Nothing else matters ...

Oh, hey! It's Thursday. This doesn't mean much of anything normally, but this week I'm taking off Saturday for my cousin's wedding so I have a nice, long 4 day weekend. Sweet! I'm not particularly looking forward to driving up to Sacramento in the rain, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

Speaking of work, I officially have a (mostly) working computer. I haven't been networked in with the other computer so I can't do everything yet, but I can access the internet (OH, Twitter! How I've missed the way you keep me entertained as I while away the hours!) and print up lease agreements again. Yay! I'm not a total waste of skin anymore. But don't worry, guys. Even though I can now access the internet, I still managed to get my copies done. I have mad copying skills, yo!

For the record, I really do like this job. My boss lady puts up with my inane chatter, she's pretty cool and she listens almost exclusively to 80s music. I mean, how can you go wrong with Duran, Duran, Cyndi Lauper, the Eurythmics and Siouxsie and the Banshees playing all day? YOU CAN'T! As a plus, I totally know the words to most of the songs and can bust out singing whenever I want because there's never anybody in the office! Yay, for impromptu singing!

Time for his bookish stuff:
First off, I have 2 book reviews to write (I had a looooong stretch of time today with nothing to do but read) but I put my Book Blogger Hop post up before I wrote the reviews and now I feel like waiting until tomorrow to post them. It makes sense in my head.
So, yeah.
Book Blogger Hop, Follow Friday & Tagalong Friday - Answering those burning questions about how many books I read at a time, how I came up with the name for my book blog and what my favorite book was in the last month.
Burning questions! With smoldering answers!

And I think I'm done.
Later.

I had a very fun time with jenah, kimbrchick and malkovich03 today. We watched Practical Magic, which is one of those movies that I always like but I forget how much I like it until I sit down and watch it again. Jenn had to leave early for dinner with a family friend in lovely San Francisco, but Kim, Mal and I had a drink and got chatty while trying to find the breeze outside. Yes, we were really trying to find it. For some reason the normally windy jet stream that blows through our complex was absent. Boo to it.

So I did a little writing today. Not a lot since I had the company earlier, but enough that I'm not beating myself up for not doing anything.
Does that even make sense?
Whatever.

Some more post-revelation talk as girl and sister-of-guy try to figure out how the revelation fits into everything. There might have been some mention of wolves. Maybe. What with it being a werewolf novel and all.

You know, this story has taken on a whole other life from the original outline. I should go back and re-outline it to see what direction I need to nudge it in to keep it from becoming a rambling mass of words with no ending.

Randomly, I had this whole post planned about how I'm sure that one of the songs I've been listening to lately is all about a serial killer. But then I got to writing and now I just want to get back to it.

So, I'm off.
Later.

I know that everyone was horrified and otherwise completely grief-stricken that it was possible that the POST OF COMPLETE AWESOMENESS yesterday was the pinnacle of journal writing for me. You were wrong! Because I feel another awesome post coming on!

Unfortunately I have to just jump in and get all my feet wet because if I take the time to decide what order this needs to go in, it will be lost for all time! To the journal, gentle readers!

Guys, I took THREE showers yesterday! Three. Only they weren't all actual showers. The first one was. It was early, I needed to bathe. I did. Then we had Hailey's party and there was swimming and when I got back from that I had to jump in the shower again because I DON'T WANT MY BEAUTIFUL RED HAIR TO BECOME NOT RED! So, I rinsed off the chlorine and conditioned my hair. Nice. Then it was later and I was sweaty and uncomfortable because my room has zero airflow in it and I was gearing up for the Night of Epic Tweeting while watching a bad SyFy movie. So I jumped in the shower again.

Which leads to the Night of Epic Tweeting. I don't even know how to explain what happened there. I had salsa and a bad movie and all of a sudden I was tweeting constantly and I COULDN'T STOP! I'd apologize to all my followers for that but when I went back and re-read it this morning it was entirely accurate. Like, I could get a job writing up pithy, scene by scene comments on movies and people would be all "Whoa! That was entirely accurate. Did you see that? It was exactly as she described it! This girl is gooooood!"

And I thought I'd found my calling in life when I started writing werewolf porn. It's like I'm multi-dimensional now or something.

Finally, I don't know how many peeps have seen this already, but this song is catching my fancy right now (I think it was originally featured on SYTYCD, FYI). This is a live version so it's a little different from the single (a little rougher, still good) and I can't stop listening to it. I even broke down and purchased it from iTunes.


That's it. I make no promises that I won't be back later. And I may just Tweet the shit out of something in the meantime. Fear me!
Later.

Things that I've done today. And some things that I didn't do but which happened anyway. In no particular order ...

1. Hailey's Dance Recital - It was good. I need to start with that. It was a fun little rendition of The Little Mermaid for Act 1. Act 2 had a bunch of dances that the dance company does for competition and whatnot. For the love of Pete, it was too long. They could have ended it after the first act and it would have been satisfying. Seriously, it clocked in at almost 3 hours. And my mom and Heather had to stay for the second performance. Yikes!

However, the competition dancing is amazing. Absolutely amazing. So I guess I'm glad I got to see it. Even though it was too long.

2. Cole's away for a few days with his dad's side of the family. He went to his step mom's brother's wedding today and then they're meeting the rest of his family in Palm Desert tomorrow. I've been home alone the whole damn afternoon. It's kinda creepy.

3. I decided to watch some of those movies that I've borrowed and ignored. Let the Right One In. A Swedish film about vampires. I loved the ending. It was creepy and dark and just worked perfectly. The rest of the movie? A little too artsy for my tastes. Those long, lingering shots of an empty table don't do it for me. Although the falling snow was very pretty. Movie #2 for the evening was 2012 which was fucking amazing because it had CITIES BLOWING UP AND DOING OTHER VASTLY CATASTROPHIC STUFF! Seriously, I could totally suspend all my disbelief after that first citywide destruction shot. I do so love my broken cities.

4. I did not open Word at all today. I feel like I should. But I'm not going too unless something pops into my head that must be written down on the spot. That said, I'm expecting to break 18K words tomorrow since I'm taking a break today. Brain, don't fail me now!

5. I did not receive my replacement phone today. This is bad because the temporary fix the technician performed on my old phone has worn off and, once again, the touchscreen isn't working at all. So, for those of you considering calling and/or texting me: Don't. I won't be able to answer or even see that you called until then. Sad. Very sad.

6. I purchased a bunch of free music downloads off of Amazon this morning. I guess "purchased" isn't the right word. All I'm going to say is that if you want to try out new music/bands/labels and possibly find something you can really sink your teeth into, check the Amazon MP3 page. They are always offering free singles and sampler albums that aren't half bad. I mean, most of the ones I choose aren't bad. I'm sure some of them aren't my cup of tea, but I ignore those for the most part.


What was I talking about again?
You know, maybe that second iced coffee I downed about half an hour ago wasn't the best idea.
I don't know. I'm done with the babblefest.
Later.

After making a lovely post a couple of days back about how I don't have to take my allergy medication anymore since I no longer work around nasty, dirty money (and let me tell you, money is filthy. When I'd wash my hands after work, the water would run black!), my allergies have been kicking my ass the past two days. Sneezing, itchy eyes, the works! Cole, too. Poor us. So what did I do to combat this? I dusted like the end of the world is nigh. I even took apart my fan and wiped that down. That's dedication, people.

I also cleaned my bathroom and vacuumed, but that's another story. Not really. That was the whole story. It just turns out that it wasn't a very interesting story. And yet I still felt the need to share it. You can thank me later.

So, I caught a pic of Dakota Fanning all vamped out for her role in New Moon as a, umm, vampire. She looks really good. I liked it!

I also came across another literal video. It made me laugh! So, this isn't the best copy ever, but you'll totally get the point.


That is all.

My stomach hurts and my desk is a mess. I have no empty space left on it. That makes me sad. Actually, it just makes me want to straighten up. Whatever.

Okay. Time for the gratuitous book comments for the evening. About 4 months ago I bought a book. Apparently I preordered it. I wasn't aware that I preordered it because I didn't read the fine print very closely. Anyway. The company charged my credit card and time passed. I forgot about the book. Mostly. Every once in a while I'd remember it and think, hmm, I should figure out when I'll be getting that. And then the thought would fly out of my head and I'd move on to better things.

Well, today the book came. And I read it.
Book #55 - Who Killed Amanda Palmer: A Collection of Photographic Evidence with stories by Neil Gaiman - For those who don't know, Amanda Palmer is the singer for the Dresden Dolls. She's very quirky. Overall, this was a very interesting book. Mostly photographs of Amanda Palmer dead in various places and various poses. Neil Gaiman chimes in with vignettes about how she died or how she was found. It's also sprinkled through with lyrics from Amanda's album of the same name. Personally, I enjoyed it. It was different from the other things I've been reading lately and it was a lot of fun.

I had a really hard time getting up and moving today. More to the point, I got up okay and then I was ready to take a nap around 9:30. It's possible I did take a nap. And then another one after lunch. And another one while the kids were watching one of their shows. Seriously, I couldn't get moving. And suddenly around 4:00 I felt like a human person again and got up and took Cole out to buy Hailey's birthday present and took the dog for a walk and watered the plants and helped my mom make dinner and now we're here. Amazing, isn't it?

But my stomach still hurts. I'm not even going to have any ice cream tonight. Do I sound virtuous? Because I feel that way.

I'm done now. I'm in the middle of watching the Planet of the Apes remake. I tried watching the original the other day but I decided to take a nap instead. And today I was in the mood for the remake. I figure that the original will get watched soon enough. Maybe later tonight. Who knows.

Done now.
Later.

Okay. So I bought my first two Blu-Ray movies. Push and Knowing. I've seen Push and I liked it far more than the critics predicted I would. In other words I didn't completely think it sucked. I bought Knowing sight unseen. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was led to believe but it was also NOTHING like I thought it would be. The ending was ... well, I didn't see it coming. Not up until the end and then I was like O_o. But, I liked it. It's a wee bit creepy in parts, btw. Especially those silent guys that stand and watch. Creepy silent guys. Watching. See what I mean?

I guess I'm trying to say that these were impulse buys that I'm trying to justify. I did like both of them, but I really shouldn't have spent the money.

Okay.

I have a bunch of stuff I want to get done this week.

I started writing the story that's been thumping around in my head for the past few weeks. I like it so far. Now to see where it's going to go.

I need to work on any of my online projects involving making some sort of money. Any of them. I have a bunch of things that I've let languish for the past few weeks and I really need to get back to them and spruce them up a bit. *sigh*

Add the music that's sitting here to my iPod. iron_knife will want that music back eventually.

I have more, I just can't remember it. That's unfortunate.

That is all. I have very important things to do. Like make sure my Vampire hasn't been decimated in Vampire Wars. *nods*

OMG! I slept really badly last night. This isn't all that uncommon seeing as how I'm the lightest sleeper ever, but last night was one of those where I was waking up constantly and I'd think it was later than it was but it wasn't. That said, I was pretty tired today and after watching a movie (Crazy Eights, bangaboomerang!), I turned the TV down and conked out. Like, fell asleep in a big way. It was crazy.

I feel much better now.

So, I've been working on tweaking all my different web pages. I've added a few new things to all of them and just generally tightened them up.
The life of a(n almost-)writer
Ultimate Amazon Shopping - Blu-Ray
Ultimate Amazon Shopping - Music
Homemade Laundry Detergent
Go green with reusable lunchboxes

OH! When I was googling for some information on reducing waste in lunches, I entered the search "reusable lunchboxes" and my page was the #1 page. Awesome. It tickled me in a big way. Not literally. That would have been weird. I still found it exciting.

I've been fooling around at Twitter and Blip.fm. Once again, I'm soulswallo at both if anyone wants to join in. The song list of the moment is all 80's. I'm having some trouble coming up with 80's songs off the top of my head. Don't worry, though, I'll find a way to finish up the hour.

Day 12 of the 30 in 30 will be up at blabapalooza shortly. *g* I feel a bit like a mad scientist.

Okay. I only worked a half day today. I took a nap. I changed my layout. I read two books. Well, I finished two books.

Book #7 - Under Town (Edgar & Ellen) by Charles Ogden - My favorite thus far, Edgar and Ellen find that a new prankster has entered the playing field of Nod's Limbs. And this new foe has stolen all of their ideas! Sadly, I only bought the first three books, so I'll have to wait to find out what happens next. Boo.

-and-

Book #8 - The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K.Rowling - Okay. I wasn't thrilled with this book, simply because I expected more from it. However, if I cast aside my expectations, it's kinda charming and fun. I tried to talk Cole into reading it, but he informed me that he doesn't like Harry Potter. Ingrate.

Besides all of the above, I went to dinner with malkovich03 (AWESOME!) and got a stack of CDs that I'd ordered a while back. Folk music. Not everybody's cup of tea, but I really like this lady's voice and I love her take on Peter Pan. Red-Handed Jill! Woot! I think Mal was laughing at me on the inside when she heard it in the car ... no, wait. She was laughing at me on the outside. Good thing she's my BFF or we'd have a problem here. :)

All in all a good day. Of course I feel like a WHALE at the moment from all that I ate, but I'll get over that. I hope.

Time for bed!

I have good stuff and bad stuff here ...
The bad stuff (because it's less complicated to talk about): My iPod appears to be on it's last legs. *sigh* I can't even get the thing to load. It just keeps prompting me to visit the iPod support online. I did that and I still can't get it to work. Boo. I'm not sure if I can handle driving to work every day without my music. I love my music. It helps keep me sane.

The good stuff: My mom and I had our first walk-through. It was awesome. We got to actually see the house with the flooring installed. That rocked. We also have our final walk-through scheduled for next Friday. It looks like we'll be moving in some time the week after next. Yay!

The hardwood floors are gorgeous. The kitchen is twice the size of our current one. I really can't wait to get in there.

I dl-ed all the eps of Burn Notice last week and I'm watching the pilot now. This show is pretty good. I love some of Michael's expressions.

Okay. I'm done.