I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

I've had two migraines in two weeks (which is unusual for me, so I’m keeping an eye on that–I see the doctor in a few weeks, anyway, so yay, more to discuss), and this one's headache has been with me off and on ever since. Not sure what may have triggered it, but I’m kind of leaning toward either stress or the weather.

I'm also thinking about doing an experiment and only using my iPad for, like, computer/internet stuff this weekend. Just to see if I can.

Between my total inability to deal with Twitter, my migraine pretty much every other time I go on Facebook, the total confusion that is Tumblr conversation, and my learning curve for my just-acquired DropBox account* ...

(shakes cane)

In other news, the beauty and ease of use of my iPhone is making me really want to replace the Nook with the small iPad. Which probably also goes toward proving how damn old I am.

I refuse to get on Pinterest for at least another week. REFUSE.


*I am leaving Google behind ... murky TOS, I like syncing one calendar between Scott and I; really, I just need them for the gmail.

Odd Things

It looks like they replaced the top of my laptop, as it's not nearly as scratched as the old one was (as Scott says, this only makes sense). In addition, when I booted the laptop up last night, it came up as plain mint wallpaper. So of course I went through all the wallpapers to fix that.

I don't remember all these wallpapers! There are paintings (including the Seurat painting Sunday Afternoon--if that's the real title, I don't know my pointillists as well as I ought to), and photos of, like, Buddhist temples (and I am now beginning to think this computer might be trying to tell me it belongs to David and not me ...), and how did I miss this when I was setting the computer up the first time?!

Not to mention the cool screensaver that makes it look like my photos are dropping, one by one, on top of each other.

I always expect, when I have a new computer or something like this makes it seem new, that the internet will also be new and shiny. And it really never is.

Water and Speed!

We live about five minutes away from a small water park. Not the usual water park we go to, with the cute water features and the mini-train; no, this has water slides and a pool and a "lazy river." This place is ridiculously expensive (I think), but Z loves water, so I've been considering whether to take him there. Well, a couple of days ago I saw that they're doing a $7 admission for the next two weekends, as these are the last two weekends they'll be open until around March, so today we got sunblocked and bathing suited, and headed over.

It's a lot nicer than I was expecting (though not nice enough to justify their usual admission fee), with complimentary life jackets, and there was actually quite a lot that Z could do. First he hit the kiddie slides that were kids-only, then we hit the pool/lagoon and took the inner tubes around the lazy river. The lazy river is basically a canal thing filled with about 3 feet of water, with jets that create a current. The second time Z. and I were in there, he didn't want an inner tube (who could blame him--his arms are too short to really grab the handles and it was like he was in an inflatable submarine), so we went without. He was bobbing along with his life jacket, practicing swimming, while I waded behind him looking around for Scott who was wiping chlorine out of his eyes. I glanced back and, thanks to the current and Mr. Z's vigorous kicking, found my kid scooting along three feet ahead of me!

Once we reunited, Z. decided he wanted out, so we exited the river. Then we hit one of the big slides, which he could only do with a grown-up in a dual tube.

So up we go, Scott with a single tube and me with the double, hauling these things up the stairs, placing them in the water, and then getting Z. situated in the front and me in the back. Then off we go ...

... and the tube around the slide is pitch black.

Well, that's a trifle disconcerting.

But I am a mother who does not want her son to freak out, so I start yelling "Woo hoo! Awesome!" Scott said he could hear us whooping all the way down the tube.

At the end of this, I discovered that there is no graceful way to exit an inner tube.

We did that slide two more times. We also hit the really, really tall, but not quite the tallest, slide three times. That one, at least, we could see in. The second time, Z had suggested we do our Disney race car schtick, so I kept saying how relaxing it was right before we hit a turn and got water up our noses.

Scott went down the practically-a-freefall slides. ALONE.

Then we got ice cream, re-sunblocked, drank water, and went back in the pool/lagoon. Scott and I talked Z into hitting the lazy river again, and this time we sat him on one side of an inner tube and I told him to put his feet up like he had on the slides, and so he rode around the river as though he were on an inflatable car.

We hit a few more slides--he went on the kiddie slides again and figured out how to make himself go fast; the last time down he was flat on his back with one arm up in the air giving the world a thumbs-up.

And then we were all tired and ready to come home, and so we did. None of us are sunburned. The kid is playing video games with Scott. I'm sore from hauling dual inner tubes up stairs. But it was a good day. Tuesday I get buried in grading, so I'm glad we got to have a nice day out today.

I love to read. It's one of the things everyone has known about me my entire life--people I barely knew in school knew I loved to read. And recently, whenever I'm somewhere and I whip out an actual paper book, I get The Question.

So here are my answers to "Why don't you have a Kindle/Nook/iPad?"

1. Price tag. I'm broke, people, and I have other stuff I need to spend my money on.

2. I like e-readers, particularly iPads, but I really don't need another gadget. I have at least two devices that allow me to read stuff electronically, and both of them also surf the net, play music and movies, hold pictures, and do e-mail. Yeah, an iPad would be more convenient for some of this stuff in terms of size, but when size is the only reason I can come up with to buy something, well, it's not enough.

3. I'm klutzy. I live in fear of dropping my laptop and my phone. If I drop a book, the worst thing that happens is my foot gets bruised.

4. Based on my experiences with my smartphone and my DS, if the Zweeble saw me reading on an iPad, he'd want to play with it. If I'm reading a book, he dismisses it as a grown-up thing and I don't have to share. (I think the same would go for a Nook. Probably not a Kindle.)

None of this is to disparage e-readers--I think those things are probably a godsend for students (or soon will be), and if I were in college right now I'd be all over one; plus, I have friends who love theirs and that's cool. Anything that gets people reading is teh awesome. And in another four or five years, I'll probably get one, too. But at the moment, I'm doing fine without it.

My iBook is about to be retired.

It's been glitchy and slow for a while now. None of the newer web browsers work on it. It's been driving me crazy, and my family--crazy, lovely people that they are--chipped in to give me the cash to buy a new laptop.

So I did. The thing is, while I am happy about the new Macbook, I am not as excited as I think I ought to be. Part of this is because I won't have time to really play with it and get things moved onto it until this weekend, but a lot of it is also that ... well, I love my iBook.

It was our first Mac, the Kool-Aide, if you will. It was the first piece of tech that I owned and got super-excited about. Yes, we got an iPod back when they were like small bricks and had buttons along the top (Scott still uses that one, actually), and I thought it was really neat ... but the iBook was mine. And unlike my previous laptop, it worked the way it was supposed to. For the most part, aside from the issues of old age, it still does.

I love the keyboard and the way it feels. I love the size--I am, actually, not thrilled at the extra inch on the Macbook--and the squareness of it. I will be happy to be rid of the LCD and the letters that can rub off the keys, and with the Zweeble running around the magnetic power cord will ease my mind a lot, but ... I love this computer.

I have written a lot of stuff on it. Read a lot on it. I surfed the web on it with my tiny Zweeble lying on the couch next to me, two days after he came home from the hospital.

My dad is taking it, once I unload all my stuff from it. This is a nice, gentle retirement; my father wants to write some stuff, maybe load pictures on it. He's kind of excited about it. So I'm sending it to a good home, my little iBook, but still. I will miss it. It's been a really good little laptop.

All right. Enough misty sentimentality over a piece of equipment. Onto the meme!

Day 11 - Put your iPod on shuffle and write 10 songs that pop up

All right, here's the thing: I share this iPod with Scott and the Zweeble. It's the family iPod. I have a Nano that I planned to use as my personal iPod, only my music on it, but in the end it was just easier to make a playlist on the family iPod. Or, well, ten. :) (Really, while I'm giving my father the iBook, I ought to see if my mother wants the Nano.)

So this is not entirely indicative of my tastes. And as it is late, I'm just looking at titles and not listening to the songs. But here we go, anyway:

1. "Every Day Is Exactly the Same" - Nine Inch Nails, With Teeth

I love NIN. This isn't my favorite song, but it's not bad. And I am psyched that Trent Reznor won an Oscar.

2. "Clint Eastwood" - Gorillaz, Gorillaz

"Rhythm, you have it or you don't, that's a fallacy, I'm in them ..."

This is a great song. I have it on one of my "cheer Laura up" playlists because it makes me smile when I hear it.

"I'm useless, but not for long, the future is coming on ..."

3. "Spider In My Room" - Barenaked Ladies, Born on a Pirate Ship

Hm. I know I know this song, but when I try to remember it all I do is sing "Boris the Spider," which ain't it. I like quite a bit off this album, but apparently this song didn't stick in my mind. I'll have to listen to it tomorrow when I take the boy to school.

4. "Hey You" - No Doubt, Tragic Kingdom

Scott bought this album. I liked one or two songs off it; I like Return of Saturn better, overall, and Rock Steady is actually my favorite No Doubt album. I haven't really been into Gwen Stefani's solo career, but I remember seeing No Doubt on SNL ages ago and really digging this girl with hennaed hands fronting a band.

5. "The Abduction of Margaret" - The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love

I love this album. I love the ambition of it, and the depth and the sound of it. This is a song you really need in context; unlike "The Rake's Song" or some of the other ones, it doesn't stand alone well.

I remember sitting in dead-stopped traffic, the Zweeble asleep in the back seat, listening to this album.

6. "Flathead" - the Fratellis, Costello Music

No idea. Scott must have bought this. Something else to play tomorrow morning.

7. "Just You Wait" - Julie Andrews, My Fair Lady

One of the great spiteful, I-hate-you songs of musical theater. And Julie Andrews rocks. I like Audrey Hepburn, but dudes. Plus, apparently Audrey Hepburn sang but was still dubbed? I dunno, Hollywood has always been weird, I suppose.

8. "My Friends Tigger & Pooh Theme" - Playhouse Disney Musical Block Party

Totally the Zweeble. That Darby kid is a blasphemy. And why, exactly, did Tigger and Pooh need to be detectives? Not that they were particularly good detectives ... I will say, however, that the episode where Piglet and Tigger switched bodies was pretty hilarious. Teeny Piglet bouncing around like a not was kinda fun.

9. "In a Big Country" - Big Country, The Best of Big Country

Much like "Solisbury Hill," this is a song that makes me feel like I'm in the opening montage of a movie whenever it plays.

10. "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" - Tori Amos, Strange Little Girls

I have heard the original, and let me tell you, Tori Amos creeps me out way, way more than Eminem. Then again, was he trying to be creepy? I don't know. All I know is, this song makes my skin crawl.

All righty. That's it for now. Bedtime. I was so exhausted today, and wound up napping, and I can only hope I haven't screwed up any possibility for sleeping tonight.





( This awaits you, with long pointy teeth! )

Today was a giant, huge, enormous WASTE of a day.

I went to bed late (my fault) and took Zyrtec for my allergies, which were acting up and my doctor has me trying to stay on top of them so I don't end up with the allergy attack from hell like I had back in February (so, not my fault).

I spent today in a total haze and fog that was not helped by finding my child with button batteries in one hand, just about to start licking the electrical doohickey from his little flashlight. Dear god. And there are supposed to be three batteries, but I could only find two, so there was a frantic call to Scott who assured me that there were only two batteries on the table this morning, no Z. did not eat one ...

And Z's yelling, "I didn't swallow one, Mom! I didn't!"

So the adrenaline rush and subsequent crash were also not helpful.

Luckily my mother took a personal day today and was coming over anyway, so when she and Grandma arrived I got to haze my way around and then crash out with Z. for his nap.

Then it was off to mandatory fun for Scott's work, and a quick trip to Best Buy, where I played with an iPad.

Okay, I have tried to resist. I know I don't need one. But it's official, I have succombed to the siren song, I have drunk the kool-aide, and I want an iPad. Not a first gen, I am not that far gone, but I do want one. On the plus side, I still don't feel I need one, so there's that.

And then we got home, got the boy in bed, and ... I have no brain. I am not anywhere near coherent enough to do work. So I'm not. I'm going to, in fact, end this entry and read my book for twenty minutes and then go to bed.

I hate days like this. I got nothing done. I didn't take a day off and have fun. No, I partly screwed myself and partly got screwed by something I'm supposed to do, and it sucks.

Ugh.

Tomorrow's a play date at trhe beach, though, so that should be nice.

I'm only typing this entry because I want to use the new keyboard we got for our desktop. It's one of the streamlined ones that's more like a laptop keyboard than a desktop keyboard. The mouse plugs into the side. It's not wireless, but it looks all nifty on my desk. Only thing is, we just noticed tonight that there's no number pad on it, and I actually use the number pad pretty often. That said, though, I don't really like the number pad for a calculator, and now I may have an excuse to get a really small adding machine. :)

Our computer is now kinda hodge-podgey: the Mini with an LG monitor, the old mouse and the shiny new keyboard. Everything used to be all white and futuristic on my tempered-glass desk (it looks like ... is it milk glass? That greenish stuff from the 50s that Martha Stewart collects?)--very bridge of the new Enterpise. Now, however, it's ... well, it's too new to be Blade Runner, but more akin to that than the other. I like it. :)

I have also, it seems, developed a callus on the tip of my right index finger. I was thinking it was either cancer or the beginnings of leprosy, possibly the carpal tunnel finally making its long-awaited move towards right hand domination, and then I thought ... could it be a callus? I have, after all, been laptopping it since shortly after Scott and I got married, which is eight and a half years ago now, and my first laptop had one of those pencil-eraser mice. I've never been good at using a regular mouse with the laptop; I always forget I've attached it and end up using the trackpad. So it's possible. The next tell-tae callus of us writery people: the index finger callus. It replaces the pen and/or pencil bump on your middle finger.

Hm. What else? Headed to the parents' for the weekend. Dad's still in NC, so it'll be me and Mom and the boyo, possibly Scott. Well, definitely Scott on Saturday, but not sure about tomorrow.

And Michael Jackson died, which seems so incredibly weird to me.

1. It took me a week, but the office is finally re-organized and put together (except for the desktop, see below), the filing cabinet is filled (but has room for more stuff), and my art is on the walls ... and the whole room feels cozier. I still have the huge blank wall over the desk to do something with--I think I shall collect things, frame them, and make a semi-collage. I used to (back in high school and college) fill the area over my desk with postcards and pictures I liked; it was just all this stuff to inspire me and make me happy. This would be the adult, less-chaotic version of that.

2. The Zweeble is with his grandparents this weekend, so we took our iMac in for repair. "It's been acting all kinds of crazy," as the tech dude said. Apparently we've been doing the repair permissions/disk thing wrong, and there may be some hardware problems. This will be the last repair of the iMac. I've had that stupid thing in the shop way too often. The perils of buying the first generation of anything, I guess. So if it goes belly-up again, we'll be a laptop family until the Zweeble needs a computer for homework.

3. We attempted to buy Lego Batman, because we were under the assumption that it came out this week, which it did not. (September! Can you beleive that? I suppose they got Lego Indiana Jones out in time for the new Indy movie, and Dark Knight is really [maybe, I wouldn't know, see below] too dark for a Lego tie-in, but come on!) Then we tried to go and see Dark Knight, and the sound was so sucktastic we left and demanded our money back. We could hear the music and background stuff just fine, but all the dialogue sounded like it was being said inside a tin can. If all the previews and the commercials hadn't sounded the same way, I might have assumed it was just some sort of artistic choice, but ... yeah. Ow.

Anyway, we got our money back and will head out tomorrow to see the movie.

4. Watchmen. Probably not going to go see it. I don't think Alan Moore translates well to the screen, and while I'm sure it will be visually gorgeous, I'm just not excited about it being a movie. My opinion of the trailer: too much Dr. Manhattan, not enough Rorschach.

5. Yes, I did see Doctor Who last night. I loved it. Again, can you write fanfic for your own show, on your own show? But I don't care, because it was hilarious and fun, and the ending was ... well, it was a Doctor Who ending. Perfect and deadly.

( BIG HAIRY SPOILERS! )

Well, I hope for a season 5, or specials, or whatever. I also hope they'll film and sell David Tennant as Hamlet.