Great Things on the Internet

I've found a couple of new things online. I guess, no matter how much of the Internet I read, they keep putting new things on it. Which is good, because every so often I get to the end and I have to wait for something new to happen.

First up, this is a great way to spend some time playing with pics of people you love (or not, depending on your political persuasion): OBAMiconMe

Make your own, or just enjoy those created by others. I made this pic of my nephew. It's hard to make out his face but I know the image well enough that this makes me happy.



Thing 2: in searching for more examples of Shepard Fairey's street art, but erroneously typing in "Spencer Fairey," I came across this image in the flickr pool. It's pretty much one of the funniest real-life things I've seen.



I think this is a huge reason I love the Internet; you end up with delightful unrelated things while looking for other things. It's a lot like my house, actually, so maybe that's why I like it.

Response to Heidi's LOST Predictions

I can't comment on her post for some reason, and I'm long overdue on regular blogging, so I'm responding here.

1. The baby at the very, very beginning was the guy who came to the island with Faraday and Charlotte. That means that both Miles and Charlotte were born on the island, and that is why Faraday brought them.

--genius. it might also explain why Miles sees dead people. I'll agree with Heidi on the Miles aspect of this, but I'm not sure about Charlotte. Remember when Charlotte found that Dharma thing on that dig somewhere in the desert? She had the craziest look in her eye. I still can't figure out if that already happened or if that happens sometime in the future but I think she's in a different "category" than Miles or Faraday.

2. I am still sticking with this one- the Adam and Eve skeleton in the cave are Desmond and Penny. And Charlotte might be their daughter.
--iiinteresting. And weird. When did you say this that you write "I am still sticking with..."?

3. Neither Jin nor Locke are actually dead.
--I agree about Locke but not about Jin. Michael also died on the boat, right? So I think that would make a problem with the notion of EVERYONE having to be back on the island. And the helicopter pilot escaped. Maybe we will see that they have to get him back, too?
4. The Oceanic 6 did not actually HAVE to lie. In fact, things would have been much better for them had they told the truth. Locke convinced Jack to lie for some reason that we cannot yet figure out, but I think has to do with getting everyone back on the island. But for some reason, they had to leave first. I know that's vague, but still, I think somehow that will flesh itself out.
--On the one hand, I think it makes sense to say they didn't have to lie. But on the other hand, I cannot even imagine what would have happened if they had told the truth. I mean, just the part that Hurley spit out sounded like a Benadryl-induced dream, and he didn't even mention the Polar Bears and the foot statue. It's straight-up insane if you take it all at once like that. What's interesting is that Locke told Jack to lie but it wasn't until later ("later", or earlier, in LOST time) that Ben and Locke re-joined forces and Ben started working on gathering everyone up to take back to the island. Also, let's think about that whole submarine they had and how they used to get their food drops - if the island is able to move in time, then how did the food drops work? And the submarine, was it actually a time machine as opposed to something that moves bodies through physical space? Juliet came on the sub, so did she actually travel in time when that trip happened? It's seriously more than I can contemplate sometimes...
5. The people who almost cut the throats of Penny and Sawyer work for Widmore and were on the island with him before the "Others' somehow took over and he had to leave the island. Which could also mean that Penny was born on the island. Which is why she can find it.
--I think this all makes sense but it was Juliet with Sawyer, not Penny. I got them confused when I first saw Juliet. Remember how everyone said Ben brought Juliet because he reminded her of his, what, wife? I wonder if his wife is related to Penny. Her mom, maybe? That would add another layer to the whole territorial war between Ben and Widmore.
6. This is not so much a prediction, but I wonder why Desmond and Jim Halpert(wait- that's the guy from office- what's his named? Richard Alpert? I can't look it up or that's cheating....) are outside of "the rules" for the time travel. And if the rules really exist, or if Faraday is just saying that to try to keep people from altering what happens. -- did Desmond not have to follow the rules? I do remember he was having the whole nosebleed thing last season because I thought he was going to die from it.

I also want to add that the old lady Ben saw at the church, who I assume is Faraday's mom that Faraday asked Desmond to find, is also the old woman who had the ring that she wouldn't sell to him back in, what, Season 2? She was telling him something about that ring that I can't recall. OK, I am not like Heidi - I can't make predictions, so I'm heading over to the Lostpedia to see what people have written about all the connections. AUGH.

Why I Hate the Cold

I don’t want to spend the entirety of my first blog of the new year to complain, but I will.

I think sometimes people get the (mistaken) impression that the reason I don’t like the cold weather is because I don’t know how to dress for it. It is not that I don’t know how I should dress, with all the layers and what not (hee! – what not still makes me giggle every time – thanks, Jay-Z). The problem is actually that I don’t like (can’t stand?) wearing all those layers. For example, I start to get grumpy once it’s too cold to wear flip-flops and even grumpier when I have to start wearing socks with the shoes that I already didn’t want to be wearing. But this kind of cold we are having now is really bad, because even with socks, my feet are still freezing. And I’ve been out of the cold for 30 minutes now. So I just think that’s ridiculous.

In general, the most clothing I ever really want to have on is a long-sleeved shirt and pants. So having to wear a shirt, plus a sweater, plus another sweater, plus a coat, gloves, and a scarf is just incredibly annoying to me. It is somewhat like there is just too much stuff on me and that makes me very uncomfortable because, while I think there are folks who actually enjoy the whole “bundling up” effort, I just don’t like to have a lot of things on me. Yet it is far too cold to go without the stuff. So all winter long I feel trapped.

Another thing that sucks about the winter is that I obviously have to put all those layers on to go anywhere, but when I get to where I’m going, it’s warm inside, so I have to take all the layers off or else I start getting too hot and sweating and now I can’t go outside because I’m hot and sweaty. So if I’m just getting dressed to go to work, it’s fine, because clearly, I’m going to take all the extra layers off when I get there and not put them on for 8.5 hours. But going to the grocery store, the hardware store, the bookstore – anywhere that I’ll be standing around or pushing a cart and only be there for a little while – well, I have to take everything off and then put it right back on again, which seems silly, or else leave it on and get too hot.

I think the bottom line is that I am a warm-weather person (the hotter, the better!) whose ancestors were either cold-weather people or just resigned themselves to the cold after that first Ohio summer. Ahhh…summer. I miss you.

The Birds and the Beasts

OK, so it's cold. Really cold. And as usual this time of year, my thoughts turn to daydreams of living in Florida.But I don't want to torture myself so I try not to think of it too much. The newscasters keep talking about how cold it is and also how important it is to bring the pets inside from the cold. And since the furnace is broken, "the cold" includes most parts of my house (though luckily, Heidi's furnace works so I don't have to worry about her and Isabelle). So to keep the pets and myself safe, Stella, Magnus and I are huddled in my bedroom, which I have turned into a makeshift apartment-within-an-apartment.

The furnace hasn't worked this entire heating season so far. Originally, I thought it was a problem with the thermostat, but after I got a very fancy new programmable thermostat and installed it, including pulling a new cable to replace the one that was made of what appeared to be the first electrical wire, ever, which of course led to buying another $50 "tool" to run said cable, it turns out that the thermostat wasn't the problem. Well, that seems OK to me, given that the thermostat is supposed to be able to save up to $150 a year from my energy bill (although does that include A/C? because if so, I'm down to probably $75 in savings, but whatever) - so even if it wasn't the problem, it will probably pay for itself in pretty short order. But what I learned today is that both of my furnaces (furni?) are something called a "millivolt" system. The upshot of such a system is that the pilot light provides the power for the thermostat (yeah, I don't understand how that works, either) meaning that, if the power goes out but the gas doesn't, I still have heat. Except when I don't have heat because the thing that takes the pilot light energy and converts it to electricity is broken. I guess it is pretty rare to have this kind of system, and I explained to him that this house is full of things that the professionals haven't ever seen before. Oh, and the guy isn't sure they can still get the part. AND, the brand-new programmable thermostat most likely won't work with this because the thermostat is for 24 volts and the power generated by the furnace is only 750 millivolts, or .75 volts. Not quite enough to run that thermostat. So, I'm not sure what's going to happen now, but for tonight, we are all bunked into this one room and I'm under the electric blanket and a down throw wearing my fleece pants and fleece robe and the pup and cat are curled up on soft warm things like pillows and towels which is how we've been ever since Furnace Man left.

Now. About that bird. That thing was in the room where I sleep when I'm at my dad's place. And what really upset me about it is that I didn't even see the thing for the first 3 nights I slept up there. A normal person in a normal room during a normal visit would have seen this thing immediately. But nothing about the room, the visit, or me are normal, so it wasn't until I reached under one of the side tables to grab something else that I noticed the bird. And it was way dead, and having to pick it up even with a wad of paper towels wrapped around my hand was sickening. I'm kind or retching about it right now. Blech.

To end on a high note, I would just like to say again that I am so thankful for my friends and family and ESPECIALLY for my amazing new job. I know, it's been almost a year. But I have been reminded so many times this month how wonderful the company is and the people are and even though it sounds ridiculously smarmy, I really feel loved and cared for there and I am so thankful that I managed to land there. Yay!! Oh, and tomorrow is "Ugly Christmas Pajama Day" at work. I don't have any Xmas PJs but I do have some Grinch slippers I may just bust out to be festive. Hee!

ewwwww

i had just about picked this up to toss in a bag of decorations when it occurred to me that it's a pretty crappy-looking decorative bird. and then i realized it's not decorative at all. so gross.
at least now the bird shit i found on the sheets makes sense...

Grumpy pants on today

it might give some indication of just how rural my surrounds are to
say there are NO wireless networks in my area. Not "no open networks,"
just "no networks." oy vey.
my dad is out of the hospital now. I went to the pharmacy to get my
dads meds and they werent able to get the medicare taken care of after
2 trips, so in despair I went to the video store to get some tv shows,
and even though the sign said 99c, the videos were actually $4.99
each. And that kills me because I could have borrowed the DVDs later
but I didnt because at 99c, they seemed like a real bargain now, and
then I got so excited to see the shows that I didnt want to not rent
them. Yeah. but the good part is that my dad is home, we got a
beautiful new day bed for my dad becuse hes been sleeping on the sofa
for a while now and i wanted something more supportive for him. So.
That's one thing I can claim as an accomplishment, anyway.

Latest Update on Papa

He is doing well. I got a message from his friend who stayed overnight (so I could sleep in my own bed and come into the office today), and she said that he ate an entire meal last night, slept well (they put him on a CPAP, which he honestly should have had years ago), and that he had a big, busy morning today and was quite tired from all that. Also, they are talking about moving him out of ICU tomorrow and into a cardiac room, so that will be nice. I hope that he will be able to be released before Christmas. I know that he won’t want to be in the hospital over the holidays.

I am hoping I can make some arrangements with work so that I can have the next couple of weeks off to help get his house situated for him (we had been talking before he went into the hospital about doing some of that) and help him get re-adjusted. I guess the upshot of it being near the holidays is that things are generally pretty slow for me right now. No one wants to do much work on their directories that aren’t being printed until March or April when they could be whooping it up with egg nog and holiday cheer.

I am actually exhausted and I really want to just go back to bed, which is sad because the only things I’ve done today are shower, pack, and come in to the office about 45 minutes ago.

Being in the office is weird for me because I’m dreading that someone might come over and want to talk a bunch about what’s going on, and I just don’t want to talk about it any more right now. For one thing, it always starts me crying. For another, I’m just really tired. Some parts of being a grown-up are just crappy.

Thanks again to all of you for your calls, support, help, and prayers. I have the best group of friends any girl could ever want and I am so thankful for each and every one of you. Awww…