As I watch my MASH for the night...

I really like Firefox because of all the add-ons. I like having some control over the nets! Here's what I use so far...

Bookmarks Duplicate Detector: Alerts me if I try to bookmark something twice.
CuteMenus2: I like to see a symbol associated with menu items--they're faster to identify.
Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer: Syncs my bookmarks with Safari, in case I use it for some reason.
Quicknote: A notepad that opens in a sidebar. I use it sometimes.
ScrapBook: You can save web pages (with pics etc), add notes to them, organize them etc. Good for archiving a blog.

Newbies I'm trying:
TimeTracker: Tracks how long you're on the internets. So far tonight: 1 hour and 14 mins.
Easy Comment: To auto fill out blog comments.
Read It Later: To bookmark something you want to read/watch later, but you don't want to permanently bookmark it. This I'm in for.

Edutainment!

I've got Oprah and Dr Phil on mute today, as I eat breakfast and internetize. Oprah had Ted Haggard--I couldn't stomach much of that one. But I see something promising on Doc Phil: A return to normal topics!

For the past few years I've stopped watching him as he became too sensationalistic, chasing around criminals, and following only the most fucked up/weird/unusual families who have problems that a majority of us can't identify with or benefit from.

When he first appeared on Oprah many many years ago, and when he started his own show, Fernando and I watched him all the time. He talked about normal marital fights and child-rearing problems, common fears people have, etc.--and offered sensible tips on how to handle them, many of which I benefited from. But success clearly got to him, and once he started in on selling diet products I was OUT.

But today he's talking about the surprises people get after marriage if they don't know each other well enough. (She can't name his three best friends!) And tomorrow's show is about people who need to "grow up!" Ahhhh noooormal topics.

Grrrr...

Every once in awhile internetting drags me off into long tangents, like the morning I spent reading about Jonestown. One tangent I always have to resist is Scientology. This is such a criminal organization, it makes me mental. At least mobsters and biker gangs don't masquerade as self-help religions.

cartoonz

Whatsa matter for you?!

A Marx Brothers movie is just what I needed after this work week.

I'm up to this scene in Animal Crackers, and I love Harpo at this part. I love the faces he makes, like the Suspicious Look when he's dealing the cards.

movie-o

I just caught the tail end of movie reviewers AO Scott and David Denby talking about this year's movies on Charlie Rose. And at the end Rose said it was the best conversation about movies he's ever had on the show! So... you better look it up if you're in for movies. I wrote down one line that Scott said, that I loved: (Talking about The Reader) "Titilation with an overlay of Significance." Ouch.

I don't like a lot of movie reviewers. But David Denby's an interesting guy, and I've come to enjoy AO Scott's mini video reviews. Years ago Denby wrote a book called Great Books. It was a book about his time spent taking two "great books" type courses at University (long before The Year I Spent Doing X became a popular genre). I loved his description of reading Kant--family asleep in bed, late at night, no sounds from the street, NOTHING to interrupt his concentration. And then it was like being in Dante's hell, rolling a boulder slowly up a hill, and just when you think you're starting to get what Kant is saying... a dog barks in the distance, and the boulder rolls back down the hill. Heh heh. Uh ya, that was my experience of A Critique of Pure Reason.

His next book was about his marriage breaking up, partly because his wife came out of the closet (author Cathleen Schine--this is reflected in one of her books too); and about his mid life crisis, where he got all excited about the 90's stock market bubble, and then lost all his money. It's called American Sucker. Apparently he has a new book called Snark.

Daaancing fooool...

Listening to: Michael Jackson's Thriller

We had our staff (post)Christmas party on Sunday. There was a jazz quartet playing most of the evening, but in the last half hour someone in the theater put on the stereo. I don't know if this was meant to usher us out, but instead staff from the various stores poured onto the dance floor and the party took off. (By the way--watching the staff from my store, it was the first time I've seen the guys jump up and try to drag the girls onto the dance floor, instead of vice versa. And just to keep up stereotypes, it was our one staff member from Argentina who was the first on his feet.)

I was standing by the dance floor at the time, and immediately started to dance, even though I was wearing 4 inch heels and for the last hour I'd been thinking (between conversations) "hmm time to sit down."

I forget how much I love to dance until I get the opportunity. The last time was at the Abba cover band concert we went to two years ago.

I mean, I dance in my house all the time, but there's a particular fun that comes from a dark club, a crowd of people, and really loud music. But I am way too lazy to actually go out dancing. Maybe I can set up a disco light in my livingroom, and crowd the floor with stuffed animals. ...And if the guys upstairs are judo-tossing each other around, maybe they won't mind me jumping about.

In other news. I finally finished cleaning up my computer. No more duplicate songs on my iTunes, photos organized by subject and year, school stuff scrapped except articles and papers, all my writing in one place and one computer. Which means it's time to get back to the writing.

Inaugural fashion!

It's hard to do winter fashion. Let's see how they did...

Cute, very cute.

LOVE the hat. Very diva.

Alright, good to see someone bucking the trends...

Look at that scarf!

The best male looks, from Jay Z and Diddy. Note how 60s
they look, just like Michelle Obama. There's a lot of
Mad Men fashion going on these days.

But I cannot WAIT for more pics to come out of Michelle's coat
and dress. Wow. TOtally gorgeous.
Gowgeous, dahling, gowgeous.

Oh what a relief it is.

It's interesting to see the build up to Obama's inauguration. But I think a lot of it is based not just on a looking forward, but on relief that the Bush Era is over. I can't imagine that even Republicans felt this much relief, and weight-lifting-from-shoulders when Bush came into power, and Clinton's time was over; because no matter what changes he brought about that they didn't like, there's no way you could call his presidency a disaster.

The Bush presidency was just soooo paaaaaaiiiiinful.

I feel like we've all been on some terrible vacation where everything went wrong (and by we I mean non-Americans... I can't imagine what it's like for Americans), and you turn the corner onto your street, and finally fiiiiinally you're home home home. You'll sleep in your own bed. And no matter what happens that week, life will still be that much better because you'll be eating Shreddies in your own friggin' kitchen. Or maybe it's like that feeling you get when you've been down with a terrible flu&pneumonia for two weeks, and that blessed day come when you wake up and you realize... you can breathe again... you can swallow without a bomb going off... and you can sip soup without puking it up.

At this point Bush reminds me of a terrible boss I once had. He was eventually given a Talking To by the President of the company, so he started trying to make everyone love him. Of course he didn't know how. So whatever respect we still held for his position, at least, was gone. He became the store clown. Our favourite joke. He was The Office. Bush has become David Brent.

So... Obama is a Human Being and not a god, and there's going to be a letdown or backlash at some point... but I do understand this End of an Era feeling. And here's my sendoff... my favourite Office episode (and the song Gilby sang the whole day we were in Oxford). "She's deeeaaad!"

Malcolm X

I like A. O. Scott's short online video movie reviews on the New York Times. In time for The Inauguration is his review of Malcolm X (apparently Obama cites the book as an influence.) It's one of my favourite movies, and I loved the book it was based on. I highly recommend it for any who haven't seen it. Malcolm went through several transformations in his life, which Spike Lee portrays in part by using different lighting/film techniques. Think I'm due for a re-watch.

Even though Hollywood usually loves to give epic movies the Best Film of the Year award, that year the Oscars by-passed Malcolm X for... Scent of a Woman. Which was cute, at best. Racist much? Blehhhhhh. I've been very Oscar blasé since.

You know you're addicted to Star Wars when...

Now I'm cleaning up my old computer, and then all will be done and I shall return to writing.

Here is something I found in the old compy:


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...Any time you pick up a walkie-talkie or two-way radio, the first thing you say is "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...Whenever you went anywhere outside with your friends, you always walked single file, to hide your numbers. (and then name your rottweiler Bantha!)


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...On Halloween, you would never dress as: Luke, Han Solo, Leia, Vader, Chewie, Threepio, Artoo. However, you would dress as: Wedge, Porkins


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...You have held up an onion ring and said, "Look sir...droids!"


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...You answer the phone "Die wanna wanga?"


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...You want appliances that speaks Bacchi.


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...Whenever you catch sight of cars behind yours, you say "Fighters, coming in, point three five."
Someone else in your car says "What about that tower?"
[And don't forget: "I can't see him! I can't see him!"]

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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... Your significant other dumps you because everytime she/he says, "I love you" you always respond, "I know."


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... You quote Yoda to defend your political beliefs.


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...With a blue-tinted plastic tube, a flashlight, two hours of a Saturday night, and 4 rolls of blue electrical tape, you finally complete your own working "Light-saber"


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...Someone asks you how fast your car is, and you reply, "Fast enough for you, old man!"


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...Someone says they will try to do something you automatically respond "Do or do not. There is no try."


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... You have a bad feeling about everything.


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... You believe John Williams is the best composer ever (which, of course, he is!)


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... While listening to the soundtrack without knowing the name of the song you are listening to, you know exactly what's happening while it's playing.


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...You now want to become an astronaut to see if there really is a Lando system.
[Except you wouldn't. Because you would know that Lando is a man, not a system.]

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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... Yoda's little sayings have had a profound impact on your life, and you abide by them religiously.


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... You've created lyrics to the songs in Star Wars.
[Or you just sing the Bill Murray version.]

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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... When your alarm clock goes off in the morning, your reply is, "Unexpected this is... and unfortunate!"


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... When riding your bike, you look behind you and accelerate wildly by pressing down on the petal with your right toe.


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You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When...You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends who are addicted to Star Wars.

AND my own additions:

You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... you can imitate the sound of OB1 powering down the tractor beam. (Some guys in the store tested me on this one once.)

You Know You're Addicted to Star Wars When... everytime you finish the dishes (or any other chore) you call out "The dishes are away!" "Hooray!" (You also know you're Married to the Right Man when he joins in on the Hooray.)

tha dudes

Three young guys live above us. Well that was my guess anyway, cause a 5.5 apt is too big for two dudes--and this evening Fernando got to know one of them, so we know there's 3. I like having Dudes living above us, instead of people beating on their kids. (Well the last couple didn't beat their kids... they just ran the washing machine out of the kitchen sink about 1 hour after I asked them not to, because the pipes were frozen and the water backing into my apartment. But anyway. I digress.)

They have a cat. I hear him scrambling around sometimes. Fernando discovered that the cat's name is: Waffles McGee the Doombringer. He went upstairs to tell them something, and ended up talking with one of them for two hours.

F. also discovered the source of the loud BANG! I hear once a week. The other two guys do Kung Fu, so sometimes they throw each other around. lol I'd always thought: What the--are they dropping a desk once a week? No, just each other.

Thoughts upon reading

...the NYT article detailing the experiences of the passengers from the Hudson water landing...

"There was the woman in the fur coat who asked a stranger to go back inside the slowly sinking plane to fetch her purse." What the-! Wonder what the stranger told her.

"...it was the hero-pilot himself, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III." Ohhhh Chesley Sullenberger the Third. How many times did you have to endure teasing as a child, only to finally have this Moment of Redemption? Good for you, Chesley Sullenberger the Third. Good for you.

Imagine being this guy's wife! "Nick Gamache, 32, a software salesman, had moments earlier sent his wife a text message that read, “Planes on fire love you and the kids."

"Mr. Sosa ended up chest-deep in the frigid water, and was soon unable to feel his legs — his fingers stayed numb through Friday " Creepy!

"“My daughter said, ‘Daddy, the plane turned into a boat,’ ” Mr. Sosa recalled." How Mitch Hedberg of her.

Ahh. Now the other passengers know who to blame: "Ms. Bruce said she had survived disasters before, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, where she worked then. “I must have nine lives,” she said. “I was vacationing in Honolulu and had to be evacuated for a tsunami. I was skiing in Denver and had an avalanche. I flew into the eye of a hurricane. I was at the big L.A. earthquake.”"

And from another article:

"Captain Sullenberger lowered the nose to keep his plane from falling out of the sky. And he set his co-pilot to work at moving through a three-page checklist of procedures for restarting both the engines." ...I'm trying to imagine that checklist. I guess it's a little more complicated than: Pump the gas and turn the key. "The checklist, investigators said, is intended for planes that are in distress at much higher altitudes — like 35,000 feet. " Umm ya. "As the co-pilot worked desperately on the checklist, " That poor man.

"They discussed returning to La Guardia, but the plane was “too low, too slow,”" I'm imagining some rapping. Or maybe it was like the A-Team episode where Murdoch can't stop rhyming.

" the now bird-stuffed engines" Mmm a twist on the usual Thanksgiving meal. (The most trivial reason to be glad this landing had a happy ending is that one gets to make jokes.)

And my fave pic:

catalogue of what i wore today

leggings
slacks
jogging pants

long-sleeved close fitting shirt
work shirt
close fitting sweater
longer warm sweater
Northface jacket

ski socks
wool socks
long boots

fleece scarf tight around face
long scarf for backup
toque
hood
super mittens

...Wow and lol

A study has found that using a pre-surgery checklist cuts in half the rate of surgery-related deaths. (see below)

...It's taken how many years of operations, in the history of medicine, for someone to figure out that they should use a checklist?? How many PhDs in Medicine does it take to screw in a lightbulb?? Holy crap! We use checklists just to make sure we close our store up properly each night. Knowing this, I can't believe I've ever agreed to have an operation. It's like we've been living in the Dark Ages!

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http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/01/14/surgery-check-list.html

A simple checklist, similar to the one pilots use before take off, helped to halve the rate of surgery-related deaths, an international team of doctors reported Wednesday.

The checklist included:

• Giving antibiotics on time.
• Making sure the correct patient is on the operating table, and the correct surgical site is identified.
• Checking anesthesia, blood supply and allergies.
• Counting needles and sponges to make sure nothing was left inside.

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported on how well the checklist worked on more than 7,500 surgical patients in eight hospitals in these cities: Toronto, Seattle, London, New Delhi, Amman, Auckland, Manila and Ifakara in Tanzania.

The rate of death was 1.5 per cent before the checklist was introduced, and dropped to 0.8 per cent afterward, Dr. Atul Gawande of Harvard Medical School in Boston and his co-authors reported.

In-patient complications also dropped from 11 per cent to seven per cent.

The most significant drops were in complications such as infections, heart attacks and blood clots, said Dr. Bryce Taylor of Toronto's University Health Network, who led the study in Canada.

"If you look at two million operations, it adds up to 60,000 patients per year who would be spared having a complication after surgery," said Taylor. "That's a pretty provocative number."

The checklist is now used at three hospitals in Toronto.

Phil Hassen, head of the Canadian Patient and Safety Institute, said he hopes the checklist will become standard operating practice at every hospital in Canada within six months, given the dramatic improvements researchers have seen.

Breezy instrumental posting

I'm watching my new Banacek dvd, and I've got the subtitles on because Fernando's sleeping, I don't want to put the sound too loud. Sometimes subtitles are really amusing. Like, during the theme song: "Breezy instrumental music." If I ever lose my hearing, I'll have to remember that Breezy Instrumental Music means that classic 80s tv show theme style.

I'm still working on my computer cleanup, hence all the tv watching right after I said I was going to get back to writing! But, well, one thing at a time. I can't cook in a messy kitchen, and I can't write on a messy computer.

Kitty Update, and Compy Cleanup

So Nombly is back home safe from the vet. He just had a checkup. His heart arrhythmia is kookier than ever, but it doesn't show in his every day run-around activities. We could go see a heart specialist, who can adjust his meds or add new ones, but that won't guarantee he'll get better. Nombly has seen a heart specialist in the past, and she was great--and worth it, because he's stopped having the seizures he used to have. But it's expensive, and this time we'd have to go much farther to see her. I think this time we're just going to keep him on the present meds, and wait until something goes wrong before we go tossing around the money. My hope is that he'll be madly dashing through the apartment one day, and drop dead. But sadly The End is usually long, painful, and filled with upset and doubt about what to do. Sigh!

But no ending yet. :-)

He was his usual Good Boy self at the vet. Not one meow, and remaining as calm as one can expect for his blood test. Of course, now we have the Crisis in the Meowee East to deal with, as usual. Poor Sherry has very sensitive smell, so bringing Nombly back from the vet makes him think we've brought in a new cat. He must think that about once a year we bring in a new cat who looks like Nombly, and we call him Nombly, but isn't Nombly... just to screw with Sherry's head. So they have to be kept separate until Sherry adjusts--about a day or two. But Haley also has to be kept away from them when we're leaving Sherry around Nombly, because if Sherry gets all "Ah! A Stranger!" he will growl and hiss and get all slinky, and then SHE starts growling and hissing, and then we'll have a major cat fight on our hands. To be avoided at all costs.

But right now everyone's asleep and quiet. My little kitties.

This weekend I'm doing fashion research, and cleaning up my computer and hard drive. It's really not procrastination, because I have little space left on either. The main problem is that the library of music on my laptop, and the one on my hard drive, are not perfect mirrors of each other. I'm trying to clean up, and get them to match, without accidentally losing any music files. Each one is 30+ GBs, and that's after I already cleaned a lot of crap out of them.

Luckily I found a program that can seek out files that appear to be duplicates of each other, even if they have different names (one of my problems), and even if they're in different folders (my other problem.) So now that I've cleaned up each folder a bit, I'm merging them, and then I'll run this program and get down to ONE master set of music. And then copy that back to my laptop (erasing the music that's still there), and then I'll clear out my iTunes player and reload the whole damn thing (or re-match them, if that's possible, so that I don't lose my playlists.) And then I'll have to decide if there's some music I don't want to keep on my laptop, but only on my hard drive, like Christmas music, to make space.

I also need to re-do a complete backup of my computer. (I've had to delete my old backup, to make space on the HD to merge the two libraries--but it was pretty old anyway.) I keep backups of what I consider my most important folders--MY WRITING!--but I need to get back to regularly backing up the whole show. So that will be next.

THEN I need to run some repair programs and really clean up the computer. But I won't do that sort of thing until a backup is back in place.

I enjoy doing this sort of thing... I'm all about the organizing, provided I have time. And music. As long as, whatever I'm doing, allows me to play iTunes at the same time. (Right now it's Metallica.) And I work on my fashion research at the same time. But maybe tomorrow I'll move everything to the living room and watch my dvds while I work at the really long stuff. ...And keep peace in the Meowee East.

My Current Useful Program Discoveries:

* backup program my dad mentioned
* a wee program that removes associated files when you delete applications
* a program that shows you what's taking up the most memory, in case there's something in there you didn't know about (Eg. I found some Garageband crap I'd missed when I deleted Garageband... because I didn't have the previous program when I tossed it!)
* a general cleanup/fixit program which I haven't used yet
* and my beloved Mr Clean, who cleans up duplicated files

(the latter 4 came from this article)

O Step-mommy and Daddyyyyy!

My parents sent me a little Christmas/New Years prezzie! Well, two of them, from my wishlist!

The old 80s series Banacek. I've only seen a couple episodes, on someone else's cable. Since I have a crush on George Peppard, I knew I had to see the whole season! (There's only 1.)


And Shakespeare Re-told. Four modern Shakes movies, though I haven't seen them all, all the way through. So also very exciting! And full of great Brit actors.

The News at 4

I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions--I usually make major decisions in the summer time, and usually start them after my vacation. However, barring a new job, I'm going to try controlling my Spare Time a little better this "semester." (I can't stop thinking in semesters. Maybe because my job is populated by students, so scheduling is always related to semesters.) Only in the interest of my writing.

I went *off* all my TV shows during Nanowrimo, so that should help. I'm not Out for TV, it's just that there's a bloody great lot of high quality shows in this day and age... one must begin to limit.

The bigger culprit is the internets. I don't mind internetsing a lot for story research, but it's the news-reading, and article reading, and email reading/responding, and music sampling, and blogging, and general trolliness. I'll at least try using a timer so I'm aware of the time I'm spending.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/internet/firefox/track-the-amount-of-time-you-spend-online-in-firefox/

In other news, I'm going to continue my management position until the end of the month. (Again, barring a teaching job.) I'm used to this schedule, and it gives me a little extra money for San Francisco.

And that's the news as I know it. Goodnight.