Cleolinda everywhere

So, here are the other things I wanted to mention:

First of all, a bit of an update from yesterday's discussion of data backup: ( Read more... )

Second of all: the glass of water thing. I wanted to address this comment, because it both misses the point and is absolutely correct: ( Read more... )

Well, hell. I've gone on so long that I'll have to save the other thing for Monday. Which is probably for the best, so more people will see it.

It's not Tonner Alice. ) :




(Wow, Twitpic, way to go with the weird-ass thumbnails.)

I think this is meant to be Bryce Dallas Howard/Eclipse!Victoria. Which makes me sad, because I thought Rachelle Lefevre was pretty fierce. Good job on Alice's hair, though.

(Speaking of which, this just in: There's another new Eclipse still, and--I don't know who on this production hates Peter Facinelli and Jackson Rathbone, but someone hates them bad.)


Meanwhile, I think I'm sliding into a depressive phase again. This is a lot less grim than it sounds; it's almost more of a physical problem than a mental one, as it makes me feel very draggy and unmotivated, which is kind of THE LAST THING I NEED RIGHT NOW. I mean, I know there are ways to cope with depression--medication, therapy, exercise, sunlight, vitamins--and I'm pretty much using all of them. I'm just saying, I think we're going into that direction again.


ETA: Oh, the Resurrectionist says that he can get 94% of Betsy 2 and 100% of Betsy 1 for $315. Which is what I was expecting, and less than I had feared. I can probably even scrape it together, even.


ETA 2: ~Dramatic~ headshots. It is just an Eclipse kind of day, apparently. I'm going to try not to think too much about what June will be like.

ETA 3: Come with me if you want to dazzle.

So let's talk about the last few days: ( Everything broke, Mom needs a new knee, and also, I saw a movie )

So it turns out that we're not out of the Compocalyptic woods yet, kids. (Don't panic! It's not that bad.) I've finally set Lizzie up at my desk--which I haven't worked at for nearly four months now, by the way--and it turns out that... she doesn't fit. See, it's a huge desk with an attached shelf overtop, and it's divided down the middle by a... well, a divider. And each half is only just big enough to fit the laptop--not really anything that attaches. You know, like the wireless unit for a keyboard and mouse, or headphones, or the iPhone jack, or ANYTHING AT ALL, really. The divider doesn't run all the way from the back to the front of the desk--if I pull the laptop out, I can fit attachments in... but that's all the way to the edge of the desk, so there's no room for a separate keyboard. I'm so disgusted, I can't even tell you.

(Also, I looked at the wireless mouse, and it is completely alien to me. Great.)

So what I'm facing here is the prospect of buying a second desk. I love this desk. I don't want it to go anywhere. Also, there isn't any real possibility of it going anywhere, because I'm not even sure how we heaved it upstairs in the first place. So I'm thinking it might be possible to find a light, cheap desk--a glorified table, really, if I can get one at the right sit-down height--and put it against the foot of my bed. I am really running out of room in my room, but this is the simplest solution I can think of.

So until then, I'm stuck with the flaky touchpad mouse and the keyboard I'm not quite used to, but, like I said: it's kind of on the level of complaining that my diamond shoes are too tight.

Been resting mostly--slept in this morning, since the dogs are off getting their baths to be all shiny-fresh for Happy Eating Day. Still trying to work on New Moon in Fifteen Minutes--I am this close to busting out the 5x8 notecards all hardcore "I are srs writer"-style, just because I get completely overwhelmed by my sea of notes. FYI: I have never had to use notecards for a Fifteen Minutes before. Don't ever say I don't love you.

Meanwhile, this breaks my heart: Chris Weitz finally admits that New Line screwed The Golden Compass over. 

Weitz claims that New Line didn't trust him to handle the content of the book, that the film was taken from him in editing. Heavy-handed hacking resulted in losing nearly 30 minutes of footage from the film, and neatly exercised the edgy thrust of Phillip Pullman's book. "It was an utter violation of my status as a director and the worst thing that has happened to me professionally ... I was treated badly, it was almost like they never read the books. They seemed frightened of offending the right." Out of loyalty to the cast and crew, Weitz said he "bit through my tongue" when Compass was released.

Also: 7 Threatened Fanboy Responses to New Moon. Which really piss me off, by the way. There's a line between "The Twilight movies are ridiculous and I disagree with their view of the world" and "OMG SOMETHING LIKED BY GIRRRRRRRRRRRRLS." I was glad it didn't outgross The Dark Knight because the latter is one of my favorite movies, not because such an event would shrivel my e-penis, BOYS.

(Also-also: apparently you can now talk to your kids about Edward Cullen and drugs at the same time.)


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

This is Lizzie




Say hi, Lizzie




Lizzie says hi


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

So Primary Electric of Birmingham descended upon my house today (and they're great guys; I recommend them) and started checking each and every electrical outlet in my room, the bathroom, and the hall. Some of the wiring was... indifferent, to put it kindly; but then, the developer who did this cul-de-sac twenty years ago also substituted NEWSPAPER for insulation in some of our walls, so I don't know why I'm surprised. They went through and rewired or replaced or something (I don't speak electrician) several of them, went round and round in circles checking them against the panel in the basement (they had one guy there with a walkie-talkie and two in my room) and: neutrals, quick wiring, circuits, loops. These are the words I heard. All I know is, they had to move two cabinets (one of them holding the TV), we had already moved the dresser away from the wall, and they did eventually insist that we had to move my bed. The thing about my bed is that when middle-aged people marry, as in my mother and stepfather's case, they bring possessions that are both many and large with them, as opposed to a young couple starting out. So I ended up with a beautiful old (as in older than me) queen-sized bed... that is A STONE BITCH to move. And where was the socket? Way back in the far corner where the bed stood close to the wall. So I had two guys heaving that thing to and fro--and then: there must be one more socket. There must be. Socket Behind the Bed is the only outlet on that wall, and there's an embarrassment of sockets in this room, so surely there's one more on that wall. Is it...

"It's not behind The Shelf," I said.

"There's really no other place it..."

"IT'S NOT BEHIND THE SHELF."

It was totally behind The Shelf.

I had already evacuated the Middle-Earthians (and hidden everything even remotely related to Twilight, for the lulz or not, because two of the electricians were younger than me so there was a high probability of them recognizing things and I was not in the mood to be judged on this particular day, which is basically to say that any and all Edwards and Bellas were tucked away safely in the closet), so now it was the Ellowynes and the other Tonners' turn to be whisked away. And let me tell you, I would rather set that shelf on fire than try to move it again. It's six or seven feet tall and heavy as fuck, and pretty much cannot be moved over carpet (of course it stands on carpet). It probably took us ten minutes each time to wobble that thing in and out of place.

By "us," in this case, I mean my mother, because you know she's going to come home on her lunch hour and supervise this. I mean, you know it and I know it. And she just keeps shaking her head and muttering to me, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry about this," like... I appreciate the sentiment, but what else are we going to do, you know? We're not amputating a limb or something. Nine of Staves, baby. It's cool.

And then the Electrician Dude in Charge said he needed to go into the attic.

My first reaction was to laugh--you know, the hysterical OF COURSE YOU DO, IT WOULD NOT BE MY LIFE OTHERWISE laugh I have developed over the past month, because a significant portion of my belongings was in the bathroom stacked against the attic door. My second reaction was to ask (warily), "Where in the attic do you need to go?" He points in a roundabout motion to invisible parts of the house--he needs to go around the front stairwell and back around to the eaves by my room. So then my third reaction was to blanch in horror, because there's a point where the attic just... stops. There's a meager expanse of floor, and then you get to either side where the eaves start to come down fairly low, and there's just... rafters... after that. And tumbleweeds of insulation (apparently the developer splashed out on the upper floor and just didn't have enough for the rest of the house? I don't even know). Basically, take a rope and a Sherpa, because you might not be coming back.

I don't know what all they did, but they did a lot of it and were really great about it and I think everything works now. Apparently the problem was that the outlets were "losing voltage," so whatever they tightened or rewired helped that (they also rewired the light switches. P.S. I now need a new overhead fan, because apparently it was holding on by a sprocket and a prayer. Which does explain the rattling), and they said to check the voltage requirements on whatever new computer I end up getting, but it should end up all right. And I do have the uninterrupted power source (UPS), which apparently beeps if you make it unhappy, so that's the canary down the mineshaft.

And I'm pretty sure the guy found his way out of the attic. I mean, probably.

Today, before 8:30 am: I have no phone because I washed it, the Geek Squad wants to charge us an extra $145 just to come to the house and help with the computer even though we have a contract with them, and then my mother's car died.

11:45: The dishwasher finally gave up the ghost.

Well, technically, it's still clutching that ghost pretty tightly--there's two inches of standing water in it, the dishes are spattered with nasty soap spots, and it's snarling at us. I am not even kidding, it is making actual snarling sounds. So it's not an electrical thing--it's been getting more and more weaksauce over the last few months, and it finally just decided to join the parade of fail today, since all the cool kids were marching in it.

Once shit started to Get Real last night, I basically went into calm fix-it mode because, quite honestly, I had already hit Shock, Denial, Psychotic Tantrums and Helpless Wallowing on the Kübler-Ross Stages of Grief model, so there really wasn't much else to do. Also, the car being inexplicably dead almost broke my mother, so one of us had to hold it together. So this is my plan of action:

1) We are going to buy a new dishwasher this weekend. Surely I'll sell a wheat crop book soon! We'll live like kings, Caroline, automatically dish-washing KINGS!

2) We are taking the laptop back to Best Buy and getting a straight-up refund just to be shot of them, and then I'm going to re-order a Studio 1737 from the Dell site. The Geek Squad will refund their contract as well. There is no question about this. They will. They will be dealing with my mother. They will.

3) A new battery, and my mother's car was fine. So far. I hope.

4) I don't know about a replacement for my phone; for the moment I'm toting the cordless house phone around. I mean, around the house, in case someone in the family has to call me. while I'm here. Which I will be. There's a reason I have an actual "leaving the house omg" tag. When people I'm not related to need to get hold of me, they usually email--which, of course, would be great except that I don't have my own computer at the moment.

5) I'm still cleaning for the electricians to come tomorrow, not because I care what they think of my mess, but because I literally cannot walk across the room without holding on to stacks of boxes to maneuver around them, so I can hardly expect them to REACH my electrical outlets under those conditions, much less replace them. Basically, I'm cramming everything into the closet, tight as a clown car if necessary, and what won't fit in there will go into the attic temporarily. Really, I just want it to look like a normally messy room. And also, at least we'll have that problem taken care of.

(I want to go to bed so badly right now. Yes, it is currently 7:45 pm.)

So the laptop comes in. It's thunderous, I feel like shit, I wait until tonight to deal with it.

( DO NOT WANT )

Bored to death, what with not having a computer around 24/7--impossible to work on anything for any significant length of time, obviously. Watched Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte yesterday, for lack of anything more interesting to do (and you know what, everyone always talks about Bette Davis hamming it up in that movie, but I don't think anyone ever gives Olivia de Havilland any credit for being a completely fierce bitch. "I will NEVER suffer for you AGAIN!!!"), and then a couple of true crime things on the I.D. channel (it's basically true crime all the time, yays). I should clean instead, but blarg. That said, I did hand-write most of a short story last night, completely on a whim--the last third or so isn't written down, but it's pretty solidly written out in my head. If I can find a market for it--I'm being purposefully vague on the genre/topic at the moment--I think it could actually do pretty well. I mean, if it turns out to be any good. The only problem is that I'll have to wait for the laptop to come in, because I am NOT typing it up on the family computer. You will understand why if it ever comes to fruition.

(How I write in such a situation: mechanical pencil on unlined white printer paper. In case you were wondering.)

So I just had what psychiatric literature generally refers to as "a motherfucking meltdown." (My mother's current pet phrase for this is "a come-apart.") Well, I mean, I had it about three hours ago. I was testing Camille out on various outlets upstairs and--it's not happening. It turns on but I'm not getting to the OS on any of them. I don't know if the ASUS sucks or EVERY SINGLE OUTLET IN THE HOUSE sucks or if maybe Camille is just so super-powered that mere mortals like us cannot run her. All I know is, I had to drag the monitor and its four serpentine cords to and fro just to get to the outlets, and my room is a wreck (stacked with boxes and piles of I don't even know what, in an attempt to reorganize) because there is no ROOM in my room and I finally just started throwing things. For half an hour. Solid. (This was my idea of "cleaning." By the time I had raged myself out, I had two garbage bags full of junk to take outside.) The fact that I spent most of my tantrum snarling "EVERYONE IS ALLOWED TO GET ANGRY EXCEPT ME. EVERYONE. EXCEPT. ME" may indicate that... uh... there are some other issues at play here.

Also, I am pretty sure I broke my mp3 player in the process.

I give up. Camille, my sweet, I do not think we were meant to be. I'm going to get a Dell. I know, Dells are awful and you hate them, I should get a Mac (and LET ME TELL YOU, INTERNETS, the next person to so much as UTTER a word that even STARTS with "mac"--macaroni; mackintosh; macadam--will get MY FOOT up THEIR ASS. Macs are great and if you have one I love you but seriously, I do not EVER want to hear that word again). I have always used Dells, and each time they have lasted five years or more. They are safe and comforting and I understand them. There is no point in even arguing with me at this point, because Dude, I Am Getting A Fucking Dell and that is all there is to it. If I can get Best Buy to refund everything--including the Geek Squad service contract--I'll order it from Dell's site rather than buy it off the shelf.

My sister has got the hots for laptops right now, I don't even know, and she's very nearly talked me into getting one (~OMG DELL LAPTOPS ARE AWFUL HDU~), except that you can't really take them apart or add anything to them, and I suspect they're less badass than desktops, in terms of hardware specs. But it is a STONE BITCH to unhook that monitor, even though it's a flatscreen, and move it around to a card table to face the TV so I can live-blog awards season, and a laptop would solve that problem. I'd get one with the biggest screen/keyboard I can find--basically, an all-in-one desktop that's more easily moved, is what I'm looking at. I'm not really going to need to tote it anywhere. I don't even know. I've never used a laptop as my primary computer before--I've used borrowed ones but never owned one--and we fear change. See what change got us, CAMILLE? Whatever. I am tired of this. I don't care. Make it go away.

Also, I want to dig a hole in the backyard and curl up in it and die. Maybe between the new azaleas. I am very near the end of my rope regarding this entire clusterfuck.