Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Wide Awake Wednesday

Well, I'm wide awake since my nap, anyway. Can't say I was at my brightest of eye and bushiest of tail this morning though. :-)

I went to see the movie 2012 last night. If this movie doesn't win a bunch of awards for special effects, then there's something wrong with the system. The story itself was a little hokey at times, but the effects more than made up for it.

Woody Harlson had a small part as a crazy man who lived in Yellowstone National Park, and I must say that he makes an excellent loon. Totally believable. LOL

I won't go into any detail - you really need to see it for yourselves. Let's just say that if you have the urge to move before December 21, 2012, your safest bet is the African continent.

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Does anyone remember all the hoopla surrounding the turn of the century? As the year 2000 approached people started freaking out, claiming the world was going to end.

These claims were backed up by ancient prophecies, like those of Nostradamus, and new prophecies made by modern sooth-sayers. Then 2000 rolled around and nothing happened.

Suddenly it was "Oh, you took our meaning wrong." It wasn't really the end of the world, it was just that many computers and much computerized equipment were expected to have problems when the clock rolled over to 2000.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time recalling any real disastors that resulted from this. Electrical equipment was updated - disastor averted.

It's always easy to interpret predictions after the even has happened.

Just sayin'.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Mandatory Monday

Here I am, another Monday with not much to say.

After a doom and gloom weekend, today is bright and sunny. Go figure.

I'm sitting here looking out my office window and I can tell you that even with the sun the view is not inspiring. I see my naked birch tree outside my window and beyond that a few other naked trees.

Have you ever noticed that different kinds of trees seem to be able to hang onto their leaves longer? I see that there are a few trees out there stubbornly clinging to their leaves - weeping willow, chestnut - while the birch and ash are totally naked and the maples nearly so.

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There's a fat man asleep in the mall.

On my way in to school this morning I couldn't help but notice they were setting up the enclosure for Santa (it's set up pretty much right in the middle of the most direct path down to the college). When we left, they'd finished the set up and Santa was snoozing away in his bed in the center of the enclosure.

This, my friends, means that the Santa Claus parade cannot be far away. Probably on Saturday. The mall will be swarming with tykes ready to scream and yell to wake Santa up so they can all have breakfast with Santa before the parade.

All I can say is, bah, humbug! Glad I don't work in the mall!

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You know, I always thought I was pretty good at spelling and grammar, but this course in Business Communication is showing me how wrong I am. I'm still pretty decent in spelling, I even pick up words that the spell checkers miss (ones that are spelled correctly, they're just the wrong word), but grammar - well that's a different story altogether.

Either the rules have changed or I've forgotten more than I realized. I did all right with the nouns, adverbs and adjectives, but apparently I have a problem when it comes to the tenses of verbs.

*sigh*

Can't wait for tomorrow when we do punctuation! :-(

Friday, November 13, 2009

Forgetful Friday

I had something wonderfully pithy to say today, but I thought of it at school and forgot to write it down so now it’s gone forever. As my law teacher would say: “Sucks to be me!”

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Wow, I’m looking out my office window and the birch tree outside is naked! Where did all the leaves go? They were there just a couple of days ago. Next thing you know the white stuff will be coming down and before you know it it’ll be Christmas.

I am so not ready for Christmas this year!

Although apparently many of my neighbours are. I see outdoor Christmas decorations springing up all over the neighbourhood. In fact, the people on the corner had their Christmas decorations up November 1 and have them lit up every night. Are they crazy?

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Panda Report

She seems to be holding her own. She sleeps in the sun in the spare bedroom during the day, and under my lap top desk when I’m reclining in my chair in the evening. We’ve reached an understanding - she’ll let me up for the occasional potty break as long as I make sure there’s room for her under the lap top.

Her pickiness when it comes to food is beginning to drive me crazy. Just when we think we’ve found a food she’ll eat, she’ll change her mind. I think she’s doing it deliberately, just to drive us batty.

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NaNo’s going well. I’m behind in my wordage, but I’m not too worried about it. I have the whole weekend ahead of me and there’s still two more full weeks.

If you want to follow my progress, I’m keeping track HERE . I even posted an excerpt a couple of days ago. :-)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lest We Forget

I hope everyone took a moment of silence this morning to remember our veterans. Bless each of them, and their families


Monday, November 9, 2009

I'm Baaackkk

Did you miss me? I sure missed my internet for the last few weeks.

I think what happened was this: three weeks ago we had a storm and I think my modem got damaged by a power surge. It didn't go out right away, just got steadily worse until finally I wasn't getting any service at all.

I phoned my ISP last week and the earliest they could send someone out was Friday. So I waited, albeit a little unpatiently. The guy they sent out was not worth the wait. I must have been his last appointment of the day because he was in and out of here in less than five minutes. He never actually tested anything, he just looked at my modem and said "It's your wiring. You have three choices: run the cable around the outside of the house; pay a professional to fish it through the walls (again!); or move your service to the other end of the house." Then he left.

Shortly after he left I had a mini-meltdown. It had been a very bad week and this was the last straw.

Saturday morning I took the modem and my lap top down to the basement where the cable fed into the house. I unplugged the cable from the service provided splitter and plugged it directly into the modem, then I plugged the modem into my lap top. Still no connection.

So I phoned my ISP again and they sent some out today. This guy actually knew what he was doing. He came in, plugged his lap top into my modem and said: "Looks like your modem is fried." and then proceeded to go out to his truck and get me a new modem, ethernet cord, and power supply.

And here I am.

Oh happy day!

Anway, I can't say that I'll be doing any better at posting 'cause we're one week into NaNo and I'm falling behind, but at least you know that if I don't post it's for a reason other than my lack of internet. :-)