October 18, 2009

Considering a mini.

Sebastian is doing really well in his digital design class at school, he's getting better and better at it every day it seems.
He sends me some of his projects by email while he's in class, and I reply back what I think of them.
The other day, he sent me a picture he was working on as he went, so I got to see each step of how he designs something, it was really pretty cool.

Anyway, he really wants to go to college for digital design and video game design, and he's one of 5 students being given the opportunity to be 'looked at' by a technical design school in Tampa.
At the end of every week, the students and the teacher pick the student's best project from the whole week, and they email it to the design school contact, who then sends back his opinions and critiques of each student's work.
Sebastian has been getting some really good feedback from both his teacher and the teacher at the design school, and each year a couple of scholarships are awarded to 2 students from the digital design class, so when he becomes a senior and graduates, he just might get 1 of those scholarships.
He's really excited about this whole thing, he talks about it every day practically, so I am definitely encouraging him to keep doing his best work when we talk about it and when he sends emails home from class with his projects attached.

One of the things he's also been talking about is having another computer, perhaps a netbook like this Samsung Netbook which is on sale this week for $319.95 with free shipping, but no, I can't get that one, or get one this week, but we have been talking about getting him one to bring back and forth to school.
Even though most netbooks don't have cd-rom drives from which to install the graphics programs that he uses, external disk drives are available to add on separately, and his teacher has a program that can upload the graphics programs by either USB or an SD slot.

I'm really thinking of getting him a netbook for Christmas.
He really wants one, he could really use one so that he can do his projects at school and at home.
Another reason to get him a netbook so that he can work on his projects at home, is so he wouldn't be having to take up too much computer time of the one that the teens share now.
Mark loves to play WoW on it, and he's really great at sharing the computer, he either goes and plays a video games or watches a movie while Sebastian is working on a project, having a netbook would allow the both of them to be on a computer at the same time, and Sebastian would be able to work on his stuff for as long as he wanted without feeling guilty about how much time he spends.
Right now even though the teens both share the pc time really great, Sebastian said he always feels guilty if he spends a lot of time on it when he knows that Mark wants to hop on and play.
So yeah, I'm really seriousy thinking that I'm going to buy him a netbook for Christmas.
Yeah, that would mean that I would need to get Mark something of similar value, or something that he really wants in the same price range, but it should be do-able. (keeps fingers crossed I'm not jinxing myself)
Below the cut is one of the projects that he did last week that he really likes.
I asked him to pick out which one he wanted me to put up, and he chose this one.

Continue Reading �

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October 11, 2009

Kindasorda back.

I am still battling the tail end of the flu or whatever it was that hit me last week and made me feel like crap.
I feel better now, not perfect, but at least now I can stand up without feeling nauseous and dizzy.
The past few days have just been hellish on me, the smell of what the teens were eating made me gag, finding lizard heads on the floor made me gag, cat gack on the floor made me gag, I think you get the picture, everything just made me feel like hell.

Mark has been over at his friend's house since yesterday, and he's staying there again tonight.
I really don't mind, it's nice and quiet, there's no one fighting over any video games on the pc or the Xbox 360.
As a matter of fact, the teens are chatting with each other on WoW.
It's been nice and quiet all night yesterday, and all day today, and it will be quiet all night again.
That's just what I needed, peace and quiet so that I could rest.
I need to pick up some more acne skin care stuff for the teens (both of their faces are broken out again because they ran out) when I go shopping on Thursday, or maybe after I'm done at the doc's office on Tuesday while I wait for the pharmacist to fill my prescriptions, I could just buy some there.

I have pretty much spent all of my time on the couch or my bed, but once I was good enough to sit up, I sat and watched the trailers for new movies that are coming out.
I watched the trailer for The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.
Boondock Saints is one of my all time fave movies, and part 2 has the original cast which I'm happy about, it would suck if they changed actors in it.
It looks ok, I'd like to see it but no clue when or if I could go to the movies to see it, not sure how rough the chairs would be on me because I'd have to practically lay back in order to see the screen.

I am not a fan of remade films, there has been far too many of them the last few years, and now Hollywood has remade A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Sorry, but it's just not going to be the same without Robert Englund, he is Freddie in my opinion.
They are calling it "a contemporary re-imagining of the horror classic."
I dunno, I just don't know about this guy that is playing Freddie this time around.
Jackie Earle Harley is playing Freddie in this "re-imagining" of the story.
He played Rorschach in The Watchmen, he did a good job, but I just don't see him as Freddie, not even while watching the trailer, he just doesn't look like Freddie.
Maybe they got a sucky make-up artist.
*sigh*
I'll be back, off and on when I feel even better.
I think I'm gonna go read updated blogs now.
Later days.

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October 5, 2009

Sickness, movies, and mice.

Sebastian and I spent the entire day feeling like crap even with some Nyquil to take.
We both spent the entire day sleeping off and on, and now that I took naps all day long, I can't sleep.
I've been up watching tv and surfing the net all night long.
I found a bunch of free online auctions to look at to pass the time.
It's amazing to me how much some stuff is worth, like old toys.
I wish I had hung on to more of my old dolls and toys, some of them would be worth a ton of money now like my Tuesday Taylor doll that I had.
I think she was like less than $10 back when she first came out, now she's selling for about $100.00
Damn.

I watched a bunch of horror movies, some I had seen like Children of the Corn, and then some that I hadn't seen like Death Tunnel.
It wasn't too bad, but it's not something that I would watch again unless someone paid me.
Death Tunnel that is, not Children of the Corn, I love that movie.
"Outlander! Outlander! We have your woman! Outlander!"
Malachai was one of my fave characters in that movie, so perfectly cast in my opinion.

Carmine is our kitty that goes in and out of the house.
He was the stray kitten we found last December.
Yes, I said that we were only going to keep him for a little while, try to find his owners or give him away, but we fell in love with him, he's such a good kitty, so well behaved and loving, we couldn't part with him.
Anyway, he goes in and out all of the time to do his business outside, play around, whatever it is that he does out there, and then he always comes back.
When he came back in tonight, he brought us a gift.

A mouse.
A big fat field mouse.
He came running in the house with it in his teeth, and then dropped him at my feet, looked up at me, meowed loudly, and then rubbed all over my legs.
He brought me dinner I think.
We of course picked up the mouse with tissue and threw it away outside, but he brought it to us as a treat or a thank you, not really sure, but it was meant as a gift, so I rewarded him with lots of love, pets, cuddles, and kisses which he absolutely loved.
I also gave him a piece of cheese which he gobbled up quickly and then joined me on the couch.

It's now just a few minutes past 4am and I'm wide awake.
I still feel like crap, but I'm wide awake.

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October 2, 2009

It's the 8th Annual Blogger Boobiethon!

It's that time of year again folks!
It's time for the 8th Annual Blogger Boobiethon!

In the past 7 years, we (bloggers from everywhere!) have raised over $50,000 for breast cancer research.
You can learn all about this event and it's history here, but basically, bloggers from all over the world and internet, join together to raise money for breast cancer research by getting people to donate to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity which helps to fund research for a breast cancer cure.

We also raise money to help a fellow blogger in need, bloggers helping bloggers.
Please read that page to learn all about this part of the boobiethon, it's been something that we've done every year since the whole start of this, and is actually the entire reason that the boobiethon exists.

Last year I was the recipient of this part of the boobiethon after my spine fusion in September 2008, and I am still, and always will be, eternally grateful for all of the help, donations, encouragement, and support my fellow bloggers, readers, and supporters of the boobiethon, gave to me during that time and continue to give to me.
This year's recipient of the bloggers helping bloggers portion is Joan, aka, DaGoddess.

Donating to the boobiethon is really very, very easy.
Simply click the button up above or this link right here, and choose who you want to give money to, Komen or Joan, akaDaGoddess, and then follow the super simple instructions on that page so that the organizers of the boobiethon can add your donation to the total, and send you a confirmation email thanking you for your support.

This is now the 2nd year since the thon started that I have not been able to volunteer my time doing photo editing for health reasons.
Last year I had just had spine fusion surgery, and this year I am still dealing with some of the problems that are the result of that surgery, and my recent life-changing experience of discovering my bio-siblings and getting to meet them on the Today show in New York.
I feel terrible that I am unable to donate my time, it's something that I absolutely love doing every year, but because I can't volunteer my time, I am going to make sure that I post about the thon at least once every day until it ends, post updates about it on my Twitter stream, post on forums, and wherever else I can post about it to help spread the word and raise money for the cure.

Breast cancer effects all of us in some way at least once in our lives.
I know friends who have fought the battle with it, some won, some lost, I have had scares in my own family, and currently I have a friend whose Grandmother is losing the battle.
We need to find the cure.
Together we can help find that cure by raising money to fund research so that someday everyone who gets breast cancer can win the battle.

The 8th Annual Blogger Boobiethon began at midnight on October 1st and will run until midnight on October 7th.
In 2008, we raised $9,300.00.
So far on just this 2nd day of the boobiethon, (as of the time of this post) we have raised $2,705.00.
Let's beat last year's total!!
Donate, send in your picture, (mine will be sent in soon!) blog about it, tweet about it, put a button on your blog, do one thing from that list, (do several from that list!) and help us raise more money than we did last year!!

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September 30, 2009

Slowly getting some back.

I'm almost back to full strength now, I just really needed a few days to rest, my body was just totally drained.
Everything happened so fast last week, it was just go go go, and my body cannot go go go without coming to a crashing halt sooner or later, and it hit me a couple of days ago.
Things are still happening, lots of phone calls and emails from places wanting to do follow-up stories with all of us, this apparently was such a feel-good story in this depressing economic time, that people are wanting more of it.
I have a ton of emails to reply to and quite a few messages on voice mail to reply to as well.
It's still all so overwhelming, I keep finding myself saying 'wow'.

But I am slowly getting it back, I have just been laying on the couch for the last few days just trying to let my back and body get rested so that I can get back up and do everything that I need to do.
I have a mountain of dishes and laundry to take care of, and eventually I'd like to clean the bathroom and vac the rugs, my house looks like a tornado hit it.
I also need to get in the bathroom and fix the shower faucets thingamajiggy because Mark keeps knocking the hand held shower head down and he's not putting it back right, so once you turn the water on, the shower head pops down and whacks you in the back or head.
It hurts when you get whacked with it, so I need to go in there and un-twist it and figure out what way it fits the holder correctly.
Anyway, I'm getting back to good so I'll be hopping on and off the net while I get some house stuff done.
Later days.

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September 26, 2009

Tired and overwhelmed.

I am still trying to get caught up on sleep, emails, phone calls, everything, it's still so overwhelming.
There are so many links to this story out there on the internet, pretty soon it's going to need it's own web site directory to keep track of them all.

There's simply no way for me to respond to every single email or comment, so please don't be upset or offended if I do not reply to your comment, I just can't get to them all.
I am still getting emails and calls from other tv shows and magazines who want to do follow up interviews, it's really crazy.
The best part of this all though is the new extended family getting in touch with me.
I've gotten several emails from the adoptive families of my siblings, it's just too cool.

The teens are handling this really well, they are extremely happy for me to have found them, and they cannot wait to get to meet everyone too.
A major plus for me is that Joanne has some of our parents medical records and shared a quick printout with me while I was there in NYC, some of my medical issues are on that printout.
My high blood pressure and back problems, there were a bunch of other things on it too and once I am able to sit down and really go over it, I'll have a better handle on the medical history of our bio-mother and my own health issues.
For the first time in my life, I'll know more about my health history.
That's really incredible.
Some of my siblings do have back problems too, so it's not just me and Mark, it really is a genetic condition handed down from our parents.
That sucks but it's nice to know about it.

I've gotten several emails from my new extended family members, so I really need to try and reply to them all, so again, if I can't reply to your comment, I do hope that you understand, I just have way too many to reply to.
Thanks for the understanding, love and support from all of you!

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September 25, 2009

Kitties, pictures, and belonging.

I have 112 more emails/comments to answer, I am working through them as best that I can, but it's going to take me awhile, I apologize.

I had said that Mark stayed home, he wanted to be here to take care of the cats, and his other reasons, and he watched the segment Wednesday morning.
He said that as soon as it was my part, when I started talking, all of the kitties came running into the living room to try and find me.
All of the 4 cats get really upset when I'm not home, and they get really upset when I go away and don't come back for a long time, like gone overnight, so when they heard my voice through the tv, they came running to greet me, they thought I came back.
Mark said that they were really confused when they didn't see me in the living room but I was still talking.
That's when Nova saw me on the tv.
She ran to it, stood on her back legs, and tried to touch me through the screen.
Then Kali realized that I was "in the box", she got up on the tv stand and started pawing at the tv and meowing loudly.
Then Shahiro did the same on the other side of the tv stand.
Mark said Carmine was freaking out, he was running all over the room, up on the couches, jumping up on the coffee table, running to the tv and meowing, pawing at it, all of the kitties were crying he said, confused and upset, they could hear me and see me, but couldn't get to me.
That made me feel bad, just thinking of my kitties all crying and confused like that.
When we got home around midnight, they all came running to see me, meowing, rubbing all over me, following me as I unpacked, mewing like crazy, and pretty much wherever I went, they were all right with me.
When I finally laid down to get some sleep around 8am, Kali, Shahiro and Carmine all laid on the couch with me, and Nova laid on the back of the couch within reaching distance so I could pet her every few minutes till I passed out.

From left to right, here's Gary, me, and Randy.

From left to right, Joanne, Randy, Gary, and me.

It's really just so cool to have people who look like me.
I can totally see my face in theirs, their faces in mine, and features of both of my sons match all 4 of us.
It's really an amazing feeling, I can't even really describe how this feels.
I may have been able to hold back the tears on the show, but I keep looking at these pictures and crying.
It was really so awesome meeting them, I can't wait to get in touch and stay in touch, figure out holidays, all of it, this is what I've been searching for my whole life, where I belonged.
I think all adoptees have that feeling, where do we belong, do we look like someone, is there anyone out there that is a part of me.
I have that now.
I finally have that feeling of belonging, fitting, looking like someone, that empty feeling from knowing that you were adopted, from knowing that out there somewhere may be someone who is like you but you have never found them, is finally filled up.
It's all so overwhelming, I'm like exploding on the inside, all of the years that I just never thought I would find anyone, I had pretty much given up on it, and now all I want to do is see them again, talk to them, any kind of communication with them to get to know them better, to start making up for the lost time.
The size of my family just exploded, I have all of these people in the families of my siblings who are so thrilled for all of us, they can't wait to meet me, and I can't even tell you how that feels, it's so hard to explain.
And none of what I feel about this, about finding my siblings and being welcomed into their families, can ever take away from what I feel about my adoptive family.
I love my Mom and Dad so much, they raised me, took care of me, loved me like I was their own birth child, they never made me feel like I didn't belong, I belong with them too, this is a different kind of feeling, this is the empty spaces being filled, all of those empty places where there were no answers, those places are finally filled and I don't want my family to think that they aren't my family anymore, they will always be my family, they are my family.
My family just got a lot bigger is all.

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September 20, 2009

Technology and internet is a beautiful thing.

I love the internet and computers, I really do.
I think that it's been like the only thing that's kept me sane these last 10+ years.
I'm like trapped in my house, so being able to get on the internet and talk to people and be able to laugh and cry, to just be with people instead of the 4 walls, chat on forums, chat with friends on Twitter, to be able to work and make some money, and also be able to shop for just the right gift for someone for their birthday or Christmas, is really just so awesome.
I used to be able to spend hours shopping in a brick and mortar store for just the right gifts, but since all of the medical crap stopped me, being able to shop and look for that special thing, is just so awesome to me.
I think a lot of people take the internet for granted, we're all so used to having it, computers are practically in every single home, most people don't realize just how truly amazing it is.
You can make travel plans, buy plane tickets, order pizza and all kinds of other food, you can play games, watch videos, listen to music, get an education, find old friends and stay in touch with everyone through email for free which is way cheaper than calling by landline or cell, heck, most people don't even have landline phones anymore.

Anyway, I do like 95% of all of my shopping online, the only stuff that I can't buy online is my groceries, and that's only because it's not available in my area yet.
Starting next month, I will begin my holiday shopping, finding the things that the teens would like for Christmas and doing a lot of comparison shopping to find the stuff on sale to make sure that I get the absolute best prices out of all of the online retailers.
For a long time now though, I've been finding the best prices at Buy.com, they are consistently lower priced on every single item I've needed, even if it's just $5bucks lower, it's still a lot cheaper because almost every single item has free shipping too.
I take shipping prices into the calculation when doing all of the comparison shopping, and they really are lower in the long run.
I've noticed that some e-tailers are selling their products at super low prices, but then they get you on the shipping and handling charges, charging what the product would normally cost + a few bucks extra, so in the long run, you're paying exactly what you would have paid for the product + shipping costs anyway.
That's not much of a sale.

I'm not really sure what they want this year, maybe some more video games for their Xbox360, maybe that Batman: Arkham Asylum, that game loos A-maz-Zing! They also have a ton of other great Xbox360 games for some really great prices, and I know that there's been a price drop on the system and most games too, so I'll probably get them games and then some clothes, or whatever they tell me that they'd like to have.
I gotta start asking them what they want to have.
They aren't little kids anymore, I don't have to be sneaky and ask them to write a letter to Santa. ha ha haha

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September 19, 2009

Ahoy me mateys!

Arrr, today, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
E'eryone is supposed t' spend the whole day talkin' like a pirate and spendin' the day doin' all kinds o' pirate acti'ities.
Thar be e'ents takin' place all o'er the world today.
I know thar is a Pirates for Parkinsons Walk that happens today, tis' 50 walks, 1,000 people, all o'er the world, t' raise awareness and money t' help find a cure for Parkinsons disease.
Thar be many other e'ents happenin' today too, maybe one near you, so if you have nothin' much t' do today, why not find an International Talk Like a Pirate Day e'ent, and go have some fun and be a part o' an e'ent that could help a lot o' people.
Ahoy mateys, argh! Tis' Talk Like a Pirate Day 2009, argh!

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September 15, 2009

Major update.

Let's begin at Thursday the 10th and taking Mark to the orthopedist.
This is going to be a long one, sorry, a lot has gone on here since Thursday.

When Thursday came around, I started to feel like total crap, I felt lightheaded and nauseous, I was basically feeling like I just got hit by a bus and I had to take Mark to his doctor appointment with the ortho.
Mark's Big, George, took us there and to the pharmacy after, and then home again.
The doctor took about 8 xrays of Mark's spine from all different angles and views, and then he sat down with us to tell us the news.
Mark does not have scoliosis, but he does have problems with his spine, it's genetic, what he has, all of his problems are genetic.
Mark has Spondylolysis and Spondylolysthesis.

The spine is made up of a series of connected bones called "vertebrae." In about 5% of the adult population, there is a developmental crack in one of the vertebrae, usually at the point at which the lower (lumbar) part of the spine joins the tailbone (sacrum). It may develop as a stress fracture. Because of the constant forces the low back experiences, this fracture does not usually heal as normal bone. This type of fracture (called a spondylolysis) is simply a crack in part of the vertebra and may cause no problem at all. However, sometimes the cracked vertebra does slip forward over the vertebra below it. This is known as adult isthmic spondylolisthesis.

What are the symptoms?
Isthmic spondylolisthesis may not cause any symptoms for years (if ever) after the slippage has occurred. If you do have symptoms, they may include low back and buttocks pain; numbness, tingling, pain, muscle tightness or weakness in the leg (sciatica); increased sway back; or a limp. These symptoms are usually aggravated by standing, walking and other activities, while rest will provide temporary relief.

So Mark has that, his L5 and S1 vertebrae are pointing down and in toward his stomach, and they will continue to "fall down" if steps are not taken to try and straighten them out.
He also has arthritis, this too is genetic, so the arthritis combined with Spondylolysis and Spondylolysthesis, is what is causing Mark so much pain in his lower back.
The ortho doc is trying to get Medicaid to approve a couple of MRIs to fully see how bad the Spondylolysis is, and from there, he will be able to determine how to treat this.
He did say that Mark is way too young in his opinion for spine fusion, but if L5 and S1 continue to fall even after a series of physical therapy, maybe a back brace, that spine fusion would be needed to fix this.

Spondylolysis and Spondylolysthesis, is nicknamed "swayback", your back sways "in" which causes you to lean forward and hunch over.
This is something I have always been yelling at Mark about while he plays video games on the pc or the xbox, "stop hunching over! sit up straight!" and he'd always tell me that sitting up straight hurt, that leaning forward felt better, and I know that it does, I know leaning forward feels better because I too have "swayback", my spine not only curved side to side from the scoliosis, it also curved inward at the L3 to S1 vertebrae, so that's one of the many reasons that my surgeon had to fuse me so far down, all the way down.

To help you see what I'm talking about in regards to which vertebrae are affected in both myself and Mark, you can click on this chart and see those affected areas.
There are 4 sections of the spine, and each section is then broken down to individual vertebrae.
There's the Cervical spine, C1 - C7, the Thoracic, T1 - T12, the Lumbar, L1 - L5, and then the Sacrum, S1, and the coccyx which is also known as the tailbone.
I have been fused from C1 all the way down to S1, the very top to the very bottom, and S1, or the sacrum, and the coccyx, are actually connected, so when I was fused, it really was from the very top of my spine to the very bottom of my spine, stem to stern as one doctor said.
Mark is affected at the L5 and S1 areas.
His sacrum (S1) and L5, are pointing down and in instead of up and straight like you see on the chart.
I didn't have my camera with me on Thursday, and I don't think the ortho would have liked me taking a picture of the xrays anyway as Mark is a brand new patient of his, we don't have an ongoing relationship with this doctor like I do with my surgeon.
I have been with my surgeon since November 2005, and because I've been with him so long, he doesn't mind me taking pictures of my xrays and stuff when he puts them up on the lightboards.
But because I didn't take my camera with me, I couldn't take a picture of Mark's xrays, but this is a pretty accurate image of Mark's "spondy" or "swayback" as it is nicknamed by different doctors.
My surgeon calls it swayback, Mark's ortho called it spondy.

The third image (left to right) is exactly how Mark's spine looks, it is down and in exactly like this drawing.
Along with the spondy, Mark has arthritis in his spine as I said above, and he also has stenosis and some nerve impingement as well.
The ortho did a few strength tests on both of Mark's arms and legs, and he is definitely weaker on his left side, and he does not have as much lower body strength as he does in his upper body.
His upper body is very strong while his lower body and his legs, are very weak, and his left leg is much weaker than his right.
The ortho also noted the nerve damage by pinching gently on his fingernails and toenails.
If you take your index finger and thumb of one hand, and use them to pinch down on the fingernail of your other hand's index finger, you see how long it takes for the color to come back in the skin under the nail.
Pinching the nails makes the skin underneath turn white, un-pinching them allows the blood flow to come back, and the longer it takes tells the doctor if there is nerve damage or pinched nerves in the hands and feet and how severe it is.
The fingernails on both of Mark's hands were ok, a little damage on his left, but both of his feet, especially his left, took a bit of time, so this told the doc that there is definitely some nerve impingement on his left side.
Once medicaid approves the MRIs, the doc will be better able to see just how much nerve damage and stenosis he has, and he will also be better able to see the "spondy" and how bad it is.
Once he sees that, he will then figure out a plan of action for Mark which will probably be a combination of bracing and some really tough physical therapy to strengthen his core muscles and use the physical therapy to try and pull the spondy out of the falling down pattern.
The physical therapy will improve his strength and flexibility in his core, as well as teach him how to properly move his body so he does not damage his lower spine any further.
Moving your body the wrong way can cause the spondy to fall even more and cause much more pain.
His ortho gave him Tramadol and Mobic (NSAID) for the pain he is currently having, and he was told to rest as much as possible.
Trying to make an 18 year old lay down on his bed or the couch for a few hours while alternating between heat and ice to reduce the inflammation and reduce pain, is like trying to teach a mosquito to not suck your blood.
Basically, he's not doing it as long as he should, I can only get him to lay perfectly still for about 1 hour. I do 30 minutes of heat, and then 30 minutes of cold, and that's it, he can't stand it anymore.
Now we are just waiting for the ortho to call us and tell us when to come in for the MRIs if and when medicaid approves them.
That was Mark's update, sorry it took me so long Mom and Dad, I know you've been waiting for this news.

Continue Reading �

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September 8, 2009

The construction workers must die.

Today has just been 1 of those kinds of days, and the city is to blame for it
The city is still doing the sidewalk construction and they are finally at my driveway to do it when they screwed stuff up big time.
I was sitting here this morning trying to do some work and reading up on some diet pill reviews because I'm still too fat in my opinion and need something that works, when all of a sudden, the internet wouldn't work anymore.
The city workers were out there digging up the dirt they put there last week so that they can plot out the sidewalk areas, when the dummies hit the telephone wires that are in the ground, with the backhoe.
My whole driveway is completely blocked off, no cars can get in or out at all, they have it all blocked off with cones and barricades for the night.

But anyway, when the internet and phone stopped working, I had to use my cell phone to call Verizon, at this point I didn't know the construction workers had hit the lines.
I called Verizon and they had me do all kinds of things to try and restore the connection, and nothing worked, and then the customer service guy asked me if there was any construction going on.
I told him yes, and he said that was the problem and he'd send a service tech out today.
After he told me that, I went outside and tried to talk to the workers and the Spanish worker told me in wicked bad broken English that "it no big deal you no phone, they fix after we finish digging", and he was laughing about it like it wasn't a big deal at all.

When the Verizon tech came out, I told him what happened and what the worker had said, and he got mad and went over to yell at them.
He had to run all new lines, re-bury them, and he had to find a worker who spoke English to tell them to not cement those wires in, that Verizon had marked out the lines, they have to not be cemented in.
He found a guy, a supervisor, and he explained everything to him and then came back over and fixed all of my stuff.
It was about 5 hours today where I had no internet and no phone.
It really sucked because I had a ton of work to do and couldn't do any of it.
I am very glad though that Verizon came straight out and fixed it, that's probably the best service from them that I've had in the 10.5 years that I've had them as my phone and internet providers.

When my net finally came back on, there was just so much going on, mistakes, questions, I had a ton of emails to answer, things were just nuts.
And now here it is almost 9pm, and I've barely gotten any of my stuff done.
Grr, I could have really used those 5 hours to get stuff done.
Hopefully the workers won't hit the phone lines again tomorrow when they come back to pour the cement in my driveway that cannot be driven or walked over for the next 3 days.
That really blows.

---

September 4, 2009

Class action suit against the school.

In today's mail, both the teens got letters from a lawyer group about a class action lawsuit.
I hadn't heard or read anything about it, usually you see ads for class actions on tv, in commercials, I'm constantly seeing class actions for mesothelioma and all kinds of other stuff like Heparin and stuff, but this is a class action suit against the Sarasota County school district and the Princeton Review.

Last year ALL of the students of ALL of the county's high schools had to go onto the Princeton Review website and enter in all of their personal information in order to take practice SATs and other tests.
What kind of personal information?
ALL of it.
Name, address, date of birth, phone number and social security number.
If a student didn't have their SS# on hand, the school filled it in for them.

Well a girl who graduated this year with Mark, went to the Princeton Review website and found all of her information posted publicly.
And then she found every single other student's information posted as well.
Thousands of teenagers SS#'s were posted to the website along with all of the information needed to commit identity theft if someone was going to do that.
The girl and her family hired a lawyer who has now started a class action suit.
If your kids got a letter in the mail, it means that their information was publicly posted to the website, they are automatically part of the class.
Both my sons got letters.
ALL of their information was posted, anyone could have taken it and tried to commit identity theft with it, along with thousands of other students in this county.

This is so unbelievable to me.
I have protected the teens SS#s like a rabid guard dog because my ex-mother in law stole my information and destroyed my credit, I didn't want it to happen to the teens, but thanks to the county school board and the Princeton Review, it may have happened anyway.

I'm still reading through the 5 page letter, all about the class suit, what will happen if it goes forward, if they win, if they lose, settle, whatever.
I'm just so flabbergasted about it.
No one knows exactly how long all of that information was posted publicly, but it was all there for anyone to look at and take any information that they wanted to take and thousands of teenagers credit could be completely ruined.

---

September 3, 2009

He can't have this one!

Once again, Sebastian has to have a usb drive to take back and forth to school for his digital design class, and he wants to take my Sims3 plumbomb usb drive.

I gave him my other usb drive, but he wants that one because it's cool looking, it's a corporate usb drive, a special logo drive.
You can get usb drives that look like all kinds of things now.
Candy bars, beers, video games, all kinds of stuff, and Sebastian was telling me that a lot of the other kids have cool looking drives, so he wants to take my Sims3 drive because no one else has one like it, but that they all have "cool ones".
I think he'd say anything to be able to take my drive to school, I seriously doubt that everyone has a cool usb drive, seriously doubt it.
He has been asking me every single day this week if he can please, pretty please take it, mom, please, and I keep saying no, it's mine, and then he pouts and waits a few hours to ask me again.

I might let him take it for like 1 day, but I don't want some other kid stealing it ya know?
I need to think about it some more.

---

August 23, 2009

Hoping he won't need one.

Sebastian got into most of the classes that he wanted to take this year, guitar, introduction to engineering, and digital design 2.
He has settled on wanting to work in computers when he grows up and goes to college, do programming, game design and programming, digital design, all of that stuff that goes hand in hand until you settle in doing just 1 of those as your career.

What I'm hoping that he won't need, is his own laptop.
What he told me last year when he signed up for these classes and did not get in, is that a lot of the students who did get in had their own laptops for the digital design, programming, and engineering classes.
As usual, we don't have the class supply lists yet, so he's going to school tomorrow with a Trapper Keeper, 4 spiral bound notebooks, 1 3-ring binder, 6 folders, and a lot of pencils.

If it turns out that he does end up needing his own laptop, all I can do is hope that I can find 1 really cheap and on sale like the ones that Buy.com has on sale again this week.
They always seem to have at least 2 laptops in their weekly deals every week, and at some very good prices.

Like this week, they have an HP 250GB notebook on sale for $499.99, refurbished, but at a pretty major $400 discount.
They usually cost about $1,000 bucks.
They also have a Samsung Netbook on sale for $329.99, so I'm like really, super duper hoping, that if it turns out that needs his own laptop, that I can find a decent 1 like these 2 on sale, or maybe even something a little bit cheaper.
But I'm really hoping that he doesn't need his own, I just cannot swing it right now.

---

August 23, 2009

Are you in Farmtown too?

I've read on quite a few blogs lately, (5 in just the last 2 days) how they (the bloggers) aren't really sure if they are going to keep their blogs running anymore, that they don't even feel like blogging anymore, because they spend so much time on other sites like message forums and Facebook.
Personally I don't see the big thrill of Facebook, I guess that I just don't "get it".
I don't play any of the games, I don't install any of the applications, I very rarely reply to messages, I probably log in about once a week and see all of these people who've responded to my Twitter posts that are being cross posted automatically to Facebook, and most of my FB contacts also have Twitter, yet instead of replying to me on Twitter, they reply on FB because that's where they are all of the time.
They are on there playing games like Farmtown (I think that's what it's called) and Mafia Wars, all kinds of things, and they keep recruiting me to join their 'whatever game it is that they need people to join', and then I don't, and then they get upset.
I've been blogging since 1997, it's like a part of me now, I'm just so used to it being a part of my daily routine, and I'm always reading up on the latest free seo tools to use to increase readership, and joining all the various social networks so that I can link to my blog to get more readers, post about any contests that I'm running, alert people of other blogger's contests or great posts that I've read, and stuff like that.
I logged into FB just now, and I've got a Farmtown gifts request, and I don't even play the game or use the application, whatever it is, yet people keep sending this stuff to me all of the time.
I just don't get it.

What I like about FB is that it allows me to find and connect with old friends from a long time ago.
I found one of my best friends from high school on there just a few weeks ago, and it was amazing to catch up with him and see where his life took him.
That's what I use FB for, but I cannot sit there and play all of those games or install all of those apps and stuff.
It's just a total waste of time to me, it accomplishes nothing, in my opinion.
I understand boredom and playing video games, but none of the FB apps and games do anything for me, I get no thrill from them, I prefer to interact with people through their blogs, read up on their lives and goings on.

I'll be sad if the 5 people who said they may stop blogging to do FB all of the time actually do stop blogging, but eh, whatever makes them happy, I just hope they don't ask me to join their farm and stuff, I don't like to play those games at all, they bore me.

---

August 22, 2009

Passed out and stayed out.

After not sleeping for 3 days in a row and having to walk to and from the high school on Friday, I laid down to take a nap around 1pm, stayed asleep until around 6:30pm, was awake long enough to make the teens dome dinner, and then I went back to sleep and didn't wake up again until 11am this morning.
Guess my body just really needed it.

Oh, we got out of the 3-hour long orientation and tour because by the time I got to the school, I was in like a wicked lot of pain, there was no way that I could stay there for the whole 3 hours and walk around the whole building, so they gave Sebastian his schedule and let us leave.

Reader Steve L., contacted me about the HP inkjet cartridges, he can use all 3 of them for his printers, so good deal. I will mail all 3 of them out to him on Monday morning.
I'm so glad that someone could use them, they were just sitting here taking up space not being used.

Today is just a nice and quiet day, not too much going on, so I'm probably just going to chill out, maybe play some Sims3 or something, don't know.
Later days.

---

August 21, 2009

Need HP ink cartridges?

I have 3 packages of HP injket cartridges to sell, they are the wrong sizes for my HP A524 photosmart printer.
I didn't get the digital camera/printer bundle, only the printer with model number A524, which takes a different cartridge, HP 110 Tri-Color Inkjet Cartridge, so I don't need these 3 cartridges that are the wrong sizes/product numbers.

I have 2 of the HP 45 Black Inkjet Print Cartridge (51645A), *brand new*, that sells for between $27.99-$41.99, depending on the retailer.
I will sell them for just $18 each, price includes shipping.
Packages still factory sealed.

I have 1 HP No. 78 Tri-Color Inkjet Print Cartridge (C6578DN), *brand new* that sells for between $28.99-$46.39, depending on the retailer.
I will also sell this one for just $18, price includes shipping.
This package is opened, I opened it because I did not know at the time what cartridge my photo printer took, but the ink has never been used, the 'pull strip' on the cartridge is still intact, only the box was opened to see if it would fit.
(I physically sized it)

If interested, leave a comment below with a valid email address, and I will contact you.
I will only ship within the US, cannot mail to Alaska or Hawaaii, sorry.
Thanks!

---

August 16, 2009

A long and trying day.

Today was Mark's 18th birthday and I hadn't slept on Friday night, insomnia, again, so I was up and doing things in the very early morning hours.
Just doing some general clean up of the house, trying to get myself organized and ready for the day.
The teens had plans for dinner for Mark's birthday, so Mark insisted that we go grocery shopping before they leave for dinner so that I didn't have to carry, lift, and put it all away on my own, so I called and asked Mindy if she could help me out with a ride, she said yes, (thank you! Again!) and off Mark, Mindy and I went to do the shopping.
Sebastian decided to stay here this time (he usually does the shopping with me) and wait for my friend Jon to call/show up with their fixed computer.

Did I post about what happened to their computer?
It's one of the reasons we canceled/postponed our trip to Maine.
For several weeks, both of the teens had been complaining about some major lag when playing WoW, and even some lag when using the internet.
I did all the cleaning, deleting of stupid crap files, defragging, etc etc, and yet it still lagged.
I asked on the local forums what people thought could be causing the issue, and Jon replied that it was probably a blown video card, and if I wanted, he could get a brand new one, better than the one I had put in there a year ago, for way cheap and he'd install it for a wicked good and low price.
It was parts, labor, and a long drive from Orlando to Sarasota for less than the cost of the new video card had I gone and bought it myself.
I price checked video cards after his initial post on the forums about it being a blown card, and the same one he put in for me brand new, was priced at $199 and up at all of the tech stores in our area, so yeah, I got a helluva deal on the card and someone installing it for me.
He came here last Saturday, worked on it a bit, and then said he needed to take it home to fix it really good, so I said cool, he took it home, did the work, and brought it back early this evening.

When he got here, he must have wondered what was up, I looked a total mess.
I was sweating from running the vac on the rugs, doing some dishes, cooking Mark's hot wings for his birthday fave food like I do every year, and crying.
The birthday dinner plans that were made fell through.
Mark was upset but said he half expected it to happen, and Sebastian kind of lost it, so there was a lot of shouting, crying, and a lot of talking about all of the events of the last month.
It was not a good scene here, and then Jon knocked on the door while I was cleaning to try and de-stress myself while I bawled my eyes out some more.
I cannot fix what has happened, I can't make it better, and so I had to let the teens say what they needed to say, let their stress out, and Mark said something that made me feel better but horribly sad at the same time.
I'm not going to post it here, I'm just done trying to make it right when no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I show, it will never be enough, nothing will ever be the right thing or be good enough.
Every family has a black sheep, and I'm wearing the name tag.

After the computer was all hooked up and the teens were calmed down and ok, I finished making what I consider to be the best batch of super hot wings I think I've ever made for him.
1 bag of wing parts, 1 cookie sheet, 3 coats of cayenne pepper, twice baked, and then soaked in a 12 ounce bottle of the hottest sauce he picked out at the store today.
The wings were cooked so perfectly and the meat was falling off the bones, and Mark said it was the most awesome blend of hot and sweet I had ever cooked for him.
I got a thumbs up as he ate his wings and then went back for a bigger serving of seconds.
He eats his wings straight up, no ranch or blue cheese dipping sauce, just more hot sauce if he thinks he needs it, but this time he didn't add more sauce, he said they rocked as they were.
When he finished eating and I was cleaning up and putting the small amount of leftovers away, he gave me a hug and thanked me for the wings and for being a good mom to him all of these years even through some mistakes that I've made here and there along the way.
I know that it's gonna be ok around here.

After everything else was done and I finally sat down to chill out for the night, I realized that the furnace filters, I mean AC filter, was dirty again. It was so hot in here, you would have thought that I did have a furnace on with the heat cranked up to 99!
I know it was partly hot because I baked the wings in the regular oven, but as soon as the AC filter gets dirty, it stops pumping the cold air out as strong, and you notice the difference almost immediately, so I cleaned it out and it cooled off in here fairly quick.
I need to measure the washable filter that it comes with, and then I want to try and find a slightly thicker HEPA filter to put in it.
This house is so dusty, even more so with the sidewalk construction going on, that the filter gets wicked dirty wicked fast, and so I think getting a thicker, better filter might help cut down on the dusting issue a little bit.
I have to dust off the tv, tv stand, and coffee tables just about every other day, and I have to dust everything about every 4 days, that's how bad the dust gets in here.
Crazy dusty! ha ha

I just saw the clock.
It's finally not Saturday anymore.
Here's to hoping that Sunday is a better day for all of us ok?
I mean it, even if your day was rockin', I hope that today is even better.

---

August 7, 2009

All saved game data is gone.

When Sebastian wanted to play the Sims 3 last night, there were 2 new game updates that needed to be installed first, so I updated the game.
I should have ignored the updates because after the updates got finished installing, he logged in to play, and all of our saved games were completely gone.
Erased.
Deleted.
Poof.
Sebastian and I have been playing the game since the day we got it, we had a lot of stuff, our families were doing really well, and now it's all gone.
Dammit.
I'm not sure why it happened or if the files are even still on my computer somewhere, but I'm going to look for them, attempt to find them, and try like hell to restore them.
I hate it when this kind of stuff happens because after well over a month of playing, to lose everything like that just really freaking sucks pretty fucking bad.

I really hope the files are still there somewhere and that I can restore them, I hate having to start over especially since I got wicked far in the game.

---

August 5, 2009

STILL cannot access any of my biling features.

So Verizon was here on July 21st to install the Fios internet, and when the guy was totally finished hooking it all up, he asked me if I knew my username and password to login to my Verizon account, ya know, so I could check on my bill, pay my bill, that kind of stuff.
I told him that I did know them, but that it was pointless because for oh, the entire length of time that I have lived here, it is now 10.5 years at this address and phone number, I have NEVER been able to access any part of my bill online, I have had billing issues with them not auto-billing every month like they are supposed to do, and I've never, ever, even gotten a paper bill.
Ever.
Seriously, if you do a search on my blog for Verizon, you will find post after post after post about me and the billing issues with Verizon.
The guy assured me that will never be an issue anymore, as a matter of fact, he swore to me that all of the billing issues were fixed.
He asked me what my browser of choice is, I told him Firefox, so he set my Internet Explorer home page to go directly to my Verizon account start page, but ya know, because it was a brand new Fios account, there wouldn't be any information available for at least 1 week, but after that, he told me to wait just 1 week, and then he swore that I would be able to view my bill, pay my bill, that all of the last 10.5 years of billing nightmares would be over.
Really?
Do you really believe that?
Yeah, me either.
You can make this biggie to see it.

It was installed on the 21st, today is the 5th, I waited a good and fair amount of time before I tried it, and see?
It says the EXACT same thing that it has said for the the last 10.5 years, "this tool is currently unavailable."
I have never, ever, ever, been able to see my bill for my internet services, ever.
I can access my phone bill no problem, but internet?
Nope, not once in 10.5 years.

Every single month I pick a day, usually between the 1st and the 7th day of the month, and I call the Verizon internet billing department, and I have to explain the entire thing, I cannot see or pay my bill online, I do not get a paper bill, never have, I don't know how much my bill is, I do not know when it is due, and no matter how many times we set up auto billing, it never auto bills, so please, dearest customer service person whom I am trying so desperately to NOT scream at, could you please tell me how much my bill is and allow me to make a payment over the phone using my debit card today?

The completely confused and frustrated customer service person takes a look at my account and sees that I have been making this same exact phone call every single month for the last 10.5 years, and they start apologizing like crazy, they tell me how much, and they let me make a payment, and then they transfer me over to the technical department who swears up and down, black and blue, on my boy scouts honor ma'am, this will be the very last time that you will ever have to do this, we will fix your Verizon internet account online so that you can see and pay your bill online, and set up auto billing.

They promised me that once I switched to Fios, it would be an all new account so there wouldn't be the same problems that I've had in the past.
As you can see, I'm still having the same, exact, problem.
It has never, ever, been fixed.
After all of these years, I don't even get mad anymore, this is just freaking comical now.
I'll call them in a few days, ask what day my monthly billing date will be, and then ask them if I'll be able to make payments over the phone.
There's really nothing that I can do about it, nothing.
I've given up trying to see my bill online or get a paper bill delivered, it's just never going to happen.
I've accepted it.
Om.

---

July 22, 2009

No sleep, sleep, and OCD.

I couldn't sleep on Monday night, and I didn't even get a nap in on Tuesday afternoon because Verizon was here installing the Fios internet.
The guy was here for about 3 hours or so, he had to run some new lines into my house because the lines that were there on the outside of the house, had all been cut by someone.
That's really weird, who would cut the lines every so many feet?

Anyway, by the time he left, I had a massive migraine and was dead exhausted, but I still had to make dinner for the teens before I could get some sleep.
So I made dinner and tried wicked hard to stay awake, but the tiredness was totally winning out.
I went and laid on the couch and set the alarm to wake me up in 2 hours, I just needed to take a quick nap so that I could get back up and do the rest of what I needed to do.

So I slept for 2 hours starting at 7:30pm, woke up at 9:30pm, and then I went and did all of the dishes that I needed to do from dinner, and I picked up the rest of the mess that got made by the Fios guy.
I had to put my coffee table back where it's supposed to be, I had to fix my monitor again, he moved it, ugh, he moved it from it's perfect spot and position, and it took me nearly 20 minutes to set it right again.
OCD is a terrible thing man, it's just very disruptive to my peace and well being to have my things moved around and things got dropped on the floor under my desk, and so yeah, it was kind of hard for me to have him here for 3 hours touching my stuff, moving things, dropping things.

Once I got everything picked up and back in place, finished the dishes, I was ok again, I could relax for the rest of the night.
I went to bed around 2am, which is actually very early for me, I usually don't go to sleep until 5 or 6am, and I slept until around 11am, which is very late for me, I actually got some sleep for a change which was nice.

The teens went to the store and picked up subs for dinner, some eggs so I can finally make the cake that Sebastian has been asking me to make for like a week now, and I talked on the phone to a friend who is dealing with the same stuff I have been dealing with.
Chronic pain, depression, medication and being accused of being a drug addict.
She has been dealing with it for 20 years, her family won't even speak to her, and when they do, it's negative, it's not understanding, it's misinformed about chronic pain and medication to treat that pain.
It was very helpful to talk to her because it helped me see that I am not the only one dealing with this kind of thing, and that no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it hurts to have people think that, that we know the truth, our doctors know the truth, and someday, or maybe even never, other people will learn the truth, they will get educated on chronic pain and medication. They will learn that the meds don't get us "high" or "stoned", that it's impossible for us to get messed up on them due to tolerance after years and years of being on the medication, that we sign contracts with our pain management doctors and if we break those contracts by doing any illegal drugs, that we will be kicked out of their office and blacklisted to all other pain doctors in the state that we live in.
Those contracts will be broken if we do any illegal drugs, and they will know if we do any illegal drugs because they urine test us every single month when we go in for our regular every 30 day appointment.
Our doctors can even call us up for random drug testing if they want to.
They can call us and tell us that we need to be at their office at a certain time that day, and we have to take a urine drug test, and if we test positive for any drugs other than what they prescribe us, that's it, the contract is broken, we get kicked out and blacklisted.
I have passed every single drug test, regular monthly testing and random call-up testing, for as long as I have been seeing pain management doctors, which is now 5+ years.
Someday, I hope, the people who think that I'm doing illegal drugs, will realize that I'm not, that they will get educated about chronic pain and the medication.
Until that day comes though, there is nothing that I can do except to cut the negativity out of my life, keep doing what my doctors tell me to do, and to keep trying to live my life the best way that I can for me and my sons.

Later days.

---

June 24, 2009

Wind, rain, no boot.

There really hasn't been much going on around here, just lazy summer days and nights.
Like last night, we were all just sitting around playing our video games, Mark on WoW, Sebastian on the xbox playing GH, and I was out here playing Sims3, when we heard something hit our door.
It freaked all of us out wicked bad, so Mark goes and grabs a big knife from the kitchen, and he and I cautiously try to look out the front window.
We had no idea what hit the door, if someone threw something, if that someone was still out there, so we were a bit scared.

Mark peaks out the window, doesn't see anything, so we decide to open the door carefully.
We see one of our trashcans laying in front of the door, but we also notice that the winds are wild, just blowing in all directions, and we realize that it was the wind that blew the can up against our door, not a person.
We felt totally stupid, but better safe than sorry I suppose.

Within a few minutes of putting the trash can back and closing the house back up, the winds picked up even more, the rain, thunder, and lightening started, and we even got some small hail.
The power started flickering off and on too, so I shut down my computer for the night and went to bed on the couch in case the power went out fully, I wanted to be able to get up and light the candles and stuff.

This morning when I got up, I came over and hit the power button to start my computer back up, and it wouldn't start, I wasn't even getting the power on lights, nothing.
I thought 'oh crap, we must have had a power surge last night and it fried my computer'.
I had to pee wicked bad, so I went to the bathroom and when I came back out I tried to get it started again.
Still nothing, no lights, no beeps, nothing.
I was starting to freak out, what if it's dead I thought?
That would be a wicked bad thing, I work on my computer, so I need it to work.
I reached around the back and pulled out the power cord and plugged it back in, maybe just maybe, it was loose or something.
Yup, that's all it was, thank goodness, as soon as I plugged it back in and hit the power button, the lights came on and it booted back up.
I have no idea how the power cord got loose, but somehow it did.
I'll have to keep an eye on that, check to make sure it's in nice and secure every now and then, I almost had a panic attack at the thought of my computer being dead.

---

June 21, 2009

Sims of Sunset Valley.

I have wicked insomnia again, nothing new there, but I hate how it's always the worst insomnia on the nights before I have things to do.
Like today, I am babysitting my nieces all day, and here I am, going to be doing it on absolutely no sleep at all.
It's ok though, I'm kind of used to being dead tired and having to do stuff.
The girls will be fine though, I'm sure of it.
Kids always behave worse for their parents than they do for anyone else, so I'm sure they will be great for me, and then they go home and drive my sister crazy.

Seeing as how I couldn't sleep, I stayed up and did more with my Sims.
They live in Sunset Valley, so because I know that I'll be doing some Sims posts once their stories start going, I've added a new category for them.
I didn't get a whole lot done story-wise because the customization tools are just awesome.
I love how you can take any pattern and color from any piece of furniture, wallpaper, marble counter tops, whatever, and place it on a completely different item.
Your entire house can match perfectly because of this, so I have been messing around with the customization tool and making things match.
I found the most awesome re-color set from Parsimonious, it's called Gotharama, and so I took the patterns and colors of the chairs and coffee tables, and placed it on the dining chairs, the bar stools, the table and counter tops, because the down stairs is an open floor plan and I wanted it all to match.
The walls are a gray-violet color and the carpet is a gray color, and it looks amazing.
My Sims are so totally happy with their house, their mood icon, whenever they are downstairs, is at the highest it can be, and the message says "Kat and Tony love their exquisitely decorated home."
And speaking of home, I took a couple pictures of their house to show you.

The house came with that fence around it, but I'm going to remove it, I don't like it.
The house at night taken from the waterfall side of the property.

It's really quite amazing, the graphics are incredible, you can zoom all the way in and it doesn't get blurry or pixelated, it just looks fantastic.
I love this game because it gives me the chance to create, to decorate, to do interior design and I love doing that.
Sebastian used to get mad at me because I would spend hours and hours building and decorating a home, but now he understands why.
When your sims are totally happy in their surroundings, they are happy with every other part of their life too.
If the living room, for example, is flawless and beautiful, if they are in there flirting or being romantic in front of the fireplace, their happiness over the beautiful home helps them be happier in their relationship.
The good mood is contagious, they do everything else better if they are happy.

I guess I'm going to go back and play for awhile again.
My nieces are coming around 10:30, and if I try to sleep now, it will be impossible for me to wake up later.

---

June 21, 2009

Rendering honors and a proposal.

I love how fast the turn-around is with Netflix, I send movies back and get my new ones within 24 hours.
I sent back Gran Torino which was pretty good, not what I was expecting, certainly not the "OMG! This movie is so freaking awesome!" that many other people were saying, but it was decent.
I also sent back Friday the 13th the 2009 remake, and it was actually pretty decent.
Lots of killings, some good gore, and finally, Jason moves at a decent clip.
I always hated that about these kinds of movies, our victims are running for their lives, seriously hauling ass, and here's our killer, walking at a snails pace.
Jason moves quickly, strikes quickly, and has some serious brutal strength in him, which makes his kills all the better,

I sent those back on Thursday, so today, we got the next 2 in my queue.
We got and watched Taking Chance which was excellent, wow, seriously excellent.
Kevin Bacon plays Lt. Col. Mike Strobl in the movie based on the true story of his voluntary escort of a fallen marine, PFC. Chance Phelps.
The movie is about him escorting the body of a fallen marine home to be delivered to his family for the funeral.
It is probably one of the most moving films I have seen in a long time.
The absolute care and attention to detail that our armed forces go through to get the bodies home, is amazing and beautiful.
They clean the bodies and personal affects meticulously, they dress the marines in their uniforms flawlessly, and the journey home is verified every step of the way, and honors are rendered at every single stop.
It was really a beautiful and touching movie, even the teens were touched by this one.
I may not support the war, but I always support the brave men and women who so freely give of themselves to serve, to protect my rights, and I found all of the rituals and things they do to bring the soldiers home the perfect way to show respect and gratitude toward these fine and brave people.
You should definitely add Taking Chance to your Netflix queue, or rent it at your fave video store soon, you will not be disappointed in this movie at all.

I also got Nothing But the Truth, we haven't watched it yet though, but every review I read said that it was really good.
I'll watch it tomorrow night after my nieces go home, it'll give me a chance to rest up, I'm sure they are going to tire me out big time. ha ha

I'm finally able to get going working on a storyline for my Sims.
I was so overwhelmed when I went into CAS (create-a-sim) to start designing my sims, there is just so much to do in there, every bit of your sim is customizable, you can make them look exactly how you want, there are so many controls, but anyway, I was so overwhelmed and I needed to give her a name, so I just named her Kat so I could spend the next several hours designing her, her clothes, and getting a house, and designing and decorating it.
But now that the house is done, (well mostly, I keep changing things I don't like as I go) I can start working on her life.
Her lifetime wish is to be a world famous chef, so she's cooking a lot, getting new recipes, working at a diner, (she's now a skill level 7 cook, and she got promoted to prep cook, yeuss!) and coming up with ways to cook all of the fish she's catching in the pond right behind her house at the base of the waterfall.
I really need to take some pics of her house and property, it's amazing.
She wakes up every morning to the most incredible sunrises and the view of the waterfall.
She is at total peace and criminally happy at home.
It actually says things like that, "Kat is having so much fun it's criminal!" when you hover over her mood meter.

She met Tony Stark when he came into the diner to eat, (another Simmer created Tony Stark from Iron Man, and uploaded him for download on the Sims3 site. I downloaded him because he looks good. I'm better at designing female sims rather than male sims) and he needed a place to live where he could have a room and a place for his telescope and science experiments, and because Kat lives way up in the mountains far away from everyone, she let hm move in as her roommate.
Over the course of the next few weeks, he started flirting with her, and they spent a lot of time together, so the natural course of things happened, and they fell in love.
Last night after Kat got home from work and went to sleep for awhile, she got back up and came downstairs for a little midnight snack.
Right there in the living room while still in her sleepwear, Tony got down on bended knee.
You can click for bigger.

Now her life is really getting started, she's happy, she has a great job, she's in love, all I have to do is keep her from getting knocked up because EA still has not created birth control methods for your sims.
If you're not careful, you could end up having a dozen kids, so their woo-hooing will be kept to a minimum if I can help it, and I'll keep my fingers crossed she doesn't end up pregnant.
She has a life goal man, getting pregnant would totally screw that up right now.

---

June 20, 2009

Comcast can suck it.

It absolutely amazes me just how many people still are not ready for the DTV switch, they've had over 2 years to get ready for it.
There's an article in Business Week magazine about the millions left behind, and the many reasons *cough excuses cough* that they did not get ready.
The elderly I can understand, a lot of them don't even know how to set the clock on a VCR, so setting up a converter box and getting the right antenna is a bit more confusing for them, and the cable companies know that so they wasted no time in convincing the elderly that they had to get cable or they would not be able to watch their shows.

But other people?
People like the Ortez family mentioned in the article?
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for them.
They are both on unemployment and receiving some help benefits, and they watch Law & Order, so I know because I'm a fan of the show myself, that the DTV commercials aired a minimum of 5 times per broadcast of the show.

They (the Ortez family) thought they needed to pay for cable to get digital service. "We are on public assistance and we really can't afford to get cable," says Ortez. "I didn't know, until I saw last week in the newspaper, that I could get one of those boxes."

Sorry Mr. Ortez, I'm not buying that excuse.
Not only did the DTV switch commercials air during L&O, but so did the converter box coupon program commercials.
That's how I learned about it.
The sign-up for the coupons began on January 1st 2008, so the Ortez family had plenty of time to sign up and get 1.
The Ortezs' are just full of excuses, or just plain stupid.

The couple was also confused by the delay in the transition. They thought the government decision to postpone meant they didn't need to take action. "We had heard that the whole thing got canceled back in January," says Ortez. "We didn't realize they were still going to do it until last week."

Sorry, but if they were still watching L&O last week as the article says, then they were still seeing the commercials multiple times during L&O, as well as during any other show they watched on any other channel for the last 2.5 years, and those commercials very clearly stated that the switch was being moved from February 2009 to June 2009.
And since when does postpone mean cancel?
It doesn't, they just have an excuse for everything regarding this switch, and they are claiming poverty as the main reason for not being prepared.
And maybe it's a good thing that the Ortez family can't watch tv right now.
They appear to be a bit addicted to the brain-jello box. emphasis mine.

Ortez says he hopes not to be without TV for long. He's trying to get his hands on a converter box so that he and his wife can start watching shows again soon. "Being that we are unemployed and at home so much it keeps us entertained and up with current events," said Ortez. "TV is such a big part of our lives. It's always been there for us. Now we can't even watch TV, it's really crazy."

I knew about it (the switch) for 2.5 years because I was watching tv and saw the commercials, I signed up for the coupon, got it, tried it with my antenna, realized that I needed a better antenna, and bought one.
I bought a Philips MANT950 Amplified HDTV Indoor/Outdoor Urban/Suburban Antenna, and it works perfectly now that the switch is in full swing.
Up until the switch happened, some channels worked better than others, I didn't have some channels for a long time, but now I have all of the missing channels and then some.
And they are telling us to keep re-scanning our converter boxes because approximately 10 new channels are supposed to be added in the coming months.
I paid $65.99 for it on sale, it's normally $75.99, and it's currently out of stock at every online retailer I've checked because people are realizing they are needing a much more powerful antenna than their old rabbit ears, but if you need 1 of these, and I highly recommend it if you have a converter box and not getting great reception, you can sign up to be notified when Buy.com gets them back in stock and puts them on sale.
I had a Terk low profile antenna before the switch, but it just wouldn't work well through the concrete walls we have here, so I had to get a new antenna.

We tried hooking it up inside the house first, but again, it just would not pull the digital signals through the concrete, so my sister hooked it up outside, and now it works perfect.
We do get some sun spot issues in the afternoon, but we had that with the analog too.
Other than that, I am really pleased with digital tv.
It's a very clear and crisp quality image, and the sound is great too.
When friends come over, they think that we have cable because of how perfect the picture and sound are.
I get approximately 35 channels with the antenna and converter box, so really, why pay an arm and a leg for Comcast cable when it's this good?
The coupon was for $40, so I paid $9.99 + tax for the converter box, and the antenna was $65.99, so I paid less than $100 in total to be able to watch digital tv on 35 + channels, instead of paying Comcast anywhere from $9.99 per month (only for the 1st 6 months then it goes to $19.99 per month) for their lowest basic cable package, which is nothing but the local broadcast channels, up to $199.99 per month for their cable, internet, and phone premier package.
I pay $20 per month for phone, and $19.99 for DSL, and I'm still paying less than any of Comcast's bundle packages.
I never have to pay anything for my tv again, just phone and internet, so paying about $80.00 up front for the box and antenna is a much better deal than getting cable, and the biggie, I don't have to deal with their super crappy customer service either.

---

June 15, 2009

Still more complaints about the Sims 3.

The reviews are still coming in on Amazon for the Sims 3, and people are still complaining that their computers are crashing or simply unable to play the game.

My daughter's computer is more than powerful enough, but she never got more than 10 minutes into the game without a hard crash (BSOD crash).

I can almost guarantee that this is yet another case of people saying that their computer met the specs, but in reality they did not, they probably read through the list of minimum requirements and said to themselves that they met them, but they never actually ran 1 of the tests that are out there for it, and they also did not have enough computer memory to have the game installed, never mind actually run and play it.

I knew before running the tests that my computer could handle it, but I ran both tests anyway and I updated my drivers even though I didn't really need to just because I knew that the graphics on this were going to be amazing, and they are.
Sebastian and I have even downloaded a few items including a really huge house that another Simmer designed, it's incredible, and I placed it up on the side of the mountain near the waterfall.
The house has a ton of windows all around, so my Sim can watch the sun rise and set and it is so so beautiful, not only that, but I had her go fishing at the base of the waterfall, and wow, what an incredible experience that was to just watch.
The graphics in this game are simply amazing, the waterfall is gorgeous, the water reflects the sunlight and the Sim, and the fish actually leap in and out of the water, and when your Sim is trying to catch the fish and they struggle, the water splashes about, it's just so good looking!
We haven't had a single issue with the game, no crashes, no glitches, no nothing.
The complaints these people are posting about are because they did not meet the minimum requirements, I can guarantee it.

---

June 13, 2009

Distracting myself.

I figured that I needed to distract myself for a little while, to just stop thinking about everything for awhile because it's done nothing but send me further into depression, so I decided to go and see what Buy.com has on sale this week.
The mix of items is always unique, from computers to video games, to jewelry and all kinds of other stuff, they have a wide selection to choose from every week.

I found a heck of a deal on an HP Pavillion Notebook, it's just $569 down from $1,200, and free shipping.
I absolutely love that almost every single item they sell has free shipping.

Anyway, I saw the notebook and thought of Mark.
He's probably going to need a laptop for college, and while I don't have the money right now, I know that Buy.com is always putting laptops on sale, so I'm sure that when I do have the money, they will have a nice one that we can get for him.

This is a very powerful notebook, it has;
Microprocessor AMD Turion X2 RM-72 Dual-Core Mobile Processor
Microprocessor Cache 2.10 GHz
Memory 4096MB
Memory Max 8192MB
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics RS780M
Video Memory Up to 1918MB
Hard Drive 400GB (5400RPM)
Multimedia Drive SuperMulti 8X DVDR/RW with Double Layer Support
and so much more.
The customer reviews are excellent too, 5 out of 5 stars for a refurbished notebook, that says something about how good this notebook is in my opinion.

We're just waiting for the woman from SCTI to get in touch with us about his classes, she said that they don't start until the end of June or the beginning of July, so she will probably be calling in the next few weeks, and then we'll have to get him all set up with what he needs, he'll do the 2 classes at SCTI, and then go to MCC in the fall for their criminal justice courses.

---

June 7, 2009

Reading quite a bit of negative reviews.

Seeing as how I don't have my copy of the Sims 3 yet thanks to Amazon totally screwing up the shipping by using Fedex Smart Post, I am just reading what other people think of the game.
If you go to Amazon, there's a lot of people not liking the game at all.
They are complaining about how when you go in a building like the grocery store, you can't actually go in, but are given a menu to purchase food items.
Do they not realize what an absolute resource hog it would be to have every single building be open world available?
It would bog down your computer in 20 minutes if they did that!
Some people are complaining about how the Sims are all fat looking.
Well, go into CAS and edit them because I've been on the official Sims forums, and looking at people's avatars and the pictures that people are uploading, and obviously other people are taking some serious time to edit their Sims because not all of them are fat and cartoon-y looking at all.

One of the biggest issues that I've noticed is that a lot of people bought this game and their computers did not meet the minimum requirements to play it.
I checked and double checked on 2 different sites to see if my computer could play it, and my computer exceeds the requirements so I shouldn't have any of the problems with cycle redundancy and the crashing that others are experiencing.
It's amazing to me just how many people bought this game and then realized that their computers couldn't handle it, and then had to go out and buy all new graphics cards and memory cards, and some people even had to buy an all new power supply because their computers did not have enough wattage.
That tells you how old some of these computers were.
I've put the results of 1 of my tests in the extended entry so anyone interested can see how much the game requires.

But I really cannot wait to get the game and create a single Sim, a house, and then go exploring the open world.
I'm going to get my Sim a bike and take them everywhere, on every road, every path, as far as they can possibly go.
Because I bought the collector's edition, I get the world map, so I can see the entire world, and I'm going to go as far as I can into the mountains, to the ocean, to the far outer banks, to the hills, to the inner cities, to wherever I can, explore every single road and path and nook and cranny of the open Sim world, and then I'll sit down and play the game.
I'll create a family, a story line, I'll think of a story and play it out, fulfill their lifetime wants and needs and all of that stuff.

Amazon sent me another email this afternoon saying that they are looking into where exactly my game is and how sorry they are for the inconvenience, and they hope to have an answer within 48 hours.
Well within 48 hours, I am supposed to have the game according to their original shipment date.
It still says on my Amazon order page that I am supposed to have it on Tuesday the 9th, but according to the Fedex smart post page, the package has not even been picked up from the seller yet, shipping has only been initiated, and then Fedex is supposed to deliver it to my local post office.
Amazon said that this is supposed to be faster delivery service. (???)
How is it faster to have it shipped through 2 different delivery companies and neither of them even have it yet?

Continue Reading �

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June 7, 2009

A very lazy Saturday.

The Cooper clan didn't do anything at all on Saturday.
Not a damn thing.
I laid on the couch the entire day watching movies while the teens slept in late and then alternated between playing video games and watching movies with me.
I was so tired today, I don't know what was wrong with me, maybe I was still working off the effects of the medicine mix-up from the other day, but I could barely keep my eyes open.
I tried though, especially when Moulin Rouge! was on the CW.
That movie is just so bizarre that I love it.
All the weird imagery and the music, it's fabulous.
I can only imagine how good it would look on a HD LCD tv like this SyntaxBrillian that is on
sale at Buy.com this week for 54% off with free shipping.

That's a wicked good deal.
Eh, someday when things are better.
I have way, way too much going on right now to even think about buying a new tv set, but someday I will catch up with the times and get an HD LCD tv and start looking at tv the way the rest of you do. hahaha

What else did we watch?
Oh, we watched Gladiator, Red Dawn and The Road to El Dorado.

Mark went and spent the night at his friend Jeff's house, and so it was just Sebastian and I here at home all night.
We spent a lot of time talking about the Sims 3 which we still don't have because the shipping got screwed up even though I pre-ordered and paid for it way back in December.
Yeah, I am NOT happy about that at all.
Sebastian and I have been looking forward to this game for a very long time, it is one of the things that he and I do together, that we talk about and play together, and so not having it yet has really upset us both.
I wanted to have enough time to get it installed and learn how to play it, teach him how to play it before I have to go have my surgery so that nothing goes wrong with the game or the computer while I am away in the hospital.
They decided to ship it to FedEx, and then FedEx will ship it to my local USPS, but so far, the only thing that has been done is the shipping process has been initiated.
The game was released on June 2nd, and here it is, June 7th.
I am so not pleased with how they decided to ship this out, but because it's in the shipping process, I can't cancel it.
There's basically nothing I can do but wait.
I sent them an email asking about it, and they sent one back explaining how they shipped it and then said that if I don't have it by 6pm on June 16th, to email them.
Wow.
If that happens, I am going to be absolutely furious. .
And no, it is not Buy.com that I bought it from.
I have never had a bad shopping experience from Buy.com.
Ever.

---

June 2, 2009

Sims 3 is almost here!!

I bought my copy of the Sims 3, the collector's edition, back in December, and I should have it in my hands in a day or two.
But if you're a simmer and haven't bought your copy yet, Buy.com has the regular version on sale this week for just $44.95.

You can get the Sims 3 and play in a totally open world.
No more being stuck in your house or having to wait for loading screens while your Sims go from one place to another, you can now walk out the front door, go across the street and get into an argument with your neighbor for being messy.
You can totally customize every bit of the game from the Sims appearance, to their personalities, giving each of them up to 5 different personality traits that will make every Sim you create a totally unique individual.

I am totally looking forward to getting it, installing it, and giving that open world a try.
I also want to test how the Sims can die or be killed.
I know that's a bit sadistic, but when you create a Sim that turns out to be a total butthead, you have to get rid of them before they destroy your whole family or life plan.

I bought the collector's edition because it comes with a special down-loadable sports car, the official Prima guide book, some Sims 3 music, and a USB drive shaped like the plumbob.

I cannot wait for it to get here!
It's going to be so much fun!
W00t!

---

May 31, 2009

What kind of ruler are you?

While we were sitting all that time waiting for graduation to start, my sister was showing Sebastian and I all of the stuff her Apple Ipod Touch can do.
Then she realized it had wifi in the arena, so there must be some really good cell towers around the Robarts arena neighborhood, because Sebastian went online, watched a few videos on youtube, and some other stuff.

But she had this wicked cool game on there, it's an app called Pocket God, and it is absolutely hysterical!
You are god and you are in total control of all these little islander people, and you get to kill them in a ton of totally funny ways.
Lightening, sharks, volcano explosion, and turning your ipod will make them fall off the island, and so many other funny things.
We were all just sitting there laughing our asses off over all the things you can do to the Oggs.
Check out the video below.

---

May 27, 2009

Carmine sleeping on pile of clothes. his fave spot.

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May 27, 2009

Just testing flickr from cell. it doesnt always work for me.

---

May 24, 2009

Lost the whole damn thing.

I was in the middle of writing a post up when the whole internet went down.
It didn't just go down, we like had a power flicker, my power strip shut itself off, and so when everything came back on and the net came back up, I had lost everything that I was doing at the time, which included a post that was like 1 sentence away from being finished.

UGH.

---

May 22, 2009

Insomnia! Leave me hangin' on all ni-ight! oh-oh-oh, damn insomniaaaa!!!

So uh, yeah, I've been up all night with insomnia again.
I did finally get some sleep yesterday afternoon, I was able to sleep for about 3 hours, and then I just woke up, and was totally ready to go again.
It's now a little after 4pm, and while I'm tired, I cannot sleep.

I had so many things that I wanted to do today, I have all this work that I wanted to do, I wanted to get it all done, but did I do it?
No-o-o-o!
I spent like the entire day just answering emails.
The whole day, answering emails.
That is not what I wanted to do today, but that's what I did.
I kept saying to myself,
"Self, as soon as you get done with this email, you need to get crackin' on all of that work that you need to get done or it's never going to get done."

And I would even answer myself,
"Self, I KNOW that I have work to do, but these emails, these are important, they must be answered. These people took their time to email me, the least I can do is take the time to email them back. As soon as I get done with this one, I will get started on the work that I need to do."

But then as soon as I replied to that email, I got another one that my insomnia deep-fried brain told me was just as equally important as the previous 7 emails.
So no, I did not get a single thing done today that I meant to do.
But I do feel like I accomplished a lot though.
It usually takes me like 2-3 days to answer emails, and I did them all today, so that in itself is a huge accomplishment.

All of the stuff that I needed and wanted to get done today is all work I can do on my computer, which is a good thing because my arthritis is flared up today big time.
My right knee is HUGE, it's all swollen and sore from the arthritis, I have been limping around all day long every single time that I needed to get up and pee or get a drink.
Owie wowie, painful.

I am really hoping that I will still be able to get at least some of what I want to get done, done, but I don't know for sure if I will be able to.
Dustin and Stacey are supposed to come over tonight for dinner and a movie, and then when they leave, whatever time that ends up being, I hope that I'm going to be somewhat coherent enough to get some work done.
I have a couple of product reviews that I need to write up, not telling you what they are for yet, you'll have to come back to find out, but I can tell you that none of them will be weight loss pill reviews because I haven't been allowed to take any weight loss pills since the beginning of September.

Ok, I need to get off of here for just a little bit.
I need to pee again, (damn blood pressure meds make me pee like a racehorse on lasix), get another drink, (that could be contributing to the pee thing too, hrm....) and call Dustin to find out what time they are coming and ask about what they want to eat for dinner, and also fold the last load of laundry in the dryer.

Ok, really gotta go now.
Later days!

---

May 6, 2009

Nothing is wrong with the laptop.

Last night when Dustin and Stacey were here, they brought over a laptop much like this HP Presario that is currently on sale at like a huge savings.

Anyway, they brought it over because a friend had loaned it to them for a few days, and Stacey thought she screwed it up because no matter what site she went to, these "weird pop-ups" were appearing.
They asked me to take a look at it and fix it so their friend wouldn't get mad at them.

So I opened it up and connected it to my wireless network, and then hopped on the internet.
Immediately there were pop-ups, but they weren't of the malicious kind at all, it was Norton internet security popping up every few minutes to tell you to be careful downloading things from the sites that Stacey was going to.
Sites like Myspace, Facebook, etc.
I admit, it was totally annoying dealing with those pop-ups, but it wasn't the bad kind of pop-up, so I told Stacey she didn't do anything wrong, it's just the laptops security program trying to warn you about stuff.
Personally, I hate Norton because it's a major resource hog, and because of the annoying pop-ups.

But the laptop itself was extremely nice and I am pretty sure it was like that HP Presario.
It was heavy though, like really heavy.
I had it on my lap and I was like wow, this thing is heavy, and Dustin laughed and asked if all laptops were like that.
I told him no, most aren't, but this one is because of how much stuff it has in it.
It had all the bells and whistles you could possibly want in a laptop, dvd player, cd burner, the works.
I wanted to keep playing with it, it was super nice, but they had to go home and then take it back to the owner today.
I'd love to get a laptop someday just so I can do stuff from the couch when I'm having a rough day or not feeling all that great, I'd still be able to get stuff done ya know?
I don't know if I'd want one that heavy, but I'd want it to have a lot of memory and a cd burner, dvd player, all of the good stuff so I could also watch movies and play games and stuff.

---

April 22, 2009

Food, computers, and stocking up.

The other day, I said that I was going to make my own video of how to cook with the NuWave Oven Pro, and post it here and on youtube, and maybe get NuWave's attention, so I can get the new pizza kit they have. (Hey, it could happen)
Tonight, I made a 5lb chicken in only 1 hour and 15 minutes, it was perfect, I put bbq sauce on it for the last 10 minutes of cooking time, and it came out incredible, tasted way better than those rotisserie chickens you can get at a deli, super yummy.
My video was so packed full of info too, I even got the names of the 3 ways that it cooks correct from memory, not having to read them this time, conduction, convection, and far infrared.
The last 2 times someone asked me how it cooks, I kept forgetting their actual names, and said conduction, infrared, and the circular heat cooking method.
haha
But I really did pack the 4 minute video with a ton of information, instructions, and even rattled off some of the foods I've made in it since getting it.

Anyway, I made videos every step of the way, I edited them in windows movie maker, it was a really kick ass video, and then I screwed up.
I wanted to name the video the same name as I had saved the first part of the videos I had made, and I wasn't thinking clearly, and I deleted all of the smaller video clips I had used to make the final video, and even deleted them from the recycle bin.
I tried 3 different programs to restore all of the clips, but nope, they were already being overwritten by my computer.
Sometimes, not all of the time, as soon as you delete a file, and also delete it from the recycle bin, your computer thinks that it's freed up space, so it starts overwriting the space on your hard drive.
I did find all of the video files, but they had already been destroyed and partially overwritten.
*sigh*
I'll just have to do again the next time I cook something in it, which will probably be tomorrow night.

With hurricane season coming up soon on June 1st, I've begun stockpiling our supply bins.
I start getting a ton of canned foods that can be eaten cold, plastic utensils, paper plates and bowls, batteries, water, snacks etc.
I think I may have gone a bit overboard last year though.
When I opened up the bins that I keep in my closet, I found some stuff that I left in there.
I have quite the surplus of toilet paper and baby wipes.
I have 10/4 packs of toilet paper, and 10 refill packages of baby wipes with 1 brand new container of wipes still wrapped in the plastic.
Well, at least I won't have to buy any of that stuff this year, now I just need to cross those items off of my shopping list so I don't buy even more of them.
I just need to find my list now.
Hrm.

---

April 22, 2009

Flips are all the rage.

I keep seeing and hearing people talk about those Flip Video cameras, and how much people love them, everywhere!
I was watching The View yesterday, and Joy Behar was showing clips of her trip to Washington DC, the White House, and some of the other things she did on her trip, and the videos weren't bad at all, and she used one of these Flip Video cameras to do it.
You can watch some of those clips on their video page.

People everywhere, are talking about them, raving about them, and posting video clips like crazy because of those things, and Buy.com has refurbished ones on sale right now for just $79, the normal price is $179.00, so that's an awesome $100 off!

They do look pretty cool, and they have some great user ratings, mostly 4, 4.5 out of 5 stars, and customers are saying things like;
"Purchased a "reconditioned" flip ultra; it arrived in a sealed package and worked with no major problems."
and..
"I used the Flip 5 minutes after opening the box."

My friend Charlotte, actually bought 1 of these and posted a review on her blog about it.
I also have several other friends who have bought and love their Flip Video cameras too, so it's a cool and cheap camera if you are looking to get 1.

---

April 21, 2009

How would you say....

something like you need immigration lawyers, or ask for directions in Spanish?

I keep seeing commercials, on CW44 mostly, for that computer program that teaches you different languages, and I've been thinking that maybe I'd like to get a copy of the Rosetta Stone program to learn how to speak Spanish.
I don't know about the rest of the country, my friend Shell has told me that there are a lot of Hispanics moving to and living in Maine now, but here in Florida and where I live in Sarasota, it is heavily populated with Hispanics, and they work in almost every type of place you get customer service.

Most of the places I go, like Publix, make sure that all of their employees speak clearly and in English, but sometimes it is still very hard for me to understand them if they have a heavy accent.
And sometimes I hear a couple of Hispanic employees speaking to each other while stocking the shelves, and I wonder what they are saying.
Yeah, I'm nosy like that.
And there were the times that a Hispanic employee, a woman, was working in the deli at Publix, and she was making the subs on 1 of the days we went there.
I usually let the teens get subs when we go and do the big grocery shopping for helping me get everything, bring it in, and help me put it all away, as like a treat, a thank you for all of the help.

Back-up.

On several of my shopping trips, she would be working in the deli cutting meats, doing customer service, and I would order like a pound of the Publix brand Sweet Ham, or Publix brand roast beef, whatever, and she would talk back to me in Spanish.
I guess she was asking me what I wanted, like she didn't understand me or something, so I would repeat it, "1 pound of Publix brand Sweet Ham, sliced sandwich cut please."
Again, she would say something in Spanish, raise her hands up, and sorta shake her head like she was confused and didn't understand me.
I would keep repeating myself, and she would keep doing the didn't understand me thing until another deli employee would move into the slicing area.
The teens would be over ordering their subs, probably about 5-7 feet from where I was, and they would be sorta giggling at me and whispering to me to not make a scene at the same time.
But like I said, as soon as another employee would get close, she would suddenly understand what I wanted, and she'd cut the meats I ordered.
This happened a whole bunch of times, on almost every single trip to the store, and when I would buy meat from the deli, for about 1 and a half months.
I go to Publix approximately 3 times per week, and buy lunch meats 2 out of the 3 trips.

Then 1 day, I had already gotten the meats I wanted, the deli manager had waited on me that day, and then I went over and ordered all of us subs for dinner.
The deli manager was now waiting on other customers, and the Hispanic woman must have just clocked in, and she came over to the sub station to wait on us.
Again, she acted like she didn't know what I was asking for, 3 whole subs, white rolls, Publix brand sweet ham, white American cheese, mayo, tomatoes, onions, pickles, salt, pepper, and sub sauce on all.
All 3 of the subs were going to be exactly the same, we've ordered the subs like this a gazillion times over the last 12 years that we've lived here, and this woman is standing there shaking her head at me, hands up, making a confused look on her face, and saying "No comprenda."

I had had enough of this game, it happened every time she was working the deli, and it appeared to only be with me, and she would immediately "get it" when another employee or the deli manager would get close enough to hear us and me repeating myself over and over.
The Hispanic woman walked off to go to the walk-in meat cooler, and I ran over to the deli manager and asked her if the woman speaks English, she told me that she did, and I quickly explained what had been happening
The deli manager got as close to the sub station as she could, but not so close that it would look obvious that she was trying to hear us.
The Hispanic woman came back with a tub of sliced tomatoes, a tub of sliced pickles, and a new jar of mayo, so it's obvious that she did understand me because those are some of the things asked for.
Then she just stood there looking at me, and so I repeated the order again, 3 whole subs, white rolls, Publix brand sweet ham, white American cheese, mayo, tomatoes, onions, pickles, salt, pepper, and sub sauce on all, and once again, she raised her hands up, shook her head side to side, and said "No comprenda."
So I repeated it, and again, she shook her head at me and said "no comprenda."

The manager came over, yelled the woman's name, and asked her what the hell she was doing.
The woman suddenly spoke perfect English, crystal clear, "I'm waiting on this customer, making her 3 subs, all the same."

The manager said "No, what are you doing speaking to her in Spanish and pretending that you don't understand her. No comprenda means that you don't understand what she's asking for, why are you doing that?!"

The woman stood there, turning red in the face, giggled and said, "I'm just having some fun."

The manager said, "Fun? You think pretending that you don't speak English, that you don't understand what the customer is saying, making her repeat herself over and over, is fun? You think that's fun?! Do you know what I think is fun?! Watching people stand in line at the unemployment office. You're fired!"

The woman asked if she was joking, the manager said no, get out of here, you're fired, leave, now, and the woman almost started crying, said she was just joking, turned to me and apologized, said she was just joking, and she didn't mean to upset me.
She must have said sorry to me a dozen times, and the manager just kept telling her she was fired, to leave now or she'd call security to get her out.

As the woman walked off crying, I felt sorta bad, but not really.
This had been happening every time I went there, and it was really frustrating, I felt like I should have been able to speak to her in Spanish, that it was my fault that she didn't understand what I needed.
I know it wasn't my fault, Publix has rules for employees about speaking in English and clearly, but I still felt like maybe I should have tried to speak her native language.

That was about 3 years ago, and since then, Publix has hired even more Hispanic employees, some of them have very thick accents, it's very difficult for me to understand some of them, and it's like this almost everywhere that I go and have to use a customer service employee.
Grocery stores, 7-Eleven, Wal-mart, Target, Subway, and almost every single fast food place like McDonald's and Taco Bell.
Even just walking up and down the aisles at the grocery store, sometimes a Hispanic person will ask me something, in Spanish, I have no idea what they want, and I say as nicely as I can that I don't speak Spanish, and they look frustrated and upset, they try to say whatever it is in English, but they can't seem to figure out the words needed.

I'm one of those people that believes wholeheartedly that if you move to a new country, that you need to learn the language of the country that you chose to live in, to not expect the people who live there, have lived there all of their lives, to learn your language.
Like, if I decided to move to France, or Germany, India, China, wherever, I would start studying the language of the country that I had made the decision to move to, and I would learn it as best as I could before moving there, and then keep on studying it and learning it until I became fluent in it, had an excellent grasp on the language, so that I could properly communicate with the people of that country, buy my groceries or items for my home, or a sandwich from a store or vendor.
I would never expect those people to learn mine, to make my life easier in their country, the place that I chose to live in.

But it is becoming harder and harder to communicate with employees almost everywhere I shop now, or have to call for customer service help, and the language most widely being spoken is Spanish.
I am really feeling the pressure to learn it just so that I can get customer service at a place I have shopped at for years.

---

April 17, 2009

A lot of awesome sale items this week.

I've become like addicted to checking out Buy.com's weekly deals to see what they have on sale, and I am rarely ever disappointed with their great deals.

This week they have the same mp3 player that I have and love, the SanDisk Sansa Clip 1 gb mp3 player, for only $14.99.
It's normally $69.99, so that's a huge savings of $55.00!
It is a reconditioned one, but it's a really great mp3 player, so being reconditioned is not an issue in my opinion.
I absolutely love mine, I use it all of the time, every night when I'm laying there not sleeping due to insomnia, I listen to it off and on all day long, I just love it!

It plays mp3, wma, secure wma and audible audio file formats, and it also has an FM tuner with 40 preset channels, but it's really easy to set it to your radio stations, it has up to 15 hours of play time, and recharges using a usb cord and your computer.
You can also use it to record yourself notes with a built in microphone.
I haven't used that feature on mine yet, but I'll probably play around with it at some point.
It can hold 250 mp3s, and 500 wmas, that's a TON of music.
It has really good user ratings, and like I said, I absolutely love mine, it's so easy to use and has a very bright display, you can set it to shut off after so many minutes too, which makes it perfect if you use it to fall asleep like I do, it just shuts off.
Just don't roll over on it like I did one night and then not be able to figure out why it needed to be reset.
Oooops!
Anyway, it's a good deal on a good mp3 player, so if you need one or know someone who wants an mp3 player, you should check it out.
It's as good as those bigger name brand ones that cost a whole lot more.

---

April 11, 2009

Friends, computers, and fun.

A couple of my friends came over tonight, Dustin and his girlfriend Stacey, and we all just hung out and talked for a few hours about all kinds of stuff.
Stacey is a total sweetheart, she came in and marched straight to my kitchen and did my dishes even though I told her like 6 times not to.
She said she wanted to help because Dustin told her what a totally crappy week I've had with the AC and the heat.
Dustin and I talk on the phone several times a week, he has been giving me rides to some of my doctor's appointments and stuff too.
Even though I told her not to do them, and she did them anyway, I really did appreciate her doing them.
The kitchen is just way too hot without the AC, and I tried to do the dishes, but just couldn't.
It was so hot in there, I gave up after just 3 bowls and 1 cup.

Then we sat around my computer and I showed her how to do some stuff.
She really wants to get better at the internet, so I helped her with her myspace page, showed her how to add some stuff to it, how to save pics and then host them so she could post them, and then we're going to slowly do some more stuff together so she can set up her own website.
She has some ideas for what she wants to do, and she brought over a whole bunch of pictures on her flash drive that she wants to have on her website when she gets it up and running.
She wants to start her own dance/exercise studio, teach women how to get in shape through dancing.
She's been a dancer for 17 years, and she's in incredible shape, dancing is all she does to stay in shape, so she wants to teach other women how to dance to get in shape, and how much more fun it is than regular old boring exercises like sit ups and crunches, lunges, and stuff.
I think it's a great idea, and there aren't any of these types of fitness places around here, so I think she's got a really good shot at making it work.
She already has her studio planned out and is meeting with the property owners about monthly rental costs in a few weeks.

Dustin went absolutely nuts when he saw the giant box of Tootsie Roll candies I have...LoL
I swear, no mater how old a guy is, they all act like little kids in a candy store when they see that much candy.
His eyes lit up, he asked how I got it all, I told him I won it, and he was like OMG! You so rock! hahaha

We're going to plan a night of movies and dinner for like next weekend or something, pick a good movie, plan a good meal, and just hang out together.
The teens like the both of them, they showed Dustin WoW, and he was amazed.
He said he had heard about the game from friends, but had never seen it, so he was all "Wow, this is so freaking cool!"
Both he and Stacey like to play video games too, so when they saw that the teens had Resident Evil 5, they said after dinner and the movie, they want to play that game even though it scares the crap outta Stacey, she loves to play it and be scared.
I'm the same way, I love to play it even though it totally creeps me out. hahaha

So anyway, that's how our night was, I have some stuff to catch up on, and even though it's late, I'm still going to try and get some of it done.
I'm wide awake again.
Might have something to do with the amount of sugar I ate today...hahaha

---

April 8, 2009

Unemployment and education.

On the local forums I sometimes play on, a lot of the discussions lately have been about politics, news, unemployment, money, and what to do about all of it.
One of the hot topics today was the fact that unemployment benefits for a lot of people, are going to run out before the second half of the year.
They are rough estimating that about 700,000 people will lose their benefits before the second half of the year, and with more and more companies and businesses closing, the hopes of them finding a job are not good.
Just in March 2009, 663,000 jobs were lost.
That's more people going on unemployment, and those people will probably also run out of unemployment benefits before the end of the year as well.

So what are people supposed to do?
That's the questions everyone is asking?
One of the really smart guys on the forum, a guy whose posts I always read and try to take his words seriously, had a lot of advice for people today.
What to be doing right now, things to do to prepare for when the economy gets even worse, and it will, and how to possibly avoid being one of the millions out of work and with no income at all.
One of his suggestions was to get further education and training at accredited online colleges in fields that are needed right now, get an online degree, and it will be needed heavily when things start getting better again.
One of the fields he sees being needed in great demand are business and project managers, and so a Project Management certificate or project management degree, may be a really good idea for people to look into if they are already in any of the fields listed at this link.
If you're in any of those fields, get further education in those fields, you're going to need it to be able to compete with the millions of people looking at the same jobs that you are.
If you are fortunate enough to still have a job, you can further your education online at St. Joseph University, and get your certificate in any of the fields that you may be in and needing to make yourself "better" and more prepared for the demands of the job when the time comes.

Things are going to get better, but they are going to get a whole lot worse first.
It's time to really start preparing for the worst of it, and to also be prepared when the upswing begins so you can be ahead of the fighting for the best jobs.
There are a lot of people out of work, more going to lose their jobs, and when things start to get better, it's going to be a fight for jobs at any places that have any openings at all.
You are going to need to stand out, and have more to offer than the other guy.

---

April 5, 2009

Internet window shopping.

I am trying really hard to stick to not spending money on things I really don't need, trying to start saving for that 8 month emergency fund, but I can't help myself from looking at Buy.com's weekly sale items.

They don't really have anything that I truly want or need this week which is good, but I still saw some stuff that looked interesting.
If I was going to buy something this week, it would be the Cables To Go 7 Port Aluminum USB 2.0 Hub because I have so many things that need to be plugged into the usb slots, but I only have 3 slots on my pc.
It's normally $44.99, but they have it on sale for just $17.99, so it's a huge savings of $27.00 for something that probably every single computer user with gadgets needs to have.
It's really annoying having to unplug an item to plug in and charge another item, and if they all need charging, well, you can see the problem.
It always seems like all my stuff needs to be charged at the same time.

It's small enough that it won't take up a lot of room on your desk either, but it can have 7 different items plugged into it at one time so you never have to unplug 1 item to plug in and charge another.
It has some good reviews too, out of 5 stars, it rates a 4.5 from other customers, so if I was going to buy something this week, that would be what I would get.
But I'm really wanting to try and save my money right now.

---

April 1, 2009

iTunes has crappy custome service.

See that?
That is a $1 authorization charge on my credit card for Apple's iTunes. (scroll down to the $1 charge FAQ)
I DON'T HAVE AN iTUNES ACCOUNT!
I have never had an iTunes account, the teens don't have an iTunes account, they also use a totally different computer, no access to my credit cards, and no access to my computer's saved information, this is a fraudulent charge.

So, I try and contact Apple from the 866 number you see on the charge.
It's a recorded message that tells you to go to this support page for Apple iTunes.
As you can see, that page says support/itunes/store/creditcard/.
They don't have a live person you can contact for support, you have to use their chat window, and talk to people who type slower than molasses on a cold winter day.
It took 10 minutes for "Tremain" to finally type out the number to speak to someone in Apple's fraud department.

I called that number and got a recorded message saying that it could take several business days for someone to call me back regarding the fraudulent charge on my card.
Actually, not someone, just 1 someone, a man named Robert.
1 guy handles ALL of the fraud issues for credit cards and Apple iTunes.
1 guy.

So I called my credit/debit card holder, Amscot.
I asked what I should do, I explained everything, and the woman I spoke to said the only thing that we can do is to cancel that card.
I can't cancel it right now, my SSDI gets direct deposited to it at midnight tomorrow night, I have all of my rent and bills to pay, plus my doctor co-pays and prescriptions.
Then I asked how long it would take to get a new card sent to me after this card gets canceled.
7-10 business days.
I asked if they had like a rush delivery service, to get it overnight or much faster, she said yes, but it will cost me $26.00 to get a new card in 4 days.
The number on the card will change, but my checking account and routing number will not change, which is good, because I have money that gets direct deposited to it every other week and once a month.

A few months ago, this same thing happened but with some other online company, I think it was Best Buy and some promo they were doing, but a ton of credit card numbers had been stolen from compromised data from a grocery store.
I think that's what happened with this one too.
And guess which store I shopped at within the last month?
Sweetbay.
Sweetbay is the same store that my PayPal debit card got compromised at, I don't shop there all of the time, but about 1 month ago, I went and did some light shopping there because I was at the CVS picking up Sebastian's medicine for his migraines, and didn't feel like going all the way back to my Publix.

So now I have to get an all new card.
I'm tired of having to do this, and if I find out that it is because of Sweetbay not protecting their data again, or some Sweetbay employee stealing credit and debit card numbers, I'm going to be pissed.

---

March 31, 2009

Redesigned badly.

I went to check on my child support payments, nothing so far this week, and then I wanted to check the balance on the State of Florida child support card that I never wanted to begin with anyway, and found that they redesigned the site.
Badly.
It doesn't work in FireFox, only IE, and it's just done really stupid.
Type in your username and hit submit.
Taken to a page where you have to enter your password, type out your own security question and answer, pick a picture, name the picture whatever you want, type out the security code captcha, and hit submit.
Except when I hit submit, nothing at all happens.
Nothing, it just sits there, the task bar says done, yet nothing happens.
But go over to IE, and it works, takes you to your account so you can check on deposits and balances.
Like I said, it doesn't work in FireFox, only IE, which I hate using, but entering all that stuff every single time you use it?
I have to type out a security question and answer every single time, pick a picture and name the picture anything I want, every single time, and then the security captcha every single time too.
I can see having to answer the security question, and then entering what I named the picture, and the security captcha, but doing it all every single time?
What the hell was the designer of that system thinking?!
I could write a different question and answer every time, I could choose a different picture and name it something different every single time.
I just don't understand how they think that's secure.
Idiots.

---

March 29, 2009

Moving pictures.

I just found one of those digital picture frames I covet, on sale at Buy.com in their weekly deals, and I want it.
It's an Aluratek Hi-Res Digital Photo Frame, normally $139.99, their price is $99.99, and after the rebate, just $79.99, and free shipping.

It has a nice quality wooden frame, built in speakers so it can playback music while you run your pictures in a slide show, or have no music at all, up to you.
It has 256MB of built in memory, which is great because a lot of the digital frames I have looked at need memory cards, or have to have a usb thumb drive attached in order to show the pictures.
The LCD screen is 10.5", so your pictures display in a really nice size, and it's true color, so however you took the pics or cleaned them up, is how they will look.
It also has room for a memory card in case you want to have more pictures in it than just what the built in memory will hold, but 256 is pretty darn good for most jpegs.
It supports all kinds of formats, too, like picture / video / audio formats such as JPEG, MJPG, AVI, and MP3, so you can have just pictures, or play a little movie, and have music too.
And the other cool thing is that you don't have to just have it on a table, you can hang it on your wall, and turn it on only when you want it to run through the slide show.
So it will look like a normal picture in a frame on the wall, nobody would really notice it until you turned it on with the remote control it comes with.

I have been wanting to get one of these for a really long time to not only have for myself, but to test it out so I can buy one for each of the grandparents, and then fill them both up with pictures of the teens, and then send them with the instructions on how to turn it on and off with the remote.
Make it as easy as possible for them to use, so all they would have to do is turn it on and enjoy the pictures.
There are much cheaper ones out there, but this one has the built in memory like I said, so it's the one I would definitely like to buy for the grandparents.
When I go to buy theirs, I have to make sure it really is as simple as turning it on and off, or they could get frustrated with it and never use it.
Well, not my parents, they are pretty good with their computer, but Great-Gram is very old, refuses to use a computer, and does not have any electronics in her house that are harder to use than a VCR.
We all (all the kids and grand-kids) wanted to pitch in and buy her this email to phone machine thing, so that we all could send her emails over the phone, and the machine would print them out when she pressed a single button.
We would have always supplied and replaced the paper and ink, Aunt Heather sees Gram several times per week, but when we discussed it with Gram, she said it sounded far too complicated to use, so no, do not buy it for her.
*sigh*
So now that I have my taxes back, have paid back my loan and paid off a bunch of bills, I think it's finally time to get one for myself and test it out so I can buy the Grands theirs too.

---

March 21, 2009

Talent I wish I had.

Last year I had posted about wanting to buy Sebastian a graphics tablet that Buy.com had on sale, to get him for his birthday.
Well my friend Charlotte had 1 that she never used, it was brand new, so we made a deal, and Sebastian got an awesome new graphics tablet to use.

Buy.com has another tablet on sale right now, a Genius G-Pen F610 Graphics Tablet for $69.99, down from $129.99.
That's a really great price for a really cool computer tool.

These graphics tablets are so cool, I wish that I knew how to make stuff with them, I would love to be able to draw on the tablet and make some cool stuff like Sebastian does, but I just don't have that kind of artistic talent.
This is a digital birthday card he made for me using the tablet and some other tools like photoshop and some other stuff.
I don't know how he does it, but it doesn't take him long at all to make things with it and photoshop.
You can click it for bigger, but it's really big, like 1366x768 or something like that.

He found a cake image online, then he used the tablet and pen to draw some designs on it and also to write the lettering.
He's so good at this, he says it's easy, and he tried to teach me but I kept doing it wrong and got frustrated.
He said "Not everyone is good at this stuff Mom, if you ever need graphics for your site, I can make 'em for you."

The tablet does look really easy to use, and so if you have a kid with artistic and computer talents, these tablets would make a great gift to help them better their skills.
Or maybe it's you who's good at this kind of stuff, and it's plug and play, so really easy to set up too.
I just wish he would spend more time doing this stuff, making things, building up his portfolio for when he goes to college.
He's in all senior classes for computers at school.
He's the only sophomore in the digital design class, the only sophomore in the graphics, design, and marketing class too, and he gets all A's and B's.
If he spent more time on this stuff than on playing video games like WoW and GH3, he could build up one heck of a portfolio for school.
But speaking of GH3, there's a free demo out for the Metallica version that is due to come out sometime soon, like on the 29th of this month.
We downloaded the demo yesterday, it only has 4 songs, but wow, it looks amazing, and Sebastian had so much fun trying to play the songs.
He made me stay in the room and watch him play so that I could warn him when Kirk Hammett's guitar solos were coming up so he could try and be prepared to move his fingers really fast...LoL
The game really does look amazing, the characters really do look like the guys from the band, and even had some of their little gestures that they do, like how James Hetfield grimaces and points to the audience, and how how Lars Ulrich makes weird faces while he plays.
If you have an xbox 360, a live account, and GH3, you should definitely download the demo and check it out, it's really pretty cool and now he wants the game when it's released even more.
I wouldn't mind having it too, the music is really awesome.

---

March 4, 2009

Stressful days just fly by don't they?

I've had one of those days where the stress level has been so high that I've totally forgotten to eat anything at all.
I don't need to buy diet pills when I'm just a huge ball of stress, I completely forget to eat!

Why have I been so stressed out today?
Because a nosy busybody has been reading my blog and taking extremely innocent posts that I've written, and totally twisted them around to hurt a family member.
I had to stop this from happening, so I spent a better part of the day learning how to block an entire range of ip addresses using .htaccess.
I can't go into any details just in case I didn't do the .htaccess right, I won't know for a few days I suppose, I'll have to watch my stats and see if the person is still getting through, but I do know that blocking that whole range has blocked someone else out.
But it was the only way that I could do it, and I hope that the other person will understand.
Nasty, cruel people bother me, and this has had me so upset today, a totally innocent post, not having anything to do with anyone at all, was twisted around so maliciously, and intently, to hurt someone close to me.

My family member understands that this is my blog, my place to write and vent, share the good and the bad, they don't want me to change anything at all that I do here, so I had to find a way to stop this vile person, and I so hope that it works, I really do, because the thought of them reading any more of my posts and using them against anyone else, or taking any more innocent stories and twisting them around to become horrible and terribly untrue stories, makes me sick to my stomach.
I'm so sick and stressed over this I couldn't eat if I wanted to right now.
Just please let it work.

---

February 28, 2009

Too early to start cleaning.

I've been awake all night again, can't sleep, but hey, what's new about that?
Nothing!
I'm feeling tons better and have so much to do today, but it's far too early to start, I'll wake the teens, and they need all the rest they can get because we've got some heavy duty cleaning to do today.
They are gonna be tired tonight!

So because it's so early and I can't do much of anything that needs to be done, I figured I'd go and see what's on sale this week.
I found this 7-port LED USB hub, which would be totally useful for me.

I have 3 USB ports on my pc, but I have a whole bunch of things that use the ports, so every time i need to use 1 of the different electronics, I have to unplug something else.
I have my Cannon scanner, my printer, my photo printer, my mp3 player, my picture keychain, my camera, , and a couple other things that either use the USB ports to upload, or use them to charge the items.
One USB hub would be perfect.
I could always have all of the USB cords plugged in so at any given moment, I could just plug in what I needed to use, instead of having to unplug 1 or 2 things, find the other USB cords, plug those back in, when done, find the right USB cords to plug the other stuff back in.
Yeah, totally confusing and a total time waster too.
It's not a bad price either, but not right now.
I'll just add it to my list of things I want when i get ahead on bills and other things.

---

February 18, 2009

Maybe it would work for an xbox?

Buy.com is always having awesome weekly deals and great sale prices on all kinds of items, jewelry, electronic items and more, and this week they have something that I'm wondering if it would help.

They have a Cables Unlimited Super Laptop Cooler, for only $15.99 and free shipping.
It connects through the USB ports, and helps to keep a laptop cool, but maybe it would work to help keep xbox 360's cool too.
They do make an intercooler for them, but I heard from many people that it didn't work, and not only did it not work, but it actually caused their xbox 360 motherboard to heat up even more, and melt, rendering their 360 completely useless.

I have no idea if it would work or not, but I do need something to help keep it from overheating,
Buy.com also has another cooler that looks like it may work even better because you actually lay the laptop on top of it, and so I assume you could lay an xbox on top of it the same way, and it could continuously blow cool air into the grids the same as the intercooler does without actually attaching to the xbox, not powered by the xbox, which is what causes the intercooler to make it overheat and melt the motherboard.
It's an extra component being powered by it, so it heats up even though it's supposed to cool it down.

I'll have to do some more investigtaing, read reviews on both items, and hit up the xbox forums to find out if anyone else has used a laptop cooler to help keep their xbox from overheating.
Right now, we're just using a small portable box fan, and we leave it on the whole time the xbox is on and for about an hour after we shut it (the xbox) off to help cool it down even faster so the motherboard doesn't have a chance to overheat and melt the motherboard.

---

February 16, 2009

Converter box coupon exchange program.

The government estimates that there are still about 6.5million households in the US who are not ready for the digital tv switch.
They don't have cable or satellite tv, can't afford it, and they don't have a digital tv, can't afford 1 of those either, and now the government has run out of money to supply those households with a digital converter box coupon.
The households who received their coupons but they expired due to retailers running out of the digital converter boxes, will be able to get a replacement coupon, but not until the program receives more funding.

The DTV Delay Act will allow the Coupon Program, upon request, to offer replacement coupons for those which have expired without being redeemed. However, this program change will not take effect until the Coupon Program receives additional funding.
For this reason, the Coupon Program cannot accept requests to replace lost, stolen or expired coupons at this time.

Retrevo wants to help match up people who need coupons, with those who received the 2 they were offered through the digital converter box coupon program, but didn't use both of them.

Here's how it works;

It's very simple, if you have an extra coupon that you are willing to mail to someone or have them pick up, provide us with your email address and zip code and we'll hook you up with someone who needs one. If you need a coupon just give us your email address and zip code and we'll try and connect you with someone who has an extra coupon.

What will they do with your information?

We will need to share your email address with the person donating a coupon or the person needing a coupon, so the two of you can make arrangements to exchange the coupon i.e. mail or pick up. Other than this one person, we will not sell or share your information.

The coupons are for the value of $40, and the digital converter boxes cost between $50-$90.
There are many people who simply cannot afford to spend the full amount on the converter boxes, the government knows this, plus, this whole switch to digital is their idea, they are forcing it on everyone because they need the analog signals for emergency broadcasting across the country.
Basically, they need the analog signals for public safety communications such as police, fire departments, and rescue squads.
They will also auction off some of the analog spectrum to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband).

Tomorrow, February 17th 2009, was supposed to be the deadline, the full switch over was supposed to happen, but because so many households are not ready, the government has delayed the switch until June 12th 2009, so that everyone (hopefully) will be ready, and you can help.

If you applied for and received your 2 $40 digital converter box coupons but only used 1, don't need the other 1, you can go to Retrevo and enter in your name, email address, and zip code, and they will match you up with someone in your area who needs 1, and put them in contact with you so the 2 of you can make arrangements to either mail them the coupon or meet somewhere to pick it up.
You'd be helping someone get ready for the mandatory switch so that they can still watch tv after June 12th without having to try and come up with the money for a brand new digital tv, or have to spend a lot of money every month for cable or satellite service.
_______________________________

Since hooking up the digital antenna to the outside of my house and to the converter box, we are able to watch the digital tv stations which are in full digital broadcast already.
We have about 8 different PBS stations now, our local channel 8 NBC, comes in crystal clear, and they also have an added channel, 8 Prime, which is all retro tv shows, which is kinda cool.
We have 3 Fox channels, 2 CW channels, 4 ION channels, and 2 channels that broadcast childrens programming 24 hours a day.
We do have 1 ABC station out of Tampa, so I can still watch Desperate Housewives and some of our other fave shows.

We still cannot pick up any of the CBS stations, and WWSB ABC 7 is STILL NOT broadcasting a full digital signal, and their weak signal which they are broadcasting in, doesn't work either.
It still cannot be picked up by the converter boxes, and cable customers are still reporting it as coming in very badly when it does come in, but some cable customers cannot pick it up at all.
WWSB ABC 7 had this to say on February 5th, and nothing new has been said to the viewers since that date;

FYI - ABC 7 in Sarasota is only temporarily broadcasting its digital signal at a lower power. This is expected to last for a couple of weeks until some technical and mechanical issues get resolved. This process was approved by the FCC. However, now that the government has since pushed the digital transition date back several months, the entire situation is up in the air. Stay tuned for further developments on this situation. In the meantime, the top stories of every ABC 7 newscast are available for viewing on the Local News page of mysuncoast.com.

So basically, WWSB ABC 7, is going to continue delaying broadcasting in full power until June 12th.
Each station has the option of going to full digital power as of tomorrow, or waiting until June.
They (WWSB ABC 7) are still working on their digital transmission towers, they aren't done with it, and broadcasters have known about the switch since 1996, and were told to begin their digital switch in 2005.
They have had 4 years to finish the transmission towers, and they still aren't done.
They will be lucky if they still have viewers and advertisers when they do start the full power signal.
I have to wonder if any of their advertisers even know that customers cannot watch the station at all, so advertisers are basically spending money for nothing, no one can see their commercials.

---

February 11, 2009

Working on my taxes.

I'm working on getting my tax stuff all sorted out.
I've finally separated the 2009 receipts from the 2008 receipts, and now I just need to get all of my prescription receipts printed out.
Most of the receipts in my 2008 taxes box, are for prescriptions and doctors appointments.
All of that medical stuff can be written off, so I need to get everything printed to make it as easy as possible to get my taxes done.

Walgreen's allows you to print your payment receipts for prescriptions from home over the internet from their site, so I printed those out, but I've also used a few different branches of Walgreen's, and for some reason, they are not included in the ones I printed out last night.
And then there's the other pharmacies I've used, so I need to physically go to each of them and ask them to use their receipt printer to print out all of my 2008 prescription receipts.

Hey, all of that stuff is a tax write off, and considering how many meds I take and how much they cost, you can bet your butts that I'll be printing them all out and writing them off to get a decent tax return.

---

February 9, 2009

Celebrate my birthday contest!!

**EDIT**
Too many people are NOT following the rules.
As of right now. 10:20pm EST Monday February 16th, I will not be counting anymore of the entries which do not follow the very simple first rule of this contest.
This is the rule, follow it or your comment entry will NOT be counted.
1. Leave a comment on this post and tell me which piece of jewelry you'd love to have from Gem Affair.com.
Go to GemAffair and pick 1 thing that you'd like to have, come back here and leave a comment telling me what it is.
If this is not done, your comment entry will NOT count.
_____________________

My birthday is coming up on March 1st, and I want to celebrate and share my birthday fun with my readers.
So, I'm having a contest to give 1 lucky reader a present from me and Gem Affair, to help celebrate the big 39.
Yup, I'm going to be 39 this year, I'm seriously thinking this will be the last birthday I acknowledge, at least publicly.
I'm not growing old as gracefully as I had hoped, and just thinking about my body getting worse with old age, makes me cringe.

So anyway, I want to celebrate it up big and I want to share my special day with you.
Katy and Gem affair have so awesomely agreed to be my contest sponsor.
The winner will be selected randomly using random.org, and this is what 1 lucky reader will win.
It's a diamond two-piece oval pendant with an 18-inch chain.

It comes packaged beautifully in a gift box, and will be shipped directly to you from Gem Affair, it will be gift wrapped and include a note.**

I won 1 of the Twitter contests that Gem Affair had, and I absolutely LOVE the diamond journey pendant that I won.
It is sooo beautiful, and it fits me perfectly both in actual fit and style.

So now that you know what the prize of my celebrate my birthday contest is, here's what you need to do to win!
For each 1 of these that you do, you NEED to leave a SEPARATE comment for each.
Each 1 of these equals 1 entry, but the first one is a must do.
The more you do, the more chances of winning you have!

1. Leave a comment on this post and tell me which piece of jewelry you'd love to have from Gem Affair.com.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. Please give me your username so I can verify.
4. Follow me on Twitter. Please give me your username so I can verify.
5. Follow Gem Affair on Twitter. Please give me your username so I can verify.

EDITED**
For 5 additional entries for each, do one or both of the following, and leave a separate comment for each 1 that you do, I will add your +5 entries to your entries.

1. Blog about this on your blog linking back to me and 1 link to Gem Affair.com. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Subscribe to this blog using my RSS feed.

The winner will be drawn from all of the entries on Sunday March 1st, my birthday.
So come celebrate with me and you could win this beautiful diamond pendant!
The contest is open to both US and Canadian residents only.
______________________________________

So that I don't run into a snafu with my winner, and don't like being called a liar, thief, and criminal, here's the skinny:

Giveaway is open until midnight, February 28th, 2009.
Winner will be chosen at random and announced on March 1st, 2009.
Winner will be contacted by email and/or Twitter and will have 48 hours to respond.
Please use your real first name and a valid email address when entering.
I am not responsible for incorrect contact information.
You must respond from the email you used to enter in order to be eligible to win!
If I contact you through the email you used to enter, and it bounces back as invalid, I will choose a different winner, so please make sure that your information is correct.

Too many people are NOT following the rules.
As of right now. 10:20pm Monday February 16th, I will not be counting anymore of the entries which do not follow the very simple first rule of this contest.
This is the rule, follow it or your comment entry will NOT be counted.
1. Leave a comment on this post and tell me which piece of jewelry you'd love to have from Gem Affair.com.
Go to GemAffair and pick 1 thing that you'd like to have, come back here and leave a comment telling me what it is.
If this is not done, your comment entry will NOT count.

Continue Reading �

---

February 9, 2009

Trade in old cds and get cash or new gadgets in return!

I used to take my old and used cds and DVDs and trade them in at a local music and video store.
Boogie Woogie which was in the same shopping plaza as Publix, used to take used CDs and DVDs, and either give you cash for them or let you trade them in for other items that you wanted, but due to the failing economy, they had to close down all of their locations.
That was back in May 2008, quite awhile before any of the news of the Wall Street fiasco started to make the news, but local establishments were already beginning to feel the heat of the failing economy.
I haven't been able to find any other place to sell my used CDs and DVDs since, other than online auction sites, but you're lucky if you get a buck a piece on some of those sites.

I have now found an awesome place that will take your old CDs and DVDs and books, and give you cash or let you trade them in on other stuff you may want.
Abundatrade.com is the place to go to unload your used stuff and get cash or gadgets in return.

You can do it 1 of 2 ways.
You can go to their site and either enter in the 12-digit UPC code or the 10-13-digit ISBN number, and they will calculate the trade in or cash value for you.
To test it out, I entered in the ASIN number of the nearest to me DVD, which was The Nightmare Before Christmas 2-disc collectors edition which retails for $20.99 on Amazon, and they calculated it's trade in value at $7.67. (I am NOT trading it in, I love this movie, just testing the system out)

The other way you can do it is to just box up all of the items you want to trade in, they give you the shipping materials to send them in, and when they get them and calculate the value of everything in your box, they let you know how much it's all worth.
If you submit a tracking number when you ship it to them, they will give you a FREE used CD just for helping them track your package.

The value of your items is based on the current online market value for each item you are looking to trade in.
All items must be in good physical shape, and if you have all of the items that go with it, like the jewel case, the booklets and manuals, the more it's worth.
You should read the FAQs to learn more about how they calculate the value and the shipping methods etc.
The current market value has nothing to do with the popularity of the band, movie or book, it is based soley upon current online market values.
Oooh, the FAQs say they even take video games.
Awesome!
I know we have a ton of video games that we've beat and don't play anymore, and I could unload all of the old PS2 games that we haven't played since the teens got the xbox360 2+ years ago.
Saweeet!

If you box up and ship a lot of items, and for some reason they decline some of them, they will send those items back to you, or you can choose to leave them with Abundatrade to recycle.
Nice.
The online market value calculator is only an estimate, they will inspect all of the items you send in for damage or to see if it has all of the booklets and original jewel case, and that may either increase or decrease the current market value.

The items you send in can be used to purchase brand new items, gadgets like iPods or cameras, tvs, computers and gaming equipment.
You can basically trade in all of your old and used CDs, DVDs, books and video games, and get new items in return.
This seems like a great way to get your kids that stuff they have already listed as wanting for Christmas without having to save every penny for the next 10 months, you can just send in all your old stuff and get some new stuff.
It's like finding money you didn't know you had!

I have so many books, video games, CDs, and DVDs, this is going to be my new place to trade stuff in.
Check it out!

---

February 7, 2009

I'm gonna snap it in half.

I am so angry and frustrated over that stupid game World of Warcraft.
I freaking hate it.
First, it was supposed to be a Christmas present for the teens, but I got swindled into giving it to them months early, in October, because people wanted to play it with them, I heard promises about how they'd help me pay for it, the teens and the person who wanted them to have it early.
I haven't seen a dime even offered to help me.

Second, a special chat program needed to be downloaded in order to chat in game, and Sebastian screwed up the installation on it a few times before telling me, so I had to go in there and fix it.
I removed it, told the teens not to download it again.
But the very same person who made me give it to them early, the very same person who said they'd help pay for it, kept bugging them to install it, so they did it again.
This time they got it right, but the point is that I said no, do not, and they did it anyway.

Third, this game is a major memory hog.
I paid a lot of money to buy more computer memory for it, I paid a lot of money to install a new graphics card, and this damn game is so freaking huge, that I had to move it from drive C to drive D, just so it had enough room to be on their computer and not cause every other program they have to not work.

And the teens keep shutting down vital programs like the firewall because other people tell them to.
They keep downloading stuff they shouldn't, they keep doing a lot of things to that computer that I have told them repeatedly not to do.
I am thisclose to taking the game disc and snapping it in half, throwing it away, and not paying for it anymore.
I'm sick of it, I'm so over this game and the teens doing things they shouldn't to the computer, and so over other people telling them to do things to the computer even though I have said no.

I AM the mother.
I pay all of the bills.
I bought the game.
I bought the computer.
No one else should have any say at all in what the teens do on that pc, but they keep getting talked to, pestered to do this and that to it, and so they do.
I swear, 1 more issue with the game and the computer, I WILL take the game disc and snap it in half right in front of them and toss it the hell out and save my money every month.

I pay for it because it makes them happy, but it does nothing but cause me grief and irritate me every single time I have to go fix the pc because other people are doing stupid things and telling them to do stupid things to it.

---

February 5, 2009

Masters in nursing from home.

I've had so much done to me medically, I know more medical terms and names of tests, and what all of those tests do, and had big huge surgeries, and know how all of them went step by step, that I know more than some of the doctors I've seen.
I've actually been in the ER and seen a few doctors who didn't even know that the things I've had done, could be done.

Since all of this stuff started, I've become rather interested in all of this medical stuff, mostly by need, because if a nurse or doctor didn't/doesn't know, I need to be able to explain it to them so they don't try and treat me the wrong way, do tests to me that I can't have done.

I think once you're in the medical profession, that you should constantly stay abreast on all of the latest medical advancements as you can, so that you can provide your patients with the best possible care.
At ST. Xavier's University, nurses can get their MS nursing degree, a masters of science in nursing, online.
In order to qualify, they must already have a bachelors degree from a regionally accredited college or university, for admission, but they can do this from home, on their time.
Nurses are very busy at their jobs, they probably see more patients than the doctors do, so they need to know a lot, but time to get an education and work at the same time is difficult.
That's why being able to do it online can help.
They can get their masters in nursing at their own pace, day or night, and then do one weekend of applied campus experience, and they will have their masters degree, make more money, and be able to help even more patients with their more advanced knowledge.

My surgeon's head nurse, Cindy, is currently getting her masters.
She works with him 5 days a week all day long, and then leaves at 3pm 3 days a week, to attend classes at USF right down the road from his offices.
She is doing this so that she is better prepared to handle all of his patients, be able to do more in the operating room, and take better care of the thousands of surgical patients they see every year.
I think it's pretty awesome that she is continuing her education like that, and if a college wasn't as close as it is, knowing that an online college is there to help her get her masters if she needed it, pretty cool.
I adore my surgeon and his whole team, so yeah, knowing that they are always on top of everything new in medicine and continuing to educate themselves, makes me feel a whole lot better when I have to get on that table again.

---

February 4, 2009

Sims 3 not releasing until June 2nd.

Can be clicked for bigger.

I just checked in on the Sims 3 website, and found out that the rumors last week are true.
The Sims 3 will NOT be released until June 2nd now.
Here's the press release;

EA ANNOUNCES NEW SHIP DATE FOR THE SIMS 3

Highly-Anticipated PC Game from Best-selling PC Franchise Slated to Ship
June 2, 2009

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., February 3, 2009 - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that The Sims 3, the highly-anticipated flagship game from the best-selling PC franchise, The Sims will launch across the PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch and mobile devices summer 2009. The Sims 3 PC will ship to store shelves worldwide starting June 2, 2009.

"The Sims 3 is an incredible game that lets you play with life, create art and show off your creations," said Ben Bell, Executive Producer, The Sims 3. "In the game, players are inspired by endless creative possibilities like the new Traits and Lifetime Wish features which allow players to create Sims with real personalities and destinies. Players can then take their Sim into town to interact with other Sims in the game and capture the action on video to show off online."

"The June launch combined with the break-through game the team is building gives us the perfect runway to create awareness for The Sims 3," said Russell Arons, Vice President of Marketing for EA. "The Sims 3 will be the original IP summer blockbuster of 2009 as we build off the success of the best-selling PC franchise of all time to create awareness with both loyal Sims fans and new players."

I paid for this back in December, I've been totally looking forward to it, I upgraded my memory and my video card in anticipation of the February 16th release date, and now I have to wait until June 2nd.
This sucks!
I even bought the The Sims 3 Collector's Edition so I could get all of the extras it comes with, I was totally looking forward to this coming in like 2 weeks, and now I have to wait until June.

I'm sure they have a really good reason for the delay, they want it to be the best possible game it can be, it is just really disappointing news to read.

---

January 13, 2009

11 years and counting.

I was just checking out when my hosting account is due, and saw that I need to pay it on February 16th, 2009, and that made me remember just how long I've been doing this whole blogging thing.

I moved here to Florida from Maine on June 1st 1997, Sebastian's birthday, and when the boys and I got our own place, for my birthday that was coming up on March 1st, my sister bought me my first brand new computer and internet connection on dial-up in January 1998.
I started a blog on Tripod on January 11th, 1998.
I've been blogging for 11 years now.
Blogs had just begun, the term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997.
Very few people were doing them, I didn't even call what I was doing "blogging", I hadn't even heard the term or seen it, I was just writing to my "diary" on Tripod.
It was free, I hand coded the whole thing, but the name was always My Single Mom Life.
I started the whole thing as a way to have a cheaper way of keeping my parents and friends back home in Maine, updated on how we were doing down here.
Calling from Florida to Maine was too expensive, so I started an online diary talking about the ins and outs of our lives, my job, and the boys at daycare and summer camp, and starting to go to school.
I didn't even have comments on the thing, and because it was all hand coded, I had to start each page moving my older entries down by hand so it would be in descending order so the newest entries would be at the top.
It took a bit of time to do that every day.

I started seeing more and more people doing the same thing but calling it blogging.
They had actually started before me, long before me, but they called it blogging.
I was fascinated and absolutely hooked.
One of the very first blogs I ever saw in real blog format was TampaTantrum.com, it now resolves to Robyn's Shutterblog.com site where she talks all about her photography work.
Another was Promoguy.net, and through his comments, I met Rain-Cloud, who gave me some space on her hosting and gave me my first MT blog.
The Blog Tree.com lineage of my "parent bloggers" has currently exceeded it's bandwidth, but I'll keep checking it.
They were my parent blogs, they all took some time to explain things to me, teach me how all of this worked, and I've been hooked ever since.

I missed my own blogiversary a few days ago on January 11th, but that's ok.
Over the course of the years, I've had multiple hosting, the Tripod thing, then my first MT install, then some free hosting on a site that shall not be named, then paid hosting with a reseller who shall not be named, (it all went very very bad with all of the blogs being shut down with less than 24 hour notice) and then I finally went and bought my own domain name and hosting on February 17th 2004 with ICDSoft.com, and have been using them ever since.
I pay $96.00 per year, but it's worth every penny to me.
There's no downtime, ever, except the few times that I have screwed things up and ran to their help desk begging them to fix my mistakes, which they always do with the absolute best customer service ever.
They answer support tickets within 15 minutes, keep you constantly updated, and in 24 hours, they contact you again to make sure that it's still fixed and working right.
The one time it did go down and wasn't my fault, was because of a massive ice storm in the north east, and they posted to their main site every hour on the hour with status updates, and they rented some servers from another company to get us all back up and running within 8 hours.
They didn't charge us any extra for any of that, they are constantly giving us freebies like more space, more bandwidth, all for free, I love them, so when the 16th rolls around, I have no problem paying to renew my hosting.

11years doing this.
I can't believe it's been that long, and blogging is so popular now, it seems like everybody is doing it, and everybody has their own unique way of doing it, and it's still as fascinating to me today as it was when I first started.
So happy blogiversary to me, even if it's a few days late.
But today is someone else blogiversary, Julie of JuliesJournal.com, has been doing it since October 2004, so hop on over there today and wish her a happy blogiversary too.
I think she's still doing all of the blogging conventions that are going on in Vegas right now, but I'm sure she'd like to get some happy blogiversary comments.

---

January 12, 2009

Finally fixed it all.

I got hit with a computer virus yesterday that wiped out my virus protection.
I was using AVG, and the virus attacked it and wiped out every single file.
Because my computer relied on AVG, when the virus wiped it out, it made my pc start acting all wonky, so it took many tries to get my computer stable long enough to go into add/remove and get rid of AVG.
Once I did that, my pc was fine, it worked correctly.

So I've spent the whole day cleaning my pc, running syware, adware, and greyware scans, virus scans, defragging, etc etc etc.
I've got it all cleaned up and good again, I even went inside of it and made sure all memory sticks and the video card were securely attached, the video card cable was a little loose, so it's good that I went in and checked it all out.

But anyway, it took so much stinking time doing all of that, that I lost a lot of online time to work and other things.
I have like 350+ blog feeds to read and catch up on, I have work to complete, emails to answer, and I did most of those already, so I just have to get busy doing everything else.

---

January 11, 2009

Kill them all.

The people who create and implement computer viruses should be killed, or sued.
Yeah, hire some big time kill 'em all Chicago injury lawyer types to go after them for pain and suffering, damages to the full extent.

I've spent the last several hours trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer, and I discovered that some icky person created some sort of virus that wiped out my virus protection.
Seriously.
It wiped out every single file in there, it took them all away, all the program files were totally gone, so because my pc required that program, it was doing all kinds of weird stuff, shutting down on it's own, starting in some sort of safe mode, reboot, reboot, reboot.
I finally got it to stay on long enough to delete the program, and once I did that, ta-da!
No more problems at all.
Now I have to find another virus protection program that's free.
Gah.
At least I'm back up and running, but this has seriously slowed down my ability to get other things done.

---

January 5, 2009

It's going to take some getting used to.

My new monitor arrived, UPS delivered it around 3:15, and I set about taking down the old one and cleaning up the desk.
I had the old monitor on this desk for years, never moved it.
I had dusted it and around it, but it was a CRT, huge, I couldn't really get behind it all that well, and man, let me tell you, there was some serious dust going on back there.
Holy dust bunnies from hell!

I cleaned the whole area, plugged this one in, turned on the computer and the new monitor and wow, what a difference!
My CRT was a huge monster of a monitor, but it was only 15inches of viewing area.
This is a 17inch, but it's a major difference in viewing area.
My old CRT couldn't handle anything higher than 1024x768, and this one can go way, way up.
I have it set at 1152x864 because the higher ones caused some major eye strain.
I'll have to build up to the higher ones.
But it's already a big difference in how websites look.
On the CRT, my blog KatScan fit exactly in the viewing area, there was no black surrounding it that I could see at all, as a matter of fact, I never knew there was a black border. hahaha

I think I'm in love with this new monitor, really, it's beautiful.
The colors, the size, I have way more room on my desk, it was worth every penny I spent on it.
It's going to take some getting used to though, my eyes are not used to this size and stuff, but I do love it.
I cannot wait to load up the Sims2 on this later tonight, it's going to look freaking amazing!

---

January 5, 2009

It's almost here!

That's the UPS tracking for my new monitor, it will be here today!
The Acer 17" flat screen LCD monitor I bought, will be here sometime this afternoon.
I'm so excited!

When it gets here, I'm going to shut down, unplug this one and remove it from my desk, clean off my desk, all the dust and whatever else fell behind this one, and get my desk all pretty looking for my new one to get set up and settled into it's new home.
Every time I would watch the teens play WoW on theirs, I was so jealous because it has awesome colors, good refresh rate, just looks and works amazing, but today mine will be here.
Yay!

Come on Mr. UPS Man!
Hurry up!
I can't wait to get it all hooked up and play Sims 2 on it and then Sims3 when I get it in February!
*Squueeeee!*

---

January 5, 2009

Safe, sound, and a powerball.

Laundry is finished, alarms for 5:45am are set, shoes, backpacks, pens and pencils have been set out and replenished, we are so ready to go back to school in the morning.
I have also gone around and locked up the entire house.
Twice.

I have this ritual I do every single night, I can't help it, it's part OCD, and part disabled single mom paranoia.
I have to go around to every window and door, and make sure they are locked up super tight and with all of my little gadgets and stuff to help make me feel secure.

On the back door, I have it locked with the regular doorknob lock, the chain lock, and one of those really loud annoying personal alarm things.
I have it set up so that if the door is opened at all, even just a little bit, the sensor will dislodge from the door and the alarm will sound.
And let me tell you, that noise is so loud and so ear piercing, that when I have to check the batteries and replace them, (I do it monthly) it is absolutely deafening until I get it set up correctly again.
The teens shove their fingers in their ears, the cats all run and hide, and I just cringe until I get the pin back in with my hands trembling because the noise is just so loud and piercing.

On the front door, I have the regular doorknob lock, a deadbolt, and a hotel flip over bar lock.
It's the kind that you close the door and flip over the latch, and it prevents the door from opening once it reaches about 1 inch of space.
Then I also jam a 2x4 up under the door knob which also prevents the door from being opened.
And I won't even tell you how I secure some of the windows, they are little tricks I learned from George, Mark's Big, who used to be a detective in Washington DC for 25 years, and if I tell you, then you'd know, and then I'd have to kill you.

I do all of this stuff every night because I'm terrified of someone breaking in.
I don't have a CWP, (concealed weapons permit) and I don't have a gun, so I feel like I have to do all of these things every single night to try and feel safe so that if I do fall asleep, (insomnia owns me) I can feel somewhat safe actually being asleep.

I wish I had the money to have a security system installed, like an ADT system, and be able to afford the monthly monitoring of it, because then I'd feel a whole lot better about being asleep or just being alone in the house while the teens are at school.
Home security is a HUGE issue for me, like I said, part OCD, and part disabled single mom.
I cannot fight back if someone came in, and I can't shoot back because I don't have a gun or a CWP, and I can't get one until I'm able to take shooting practice and pass my CWP tests.
In Florida, if someone breaks into your home, if you feel that your life or the life of your family is in danger, you have the legal right to shoot to kill.
I know that if someone did come in and threaten us, I would not hesitate for a single second to kill a dangerous intruder in order to protect my sons and myself.

So yeah, I'd love to have an ADT system and the monitoring, just for my own peace of mind, knowing that if the alarm goes off, that someone is watching for my home's alarm, and that they will send help for us immediately.
I also really like the new Safepass system they have.
If you don't want to remember the codes, or have trouble remembering things like when under pressure, you can just wave the little keyfob in front of it to arm and disarm it.
It would make it so much easier for children to be able to arm and disarm the system too, or older people who have trouble reading the displays, or remembering the code numbers.
I'm really good with numbers, I still remember my best friends phone number from when she lived on Ocean Ave and we were best friends for like all of our growing up, but trying to recall an alarm system code number when you're really tired or under pressure, or heavily medicated, or been drinking, can be cause for some false alarms to happen.

But until the day comes that I can afford to have the monthly monitoring without any worries about money and being able to afford it, I'm just going to have to stick to all of my nightly rituals, my strange, but really good ways of trying to make sure that no one can break in.
Florida just started doing Powerball in our state, maybe I'll buy 1 Powerball ticket per week, and maybe I'll get really lucky and win like a mega jackpot.
Tickets just started going on sale today, and the first drawing is going to be on January 7th.
I might just have to buy myself a ticket for Wednesday night's drawing.
Wouldn't that be awesome if I bought 1 single ticket and won?
I could pay off all of my debts, buy us our own home, and get an ADT security system installed.
It would be awesome.
Yeah, I think I'll buy a ticket tomorrow and hope for the best.

---

December 30, 2008

Things needed and wanted.

Most parents make sure that their kids have an awesome Christmas, they want them to be happy, and most parents don't get a ton of Christmas gifts for themselves for that reason.
Most married parents do buy their spouses presents though.
Single parents on the other hand usually have very little money to start with, so they make sure their kid(s) have a good Christmas, but who buys them presents?

My parents always send me some money, but I usually combine it with the other money that gets sent for the teens, so I can buy them more stuff, and I have some good friends who always send me some really nice presents too.
I got some very nice things from them this year, the perfume off of my wish list, a gift card to Publix, a magazine subscription to a great cooking show chock full of yummy recipes, and a Visa gift card to spend on whatever I want also.
But after getting my reimbursement payment, I decided to get myself some things that I wanted and things that I needed for my computer.
I work from home on this bad boy, so every now and then it needs some things to help me keep it running smoothly, and some fun stuff too.
So I bought myself the following things, the total spent on these items wasn't very much at all, just $263.21, and a couple of them were on sale at really good prices.

An Acer 17" flat screen LCD monitor, $117.99, not a bad price, just like the teens monitor.

A SimpleTech 1 GB memory stick, was on sale for $35.24, down from $195.00.

An AMD ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB AGP Card, was on sale for $39.99, down from $129.00.

And then The Sims 3 Collector's Edition is my for fun item, not on sale, but not a bad price at $69.99.
The collectors edition comes with a 1gig Sims plumbob USB drive, you know, shaped like the thingy that is always over their heads and houses?
Yeah, this thing,
but it's actually a USB drive key chain, you can never have enough USB drives, and it looks like this,

An exclusive Prima tips and hints guide, a European sports car download for the Sims to drive around in, extra theme music from the game, and a Sims3 neighborhood poster.
All of that stuff is worth (to me) the extra $20 it cost me over the regular version of the game, I can use the USB drive, the tips and hints guide will help me figure out all of the new things they've done to the Sims3 game play, and the poster is just a cool extra.

I needed a new graphics card, my other one crapped the bed big-time, causing me to freak out and uninstall all of my Sims2 games thinking the game had gotten corrupted, but no, it was the graphics card. *slaps forehead*
I lost everything I had done in the game, all of it.
Makes me kinda sad, but now that the new graphics card is installed, I re-installed all of the Sims2 discs so I can play right up until Sims 3 gets here.
That's quite a few discs, we didn't have all of the expansions, but a good deal of them.
We have Sims2, Nightlife, Open for business, Pets, and Seasons, and they are so much fun to play.
When my new monitor gets here, between that and the new graphics card, the games are going to look amazing!

My monitor and memory stick should be here in a few days, they will get installed, and it will be the awesome.
I bought the exact same monitor that my sis bought the teens, so I know that it's a really good one and that it looks amazing, and the memory stick is so that the Sims3 will be able to run with no issues or errors.

I figured that I deserved some new stuff, and my computer is where I am almost all of the time, so I chose to get some upgrades and some fun stuff for me.

---

December 14, 2008

Going to get thing done. I am.

I finally got some decent sleep last night for the first time in what feels like months.
Although I woke up completely confused as to what day and time it was, I feel good, I feel like I have energy to get things done, like I took some Ephedrasil hardcore or something and could just do a million things.
Sleep is good, sleep is great, I honestly haven't felt this awake and good to go in quite awhile.

When Mindy and I went shopping the other day, I finally bought some more dish soap and laundry detergent, so now I can finish up all of the laundry and dishes that have been sitting around for a few days.
I hate it when I run out of dish soap and don't have an extra bottle stockpiled below the sink.
I usually always make sure I have back-ups, but last months budget was a bit tight, so my back-ups didn't get bought.
I'm gonna finish up what I'm doing here on the pc, and then get cracking washing sheets, bedspreads, and the remaining laundry and then the dishes, and then maybe fire up my Sims2 for awhile.
I haven't played with it in ages, ever since I heard about Sims3 I think, which I will get for myself when it comes out in February.
My birthday is March 1st, so it'll be my present to myself.
I think my pc can handle it especially once Sims2 is uninstalled.
If I run into video card display issues, I'll just save up and get myself an upgrade.
The game will be mine, I'll be able to play it during recovery and stuff, but it will be mine.

---

November 24, 2008

Yay! It works awesome!

About 2-3 weeks ago, I bought an HP photosmart printer off a guy on the local forums for just $25.
I just now got around to testing it out, I haven't been feeling well enough to exert the energy required to plug it all in and stuff.
But anyway, I plugged it in, and the guy even included the ink cartridge with it, it has almost full ink in it, (yay!) and so I printed out a picture to test it.
And my friend Christine had snail mailed me some 4x6 photo paper for it, so I got to see how the pics would really look.
I chose to print this one of my nieces when they were here a few weeks ago.
I got them to smile so big by making them scream boogersnots instead of the standard cheese.
They were laughing so hard from saying boogersnots, they gave the perfect big smiles.

I love the new printer, it's small, only a little bit bigger than an alarm clock radio really, but it works freaking awesome.
Now I can take really nice pictures of the teens and send them to Great Grammy.
She's the only family member who doesn't have a computer, so getting pictures to her is actually difficult for me.
Well not difficult, but time consuming you know?
Gotta take a memory card to Walgreen's, put it in the machine, mess around with it and print them out, mail them etc.
Most of the time I would just email pics to Aunty Heather and tell her to print them out, but now I can just print pics at home and mail them out to her myself.
All for just $25.
The printer normally sells for about $100.
Bargain!

---

November 13, 2008

Poo and pizza.

As I said earlier, both the teens are sick, they've been laying around most of the day coughing and feeling miserable, and I am super tired just from taking care of them and doing various things around the house.
One of them took a dump earlier and clogged the toilet, they couldn't unclog it with the plunger, so I had to, and now I'm just worn out.
I hate plunging the toilet, it's one of those tasks that just really suck to have to do.
I need like a super easy plunger thingy, so I sat here thinking of what might a super duper plunger be called if anyone has invented one so I could look it up and try and find one the next time I'm out shopping, or have to order it online if that was the only way.
I was thinking of one that had like a spring in it, so your one push of the plunger would cause it to spring back up and down again on it's own, so you didn't have to.
So I typed into Google, "spring plungers".
Nope, no toilet spring plungers, it seems those are car parts or something, I really have no idea.
I know there's some sort of super plunger out there, I've seen commercials for them, but I can't think of the name right now.
What I really want though is for the teens to finally learn to not use so much toilet paper.
Then we wouldn't have to get a super plunger to make it all go down.

So anyway, I'm too tired to make dinner so I decided to order out.
I decided to order from Pizza Hut tonight, got some of their Tuscani pasta, the chicken alfredo, because the last time we ordered it, it was really good, and some wings.
That should be good enough for everyone for dinner tonight.
I'll make the spaghetti I was planning on making tonight, tomorrow night.
I'm just too tired and sore to do it, so I'll let Pizza Hut do it for me.

---

November 12, 2008

Can't sleep? Do some holiday shopping!

It's another sleepless night here, so I figure why waste all this good insomnia energy, and I deide to go do some of the Christmas shopping for the kids.
I got the girls the dvd I talked about, a couple of cute little dolls, and then I started looking for stuff for the teens.

They are easy, and not so easy, to buy for.
They love to play video games, but only certain ones, they like electronics, but only want certain things, they need new clothes again, but they need to pick them out.
The same with shoes, the same with sweatshirts for winter, and so on.
They are picky, but it's because they are older now, they know what they like, and not little kids anymore who wore whatever I helped them put on in the morning.
I kinda miss those days.
It was easier.

---

November 10, 2008

Happy little elves. Or whatever they are called.

It appears that all of the extra memory sticks and new video card I installed on the teens computer has really made a difference.
Their WoW games work flawlessly, and the graphics are simply amazing.
My sister was here on Saturday, she had taken the girls to the park to play and then was going to take me to the store, and she went in and checked out their game to see how many levels they were or something, and she was blown away by the graphics on their computer.
She said it was far better than the graphics on her laptop was.
You can see every tiny little detail, all the grains in the wood beams of the buildings, tiny pebbles on the road, each blade of grass, it's crystal clear and looks incredible.

The computer games keep the teens happy, they are fighting less, they are entertained, and that makes for a happy house.
No one is telling me they are bored, there's no one saying the other one is being a jerk, just happy little warrior elves ganking on some newbs in the outlands and cities.

---

November 7, 2008

Pepsi points ending soon.

I just got an email from Pepsi Extras, that says we all need to enter in all of our codes and get our music for our MP3 players, or cds, dvds, whatever you want to get with all of your points.

I have 36 right now, but I have a huge drawer full of caps and box labels.
I collected them all and said I would do it, and then kept putting it off, but now that Pepsi points are ending on December 31st, I need to get cracking all of those in.
I think I'll get a dvd and some mp3's with any leftover points.
Or maybe two dvds depending on if I have enough points which I'm sure I do.
They fill a whole drawer here at my desk.

---

October 30, 2008

Multi-action pictures.

My sister Jo is really good at anything artsy, pictures, photoshop, clay, painting, all kinds of stuff, but one of the things she does that I just love are these multi-action photoshopped pictures.
She took some pictures of the girls, and then photoshopped them in sequence.
I just love them, they look so cool, and I'd love to have her do some of the teens at some point doing something.
I also wish I could find the one she did of her sister Janice riding her horse in all her equestrian riding apparel, in sequence riding around the farm and even doing jumps with her horse.
I posted one of these she did of her stepdaughter Kayla before, but she just did these ones.
She'd love to be able to do this as some sort of business, people could take a whole bunch of pics in as close a sequence as possible, and then she could fix them like this, and then the people could frame them and hang them up.
They are really neat, check them out! *clickable for biggie size*

---

October 15, 2008

Do the updates ever end?

As I said the other day, I was cleaning up the boys pc so they can play World of Warcraft, and I finally got it all done and began installing the game.
It took like 2 whole days to do this.
The installation is huge, and then you have a crapload of updates to download and install, and it takes forever.
just when you think you're done installing updates, another one pops up that you need to do.
By the time these updates are done, they won't have anymore free space on their pc.
This is nuts!
I have no idea how my sister can play this game.
There are just so many updates, all huge files, that I have no idea how she has the laptop memory to do this.
She must have a huge amount of it, because the boys have an 80gig pc, and these files are just damn huge.
I've got the Sims 2 and 5 expansion packs on my pc, and they don't take up nearly as much space as WoW does.

---

October 13, 2008

MySQL5 and World of Warcraft.

First, the site stuff.
My hosting company, which is totally awesome by the way, ICDSoft.com, sent out an email saying that MySQL4 is no longer being supported and we need to change to MySQL5.
I know NOTHING about how to do any of that stuff, even if they do provide a little help tool.

We urge you to migrate your MySQL4 databases to MySQL5 as soon as possible, using the automated tool we have provided in the Control Panel (MySQL section)

MT users!!!
Do I need to change anything in my MT templates to say MySQL5?
I can use the tool, I think, but if there's a template in my MT templates I need to change, please someone tell me, I'm scared to use that tool until I know.

Now for the World of Warcraft stuff.
I have to go in and clean out the boys pc, scandisk, defrag, all that stuff, to get it ready for the installs of the WoW games.
The teens and my sister, my own sister, conspired together to get me to agree to letting them have WoW.
And no, not wait for the game discs to get here, but to download the free 10 day trial today.
So I need to get my butt in there and start the cleaning.
The boys gave up 2 other game subscriptions so that I could afford to pay for the WoW subscription.
They will be as addicted to it as my sister is.
But some pretty serious rules have been laid down for them to have it, there will be no getting around that stuff either.

---

September 7, 2008

Sebastian the filmmaker.

Sebastian has been making videos of this game he plays called Dragon Fable, and uploading them to youtube, and he asked me to show you all his latest one.
So here it is, just click the link.

He's gotten quite good at editing movies, adding music and graphics, text etc.
I almost peed myself when the Irish Rovers "Drunken Sailor" started playing, but eh, he loves that song.
He did a really good job I think.
If you leave comments on it, please be kind, he's really just starting to get good at it, taking a serious interest in the whole process and enjoying it.
I don't understand the game, it's a game he asked me for at Christmas, so I paid the $20 buck licensing fee, and he's been playing it, making movie clips, adding sound, using his digital drawing tablet I got him for his birthday, and just really liking working on his computer making graphics and movies.

---

August 24, 2008

New tv or antenna?

I'm still checking the weekly deals at Buy.com and keep hoping that they put an hdtv antenna on sale soon, like before February 2009 when I'll absolutely need it.
It's either that or get an all new htdv like this one, a Westinghouse 46"inch LCD hdtv.

I can't afford that one, but maybe a smaller one at some point.
But that one is rather nice.
Whatever tv I do get, it would need an Integrated ATSC / NTSC Tuner to be able to pick up all the new hdtv signals.
The whole reason I need a new tv or a stronger hdtv antenna is because of the mandatory switch to hdtv that all tv stations are doing.
I kind of understand the whole thing, but not really.
I don't understand why people are being forced to upgrade to hdtv.
Not everyone has cable or can afford cable or satellite, so all of the people like me who can't, are being forced to by new tvs, new antennas, and that converter box, which I have, but it doesn't pick up all the channels.
As a matter of fact, it barely picks up any.
So maybe by February I'll win the lotto or something so I can afford a new tv like that one, or someone will put the kind of antenna on sale that I need.
I need an indoor/outdoor amplified UHF/VHF/HDTV antenna, that can be mounted anywhere, and hold really strong.
I only have wooden shutters on the outside of my cement house, I can't really mount it on the cement, so I would need it to hold to the shutters, and be able to run the cable through the window somehow.
I'll keep looking and hoping for one.

---

August 14, 2008

Digital picture frames.

If I didn't have to still get the teens all of their clothes, shoes, and backpacks for school still, I would totally take advantage of Buy.com's weekly sale they are having right now.

They have a Nextar 7" digital picture frame on sale for just $39.99.
They are normally $120.00, so this sale price is a HUGE savings of $90 off the normal price.
I want to get two of them, 1 for each grandparent's house, and then every few months, fill up a small memory card with all new pictures, and mail it off to them with the super easy instructions for taking out the old one, and popping in the new one.
It would make it so the grandparents have fresh pictures of all of their grandkids every 4-6 months, that would play in a rotation on their desk, coffee table, or nightstand, all of the time.

It features:
* picture Rotation And Review
* slideshow Functions
* black and Acryllic Frame
* supports Jpeg Pictures
* compatible With Sd", Mmc, Ms Cards And Jump Drives

Buy.com is also offering free shipping on this item, so I could get two of them, for less than the price of one, and pay no shipping on them.
They only have a limited stock, so by the time I do get the money for them, they won't have any left, and then the price will go back up, which is my standard luck.
Oh well.
I will keep looking at the weekly deals.
I'm still waiting for them to put up HD tv antennas.

---

August 2, 2008

Pretty pictures at my fingertips.

I've been randomly surfing around the internet tonight, following links from one blog to a site, then from that site to another site, and then to another and another, and I don't recall what site I was on, but I saw a link for Winter Park real estate, and thought it was for homes in Winter Park Florida, so I clicked on over because it's a really nice area, and if I was going to move to another location in Florida, I'd definitely look there.
It's a nice place.
But the link was for Winter Park Colorado, where it snows, and I don't do snow anymore.
No more cold, no more shoveling, no more trapped in because of a blizzard.
But it looks like a really nice place to live for people who like the whole snow thing.

But I forgot to tell you all that the digital keychain I won from Today's Gizmos, came in the mail the other day, and it's really pretty sweet.

The company that sponsored the give-a-way, Wholesale Keychain, was even nice enough to do custom engraving on them for the winners, so I had them just put my name on it that way no one would want to steal it from me.
Heh.

The menu options look simple enough to use, the screen is bright and very easy to read.
Now all I need to do is load a bunch of photos to it so I can take all of the pictures out of my wallet, and then the next time someone asks to see pictures of my giant teenagers, I can just click and show them in all the beautiful digital glory!

---

July 29, 2008

Trusting my gut pays off.

I woke with a start this morning, this feeling of something wrong had come over me.
I laid there trying to think of what it was that was wrong, and then it hit me.
I mailed out the child support interrogatories weeks ago, to his lawyer's address, but I had this gut feeling they never made it there.

I took a chance on my gut feeling, and called his attorney's office to ask if the documents had made it there.
When he told me he never got them, a slight panic attack over came me.
The hearing is this Thursday, the 31st, I don't have time to mail them again, and also don't have enough money to get them overnighted to his office.
So I asked him if I could email him the documents, I don't want to postpone the hearing, it's already been pushed back 3 or 4 times, so would he accept an email from me with an attached zip file.
Thankfully, he said yes, and I emailed him the zipped folder with all of my documents in it.
All he'll need to do is open the zipped folder and print them out.

It would have totally sucked if come Thursday, I was held in contempt for not sending the documents, but I know I did.
It cost me $13.00 to have all of those pages printed out at the Pak Mail down by my grocery store, and then another $2.75 to mail them to him because of how heavy the envelope was.
There were 27 pages of printed out documents, it was a heavy envelope.
I should have gotten delivery confirmation, but I didn't.
But he has them now, and hopefully he has everything he asked for.
I told him in the email, that if he needs anything else to contact me, I have no problem making sure he has all the documents that he needs.

I really hope this thing goes well, and we can just get this over with.
The ex has been making slightly larger child support payments for July, and I am thankful for that.
Instead of $21.00, he made 2 payments for $36.84, and 2 payments for $37.10.
It's a good start anyway, it's been $147.00 this month, compared to the $84.00 a month that we have been getting.
What I'd really like is $50.00 per week, $200 per month, the teens just keep growing and they need shoes and clothes, plus all the back to school supplies.
I have to get Sebastian to an orthodontist to see about braces, that's not covered under their Amerigroup insurance, so I need to find an orthodontist who will allow me to make monthly payments, like really low monthly payments.
If I was able to get and count on timely monthly CS payments of $50, I would be able to make the payment plan for $200 per month until the braces are paid off, which would be years, but at least his teeth would be straightened out.
The lowest orthodontist place in the area has payment plans at $199 per month, so yeah, it would be doable at $50 per week CS payments.

Anyway, I'm rambling now, so many things going on in my head, still not feeling very well, so that's my post for the day I guess.

---

July 13, 2008

Magic Jack is not quite so magic.

I'm sure you've all seen the commercial for the new Magic Jack internet phone jack that gives you free calls right?
Don't be so quick to jump on it as a the bargain you've been looking for.

BoingBoing has pointed out a very interesting EULA agreement for the Magic Jack you might want to read very carefully before you buy this product.
It's actually a very evil agreement, and if any of you have already purchased this or were thinking about it, you need to get rid of it ASAP.

"You also understand and agree that use of the magicJack device and Software will include advertisements and that these advertisements are necessary for the magicJack device to work ... Our computers may analyze the phone numbers you call in order to improve the relevance of the ads."
...
"Any claims, legal proceeding or litigation arising in connection with the magicJack device or Software will be resolved by binding arbitration.... in Palm Beach, Florida."

These targeted ads will snoop in on your phone numbers and calls, to serve you the ads that they claim are needed to make magicJack work.
And by agreeing to use it, you sign away all of your legal rights to sue should your computer get screwed up or they defraud you.

I know the economy sucks, and everyone is looking for ways to save money on bills and all the other household items, but magicJack is NOT the way to go.
There should be some way that the telecommunications people can force scam companies like this to make it so that when consumers get to the point of sale on stuff like this, that it should have to go through some kind of authorize.net procedure so that the EULA pops up and the consumer has to read it all the way through and agree to the terms before they can enter their credit card.
The magicJack site doesn't make it easy for people to see the ToS or the Eula, you have to Google to find out where on the site it even is.

---

July 5, 2008

Climb, slide, and crush.

Today when my sister Jo brought Mark back home, she picked us all up in her new car, and we went to grab lunch at McDonald's and let the girls play in the indoor play-place.
She traded in her Chrysler Town n' Country Minivan for a new Mazda5.
It's better on gas mileage, and it has enough seats, as many as the minivan did, so that we can all go out together and not be cramped in a tiny little car.
It's really nice, have you seen these?
They look very small from the outside, but the inside is just as big as her van was.
It's kinda crazy how that is, but I swear it's the same amount of room on the inside.

They completely remodeled the McDonald's on Bee Ridge road.
It's been done very nice, and it's much cleaner than the old one they had at this location, and oh so much better with the indoor AC.
I rarely get to see the girls, so it's always nice to spend even just a couple of hours with them and watch them laughing and having fun.

Susan on the slide.

Skye climbing up the tunnel stairs.

Then we went over to Big Lots to see if they had any good and sturdy bunk beds for the girls.
They didn't, but they did have a really nice glider/rocker office chair, that I want.
Most chairs have lumbar support, that bulge in the back cushion at the bottom which is good for most people but not me.
This chair doesn't have that, it curves in at the bottom.
It was so comfortable, and only $159.00, so I might have to go back there this week and pick one up.
It was beige suede microfiber too, very soft, and the color matches my sofa and love seat.

They also had a ton of other stuff, I've only ever been to a Big Lots once before and it was just disgusting inside, so it was nice to see this one was neat and clean, organized, and the staff was busy helping people and cleaning things up.
They even had an electronics department, and if you don't know what a Big Lots is, it's basically an outlet store of items from all kinds of stores that either didn't sell the items or the package was damaged during shipment to it's original store, so some of the electronics boxes looked a little banged up.
I saw printers, cameras, desktop pcs, laptops, something that looked like a used cisco router because the box was so banged up, but we were in a hurry so I really couldn't check it out more, ethernet cables, headphones, mp3 players, so so much stuff, and it was all way under price from most electronics stores, like way cheap.
When I go back for the chair, I'm going to make sure I have just a little bit more time to at least look around the electronics department.
I won't buy anything, I don't need any computer stuff right now, but I want to look and see what they have in case I ever do need another part so I can go there first before going to a specialty store and spending too much money.

---

July 4, 2008

Child support hearing items to complete by Monday 7/7/08

* Finish answering the interrogatory questions.
* Sort paypal payments by employer, copy/paste to text file.
* Email the above documents and 2007 1099 forms, to be printed.
* Scan Sebastian's settlement trust papers, and email the jpegs to the Maine DA by 9am Monday, 7/7/08.

---

June 19, 2008

The one time she should have asked me for help.

My neighbor called me this afternoon, she needed my help installing a new memory card in her desktop computer.
No problem I said! I've done this a lot, be right there.
I get in there and took one look at what she bought, and it was obvious it wasn't the right kind.
She bought laptop memory cards.
Laptop cards are fatter than desktop cards.

Anyway, she has a Dell desktop, and she at least knew her computer was a Dell when she went to the store.
But I'd like to know what kind of yahoo salesman didn't ask her if she has a desktop or laptop.
Or maybe she just picked one out on her own, looked for the little signs that say compatible with Dell, Acer, Gateway, Sony, etc etc.
So I had the oh so pleasant job of telling her she got the wrong kind, and she was pissed off, said she thought she was doing so good that for once she didn't need my help, started to get really upset and almost started crying.
I told her to put it back in the package and take it back, and hopefully the store will let her exchange it out for the correct kind which I wrote down for her.
I wrote down her Dell model name and number, and the size memory card she wanted, and her oldest son who is visiting is going to try taking it back.
He's the one who drove her out to get it, and tried to help her install it.
He's 19 and obviously knows as much about computers as she does.
Not much.
I told her when he gets back if they let him exchange it for the right one, that if her son couldn't install it to call me.

There are certain things I don't mind helping her with, like her computer stuff.
She's an older woman, and this is the first time she's ever had a computer, and she didn't even know how to get on the internet when she first got the computer.
She thought all you had to do was set up and plug everything in, and open IE up, and it would just go to the internet.
When it didn't just go and I had to explain that she needed an ISP, she had no idea what that was.
When I explained it to her, she was like, "Well how do I get one of those? Do I have to have a special kind of plug, and where does it plug into? There are no ISP plugs on my walls?"
I couldn't help but laugh, that was kinda cute, something an older person with no computer knowledge at all would ask.
So then I had to explain to her that she needed to call Verizon or Comcast, and tell them she needs internet service, DSL if she went with Verizon, or Comcast if she went with cable.
She had Comcast cable for her tvs already, so I told her to just call them and they would come out and hook it up.

She's getting better at it all the time, she finally learned how to print things after only showing her about a dozen times.
Then when she got a little cheapo digital camera, I taught her how to upload them to her computer, and then taught her how to attach them to emails.
She takes tons of pictures now and sends them to everyone, she loves it.
But of course being so new to the internet, she is caught up in the annoying forwards and chain emails.
She sends me dozens of them every single week.
At first I tried to tell her that all those forwards and chain emails are junk, crappy stuff that people send and expect to get back after we've sent it on to all our friends, but the majority of people on the net hate them with a passion.
She apologized, but she keeps doing it.
I just delete them now and when she asks if I read that cute email with the little bunny and the angel, I just say yes, it was so adorable and funny.

I don't even want to tell you how long it took me to help her when she bought a camera phone.

---

June 13, 2008

Digital Photo keychain contest!

There's a contest going on over at Today's Gizmos.com, for a very cool gadget!
She is giving away 3 digital photo keychains to 3 lucky winners.
You can read the rules and how to enter, in this post at Today's Gizmos.com.

I really like this silver one, it has 4.8MB of internal memory, so it can hold up to 72 pictures.
That's very cool.
No more wallets stuffed full of pictures to show people the kids and other stuff, you can just slide through your pictures much like using the pictures folder on your computer.
Wholesale Keychain has tons of cool keychains, digital and car specific to choose from.

I hope I am 1 of the lucky 3 winners, I would love to have a cool digital photo keychain!

---

June 11, 2008

SEO Optimization and blogs.

It seems like everybody on line knows at least a little about SEO, and those that don't, know they want to because they want to make money.
I'm making some changes to this blog over the next few days and weeks ahead, so I've been doing a little reading on this subject tonight in between doing other things I have to do.
I promise, when I get ready to do these changes, I will let you all know.
I'm not shutting down or going on an extended hiatus, but I'm making some big changes that I think have been needed for awhile.

There are a lot of companies out there I've come across that promise you SEO results, and I know some people who paid a few different companies to increase their SEO, and promised to help drive traffic and sales to their websites, only to be ripped off.
They never saw an increase in traffic, so obviously what was promised didn't work out, and they lost thousands of dollars.
Not even making back what they paid for the service, and feeling very let down.

A way to know if the company you're going to use knows their stuff, is if they offer you a free SEO report, have plenty of information available for free for you too read, and they just have a ton of resources and links on their site for you to check out before you invest.
There's a San Diego SEO Company by the name of Best Rank, that has all of that for potential clients to check out.
Heck, they even have a blog just like most of us have, where they talk about what they do, what they are working on, and even some of the issues they have had while working for a client.
They are honest, which I find refreshing in this industry.
You really should check out their blog and read the June 9th entry.
They had some serious issues with a client's site, and had to really dig deep to find out what the problem was.
Not only was it cool to see how they were honest about the issue, but also how they resolved it.
I learned a lot from just that one entry.

---

June 11, 2008

Ergo what?

When I got my first little baby computer, an Emachine, back when I first moved here in 1997, I had it set up much like I do now, except that every time I was on my computer, my right shoulder and arm would hurt after about an hour of using it.
It made me not want to be on it at all, and I loved being on it just as much as i still love it today. *hugs the tower lovingly named Ace*

I complained to my sister about it, and she said it was because of the mouse I was using.
It was a standard 2 button mouse and a mouse pad.
When you have one of those, you are moving your arm and hand all over the place to click around on the screens, and the way I was sitting combined with the way I was moving my arm, was causing me pain.

So she explained to me what computer ergonomics was, and took me to a store to get a mouse I wouldn't have to do that much moving with.
She bought me an ergonomic trackball mouse that day, and I've never looked back.
It instantly felt better, my shoulder and arm never hurt again.
In the last 11 years, I've now been through 2 of those trackball mice, and when this one dies, I'll just get another one just like it.
You should totally try an ergonomic mouse if you are having pain in your wrists, shoulder, or arm after being on the computer.
Trust me, it will make you feel tons better!

---

June 11, 2008

I finally got them to take the money!

I was finally able to get Verizon to take my money!
I had to call their executive customer service department, and I got that number from Lisa of Wild Rose rpgraphics, so thank you sooo much Lisa!

Today is the 11th, I basically had until tomorrow to get them to take the money, and they still hadn't, so I called the number Lisa gave me and explained it all, years and years worth of frustration of just trying to pay my bill every month.
I had given them checking account numbers, savings accounts, credit cards, debit cards, I was literally begging them to take my money every month so I could have internet service, and for some reason, it was just never going through.
Sometimes if I called, the payment would go through right away.
Other times, it would only charge me $1, but most of the time, it just wasn't billing me at all, and so every month for the last 2 years, I've had to call and beg them to take my money.

So I spoke to an executive customer service rep, explained it all, and I said to her, "You have absolutely no idea how frustrating it is to have to call Verizon every month and beg them to take my money. How many customers actually beg you to take their money? But that's what I've been doing, begging, and I shouldn't have to beg you to take the money."

She laughed and said, "No, usually people call and beg for more time to pay their bill, you're the only person I know of who calls and begs us to take their money."
And not only did she take my money, she gave me a direct number to call every month if this happens again, and they have the authorization to charge the card right then and there.
Now why, in all the years that I've been calling and begging, did none of those other reps, give me this direct number?
I don't understand, they knew I wasn't able to pay my bill by the automated biller, so why didn't they just give me that number?
Anyway, I'm glad it's paid and now I have a number I can just call once, no more 3-4 times a month having to call and beg to pay my bill.

---

June 11, 2008

Still no idea what it is.

I just got back from my pain doc appointment a little bit ago.
The pain doc is till not sure what it is, and is very glad I'm seeing my surgeon on Friday.
He said no matter what it turns out to be, call his office, and tell one of his nurses when I get home from that appointment.
I'm still banned from doing any ellipticals workouts until we know what it is, but amazingly, even without working out, I've lost some weight.
I told him it's not that amazing, I've been sick the last few days.
When you're vomiting and the smell of food makes your stomach turn so much you can't eat, it's pretty damn easy to lose weight.

But I am doing better today.
I've been taking it so easy the last few days and having the teens put staphaseptic on the red spot, so I was able to eat last night and today.
Mindy drove me again, and we took her daughter Katie, and Sebastian.
When we got done at the docs, I had promised Katie that if she was good and patient while waiting for me, that I would treat her to McDonald's for lunch.
But when we got out, it was still too early for lunch, so we went to Best Buy and bought Sebastian the graphics card he needed for his computer.
He had most of the money in a gift card he got for his birthday from his Aunt Heather, and I paid the balance.
Then we got to McD's, and ate, then came home.

I installed his graphics card, and then he installed the rest of his Sims games, and now he's a happy camper.
I'm way tired, and need to rest for a little bit, and then I have a lot of catching up to do.
Later days.

---

May 27, 2008

So much to do, no energy to do it all.

I have so many things that I need to do, I've gotten way behind on a lot of things.
I forgot to pay my medicare supplement part D bill, so I need to do that.
I have about 30 some odd emails to reply to.
I have 2 sink-fulls of dishes to do, and I need to finish installing a few things on the boys computer.

But I gotta tell ya, it is so much better with the xbox in their room now.
I have actually been able to watch the news every day and all my "gay and boring" tv shows.
The boys said they are so thrilled to be in the other room because the tv shows I watch are boring and gay, like really gay.
Funny, they would always ask me what time such and such show comes on. *eyeroll*

I can't believe the last day of school is on Friday.
This school year has just flown by so fast.
We are gonna be up each other's butts all summer.
I need to get them both jobs. hahaha

Ok, I really need to get cracking on all those emails and other things.
Later days.

---

May 27, 2008

That was a great idea!

The state of Florida just keeps screwing up.
You know that stupid child support debit card they made us all get?
Well, someone has hacked their website.
It doesn't look hacked, but it is.
They, the hackers, have taken over the website and are attempting to gain control of card numbers and pin numbers.
A child support deposit was made, and I attempted to go check my balance, but it kept saying my password had expired, so I tried to create a new one like it was asking me to, but then it went to an internal 500 error.
So I called the card people, and they said the website had been hacked, do not use it at all, instead use the 877 number on the back of the card to check balances etc.
I asked them how long the site would be screwed, and they said they don't know, they are attempting to get into the database and server and take back control, but everything they have done is not working.
I asked them how long it has been hacked, and the lady said about a month now.
That's just great.
So basically, if you live in Florida and have a child support debit card, don't use the website under any circumstances.

I had my doc follow up appointment this morning, and he upped the dose amount on those Opanas.
The 15mgs didn't work the whole 12 hours like they were supposed to, so we're trying a higher dose.
If it doesn't work the full 12 like it should, and I'm still getting breakthrough pain, then he'll give me something for that.
I'm just really tired now.
I had to walk home from CVS, they were the only drug store close to home that carries the Opanas.
It was either that, or go all the way over to the Bee Ridge pharmacy again, and I didn't have anyone who could drive me there today.
I need a nap, a long one.

---

May 24, 2008

It was a nice day to play.

My niece Susan and I had a really good afternoon, she is getting so smart.
We played her computer games, it's called Learn to read at Starfall- teaching comprehension and phonics.
I was really impressed with that website, Susan reads along with the text on the screen, she says what they do, she knows how to move the mouse around and click on everything.
Kids these days are learning computers at such young ages, they are going to be so technologically ahead of even my kids generation when it comes to this stuff.
She is already using computers at school, and she is only in pre-school!

We played that for awhile, then we watched Monsters, Inc. while we ate a snack.
We colored, and we tried to play outside, but it was far too hot and humid.
Blech.
We also built some things with her Legos she brought with her, but Shahiro decided that her Lego box was the most comfortable place to sleep.

We played with "blue baby", which is just an old blue stuffed alien like toy that one of the boys won at a fair or something years ago.
Susan calls it blue baby, and she takes care of it whenever she comes over.
She changes it's diaper, feeds it a bottle, and rocks it to sleep.
Then we decided it was time to eat some dinner, so we ordered some chinese food and watched Fantasia.
Then Jo and the teens came home, Susan and I picked up all the toys and packed up her little suitcase she uses to bring toys and her blankie over, and they all left to go back to my sister's house.

After that, I finished up the laundry that Susan helped me start, did some dishes, and I've basically been goofing off on line since.
I have been sort of watching National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets while I have been reading forums and finishing up some work.
It's not too bad, but I definitely liked the first one much better.

I just realized how late it is, well, it's not that late for me, but wow, the past few hours have just flown by.
I guess I've rambled on long enough.
Later days.

---

May 23, 2008

I'm skeered to go food shopping.

I have to go to the grocery store later today and get some more food for the human food disposals, but I'm worried about how much it's going to cost.
Publix is having a HUGE buy 1 get 1 free sale, but the prices of food are increasing every single day due to the trickle down effect of rising gas prices.
I'm getting far less groceries for the same amount of money than I used to just a few months ago.
Bread used to be .89 cents a loaf, it's now $1.59.
A gallon of milk used to be $3.20, it's now $4.20.
A pound of ground beef was $2.29, it's now $3.99.
The prices are getting higher and it's putting a serious crimp in my grocery budget.

And Sebastian's birthday is coming up, and I already got him a really nice digital drawing pad for an awesome price thanks to Charlotte, and I'm going to try as hard as I can to get him the computer memory he needs so he can run his Sims 2 games on his computer.
The boys Aunty Heather got them an awesome monitor instead of sending her old one like she had planed to do.
It would have cost her over $150 to pack and ship her old Dell monitor here, so she bought a 17" flat panel gaming monitor for just $89 with free shipping.
It's an Acer, just like the brand tower they have, so they have quite the nice setup going on their room.
I'd love to be able to get him the memory card though.
It will help make their computer run much faster, and help make his games look and run better.
I'm going to do some major price shopping on all the electronics sites and local stores as well.
He gets so frustrated when the Sims lag or freeze up because there isn't enough memory to keep it running for longer than an hour.

---

May 23, 2008

I can be such a doofus sometimes.

I was on the local forums just now in the music, movies, and books sub-forum, and someone asked about the industrial rock band from France, and wanted to know their name.
I just blurted out KVM.

Um, duh-ur.
I was quickly called on my mistake too by several music heads.
It's not KVM, it's KMFDM.
KFMDM has been around since 1984, and has put out 15 studio albums, 24 singles and EPs, and 2 remix albums.
They make awesome music, so if you've never heard of them before and like industrial rock, give them a listen, it's good stuff.

Now, what is KVM?
It's a multi-user switch that allows you to control multiple computers from a single station.
It allows you to manage servers over IP, and makes it easier to move your computers to a more secure location.

I don't know why I just spit out KVM instead of KMFDM.
It could be because I had just been looking up some info on Cat5 extenders. I have this switch box here that someone gave me, and I've never been able to get it to work, so I was looking up directions on how to make it work.
I really shouldn't try to multi-task.
I know my music better than I know technology, and I just made myself sound stupid on the forums.
D'oh!

---

May 21, 2008

Try to keep still!

Have you ever taken a video with your camera and it ends up being all shaky?
I hate that.
But Buy.com has an awesome sale price on a Case Logic flexible tripod.
It can stand on just about any surface because it's legs are flexible for those times when taking a picture means putting a tripod on uneven ground.
How much is it on sale for?
$10!
That's it!
That is such an awesome price for people who take a lot of pictures or make videos and don't want the shaky hand appearance.
Look how cool this thing looks!

Check out some of it's features;
Segmented leg design allows for flexible joints that can rotate 360 degrees
Lightest and most versatile camera tripod available today
Firmly secures your compact digital camera to virtually any surface
Ideal camera accessory for photographers on the go
Throw it in your pocket or backpack and you'll be ready for your next adventure
Wrap it around a tree branch
Hang it from a pole
Perch it on a jagged rock
Standard 1/4 diameter 20 thread count screw mount
Designed for use with digital cameras weighing up to 9.7 ounces (275 grams)
Rubber feet gives extra grip

It sounds like it's small enough to take anywhere and use on just about any kind of surface.
I may actually pick this up this week. I would love to try it out and for only $10, it's totally affordable to try.

Buy.com has tons of awesome weekly deals every single week, and I've gotten into the habit of checking them out every week now because they really do have some amazing prices on certain items.

---

May 15, 2008

Is it remembering what I look at?

After last night's post about inheritance, I keep coming across legal type websites.
I was just clicking around between Twitter, gmail, a forum and my feed reader, and came across another site for orange probate lawyer.
Oops, I mean Orange County probate lawyers.
Is my computer remembering what I am looking at and just taking me to those types of sites now?

Anyway, I stopped and looked at it of course, I am curious as heck now about probate law and inheritance laws, taxes on settlements etc.
I have good reason to, Sebastian will get part 1 of his settlement when he turns 18, and so I am curious if that money will be taxed when he takes it out, or if it was taxed before they put it in.
Or what.
I have no idea how all of this works, and I'd like to know so that when the time comes (in 4 years) I'll be able to tell him why the government just snagged a couple grand of his money.
You know he's gonna be like hey, why are they taking some of it, and I'd like to be able to answer that.

So I'm going to read through the FAQs and all that stuff, learn what I can about all these different things in case I should ever need to know this stuff.

---

May 12, 2008

Digital graphics tablet. Shhhh.

Sebastian's birthday is coming up in just a few weeks, and I think I know the perfect gift for him.
It will require some major extra work on my part, but thanks to Buy.com's weekly deals, I just might be able to get him this PenPower Digital Graphics Tablet.

One of Sebastian's future dream jobs is to be a game designer.
Video games, pc games, digital design and graphics design.
He is already taking these classes in school, he's used a tablet in his class as well as all kinds of other graphics programs, and we have a few of them at home on the teen's pc now.
Adding the tablet would be perfect.
It would allow him to keep designing and drawing over the summer.

The tablet costs $160, has free shipping, and a $30 rebate is offered, making the bottom price I would pay, just $129.95.
That's a really good deal.
It has a 5 star rating in value, performance, ease of use, and overall satisfaction.
It will work with Windows XP, has a usb port, and comes with everything he would need to continue making graphics all summer and all next school year as well for home projects in his classes.
This is something he's been asking for for quite awhile now, so it might be the right time to pick this up for him while it's at such a good price, and his birthday is June 1st.
It would get here right in time to give it to him.

---

May 10, 2008

He wants a job.

This is one of those proud mama moments, my oldest boy, *sniff*, Mark, is actively searching for a job.
He's decided that he wants to work and earn money, and contribute to the house.
He went and got a hair cut today, he looks good, and he picked up a few applications to places he'd like to work.
The video game stores of course, the movie theater at the mall, and some other close to home places that will hire 16 year olds.
He's done some calculations on how many hours he is allowed to work, how much the rate of minimum wage is, and then he divided this possible income by 3, to determine how much would go to the house.
One third to the bank, one third to the house, and one third to have as spending money.

He'd really like to work at the game stores, they get employee discounts on all the games, so he's busting out all his game systems knowledge, pc knowledge, and has written it all down on the application.
If there's something Mark knows, it's game systems and computers, he's excellent at both.

He's excited about it, he wants to spend the summer working instead of just sitting around doing nothing like last summer.
He used to be able to mow lawns, but most people now either have their own mowers or lawn companies that do it, so that weekly money he was getting has been gone for awhile.
He also said he'd like to earn enough to send us on a vacation to one of those places I am always talking about like the Outer Banks rentals in the Carolinas, or go back up north to visit with friends and family.

He'll be taking all his filled out applications back Monday after school, and seeing as school lets out for the year on the 30th, he'll be able to work pretty much any hours they need him to.
I'm proud of him for taking the initiative today.
I haven't pestered him about getting a job in quite awhile, so this was pretty cool to hear.

---

May 5, 2008

UPS, why must you suck so much?

I had my box cutter all ready to go, to open up the new monitor that the teen's Aunt Heather bought for them.
The monitor that was supposed to be delivered on April 30th, but once again, UPS couldn't find the address.
The address Heather used when she bought it, is correct, but what happens at UPS every single time now, is that when they enter it into their tracking system, they reverse the numbers to my house.
Instead of 5328, they enter it in as 5238, or 5823, or some other combination which is wrong, and then they just don't even bother to try looking up the correct address.

I've now lived here for 10 years, and I've never had a single package delivered when it was supposed to be.
They always mess it up, make me call them, or is the case right now, Heather is once again on the phone with them.
When it didn't get delivered by Saturday, she called them and asked why.
They told her about the address, they corrected it, promised her it would be delivered today, and now it's not.

When I called them a little while ago and gave them the tracking information and asked where it was, and also explained the promise, they said that "whoever told the gift sender it would be delivered today, lied."
When Heather called me about 20 minutes ago and I told her what they told me, she was furious.
"What do you mean they told you the rep I spoke to lied?! Are they calling their own employees liars now?!"

I said yes, that's what the lady said, that you were lied to.
To say Heather is unhappy is an understatement.
She's calling them now to chew them out some more.
To add to the chewing I did.
I mean come on!
10 years at the same exact address, and they still mess up my address and can't find my house?!
I swear, if I had other shipping options with the places I do business with, or could ask my shippers too please use Fedex or DHL, two companies who have never had a problem and as a matter of fact, always deliver a day early in most cases, believe me, I would.
I'm sick and tired of any package I order never making it to me on time, and having UPS come up with all kinds of excuses why.
They always apologize, but saying sorry isn't good enough any more, not after 10 years of hearing it.

---

May 5, 2008

Oh UPS, when will you get it right?

I'm not doing much today, just hanging out waiting on a delivery of a monitor for the teens pc that was supposed to be delivered on the 30th.
Why wasn't it?
Because once again, UPS screwed up my address when they entered it electronically into their computers and scanners.
A call was made, they supposedly fixed it, and it's supposed to be here today.
We'll see.

I also wanted to remind everyone about the two give-aways that are going on here.
2 copies of the Hot Latin Diet book, and a Mad Money DVD.
Entering to win is really easy, and anyone can enter!

---

April 25, 2008

One expense down.

I mentioned earlier today about the teens needing a new crt monitor, and tonight their Aunty Heather called.
Her and her husband have a Dell monitor they no longer use because they both have laptops now, so she's going to box it up and ship it down to us.
Thank Heather!
You have no idea the awesomeness of doing that for them, for me.
Now I can focus on saving for just a new vac, and not a new vac and a new monitor.
One stress down, one to go.
Ok, not just one to go, like lots to go, but I'll get a grip on it all eventually.

My neighbor this evening, after helping teach her how to email the pics from her cell phone to her email account, and then teaching her how to attach pictures to emails to send them to others, gave me a huge box of bulk cable that the Verizon Fios guy left behind, said he didn't need it.
It's not cable cable, it's ethernet cable.
Yeusss!
I can never have too much of that around.
Kali has chewed through one, I accidentally vacuumed a hole in one, and I stapled through another one.
And then there's the one that got fried during the great lightning strike of January '08.
That strike took out an ethernet cord, an ethernet port, a telephone answering machine, and 1 router.
So yeah, having extra ethernet cable around is awesome.
Ya never know when I'll ruin another one.

---

April 24, 2008

I didn't mean to worry anyone.

I have been sick and in pain, and stressed out, and just feeling miserable.
When I get like that, I don't want to talk or play, or do anything but lay in my bed and hope for sleep.
On top of my shoulder and back issues, (the trigger point injections never did work) I ended up with some sort of stomach bug and a cold of some sort.
Talk about miserable!
Apparently a few kids in Mark's class at school were sick with something, he got coughed and sneezed on, and I probably ate something bad or caught a virus of some sort, which worked better than any colon cleanse on the market.
I probably dropped 10 pounds in the last 2 days with all my trips to the bathroom to vomit out both ends.

Not fun I tell ya.
So I was just in a bad place dealing with that, the shoulder pain, and stress from having to once again purchase things I don't really want to.
Sure I can use my Roomba, but that requires running it nearly every day, and having to stop it, empty it, and restart it to get the rug really clean.
I like it, it does work really great, but I used my big vac for fast cleanups if someone was coming over or something.
And the whole pc monitor issue has me kinda pissed off.
I know I have to buy them another crt monitor, but I don't want to.
I just got them the new tower at xmas, the monitor they have is less than 2 years old, I think, and now it has to be replaced.
I'm just not up for it financially right now.
I have so many doctors appointments and medical crap to pay for, that trying to come up with money for another monitor and vac is just making me crazy and mad.
I just got paid, and it's going to be fully spent come Tuesday morning when I see the doc.
That sucks.

I'm stressed way out man.
Like way, way, way out.
It's all too much for me to deal with, but I'm trying.
I have my little meltdowns and then I get back to work, because if I do want to find the money to somehow to pay for all this stuff, I have to just keep going.
No just laying in bed and wishing it would all go away.
But I needed that day to just lay in bed and be miserable.
I really didn't mean to worry you Mom and Dad and Shell, I just really wasn't feeling well, and I think vomiting over the phone would have been just plain rude.
I know, saying don't call me was rude too, but really, I just couldn't handle talking to anyone.
My head hurt, my nose was stuffed up with a combination of snot and hurl, my stomach, back, and shoulder were killing me, I kept getting some serious leg cramps, and the stress, had turned me into someone who would have verbally ripped your heads off if I had to speak to you.
I apologize for making you worry.
I'm still not feeling all that great, but at least the vomiting from both ends has stopped.
Now if this migraine and other pains would just go away, I'd feel a whole lot better.

---

April 23, 2008

Feels like.....

I was hit by a truck, like I may have an imprint of a Chevy grilles pattern on my ass and lower back.
I slept terrible, I feel terrible, I look terrible.
I didn't do squat, so this must be catch up with the pain day from all the cleaning the other day.
Blargh!
And due to the pain and inability to move much, I'm way cranky.
Yes, I dare someone to look at me even slightly wrong today, it will be the last time they see anything while their blackened eyeball heals.
Kidding.
I won't actually hit anyone, I can barely move.
Hitting someone would cause me more pain and thanks, but no.

And I'm in a wicked foul mood anyway.
Two appliances are screwed, so yay for having to spend more money on crap.
My vac died, it's no longer sucking anything at all, and when I opened it up, there's like a major wire thing completely melted and apart from the other end of it's wire thing.
And the teens pc monitor is taking a major dumpuss.
The screen controls keep popping up and changing the settings on it's own. The menu keys are screwed up or something.
I've looked it up and yup, it's the sign of it dying.
Great.

---

April 12, 2008

Cheesy but fun movies from the 80's.

Last weekend, we watched the movie Mannequin using the unlimited movie watching on Netflix.
The kids all like watching the movies I watched back then.
It was 1987, and the movie was a hit.

One of the funniest scenes in the boys opinion, is when Hollywood, played by Meshach Taylor, drives Switcher to the competing department store, and whips out his personalized car covers which is purple and pink polka dots, with his name stylized on the sides of it, and then runs squealing like a girly girl into the store.
The teens absolutely loved that character, thought he was just the funniest in the whole movie.

Personally, I liked James Spader's role as a weaselly little corporate spy and ass kisser.
He just played it so well.
And who can forget Kim Cattrall?
She still looks that beautiful today.
She hasn't aged a bit.

If you have Netflix, have you been taking advantage of all that unlimited movie watching?
I know I have.
I watch at least 6 movies per week through the mail and returns, and probably another dozen during the month on my pc.
It's quite a value, and I totally love that I can watch all kinds of movies right here.

---

April 3, 2008

Bloa-ted.

I very rarely eat out at restaurants, we do get take out, but eating "in restaurant" is different.
Anyway, we went to The Olive Garden for lunch, it was me, the teens, my friend and her son.
The food was excellent, but I ate way too much.
I just love their bread sticks and alfredo sauce, omg yum.

I hadn't been up their in quite awhile, so a lot of things have changed in that plaza.
There's a ton of new stores for clothing, diners, a mailing type store, another craft place, and just a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't there the last time I really had a chance to look at everything.
They must have added on to the strip mall too, because there were noticeable changes in the end of the building structure, and one of them appears to have a completely different column style in front of it than all the others. They didn't look like cement, they looked more like fiberglass columns, they were a different shape, different color.
It doesn't look bad, just doesn't "fit" with every other storefront there now.

Tomorrow, Jo and I and the teens, will be going out for lunch somewhere, then we're dropping the teens back off here with her laptop so they can play Wow, while her and I go do some shopping.
She needs some new shoes, and I need some sort of school field trip appropriate clothing.
I can wear my standard black, but I think t-shirts and shorts won't be ok, so I'm off to find and purchase an outfit I'll wear once.
I'm not much into fashion, I could care less "what's in", and I have no desire to look like or fit in, with every Sarasota PTA soccer mom.

I can't believe how bloated I still am from lunch though.
When you don't eat out often, your body, ok my body, just isn't used to that kind of rich food, and I end up feeling sluggish and bloated for hours afterward.
4 Tums later, and I still feel like I'm bulging at the seams.

---

April 2, 2008

Oooh, I am a bad mommy!

I was cleaning out my purse this morning, and in one of the front pockets I found a few gift cards that belonged to the teens.
They always ask me to hold their cards until we go to those particular stores.
One was for Best Buy, and had mostly been spent except for about $11.00, and the other was for Old Navy for $25.
Not been spent at all.
Oooops!
It was Sebastian's, he got it for xmas from his big, and I kept telling him we'd go, but I hate that store so I never go there and totally forgot about the gift card.

So when I found it, I was like hey bud, look what I found, wanna shop online?
He was like 'geez mom, it's April, you just found it?'
But he picked out a couple t-shirts, I paid the difference and shipping seeing as it's totally my fault, and now he has 2 t-shirts on the way.

I think I get the bad mom award for the day.

---

March 29, 2008

That will be 10 per hour, thanks.

I'm trying really hard to get up and get going here, but I stayed up late, couldn't sleep, and then my neighbor needs help with computer stuff again.
Maybe I can charge for computer rental and printer ink?
She has all kinds of stuff she needs to print out for her lawyers and she's not so good with her pc, and personally, I think there's something seriously wrong with it.
It behaves weird.
I've tried fixing it, but I can't find the exact location of the problem, so she comes over here, we login to her email, print out her stuff, then she asks a million questions on 'how do I do' stuff.
I don't really mind, but I have things I have to do today.

I'm trying to gather all my coupons up for the grocery store, find the list I know I wrote out yesterday, and then I need to get in the shower which will help my back loosen up a bit more.
Then, I can go.
Hopefully.

And I seriously need to eat something.
My stomach is rumbling, and meds on an empty stomach is nausea in the making.
Ok, going to go eat, then shower, then attempt to get out of here and get my shopping done so I can come back and clean the house.
Later days!

---

March 26, 2008

Postponed.

I got a call about an hour ago from the Maine AG.
The hearing is postponed, date unknown right now.
Not surprised.
His attorney asked for a new date.
She asked me for my 2007 taxes and some other stuff, so I got her email address and sent her everything she asked for, and probably a few things she didn't know about.
We talked about my income, I told her, adjusted gross on my taxes is especially pathetic, so she'll be able to see that when she opens the email.
It is what it is, can't really do much about it.

And that really bums me out.
I miss being able to work.
I miss it like you wouldn't believe.
If I was still able to work like I was before they told me to stop before I injured myself beyond medical repair, I wouldn't give two shits about the child support.
I lived and survived without it for many years because I could work.
I worked 12-16 hour days, I had money, I made good money, and then my back up and quit on me for good.

There are times, like now, when I get really depressed about it.
I'm not like crying all day and night depressed, but yeah, I am bummed out that I cannot support me and my kids the same way I used to.
It's not right, it's not fair, it fucking sucks, but there isn't anything I can do about it, and that makes it even worse.
It is completely out of my control.
100% complete disability, unable to perform gainful employment.
Those words that I fought for 5 years to hear, sting like molten steel sometimes.

I didn't want this, I just wanted my back to get fixed so I could keep working, but they kept saying no to the surgery, no to the surgeon who could do it.
It took fighting and phone calls, and attorneys, and letters, to get medical help, and then it was too late.
The damage was done, 100% complete disability, unable to perform gainful employment.

I busted my ass for years supporting my family on my own, busting my back to a state of disability, and for him to ask after all these years, to lower the child support, well, no, fuck you.
I don't care how many kids there are, that's not my problem.
My problem is the two I have here, the two I have taken care of day in and day out for the last 14 years on my own.
I'm tired of the excuses that there was no job, and all the other bullshit that has prevented my sons from getting a fair and decent amount of child support, I'm fucking over it.
I don't care that the business just started, needs time to grow, not my fucking problem.
I'm over the piddly amount that was court ordered 14 years ago. No one should have to deal with that amount all these years, and no, it's not me who ruined his relationship with his sons, it was him.
A slap to Sebastian's 2 year old face that left a bruise in the shape of a hand, and the very painful words said to a 9 year old Mark, "My band is more important than being a father right now".
You think those words and slap are forgotten?!
They aren't.
I fight for them.
I fight for them to have what they need and some of what they want.
I do everything in what little power I have left, to get for them.
To even ask to have to send less money to them, is just another slap in the face, it's just another string of painful words.

Keep postponing it, it doesn't matter.
Whenever it gets scheduled, I'll be available, and I'll keep fighting for them just like I have done for the last 14 years.
I may not be able to hold a job outside the home anymore, and the work I do now doesn't bring me much income, but I will keep doing everything I can so that they can have everything they need, so that they are happy, healthy, and grow up to know values, and morals, and ethics, and to keep fighting for what they want and what is right, and what they deserve.
I'll keep doing what I have to, even if more and more excuses get made and thrown.
They deserve better than that.
They deserve better than him.

---

February 19, 2008

There is information to gain, and money to be made.

I was chatting through email yesterday with blog reader Chris, about market research and various other ways to make money on line.
She had no idea on some of the other ways to make money, and the question came up over my post about my child support.

Yes, I was complaining about the increase, which is very low in my opinion, and so she asked how I was making ends meet.
I work on line, I do various reviews, some market research like she does, I will be getting back to making jewelry again sometime soon, I hope, and there are companies that pay you to work from home.
When I first started working from home, I worked for about 15 different on line market research companies who all paid in different ways.
Some cash through paypal, some in gift certificates to on line retailers, and some accrued your earnings and allowed you to choose your payout once you reach a certain level.
I think I've done almost every form of on line money making.
I kinda have to.

---

February 15, 2008

It was so not my phone!

I've had a most icky day, I don't want to whine about it, but let's just say I probably could have used one of these posture correction things last night and today.
My back and whole body has just been a mess, but I think that one pill is finally wearing off.
Zanaflex + Kat = way bad interaction.

But anyway, I got up this morning after barely getting 2 hours of sleep due to that rotten pill, and found my phone to be sending the whole dead air deal.
My net was on and off all day, just a big mess.
I called Verizon.
Gah, that right there should tell you how fun of a day I had with them.
They tell me there's noise on my line, but most likely coming from my equipment.
I no longer have an answering machine cuz that got fried 3 weeks ago when the transformer blew, so the only things connected to the line were my phone and DSL line.

I went outback and tested the NID box, (Network Interface Device) got the same dead air back there.
Verizon calls me back and insists it's my phone.
I tell them I tested my phone at my neighbors house and it worked just fine.
They insist it's still my phone, but they'll send a tech out to take a look.

The repair guy gets here and sets about testing the lines.
He can hear the noise on the line, and goes about trying to find the faulty wire.
He comes back nearly an hour later, and tells me it's definitely not my phone.
There's a line on the next pole over from the one that had the transformer blow, and it was almost blown apart.
All the wires inside the line were exposed to the elements.
He wrapped a temporary line cover on it so my phone and net would work again, and tells me that a repair crew will have to come out and replace that whole line.

We plug my phone back in, and yup, I now have a signal again instead of air.
I'm so so glad it was not my phone, I feel vindicated.
Why?
Because if it had been my phone or the wires inside my home, they would have charged me $80 bucks per hour to repair it.
But seeing as it IS there line outside, I don't have to pay a dime.
But once again, Verizon DSL has not charged my CC for the bill that was supposed to be paid on the 28th.
I had to call them again today and ask them to charge my card.
I swear, they just keep screwing up my billing month after month after month.

He leaves and I go back to my couch, just to chill and try to relax.
My legs were still doing the herky jerky spasm crap from that one rotten pill I took.
It's supposed to be an anti-spasmodic, they give that muscle relaxer to MS patients, but it can have very bad side effects.
I only took one Zanaflex, it should have worn off within 3-6 hours, but I was at the over 24 hour mark, still having bad side effects.
I was nauseous, vomiting, my heart was racing, and instead of calming my muscles down, it made them do a little freak out.
My legs and lower back muscles twitched all night last night and all day today, with a pounding racing heart.
My mouth was dry, I had the runs wicked bad, and I wasn't eating or drinking anything at all.
I was tired and dizzy, but couldn't sleep.
At one point, I got so scared that my heart was beating so fast, that I thought about going to the ER.
My chest hurt, I was actually scared I was having some sort of adverse reaction that was going to cause me to have a heart attack.
I just tried to lay down and rest as much as possible all day and night.
I think it's finally worn off, and thank goodness for that. I was really scared for awhile there.

I sent to the boys to the store to buy subs for dinner, and we chilled out and watched a movie tonight.
Gone Baby Gone is an awesome movie.
I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but you need to see it if you haven't already.
Great cast too. I really liked it, and it had one of those endings that you just don't know which side you should have been on.

---

February 11, 2008

My pretty Kali kitty.

I suppose you could call this a cat post, but it's just 3 pictures of my pretty kitty Kali.
She is 10 years old now, and the most loving, beautiful cat I have ever owned.
She just lays there, purring away, while I snap a few pictures.
I would have kept taking some more, but my batteries were dead, and I found my other pair of rechargeables in the GH3 guitar.
Click for bigger.

I love her colors.
She has the most gorgeous coloring, and it's so soft, like a nice blanket soft.
Her fur is thick, and she's always grooming herself.
I love that her nose is just as colorful as her fur, it's cute, makes her so unique.

She is getting older now, has to eat special food, and you can tell her age is catching up to her.
At night, it's almost like she has muscle spasms.
She shudders while she sleeps between my feet, it shakes the whole bed.
I'll be taking her to the vet when I get my income tax back, just to have her checked out.
I hate to think that something may be wrong with her heart or something.
She's my baby, my cat, my best fur friend.
When I was in the hospital, she was so sad and worried, she licked all the fur off of her belly, it was pure flesh by the time I came home.
And when I did come home, she didn't leave my side for weeks.
I was in bed for hours and hours every day, and she would stay with me, right by my side.
She'd run out to the kitchen and swallow down food in a flash, a quick drink of water, and then rush back to my side, where she would spend the next hour just licking my hands, my arm, my face.

I hate to think of the day she will no longer be with me.
That thought consumes me sometimes, and I am flooded with emotions.
I know it's coming, I hope not soon, but I have to prepare myself for that day whenever it comes.
It kills me to think of going to bed and not having her between my feet, her back up against one of my legs, one paw outstretched, touching my other leg, doing that loving kneading touch she does when she's happy.
If I lay on the couch, she can barely wait till my body is settled and comfortable, before she jumps up on top of me, licks my face, and then settles into a sleeping position on top of my chest and stomach.

She's my pretty baby, my girl, my Kali kitty.

---

February 8, 2008

Buy.com rocks!

I do a lot of shopping on line, and I used to shop at Buy.com all the time, don't really know why I stopped, but I have since rediscovered why I used to shop there, and why buy.com rocks so much.

Some of the reasons they rock, are professional as well as actual customer reviews.
I love honest reviews of products by real users. To me, there is no better way to find out the truth about a product than to hear it from real people.

Another reason is the great selection and the best prices, as well as comparison prices right on the item page.
You know with one glance, if Buy.com has the lower better price, in most cases they do.
There's deal of the day, monthly celebrity spokespersons who make their own funny and informative commercials.
I figured if Howie Mandel and Ryan Seacrest were making commercials, I could too.
Below you'll see a little video the kids and threw together, with reasons why I think Buy.com rocks.

So if you haven't ever shopped there, (new customers get an additional $10 off with Google checkout) or if it's been awhile since you have, go back and discover your reasons why buy.com rocks!

---

February 2, 2008

Why do you sit there like that?

My sister came down with my teens in tow, bringing Susan and some McDonald's too.
We ate, and then we made our way over to Gamestop to pick up the wireless adapter, and Publix to get tp and cat litter, and some food.

The boys traded in 9 old games they no longer play anymore, and knocked off $37.62 of the total price.
Then I dug through my wallet and found an old EB Games card that had some credit on it. I figured it was like maybe $10 at the most, I hadn't used it in over 2 years, and couldn't recall how much value, if any at all was still on it.
The guy ran it through, and said that it had $27.02 on it, and would I like that added to lower the price of the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter as well.
I said heck yeah! Anything to bring that $100 price tag down.

So between the games and the card, we knocked $64.64 off the price of the adapter, making the total price my sister had to pay just $42.35.
She was so greatful for that. She wanted to get the boys that very expensive piece they needed, and I certainly couldn't afford it, so helping bring that price down made her smile.
And of course the teens are thrilled. They missed being able to play their games live since the power transformer blew out on the 19th of January.
It wasn't until January 23rd, when I got the new modem/router from Verizon, that I realized what happened to the xbox's ethernet port.
When the transformer blew, it caused a massive power surge that killed the ethernet port, my phone, my answering machine, and my router as well as the old modem I had.
I'm truly lucky that it didn't just kill the entire xbox.

So the boys are totally happy, and as soon as I got the adapter hooked up and entered the WEP key, they were back online and playing Rock Band.
Susan is here and loves music, so she wanted to try it.
She was truly awesome at Ballroom Blitz.

And now my little cutie pie is in bed, fast asleep.
We ate and played, and giggled and tickled, and ran, and laughed, and read a book before bed.
She's just so awesome. I love having her here.
I get to be mommy-like again.
You know, play goofy, read silly bedtime stories, play silly games.
The teens look at me really funny if I try to read The Cat in the Hat out loud to them like I used to.
The cat has a voice, the fish has a voice, and I just have so much fun reading it to little kids, and the teens, are definitely not little any more.
Now they are as grumpy as the fish in the pot.

---

February 2, 2008

Busy busy buseeeeee.

I have so much to do, and what am I doing?
I'm sitting here playing on the net.
Actually not playing, I had to look up some stuff so I could connect the boys to the modem/router through wireless later today.
That involved finding the damn connection page for verizon. I could not remember what it was at all.
I got it now, all will good.

I need to vac the rugs and stuff like that, my niece Susan is coming to spend the night with us.
I need to get to the store and get cat litter, tp, a little bit of food.
I am so freaking broke right now.
I just yesterday, paid my doc appointment co-pays, picked up all my meds, and had to get the boys lunch and something for me for dinner, and I think I have a whole $65 bucks left to buy the above and food, for a whole week and a half.
uh huh.
Looks like ramen and pb and j time for a little bit.
Things are just super tight and work ha slowed down a bit, not sure why, but I could really use some more work right now.
I hate being broke like this, it stresses me oooooout man.
I'll survive though.
Oh, and I am not buying the teens the wireless thingy they need, sis is, so yeah, not coming out of my empty pockets.

I'm so tired too. I was awake till like 6am. I just laid on the couch watching stupid infomercials and crappy movies.
I did get some new Netflix stuff today, but we won't be watching it with Susan here.
I picked episodes 1 and 2 of HBO's Rome.
Everyone said it was really good. If it sucks, I'll just send them back and cancel the remaining episodes.
No biggie especially now that there are so many movies you can just watch right on line.

Ok, gotta go. Lots of cleaning and stuff to do.
Later days!

---

January 30, 2008

Just jot it in the space provided.

I haven't really had a lot to say over the last few days, I'm still shaking off my flu bug, still kinda wankied in the head from that, and been sorta down in the dumpers about stuff.

I've been attempting to get all my tax stuff sorted out, so I can pay what I owe on my self employment earnings, and am attempting to wait patiently for the 1099's to come in the mail.
What I don't like is being asked to re-create my account at an on line company I no longer work for, because when I quit and they deleted my account at my request, they didn't create any back-ups of my tax information which includes my SSN and mailing address.
I refused to re-create that account, and instead sent my information through a secure email connection.
But now I'm slightly, ok, a lot, worried that my 1099 is going to have the wrong information on it.
See, my SSN should have been tied to my earnings in a database some where, but nope, they didn't have my SSN or address, so how are they going to send me a proper 1099?

I received a second email from them after sending them the information they needed, telling me this is the amount you earned, you don't need a 1099 to file your taxes, just jot this amount down in the space provided on the tax form.
Maybe I don't need the 1099, but I prefer to be professional, and have the proper forms should my tax preparer ask for them.
And quite honestly, the fact that my information was not kept in a secure database with my name and SSN tied to my earnings, I have to question if it's even the correct amount.
I don't think it is.
The number they gave me is more than I recall making, even if they added in the $100 for a focus group, it's still about $200 higher than I have written down as my correct earnings.
I kept very detailed records of my earnings, and the number they gave me is more than I have recorded in excel.
It's just another one of those phew, glad I got out when I did, moments for me.
I have zero trust in this company. I lost it quite awhile ago.
I want my actual 1099 in hand, and I want to add up my records again and compare it to this amount. Something is not right and I know it in my gut.

What this means if I am correct about that extra $200, is that I have to pay taxes on that extra amount. I am already going to be paying nearly $1,000 in self employment earnings, and this will just add to it.
I'm freaking broke people, I can't be paying more than I should have to because someone kept shoddy records.
And if the records are indeed wrong for me, how many others will it be wrong for?

---

January 22, 2008

Argh! So frustrating!

George came over with a router for me, and I have been at this the entire day now and cannot get it to even register the internet signal.
I'm so freaking frustrated!
The teens are gonna come home, think I have all their stuff back up and running, and no, I don't, and they're gonna be upset, and that's when I'm going to throw a whole bunch of camping gear at them, tell them to sleep in the freaking yard, because if I get asked one more time if it's fixed yet, I may hurt somebody!

Why the hell is it not even seeing the DSL signal?!
And of course, the stress of this whole mess, has my back twitching like an epileptic with a grand seizure.
Why can't someone just come over and fix it for me huh?
Why does this have to be so much more complicated than it should be?
The Linksys router I had, a couple things plugged in and bam! All good to go.
This one, is simply not working and I'm ready to take a sledge hammer to it!

---

January 13, 2008

I'm not signing that.

On our way to Publix, we noticed that the new video game store, or what I thought was a video game store, had it's open sign on, so we stopped in to check it out.

We opened the door and walked in, and were surprised to see that it's a game playing place.
For $6.75 per hour, you can go in and play xbox 360, PS3, or a Wii, or pool.
They had giant flat screen tvs up on the black painted walls, leather recliners for the people to sit in, 2 pool tables, and not much else.
The guy said that in a few weeks he'll start buying, selling, and trading new and used games, but for now, if you want your kids to come play, they have to read all the rules, (1 page, single spaced) and the parents have to sign a contract, and leave their CC number.

The contract basically states that if your kid breaks a controller, a recliner, a pool stick, or whatever, the parents are legally responsible for full price repayment.
The games are not worth full price because so many people would be using them all the time, same with the controllers and other items, so no way should the parents have to pay full price for them, they would be used price at that point.

It was dead quiet in there too, because all the kids are required to use the full ear covering headsets, there is no jukebox or soda machines, no food is allowed to be eaten while there, it's strictly for game playing.
While the concept is ok, there is no way my teens will be going there to play.
Let's say some kid breaks a Wii controller, doesn't say anything when their hour is up, Mark rents an hour and tells the guy the controller doesn't work.
Guess who has to buy a new controller?
Mommy, and mommy ain't paying for that.
There are no security cameras to verify what kid is doing what in there, so it would all come down to whichever kid is the last kid to sign the contract for a particular game system.
No thanks.

But in other cool video game news, I just saw the Xbox 360 Text Messaging Kit.
It plugs into the headset port, and allows you to text message people in game, or with people using Windows based pc messenger systems. One review I read said it can be used to send text messages back and forth to cell phones as well.
If you watch the demo video on Circuit City's website, you can see it works with cell phones. Not sure how that works because I don't have this text pad yet, but if it can do all that stuff, and even comes with a special headset that works with it, it might be a kick ass add-on for the xbox360.
A lot of the video games make heavy use of texting like Phantasy Star Universe does, so this would be a very nice addition so you don't have to leave your game screen to send messages back and forth, you could just do it in game from the chat pad.
I may have to check one of these out.

---

January 7, 2008

Is a digital tv in my future?

By now, I'm sure most people know about the end of analog tv broadcasts in February 2009, and all signals will be digital.
I either need to buy a digital tv, or get the converter box.
I've already signed up for the $40 coupon the government is offering, but I'm thinking I should just get a digital tv and all the HDMI cables and other stuff I'm going to need for it, before that happens in a year from now.
I've been doing some comparison shopping, browsing Amazon, Circuit City, Best Buy etc, looking at, and watching the prices go up and down every week.

I'm also looking into the whole Blu-Ray issue.
See, most entertainment studios are already planning on releasing their dvds in Blu-Ray format only starting very, very soon, and now Warner Bros. is stating that they will be releasing their high-definition titles "exclusively" in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year.
That means my current dvd player is going to be pretty much useless.
Almost all the major studios have already made the switch, and will be making it exclusive by year's end.
The only studios who have not made this declaration are Universal and Paramount.

So not only do I have the whole digital tv issue to deal with, but now even renting movies is going to be on Blu-Ray soon, so I have quite a bit of electronics to upgrade by 2009.
I need to win the lotto just to watch tv and rent cheap movies from Netflix.
I like never go to the movies and refuse to pay for cable, so it's either buy all this stuff, or be really bored.
I love movies! I cannot go without my movies!
Damn digital and Blu-Ray! Damn you!

---

January 7, 2008

Virus e-card warning.

So many people send out e-cards, and a lot of people use trusted sites like Hallmark.com to do that.
I knew that some e-cards with viruses were being sent out, and I sent my parents a warning a few weeks ago telling them to not click on any link inside an e-card email unless they knew it was legit.
But I got one today from Hallmark.com, a well known and trusted site, it said in the email header, that my mom had sent me an e-card.
Good thing I always hover over the links in any email I get, to check where it goes before clicking.
Click for larger.

The link at the bottom circled in red, is a .exe, a program that will install itself on your computer, usually a virus, if you click that link in the e-card notification.
Always place your mouse over the link and look at the link in the status bar to see where the link really goes.
If it had said Hallmark.com, it would have been safe.
There are mean nasty people out there who do this kind of crap, and ruin other people's computers.

I always worry about my parents getting a virus this way. They love to send and receive e-cards to and from friends and family, and it's sad that because of mean people, my parents computer could get ruined.
Being so far away from my folks, I wouldn't be able to help them fix the problem from here where I live. They would have to take their computer to a repairman to get the virus off.

If you get an e-card notification from Hallmark.com, hover over the link and if it's not a Hallmark.com address, send the email to abuse@hallmark.com

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January 4, 2008

We'll be working on out, all weekend long.

Charlotte is another blogger who won one of the ellipticals in the contest, there are 3 of us who won one.
Anyway, Charlotte's elliptical also came today, and she opened her box up and started putting it together.
Oh my word, this is gonna be fun, just look at all those parts we get to put together!
Hee hee, I know the teens and I will be able to do it, but instead of tonight, I may have to hold off till morning when the sun is out.
I don't have a lot of light in my living room, so we're gonna wait.

And speaking of parts, my neighbor asked me when he saw me coming home, about setting up his home network, and if I knew how to do it. I told him I did, and asked him if he had all the needed parts.
He was like what parts? I said well, you'll need a router, wireless or wired, your choice, and the various ethernet cards and cords if we go the wired way.
he had no idea what I was talking about.
Oy.
So I told him what it was, how much they generally cost etc, and so he asked for the names of the stuff. He wrote it down as I spoke, and I told him he could probably get a decent used cisco router for way less than new, and it would work just the same, where he could get the cords and cards, mainly at the Radio Shack or even Best Buy or Circuit City, but Radio Shack has them cheaper than those stores.
Then I told him once he gets everything, to call me and I'll come over and show him how to set it all up and all that jazz.
he said he'd go out and get everything tonight and some time tomorrow, if I could come over and do it. I said sure.
I have an awesome idea though.
I can go set up his network, and he can come build my elliptical!
Great idea right? LOL

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December 24, 2007

It's late on Christmas eve

and everyone is away.

Sebastian has gone to bed, Mark is playing video games, he's rocking out, and I'm finished reading blogs, and about to go reply to emails.
It's really been a boring day and night here.
We did watch a really cool bloody movie, I'll have to write up my review after emails are taken care of.
I made dinner, cleaned the kitchen, did laundry.
Such a thrilling list of things done on Christmas eve eh?
I just have had absolutely nothing exciting to do today.
Oh yeah, I tweaked the boys new pc.
Because it's brand new, it is set up to load like everything on startup, so I cleaned up teh start up files, tweaked the services.msc of all those stupid things that don't really need to be set to automatically run, and when I rebooted, it was fast as lightening.
They are pleased.

My sister brought some gifts over for the boys after work when she dropped off Sebastian, I gave her the presents I had for the girls.
I had gotten the girls some new toys from the Learning Resources, I know they will love them.
Sis gave them each $50 to Best Buy, and some presents from Mark and Carrie, her employers. They gave the boys a ton of new clothes.
They own some surf shop clothing stores, and asked for the boys sizes.
They gave each of them 2 huge boxes of stuff. I can't wait to see what they got.
My sis gave me a necklace like the one of hers that I had been admiring and wanted to borrow it to copy it, to see if I could recreate it and make one. The matching earrings too.
Sweet!
Now I have one and I can copy the pattern to make them whenever I get the go ahead to make jewelry again.

Well I guess that's all for now.
Time to get busy on other stuff and try to entertain myself for the rest of the night.
Later days.

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December 23, 2007

Christmas blahdy blahs.

The only thing I hate about this time of year is that no one is around.
Hardly anyone has blogged for the last few days, no one is posting to any forums, which leaves me totally bored.

I could go tweak the boys computer, but Mark is on it.
Sebastian is playing video games on the xbox, and I'm bored.
I've started converting cds over to mp3s, just to have something to do.
I've got about 15 or so cds to convert over, I guess that will keep me occupied for awhile.

What are you doing?
Getting excited for Christmas?
The kids driving you nuts yet?

I remember when the boys were little, oh how they would go crazy by today.
They knew in just 2 more sleeps, it would be Christmas and they'd be getting lots of new toys and games to play with.
Now that they are older, honestly, Christmas isn't a big deal anymore.
It makes me kind of sad.
The more grown up they get, the less the holidays excite them.
It just isn't the same anymore.

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December 22, 2007

Almost done with my shopping.

I know, just 3 days to go, and I'm not totally done yet.
I have one more gift to get, I need to go to EB games today and hope they actually have it.
Yeah, I'm one of those wait till the last minute shoppers for something kinda popular amongst teens.

I see some Verizon trucks outside today.
Good!
Maybe they're finally installing the fiber optic cables needed to bring FIOS to my house.
See, when they were laying the cables this past summer, they thought this duplex was a one unit dwelling, and only laid cables for one line.
My house number was totally skipped over, so every time I called about getting FIOS, they couldn't see my house on the street maps they created. I had to convince them that this was a duplex, a two family unit dwelling, not one.
I've been arguing with them for like 7 months now over this issue.
My neighbors who share this duplex, got FIOS, and when the Verizon guy was here installing it, I went out and talked to him.
He looked at his map, and was like "Wow, sorry ma'am. Your house got skipped on the map. I'll have to go to the planners and have to get them to add it. It could take awhile."
Ugh.
I want FIOS dammit!

Don't forget, you have till a little after 2pm to enter my Walmart sucks gift card give-a-way!
You have a really good shot, there's only 27 people in it so far!

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December 21, 2007

Santa knocked on my door today.

Ok, so it wasn't Santa Claus, it was a way hot UPS guy with a package for me, and inside was a Sansa Clip 1 GB MP3 Player!
Yup!
It's the mp3 player I blogged about buying for myself instead of trying to save for an ipod.

A friend told me to be on the lookout for UPS, they had sent me something for xmas, so I knew something was coming but didn't know what it was.
I was totally surprised it was this!
You have to see this thing, it's so cute!
And in my fave color too. *wink*

It really is only slightly larger than a quarter, but it holds a full gig of mp3s, records voice memos or audio books, and has an FM tuner.
Very cool.
It charges through the same USB cord that you use to drag and drop, or copy files from my music folder to the player.
It only took about 30 minutes to fully charge, and I've been messing with it ever since.
I loaded about 400 mp3s on it, and there's still room for more.
I totally love it!
So thank you 'C' for the awesome gift. I think she somehow knew that even though I said I was going to buy it for myself, that my mom guilt would totally win out. *LOL*

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December 20, 2007

Only 1 more day till school vacation.

The teens last day of school for Christmas break, is tomorrow.
They won't go back until January 7th.
That's like a huge break.
A way too long huge break.
They're gonna drive me crazy...LOL

I want to find a recipe and attempt to make some paella sometime. I've heard people talk about it and say it's really good, so I'm going to start searching for a good recipe. If you have one and want to share it, send me the recipe please.

I need to go to Walgreern's and pick up my script, and then go brave Publix, because in all the craziness this week, I totally forgot to go do the holiday food shopping.
Ack!
The teens have decided they want a turkey again, not a ham.
They would take a ham if I could get one from Honeybaked, but the problem with that is that the lines are always long, and if you pick it up too early, no one can resist picking at it before it's actually meal time on Christmas day.
Their hams are so good, and they have that maple sugar crusty stuff that is just so so good, I mean it, you end up picking pieces off it before the meal.
So, we'll have turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, rolls, and I need to pick up something for dessert too. Maybe one of the fancy cakes from the Publix bakery.

Sebastian is so so happy the computer is here. OMG, he was on it all night after I set it up.
Acer makes an awesome computer. I got them the same one as I have, and it's just a really great computer.
The only thing I don't like is they come pre-loaded with Norton anti-virus.
It never works right, slows down your browsing etc. So I always remove it and install zone alarm and AVG.
After I did that and ran the updates for windows xp, it took me about 45 minutes to get all that stuff done, then I called him in the room and said here ya go buddy.
I should have had my camera ready because he had the biggest smile ever.
He gave me a huge hug and said thanks mom.
He set up all his favorites again, I'm going to install his Sims games, and Mark's empire game today, and I will also bookmark their school login pages so they can do their work.

Over vacation, Mark can login from home, and do all his school work and so when he goes back in January, the teacher can add on new stuff for him.
He can get totally ahead on all his school work over vacation.
He's all caught up right now, but there are about 6 hours worth of stuff he can do to get ahead.
I won't be a nag and make him sit there all day long till it's all done, but an hour a day is all he really needs.

And speaking of the computer, I will update you all on the Walmart.com shit in another post.
I really am totally confused as to what they did and why they did it the way they did.

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December 19, 2007

No more stress, just sleep and clean.

I am so glad that things worked out today the way they did instead of how the day started.
I was so frustrated this morning, and I had been awake all night, so of course that made things more stressful.
I appreciate all the comments about how 'stuff' isn't important, that the teens love me, know I tried etc etc, and I'm not even going to bother explaining anything because I just don't think people will get 'it'.

So anyway, now that it's here, I can go ahead and take the Dell Memory sticks and add them in there so that the pc can do what it needs to do for the teens, and then I can start on the other things around the house that I have been planning on doing.

After the holidays, this house is getting a top to bottom, every nook and cranny, cleaning.
It's that time of year again, and the teens will be out of school for winter beak till the 8th I think, so all of this stuff should get done.
There are bags and boxes of items that have literally, not been opened or touched in years.
If they haven't been touched, they aren't needed items.
It's time to shrink the amount of stuff I have down to just what I actually use and need.
A full cleaning is in order.

I have so many things to do on my own pc tonight and tomorrow, I need to get cracking on it or it will never get done.
Then, I'm going to go to bed and actually sleep.
I'm wiped out.
Later days.

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December 12, 2007

It's a shame I don't drink coffee.

I don't like the taste of it at all, but man, I do love those fancy espresso machines and coffee makers they sell now.
They have those pod ones, and multi cup ones.
I saw this one on some cooking show this weekend, that breed your coffee one cup at a time.
You set it on the base, and it knew the cup was there, and instantly brewed one cup of coffee.
I have no idea how that works because you have to load it with coffee and water, but the rest of the coffee grounds don't get used until you make your next cups.
It was really neat.
I want a machine that makes hot chocolate.
I want it to be like a coffee or espresso machine, all the buttons and stuff, but it makes hot chocolate.
That would be very cool.

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November 30, 2007

Email marketing for bloggers.

Have you ever signed up for a newsletter from a blog?
I have, and sometimes the letter is just a summary of their latest posts, but most often, it's news about what's going on at their blog like contests, favorite posts of the last week, and articles of interest.

One of the most used ways I've seen to send this newsletter is from icontact, and now they have a new community all about tips and tricks for email marketing.
I happen to think that more bloggers should offer a newsletter.
Feed reading is great, but sometimes there are so many posts, I'm sure I over look some really great posts.

A newsletter that highlights those posts, sent out once a week, would help attract more views to those great articles.
The bloggers would get double the page views, and possibly Stumbled or Dugg, which would drive even more traffic to those posts of interest.

I've been checking out the community forums, it seems to have just been started not long ago, and it has some great posts of interest.
I've often thought about a newsletter for my own blog, but I honestly don't have the kind of content to warrant one.
I'm a personal mommy blogger, but I do sign up for newsletters from other bloggers that have great articles about blogging.
I have subscriptions to some of the pro-bloggers, mom bloggers, and even a few arts and crafts bloggers.
I enjoy all the different aspects of each type of blog, and the newsletters help me read the more valuable posts on each.
Do you have one? Do you subscribe to any?

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November 29, 2007

Plebheplebah

It's a terrible shame you can't hear that noise. I am so freaking tired from last night's mopping fun.
The house didn't totally flood, cuz we caught it in time, but something happened and we ended up using every towel in the house to clean it up.
None of us had even been in the bathroom prior to it happening.
I think my neighbors screwed up or something, there was water in places that no water source could have provided unless it came through the baseboards or something.

Anyway, I'm wiped out. My lower back, hips, and right shoulder are on fiyah!
Excruciating.
And the Fedex guy came like 20 minutes ago, with this gigantic box.
He practically beat down my door, I answer it and he's half way down the drive to his truck already.
He turns around and says, "That has some serious weight to it."
I'm like uh, fuck.

So I did the only thing I could do because the boys weren't home.
I pushed the box up over my step and slid it across the floor into the house.
Serious weight to it my ass.
Holy motherfuck!
That box is sitting right where it is till the boys get home, I cannot move it another inch.
Damn.
I know what's in the box, my friend Pete sent me a tower for the boys, he said it was coming by Fedex today, I just can't open it or move it.
It's a huge box, so I'm dying to know what kind of tower is in this box. Huge I tell ya.
I want to get it out and set it up, get it working for the boys, but honestly, after last night, I'm lucky I was able to waddle my way to the bathroom this morning to pee.
I'm hoping after I lay around all day and rest that I can get this out of the box and set up for the boys.
Sebastian has stuff to do for school, worse comes to worse, I'll let him type it up on my pc.
I know I can get that new tower set up, just not right now.
But Thank you Pete. It arrived safely and is very much appreciated.

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November 20, 2007

I found their new computer!

I am going to try like hell to get it on Friday, it's such an awesome deal!
I checked through the Black Friday ads, looked through every listing for places that sell computers, and I found the absolute best deal at Circuit city.
Take a look at the list of Circuit City's black Friday deals.
This is the computer that will be $229.97!!!
It's totally in my price range!!!
W00t!!!

It's an Acer Aspire desktop, same brand I have and love, and this is what it comes with.
It's perfect!

• Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140
• Memory card reader
• Burns DVDs and CDs
• 250GB hard drive
• 1GB of DDR2 memory
• Windows Vista Home Premium

That is a wicked good deal on a wicked good computer.
I have been very impressed with my Acer, I love it.
It has so much memory, I have movies, mp3s, games, full tv episodes, and like a gazillion pics on it, and still have a ton of room left on it for more stuff.
I have both C and D drives, both had 40 GB of space, and both still have over 25 free GB of space.
That Acer is the perfect one for them, and it's a great freaking price!
Now, I just have to deal with my hatred of large crowds in stores, and actually get there on Friday to get it.

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November 19, 2007

Towers, blogs and Google.

Thanks for all the comments on where I can get a new tower for the boys.
Dell will probably be the way I go, not sure yet, sis and I are going to do some comparison shopping when we brave the crowds on black Friday.
I just want a tower for less than $300, but I know I'm gonna be around $400.
That will probably be all they get for xmas, they said it was ok because they need one really bad.
It finally just died today.
It went beep beep beep, and then nothing.
I have no idea what is wrong, and I'm ok at fixing stuff usually, but this one has me confused.
It may be total hard drive failure, but I don't know.
It's a really old computer anyway, at least 10 years old.
It was handed down to the boys, when we got it, it still had windows 95 on it.
I wiped it and put on XP, and it held up a long time so I'm not mad about it, I just don't want to, can't afford to, spend a ton of money on a new one.
Sis is going to pitch in with me, so I'm sure we'll find something affordable and good enough for what they do.

In blog news, I'm so sick of all the whining about the Google smack down most blogs took in the last update.
Any blog that did any kind of paid linking, using links without the nofollow attribute, got spanked down to a page rank of 0.
Those of us who do any kind of paid blogging knew what we were doing.
We knew, the companies we worked for knew, or else they wouldn't have told us we couldn't have a blog with nofollow in the meta tags.
No paid posts were allowed to use nofollow on the links.
Every single paid blogger knew Google didn't approve of paid linking because it screws up the SERPS, so it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that something like a 0 page rank would eventually happen.
I admit I was mad when it happened, but after long and careful thought, I know that what I had done was against Google webmaster policy.

People are calling for a boycott against Google, they are telling people to write their congressmen about anti-trust issues.
Here's the deal.
Page Rank was something Google came up with, they are a private company.
They are free to increase or decrease page rank any way they want to.
We bloggers and paid blogging companies are the ones who made page rank an indicator of worth.
The paid blogging companies are the ones who said that higher page ranked bloggers could post higher paying posts.
Not all the paid blogging companies used Google page rank as that kind of indicator, they did use it, but it wasn't the big deal other companies made it to be.

I personally am not joining the boycott.
I find it incredibly silly to boycott a private company over the webmaster rules they have always had, when we're the ones who made page rank a big deal.
I know people don't agree with me, and that's ok.
I know I'm not making any friends with my stance, I'm sure I've even lost a few blogging friends over the issue, but I don't really care.
Boycotting a private company over something that we made bigger, and to have more importance than it really is, is stupid.
I will keep using Gmail, adsense, Google analytics, Google feed reader and their search tools like standard Google search, and Blingo where you can win prizes for searching.
I've won quite a few times, I get good search results, I make money with adsense, and I freaking love Gmail!
I'm so over the use this search engine, switch to this email, use this stat analytic, dump adsense, and write letters bullshit going around.
We made page rank have some sort of importance it never really had, we have no right to whine about it now considering Google is a private company.

I'm really happy that one of the companies I work for has not started a campaign against Google. I'm glad they never gave it that much importance, and I'm thrilled they haven't told bloggers to boycott them and write letters to congressmen.
I can only hope they don't cave into the pressure of using another company's ranking system which will be launched for public use in about 2 weeks.
I won't use it.
I have serious reservations about visiting the blogs of some of my friends after the new system launches due to the type of tracking that will happen.
Anyway, I'm just over all the hate Google speech going on.
I use what I use, and won't be switching because other people can't grasp the fact that they made PR more important than it is, and violated the policies.
Report me, de-link me, whatever.
Just stop sending me emails asking me to boycott with you.

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November 19, 2007

I just want a tower!

How hard is it to just sell a bare bones computer tower?
I just need a tower with an OS.
It doesn't need any virus or spyware, no office, none of that extra junk, just an OS.
I just need a freaking tower.
I have been hunting all over for a cheap tower to replace the boys with, and it comes with all kinds of crap they don't need.
They don't need a monitor, speakers, keyboard or mouse either.
Just the tower.
Can someone tell me where I can just buy a freaking tower, that's it.
Everything I am finding starts at $400 and goes up, and it comes with all kinds of crap we don't want or need.

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November 18, 2007

I'll be shopping on line thanks.

I hate crowds of people, and this coming Friday stars the dreaded holiday shopping season.
When I worked retail, it was like an adrenaline rush to be that busy for 8-12 hours.
Now, you would have to kill me and drag my corpse in there and slap my dead hand holding a credit card on the counter.
I'll do it all from home from the peace and quiet of my my own home.

I am having trouble though.
I don't know what to get the boys.
Yes, they want video games and stuff like that, but i want to give them each something really nice too.
I have looked at nice shoes, raymond weil watches, a new computer which they do need, and all kinds of other stuff.
I think I'm just going to get them a new computer.
They need one.
Theirs is just no longer working great at all.
I need to find a cheap place though, something under $300.
Yeah, like I'll be able to find something in that price range.

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