this week. Go me.) Tuesday through Saturday: that’s my new schedule. Tuesday through Friday I work noon to nine, and on Saturday I work nine to six.
I told admin that I would do this cheerfully for a few months, but as soon as the weather gets nice I’ll start bitchin’ about it. They said they’d be prepared to discuss it by then. Right now my schedule hardly matters, but I can’t be workin’ on Saturdays if I’m gigging on Friday nights come spring!
In which there are a few things, and not a one of them is interesting.
I had my first review last Friday: apparently I’m doing a kick-ass job. I asked for an ergo keyboard and got one the same day. Yay!
Winter’s here this week. It’s about sixteen degrees below freezing. Today I’m wearing fleece-lined jeans, boots, and a fleece vest under my wool sweater. I’m so bulky I look like the Michelin tire baby, but at least I’m warm.
I thwacked my ankle on the wooden asana in front of my laptop at home, and now my whole ankle’s swollen and it hurts.
It took over fifteen hours to sync my iPod with my newly reassembled iTunes library. I have less than 3Gb of space remaining on the iPod, so next weekend I’m gonna prune the crap out of my music library. Yesterday I splurged and bought a new hard drive for my laptop, because the laptop’s drive is the same size as the iPod (30Gb) and that’s just stupid. Plus it was way cheap on eBay.
I made payments to the surgeon and the dentist yesterday, and now I have barely enough lunch money to get me through until next payday. To stave off the feeling of poverty, I finally spent the $100 Amazon.com gift certificate I got from my uncle, Dangerous, so next week I’ll have a nice box of books to cheer my broke ass up.
My life is boring. All I do is work and sleep and play with electronic gadgets. Thank God I have such lovely electronic devices or I’d be lost, I tell you, utterly lost.
In which I spend most of the day in front of the computer.
Today I woke up hungry at the ass-crack of dawn, but I stayed in bed until nine or so rockin’ out to tuneage on the beloved iPod. I made eggs and toast and coffee for breakfast when I finally got up. Then I plugged in my external hard drive enclosure, and began the process of putting my iTunes library back together.
I’ve been using SharePod to add content to my iPod since I left Iowa last September, so what’s on my iPod no longer matches the backup I have.
I couldn’t find my old library .xml file, so I had to import all the tracks into iTunes and right now it’s updating album art. When it’s done, I’ll import all the tracks I’ve got on the laptop, then the six gigs of music from Jayrob, and then the video content I have.
Then I’ll spend all evening massaging files, editing tags and shit, and finally I’ll export my playlists off the iPod itself and into iTunes. Once all of THAT is done, I’ll be able to sync my iPod for the first time in over four months… a process that will probably take half the damn night since iTunes will decide the relationship is new and re-write the entire drive.
Long story short? If you’ve got an MP3 library bigger than a few gigs, back it up. Now. Any way you can. Srsly. This is a pain in the arse.
In other news, I’ve decided to attend the first-annual Global Blogger Meetup in DC in March. So far, only three bloggers are actually slated to attend, but that’s all good because it means I get to call dibs on Vuboq’s couch without anyone arguing with me. (I’d prefer the guest room, of course, but Only Me’s already got it, the quasi-Aussie git.)
Vuboq says there will be a chili night on Sunday – I offered to make veggie chili if needed! – and maybe Monday Afternoon Margaritas the next day since I’m dying for the spinach enchiladas and liquid cheese he’s always blogging about. Then on St. Pat’s Day we’ll all go get trashed in honor of Vuboq’s birthday.
Airline tickets are $359 right now, so with vigilant surfing I should be able to find something under $300 and be able to take a reasonable amount of cash along. It’s a lot of damn flying for a 3-day vacation, but what the hell. I do, after all, have both an eBook reader and a kitting bag to stave off boredom, and I’ve already decided 2008 should be a Year Of Travel for me. DC in March, Seattle in June, and NY in September!
Now all I have to do is convince my employer to give me all that time off.
In which there might be snow.
…COLDEST AIR OF THE SEASON ON THE WAY WITH SOME SNOW EXPECTED…
AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT WILL CROSS THE AREA SUNDAY BRINGING THE COLDEST AIR OF THE SEASON TO INTERIOR WASHINGTON AND OREGON. TEMPERATURES WILL REMAIN BELOW FREEZING FROM SUNDAY AFTERNOON UNTIL FRIDAY AFTERNOON…WITH VERY COLD OVERNIGHT TEMPERATURES IN THE SINGLE DIGITS AND TEENS. WINDS WILL BE GUSTY BEHIND THE FRONT INTO MONDAY PRODUCING VERY COLD WIND CHILLS. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP SATURDAY EVENING AND CONTINUE INTO SUNDAY EVENING. MOST AREAS WILL SEE A LIGHT ACCUMULATION OF SNOW…BUT HEAVIER SNOW IS POSSIBLE OVER THE BLUE MOUNTAINS…BLUE MOUNTAIN FOOTHILLS…AND OCHOCO MOUNTAINS.
PEOPLE EXPECTING TO TRAVEL THIS WEEKEND SHOULD PREPARE FOR WINTER DRIVING CONDITIONS AND CARRY EXTRA SUPPLIES IN THEIR VEHICLES DUE TO THE VERY COLD CONDITIONS THAT ARE EXPECTED.
I’m not really excited about snow, but at least some real winter weather will be different than the lovely mild greenness they usually call winter here!
In which there’s music.
Here’s the second rough of one of my new band’s demo tunes:
[display_podcast]
(And yes, Naomi, I had RB fix the ‘chew’ sound you didn’t like. I live to serve!)
One of these days, we’ll get organized and record a third tune… and then learn enough material to actually do a gig if someone hires us!
In which my face is numb.
I’m revising my opinion of my new dentist’s office. They called me today and offered me a spot they had due to cancellation, and I went in at ten. The hygienist rocked; she cleaned half my mouth within an inch of its life.
That ultrasonic tool works really well, but I dislike it when it squeals in my eardrums and sinuses. It’s so strange, lying there in a chair with a total stranger touching my face – intimate because there are fingers on my jaw or lips, medical because of the latex gloves and the smell of disinfectant – while a science fiction sonata is played in strange, metallic overtones on the bones around my brain.
I got three shots of local. My lips are still numb, and my gums are beginning to ache. Doing call center work with half your mouth asleep is certainly a fun spin on an otherwise utterly unremarkable Wednesday.
The hygienist told me I was “excellent to work on.” And I totally am: I lie there with my mouth open and my eyes closed, and drift. I laughed a few times because my nerves weren’t telling me what they were supposed to: my tongue worked, but my lips felt swollen and weird. The hygienist worked for an hour and a half, scraping and ultrasonic-ing and digging and flossing. When she was done, she gave me a bag with dental goodies in it and told me to gargle with warm salt water.
My next appointment isn’t until February 2nd, but they said they’d call me if they get another cancellation. Yea verily, clean teeth shall be mine!
I can’t wait for the feeling to return to my lips, though.
In which I had no idea what time it was.
Yesterday I got my new gadget, my eBookwise ebook reader.
It’s so cute! And so far I’m giving it a total thumbs up (although I already have a list of things I want in the next OS update, like: font face changeability, categories, and an ‘undo’ function for markups). Both of my favorite ebook vendors (Fictionwise and Baen) offer books in the proper format for it, so I’ve been able to pack the thing full of stuff to read. Besides Rocket eBook formatted files, it’ll display HTML, .doc, and text files too.
Instead of having a local book-managing application (though there is one available for about $15), the device syncs with an online bookshelf at ebookwise.com. You can buy content from there or upload your own. The reader device has a built-in modem for direct dial-up connectivity, or a USB port so you can use your computer’s connection to the Internet.
There’s no way to organize books into reading lists or categories, which would get extremely unwieldy if there were like 200 books on it, but I think the idea is to keep the bulk of one’s library online and only current books on the reader itself.
It’s a little heavy at a tad over a pound, but that’s because the batteries are huge. It ran for 15 hours on a 3-hour charge, so that little bit of extra weight is worth it. The screen is backlit, glare-free and easy to read. The device is juuuust a tiny bit too big to fit into my coat pocket, but it came with its own cover so it doesn’t get banged up in my bag.
There’s a rotate screen option so I can be left-handed, but then of course the stylus ends up on the bottom and all the icons on the case are upside down. But at least there is a left-handed option.
The only glitch is that the 64Mb expansion card failed after about 2 hours. I got the device, registered it, connected it to my computer via USB and put books on it, then put it away. During my lunch hour I reconnected it to download a couple of books I’d just bought, but the device froze so I disconnected it and stuck a paper clip in the reset divot per the manual. Since then, the device hasn’t recognized the memory card. (I have an open trouble ticket with the OEM; they sent me some instructions with all kinds of groovy ‘hold this while pressing this’ voodoo I’ll have to try when I get home.)
Naturally I stayed up late last night reading, and I woke up early this morning for no apparent reason. When I saw my new toy lying beside the bed naturally I picked it up and started reading rather than going back to sleep. Unfortunately, I’d set its clock wrong, so when I thought it was 9:30 this morning, it was actually 10:30… when I went to connect the ebook reader to my laptop and was downloading more books (I’ve been rereading old sci-fi shorts), was startled by the time: it was 11:23 already! EGAD! The bus comes at 11:35 and it’s 2-1/2 blocks away!
I brushed my hair, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and made it to the bus on time.
Because I? Am superfast. Like, once or twice a year. Just to prove that I can.
Update: The fix I got from the OEM worked – I had to reformat the card and now it’s all good. Yay!
VSCO
Instagram has become unusable crap, so please click the icon below to see my latest pics.
4 random books from my Library!
