My little brother congratulates me...

on my transition from woman-child to childish-woman via email.

"you have finally shed the husk of nymph-hood and pupated into a mature human.

Soon, you will have a thick wool cardigan, three snotty kids, and a suite of woodworking tools in your spacious garage.  You will need coffee and whiskey to live, and will find the mores of 19-year-olds offensive and baffling.  Your mandibles will grow heavier and sharper, sickle-like.  Your thorax will lose that glossy iridescent sheen common to immature specimens, darkening to a metallic bronze.

Congratulations on becoming an adult, big sister."

I have posted this without consent, for I do indeed have the largest mandibles in the family and my sibling should be grateful that I did not devour him as I did the others.

My computer is haunting me at work!

Does that mean it's really dead?
Anyway I just saw this over at lifehacker, the Computer Hardware Chart, and I started having flashbacks,

Via lifehacker 

Got my promotion!

I'm now a network administrator and I'm drunk on power!  Actually, I'm buzzed on cold pills, but close enough.  My first project as network admin?  Fix one the office wireless networks, one that the original IT guy, the one with lots of experience and qualifications advised my bosses to get rid of because it was too expensive, too complicated and an all around piece of over priced crap.  About a year and half ago we got this dire warning, but someone in the office had insisted on buying a $500 access point that's incredibly unreliable.
Anyway the point is it's my job to fix it.  In theory this'll be a piece a cake, in practice I hope my phenomenal luck will get me through this.  I'm waiting for the router to come in, so I'm "pre trouble shooting"... what fun.  I can't wait to see what happens with this.

David Carrdine Dead!

In Bangkok, no less... I guess there'll be no Kill Bill III...Oops, I Missed.  But let's not make jokes and remember him for his finest work from his long film career, Death Race 2000.

Another book to add to my wish list

After we've recovered from the move, and our expenses level out to pre-move amounts, I will acquire this

Junko Mizuno's new art book.  I feel giddy already, I think I'll a pill...

I would also like to get ahold these JM condoms... so could proudly display them in my new home.  In some place of obscene honor.  

Images via MZNews.

Downside of pill popping

So, I've been on edge all week with the new lease and asking for a raise, etc.  So I've been taking quite a bit of valium to calm myself down.  However, all I want to do is rest.  I don't feel sleepy, I just want to lie down for a bit, then I wind sleeping for 20hrs straight.  I only ate snacks yesterday, a doughnut and cheesy tots and nothing else.  True that they do pack a good amount of calories into those small packages, but not really enough for a complete day's intake.

Anyway I would love one of these extremely cool USB flash drives;

Or better this one that be customized with your logo and url!

The future is today! If the future involves giant robot babies...

via io9

Through this post I found the hypothesis of the uncanny valley, which essentially claims that people will feel revulsion to life-like robots. I didn't have this reaction, which I attribute to the watching of much robot/android anime during my formative years. Robot anime that had to do with discrimination against robots, so I guess that's all part of Japan's master plan, since they are the one's creating giant robot babies.

Mutant bunny!

It's got two noses!  Hooray for io9!
The governor of Vermont looks ready to veto gay marriage in his state, despite being passed by both the House and Senate, so the only thing that cheers me up at the moment are adore-horri-ble bunnies.  *squee*

staple gun + thumb = bad times

I didn't staple my thumb, but I do have a huge bruise under my thumbnail.  I was tidying up some upholstery that came lose on the sofa and managed to my thumb in between the handle and the lever.  I thought I had broken my thumb, that now I had this pulverized sack of flesh hanging from my left hand.  Anyway, I now have a horrible bruise under the nail and I can't really grip anything too well because when I try it feels like the nail is being peeled away from the flesh.

Work

So I'm now the unofficial network admin around here.  I'm trying to get this one very stubborn computer and printer to work together, but every time I try to use the trouble shooter (for the printer and network) it tells me that it can't find anything wrong and to consult the network admin.  It feels like that scene out Catch-22,
Dobbs: [Over the radio] Help him! Help him!
Yossarian: Help who?
Dobbs: Help the bombardier!
Yossarian: I'm the bombardier, I'm all right.
Dobbs: Then help HIM, help HIM! 

This extra funny to me, because my dad used tell me that at his old job, when someone was having trouble with their project, program or whatever they were in charge of, they would always say this quote.  Or "open the pod bay doors, HAL."  

On adding memory

The memory didn't fit, but at least it was free and I got to open my computer.  Now I know that when I get the correct memory I'll be able to install it.  

It was incredible easy to take the laptop apart, and more importantly, it was easy to put back together.   And I was able to get it to go online, a feat it hasn't accomplished in almost two years.  The downside is that the OS is so old you can't watch anything with flash, java, etc., everything is outdated.  And the thing has been too old to update for a long time now, it's only a pitiful G3, but I still want to find a copy of Tiger, get more memory instead of buying a new laptop.  sigh

The mystery rash is back!

I'm so itchy.  I can now say that I truly empathize with my mother's dog.  So, my rash is a stress related occurrence, and thanks to some breakthroughs in therapy, which include acknowledging the various walls continue run into like a lunatic in an asylum ( yes my mental walls are padded), the rash is back.  Actually this coincides with breakthroughs in M's therapy, the stress level has been through the roof.  Both of us are happy, then sad, then angry, then content, then happy, etc.  Every repressed emotion is being dredged up, and we are always together, so we both get to bear the brunt of each other's... therapeutic breakdowns.  We get to be there for the  rebuilding, too.  It's very strange, not in a bad way, to watch someone's reality change.   Not in the sociopath kind of way, but that a lot of bad things lose their power over in another's life.  You can almost see it slip away...
But, in the grand scheme of things, is good mental health really worth a having an itchy rash for a few days?  

Bad, yet highly entertaining, projects

I've acquired 1GB of memory to install on my on iBook, my lovely little G3, that I've had for a over 6 years now.  I know it won't make it faster, but it will make smoother, in theory, and that's all I need from it. M and I need a second computer, and so long as I can blog from it or read ebooks, then I'm happy.  And if I do design research, even if all images have to be downloaded to a flash drive, but really that's all I need it to do.
I'm so excited.  I wonder how horribly wrong this experiment can go?  I'll get M to film it.

And if I don't destroy the poor thing, then I can hook it up to the external hard drive I use for my PC.  The instructions said I can have a Mac and a PC running on it...

The further confession of a beverage addict

So my foray into sobriety has not been as smooth a transition as I thought it would be.  I have been drinking, but a lot less.  I almost cut out hard liquor and now I have a glass of wine instead of a whole bottle.  And I don't buy wine every time I go to the store, so I've gone from buying booze on an almost daily basis to once a week.  So I'm still pleased with my self.  But I'm just addicted to fluids, no alcohol, then I have diet soda, no soda, then give me some juice, no juice, then I make some coffee.  If I'm desperate I'll drink water.  The other day we only had orange juice in the house and I drank the whole thing.
It's like I always want to be tasting something.  I would eat more snacks, but as a compulsive hand washer I can't do any other chores while eating.

I know it's lazy to just post pictures

but I just couldn't resist.  I'm a sucker for paper dolls and self delusion.  For more insanity click here .

que bonita

This deserves to be made into a t-shirt, or a brooch, or something!

Important question of the day

Are pantyhose and tights the same thing?  For whatever reason, I have developed the impression that they are different.  That pantyhose always have that strange boxer-briefs top half, darker than the legs, whereas tights are solid.  I got this idea because we always brought "tights" for ballet, to wear under the leotard.  Pantyhose, which were always purchased from the supermarket last minute gave the wearer a strange garter look.  An obvious line would encircle the upper, upper thigh while the leg clad in the proper tights would be solid.  Anyway after googling this question that has plagued me for many years now, I find there is no difference.  The dictionary uses tights in the definition of pantyhose.  Right now it appears to be that the difference is regional, like soda vs. pop. vs. coke.  I will get to the bottom of this mystery, yet.

At least I know what stockings are, and to celebrate this achievement, here's an old ad;

New favorite free product!

Adobe Digital Editions .  The only way one can read ebooks from LAPL.  And it's a bit easier on the eyes than Reader.  The catch, of course, is that you can't copy the books.  At least not any traditional way, although you can print them.  Anyway, this post is basically directed at E, the only person I know who might use this program as a source of entertainment.   Maybe I should have sent this to her as an email, but what the hell.
Hmmm, what else can I write about... my favorite thing on LifeHacker, aside from the software, are the pictures of people's computer rooms .  Or computer side of the apartment, whatever.  I'm obsessed with seeing the homes of others.  I want to know how they live, what they buy, how they organize, what they display and what they hide.  I'm the same way about purses.  Flickr has loads of what's in you bag photos.  What I want to see most of all, in rooms and bags, are books.  I want to know what other people are reading, because I need to find some new authors.  Yes, it's that time of year, to find new fiction.  Unfortunately, the Da Vinci  appears way too often.  Oh my god, I can't focus, I need to eat my cheesy lunch.

New favorite fake shop!

And after looking at the site, Pantalaine , I think we can safely say that it is not actually selling any of these great product.  I wonder if this what "relational couture", from Half Life , my all time favorite book, would look?  Is this where the idea came from?  Did they steal an idea from a fictional character?  Bastards!  So many questions are raised by this site.
Here's some more choice pics.

Two whole days without a glass of wine...

I feel like a savage.  No wine with dinner?  No wine while fiddling around with the computer?  While cleaning?  While watching movies?  While taking a bath?  X used to call me a lady of leisure, but I've gone and lost that title, haven't I?  First, I had to go and get a job, and now I'm not drinking.
Anyway, what else is going on?  Let's see...