AFailedWriter's Xanga

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:08:47 GMT

EEK! Ten minutes before the end of Friday, I got a phone call from the dental surgery, saying they'd had a cancellation and would I like to be seen on Monday (tomorrow!) instead of two weeks away! I said I'd ring them back and asked my boss if I could shift my week off to next week... he wasn't very impressed, and I was about to tell him not to worry about it when he said yes. Now I feel horribly guilty at leaving everyone in the lurch with practically no warning whatsoever. I suppose, on the upside, that feeling guilty is stopping me from feeling nervous, but I hate not being completely dependable.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 19:55:08 GMT

About a month ago I joined a book club run by HarperCollins NZ, read the welcome email, then promptly forgot all about it. This week, a book arrived in the post for me, from HarperCollins, with no warning and no explanation note. It's 'Borgia Bride', by Jeanne Kalogridis, which I've wanted for ages, so I'm totally rapt. Thanks, HarperCollins!

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 20:32:44 GMT

My teeth are coming out October 5, which is further away than I expected, since I'm going private and having health insurance pay for it, but at least I'm not crying into my chicken soup any more - now that they've announced to the surgeon that they exist, my wisdom teeth have subsided again, meaning I've been able to sleep lying down again.

Hmmm... that's possibly the longest sentence I've written since I left high school.

So what's new? Well, not a hell of a lot, actually. Winter is still grinding away - we've had good solid frosts this week, and snow and crap further south. My car doesn't like the cold, and it generally takes three goes to get it going in the morning, but that's okay.

My eldest neice started school, and her mother is rapt with the idea of only having two kids to run around after all day, lol. I can't say my opinion on child rearing is changing, either, despite the fact I ask for an update most days. Having kids is something that other people do, not me.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:11:29 GMT

Fuck me. Well, actually, don't. But damnit, I'm in pain. It's not something I'm used to, and after a couple of days the sensation is wearing thin.

It turns out that I only have three wisdom teeth in my head. And one of them has decided to make enough noise to make up for the missing fourth. My face is swelling up as I type this, and I'm on drugs. But toothache is miserable, especially when it's caused by things moving around inside your gum.

This weekend is going to suck. If I didn't have to traipse out into the living room to change channel on pay-tv, I'd spend the entire weekend in bed.

Damnit, I'll just spend all weekend in bed anyway. If I want to change channel, I'll whinge and bitch to the Other Half until he does it for me.

I hate being sick, I hate being in pain, and I make the worse patient in the world, ever.

(But on the bright side, by some amazing stroke of luck, I got an appointment with the dentist today after ringing on the offchance, had my xrays this afternoon, and am going back early next week to find out if/when I need a surgeon to come up from the city to cut my face open. Woohoo! There's an end to this godawful agony!)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 21:37:01 GMT

Have you read a book that was just so breathtakingly good you want to force everyone around you to read it? I finished The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon this week, and am totally in awe... it was magnificent! (for more info about the book or about how much I loved it, check out my booklog). I'm up to book 29, but I don't think I'll be able to get to 50 this year. Still, it's a good practice run for next year =)

The Other Half and I took this week off, and headed down the West Coast of the South Island to stay with my sister, who lives on a diary farm at the foot of the Southern Alps. The scenery was spectacular, although once we actually arrived my camera got put on a shelf and forgotten about. I did get some photos of a couple of tourist-y things on the way down there, but now that I'm home I wish I'd taken more of what you could see from the kitchen window (isn't that always the way?)

Not much else to report at the moment. My computer is going really well, although I'm wondering whether it's really worth the hassle switching from Gnome to KDE... I don't really dislike Gnome, but KDE is what I've used up to now. I keep telling myself I should leave it alone, but the geek in me just wants to tinker!

Friday, July 21, 2006

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:32:26 GMT

Another month since my last post. I'm getting slack, and not just with my blogging.

Since I last remembered to pop in and say hi, I've changed operating systems. Twice. I'm not running Ubuntu Linux, which is more of a 'real' linux than Xandros was i.e. it doesn't look identical to Windows. I'm fairly certain I'm going to stick with this one, although I'm relying on the support forums pretty heavily at this stage.

One of the things about reinstalling an operating system on your computer means you lose all your files. Or at least, all the ones that won't fit onto the one-and-only data CD you make first. I was very careful, and did a couple; one for music, one for photos, one for files and random clipart and whatnot. Of course, I've managed to lose both the photos CD and the files one, which means I have nothing but 60 hours of music to put on my nice new computer.

It also means that I've discovered a remarkable thing about myself: I can survive without the three copies of every snap I've ever taken with my camera. I can survive without the two years worth of emails from half a dozen yahoo groups. I can even survive not having all my half-hearted attempts at writing decent fiction sitting in a folder, taunting me with their half-finished ideas and impossibly-good beginnings (did I really write that? Was I actually that good? And what the hell was I planning to have happen next?).

For some reason, I'm pleased with this new-found independence from my hard drive. I've realised that it's actually okay for me to skip doing my email one or two nights a week. I don't even have that much to say, really. I just read them, bask in the idea that I'm part of a community, then stare at my homepage for ten minutes before I give up and turn the machine off.

Does this mean that I'm not the dedicated nerd that I thought I was? Well, I'm using Linux, which definitely counts for something. But I don't think it would kill me to go on holiday for a week without the laptop (I'm going on holiday next month, but the laptop is going with me. Whether or not its going to be running Windows or something more secure remains to be seen). I'm even debating whether or not I should start my clipart collection all over again, since after three years of collecting everything from the newsgroup, I filled 2 CDs, both of which have mysteriously disappeared. I have my suspicions about who pinched the first one, but the second one seems to have gone on a trek of its own devising.

Does this spell the end of the self-confessed geek? Probably not. But it means that I'm discovering interests outside the confines of my monitor. I'm reading more books, watching more movies, and trying to find more penpals, all of which means I'm not actually living up to my lists of interests.

With a bit of luck, it will mean I'm actually out in the real world, having experiences worth writing about here. Then all I have to do is remember to pop in and actually write them.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:47:05 GMT

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post... oh dear. I'm turning into one of THOSE bloggers. You know the ones. They write two or three posts that you read and think are interesting, and then they apparently fall off the edge of the planet, only to reappear months later with nothing new to say.

About the only thing that's happened is that we got Sky, which is the equivalent of cable tv here. Now, instead of having five channels to surf, the Other Half has about thirty. So far it's meant that we've watched a lot of rugby, lol.

My mum got two new kittens, Molly and Gizmo, which are completely adorable. They stare at you with the biggest tiny eyes, then clamber all over you. She said that she has lock them in the laundry when they sit down for dinner, since they climb up and try to sit in the plate while they're eating!

Aside from that, not much to report. It's winter here, and bloody cold, and my car will apparently start for everyone except me, so I get to sit in the driveway in the morning, after the Other Half has already gone to work, and curse and swear and beg until it goes.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Fri, 19 May 2006 19:34:11 GMT

I did it! Xandros is up and working on my PC - I'm breaking free of Windows woes...

There are, however, two programs that I use that are windows only, both of them testament to my geek status. One is a journalling program, which I might have to drop in favour of plain old word processing (ick), and the other is a library catalog program. I have over 300 books loaded, plus a full list of things I've been reading. I'm not so keen to throw that away, since I use that as a base for my booklog site, so I'm going to leave the laptop on windows for a while yet.

In other news... I've been so obsessed with my computer this week, I've been dreaming about it, lol. Everything else has sort of been happening by itself, with no input from me. I took my grandmother to the library, which was actually really fun - she hadn't been in about fifteen years, so I got to show her all the new stuff (i.e. most of the library). I got a bunch of books out, and I've read the first few pages of each one, but I can't be bothered concentrating on anything too involved at the moment. Instead of reading, I've been doing jigsaw puzzles... I should really go and find some books that are going to keep my attention for more than a few minutes. Maybe I need to go and buy a new Terry Pratchett book, lol.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Sat, 13 May 2006 23:09:14 GMT

To the absolute horror of my internal accountant (and the delight of my credit card company), I've gone a little nuts this month. Not only have I gotten a bit trigger-happy with a mail order catalog, I've subscribed to a newspaper put out for people interested in penpalling, and then yesterday (and this is the Big One) I ordered a copy of Xandros 3.0 - the deluxe edition.

What does this mean? It means I'm finally putting my money where my mouth is, and giving Microsoft the old heave-ho. I've spent years bitching about how crappy and insecure Windows is, and how half my internet time is spent on patches... I've tried a couple of linux distros, but for various reasons returned to XP while I sorted out my next move.

Apparently, this is it. With a bit of luck, and what looks to be a really good support forum, by this time next week, I'll be Windows-free, at least on my PC. Not quite Microsoft free however - my flash keyboard and equally flash trackball are both Microsoft products... maybe I can get away with pointing out that their hardware business is now completely separate from the software, lol.

In a perfect world, everything will fall into place, and I won't break anything. If that happens, I'll wipe Windows off my laptop as well, although, in a perfect world, I would have won the $15 million lotto jackpot last night as well.

Still. I'm happy to settle for a secure operating system with next-to-no trojan/virus worries. Not quite so sure about giving up my printer, which apparently isn't supported.
But these things happen. If nothing else, it'll give me an excuse to go and scope out the latest Canon has to offer

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 05:30:06 GMT

I've been so lazy lately... must be Autumn creeping up, or the fact that my boss has been on vacation for so long - I'm bone tired all the time.

My great idea of building a links page has sort of stalled due to lack of decent software (I want photoshop, and a computer powerful enough to run it!!), and I've been drawn into non-computer things like jigsaw puzzles. I've been poking around penpal groups and sites looking for interesting people to write to, but so far no luck.

My book challenge is slowly slipping away, I think. I'm at least five books behind where I should be to pull it off, and since I try not to take time off work, I can't really see me pulling it back. Still, I'm reading all sorts of things I otherwise wouldn't, and I'm managing to keep a fairly usable book journal under the computer desk, along with everything else.

And that's about that. Which proves that this is merely an I'm-not-dead notice and not so much a meaningful entry, lol.

Fingers crossed: readable material coming soon, when I'm not so knackered.