Gaah, being a responsible adult is annoying as hell. I'm actually doing quite well at it at the moment. But I'm never, ever gonna love it. When are we gonna get that sci-fi future where robots take care of all the annoying crap involved in living and leave us alone to develop our giant brains?
(This post is brought to you by me dealing with the fact that my house is still not quite as water-tight as it ought to be.)
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Book People Problems
A video I thought I'd share, because I know at least one person out there will understand:
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Friday, August 07, 2015
August Currentlies
Yep, here it is. The August "Currently" meme.
Current clothes: Gray cotton shorts. Venture Bros. Guild of Calamitous Intent t-shirt. Black socks.
Current mood: OK. Kinda tired. I spent the morning doing yardwork, plus my circadian rhythms seem to be fighting me harder than usual lately, for some reason. (Probably because I spent two straight weeks on night shifts, and my body actually started getting used to it.)
Current music: Nothing memorable.
Current annoyance: The city garbage dept. says it'll pickup old items of furniture and such for a small fee, if you make arrangements for it. I called them Monday of last week, and the thing is still sitting out there on the curb. I'm going to have to call them again.
Current thing: I don't seem to have a current thing. Maybe I should find one, rather than just sitting around spinning my wheels, which is what I think I've been doing lately.
Current desktop picture: Still this.
Current book: String Theory for Dummies by Andrew Zimmerman Jones. Because how can you not want to read String Theory for Dummmies? I'm also making my way through British English A to Zed by Norman W. Shur. I was originally just going to browse through it a bit and stick it on the reference shelf, but it's proving to be strangely fascinating, so instead I'm reading it straight through, a few minutes at a time. Mostly it's making me wonder how Americans and Brits actually mange to communicate at all.
Current song in head: It's been varying back and forth between "The Rainbow Connection" and "Wild, Wild Life" by the Talking Heads.
Current refreshment: Orange spice tea.
Current DVD in player: Most recently, Kingsman: The Secret Service. Which was completely ridiculous, but, hey, that's what it was going for. Mostly it was the entertaining kind of ridiculous.
Current worry: All the terrible diseases I've been diagnosing myself with on WebMD. Thanks, internet!
Current thought: Some significant part of my brain refuses to believe that August is even a real month. In my mind, it exists merely as a sort of placeholder between July and September -- that is, months in which things actually happen. Even the weather right now feels like a hot, still, timeless expanse of nothing.
Current clothes: Gray cotton shorts. Venture Bros. Guild of Calamitous Intent t-shirt. Black socks.
Current mood: OK. Kinda tired. I spent the morning doing yardwork, plus my circadian rhythms seem to be fighting me harder than usual lately, for some reason. (Probably because I spent two straight weeks on night shifts, and my body actually started getting used to it.)
Current music: Nothing memorable.
Current annoyance: The city garbage dept. says it'll pickup old items of furniture and such for a small fee, if you make arrangements for it. I called them Monday of last week, and the thing is still sitting out there on the curb. I'm going to have to call them again.
Current thing: I don't seem to have a current thing. Maybe I should find one, rather than just sitting around spinning my wheels, which is what I think I've been doing lately.
Current desktop picture: Still this.
Current book: String Theory for Dummies by Andrew Zimmerman Jones. Because how can you not want to read String Theory for Dummmies? I'm also making my way through British English A to Zed by Norman W. Shur. I was originally just going to browse through it a bit and stick it on the reference shelf, but it's proving to be strangely fascinating, so instead I'm reading it straight through, a few minutes at a time. Mostly it's making me wonder how Americans and Brits actually mange to communicate at all.
Current song in head: It's been varying back and forth between "The Rainbow Connection" and "Wild, Wild Life" by the Talking Heads.
Current refreshment: Orange spice tea.
Current DVD in player: Most recently, Kingsman: The Secret Service. Which was completely ridiculous, but, hey, that's what it was going for. Mostly it was the entertaining kind of ridiculous.
Current worry: All the terrible diseases I've been diagnosing myself with on WebMD. Thanks, internet!
Current thought: Some significant part of my brain refuses to believe that August is even a real month. In my mind, it exists merely as a sort of placeholder between July and September -- that is, months in which things actually happen. Even the weather right now feels like a hot, still, timeless expanse of nothing.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015
I Swear, I Feel Like I Deserve A Prize For Sticking It Out To The End. Maybe A Free Set Of Knives.
So, I just finished watching Dexter. And since I've mentioned it here before, I thought I'd come back and share my thoughts... OK, no, that's not true. Mostly, I'm writing this here because after investing eight season's worth of time in that show, I am damned well at least going to get a blog post out of it.
Although, honestly, I think past a certain point I was mostly only continuing with it out of a sense of completeness and a strong, morbid curiosity as to whether the final episode was really as bad as everyone said it was. Which... Yes. Yes, it was. And all the more so because elements of it actually would have made a great ending to the show if only they, and everything leading up to them, hadn't been done so, well, awfully.
Seriously, someone could get a Masters' thesis out of all the ways in which Dexter grasps vaguely in the direction of some really interesting, brave, thought-provoking storytelling and then drops the ball on it, over and over. It is, ultimately, a fascinating failure. Sometimes it's an entertaining, even compulsively watchable one, sometimes one that threatens serious injury from all the banging your forehead against things it makes you want to do. Which is frustrating. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it was too much to ever expect anything else. After all, one of my earliest reactions to this show was, "I don't see how this premise is remotely sustainable, long-term." I was right about that, and it's entirely possible nothing was ever going to make it sustainable long-term. But I can't help but wonder, a little wistfully, what it might have been like if it were written with real vision, by someone willing to fully embrace the fundamental fucked-upped-ness of it all and able to consistently resist the temptation to buy into the character's own self-deluded ideas about being a hero.
I will give 'em this, thought: they had some fantastic casting.
Although, honestly, I think past a certain point I was mostly only continuing with it out of a sense of completeness and a strong, morbid curiosity as to whether the final episode was really as bad as everyone said it was. Which... Yes. Yes, it was. And all the more so because elements of it actually would have made a great ending to the show if only they, and everything leading up to them, hadn't been done so, well, awfully.
Seriously, someone could get a Masters' thesis out of all the ways in which Dexter grasps vaguely in the direction of some really interesting, brave, thought-provoking storytelling and then drops the ball on it, over and over. It is, ultimately, a fascinating failure. Sometimes it's an entertaining, even compulsively watchable one, sometimes one that threatens serious injury from all the banging your forehead against things it makes you want to do. Which is frustrating. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it was too much to ever expect anything else. After all, one of my earliest reactions to this show was, "I don't see how this premise is remotely sustainable, long-term." I was right about that, and it's entirely possible nothing was ever going to make it sustainable long-term. But I can't help but wonder, a little wistfully, what it might have been like if it were written with real vision, by someone willing to fully embrace the fundamental fucked-upped-ness of it all and able to consistently resist the temptation to buy into the character's own self-deluded ideas about being a hero.
I will give 'em this, thought: they had some fantastic casting.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Lots Of Places To Sit
Finally, the loveseat that goes with my new (or, by now, new-ish) sofa arrived!
I'm delighted to at last be able to send the old the old, saggy, cat-shredded one off to the dump with its sofa companion. They did well by me, back in the day, but they had well outlived their time.
Although with both pieces in place, my living room now feels a little too small. Not only are both the sofa and the loveseat bigger than the old ones, but the loveseat, unlike the old one, doesn't fit underneath the protruding windowsill, so it sticks out into the room more. And I had to move the end tables around into slightly less convenient positions. On the upside, though, people sitting in it will no longer bang their heads on the sill if they lean back. So that's good.
In other household news, I did get an electrician to come and check out the power supply to the dryer, and he said it was fine and the no-heat problem is definitely internal to the machine. Which is actually good news, since it's under warranty. But I think it's going to have to wait until I'm off night shifts for me to worry about that.
I'm delighted to at last be able to send the old the old, saggy, cat-shredded one off to the dump with its sofa companion. They did well by me, back in the day, but they had well outlived their time.
Although with both pieces in place, my living room now feels a little too small. Not only are both the sofa and the loveseat bigger than the old ones, but the loveseat, unlike the old one, doesn't fit underneath the protruding windowsill, so it sticks out into the room more. And I had to move the end tables around into slightly less convenient positions. On the upside, though, people sitting in it will no longer bang their heads on the sill if they lean back. So that's good.
In other household news, I did get an electrician to come and check out the power supply to the dryer, and he said it was fine and the no-heat problem is definitely internal to the machine. Which is actually good news, since it's under warranty. But I think it's going to have to wait until I'm off night shifts for me to worry about that.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
How Not-Dry I Am
For more than a decade, I've used a clothesline to dry all my laundry, or, occasionally, when I really needed to, I've gone across the street to the laundromat to use their dryers. I tell myself that it's cheaper and more environmentally friendly, which is true. But finally -- finally -- I decided I'd had enough. I'm tired of planning my laundry schedule around the (often highly unpredictable) weather, and then having to wait hours for it to dry. I'm especially tired of it this month, when we've had rain, or the threat of rain, pretty much every single afternoon. And, for various reasons, I had a goodly amount of extra cash in the ol' checking account this week. So I finally said "screw it," and went out and bought me a dryer. Yaaay!
Except... Except, while the thing comes on just fine, and air flows through it just fine, there's no heat whatsoever. Sigh. It's possible the machine is defective, but I strongly suspect it's an issue with the electricity supply, especially as I've never had a reason to use the 240-volt outlet before. So now I'm going to need to call an electrician. Which is going to be fun, because I'm just about to start on two weeks of night shifts. Why is it every time I try to make an improvement to my house and/or life, it just ends up causing me extra headaches? I think the world is extremely unfair this way, and someone really ought to have a word with it,.
Except... Except, while the thing comes on just fine, and air flows through it just fine, there's no heat whatsoever. Sigh. It's possible the machine is defective, but I strongly suspect it's an issue with the electricity supply, especially as I've never had a reason to use the 240-volt outlet before. So now I'm going to need to call an electrician. Which is going to be fun, because I'm just about to start on two weeks of night shifts. Why is it every time I try to make an improvement to my house and/or life, it just ends up causing me extra headaches? I think the world is extremely unfair this way, and someone really ought to have a word with it,.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Some Of Us Go Around The Sun, Some Go Outward Away From It.
I am 44 years old today, which, as far as I can tell, may actually be about the age where you stop caring much about how old you are.
I would, however, like to thank NASA for the awesome Pluto mission they got me, even if it's not going to be fully unwrapped until tomorrow.
I would, however, like to thank NASA for the awesome Pluto mission they got me, even if it's not going to be fully unwrapped until tomorrow.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Ooh!
Ooh! New Doctor Who trailer! Complete with a date for the start of he new season. (Sept. 19. Mark your calendar!) I'm getting all flaily-hands excited, now.
July Currentlies
July has been slipping away from me fast. Here it is, time for this already!
Current clothes: Blue shorts and a white t-shirt that says, "The angels have the phonebox." Because I am just that much of a Whovian dork. Also white socks and brown boots, although I should take those off, because my feet are kind of hot.
Current mood: OK, although mostly right now I'm wondering where the hell this day went. I intended to get a bunch of stuff done, and then suddenly I looked at the clock and it was 4 PM and I'd barely even done anything. I'm trying to make up for that now, though. (Yes, "update blog" was actually an item on my to-do list.)
Current music: Nothing much at the moment. I'm once again trying hard to get caught up on some of my podcast listening.
Current annoyance: Oh, mostly just the usual "Why do I have to be a responsible adult?" crap.
Current thing: I cannot stop myself from obsessively watching random episodes of Shark Tank. This is all my sister's fault.
Current desktop picture: Still this bookish image. Maybe one day I'll change it again.
Current book: Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh. I'm not very far into it, but I'm already enjoying it a lot.
Current song in head: Nothing at all at the moment. Huh. That's a little odd.
Current refreshment: Orange spice tea.
Current DVD in player: Most recently, the original Mad Max. After seeing and loving Fury Road, I figured it'd be interesting to revisit the original movies. Or, in this case, to visit for the first time. I never saw any of them in the theater, but I had remembered catching random pieces of them on TV, back in the day. But, while I'm pretty sure I caught at least some of The Road Warrior and maybe a decent-sized chunk of Thunderdome, it turns out I hadn't seen any of the first film at all. Or at least, it seemed entirely unfamiliar to me, watching it now. And... Well, unlike Fury Road, I don't think it can be described as a good movie by any reasonable set of criteria, even if it does maybe have a few moments of some sort of cheesy, violent charm. But I do feel more pop culturally literate, I guess, having finally watched it.
Current worry: Everything will go wrong with everything!
Current thought: I am starving. It may be time for a slightly early dinner, very soon.
Current clothes: Blue shorts and a white t-shirt that says, "The angels have the phonebox." Because I am just that much of a Whovian dork. Also white socks and brown boots, although I should take those off, because my feet are kind of hot.
Current mood: OK, although mostly right now I'm wondering where the hell this day went. I intended to get a bunch of stuff done, and then suddenly I looked at the clock and it was 4 PM and I'd barely even done anything. I'm trying to make up for that now, though. (Yes, "update blog" was actually an item on my to-do list.)
Current music: Nothing much at the moment. I'm once again trying hard to get caught up on some of my podcast listening.
Current annoyance: Oh, mostly just the usual "Why do I have to be a responsible adult?" crap.
Current thing: I cannot stop myself from obsessively watching random episodes of Shark Tank. This is all my sister's fault.
Current desktop picture: Still this bookish image. Maybe one day I'll change it again.
Current book: Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh. I'm not very far into it, but I'm already enjoying it a lot.
Current song in head: Nothing at all at the moment. Huh. That's a little odd.
Current refreshment: Orange spice tea.
Current DVD in player: Most recently, the original Mad Max. After seeing and loving Fury Road, I figured it'd be interesting to revisit the original movies. Or, in this case, to visit for the first time. I never saw any of them in the theater, but I had remembered catching random pieces of them on TV, back in the day. But, while I'm pretty sure I caught at least some of The Road Warrior and maybe a decent-sized chunk of Thunderdome, it turns out I hadn't seen any of the first film at all. Or at least, it seemed entirely unfamiliar to me, watching it now. And... Well, unlike Fury Road, I don't think it can be described as a good movie by any reasonable set of criteria, even if it does maybe have a few moments of some sort of cheesy, violent charm. But I do feel more pop culturally literate, I guess, having finally watched it.
Current worry: Everything will go wrong with everything!
Current thought: I am starving. It may be time for a slightly early dinner, very soon.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
Hitting The Oregon Trail! (Well, OK, Flying Into The Portland Airport.)
On Wednesday, I'm leaving for Oregon to attend my sister's wedding. (Congratulations, sis!!!!!) It seems like I have about five day's worth of stuff to get done in the two days until I leave, but I think I somehow used up all my stressiness last week. Right now, I'm feeling kind of mellow, and mostly just looking forward to it.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
I May Have Already Added At Least One Thing To My Wishlist Because Of This.
Today's book-related link: Whichbook, a site that invites you to move some controls around to tell it what kind of book you're looking for -- happy vs. sad, for instance, or easy vs. demanding -- and recommends things to you based on your input. I haven't played around with it too much yet, in part because more book recommendations is probably the last thing I need. But based on some of the results it gave me, I'd say it seems to know what it's doing. It's also coming up with lots of stuff I've never even heard of, too, which is nice.
Monday, June 08, 2015
The "How Is It This Far Into June Already?" Currentlies
Current clothes: Blue jeans. T-shirt from White Sands National Momument. White socks.
Current mood: Grrrrr. Computers are frustrating.
Current music: Nothing at the moment. Maybe I need some soothing music.
Current annoyance: I've been trying out various options for backing up my new PC. None of them seems to be quite what I want, and all of them have done at least one WTFish thing when I've tried them.
Current thing: Messing around with the new computer all day. And then playing Papers, Please on it all night. (Glory to Arstotzka!)
Current desktop picture: It's still this, although keeping it that way has been kind of an issue, because now that I have two Windows 8 machines (this and the laptop), Microsoft decided that clearly I want them both to have the same wallpaper. I got it to stop doing that, but I'm a little nervous to see if changing that setting changes anything else the next time I reboot.
Current book: Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World by Karl W. Giberson. Which I'm finding interesting from a historical perspective, and which maybe explains a few things about today's breed of evangelical Christianity.
Current song in head: Warren Zevon's "Networking". Dated, but thematically appropriate.
Current refreshment: Some kind of cheap zero-calorie black cherry soda water stuff. It's better than it sounds.
Current DVD in player: Disc 1 of season 6 of Dexter. Based on the fist two episodes, I'd say the storyline for this season could either be really cool and interesting, or it could get really stupid. Given that I know at least two people who bailed on the show at more or less this point, I'm not putting any money on Option A. As of now, though, I am still enjoying the show (for definitions of "enjoying" that include things that are dark and fucked-up). If nothing else, Michael C. Hall's performance alone would make it worth watching. The guest casting has been pretty great, too. But I think you could get an entire dissertation out of all the ways in which it consistently fails to evolve into the brilliant show it could be. (This spoilery AV Club discussion of the season 5 finale covers a lot of the reasons pretty well.)
Current worry: I think most of my worries at the moment, like most of my worries most of the time, boil down to a fear of not meeting my personal responsibilities. God, I hate being an adult.
Current thought: Everything actually is perfectly OK. Even if it does involve me having to act like an adult far too much of the time.
Current mood: Grrrrr. Computers are frustrating.
Current music: Nothing at the moment. Maybe I need some soothing music.
Current annoyance: I've been trying out various options for backing up my new PC. None of them seems to be quite what I want, and all of them have done at least one WTFish thing when I've tried them.
Current thing: Messing around with the new computer all day. And then playing Papers, Please on it all night. (Glory to Arstotzka!)
Current desktop picture: It's still this, although keeping it that way has been kind of an issue, because now that I have two Windows 8 machines (this and the laptop), Microsoft decided that clearly I want them both to have the same wallpaper. I got it to stop doing that, but I'm a little nervous to see if changing that setting changes anything else the next time I reboot.
Current book: Saving the Original Sinner: How Christians Have Used the Bible's First Man to Oppress, Inspire, and Make Sense of the World by Karl W. Giberson. Which I'm finding interesting from a historical perspective, and which maybe explains a few things about today's breed of evangelical Christianity.
Current song in head: Warren Zevon's "Networking". Dated, but thematically appropriate.
Current refreshment: Some kind of cheap zero-calorie black cherry soda water stuff. It's better than it sounds.
Current DVD in player: Disc 1 of season 6 of Dexter. Based on the fist two episodes, I'd say the storyline for this season could either be really cool and interesting, or it could get really stupid. Given that I know at least two people who bailed on the show at more or less this point, I'm not putting any money on Option A. As of now, though, I am still enjoying the show (for definitions of "enjoying" that include things that are dark and fucked-up). If nothing else, Michael C. Hall's performance alone would make it worth watching. The guest casting has been pretty great, too. But I think you could get an entire dissertation out of all the ways in which it consistently fails to evolve into the brilliant show it could be. (This spoilery AV Club discussion of the season 5 finale covers a lot of the reasons pretty well.)
Current worry: I think most of my worries at the moment, like most of my worries most of the time, boil down to a fear of not meeting my personal responsibilities. God, I hate being an adult.
Current thought: Everything actually is perfectly OK. Even if it does involve me having to act like an adult far too much of the time.
Saturday, June 06, 2015
Hardware Upgrade!
I am writing this from a brand new computer! Yay! The PC I was using was seven years old, which, in computer terms, qualifies as advanced dotage. And it was getting increasingly annoying in various ways. Plus, it was running XP, whose lack-of-suportedness was starting to reach the point of actually being dangerous. Like, I couldn't install the latest version of Java. Or not without it giving me dire warnings about how it probably wouldn't work, anyway. Since I'm not yet ready to switch to doing absolutely everything via laptop -- I know, I know, I haven't given up my landline, either -- I figured it was finally time to replace the thing. Basically, I got a newer model of the same machine -- the Dell Inspiron -- because the old one worked fine for years and I'm far too lazy to research my zillion possible options and pick the very best one. (Hey, psychologists will tell you that doesn't make you any more satisfied with your choices, anyway.)
But, oy, why is something like getting a new computer up and running always so ridiculously complicated? Even just getting my hands on the machine was a frustrating process. First, the FedEx person left a "you weren't home" tag on my door, even though I was home. (I think I was on the treadmill, which is kind of noisy, and they didn't knock loud enough. Or, y'know, ring the doorbell.) After that, they'd only try to deliver it after 3:30, when I needed to leave for work. I ended up having to be an hour late for work just so I could wait for the thing on Final Delivery Day, because otherwise I would have had to drive all the way to Albuquerque to pick it up. I'm just glad someone was able to cover for me. I've had to make entirely too many trips up to ABQ lately.
And, then, of course, there's all the setting things up, and updating and registering and downloading and installing and file transferring, and beating Windows 8 with a stick until it behaves. Which you expect to take quite a while, but which somehow always manages to take longer than you allow for, ever after you try to allow for that. ("Oops, I didn't copy those game save files off the old machine! Guess I need to hook it back up and turn it back on... Wait, why is the mouse suddenly not working on it?!")
My big mistake, of course, was trying to set up a new printer/scanner at the same time. It's a wireless printer, which I figured would be nice. Fewer cables in the tangle behind the desk, and I'd also be able to print to it from my laptop or even my phone. Gaah, what an undertaking setting that up was. It went something like: "Wow, these installation instructions are confusing... Why is it not seeing the printer on the network? Oh, wait, there it is. Wait, why is none of my other stuff able to connect to the network now? How did this change my WiFi password?! Crap, what's the admin password for the router? Aaargh! OK, changed it back. Now I need to figure out how to give the printer the WiFi password. Clearly I'll need to plug it in for that. OK, now how do I... Man, this is the least useful help function ever. I'll just keep trying things that look vaguely like they might do setup stuff until I find it. Ah, there we go! Wait, the printer needs an admin password in order for me to give it the WiFi password? Were the hell do I find that?! This manual ought to win some kind of Most Craptastic Manual award. Half the entries say 'see instructions!' I thought this was the instructions! What is a manual if not instructions?! Oh, there we go. OK, and... It works! Wait, no it doesn't work. Oh. It's working now. I don't know why it's working now and it wasn't before. Or why the printer is listed twice on my devices list. But maybe I don't care anymore."
Inevitably, of course, you reach a moment where things finally seem to be more or less working, and then you suddenly realize that it's 1:30 in the afternoon, you've been at it since 9:00, and you haven't had lunch or, for that matter, breakfast.
But! Everything does seem to be working now! Yaaaaay!
And my brand new keyboard already has cat hair in it. So clearly everything is back to normal.
But, oy, why is something like getting a new computer up and running always so ridiculously complicated? Even just getting my hands on the machine was a frustrating process. First, the FedEx person left a "you weren't home" tag on my door, even though I was home. (I think I was on the treadmill, which is kind of noisy, and they didn't knock loud enough. Or, y'know, ring the doorbell.) After that, they'd only try to deliver it after 3:30, when I needed to leave for work. I ended up having to be an hour late for work just so I could wait for the thing on Final Delivery Day, because otherwise I would have had to drive all the way to Albuquerque to pick it up. I'm just glad someone was able to cover for me. I've had to make entirely too many trips up to ABQ lately.
And, then, of course, there's all the setting things up, and updating and registering and downloading and installing and file transferring, and beating Windows 8 with a stick until it behaves. Which you expect to take quite a while, but which somehow always manages to take longer than you allow for, ever after you try to allow for that. ("Oops, I didn't copy those game save files off the old machine! Guess I need to hook it back up and turn it back on... Wait, why is the mouse suddenly not working on it?!")
My big mistake, of course, was trying to set up a new printer/scanner at the same time. It's a wireless printer, which I figured would be nice. Fewer cables in the tangle behind the desk, and I'd also be able to print to it from my laptop or even my phone. Gaah, what an undertaking setting that up was. It went something like: "Wow, these installation instructions are confusing... Why is it not seeing the printer on the network? Oh, wait, there it is. Wait, why is none of my other stuff able to connect to the network now? How did this change my WiFi password?! Crap, what's the admin password for the router? Aaargh! OK, changed it back. Now I need to figure out how to give the printer the WiFi password. Clearly I'll need to plug it in for that. OK, now how do I... Man, this is the least useful help function ever. I'll just keep trying things that look vaguely like they might do setup stuff until I find it. Ah, there we go! Wait, the printer needs an admin password in order for me to give it the WiFi password? Were the hell do I find that?! This manual ought to win some kind of Most Craptastic Manual award. Half the entries say 'see instructions!' I thought this was the instructions! What is a manual if not instructions?! Oh, there we go. OK, and... It works! Wait, no it doesn't work. Oh. It's working now. I don't know why it's working now and it wasn't before. Or why the printer is listed twice on my devices list. But maybe I don't care anymore."
Inevitably, of course, you reach a moment where things finally seem to be more or less working, and then you suddenly realize that it's 1:30 in the afternoon, you've been at it since 9:00, and you haven't had lunch or, for that matter, breakfast.
But! Everything does seem to be working now! Yaaaaay!
And my brand new keyboard already has cat hair in it. So clearly everything is back to normal.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Also, I Swear I Was A More Confident And Assertive Driver On The Trip Home.
I did, in fact, get out to see the new Mad Max movie! And, OK. It is, first and foremost, a ridiculous, violent action movie. If you're not OK with ridiculous, violent action movies, you're not going to enjoy it. But it is a really well-done example of the kind of thing it is, in some genuinely surprising ways. Ones that were still genuinely surprising to me even after having heard people talking about them all over the internet.
Yes, it is basically a two-hour car chase. I would really, really expect that to get dull pretty quickly, but instead it just gets more and more exciting as it goes along. And the character stuff... Well, in most action movies, let's face it, what you get for characterization is mostly cliche, or lip service being paid to the idea that stories are supposed to have character development. But this one creates surprisingly well-realized characters with an absolute bare minimum of dialog, and the emotional moments are genuinely affecting. I'm honestly not sure how they did that, but it's impressive. And, yes, the reviews are all right: this is a movie that does well by its women. In fact... It feels, in a very subtle and hard-to-pin down way, as if it's a movie made for me, just as much as it is for the men in the audience. I think that may be the first time that has ever happened with this kind of gonzo blood-and-explosions action movie. And it could be that's just an illusion, based on preconceptions I had about it going in. But I think not entirely? And that's... a bit mind-blowing. But nice.
So, that's now three movies in three days that I've actually really enjoyed, and that have fully kept my attention the whole way through. (The first, of course, was Interstellar. The second was Big Hero 6, which I watched on DVD yesterday, and thought was pleasant and fun.) If this continues, I may have to take back all that stuff I said a while back about how movies in general no longer seem to entertain me the way that TV shows do. Although, sadly, I suspect this may just be something of a lucky streak.
Yes, it is basically a two-hour car chase. I would really, really expect that to get dull pretty quickly, but instead it just gets more and more exciting as it goes along. And the character stuff... Well, in most action movies, let's face it, what you get for characterization is mostly cliche, or lip service being paid to the idea that stories are supposed to have character development. But this one creates surprisingly well-realized characters with an absolute bare minimum of dialog, and the emotional moments are genuinely affecting. I'm honestly not sure how they did that, but it's impressive. And, yes, the reviews are all right: this is a movie that does well by its women. In fact... It feels, in a very subtle and hard-to-pin down way, as if it's a movie made for me, just as much as it is for the men in the audience. I think that may be the first time that has ever happened with this kind of gonzo blood-and-explosions action movie. And it could be that's just an illusion, based on preconceptions I had about it going in. But I think not entirely? And that's... a bit mind-blowing. But nice.
So, that's now three movies in three days that I've actually really enjoyed, and that have fully kept my attention the whole way through. (The first, of course, was Interstellar. The second was Big Hero 6, which I watched on DVD yesterday, and thought was pleasant and fun.) If this continues, I may have to take back all that stuff I said a while back about how movies in general no longer seem to entertain me the way that TV shows do. Although, sadly, I suspect this may just be something of a lucky streak.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Home And (Far, Far) Away
I've been working ridiculous hours the last couple of weeks, and now finally have a nice chunk of time off. And, hoo, boy, did I need it. Partly because I was getting super-stressed, and partly because I desperately needed some time to just get things done. In the last two days, I think I've finished about two weeks' worth of housecleaning, yard work, errand running, and various other annoying responsible-adult crap.
Then, having accomplished enough that I felt like I could finally relax again, I treated myself to a movie. I watched Insterstellar. Which was fantastic. Even though there were certain things about it that really shouldn't have worked for me, it was fantastic, which maybe just makes it all the more impressive. I put it on late in the afternoon, figuring I would stop it in the middle to heat myself up some dinner, and then pretty much just didn't re-emerge for three hours. I'd say that I slightly regret not seeing it in the theater now, but there were a few places in there where I found myself weeping like an idiot, and it may be just as well that didn't happen in public. I am, at least, glad that I somehow managed to remain completely unspoiled for it. Seriously, the only things I knew going in were that it got good buzz, there was supposed to be some actual science in it, and (I was pretty sure) there was a wormhole in it somewhere. Which you would think might actually be enough to get me to the theater, but I honestly expected it to be kind of disappointing. So many SF movies are.
Now I just have to get out to see the new Mad Max film, since everyone is insisting I absolutely must...
Then, having accomplished enough that I felt like I could finally relax again, I treated myself to a movie. I watched Insterstellar. Which was fantastic. Even though there were certain things about it that really shouldn't have worked for me, it was fantastic, which maybe just makes it all the more impressive. I put it on late in the afternoon, figuring I would stop it in the middle to heat myself up some dinner, and then pretty much just didn't re-emerge for three hours. I'd say that I slightly regret not seeing it in the theater now, but there were a few places in there where I found myself weeping like an idiot, and it may be just as well that didn't happen in public. I am, at least, glad that I somehow managed to remain completely unspoiled for it. Seriously, the only things I knew going in were that it got good buzz, there was supposed to be some actual science in it, and (I was pretty sure) there was a wormhole in it somewhere. Which you would think might actually be enough to get me to the theater, but I honestly expected it to be kind of disappointing. So many SF movies are.
Now I just have to get out to see the new Mad Max film, since everyone is insisting I absolutely must...
Thursday, May 21, 2015
An Anniversary
As of yesterday, it has been one year since I had my surgery. Which is kind of an odd thought for me. On one hand, that period of recovery time seems to have receded into the distant past and taken on a strangely unreal quality. I actually have to actively remind myself that, oh, yeah, that really happened, that time when I couldn't even bend over. On the other hand, surely I have not aged a full year since then. Wait, you mean even my cats have aged a full year since then? That's a significant chunk of lifespan for them! It cannot be possible! Seriously, time is just... weird. You'd think the older I get, and the more of it I experience, the more used I would be to the way it passes, but instead it keeps taking me more and more by surprise.
Anyway. They -- by which, of course I mean the internet -- say that it takes a year to fully recover from a hysterectomy, so I guess I should celebrate now or something. I remember, just after the surgery, reading a site that had a timeline of what to expect as you heal, and somewhere a few months in was the milestone of finding you could go an entire day at a time without thinking about having had the surgery. A few weeks in, I was having serious trouble believing that would ever be possible, but, of course, it was. By now, even the numbness around my scar that lingered for most of the year has faded. And the scar itself has faded into an unobtrusive line that I mostly can't see over my fat belly, anyway.
The one thing that hasn't faded -- as I feared it was going to -- is my joy at the results. I have not yet come to take the fact that I am not bleeding massively from my genitals once a month for granted. Indeed, the realization that that is not happening and -- unless something goes very badly wrong -- never will again still hits me on a fairly regular basis, and it's hard to keep a grin off my face when it does.
Anyway. They -- by which, of course I mean the internet -- say that it takes a year to fully recover from a hysterectomy, so I guess I should celebrate now or something. I remember, just after the surgery, reading a site that had a timeline of what to expect as you heal, and somewhere a few months in was the milestone of finding you could go an entire day at a time without thinking about having had the surgery. A few weeks in, I was having serious trouble believing that would ever be possible, but, of course, it was. By now, even the numbness around my scar that lingered for most of the year has faded. And the scar itself has faded into an unobtrusive line that I mostly can't see over my fat belly, anyway.
The one thing that hasn't faded -- as I feared it was going to -- is my joy at the results. I have not yet come to take the fact that I am not bleeding massively from my genitals once a month for granted. Indeed, the realization that that is not happening and -- unless something goes very badly wrong -- never will again still hits me on a fairly regular basis, and it's hard to keep a grin off my face when it does.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Oh, That's How You Do It!
Yay, I remembered how to sleep! I remembered how to sleep a lot! Mind you, sleeping for ten or eleven hours and waking up very late in the morning is far from ideal when you have to get up early for work the next day. But at this point, I'll take it. I feel better today than I have in at least the last week.
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