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February 2011

 

bullet February 28, 2011

Mother Nature needs to pick a season. This bouncing from blustery winter snow storms and temps in the teens to rain and temps in the 50's a week later is just freaking me right out.

Posted at 12:00 PM
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bullet February 27, 2011

Pickle power!!

Posted at 10:00 AM
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bullet February 26, 2011

That snow kicked my ass yesterday. I'm still exhausted and achy.

Wah!

Posted at 12:48 PM
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bullet February 25, 2011

For the first time in my life I'm starting to feel like I don't want to live where it snows. That's sad, really, because I love the beauty of snow and I love the changing of the seasons. It's just that here I'm a slave to the snow because of my grandma, whereas in the past I could clear snow as much or as little as I wanted and whenever it was opportune for me. Here it's everything all at once, and that's exhausting - and it's a huge area, too, not just around my car in a lot somebody else will see gets cleared.

I don't want to be so sick of snow that I want to live somewhere else, but I do.

Posted at 10:27 AM
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bullet February 24, 2011

I really just want to shut down for a long while. Why can't I do that?

Posted at 11:02 AM
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bullet February 23, 2011

Nicholas Courtney has died, and I am greatly saddened.

Rest well, Nicholas. You will always and forever be the Brigadier in my mind, and there in my mind you will live for eternity. Thank you for all of the wonderful memories. Thank you for showing that chivalry can exist in the modern world. Thank you for allowing me to believe in heroes and the best humanity has to offer. Thank you for all of those things and more.

Posted at 11:18 AM
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bullet February 22, 2011

My favorite Doctor Who line is "Oh look - rocks," followed closely by "Harry Sullivan is an idiot." Anybody clever enough to name the episodes?

I'll give a hint: it's not even my most favorite or second most favorite Doctor who says either line.

Posted at 11:56 PM
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bullet February 21, 2011

The temperatures in the high fifties last week were fine, but I would have been jut as comfortable with temps in the thirties - what's more normal. IT would certainly beat the low twenties we have now, complete with a sheet of ice over everything from the freezing rain we had last night.

These fool Republicans who continue to deny global climate change should be put to manual labor cleaning up the problems caused by excessive ice, flooding, and drought that are all part of the same equation. This idiocy of denying climate change is beyond me. You'd think these people wouldn't even believe in evolution!

Ignorance may be bliss, but it's running this country down the toilet.

Posted at 12:39 PM
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bullet February 20, 2011

I can still remember how Sundays used to be my day to sleep in late and relax, even though that was SO LONG AGO.

Will anything like that ever come again?

Posted at 10:01 AM
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bullet February 19, 2011

Why don't we see more rock stars in Star Trek? I mean, it's a cashless society where everyone can choose whatever career they want. Wouldn't millions of kids be rock stars, even a few hundred years in the future? Particularly if they didn't have to worry about money or shelter or food?

So where are they?

Posted at 11:15 AM
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bullet February 18, 2011

I can't get the theme from Space:1999 out of my head. How weird is that?

Posted at 11:02 AM
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bullet February 17, 2011

I can still see the magic of the world in so many things around me ... but when did I stop seeing the promise?

Posted at 1:03 PM
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bullet February 16, 2011

Re -DICK-YOU-less. That's what it is.

Posted at 12:23 PM
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bullet February 15, 2011

If only ...

Posted at 11:12 AM
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bullet February 14, 2011

We have everything at our disposal to make it possible for everyone to live theDreamworld in the real world, and the only thing stopping it is the less than 0.5% of the whole world's population who control the cash, resources, and political influence to make it happen. I'm not talking complete equality - I'm not naive enough to ever expect that - but I'm talking about generalized parity without poverty, famine, or disease, and a life with needs fulfilled and satisfied: a world where everyone could actually be happy.

But instead we have pain, death, and misery - widespread and unending - even in our own "first world" nation. All because of selfish greed. All because of the desire for power. Revolutions are happening in a number of countries right now where repressive dictators are being overthrown, yet the real dictators, the real oppressors - the most wealthy people in the world - they are the ones who should be toppled. They are the ones who should be brought to justice. They maintain the imbalance of power and the crush of poverty. They are the true enemy, the true dictators.

Posted at 12:25 PM
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bullet February 13, 2011

I now not only can't even plan more than a day or two into the future, but I can't even plan more than a couple hours into the future - if that. This complete instability is harder to deal with than just about everything else.

But whadda ya gonna do?

Posted at 11:30 AM
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bullet February 12, 2011

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Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.

Posted at 1:34 PM
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bullet February 11, 2011

Why can't (won't) my grandma sleep at night rather than the daytime?

I could even accept both - older people often sleep some during the day in addition to sleeping in bed at night - but that's not the problem.

My grandma leans over and falls asleep during the morning, afternoon, and evening, arguing with me when I wake her up, but when it's time to go to bed she fights to stay up and won't go to sleep. When she finally does drift off at night in bed, if for any reason she wakes up then she refuses to allow herself to go back to sleep, no matter how tired she is, no matter that she's surrounded by pitch black darkness. This might not be a big deal since she'd eventually sleep from exhaustion, but when she's up in the middle of the night is when she causes problems by trying to get up, throwing off her covers, pulling off her diapers, or moving herself into a position that will hurt her or at least make her ache. I, meanwhile, am grabbing the little sleep I can get (which isn't really enough) and don't find these during-the-night problems until I'm getting my grandma up in the morning.

I don't like my grandma losing sleep, making a mess in the bed that her diapers would otherwise catch, or hurting herself in any way, but I have to sleep some time. This shouldn't be a problem in the first place if she'd just sleep during the night. All I've been able to do is try to keep her from sleeping during the day, hoping that she'll just be so exhausted at night that she'll sleep. That doesn't always work, however, and even when it does work, it's exhausting for me to have to wake her up every ten minutes from Noon 'til 10 PM. Up and down stairs, setting her up and waking her up and explaining that she needs to try to stay awake - every ten minutes for ten hours. Some fun.

This kind of thing is ridiculous.

Posted at 12:17 PM
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bullet February 10, 2011

So far I have been almost perfectly pleased with my iPhone. The phone itself - and it's built-in apps and iOS - are perfect and function easily and perfectly. Even the third-party apps I've added are great, simple, and working as advertised. I have seen that some apps crash now and again, but I have yet to have that problem with anything. So far everything works perfectly and is very easy to figure out and use.

My one gripe is about books. Apple has its own iBook app and the accompanying iBook store. Amazon has its Kindle app and Kindle books through Amazon's store or the Kindle app. And there are other free-standing third-party apps with books as well. These are all fine. Some are are laid out better than others but they're all basically the same. The problem is that they're all separate. They each give you a "Library" - a collection of the books you won - but each app/provider makes it's own "Library within its own app. That sucks!

Think about it. At home, do you have separate bookshelves divided by publisher or distributor? One shelf for Random House books, one cabinet of Penguin Classics. Or maybe one bookshelf of your purchases from Amazon and one for your purchases from Borders. You don't? Well neither do I. Nobody does. And yet on your iPhone or iPad you have to have decidedly separate apps that you have to tap a couple times to enter and a couple times to exit. It's annoying and, honestly, just a pain in the ass. And it's only done this way because each app-maker wants you to just use their app and buy more from them only. Well, folks. It would be much more pleasant - and functional - for the user to access one library filled with all books purchased from all providers. I don't see why this should be at all difficult, and I can't see any reason it's not done this way except greed.

I'm disappointed, Apple. This may be a small thing - a small gripe out of a nearly perfect experience with my new iPhone - but this is truly bullshit. There is a much better way to do this, it's doable, it's not very complicated, and it would make a better user experience. Just fix it.

Posted at 2:00 PM
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bullet February 9, 2011

Let me sleep forever.

Posted at 12:47 PM
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bullet February 8, 2011

My iPhone arrived via FedEx today. Finally Verizon has it available, and even though I had to be up in the wee hours of the morning to order it last week (i.e., 3 AM), it is great to finally have it. In fact, if my grandma weren't being so difficult for the past few days, I think I would truly enjoy this. As it is, I already appreciate the improvements over my Motorola RAZR, which I've loved, and I've only really just begun to play with the iPhone.

This being my first new cell phone in six years AND it being an iPhone makes it much more advanced and much more versatile, but being made by Apple and using the iOS makes it the most easy to use and comfortable phone I've ever had.

Now if I can just find some time and patience during which to enjoy it ...

Posted at 11:00 AM
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bullet February 7, 2011

There must have been some strange confluence of the planets or something last night because I was finally able to watch Kung Fu Panda from start to finish.

I had thought this movie might be fun when it was first released in the theatre, but of course I didn't get to go since I can't leave here and spend a few hours in a movie theatre. But, I figured it would come to TV eventually and I could see it. Well, technically that's true, but ...

As it turned out, every damn time this movie was aired (only on FX), something came up with my grandma to make me miss just about all of it. Sometimes it wasn't my grandma even. My mom called on two different occasions just as I was about to watch, and my sister called on another. There was even a whole day marathon where FX played the damn movie back to back repeatedly - still no go.

You may ask yourself, "Well, why not just record it, stupid?", and you would be right to ask, but it wasn't for a lack of trying on my part. I tried three times to record it, but FX had somehow managed to tag it with a copyright protected notice, and my DVD-R wouldn't even think about it. The DVD-R records everything else just fine, but not the copyrighted movies on FX (or Cartoon Network's Star Wars: Cone Wars, which I wasn't even trying to record, but I wanted the show that followed it). Anyhow, recording never happened.

Over the course of months I've seen five minutes here and five minutes there, and I was beginning to think I should just give it up because what I'd seen didn't seem like it was worth all of the effort I was going through. as it happens, I was missing massive amounts of things, and having now seen it in its entirety I can say I am glad I persevered. It was quite enjoyable.

Now, just as I've finally gone through all of this to watch this once, a sequel is just about to be released.

Sheesh ...

Posted at 12:37 PM
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bullet February 6, 2011

Carrot and stick, propped up again.

Do I really look so stupid?

Posted at 1:49 PM
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bullet February 5, 2011

It would be nice if I were paid for each and every job I do. Imagine the combined salaries for the maid, chef, dietician, personal assistant, chauffeur, home nurse, physical therapist, groomer, accountant, groundskeeper, landscaper, handyman, gopher, and snow removal service. With that kind of money I'd be out of debt and maybe even able to retire when I'm done here.

But instead I'm broke and massively in debt with no help or recompense ever likely to materialize.

Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Posted at 1:06 PM
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bullet February 4, 2011

Life = Misery. Death = Peace.

What's wrong with this picture?

Posted at 12:18 PM
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bullet February 3, 2011

Scraping way at this solid, heavy snow/ice sheet is going to kill me.

Give it a rest, Mother Nature. We're already in awe of your might. (It's just like the old butter ads - nobody fucks with Mother Nature).

Posted at 11:41 PM
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bullet February 2, 2011

The Severe Winter Storm, the isolation, my grandma's insanity, and my nightmares make this all seem far too much like the Shining. Unfortunately my mental powers don't mount to crap. And heck, there's not even any hope of seeing Scatman Crothers.

Posted at 2:28 PM
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bullet February 1, 2011

Break my back cleaning up from the Severe Winter Storm outside and come in to have to clean up the shit storm inside. Joy. I'm not pleased. She has better control than that, I know she does.

I'm losing patience with this.

Posted at 1:34 PM

 


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Journal, by Paul Cales, © February 2011