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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Sept 3, 2011 12:17:42 GMT -5
Heh.
It was 41 here overnight, after a high just above eighty yesterday.
So much for growing fall vegetables.
Julia, also, I walked into the kitchen and stepped into a patch of dried syrup this morning. UGH. I hates teh sticky, I do I do.
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Post by Sue on Sept 3, 2011 12:23:28 GMT -5
Off spend the weekend with my Aunt and Uncle at there timeshare (I think) in Frisco, CO (near Vail) this weekend. Should be pretty. And cold. Yay. Ah, cold. Well, they say it's going to drop 40 degrees here over the next few days (broke an 86 year record yesterday with a high of 99) to a low of 59 on Monday night. And rain, hopefully. Watered the impatiens yesterday and some varmit (probably deer) decided a good way to get water was to eat the flowers. Also: college football starts today.
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Post by Sue on Sept 3, 2011 12:42:40 GMT -5
I do not get Showtime. But for those of you who do there is a new show this fall starring: Clare Danes Mandy Patinkin Morena Baccarin and Damian Lewis short summary: 24 meets Manchurian Candidate Not sure I care about the concept but I love Damian Lewis. From the Newsweek review here But Damian Lewis is Homeland’s standout. A British redhead that got a run here in The Forsyte Saga and the short-lived Life, he looks like an all-American boy put through the ringer—a Norman Rockwell teen with too many miles on the tires. When he reunites with his wife (Morena Baccarin) and kids, the scene is near perfect. A smile spreads across Lewis’s face gradually, and then it grows as big as a clown’s—we see his brain reactivating in fits and starts. (His jitters could also indicate someone back in Afghanistan is pulling the strings.)
After eight years in captivity, Brody must relearn his life. How to pose in a family photo. How to chug beer with his Marine buddies. How to...have sex with his wife. During their first time, he’s like a dog just let out of the kennel—it’s a hammering, revolting performance. Brody’s face is aghast. That wasn’t what it was supposed to feel like...
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Post by be on a netbook on Sept 3, 2011 18:16:20 GMT -5
I have a new netbook, acquired for the purpose of typing while in class. It weighs about half what the other laptop does. So far I have not got used to it. It lacks a few of the keys I'm used to, like home and end, and I keep aiming for them and missing and having to apply brain to fingers. But I can get on with the typing mostly, so that should work out, I hope.
It has a Starter version of Windows 7 that won't let me change the desktop wallpaper. That's the only bit of customising I do, that and put the task bar up the right hand side. :-p to it.
It has a horrible ad supported version of Microsoft Office in it. And I can't find the button to get rid of it.
Also Internet Explorer is ugly, the toolbars are huge, and it's not cooperating with my attempts to customise it.
I think Firefox and OpenOffice may be in my future. I don't know, are those still best? Although I could just use the WordPad to do typing, I don't use anything very fancy in class.
This computer has wifi that I can't seem to turn off, Bluetooth which I don't even know what it is, and a whole ton of games that I think are paid for yet offer to let you pay money for them every time I click on one. I didn't want games. I now own more games than I ever have before in my life.
I have not yet watched Doctor Who today. I was asleep, and then I was glaring at a computer while Windows Update did its thing.
I bought this computer because it was about £200 in teh supermarket and I've been dithering all summer and can't tell the difference between different shop things anyway. So I just grabbed one with decent battery life. I figure if I don't like it I can give it to mum.
Why does it have a camera in anyway? I think I should probably cover that up. I never deliberately use it, and I don't usually get dressed to check the net.
Uglything and the spacebar doesn't always seem to work there. Hopefully I will get used to it. It will be so much simpler to carry than the other laptop.
If I only want it to type and check dictionary.com it doesn't matter if I can't make it act like the other two.
So, anyway, new HP laptop.
hopefullythe battery life will last all day at college.
... hopefully I will be able to concentrate on class when I've got so many games even at college.
class starts on Wednesday 14th, and I will be doing Wednesdays and Fridays all year. But due to a timetable clash I'm short on credits again. It'll sort out, it always does.
I am reading a book about science fiction from City College library, and it is about as old as I am. First loaned out in September 1977. Last loaned four times in the last year, and I reckon I know who to. She was writing about science fiction for her dissertation.
The wifi keeps disconnecting, but that happens on the other laptop too, so *shrugs*
I am doing a bunch of typing to see how it feels. ... so far my right thumb hurts. Huh. This might not work out, if I can't get along with the keyboard. I do have a bendy keyboard, a nice full size one. I can take that along rolled up and use it. But that would add to the weight.
I have all my work backed up to a tiny USB drive. It's so light it keepsskittering off the surfaces of things. also it is black. That wasn't my best plan. but the other one was pink, and I automatically avoid pink.
All m work = every bit of writing I ever did, and probably at least most of the art. There's a few things on paper from high school in both categories, and a lot that's on the web in my blog, but everything else, eight years of college notes and all my fiction, that's on that tiny bit of plastic.
we are living in the future. and I tend to find it confusing and annoying and aggravating and BLINKY and subject to change without notice or permission.
:-p
... is still prettycool. Hard drive on this tiny computer is many times larger than on the laptop, so I can pour in all my Doctor Who audios. Maybe video too.
The trouble is my productivity is inversely proportional to the availability of distractions.
*sigh*
So, anyway, I have typed a bunch of boring stuff, I shall go away now.
wonder if these games actually work...
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Post by SpringSummers on Sept 3, 2011 20:16:44 GMT -5
I have a new netbook, acquired for the purpose of typing while in class. It weighs about half what the other laptop does. So far I have not got used to it. It lacks a few of the keys I'm used to, like home and end, and I keep aiming for them and missing and having to apply brain to fingers. But I can get on with the typing mostly, so that should work out, I hope. It has a Starter version of Windows 7 that won't let me change the desktop wallpaper. That's the only bit of customising I do, that and put the task bar up the right hand side. :-p to it. It has a horrible ad supported version of Microsoft Office in it. And I can't find the button to get rid of it. Also Internet Explorer is ugly, the toolbars are huge, and it's not cooperating with my attempts to customise it. It sounds like you have very odd versions of 7, Office, and Explorer . . . why do you have a "starter" version? If you don't do anything fancy, OpenOffice should work for you. That sounds like my phone, the games part. There are these "games," only they are not really there. They are just demos, and if you really want to play, you have to buy the game and download. I only found this out recently when my foster daughter asked me if I had games on my phone. Skype? Ugly thing? If your University is like mine, wifi problems never end. Really, a bendy keyboard you can roll up? I don't think I've seen that. I wish you lived closer as I would like to see this computer. I hope it works out for you. I am still in dire need of buying a new computer, as I have a very outdated one here at home - Windows XP, purchased in 2005. Wireless doesn't work on it anymore, and just recently, the battery stopped recharging. It is kinda slow, but mostly serviceable. Anyhow
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Post by SpringSummers on Sept 3, 2011 20:18:56 GMT -5
Today's was the older foster daughter's birthday!
We had several people over, and an ice-cream cake (her request). It was a nice day.
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Post by Sue on Sept 3, 2011 21:14:10 GMT -5
Today's was the older foster daughter's birthday! We had several people over, and an ice-cream cake (her request). It was a nice day. I approve of ice cream cakes! HB kiddo!
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Sept 4, 2011 12:23:02 GMT -5
Hello. how are you, hope you're all enjoying the long weekend.
Me, I'm waiting for it to warm up a tiny bit (it just broke 60F outside, and got down to 42.1 last night with all the windows in the house left open) so I can wash my hair.
Julia, fatigued, what can I say.
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Sept 4, 2011 15:24:15 GMT -5
Home from Aged Mum's. Did the rest of her shopping and hit the road a bit earlier than usual to avoid the heat, then left early, ditto. Caregiver B: "Didn't you buy paper towels?" Me: "Nobody said you needed them." Turns out AM is also out of bacon (odd, I asked her about that) and soft margarine (which she asked Y about on Friday when I had her on the phone and Y said she had plenty). She did specifically ask for toilet paper, which she didn't need at all. She now has about 48 rolls. Caregiver B said she could pick a few things up on her way to Aged Mum's tomorrow. Three cheers for B, for Y, who has been bringing her family problems to work and smearing them on the walls, to put it mildly. I got AM's account balanced on the first go, paid her outstanding bills and brought them home to mail, reorganized some of the books in her bedroom which had gotten mixed up when things were moved for the rewiring, and found a wandering small table, which she wanted in the living room. AM thought it was still in the spare bedroom, and since I didn't see it under all the clutter, it must have been moved someplace in there. I found it in, of all places, the kitchen, tucked into a corner. Again, I say, . I am now going to have something to drink and go fall over in a heap. Later, S'cubies.
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Post by Sue on Sept 4, 2011 16:18:07 GMT -5
Hello. how are you, hope you're all enjoying the long weekend. Me, I'm waiting for it to warm up a tiny bit (it just broke 60F outside, and got down to 42.1 last night with all the windows in the house left open) so I can wash my hair. Julia, fatigued, what can I say. Blessed lovely rain here. Slow and soaking so far, but other places have flash flood warnings. I suppose it has ruined some holiday plans for folks but I'm just happy to have it be under 100, 90, 80. I'm not a terribly nostalgic person but today would have been my dad's 90th birthday. He died 6 years ago. My youngest sister wrote an email this morning saying "what should I do in honor of dad?" "Maybe .... and then listed some of dad's memorable things like grilling out, wearing pins on his hat, chopping wood, etc. Well, it's bounced back and forth between the 5 kids and dozen grandkids and is now up to a list of 4 or 5 dozen items we associate clearly with dad. Truly lovely. Wish we'd done it before he died -- it would have made a memorable print-out at the visitation. And we could have provided paper and markers for folks to add to it.
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Sept 4, 2011 16:28:40 GMT -5
Hello. how are you, hope you're all enjoying the long weekend. Me, I'm waiting for it to warm up a tiny bit (it just broke 60F outside, and got down to 42.1 last night with all the windows in the house left open) so I can wash my hair. Julia, fatigued, what can I say. Blessed lovely rain here. Slow and soaking so far, but other places have flash flood warnings. I suppose it has ruined some holiday plans for folks but I'm just happy to have it be under 100, 90, 80. I'm not a terribly nostalgic person but today would have been my dad's 90th birthday. He died 6 years ago. My youngest sister wrote an email this morning saying "what should I do in honor of dad?" "Maybe .... and then listed some of dad's memorable things like grilling out, wearing pins on his hat, chopping wood, etc. Well, it's bounced back and forth between the 5 kids and dozen grandkids and is now up to a list of 4 or 5 dozen items we associate clearly with dad. Truly lovely. Wish we'd done it before he died -- it would have made a memorable print-out at the visitation. And we could have provided paper and markers for folks to add to it. Day for nostalgia, I guess- I'm missing Hap Wolf's funeral right now, can't bear the idea of another one, and his... Dad had a cousin who died and probably half the people at the funeral were there because they wanted to make sure he was really dead. Hap and I started first grade together, as had his father and my mother; my maternal grandfather delivered groceries for the store they owned, his grandfather took my grandmother's otherwise unsaleable herd of cattle in 1941 when her farm was condemned to be taken into a training area at Fort Lewis and forgave five years of feed bills so she could afford to buy a house. So apparently he died while mowing his lawn about two weeks ago. And it got me thinking: sixty years ago this month Mom had started on the epic hyperemsis gravidarum which marked her pregnancy with me, here at this dry hillside smelling of apples. Julia, linear time, man, linear time.
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Sept 4, 2011 16:30:30 GMT -5
Home from Aged Mum's. Did the rest of her shopping and hit the road a bit earlier than usual to avoid the heat, then left early, ditto. Caregiver B: "Didn't you buy paper towels?" Me: "Nobody said you needed them." Turns out AM is also out of bacon (odd, I asked her about that) and soft margarine (which she asked Y about on Friday when I had her on the phone and Y said she had plenty). She did specifically ask for toilet paper, which she didn't need at all. She now has about 48 rolls. Caregiver B said she could pick a few things up on her way to Aged Mum's tomorrow. Three cheers for B, for Y, who has been bringing her family problems to work and smearing them on the walls, to put it mildly. I got AM's account balanced on the first go, paid her outstanding bills and brought them home to mail, reorganized some of the books in her bedroom which had gotten mixed up when things were moved for the rewiring, and found a wandering small table, which she wanted in the living room. AM thought it was still in the spare bedroom, and since I didn't see it under all the clutter, it must have been moved someplace in there. I found it in, of all places, the kitchen, tucked into a corner. Again, I say, . I am now going to have something to drink and go fall over in a heap. Later, S'cubies. Falling over sounds like the mature and responsible thing to do. Julia, I've been picking away at chores today but my neck is stiff and I'm rather cranky.
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Sept 4, 2011 17:15:01 GMT -5
Home from Aged Mum's. Did the rest of her shopping and hit the road a bit earlier than usual to avoid the heat, then left early, ditto. Caregiver B: "Didn't you buy paper towels?" Me: "Nobody said you needed them." Turns out AM is also out of bacon (odd, I asked her about that) and soft margarine (which she asked Y about on Friday when I had her on the phone and Y said she had plenty). She did specifically ask for toilet paper, which she didn't need at all. She now has about 48 rolls. Caregiver B said she could pick a few things up on her way to Aged Mum's tomorrow. Three cheers for B, for Y, who has been bringing her family problems to work and smearing them on the walls, to put it mildly. I got AM's account balanced on the first go, paid her outstanding bills and brought them home to mail, reorganized some of the books in her bedroom which had gotten mixed up when things were moved for the rewiring, and found a wandering small table, which she wanted in the living room. AM thought it was still in the spare bedroom, and since I didn't see it under all the clutter, it must have been moved someplace in there. I found it in, of all places, the kitchen, tucked into a corner. Again, I say, . I am now going to have something to drink and go fall over in a heap. Later, S'cubies. Falling over sounds like the mature and responsible thing to do. Julia, I've been picking away at chores today but my neck is stiff and I'm rather cranky. Fell over for a bit, couldn't relax, got up and started slaying usefuls again. The worst thing with Aged Mum is the unspoken (at least so far) but certainly implied assumption by Certain People that if I came up every week, or every day, or just moved back home, or whatever, I could get the damn shopping list right in the first place, and that therefore any errors are, as usual, All My Fault. Said assumption ignores the whole point of Aged Mum having paid caregivers, but never mind... I finally mentioned to Benni, who at least doesn't seem to agree with Yolanda that "Anne should drive up every week and take Emma shopping", that (a) I'm doing the best I can and (b) I'd really appreciate it if she could help out by giving Emma items for the list as she notices them. Benni is a good sort; I think she'll pitch in more now she knows her help is needed. Right now, I'll take whatever help I can get.
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Post by Rachael on Sept 4, 2011 17:44:26 GMT -5
Still pregnant. Getting crosser about it by the day. Three, count them, THREE, days late. Em came three days EARLY. So I've been pregnant nearly a week longer this time. Seconds are supposed to come sooner!
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Sept 4, 2011 19:16:45 GMT -5
When fandoms collide, courtesy of the Younger Daughter: Grant Imahara of Mythbusters cosplays The Tenth Doctor. Other than that, I decided to go all Unclutterer on some boxes in my closet. Elder Daughter took her embroideries, one of which I had made into a little wee quilt, and the iguanodon I made her from dinosaurs-in-space fabric, and Younger Daughter took a weird little stuffed toy that converts from tortoise to hare and the Victorian fabric clutch ball I made. Several other things have been added to the donation pile, including Younger Daughter's Madeleine doll and the baby sort-of-Ren-Faire outfit I made for Elder Daughter when she was a wee thing. Sniffle... On the other hand, I was able to go from three copy paper boxes to two, although I still can't bring myself to give away the tiger costume the Aged Ps made for me when I was small, the toddler-sized t-shirts with my mother's artwork, the smocked dress I made for Emily's second Christmas, I think it was, or the pink hat I made in a millinery class for Kitty, many Easters ago. Maybe later. At least I walked away before I went completely "burn it down and salt the earth" on everything. I guess my real problem is that I feel no need to keep any of these things on the off chance one of the girls will have kids of her own in some distant future. The Aged Ps had stashes of stuff ready to dump on me, some of it in bad condition, and they expected me to dress the daughters up in the things and parade them for inspection. Me, I have no expectations of my kids having kids; if they do, they do, and if they don't, they don't, it's their choices and none of my business.
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