Thanks to everyone for the snowflake cookies. The whole thing was over before I realized what was going on, but they are so pretty and I greatly appreciate the ones that were sent to me. :-)

ETA: Duh. I already posted thanks yesterday. I thought I forgot, but I just noticed it in the other post. hehe Well, everyone deserves double thanks. :-)

location: my office mood: stressed tags: lj stuff

"Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

-Dinah Craik

mood: contemplative

Dear AT&T:

Unlike many blogs and editorials out there, I've never been anything but satisfied with your service.

I have an iPhone 3G, and my two years is up sometime in the first half of next year.

Whether I upgrade that and / or stay with AT&T is going to depend on a number of things:

1. New / improved features on the next iPhone.
2. Whether or not you've messed with my plan.

If Apple doesn't improve the next iPhone beyond the 3GS, I'll be in no hurry to get a new phone.

If you start metering data, I'll certainly have to do some real analysis as to which plans ACROSS A NUMBER OF PROVIDERS are best for me.

Fix your network; don't meter the data.

tags: apple, at&t, cellphone, internet

The Closer

I missed the episode of The Closer tonight. I forgot to make sure it was recording on at least one of the DVRs in this house. *sigh* I have two of them set to record anything David Cook first, and apparently some show that he was possibly on recorded instead in both places. I also just discovered that the family room Tivo is not getting a satellite signal. That Tivo is not HD, so we have two boxes out there--one for the Tivo and one for the DirecTV HD DVR. Ah well... My fault for not checking on things before tonight. Does anyone know how long it will be before they have it up on iTunes or Amazon VOD?


David Cook

Oh, and the thing that recorded was David Cook singing Lie on the Carrie Underwood special. OMG I love my Tivo! I would have missed this because I didn't know it was on tonight. Wow. Every time I think maybe my obsession is waning a bit, I see him perform again and I'm blown away all over again. This does not make up for the concert last Wednesday being canceled (we had tickets!), but I'm so glad I didn't miss this. And to think five minutes ago I was a miffed about missing The Closer tonight. I can buy that on Amazon, but watching on YouTube is no substitute for seeing David Cook on my TV.

Note: Lie was one of my first favorite songs off his album. Lie and Heroes should have been the singles, and then possibly they should have released Avalanche to Hot AC and Light On later on to alternative and Hot AC. I will never understand the music business, and I don't understand why they are not calling me for advice. hehe

Now I must skim ahead and see if the duet he did with Carrie Underwood made it onto the show. I read somewhere that there were clearance issues. That would suck. .... And...that did suck. No duet. :-(

Also, David Cook fans are awesome. via MJ's Blog:

David Cook singing Lie I recommend watching it at YouTube in HQ, but I embedded it below the cut anyway.

( embedded video below the cut )

Monk
Also, did anyone else see the finale of Monk?

( spoilers for the series finale of Monk below )


Shopping & Christmas

I love online shopping. rebelgurl1001 got our main gifts online the other day online, and I just finished up most of the rest now. I even got socks for our Christmas stockings at Amazon. (I always put new socks and underwear in the Christmas stockings--it fills them up quite a bit, and everyone needs them anyway.)

After doing that, though, my credit card started getting declined, probably because I rarely use it. *sigh* I tried to call, but it was too late. I'll have to finish tomorrow. This happens nearly every time we take a trip or shop for Christmas. lol We don't use it much so when we try to use it for a couple of large(ish) purchases all at once, after the first one or two, it stops working. Then we have to call and say, "Hey, it's us." I understand the security, but you'd think they'd notice the pattern, especially for the Christmas season.

I embrace the commercialism of Christmas. heh We're actually keeping it simpler this year, though. :-)

location: my office mood: busy music: 30 Seconds to Mars - Kings and Queens (LA Riots Main Vocal Mix) tags: david cook, music, the record, tv shows

New car arrives on Friday! Yaay! Also we are finally looking at getting a HD TV. It's more complicated than it might first appear.

I have this theory that maybe I actually am getting more mature with age.

Full disclosure: I first wrote this poem in late November 2001, when I was 15 years old, after reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in my 11th grade English class. This poem is in some ways a response to that novel. It was not an assignment, although my teacher was kind enough to give me extra credit for the class when I showed it to her. In this revision, I have tried to preserve the original voice of my 15-year-old self (something both fitting and necessary for a poem at once about and born of youthful optimism) while injecting some of what I have learned after the craft of poetry in the years since then.

The River

Soft ripples, glistening water, sunrise;
peace descending upon the meridian.

In youth we begin at the seashore.
Our carefree childhood laughter rings out near the docks.
We are sanctified by our innocence.
And within each microcosm, we discover a universe.

Age refines the enraptured eyes
through which we see the world.
Realization clouds the idyllic looking glass:
to journey we must leave the shore.

So we paddle out of the harbor.
Our hearts are ignited by the promises we hold.
Eagerly we sail our discovery ships;
we reach for all life offers.

We forget our voyage is guided
by the currents, age-old patterns of the river,
and we can only travel between the banks.

Solemn solitude creeps upon us.
The dawn loses its invigoration.
It brings a long-avoided truth:
the winds won't always allow smooth sailing.
Tempests sweep over the water.
And our true life journey
is how we choose to answer the storms
and whether the vessel we sail
can endure beyond thunder and lightning.

But the river waters keep on flowing,
so we are reminded:
sunshine comes again.
Each night that ball of fire sinks
the sky tapestries into star-weave,
and when those heaven glimpses fade
the sun will rise again.

Through the turmoil and monotony
that become our lives
there is a passion of life
that always stays the same.
Though the river may take us
to distant shores
forever will come someday.

When we reach our journey's end
the river that carried us apart
will return us to our old home port,
where kindred souls reconnect by brazen doors
and laughter sparkles like a golden dawn
glistening upon the waters.

---

This entry is my submission for therealljidol Season 6, Topic 6: Sunrise. If you enjoyed this entry, please vote for me in this week's poll.

tags: !filter:public, !year:2009, lj idol, poetry

My parents-in-law live in an area that isn't serviced by DSL or by a cable company.

They're considering Skybeam.

I already googled, but if anyone that reads this journal has anymore information, I'd like to hear it, even if it's second- or third-hand.

Wednesday morning I noticed that Fred had disappeared. Usually when I’m working, in cooler weather, she’ll stake her claim on my belly. There she can warm herself while simultaneously monitoring the squirrels on the deck, from the comfort of the sofa and my midsection.Trust me, when she’s not around, I really notice that missing twelve pounds of compact tabby.

Her absence didn’t concern me much at first. I did my work in the morning, ate lunch, and puttered around for a little while after. At that point, I realized that I’d not seen Fred in hours. So I checked her usual haunts—the niche behind the curtain where she can spy on the squirrels, the cubby beneath the sofa where she can nap in peace. She wasn’t there.

Nor was she in any of the places she goes to hide when she’s frightened of something—beneath the basement stairs, or in the crawl space beneath our den. I was beginning to panic when at last I spied a lump beneath the covers, on our bed. When I pulled them up slightly, I found her blinking back at me. She’d managed to nose back both blankets so she could crawl underneath. Between the fleece sheets (yes, I have fleece sheets in winter. It’s Michigan. What of it?) she’d snoozed for hours. Since I didn’t have a compelling reason to interrupt her, I let her slumber on.

She was still there when the Mont came home a few hours later. And she didn’t emerge until five-thirty, when we were about to leave the house for dinner. Her tail was in the air. Her fur crackled with static electricity from the sheets. She practically radiated steam as she wandered, well-baked and hot to the touch, into the den after her nine-hour nap. Did I miss anything? she seemed to be asking, as she prickled her nose in our direction.

God. I wish I could be a cat, some days.

--

music: BWO, "Temple Of Love", Halcyon Days tags: home

Natural Earth

Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.

Natural Earth was built through a collaboration of many volunteers and is supported by NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society), and is free for use in any type of project (see our Terms of Use page for more information).

via GPSObsessed.com

Now I just need to figure out if this is useful with Garmin Custom Maps.

Crossposted to gps_devices

tags: free, map data

...according to TomTom and TeleAtlas:

• Seattle, Washington is the city with the worst traffic in the United States, with an average of 43% of its roads showing heavy delays. Rounding out the top five cities after Seattle are Los Angeles (38%), Chicago (37%), San Francisco (35%) and New York (31%).
• The "Bay Area" of California has the most cities in the top 30, with San Francisco, San Jose (29%) and Oakland (28%).
• The most congested "corridor" is between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. About 36% of that area's roads, largely in Montgomery County, are congested.
• While New York has many pockets of heavy congestion, the area also contains many major arteries for alternative routes. In fact, cities with fewer options for alternative roads were higher on the list.
• The least congested of the top 30? Minneapolis, Minnesota. Only 17% of the roads in that city are congested.

Via GPS Lodge

tags: traffic

I have noticed that when I finish my second cup of coffee, I seem to be breathing easier.

I know that psuedoephedrine, a common decongestant, is also a stimulant.

Caffeine is a stimulant; does it also have some decongestant effects?
Or does coffee, via some other ingredient?

I drink my coffee black.

tags: coffee

Полный пипец! Мой мозговой процессор скоро не выдержит. Скрее бы неделя закончилась, ну или хотя бы наступила святая пятница! Пойду потушу в клуб, в конце концов встречусь с друзьями которых уже тыщу лет не видела.
У меня есть еще десять минут свободного времени- круто!!!
Сижу в полной прастрации. Так хотелось увидеть солнце сегодня- фиг! Одна темнота и серость, будто живешь в каком-то подземелье или бункере. Во депресняк, пипец. Пора матать из Moscow в более теплые края, вот только все доделаю.

location: На диване mood: Никакое tags: Ни о чем и обо всем.

Ah, smoking. This came up in comments on my flist recently (brought up by me *g*).

I don't think smokers should have any rights. Someone's right to smoke ends when it endangers the health of anyone else, and it does endanger the health of everyone else around the smoker. I don't care what someone does if they can guarantee that nobody is close enough to breathe in their smoke, but standing outside a restaurant, mall, or store is not the place to smoke. Everyone who walks in or out has to breathe it in.

I think smoking should be banned not only inside buildings, but outside buildings as well--and on streets and anywhere else anyone else might breathe it in.

I do feel pretty strongly about it, because I don't want to get cancer from someone else's disgusting habit, and also because the smell of it--even one quick whiff--affects me and makes me ill, sometimes extremely nauseated, and it can last for several hours. Because someone felt the need to smoke outside Target, my day/night ends up ruined.

( smoking )

Smokers need to refrain from smoking if anyone around them might breathe it in. If you're standing next to me outside, do not smoke just because we're outside. I still always end up breathing it in.

ETA: If I am near someone who smokes, even if they are not smoking right now, the smell of it alone can make me sick for hours. I tend to avoid people who smoke or being anywhere that people might be smoking.

location: my office music: Lifehouse - Bridges | Powered by Last.fm tags: writer's block

gil_s posted this in his journal, and I'm totally swiping it so that it's somewhere that I can easily access when I need to smile.



You summed it up well, Gil. TOO FUCKING CUTE.

Other things making me happy:

The wallpaper is now removed from my sitting room. Took mum 2 days to get it all down, but it's down. FINA-FUCKING-LLY. I honestly am so happy about this. I've wanted that paper down since about 5 minutes after I moved in her, like 5 years ago or so.

Have found someone to help me appeal the decision not to give me DLA. Also have information on obtaining a blue badge for my car (a disabled badge, for those not in Europe, which will allow me to park in spaces specifically designated for badge holders). Whether I get one upon applying or not is another matter, and you can't appeal their decision, but I definitely won't get one if I don't ask. So. ^_^

Friends are also making me happy. And to be honest, I don't know how I'd have coped these past few months if it hadn't been for kamara and legomymalfoy who have sat and listened to me whine and cry about everything. You guys rock my world in a big way. <3

And I'll say it again, because it's worth saying: I have THE bestest mum ever in the whole world.

mood: loved tags: family, friends, health, mum, youtube

My final NaNo word count was 9136. My story really sucked, though, and it was hard to stay motivated. OTOH, there are some elements of my story that I liked. I just couldn't decide what type of story it was: horror, thriller, or sci-fi. I wrote a little of each and put together...dumb. Even so, it was a good experience, and I think I have some parts of a story I might want to continue.

My computer arrived safely by about 1:30 p.m. yesterday. What was weird, though, is that it was brought by some guy in a regular brown minivan instead of a Fed Ex truck. He wasn't wearing a uniform. I almost never answer the door before looking out (I won't answer it if it's someone standing there with a Bible or a clipboard *g*), but since I was expecting the computer, I ran over and opened the door without thinking, and then I saw this guy and I thought, "Oops. Big mistake." But then he said, "I have a FedEx package for you," so yay! If I had looked out first, I might not have opened the door at all.

I think they accidentally didn't put my computer on the truck this morning, lost it, found it, and then sent Random Guy from the Office to deliver it in his own car. heh

lyraeinne's iPod broke a couple of months ago, so she ordered a new one recently. That came today, too, brought by the regular FedEx truck--before my computer, too. When the doorbell rang, I ran to the door and opened it that time, too, and I was so disappointed to see such a tiny box. hehe

New computer is Da Bomb, though. So far I've installed Firefox and Thunderbird, and also restored settings using the backups I made with MozBackup for the Windows 7 upgrade on my desktop. It worked perfectly. All my add-ons, bookmarks, email settings, etc. are all still there. Now I'm installing things like Yahoo Messenger and Skype and iTunes.

The kitties are seeming happier and relaxing a bit more, especially Annabelle.

location: my office mood: excited music: OneRepublic - Apologize (Live) [Bonus Video] tags: computer stuff, kitties, nanowrimo, nanowrimo count, personal odds & ends, word count, writing

FedEx

The local FedEx people here are idiots. Some of you may remember how they lost MW's new iPod last summer. He finally got it a few days late, but it was a very frustrating experience, because they kept lying to us and eventually admitted they just didn't know where it was.

My new laptop is supposed to arrive by noon today via FedEx. I've been watching the tracking. On the website, it looks like they scanned it into the local facility at 8 a.m., then they scanned it again at 9:27 and put a note next to it "Package not due for delivery." Then they scanned it back into the facility at 9:33 a.m.

I called them, and this time the person on the phone was honest with me right up front. He said they lost the package but they will be working on it, and then he added (in a hopeful tone) that they'd be delivering it later today. "Keep watching the tracking," he told me cheerfully. Yeah. It has not changed since he told me that.*sigh*

The universe hates me. As usual, I couldn't sleep so at a certain point, I decided just to stay up and maybe nap on the couch in my office, waiting for my package. Damn. I can't do this again tomorrow, and I was hoping it would come early so that I could go to bed for a couple of hours.

( bad customer service from Dell, too )

location: my office mood: tired music: L&O: Criminal Intent tags: computer stuff, on notice, personal odds & ends, whining and complaining

Before I get back to writing, just in case anyone on my flist missed it, click here to get $3.00 in free MP3s from Amazon.com.

Amazon also has 500 albums for $5.00 each as part of their Black Friday deals. I'm not sure when the sale ends, but you could get an album for $2.00 using the above coupon code.

I'm thinking of getting The 99 Most Essential Vivaldi Masterpieces. Some of these pieces just have this whimsical feel to them that I love--great for writing music.

I'm also really tempted by Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine. This is so not the type of music that I normally listen to, but there is something about Natasha Bedingfield that I like, and for $2.00, why not?

My third choice is Green Day - Last Night on Earth [Live in Tokyo]. This is a third choice only because the regular price is $4.99 (as far as I know) and I'll probably buy this one anyway at a later date, so I'd rather get something that I might not have purchased otherwise.

location: my office mood: hopeful tags: amazon, cool stuff, music