climbing the dadgum walls...

it's friday afternoon, and i'm climbing the walls to get out of here. i've got 30 minutes to go and 15 minutes of work to do. my software crashed on me, just split-seconds before i could print my work, thus throwing my early-exit plans into the rubbish heap.

it could be worse, though. my sister was supposed to move today, and she's got to be moved no later than tomorrow, but her movers wrecked their truck on the way to her house. she had a panicky hour trying to arrange a backup moving plan on short notice... if you've ever tried to get movers with less than 14 days' notice, you know how painful an experience this is. :( anyway, she managed to get some help, and she's getting her stuff moved. i'm glad i'm not dealing with her obstacles today. i'll take crashing software over crashed trucks, thanks.

the weekend outlook is good for me, too... friends coming to town, good music, state fair, etc. looking forward to the r&r...

alphabet meme

swiped from my good friend zed

[A is for age:] 30, at the moment.
[B is for booze of choice:] scotch, old single malt; or red wine, dry
[C is for career:] civil engineer/surveyor building landfills (it's more fun than it sounds like!) and a teacher/tutor for a test prep company
[D is for your dad's name:] Jim
[E is for essential items to bring to a party:] a mingly attitude, a pitcher of sangria, and good music that's not too loud (i'm a little hard of hearing)
[F is for favorite song at the moment:] Jimmy Buffett - "Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season"
[G is for favorite game:] Cranium for board games, World of Warcraft on the computer, Spades for cards, Rugby for sporting
[H is for hometown:] i live in fort worth right now, but i'm a nomad in career, life, geography, interests, everything.
[I is for instruments you play:] bassoon, trombone, a little piano, and a little guitar
[J is for jam or jelly you like:] apple butter, hazelnut spread, my late grandfather's pear preserves (he had to shoot squirrels all summer to have enough pears in the fall to can 'em!)
[K is for kids?] does my dog count? she's a hyper-spastic black lab who suits me perfectly. and i'm working on getting some fish.
[L is for living arrangements:] 2br 2ba apartment in southwest fort worth. it's right on the river, and the dog and i both love it!
[M is for mom's name:] Sharon (she's named for her grandfather!)
[N is for name of your crush:] none, at the moment. stay tuned for updates.
[O is for overnight hospital stays:] none since i was a baby and got jaundiced.
[P is for phobias:] suffocation and stagnation, in that order. see "H" for more. :)
[Q is for quotes you like:] "I got a lot of leavin' left to do." - Dierks Bentley see "H" for more. :)
[R is for relationship that lasted the longest] ironically, it was with my ex-boyfriend from high school who happens to be gay. we had an absolutely platonic relationship for 6 years off-and-on, and neither of us thought that was weird.
[S is for sexual preference:] bisexual, although i tend to prefer women slightly for relationships (at least at this stage in my life, see "H" and "P" for more.)
[T is for time you wake up:] 5 minutes before i have to be there
[U is for underwear:] underwear is like cancer. the less you've got of it, the better off you are. ;)
[V is for vegetable you love:] all of them except some of the legumes. something about that consistency really puts me off. i especially love spinach, though.
[W is for worst habit:] PROCRASTINATION. see "T" for more.
[X is for x-rays you've had:] my right thumb (age 5), my left wrist (age 10), my right ankle (age 25), my right knee (age 27), my lungs for a tuberculosis test (age 29), and my neck (age 30), plus some miscellaneous lung and face x-rays for sinus infections... do i glow in the dark? oh, and all of those really were broken, except my knee, but i'd severed the ACL. well, and i don't have tuberculosis.
[Y is for yummy food you make:] ice cream, texicali sandwiches, king ranch chicken, stew, lasagna, snapper veracruz, tamari steak
[Z is for zodiac sign:] i'm a capricorn to the hilt.

Weekend review

i slept. i skipped six flags, i skipped pride, my friend skipped driving up from austin. the only thing i had planned that i actually accomplished was cleaning up the soon-to-be-fishtank. well, and eating yummy food... that almost goes without saying. :)

i had a very nerdy discussion saturday night at the bar about john roberts, the supreme court nominee who is going through the congressional hearing process right now. my lawyer friend (who actually sits down and watches these hearings on c-span) has decided that she likes roberts. by extension, then, because i'm NOT going to sit down and watch the hearings, i like him, too. well, i don't have cable, so i couldn't watch the hearings even if i wanted to, but i don't want to. the gist of the discussion was that roberts is too smart to go on record in his hearings with a firm opinion on any politically charged issue that's likely to come before the court. he refuses to state what his position is on anything politically divisive, on the grounds that he would have to hear the facts of a case to know how he would rule on it. things that aren't politically "hot", he'll state a position and reserve the right to change his mind based on the specifics of a case. but if it's a platform issue for one of the parties, he refuses to state his position. it's a clever way to play the game, really. and that's what my friend advised me: roberts is SMART. the kind of guy who would clean your clock if you played trivial pursuit with him... so i'm not dreading his appointment so much, and i'm now turning my interest to the NEXT nominee.

and, in the weather watch, here comes hurricane rita! anyone know what happens if we use all the alphabetical names? it's only september and we're already up to "r"...

TGIF!!!

And what a Friday it's been...

But good things are coming. I've got a friend coming up from Austin to visit. I had good sushi last night. (Technically, that's come and gone, but I'm counting blessings and don't want to leave good sushi off the list, whenever it happened.) Gay pride is Sunday! Six Flags on Saturday! I'm going home to take a nap!
I have yummy food at my house that I'm looking forward to cooking over the weekend, and I've got a shiny, new (ok, it's cruddy, and dirty, and only new-to-me) fish tank to get ready to house my new roommates! That's right, I'm going to become a fish-keeper! I hope it entertains my dog...

Just as a side note: lesson learned...dirty fish tanks often have fish bio-proteins dried up in the bottom of them. fish poo! if you leave said fish tanks in your car overnight because, say, your neighbor has parked too close to you and you can't open your car door wide enough to remove the fish tank and it's too heavy to carry from a free parking space with maneuvering room, your car will REEK!!!! in the morning.

shiny, happy circuits holding hands

so, i built my computer, and it is blazing fast. it ROX! i'm thoroughly pleased with the monitor, as well. i was a little worried about lcd performance in a high-demand graphics game (like World of Warcraft) but it's doing spectacularly. i've even cranked up the video options a little bit to test how it handles more intense graphic demands, and i'm still thrilled with it.

my dog, on the other hand, is NOT amused. she doesn't understand why i sit staring at the wall for hours on end at night when i could be lying in the floor with her. it's not like i was very exciting company for her before the box was built (except for our nightly walks down at the river) but i guess she's decided i'm really TERRIBLE company now. she usually saunters in and tries to lick my trigger fingers while i'm in the middle of a really tricky fight. how do they know exactly when it would be LEAST convenient for them to do that?!?!?!

the coolest, shiniest, whirliest thing on the computer, though, has GOT to be the case fan. i mentioned in my last post that i actually had to buy one, which i did, and it's got colored LED lights in it, so the front of my computer glows like a little rainbow factory. yea! it's mesmerizing...

mesmerizing... shiny... whirly... *snaps out of it* **POP!!**

yeah, so as i was saying, i really like the computer. i had to make a pot of stew (for barter) and buy two nights worth of takeout to get it running, but it's up and running now. the food was all part of that i-don't-know-how-to-do-it-by-myself-but-i-know-how-to-get-it-done thing... thanks, jaasper!

and now, back to WoW

BOX BITS IMMINENT!!!

so, in a recent (semi-tragic, way too dramatic, i'm-better-off-now-thanks) breakup, i lost my computer. this may not be apparent from my posts, but i'm a bit of a computer nerd. and a word nerd, and a music nerd, and a scotch nerd, and a wine nerd... but i digress. anyway, sans box, i've been forced to rely on my father's very old, very slow, very $hitty laptop hand-me-down for my home computing needs. this is such an unpleasant situation that i stay away from the computer a lot, and that makes me sad. :( so i'm building myself a kit from scratch, all the way up to mouse/monitor/keyboard and all the way down to case/motherboard/cpu. i even had to buy a case fan!

anyway, my dad and mom asked me this weekend if i know HOW to build my own computer. and i replied, 'yeeeeeees. well, no, but i know how to get it done.' (and isn't that the true definition of power?) so i went to church with my godsons and left their father in charge of specifying a computer for me. and he did. and it was gewd. so the box bits have been ordered, and they're en route to me...

all that was left was for me to shop for a mouse/keyboard/monitor that suited my needs. so i found a slick keyboard that's backlit, but not too much. the mouse was an easy decision. i'm totally hooked on those trackman marble mice with the scroll-wheel. (you have NO IDEA how hard it is to work without a scroll wheel when you're used to having one!) so.. (well, maybe you do, but i hope you don't. it's bad. never try to go cold-turkey off a scrolling mouse.) all that was left, then, was to buy a monitor. [cue the creepy music... dun-dun-duuuunnnnn]

that was a much bigger deal than i originally anticipated. i thought i'd just get a nice cheap crt monitor, but my inner lust for things shiny, cool, and new won out. i started researching the lcd's and found that most of the really up-to-date hardware review sites (like tom's hardware guide and anandtech but NOT LIKE the bottomfeeders AT CNET) recommended a 19" lcd for game-playing. and the new, fast 19" ones (which are starting to be cheap now) can be had for about the same price as a new CRT in the 21" size. given that you get the same screen real estate from a 21" crt and a 19" lcd, and that a 19" lcd frees up a LOT of room on your desktop, that was an easy call. unfortunately, that was the last easy part. lots and lots of clicks later (no, really, i'm a geek who likes doing product research, and i'm worn out by this particular research venture) i settled on the viewsonic vp191b. unfortunately, it's hard to find in stores. :( luckily, and again, many miles and hours later, i was able to find the next one down the product line, the vx924 on sale at compusa today. so i'm going there directly to buy it! yea! geeky stuff!

and with all that done, i'm ready for my box bits to arrive. so i wait, impatiently... i'm not good at waiting.