I’ve never been one to just on a random impulse pick up a book and start reading. Doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t have an appreciation for a good tale, I just can’t be bothered half the time reading it. I’ve hread a few Steven King novels, seen some of the movie adaptations. Same with several other authors. But, given the choice, I’ll pick TV over books just about every time. Been that way since I got into highschool, I think. Mostly because about 99% of the actual reading I did was school related. And most of the material back then having been in braille (they didn’t start readily doing the online thing around here until I got into college, and even that was minimal), I think I read way too goddamn much. When I managed to get all that out of the way, I just said screw it, and flipped on the TV. Y’know, enjoy some lazy as hell information absorbtion for a while. One of the shows I ended up being really into back then was The Outer Limits (1995-2002). Probably because they took a lot of those types of stories, including an adaptation of one written by Steven King, and turned them into hour-long TV shows. I missed a large portion of those shows while in production, so just sort of on one of those random impulses, I nabbed the torrent of all 7 seasons. It’s currently downloading now. Whether it plays or not is anyone’s guess, but we shall see. Sometimes, having weird obsessions is good.
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More on a highschool version of me. Or, why they should never let me near bittorrent.
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I are deaf now. Thanks.
Every 3-4 months or so, my land lord or maybe the super intendant, one of the two, comes around and does their quarterly inspections of the fire alarm system. Which, roughly speaking, translates to setting it off several dozen times on some random afternoon. And, with the exception of maybe one, I’ve been home every. single. bloody. time. Sadly, half the time sleeping (I did used to work nights, y’know). On the bright side, I know it’ll wake me up in case of an actual emergency. On the not so bright side, can westop playing with ’em now? They work already…
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Reason number 5954631 why I so should have been an English major.
I tried, like way hard, to respond teasingly to a quiz posted to dahlia_and_balu‘s (sorry, but I completely forgot or never knew your name) LJ. Except it would have required I *intentionally* riddle it with literary fail. Apparently, that’s a concept I just can’t seem to grasp onto. As in, the very act of intentionally trying to do so provoked a complete non-response on the brain front. I seriously got nothin’. So why am I not an English major? … One word. Shakespeare.
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I work well under pressure.
So apparently, since about 5:30 or 6 last night, the router of epic failness has decided to play nice. I have absolutely no idea how long it’ll stay that way, or even if it’ll come back should it go tits up on me tomorrow. So, here comes mister preemptive preparedness. I had bills to pay yesterday. They are paid as of 15 minutes ago. Should I point out it’s not even 5:00 in the goddamn morning yet? Yes, I have too much time on my hands. But damn if they can’t hang me out for being late with a payment because of it! James = made of win, y/n?
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The slow, painful death of a router.
So, as hinted at in my birthday post, the last couple days I’ve been having some rather clunky interwebs related difficulties. Yes, again. The first time I had issues, it ended up being my 2 or 3-month-old modem (which I did end up replacing, by the way), and now it turns out to be my 5-year-old router, instead. One of the old D-Link models that was discontinued about a year or two ago. It isn’t as bad as the modem’s issues were; I don’t have to futz with unplugging and plugging it back in every half an hour. But it’s taken to random fits of kicking me off the internet (Yes, Rox’e (pawpower4me), Lauren (chickwith_stick), and everyone else on my MSN list who also stumbles across my LJ, that’s why I seem to be signing in and out every 10 minutes or so). I thought it might have been the modem doing funky things again, and actually, so did Jessica (samari76), who noticed it when she was trying to talk to me via IM before work. But according to the modem, it’s been up for a little bit over a day, which is about how long it’s been since I’d pulled the plug on it for other reasons. The router, however, shows logs as if it had just been powered on about the same time I was last given the royal boot off the net. So, in the span of about 5 minutes I’d established that we are in fact dealing with a bum D-Link. Rather than hum and haw over what to replace it with, I threw a question at the mailing list I’m on for Freedom Scientific’s JAWS for Windows, then went about the business of getting my hands on one of these. Unfortunately, it may or may not be here before the end of the week. But, it’s definitely hopefully God please tell me it will be on its way over here. Which means, roughly speaking, my less than stable internet connection won’t be for long. Now, I just hope it doesn’t crap out on me completely.
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Happy birthday!
I’ve taken a break from fighting with my internet (details to come when I’m not being disconnected every 10 minutes) to wish a very on time happy birthday to ye almighty Liz (unsilenceddream)! Hopefully this trip around the sun’s as good as or better than the last one for ya. And, hopefully, both are/were better than the fight I’m having right now with my router. Damn technology and its failing ways.
ETA: No sooner do I post this than I have to try again. Thank you, oh flakey one. Router, you fail.
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2008: year in review.
Because, well, everyone else is doing it. Granted I’m hella late, but… well, y’know. One has to give a shit first. Things happened in spirts this year, starting about halfway through. The first few months were relatively uneventful, though. By about the beginning of march, my old job over at Dell had started the conversion from software to hardware technician. I’d originally ducked out of the night shift so I could avoid it, but they were sending everyone over there anyway. I’d since applied for the advanced qualification, though at the time of the switchover I hadn’t heard anything about it. It would be May of the year, near the end of it, when I’d received my sort of promotion and the pay increase that comes with. I observed when I heard the word about it that in about a month’s time, it wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference. And, in fact, on June 27th of that year, I twittered it. The month-long vacation began at that point. In July of this same year, I started talking to Jessica (samari76). we’d had several conversations, and shortly after I was laid off, we decided to meet. So, on the 25th of July, she made what would be her first of a few trips to this side of the border and we met. During the course of that week, we decided to make things official. It was before she even got here that I’d gone and got certain things started in that particular area. It’s been a lot of back and forth since then, including the most recent trip up here for Christmas. There was an interview or two along the way, not that they got me anywhere. A few things of lesser importance also took place over the course of the year.
- My brother ended up getting married
- Though he might be going to afghanistan
- Found out he can’t go, due to a fairly bad knee injury
- sorted out unemployment things, and started actually receiving the relevant income
And now, I crack open and finish slamming back my first coke of 2009.
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Yahoo doesn’t suck as bad for accessibility now.
I don’t know how new this is, but after trying to create a group to replace the less than maintained one I’ve been a member of for a while, I ran into that damnable Yahoo captcha with absolutely no audio or other alternative whatsoever. Except apparently, there is.
Hello James,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Groups.
We appreciate your patience, James. I have verified your account, and have set it so that you should no longer encounter the word verification box when joining or creating Yahoo! Groups.
And, according to the fact I’ve managed to successfully do so, I dare say for the time being, it actually works. I now go pick my jaw up off the floor.
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The rest of the visit, and new years.
As is to be expected, after my last post Jessica (samari76) and I pretty much just hung out and did that thing where we were several different kinds of lazy. Y’know, like we’d planned on doing. Sunday was her departure date, so we just wanted to enjoy what was left of our week together. When Sunday did finally get here, I let her sleep most of the morning, with her having gotten up at about 10 or so. We took our time in getting things ready for her to leave, and at about 1:00 or a little after, I called the cab to get her to the bus station. I sat with her until they pre-boarded her at just after 2, and then cabbed it home. She called me at each major stop, so I was able to keep an eye and make sure it wasn’t too difficult to get her home before it became too insanely late for her to bother with actually going to work. Her bus to Buffalow ended up not leaving Toronto until half an hour or so later than it was supposed to, which put her off schedule by just enough that she missed her connecting bus to Rochester. The next one wasn’t due to pull out until quarter to 3, so naturally, she was more than a little tiny bit on the pissed off side. Apparently though, at about 1:00 or so she was able to get aboard a bus that was passing by Rochester enroute Seracuse, I believe, and the driver had offered to drop her in Rochester on the way even though he wasn’t actually scheduled to stop there. So, she was able to get home at about 2:00 or a little after that, at which point she ended up calling me to let me know. She was supposed to get in at just after midnight, so all things considered we weren’t doing entirely too bad there. She went to bed pretty much right after talking to me, and the rest of the week so far has been business as usual.
I still haven’t the slightest idea what either of us will be doing for new years, though. My parents apparently just plan to sit around at home and watch movies, and the last I’d heard, Trish and her husband were planning on doing the same in Ottawa. So my new years plan may very well consist of kicking it around the apartment here and enjoying the fact I don’t have to be anywhere to attend any family functions. As far as I know, Jess’s plans for new years have pretty much fallen through, so hopefully she’ll be able to come up with a back-up. I think she mentioned something about getting together with a few folks and cracking open something alcoholic, but we’ll see if that ends up going through. I was supposed to have been there with her, but my lack of finances this month have sort of made that not happening in the worst way. So instead, we’ll both just have to settle I guess for a phone call at or about the stroke of midnight. Ah well, I’ll just crack open a coke, or a beer, and watch the ball drop on CNN or something. I’m not hard to please.
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Idle lazyness in the extreme.
Well now, that’s a way to spend a lazy weekend in snoresville. We ended up going back to bed after all, and falling asleep. We got up at about… hm, 1:30 or so, I think. we pretty much sat around and talked, sorted through emails and doing that thing where we be 6 different varieties of unproductive. We watched a little TV, and just generally cleared our nonexistent schedules of, like, everything. The plan is to just enjoy things as they happen, and try to ignore the fact that by this time tomorrow night, she’ll be leaving Toronto and heading back to Buffalow. As for right now, she’s doing the whole relaxing thing and making use of a few of her Christmas gifts in the process. And I think it’s about time for me to contemplate running on over and checking on her.