So you may recall I got a new netbook a while back. At the same time we bought that, we also bought additional memory for it. We were going to upgrade the memory on this and on the old laptop, which we are going to fix up to give to a friend who is having heinous computer issues. So the first problem in our clever plan came when we discovered none of the approximately fifty million screwdrivers we have around here will actually fit the screws on the back of the computers.

Well, fine. We decided to do the sensible thing and order an electronics kit from Amazon. We wait for an interminable amount of time for that to actually arrive until today, when I get a package from Amazon. Exited I open it up... very surprised to find two huge air bubbles and nothing but a packing slip and some very light object at the bottom. This can't possibly be what we ordered, can it? Why no. No it isn't. It is, in fact, a CHEESE SLICER. A steel bladed cheese slicer with a rubber handle, how fancy. How.... not what we ordered at all. Pardon me while I cheese slice the back of my computer to get at the memory inside. Yeah, that'll work.

More fucking delays. Joy.

Oh, and speaking of delays... we got our insurance cards in the mail yesterday. Good news, right? Yeah, except that coverage doesn't actually start until December 1st and their 'helpful' website shows like ten doctors in all of South Jersey who will actually take the insurance. So I have to call around to doctors and see if any of the ones I actually want to go to will take what we have. But hey, I've got a whole five weeks or so to do it in! Five whole weeks of still being sick, unless I want to give in and go to the goddamn clinic again- in which you wait three hours to be seen for five minutes and usually it doesn't do any good anyhow.

Expensive week here at the Cushing house - have to pay the balance of the shed on Monday, and just bought a Roomba for mom for mother's day. Also my grill died - so I wound up getting a super George Forman grill thingy with timer and removable plates and adjustable broiler etc. because we use it so often (grilled meat for the win!) that it's really worth paying a bit extra for the features. Still, spending over 2000 dollah in the space of about seven days is a little intimidating, even when you do actually have the money saved for it and it is (with the exception of the grill which died suddenly) all planned for.

Oddly enough, my old laptop sort of resurrected itself (idk either - zombie electronics ftw?) and my new laptop is having some Vista-related dysfunction. So we've gone from one completely functional laptop to two semi-functional ones. So it goes.

I have not yet started reading Geek Love, as I was intending to finish up Widow of the South first - then got re-distracted by some of my German books (which are non-fiction accounts of various WWII topics that I can only read a bit at a time because they're heavy subject matter). So... eventually I will start reading that.

The circus is coming to town - there's Ringling Brothers in Philly at the spectrum and Cole brothers right in Vineland as far as smaller shows go. Both are show dates within the next couple of weeks, so if I want to go to one or both I would have to figure it out soon. Major problems with the one in philly - driving and parking. Major problems with the one in Vineland - probably bad bleacher seating that'll pretty much kill my back. So... worth it, not worth it? I love the circus, and have a character driven interest to see a show up close and personal to boot - but it may be too much trouble logistically speaking.

Speaking of shows, have not heard back from Adam regarding guest listing for B52's / The 88 on Saturday. I may have waited too long to drop him the reminder email - or maybe he'll still get back to me. We shall see. I just hate not knowing until the last minute what to plan for.

The illustrious mister Nathan sent me Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of all time (book) so I am going to make it my new project to listen to all five hundred albums and give my opinions of them. Am considering doing this as a separate blog, vs just putting them here, vs making a community for them. Might also find the albums and host them somewhere for DLs, or link to them streaming from imeem so other people can listen and give their opinions too. Thoughts? Anyone interested in playing along if I make it a separate community?

Okay, so Creepy Jesus is my savior (praise his disturbing visage) - but noise canceling headphones are my new god.

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, considering how noise-sensitive I am and how much about 3/4 of my household likes to scream pointlessly at random intervals. I picked up a pair for thirty bucks at Aldis today, and I haven't heard a damn bit of stupidity all night. Nothing but sweet sweet music.


Also! You should go to The Decemberists website and download their new song The Rake for free because it is made of awesome and win.

Today we went around to Hammonton where they were having town-wide yard sales. I set out with a pocket full of dollars (okay, really, about twenty dollars) a map of the town with the location of the sales and my mom (who loves yard sales for the looking at stuff - but usually doesn't buy anything).


Here's a list of what I got and the prices I paid:

Lexmark printer/copier/scanner/fax machine - $4.00 (haggled down from five)

Three skateboards (one full size, two trick boards) for Steve - $4.00 (haggled down from five)

Sorry 70th Birthday Edition (brand new, never opened)- $2.00

Sega Dreamcast with 20 games - $10.00 (haggled down from $20.00 . At first they were just selling the games for three dollars a piece - I asked for the system to play 'em on, and asked what they'd take for the lot , games and system - then haggled down to ten)

Computer Desk (white wood with two drawers and a pull out keyboard shelf) - $3.00 (technically I don't have this yet- I paid for it and got their number so I can come back and pick it up with my brother's truck)


Then we stopped at the gas company for their community day, and I picked up some freebies to top it off:

Sojo 104.9 T-Shirt - (You had to play a card game for this one. Mom and I lost the game four times total - but I kept saying 'aw, come on- one more chance' to the intern behind the booth until we finally got it.)

Cloth shopping bag from Kessler Hospital- (Cool shade of purple, and it's pretty wide so it'll hold a lot of groceries!)

Two Energy saving light bulbs - ( Mom and I got these for signing a pledge to save energy by replacing an old bulb. We always try to use these now anyhow- they last long!)

Five earth day stickers

Three chapsticks (from the gas company)

Four pens - (Nice pens, too - from the gas company)

Pencil - (from Gilda's Club)

Package of Sunflower Seeds - (from ACUA)

CD - (don't know what's on it yet, from ACUA)

Bookmark - (from ACUA)

Three tie-dye rubber bracelets (they say Groovy, Outta Sight, and Funky - from the gas company)

Four packages of six crayons (from the gas company)

Two buttons (one from Gilda's club, one from ACUA)

Three temporary tattoos (from the gas company)

Two magnets (from the gas company and Kessler Hospital)


Total Spent: $23.00

I'm looking to buy a good video camera setup to start recording concerts - under 1000 dollars is what I'm looking to spend.

I would also like to get a good audio recording setup - or would the video camera handle that?

Anyone got a recommendation / info?

If you were doggy on a chain...

If you were.. erm, sorry, listening to the radio.

Well, thusfar, today has been extremely quiet. I've been the only one online, and right now, due to my parents being out to lunch, my kids being at school, and my husband being at work, I am the only one at home. It's sort of a lonley feeling, but I'm not sad or anything. It's a good opertunity to work without distractions, and catch up on some things like journals and webpage work.

I have realised that I subcounciously time my writing. I will write an average of one short story or article per every two weeks (though I am obviously capable of writing much more). I will write an average of one to three poems per week (though again, I could write more). I will create, edit, or otherwise update an average of four webpages per week. I will post to my journal usually every other day, though I always intend to write daily. I make an average of one to three posts to my Neopets guild per day. I also roleplay online in textual form for several hours on almost every evening. This is my invariable routine, barring any disaster, rushing, or extreme need. I'm very comfortable with it.

I have also realised in analyzing my writing patterns that I write far more in one month than the average person will write in an entire year. Horray for not being average.

I have the very extreme pleasure of sitting back at the moment and watching a gallery be compiled on our website (www.labarc.com ) that I have absoultely nothing to do with on the work end. Thanks to the wonderful creative and webwork talents of Kara my works will magically appear (ie: through no work of my own!) into my new and spiffy gallery, along with the works of our other ARC people. Ryanne designed the lovely templates and so, I have nothing to do with that either, muhahah!

Incidentally, this means, if you are a writer or artist intrested in displaying your work in a small community gallery- you can contact Karabou@labarc.com to get some space in the up and coming place. I rhymed. You don't have to have anything to do with ARC RPG, Lab Arc Designs, or our ARC Angels guild- you just have to not suck as a human being and be willing to wait for a while for your stuff to be up there as we're in the begining stages of this project..

Krista- I know you're going to think that that part up there doesn't apply as an invitation to you, so here's your personal invitation. Not only are you a part of ARC, but I've also seen your poems in your journal and they're very nice. Soooo.. you need to be in the gallery too. So there.

This also means freedom from Elfwood for me. I can finally delete my galleries on the increasingly more commerical and facist website that really pisses me off. That's sweet. I probably should have done that a while ago (Like.. when Aus compiled most of my stuff in /Halo .. .but.. I wasn't sure I had backups of a lot of pieces that haven't made it to my personal site. Soo.. this'll be good).

Enough about that.

I'm reading a book called Past Lives. Can you guess what it's about? Why, yes. Despite the rather unimaginative title, this book by Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick is actually quite good. It explores reincarnation memories of several people, and discusses religious and secular beliefs on reincarnation- and why, if time is non-linear, reincarnation is actually still possible.

I believe in past lives. I believe I have had many, and will have many more. I was less of a believer in all that before I spent time at the Buddhist temple. The monks told me I was a very old soul, and we had a lot of discussions that really helped me break through the barriers of conventional belief to realise what I already knew in my heart.

That makes me an offical kook in most people's books.

Cool.

I have desk calendar this year, in which I have been carefully marking off alll the days as they pass with an X. This helps me feel a little more grounded to time. Time often gets really ...bendy around me. I'm not very good at remembering what day it is, and occasionally, I will write the wrong month, or year on something. And I don't mean writing '01 for '02. I mean wrting 98, or 87, or.. well, let's just say I'm really bad with dates. I don't know why this is.. I mean to write one number, and an entirely other one comes out. I also have a hard time keeping up with the passage of hours or minutes, or days. Sometimes.. I lose whole weeks of time, in which I can remember only the vaguest feelings of things that I did during them. I think this is one reason why I keep a journal, so that I can assure myself that these missing days were real, and that things actually did occur upon them.

I ramble too much when I'm alone.

We lit some sandlewood insense (yesterday? The day before?) some time earlier this week. The smell of sandlewood is very calming to me. It reminds me to look up and see the handcarved wooden mala beads that were a gift from Lianja when I took refuge at the temple. It reminds me of the smell that pervaded the temple itself, and of the golden smiling faces of the Buddhas, and of a time when I felt at peace with everything.

I should remember to light it more often.

sucks. So if your keyboard suddenly dies a painful horrible death like ours did this week, I'll save you some time and worry and tell you what we did.

1) Go to Wal-Mart.

2)Give them ten dollars.

3) Get a Mirco Inovations keyboard that was much spiffier than your old one, anyway.

4)Use old keyboard as target practice.

5)Type merrily on new one.

My future rug.

Heh.. this is sort of intresting. Aparently, we're not buying enough crap online to make e-buisnesses happy.



I don't think the internet is suffering from a lack of anything.. I think that some businesses may be not making the profits they imagined and desired, but how often does that happen in the offline world? Its just the way things are.

I don't think that buying things on one particular day is going to help anyone one way or another, any more than planting a tree on Earth day while tearing down the rainforrest all year long is going to help the planet.

Its like pissing into the ocean and expecting it to turn yellow, if you want a cruder analogy. Oh, well. Back the Net if you want to, but do it all year round and not by buying things you probably don't need one day a year.

We got a Playstation 2 ! Aus saw that they had them in stock while on his lunch break, and bought one. It was only 287.00 after employee discount, too. Yeah!!!

Now, I just have to wait the four hours until he gets home to see it/play with it. Muahahah! Yay!

Ooh, lookie! Robo kitty , and only 40 bucks! 1,500 puppies of god from Sony can bite me - until they get hella cheaper, this will do for my "must have robotic pet" obsession.

Someday. They're $1500 bucks right now. But in 1999 they were $2500 . Someday, they may be affordable.