Due to a stuck stopper, I wound up splattering way too much BPAL "Maenad" all over my shirt. Forget headache, this is making me sick to my stomach.

I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to stand this. It's not like I can get away from it.

I'm in Facebook now, under my real name. I'm using it as something of a persona page; I want it to be what companies and professional people find when they google me, so it's going to be pretty bland. No strong political/religious opinions, and no poly. I'm not sure what that leaves to talk about, but I expect I'll work out something. Probably gaming and kittens, if you go by my usual topics.

However, and I would like to be very adamant about this, there will be no Twitter. I hate texting.

WHAT IS THAT? IT MOVED!

That's your tail; it's attached to you.

MUST DESTROY!

I wouldn't --

RAWR! *chomp* OUCH! WHO DID THAT?

You did, you spaz.

I SHALL AVENGE MYSELF UPON MY ENEMY!

...those are your feet.


***


Seriously, we're pretty sure that zipping around the house at Mach 1 rather than at the speed of light probably doesn't count as "excessive lethargy".

Painted turtle eggs hatch 72 to 80 days after they are laid.

Now you know.

V is fine. No breaks or fractures, and her head is bump free. As the doctor said, kittens are not known for their stoicism, so the fact that she wasn't crying any more than her usual "get me out of this baaaaag" and "stop poking meeeeee" was a really good sign. She was given some aspirin-equivalent for any residual soreness, and we're supposed to make sure she eats and drinks normally, and watch for excessive lethargy.

Vienna just fell out of a second story window. She leaned against the screen, and it popped out. The flower bed under the window is mostly made of stones.

She has a cut on her face, but doesn't seem to be hurt too badly; right now she's pouncing on Al.

Vet appointment in 1 hour, just to make sure.

http://tyjozuhac.tripod.com/id11.html


( Cut )

The boy did a camera dump over on his journal yesterday.

Vienna and the Strawberry. We were trying desperately to get an in-focus shot of V with a berry in her mouth. Alas, it was not to be.


MAD KITTEN! Kittens don't like to sit still for photos. At least this one doesn't. This is why most of the clearest pics of her involve her being asleep.


The Many Moods of Fancy. Fancy in the backyard. She seriously thinks that she's camouflaged. We don't have the heart to tell her that they can see her from space.


The Many Moods of Vienna. Having gotten over her fear of grass, V has decided that being outside is OMGAWESOME. She really likes the tall grass around the pond where, unlike Fancy, she can completely disappear.


Fancy, Ducks, and Heron Who doesn't like balancing things on their cat's head occasionally? And the duckling shots didn't come out too badly for having been taken from a second story bedroom.


Fancy and Vienna in "Nap Time" Mom's vet where I got V has a crocheter, and they give away little baby blankets with each kitten. I love this picture of Folly.




Here is a link to some wallpaper-sized pics of Jungle Kitten. Because that shot is AWESOME.

I have someone who will make me sugar cookies from the Darth Vader Activity Book. They weren't actually shaped like death stars or anything, but that's still pretty darn cool.

Okay, I said I wasn't going to bitch about the fucking wedding again, but if they hadn't had to shell out thousands of dollars so Princess Jonathan and his high maintenance brat of a wife could have their dream day and TWO banquet hall showers (gods FORBID that they should have to host the baby shower in someone's home or pay for anything themselves) Dad and Donna might not be in trouble. Or at least, not in as much of it. I'm sorry... the idea of Dad selling the Dodge really bothers me. He spent his whole life giving everyone else in the family the lifestyles that they wanted and never spent anything on himself. Then one day he bought himself a $2500 clunker and spent seven years rebuilding it into something that wins national awards. He loves that car. He earned that car. And then if he sells it he'll get to spend the next several years looking at Idiot Boy driving around his look-at-me-I'm-just-like-Dad muscle car that he bought pre-restored because he doesn't actually give a shit about cars but likes to pretend he does.

http://recorderlibrarian.xanga.com/

( What it means )

I'm not all that old, and I can clearly remember a time when mail order took a month or more. Whatever the item was, "please allow four to six weeks for delivery" was the standard instruction. There was no such thing as package tracking, either; consumers simply had to be patient and have faith that their purchase would reach them.

But dammit, we live in the future now and it has been at least one business day since I ordered my laptop, so I can has tracking number NAO please? If I can't check exactly where my package is at any given moment, I swear I am going to go mad.

*alt-tabs to click the refresh button again*

My MacBook Pro has been showing definite signs of failing health lately. It's overheating (worse than usual!), and when it does, the screen artifacts like crazy. Screen freezes and spontaneous restarts are common, and it can take between five and ten minutes just to power down. I recently deleted the Windows partition, upgraded to OS X Leopard, and installed a fresh copy of Windows XP in Boot Camp, but the flakiness seems even worse. Many of the keyboard shortcuts no longer work, and Leopard/Boot Camp doesn't seem to be checking for automatic updates at all. I'm at least a year out of warranty, so it's pretty much time to shop around for a new portable.

Rather, and this isn't meant to be confrontational to any of my friends who are Mac people, a new Windows-based portable.

I gave OS X a shot, I really did. But even when the laptop was new, Tiger was noticeably slower than XP. The time between clicking on the Firefox shortcut and having a window pop up was ridiculous; I could usually run downstairs, get snacks, and come back before my browser opened. Tiger spontaneously rebooted at least as often as XP crashed, so Apple gets no points for stability from me. I don't like the file system, and the aesthetics aren't worth the twenty minutes of googling that I have to do whenever I want to do anything more complicated than running a program. The software variety is terrible, and even when Mac ports of my favorite Windows applications exist, they're either feature-light, broken in some way, or just plain ugly and hard to use. I can't speak to the supposed superiority of Macs in video and sound editing, because I don't use those applications. I can say that the DVD player has *never* worked; it stretches 4:3 movies to widescreen and nothing the boy or I have tried in multiple DVD viewing programs has made any difference. For the basic-user-type things that I use a computer for -- internet, gaming, movie watching, word processing, and spreadsheets -- Windows meets my needs better and with far less frustration than OS X does. For better or worse, it seems that I'm a Windows person... and I'm pretty comfortable with that.

Last night I dreamed that I was in a big fun house with Brett, Hol, my mom, Aniero from Limit Break Radio, and a few other people. It was huge and colorful, with mirrored halls. Hiromichi Tanaka was passing out enormous rice krispie treats that had been molded into the shape of fruits and dipped in colored white chocolate to everyone who was there.

Analyze that.

So when the instructions of a product include handling both crazy-glue and a cat, it's a good idea to pay attention to the part where it suggests waiting until said animal is asleep first.

At least I managed to not glue any of her to any other part of her, or to any part of me. And I only stuck my finger and thumb together a little bit.

I posted a review of TS3 over on my gaming blog.

Vienna was chasing her tail. She spun around and around, as fast as she could, for easily twenty minutes. When she got too dizzy, she changed directions. At one point, she managed to catch it... and kept right on spinning, the tip of her tail clamped between her jaws, because of course if she stopped moving it would get away.

Kittens are awesome.

( Also a bonus kitten picture )

( Lots of pics ahoy! )

The following is a paraphrased phone conversation, as related to me by my mother. I am agog.


Jonathan: I HAZ TEH BESTEST NEWS!

Mom: Why are you talking in lolcat?

J: BECAUSE I IZ LESS SMART THAN FOLLY LOL

M: Oooookay. So, what's got you in such a good mood?

M (thinking): He got a job, oh please say he got a better job!

J: I HAS A CAR, LET ME SHOW YOU IT! <3 <3 <3*

M: Oh, so you got a good deal on a used car?

J: OMFG IT ARE A FULLY RESTORED 1967 PLYMUFF SATELLITE AND IT ARE SHINY!!!

M: ...

J: ARN'T YOU EXCITED FOR ME?

M: *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk headdesk** headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

J: U STILL THERE LOL?






*Note: Jonathan's 2007 Jeep got repossessed last month.

I *have* been keeping up with the baby bird pictures. I've just been too busy/tired/lazy to actually get them off the camera.

They are very cute and fluffy now, and evidence will be forthcoming. Probably this weekend.

It seems that a copy of Sims 3 has already been leaked to the internets and piratey-type people are happily downloading/playing it as I type this.

And it contains SecuROM.*

There is some speculation that the leaked copy may be a beta or even full version of the game dating from before EA's decision not to use third party DRM. We don't know, and we obviously won't know until the game hits store shelves in two weeks, unless EA makes a statement before then (not too likely).

Now, I pre-ordered a copy of TS3 on the strength of EA's promise to stick to serial-number-based copy protection. I wasn't going to; I was going to wait until I saw the first reviews like a sensible person, but the promise of the shiny proved too great and I caved. I don't really want to cancel my pre-order now on a maybe, but I'll be watching my favorite Sims sites very closely on June 2. If SecuROM exists on the retail copies, it'll be all over the community and I can mail the unopened box back to Amazon easily enough. And send a letter to EA that includes pictures of the box I'm returning and a copy of the invoice, along with a detailed explanation of exactly how hard they fail.

But... I do have hope, you know? I mean, as bad as the explosion over Spore was, surely the EA execs have more than the two combined brain cells required to realize that including the exact same DRM and then lying about it will cause a giant firestorm of gamer rage that will be visible to the naked eye from space... right? I mean... nobody's that stupid and still able to feed themselves, much less run a large corporation, right? Right?

...

On second thought, don't answer that. If you need me I'll be over here in my fantasy world where everyone can has logic and bills get paid and stuff.





*easily circumvented via the included cracked .exe file, natch. For the billionth time, DRM. Doesn't. Freaking. Work..

( All four are hatched now -- yay! )

Day 2: Only three of the eggs have hatched at this point, but impact cracks on the fourth say it shouldn't be long now. The babies are all pink, with a little bit of yellow fuzz.

( Cut for those who don't think infant birds are as adorable as I do. )

And then, after I took all those other pictures today, we had a beautiful spring storm!

( There was even a rainbow! )

Earlier this spring, we noticed a pair of robins building a nest in the tree in front of our living room window. It occurred to me this morning to go take a peek and see if anything was inside yet.

( I couldn't have had better timing if I'd planned it. )

So I came home from visiting my mom in Florida with a kitten. Long story.

I'd like you all to meet the Apprentice Stripeybutt, First Kitten of the Apocalypse and Destroyer of Worlds (occasionally also known as "For Fucks Sake, Will You Go To Sleep Already?")...

( Vienna Kiwi Underfoot )

More pictures of the Increasingly Orange Kitten can be found here and here.

So that guy I've been complaining about in FFXI finally went too far.

How much does this little "joke" fail? Let me count the ways:

1. My wants and desires are completely irrelevant.

2. My current relationship of 15 years is valueless (he doesn't know about Holly).

3. I'm easy.

4. The whole reason I'm going to the linkshell event is to sleep with him.

5. The rest of the group has nothing better to do than to conspire to get him laid.

6. I'm so unattractive that he'd need to be drunk in order to work up the necessary enthusiasm.

Did I miss anything?


So... yeah. DIAF-time. I blacklisted him in-game and kicked him from my linkshell. I'll let everyone know if I wind up changing my cell number. I hope I don't have to, but the inconvenience might be worth it... it depends on how much he tries to call. As far as I'm concerned this is way past the point where "I'm sorry" could make any difference at all, and I'm not interested in hearing it or anything else.

And yes, I'm stewing. It's what I do.

I notified the LS event host of the potential problem. I'm hoping I can have fun with my friends, but I really don't want to have to deal with him being there. At this point I'm really hoping he decides to stay home.

Did I lend my PS1 port of Chrono Trigger to someone? I can't find it.

I know my brother has Legend of the Dragoon. I need to get it back from him sometime.

Also, badkittyface, I *am* missing Blood of Ten Chiefs 3: Winds of Change, so that probably is my copy you have.

I put down a bid on Ebay for Shadow Hearts, found a much better copy on Amazon and bought it, then wound up winning the original Ebay bid. Would anyone like the spare? It's for PS2 and has neither original box nor instructions but the game disc is supposed to be fine. It's a JRPG by a team made up of some former Squaresoft employees, and like Okami it's one of those Secret Awesome Games that everyone who's played it loves but nobody else has actually heard of. It's set just before World War I, is supposed to be vaguely Lovecraftian while not actually scary, and is supposed to have a good sense of humor. Sorry for the vague, but I won't be playing my own new used copy until I'm done with Last Renmant.

Oh, and this is a neat little site for gamers. It's designed to keep track of your game collection, focusing on your progress in finishing your games. You can identify your games ans Unfinished, Beaten (you killed the bad guy and saw some credits), Completed (you killed all optional monsters and got all treasure... basically 100% completion) and Mastered (you beat Legend of Zelda without picking up the wooden sword). Oh, or Null, which is basically used for Sims-type or MMORPG games that have no end. My page there is under Droewyn, shock and surprise.

Finally, if anyone was thinking of trying FFXI, now is apparently the time. GameStop is currently selling the Vana'diel Collection 2008 (base game plus all current expansion packs) for $15. It's also available for direct download for the non-sale price of $20. If anyone actually is interested, let me know and I'll hook you up with a gold world pass for the Unicorn server (which includes free stuff).

Hello everyone I wanted to share news with you regarding our copy protection plans for The Sims 3.

We’ll have more information for you as we get closer to launch about everything we’ll have to offer on TheSims3.com and The Sims 3 Store, but we have heard your requests over the past months and here is our plan for The Sims 3.

The game will have disc-based copy protection – there is a Serial Code just like The Sims 2. To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed.

We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future.

We’re really excited to bring you the game for the PC and Mac starting June 2, 2009. The extra time we’ve taken to polish the game has resulted in an even better game experience for you to enjoy and we can’t wait for you to see for yourself!

Thanks for your passion and your loyalty.
Rod Humble



Ok, so I'm not going to declare that EA can be taught just yet -- I'm definitely waiting until what the DRM situation looks like after the game hits store shelves -- but this is looking like a pretty good sign.

I might be buying this after all.

I was in FFXI last night, getting ready for one of my scheduled events. Limbus is an eighteen-player battlefield, and isn't one of the events that I lead. There's usually a lot of random chatter before a run, while we wait for everyone to gear up and gather together. I forget what the exact specifics of the conversation were, but it led to the following exchange:

Yuffy: That's like finding a woman with a sense of humor.

Ridley: Hey watch it, there are ladies present.

My instant, gut reaction was intense annoyance. At Ridley. Yuffy's an "Asshole and Proud of It" type -- just ask him, and he'll tell you at length. He collects outrage like trophies, and lives to stir up drama. So I ignore him. It's not even hard; he's not particularly imaginative as trolls go and his material is quite frankly decades stale. He's not worth responding to. When I have a choice I pick a different tank to heal in battle, but that really has at least as much to do with the fact that he's an overly demanding special snowflake of a paladin as it does his charming worldview and method of expressing himself.

Ridley, on the other hand, is blatantly trying to earn Nice Guy points with me by "defending my honor", because Altana knows I'm clearly incapable of doing it myself. And this was most certainly directed at me; while we do have other female players in the shell, none of them were at last night's run, and I don't think he knows who they are anyway. And for the record, none of them are timid little fainting flowers, either. I've found that very few women players who make it to endgame are.

There is nothing I hate more than being condescended to or patronized, and that's precisely what this is, especially since I've told him more than once and in blunt language exactly how I feel about the L-word when he's tried to use it on me in the past. All I've ever wanted in the context of FFXI is to be taken seriously as a player and given the same basic level of respect due to anyone who displays a certain level of competence. But since "ladies" are non-people who exist solely to be placed on pedestals, prop up male egos, be decorative, be nurturing, be sex objects, and above all have no wants or desires of their own, my opinion on how I'd like to be treated hardly matters now, does it?

He's been getting worse with the "chivalry" horseshit since he joined the SCA a couple months ago. I'll be meeting him next month at a DeathSquad event in Florida (I'm visiting Mom and we're planning a day trip to hang out with the linkshell people); if he even thinks of trying that nonsense with the cloven orange on me I'll shove it up his nose.

Bad Nice Guy. No cookie, no bonus points, and no love.

We knew there were goldfish in the pond, mostly because every once in a while one of the herons stabs its head into the water and comes back up with something orange and wriggly in its bill. But we'd never actually seen any.

Until now.

Near as we can figure it, Fancy spent eleven hours in the coat closet on Saturday. I got half of my cape out of it when I went to the craft store around 10:00 am. When I got home I didn't put the cape away; I just draped it on a dining chair. Later, I had made Sculpey Moogle #1 and discovered it wouldn't fit into our standard "Large" eggs, so I wanted to see if "Jumbo" would work. It had gotten colder, and I decided to wear both halves of the cape to go out. I opened the closet door to get the other half, and out leapt Fancy. She had been curled up among some spare pillows, and when released she made a beeline for the litter box. That was around 9:00. She hadn't yowled or rattled the door at all that anyone noticed, just patiently waited for someone to come let her out.

It's a really good thing that it wasn't colder. The coat closet is one of the ones that has a stained glass window in it. The window opens, is original with the house (so, roughly 60 years old), and while it keeps the cold out slightly better than if we just had a gaping hole in the outside wall, we could probably still use that closet as a spare fridge in the winter.

So, yeah. Dumb cat was dumb. Fortunately she doesn't seem to have suffered any lasting damage, and I'm sure this won't be the last time she manages to get herself locked inside something.

My endometriosis has been getting worse lately. Well, my symptoms are getting worse, at any rate; thanks to the way it doesn't show up on ultrasounds, pretty much the only way for anyone to tell what my guts are actually doing is to go in and look. And I'm kinda tired of surgery right now.
( TMI Alert )
I've got three options for dealing with this, basically. Well, really four, but "ignore it and deal as best as I can" hasn't been working out all that great. I could tell my doctor that I Am Sick Of This Shit and have it taken care of permanently, which could involve anything from my tubes being tied to a full hysterectomy, depending on what's going on in there. I could have another laparoscopic procedure done where they just laser off the new scar tissue. Or I can work with my doctor to figure out what can be done non-surgically.

The laparoscopy would be a stop-gap measure, and given my prior track record I'd probably be right back where I am now within about five years, but I don't want to lose my girly bits yet. There's a world of difference between "I choose not to have children" and "I can't have children", and unless this progresses to the point where it actually threatens my health or life, I don't want to take that option away from myself. Assuming I actually have the choice open to me; infertility is one of the possible happy-fun side effects of this whole mess. Besides, since it seems like hormone replacement has been pretty much debunked as a Bad Idea, I think I should probably keep the parts that produce natural hormones doing their job for as long as possible. So I talked things out with my doctor, and we're going to change up my birth control a bit. After I take the last "real" pill in the pack, when I'm normally supposed to be taking the placebos for week 4 (does anyone honestly take the sugar pills? I just leave them in the box. I mean, what's the point when they not only don't do anything but you know they don't do anything) I'll start on a fresh box instead. I'll quit having periods altogether, and hopefully this will restrict the growth of scar tissue. If that doesn't help, I can try switching to a different type of hormonal contraception. If that doesn't work, I'll go for the stop-gap surgery and hope that it lasts longer this time. And if it does turn out that I have to get the girly bits removed, at least I'll have tried every other option first.

So, yeah. It's good to have a plan.

...I had one glass of wine last night. ONE. How the fuck do I feel like I've been hit by a bus?

The only thing propelling me to work today is guilt over taking so much time off in January. I don't think much will be accomplished today, though.

ETA: This is so not working. Gonna find out if I can move my day off this week instead.

Hol and I just got home from my brother's reception, which signals the official end of Weddingpalooza. Finally. The food was quite good, but the music mix was a saccharine mix of 80's rock ballads, 70's rock ballads, 90's rock ballads, big band classics, and polka. The DJ didn't have Wishmaster, the Time Warp, or any Weird Al. We asked. We didn't even bother asking if he had the club mix of The Hamsterdance. There were enough good songs that I danced until my knees told me to stop, though.

At one point in the evening, I heard someone ask my dad who Holly was, and without skipping a beat he got this big grin on his face and said "That's my daughter-in-law." Later, I saw the same scene repeated with Jonathan (though he called her his sister-in-law, obviously). And that just made me so happy I literally can't explain it. I do have issues with my family members (for example... a reception on a Sunday? Really? I am going to be fried at work tomorrow...) but they really are awesome.

I go fall down now.

I just lost the game.

It's been a while since my monitor caught the Pink Death (pink ghosting, pink snow, and pink rolling lines), and it's only been getting worse over the last several months. And given that I've got a nice fat tax refund burning a hole in my bank account, I think it's more than time to give the old girl a decent burial. So I headed over to Best Buy.

Yeah, I know. I normally like to buy hardware from Tiger Direct, but LCD screens are fragile enough that I didn't want to trust one to UPS (or worse: Fed-Ex. I've had way too many packages chucked carelessly in the flowerbed to trust them with anything delicate). I also wanted to buy some extended warranty coverage, considering that the old monitor started up with the ghosting pretty much right as the manufacturer's warranty expired.

I examined their selection, made my choice (Samsung T240 -- on sale), and discovered that they were out of stock. Another local store did have it, and I drove out there quick like a bunny and snagged their last one.

It had a dead pixel. Just one, and pixels are really tiny these days, but once I noticed it it drew my eye. Besides, if I'm spending $400 on something, it should be perfect, right? I packed it up and took it back.

It turned out that the reason that particular model was on sale was because they were discontinuing it, and the one I'd bought earlier that day was the last one to be found in southeastern Michigan. I spent another several minutes re-examining the monitors, and decided to go with the upgrade model (Samsung T240HD). It had the same basic features as the discontinued model, as well as being an HDTV in its own right. It was more expensive than the other one, but seeing as how I was paying for this with gummint money anyway, why not?

I examined the screen carefully when I got it home, and everything looked fine... until I spotted a flicker of motion at the lower right corner of the screen. The picture was rolling. It was very subtle, and only in that lower right corner, but it was there.

It's not the DVI cable; I switched that one out. Besides, the rolling was still there when I hooked up my DVD player via component cables. I moved my speakers. I turned off my subwoofer, and then every other piece of electronic equipment on the desk. Nothing seemed to affect it in any way.

The way I see it, Samsung has one more chance with me. I'm going to exchange monitor #2 for the same model this evening, and before I leave the store I'm going to have the customer service people open the box and demonstrate that it works to my satisfaction. If it does, yay. If not, I'll take the closest comparable non-Samsung monitor instead. I believe that would be an LG.

I'm defriending a whole bunch of people on mean_white_mage. Basically, if I'm already friends with you on droewyn I'm reading your stuff on that friends page and don't need to see it twice. So please don't panic, it's just an anti-redundancy measure and not some kind of commentary on your friendship status. :) I'm also not planning on f-locking any posts there, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 19 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end,choose 19 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

( I really should be doing something productive right now. Well... at least my taxes are done. )


I am tagging the sort of people who like to be tagged for silly memes. If that's you, consider yourself tagged.

I saw a flurry of motion out of the corner of my eye, looked down, and discovered a ladybug crawling on my pant leg. I moved it to my desk and now it's checking out my gamepad. It seems to be fascinated by the buttons.

Start Your Free Tax Return!

Dear DROEWYN,

Thank you for being a FreeTaxUSA customer.To show our appreciation we're giving you a coupon for a free federal tax return. To use the coupon enter "FREE1040" during checkout.

This year you will enjoy new features that will simplify your tax return and help you get the biggest refund possible. You can also save time by carrying forward your information from last year.

Your username has been included below to help you get started. Start your free tax return today!

I may be confused here, but, well... don't you guys do free federal taxes for, y'know, everyone? It's in the name of your website and everything. Your game is to do the free federal return, make me fill in all the info for the state one, and then explain that you'll be happy to file the state return for ten bucks. Why do I need a "coupon code" for something you'll give me anyway?

Taxes.

Find out from Deskjockey whether she has a roomie for the linkshell Disney trip yet and whether she'd like to room with me.

Book hotel if DJ hasn't or is not interested in a roommate this year.

Email Mom with dates so she can set up airfare.

Try on The Goddamned Dress. If it fits, find out if I can get it altered in less than two weeks. If it doesn't fit, try on the green dress I wore to that other wedding.

Take The Goddamned Dress in for alteration if it fits.

Find out where the hell the Goddamned Reception is, and what time.

Clean my room.

Scan at least one stack of books into the database and shelve them. Time to start moving on that project again.

Pick up my prescription.

Watch Heroes.

Pet and cuddle kitties.

Beat ToAU mission 35.

Give Katie her presents!

I just went to plug in a game controller, and the instant the plug came in contact with the usb port the computer shut itself off. A couple weeks ago, I brushed the aluminum case with my toe, got a static shock, and the computer restarted. I've had occasional fatal Windows errors since then. This has me really, really nervous. It should be grounded, right?

I think I need a new case, stat. I just hope nothing is permanently damaged.

I've been reading some drama else-lj, and got it in my head that it might be really funny to have a day, like Rabbit Hole Day, only for cheezy, overblown, melodramatic flouncing. Fictional flouncing, obviously, where no actual drama is aired, individuals attacked, or journals deleted. Fun flouncing. As an added bonus, if enough people got on board with it, nobody would notice the drama-llamas who were actually trying to flounce for reals.

Whaddya say? Feb 11 work for everyone?

Grandpa has been moved to the hospice wing of the Midland VA hospital. My brother is furious about it, because he thinks it means the family is writing him off, but there's not a whole lot else we can do. Grandma can't take care of him on her own, and neither Dad nor Aunt Artie can afford to quit their jobs and move into the apartment. In-home hospice would definitely be too hard on Grandma. I believe that this is the best arrangement for everyone involved.

The fuzzy people seem perfectly fine with Chou no longer being around. She never did socialize properly with the rest of them, and Folly in particular lived in terror of her. Fancy ignored her most of the time, and Al had just recently stopped being cowed by her long enough to figure out which of them was bigger. Think Estelle Getty being tackled by a sumo. Not good. They all seem much more relaxed now, which is a bit sad, but also kind of comforting. Our vet sent us a condolence card, and everyone in their office signed it. It was really sweet; our vet rocks.

I have a somewhat longer post half-written about the wedding. I'm going to try to get it finished pretty soon. Here's a spoiler: he wore a suit, she wore white, and they both said they did. Also, there was cake.

Right after we got back from the wedding, the boy came down with the flu. I started feeling lousy Monday night, and was able to hold it off until Thursday, when I gave up on my solemn vow to not take any sick time in January for once (Just one freaking year I would like to not catch the rotting death and use up huge chunks of my precious sick time immediately after I've accrued it, kthx). I was feeling better by Friday, but when I woke up Saturday morning the plague had taken up residence in my sinuses and my fever was back. Joyousness. I'm okay today. Made of mucus, light-headed, sleepy, and zombie-like, but okay. My boss has been amazingly understanding, but my professional self is looking at the amount of time I took off without warning last month and cringing at it.

So now it's February. Hello, February. If you could somehow manage to not bury me in heartache, drama, and mucus, I'd really appreciate it. More snow would be cool, though.

Did anyone point you to this yet? Best. Cake. Evar. I especially like the adorable little maggot on the ear.

My brother has been safely married off, and I'm home now. Saugatuck seems like a really cool town and I'd like to visit there again sometime.

My grandfather's condition is yo-yoing like mad. On one day he was evaluated as a terminal case, and then four hours later he looked and acted fine and was evaluated by a different doctor as being on the mend. Nobody really knows how to deal with this.