Well! Today just turned out . . . wrong.

I woke up at 2 am. I woke up at 5 am. I woke up at 6:30 am.

I woke up at 7 am, moved my legs, and experienced not one but two painful charlie horses. Way too early to scream, too dark to be fully awake, and had no idea which leg to grab because they BOTH hurt.

Eventually I recovered, fell back asleep, woke up and finally got up, dressed, and headed out to work. I made it to the sidewalk, picked up the paper which was ALMOST not in the street, walked it back to the house, headed halfway to the car again before I realized . . . no keys. Not in the pockets, not in the hand, not in the purse, not on the ground. On the kitchen table, naturally. I DID have a cell phone, thank goodness. AND it was actually charged! Mom and Grammy were out getting groceries, apparently unaware of her cell phone ringing, or out of range. I called my boss, told her I'd be a bit late, and settled down a bit to read the paper, and try the cellphone again. I finally called my sister, who came out within twenty minutes with her key.

At work Jan had brought in her laptop, wanting me to fix it so she could send emails. (Major circular issues there!) I tried something one last time, and it worked. Shock! So I offered to go to her house and see if I could fix the problem there. (I think I was at work for a total of 25 minutes.) I fixed it there, too! Disgustingly easy fix, too. Poor Jan, it's put her through a lot of stress.

At this point, I decided it wasn't worth going back to work, and did a little shopping. When I got home, sitting on the front porch was an amazon.com box. It couldn't be mine, I had placed an order only yesterday. YESTERDAY.

It was mine. The stuff I had ordered yesterday. I'm impressed.

Now I can spend the weekend taking my CDs out of their cases. Whee!

Sleeve City CD Cases, CD Sleeves, DVD Cases

I wish I had found this earlier! They have some nice things - and they'll send samples!

The Return of the King, condensed film script

What the heck, I've linked to the first two 'condensed' versions. Haven't I?

Favorite line:

OUTSIDE MINAS TIRITH
Black Ships sail up, with ARAGORN, LEGOLAS, GIMLI, and DEAD PEOPLE aboard, and save the day.
AUDIENCE: Oh, come on. Orlando Bloom as the token pretty-boy on a ship full of ghosts - yeah, we saw that over the summer. Next!

Don Adams of 'Get Smart' Dies at 82 - Yahoo! News

NOOOOOOOooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Erin came back from her vacation with beautiful pictures. These are web sites of some of the places they visited.

Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park

Watkins Glen State Park, New York

I just had me a little boogie dance.

Our house, being 20+ years old, has settled a bit over the years. Quite a bit, when you consider what happened with the driveway . . . In any case, the settling affected my closet doors, causing one of them to not close. The tracks were clear, but the top hinge was hitting the top of the track on the ceiling, and no amount of pressure would get it to fold under it.

Today, after hanging the second of four curtains to hide their ugly metal-ness, I because annoyed, grabbed a flashlight and went in the closet, trying to determine just WHAT it was that was preventing it from closing. I saw (as you can tell), and also saw a little sticker on the back of the door. Instructions for height adjustment! Within a few minutes, and a rare use of my spiffy electric screwdriver, the door is now closing. Beautifully.

I should have looked sooner, but the boogie dance would not have been as joyful.

Last night I dreamt I was at work, and went into the train depot. The place had been emptied out completely, but lots of people were in it. In the last room I found a kind of party going on, complete with a live band. I looked around a bit, lamenting on the lack of dancers and the fact that a perfectly good band was neglecting to play swing music. An older gentleman turned around and chuckled. He was white haired, balding, and quite fat. Dressed to the nines, including a wool checked vest and a fedora. He agreed with me and, smiling, invited me to dance. The band struck up, amazingly, Lollipop.

Now, this song is a great bouncy tune, although the words don't get much beyond "crazy 'bout lollipop! crazy 'bout lollipop!" I haven't been listening to music much lately, and I haven't listened to the Max Weinberg 7 (whose version of 'Lollipop' I own) in ages. It's not even one of my favorites. I'm amazed at how clear and complete the song was in my dream. I don't often dream that vividly. It was as if the song was in color in a black in white dream.

Perhaps I'm suffering from a swing deficiency in my life and my subconscious is trying to make up for it? Is it possible? I think . . . I must buy more swing.

Incidently, the adorable fat old man was a pretty good lead.

eBay: ~ LEATHER AND LACE ~ (item 5618281164 end time Sep-26-05 17:48:03 PDT)

Gotta love the originality of some miniature doll artists.

Bat World

I like bats. I never thought I'd see a bat rescue league, though! I should go to one of their events.

Things I can check off my previous list:


1. Find out what happened to my post-it notes.
2. Research the cost to rent a floor sander. www.rentalsunlimited.com
3. Figure up paint amounts and their prices.
4. Same for wood stain.
5. Reupholstery fees for an antique sofa and a new chair
6. find the price of an oval end table. emailed Belfort. Hope they reply!
7. Carpeting amount, cost, and installation fees. also a sample.
8. cost for wood to build a custom bookshelf. Made it simple, called my sister. They just built one for their living room!
9. learn usual fees to hire painters, or else figure out how to word it so that the owners are doing the painting.
10. Upholstery amounts and prices for sofa, chair, and curtains.
11. redo the dining room presentation. This means finding new furniture, paint costs, molding costs and installation fees, rugs, curtains, lighting installation fees, and whatever else I had in that room.


Hmm. Not bad for not leaving my desk. I sent an email to Belfort regarding the oval table, haven't heard back yet.

A Cat's New Year's Resolutions

The Ten Minute Two Towers

Things I need to do:

1. Find out what happened to my post-it notes.
2. Research the cost to rent a floor sander.
3. Figure up paint amounts and their prices.
4. Same for wood stain.
5. Reupholstery fees for an antique sofa and a new chair
6. find the price of an oval end table
7. Carpeting amount, cost, and installation fees. also a sample.
8. cost for wood to build a custom bookshelf.
9. learn usual fees to hire painters, or else figure out how to word it so that the owners are doing the painting.
10. Upholstery amounts and prices for sofa, chair, and curtains.
11. redo the dining room presentation. This means finding new furniture, paint costs, molding costs and installation fees, rugs, curtains, lighting installation fees, and whatever else I had in that room.

I'm beginning to understand why I've been putting off this last assignment. What a lot of running around I get to do! What a lot of salespeople I get to annoy with questions about items I have no intention of purchasing! I have one presentation completely finished, and the second one is two/thirds done. The budgets for these rooms are also halfway done, save for what I've listed above. The third . . . eh.

Word of the Day:Occasional

I can NEVER remember how to spell this word. Some sort of mental block, I suppose. Two C's, one S, one L. OK. I'll learn it. I'll learn if it I have to start writing it down on paper over and over and over.

A gentle word to the wise.

irs.com is different from irs.gov. irs.com is a business, and in tiny letters at the bottom, informs you they're not affiliated with the government. They also charge you for tax documents that you can download for free from irs.gov, or pick up for free at libraries and other places. Sneaky. I just had to stop my mother from paying for them!

Oh, pardon me. According to the FAQ section, They're not charging you for the forms. They're charging you for DELIVERY. Shipping and handling, don'tcha know. They uploaded them. You download copies of them. Neither of you have to move more than a foot. *shakes her head sadly.*

For your tax needs, visit www.irs.gov. The forms ARE easy to find, and they're free.

FedEx Pirate Commercial

Gotta love it.

(don't forget, September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day!)

What's That Bug?

A few Out Of Office replies for your convenience .. . .

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.

3. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from vacation on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

5. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this one is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).

6. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

7. I've run away to join a different circus.

8. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as ' Margaret ' instead of 'Steve'.

The Interdictor

A firsthand account of a geek's experiences in being in New Orleans since Katrina hit. Tons of pictures, live webcam feed, and sharing whatever he learns or hears in his blog.

Quoted from the blog: "Advice: If you've got to ride out a hurricane, do it in an internet data center on the 10th floor of a high rise. ;)"


And people said blogs aren't useful?

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and actor Bob Denver. It's an unusual combination, but I guess we'll have to accept it. So whose death will make up the third celebrity? Or did I miss someone?

3kaze DVD Storage Kit

Eureka!

My bank is going to start wondering if someone has stolen my debit card.

I bought a cabinet. It's painted green, pretty solid wood, two drawers, two doors that open to a big, long shelf. I think it's supposed to be a buffet, as the drawers are lined with a velvety fabric. I agonized over a $200 dollar ring, and barely blinked at a $400 piece of furniture. (Does this prove I'm more of a furniture freak than a jewelry freak?)

Now I'm panicking slightly because I don't think it's big enough. Size isn't as important as functionality! I emptied out my media cabinet - handful after handful of books, DVDS, and music. I'm still a bit shocked by how much it actually held. Where did it all come from? Who put all those Discworld books in there? I'm defintely going to get rid of the CD cases and put them in some sort of binder or case. I think now it'll be easier to do the same with the DVDs. But, oh, the books! Time to stack sideways? Gah!

Movie Review: The Brothers Grimm

Take all of the classic elements of the Grimm Fairy Tales. Write them on scraps of paper. Put them in a box. Shake the box. Pull scraps out. Write new fairy tale with what comes out. Create a sort of storyline to try to make some sense out of the elements. Add hunky men and beautiful women, just in case. Release to theaters.

I need to go through my book and see if I can estimate how many stories they actually used. There was quite a few! I was impressed by their ability to blend things together to create one new, complex story, but the backdrop and setting just didn't work well. Yes, I would have done it differently. But, at the end, when you look back on it . . . wow! that was complicated. I'm dying to tell it, but that would give the plot away.

I want to particularly draw attention to Martin Kavan's performance. He played Delatombe's valet. The man had perhaps one speaking line in the entire movie. He was a classic valet, white gloves, powdered wig, pale face, beauty mark, expressionless face . . . silent and efficient. Supposed to be invisible until needed, and even then, still invisible. This man was so invisible that he stood out in every scene he was in. He stole the scene by just standing there, pretending to be invisible. It's hard to describe, but I enjoyed it. I've never heard of the man and I couldn't find out much about him, but his invisibility was incredible! I've mentally earmarked him as a possible choice for playing Vetenari in my fantasy list of actors for a Discworld movie.

Answerbag.com - All the FAQs you can use

This site looks interesting. I'm trying to think of bizarre questions to ask.

Google News

Why didn't I know about this?

ITSHEREITSHEREITSHERE *BOUNCE *ITSHEREITSHEREITSHERE!!!*HOP*BOUNCE*ITSHERE!

Pardon me. This is an elegant ring, worthy of a refined, dignified welcome.

The opal ring has arrived. Safe and sound, in a beautiful green velvet box, from Australia. It sparkles. It doesn't overwhelm my tiny hands. It fits my middle finger perfectly.

Visit JustOpal.com to see more of their fine works! I'm very pleased.

Now I can go back to bouncing.