Ramblings of an (In)sane Snow Leopard

Twice in One Day

2009-12-27T11:45:34Z

Two days to be proper, but regardless of that, I've just finished reinstalling XP again. Fun.

Earlier tonight I found a new visual style that I liked enough to switch to, but one problem with it was that there was a square at the top of the start menu for the account picture, but Windows seems to elect not to show that when the classic logon screen is enabled, which is what I prefer, because it's alot tidier. I figured it might finally be time for a change though, and thus got to looking around online for decent looking logon screens, and found one designed like Windows 7's, which I immediately downloaded. The directions to use it were sort of complex, but I was able to get it working fine enough, until the desire to change the user picture on it struck me. Being as it was a completely different program (not LogonXP), I had to extract the .bmp from the LogonUI .exe first, and assumed it would be a simple matter of editing the image from there, which I did, then re-inserted with Reshacker without further complications. Without, that is, until I pressed CTRL-L, and was greeted by a slew of error messages. Eventually, a failsafe or somesuch kicked in and reverted to the classic welcome screen enabling me to sign in again, and I repeated that entire process (from editing the image on) several times, each to no avail.

Giving up, I ran another included program that was supposed to revert back to the default login screen, which it did, but I couldn't log in. Same as last night, really, because I'd click on my account picture (it reverted to the XP-default welcome screen), hear the login sound, and nothing else would happen. So I booted into safe mode and ran System Restore, which worked until, as you might remember, I tried rebooting again just to make sure uninstalling the program had worked, but it didn't, so I effectively said "Screw it", and dug out my XP disc for the second time today. Right now, everything is back to where it was last time, in that I have only a few minor customizations to make, but once again, I'll get to that tomorrow.

Before anything else though, I plan to go to Giant Tiger again. Went there today as planned, and much to my delight saw that all their Christmas candy was half off. I could, unfortunately, not find a chocolate letter K in amongst the many dozens on that shelf, but I did buy a couple of those small 4-chocolate boxes, and upon checking my receipt afterwards, saw that they were only 64 cents apiece. So I'm most definitely going back there to get more, and maybe to Sobeys if I can put forth the effort because I just realized I completely forgot to look for Bugles at Real Canadian Superstore today. Got most of what I wanted out there though, which can mainly be summed up as much Christmas candy. It was a fun, but somewhat expensive way to spend ~3 hours ^^

As for the rest of the night, I already said what I did with most of it, and aside from that, I slept for a bit. Started getting really tired around 10, so I set my alarm for 11:30 and laid down for a short nap. It's mostly because of that that I'm not really tired right now, but even so, I'm going to lay down in hopes that I can get a longer sleep than last night. Giant Tiger is open until 6pm, so I figure on waking up at 4 and leaving at 5. Seems to leave plenty enough time, but yet again, a little extra never hurt~

Another Group-Type Entry

2009-12-26T12:50:20Z

Starting With the Obvious, Christmas] My day started by having Naomi and Adam wake me up from pounding on my door, presumably because they wanted to open presents, but I remained in bed for another half hour or so after that, before finally going downstairs to get some cereal, and only when that was done, bringing my presents down again. They were pretty much all well received, and Adam was more than thrilled to get those Red Green DVDs, but on the opposite side, Dad didn't seem to be too excited with the little box of chocolates I bought for him. Nor did Mom seem as happy as I thought she'd be to get Lorenzo's Oil, and to top it all off, we couldn't find the remote for Naomi's iPod stereo dock thing. I can't even remember if it was in the box when I first brought it home (I had to take it out and plug it in to make sure it worked with her iPod), but I still took the initiative to look around on Sony's site to see about getting a replacement. That was terribly fun to begin with because it was extremely slow (not surprising), and then when I finally found the remote, I saw that they wanted almost $40 for one. So if she can't work something out at Staples tomorrow (and I should hope so, because I gave her both the receipt and the extended warranty card), she's out of luck. Besides, even if she had the remote it would get used for as long as the batteries lasted, and then get tossed aside somewhere never to be seen again.

Nobody took the time to try out their soaps either, which was kind of disappointing, but I'll wait to see what they say tomorrow, because as soon as they get up / after they get home from work, in Adam's case assuming he has to on Boxing Day seem like more likely times.

As for what I got, two comic books to begin with, one being what I think is a 30th anniversary Garfield collection, and the other some "Farside" thing, along with yet another book that according to the cover contains all the facts about everything in the world. Far from, obviously, but from what I've seen of flipping through it so far, it looks interesting enough. Moving on, one of these sorts of dolls, which I was told were all endangered animals, and one of them was a leopard. If it is, it's more brown than any one I've ever seen before, but it's still a cool little gift at any rate. Then in terms of stocking presents, all of three. A bar of cookie dough fudge, a chocolate letter, and a bag of sour watermelon candies which I gave to Naomi because I can't stand artificial watermelon flavoring.

Oh, and last but not least, a bread maker. I am not even kidding. Dad said he thought it would be good after seeing all the cookies I've been making lately, and I suppose it would be different to try and make something with it instead, but I was really not expecting that as a gift. Mom did note that I could always return it and buy something else, but Dad made a comment right after that about how it was a gift that would go a long way, and I sort of agree, but I still have no idea of what I could make with it, aside from the few recipes I looked up online earlier. And no, I'm not going to return it, because I hate the thought of doing so (even though it had never crossed my mind before today). I might as well be saying "Why'd you buy me this?!", and I need to at least make an attempt at using it before considering buying something else.

All in all a fun day though, except for the latter part of the evening (from about midnight on), which is what I'm going to get to next.

I'm Too Good for Warnings] Last night, I found a link on Reddit that somewhat indirectly led me to downloading NOD32, which I installed earlier this afternoon. During the procedure there was a bright red warning saying that you shouldn't continue the installation if you had other antivirus programs running, and sure enough Avast 4 was still going at the time, but I didn't think the consequences could be that severe, and clicked "Next". Initially, I didn't see any problems, because I was able to reboot, then uninstall Avast, which required another reboot to delete some locked files. All normal, right? Sort of.

After that second reboot, whenever I logged in, I couldn't get past the login screen. Well, I could put in my password and press enter, which caused the window to disappear, but then nothing happened after that, so I had to reboot into safe mode and activate one of Revo Uninstaller's System Restore points. Eventually I had to restart again though, and sure enough, it froze in the same place that time as well, so I went through System Restore a second time, then backed everything up to the appropriate external drives, and moved the rest of the files that were on my desktop off to another partition, followed by reinstalling XP.

I'm about three quarters of the way through that now, and there's one thing I did this time that I wish I'd realized before. Backed up my Firefox folder before reinstalling Windows. Simply closing the browser after it was installed, then copying those files into the new profile folder reverted literally everything to my previous settings (layout, extensions, browser history, open tabs), which was a big time saver. Unfortunately, if there's one thing that's going to do, it'll make me lazy with backing up any new extensions and whatnot individually. Still, I did one other thing that may help with that, being creating a new 5GB partition which will be used solely for holding the files I'll need next time I reinstall XP. Having them on my USB stick and one external drive is nice, but there's also something to be said for having them right there.

The other problem that created was that I couldn't get to my email for a little while, but once again, that's the next topic I have in mind.

Right on Time After All] Quite early yesterday morning, I received an email from Streetlights with the finished version of my Christmas commission. Of course, you may have already noticed that with the new userpic for this entry, but it's done at any rate. The finished version can be seen here, and for now I'm just going to keep using it until the end of the month, what with having not even been able to use it on Christmas. That's really my fault, but it's not a problem worth worrying about either.

Also on the topic of pictures though (just to flesh this cut out a bit), another diversion from earlier tonight. It's quite fun going from images that fit on the screen at full size from Pic Pic, to that one that's almost 5000×3000. It'll also be the first time I've ever had Paint give me an "Out of Memory" error as well, which was worrisome at first, because I couldn't "select all" without getting the message either, and even though I'd only finished the first column of the image by that point, I thought that work would have gone to waste. Then I realized the dimensions might be a problem (10000×10000 pixels at first), and resizing it did indeed make the errors go away. As for what the reply to my comment says about hoping the creator doesn't mind, I'm not sure what they could say. Sure, in fairness I should have included some text at the bottom with the URL and author's name, but it's otherwise there on the internet for anybody to look at. I just took the time to make a full image out of it so as to eliminate the need for the Google Maps-esque control scheme.

Anyways, it's quarter to 8, and I really need to be getting to bed soon, so to end this entry for tonight, my plans for tomorrow. Giant Tiger is the only destination of concern, because they close at 5pm, but as long as I can get up and head there before then, I'll be going to four places in the same day. Giant Tiger (obviously), Walmart, Real Canadian Superstore, and the dollar store out there as long as it's open. I do have to remember Walmart will be exceedingly busy compared to what it was like the past two times I went there, but otherwise, I'm very much looking forward to it. I'll need a decent amount of sleep before then, however, so for tonight, that's all I have to say. Hopefully I'll have just as much to say about tomorrow~

Almost a Normal Night

2009-12-25T07:47:02Z

Despite what I said earlier, my mood degraded quite rapidly after writing the previous entry. It's not so bad now, but was really disappointing to lose one of the things I usually look forward to about Christmas. I do hope we're able to work out another time to visit with Aunt Marie and Uncle Mark soon enough (preferably next week sometime), mainly so I can give them their gifts, but then the other thing with not going to the church for Carols by Candlelight was also a letdown (although looking back now not that huge of a deal, because if it had been I would've gone there myself), and yeah. Supper ended up being different too, in that Mom went to Little Caesars and bought two of their pre-made pizzas, and I've been sitting up here for the rest of the night, more or less. Watched Home Alone again earlier, which was funny and a nice diversion, then A Christmas Story just finished downloading about ten minutes ago as well, which I'll be watching once I finish this entry.

Moving on, when I went downstairs to get pizza earlier, Naomi announced we'd all be able to open one present tonight, and I objected, because enough of Christmas has been different this year, and I'd like to at least save the gift-opening for Christmas Day. By the time I said anything she had gone back upstairs though, so I ended up telling Mom that I didn't want any presents wrapped in dark green paper (the ones I bought) to be touched, and I asked her again to make sure she would see to that, and was told "Naomi wants to open the iPod thing". Yeah. In the end, I just brought everything back up to my room, where it will stay until I wake up tomorrow afternoon. It's not bad, I guess, but I'd have preferred advance notification so I could have bought them each something to open on Christmas Eve. Oh, and as for going to Walmart on Boxing Day, Naomi doesn't want to unless she gets a gift card, and I haven't heard anything one way or the other from Adam, so it seems I might just end up walking out there on my own again. Not that I couldn't, but I'd prefer a ride on that day, so as to have enough time to go to Giant Tiger and whatnot other places before they close too.

As one final thing to demonstrate how this year is different, it's been tradition for as long as I can remember to have apple cider on Christmas morning, and guess what Mom didn't buy this year? I picked up a 2 litre jug at Real Canadian Superstore last night though (I would've gone for a larger one, but they were too heavy), and it's been sitting in my window since, so I can take it downstairs tomorrow and ask everybody "Are you forgetting anything?"

On a better note, one of the other things I've been thinking about tonight is what I've said in the past about my desire to stay in London for a couple nights again. That's changed significantly now, in that I'm seriously thinking about looking into going there early in the morning (say around 10 or 11am) and coming home on the 9:30 train I've taken so many times before. That would give me more than enough time to walk down to White Oaks Mall, along with any other places I wanted to stop at on the way there or back, and would be much cheaper too. Some ~$200 (at most) for the round trip ticket plus spending money, as opposed to the possible ~$500 or greater if I were to stay at a hotel. Maybe in February or March, because for now I need to focus on repairing the damage buying Christmas presents did, but I definitely like that idea much more :3

Anyways, I'm off to watch that movie, and to wait for my stocking, assuming we're even getting them this year. We'd better be, but that also seems like one of the things Mom or Dad would mention if it had changed, so I'll just stay hopeful for now. Maybe around 4 or 5 when Dad wakes up~

This Year is Just Different

2009-12-24T21:14:54Z

Alongside having ornaments put on that cactus instead of our Christmas tree put up, the dining room at work wasn't decorated this year, and just about an hour ago now, I was informed that we won't be going to the Carols by Candlelight thing nor Aunt Marie and Uncle Mark's, because he's sick. Oh, we will be going there possibly next week or sometime after that, but this is really turning out to be a fine Christmas. Then what's more, I still haven't heard anything else from Streetlights, and while I'm tempted to send him another email that says "Color whatever you have and we'll call it even", I'm going to wait and see what happens instead, because another disappointment wouldn't be anything new at this rate.

That's not to say I'm in a completely bad mood because of that (last night was mostly fun), but it is still a letdown. Anyways, as for last night, the "not fun" part was work. I should've expected as much, but being the last normal night before a holiday, we were extremely busy, and Steve took off at 11 instead of staying for his full shift (until midnight) leaving Manoah and I to have vehicles lined up outside for a good hour and a half. Mostly just busy aside from one guy who I know for a fact asked for a chili cheese fry in his combo, then came back in a huff as soon as he had a chance to make it to the speaker saying he'd asked for a burrito. No, you didn't, and trust me, I'd be more than willing to argue that out with you if there wasn't a long line up of vehicles already. So he got his burrito, then came back a second time some ten minutes after that complaining about his fries, and yeah. It's not inconsiderate to say we've messed your order up, but please have the common decency to just phone us instead when you can see we're quite busy.

We got out of there at exactly 2:15, and I waited with him for another fifteen minutes for his Mom to arrive, but not before putting my uniform and glass of water in the shed, so I'd be able to stop on the way back and pick them up. In retrospect, that was one of the more fun parts of the night, simply for being able to take a quick break, but the only problem is by that point I was sweating thanks to some combination of all the stuff I was carrying, the way I was walking, and the temperature outside, and of course I didn't stop for long enough to let my body completely absorb the sweat, so when I started out again, I was getting the chills from being damp. Didn't get everything I wanted at Walmart or Real Canadian Superstore, unfortunately, but before tonight is over I plan on asking what the odds of getting a ride there on Boxing Day are. One of the more interesting things I found last night was, while wandering through the very back aisles, three game boxes that had been cut open and had the games removed, which I was going to bring up to the checkout to say "You'll probably want to know about this", but didn't want to risk them thinking I had taken them, and as such just took a picture and continued on my way. They'll find them eventually. At least as soon as they inspect that aisle closely.

I think I might join Adam in going to Taco Bell for supper whenever they head out though (just for a volcano burrito, and to make tonight somewhat different), which reminds me of one other thing before I end this. While waiting for his ride, Manoah told me that Mary has figured out the real reason I don't like working with her is because I don't like taking orders from women. Oh yes, she's so right, because I have absolutely nothing better to do with my life than be sexist <3 He found it quite amusing when I explained that, by her logic, that must mean Steve is a woman as well, but yeah. What's better about that is her moving to closes sometime in the New Year because she can't work with Sheila and Ang on days anymore, and I don't even have to point out how she's not going to get along with the closing staff any better (I'm not the only one who doesn't like her), but if she thinks that switch will solve her problems, we might as well let her have at least some temporary respite before she realizes it didn't accomplish anything.

For the time being, I might as well go find out when Adam plans on heading there, then maybe work on Pic Pic some more, because I've done all of two puzzles over the last three days. Not the greatest way to spend Christmas Eve, but like the title says, this year feels different~

I Hate False Starts

2009-12-23T13:23:11Z

Because I'm never going to be able to figure out where to start otherwise, and it's already 7:30am, the significant things I've done today, in no particular order:

Installed Firefox 3] Pretty much just on a whim, I got to thinking about doing so earlier (around 2:30), and reasoned that it couldn't hurt to try, because sufficient time had passed that there should be updated versions of all the extensions I was using, or on the off chance there weren't, equivalents thereof. Now allow me to say that the only reason I'm still awake at 7:30 is because I've figuratively been fighting with it. First was a problem with hiding the live bookmark item labels, which was accomplished by, of all things, moving the entire contents of that toolbar to a different one), then also what I've just finished with, making the tabs bar vertical instead of horizontal. That ended up being somewhat exasperating too, because I was going to such lengths to find extensions that would do that, then see if they could be modded to change the background color or other properties of the tab bar, and in the end I found a short Stylish script that I put in userChrome.css instead, and was able to tweak to my liking relatively quickly. Mind you, I'm not entirely finished yet, because there are still some more minor things to fix (Personal Menu's icons, the background color of the tab bar, the address bar dropmarker, etc.) that I'll get to tomorrow or on Thursday. I can say with utmost certainty that I'll be staying with this version for some time though, because after the lengths I've gone to with it tonight, it would be a great waste of time to revert to Firefox 2 again.

Walked All Over the Place] I set out at 4:30, and along the way, visited The Dollar Store, Zellers, the other dollar store I mentioned buying forks at yesterday, Food Basics, and Taco Bell, all in that order. Among other things, I bought a scale at Zellers, so I don't have to worry about looking for one tomorrow (and with such learned that I currently weigh ~180lbs), and also bought a couple hats not unlike this one at The Bargain Shop. Unfortunately, one of them is missing one of those arm things, which I didn't even notice until I got home. It wasn't cut off, but is rather just missing, which is... weird. I do intend to keep them though, because they are rather cool :3 George has his cookies now though, and apparently he did come here after work yesterday night, but left after seeing a light upstairs get turned off. I'm not sure when that was, but meh. That's all been taken care of. The only bad part about all that walking was I spent more than I'd have liked (at least $60), but my plans for tomorrow and boxing day are still very much on. I'll just have to be careful with what I buy.

Wrapped All of my Christmas Presents] It started with Aunt Marie and Uncle Mark's, and continued straight through to the ones I have for our immediate family, of which there are both before (friends-only), and after. I'm still not taking them downstairs until Christmas Eve (after Mom, Dad, and hopefully Naomi have all gone to bed), but it's nice having them wrapped already. Wrapping them was also fun for picking up the soaps afterwards and seeing if I could tell which ones they were through the paper. Not really, as it turned out, but the smell of the wrapping paper was quite... provocative, I guess. The first thing I pictured in my mind was Christmases in the past, where we'd wake up early in the morning to open our stockings, and have each of our rooms filled with that smell by the time we were through. Something nice about that, but it also makes me think back on how different it used to be. I can remember waking up in the middle of the night (probably from 3-4am) to go to the bathroom, only to find my stocking outside my door, which I would forgo any more sleep for the rest of the night to open <3 Along with the usual shaking with excitement and whatnot, but those were truly different days anyways, because that was back when our house used to be filled with relatives on Christmas Day who we had invited to supper. Nowadays everybody lives too far away, but there's nothing anyone could do about that.

Anyways, I really need to go to bed now, because it's going on 8:20 already, and I would like to sleep in for a bit tomorrow instead of having to wait 'till Christmas Eve when I would probably end up sleeping in until just before the Carols by Candlelight thing started. Just need to revert back to Firefox 3's default theme to see if it looks any better, and that'll do for tonight. Today has been quite fun, so I can only hope Boxing Day goes as well, and as yet, there's no reason for it not to ^^~

Numbers: 110, 468, and 5

2009-12-22T11:40:57Z

110] First of all, in talking to George when he first showed up for his shift tonight, it was agreed that he would come here before heading home once they'd closed, to get more cookies. I did just give him a full margarine tub of them two days ago, but apparently he got all of 3, and his Mom took the rest, saying they were her favorite type of cookie or something :B Either he never showed up or I didn't hear him knocking in the end, but I still made another 110 of the things, and I think there might even be close enough to 3 cups of oatmeal left, which is the amount the recipe calls for. Not tonight though, because I made four batches, and was getting tired of repeatedly walking out to the front door to see if he was there (both the exhaust fan and my laptop were making noise in the kitchen). I do still plan to head up there while he's working tomorrow, then the rest will likely be distributed among family (maybe I'll give some to Aunt Marie and Uncle Mark as well) and everybody at work. I have seemingly been eating too much of everything lately, so while it's fun making them, I'll nibble on maybe one a day.

468]As for the other number, half an hour before my shift was supposed to start this afternoon, Michelle asked if I wouldn't mind walking down to the dollar store near Food Basics (I want to say the name was "SuperSave"...) to get some more forks, because they were all out. She said I would be paid for doing so, and I accepted mostly because I wasn't doing anything besides walking in circles around the dining room, so I went over there and eventually found the forks. $1 for a package of 36, and I was given $15 with specific directions to buy as many as I could afford. Thirteen packages for $14.05, which amounted to 468 forks, if you don't care to do the math <3 One of the stranger things I've done lately, but the lady at the counter didn't seem to mind. Maybe it's actually a normal thing for somebody to be buying plastic cutlery in bulk ^^;

5] Continuing the above somewhat, I noticed something else at the dollar store that I would've bought had I not been on the clock, so to speak, and having the day off tomorrow, I intend to go there after giving George some more cookies. So that place and Taco Bell are two, but as for the remaining 3, they're dependent on how much walking I feel like doing. I'm thinking of also going to Staples, Zellers, and The Dollar Store (but probably not Staples now that I've had some more time to think about it), which I would definitely have enough time for. Setting aside the dishes and wrapping Aunt Marie and Uncle Mark's soaps, but should the need arise they can just as easily be left until after midnight. Although now I'm finding myself wondering if giving them cookies as well is the best idea, because I don't know if either of them might happen to be allergic to peanut butter (I can hardly see that being the case, but still...) or something else unfortunate like that. I guess I will, because at worst they'd just get added to the assortment of snacks to be had after the talking and giving of gifts.

With those things out of the way, I might as well just be done for tonight now. I know I said I would upload the sketch of my Christmas commission today, but I'm actually going to wait, just on the off chance the colored version isn't done by Christmas (that way I'd at least have something), or if it is, I'll upload both at once. Seems the most sensible solution, and I need to do something soon anyways, because I keep switching back to Gmail to check if he's sent me the fixed version of the sketch yet, with no result (to be expected, when I'm literally checking every couple minutes or so). But yeah. For tonight, all I can say is that I have plenty to do tomorrow. Hopefully everything goes (mostly) according to plan~

Just a Little Too Early

2009-12-21T11:29:54Z

Tonight was kind of a disappointment. Work went fine, and nothing of note occurred on the way home aside from stopping at the bank to check my balance, but sure enough, about an hour after I had made it home and was going downstairs to put my laundry in the dryer, I saw it snowing rather heavily. By all appearances it's stopped now too, so if we'd just been there an extra twenty minutes or so, I'd have been able to walk along in at least some of it. Or perhaps if I'd gone out to Real Canadian Superstore and Walmart tonight like I was thinking of doing, but that's just me being impatient, and I'd still rather wait until after work on Wednesday for the reasons mentioned before. As well, I happened to notice a Walmart flyer in the kitchen, and looked it over for things I might like to buy, and the one thing I may look for then is an apparent package of 3 4GB USB sticks for $25. Then again, it's not like I'd have immediate use for them, but that does seem like a good deal. Otherwise, the netbooks looked so very tempting, but for the same reason as the DSis and PSP-3000s did - I just want something new to play with. I definitely plan on grabbing a couple more pairs of socks, but anything else depends on how awkward I feel walking around in there at ~3 in the morning ^^;

Still on the note of Christmas, before leaving for work earlier I reminded Mom again that we still needed to put up our tree, and was informed that instead of it this year, we have a Christmas cactus. Indeed. Manoah thought that was hilarious, but I, however, am not quite as impressed. I will at least be putting a bit of effort into cleaning the living room before the 25th though, because even the tiniest bit of work needs to be put into preparing it for Christmas. Or maybe I'll do that on Tuesday, because my only other tasks then are to wash the dishes and wrap the soaps I have for Aunt Marie and Uncle Mark.

In terms of more immediate things though, I'm also rather unimpressed with this having to work 5-11 tomorrow afternoon. The first day since I've been back to work that we close at 1, and I can't stay up past 7 because of an early shift the next day. Mind you, I'm looking forward to working more than I am to the time I start at, because Michelle's on as the supper manager, and I haven't seen her for quite a while. More cookies will likely be brought in and shared as such, but there's still half the bag of oatmeal left if I want to make more any time soon. Before any more time goes by I should probably end this and lay down though. One other thing I'll have to do tomorrow is upload the sketch of my Christmas commission from Streetlights, because he (not she after all) sent it to me just before I left for work, and I've since replied with my desired changes, but haven't uploaded it here yet because I've always got something else on the go at the same time. In the case of tonight, loading some more files into uTorrent for download eventually, which as yet is going to take a while, because I have ~110GB of stuff queued up. Aside from what I mentioned a couple days ago, volumes. 1 and 2 of "Garfield and Friends". Yeah.

Anyways, bed. Tomorrow should be moderately interesting~

Neither Good Nor Bad

2009-12-20T12:01:47Z

Definitely better compared to earlier, but let's see. I quite enjoyed walking to work, because it was snowing after all <3 Then again, accidentally inhaling a couple flakes at two different points wasn't the greatest, but that was more due to suddenly feeling something go down my throat when I took a breath. Work wasn't the best though, because it was busy and I ate far too many of the dessert squares that were left both tonight and yesterday for us because we didn't attend the Christmas party. At around 1am, my stomach started feeling really sore, and I eventually had to begin walking around very slowly in order to not end up being sick. Strangely, I was able to walk home without issue while in the same condition, but whatever.

Coming home was more or less alright, because while Naomi and Adam didn't even think to clean up their mess from making pizza and Rice Krispie Squares, I did it myself, and was left with the satisfaction that comes from such. Finally, I have even more reason to visit Real Canadian Superstore after work on Wednesday now. Well, Walmart, to be correct, but suffice it to say I was looking at scales on eBay, because I still want to get one, but all of them there are at least $20 with the same amount or more in shipping costs, so if I can walk out to Walmart and find one there, I'll gladly put the extra minute of effort into walking over there. Then as for Real Canadian Superstore, I am most definitely getting a couple more air fresheners, because it's fun to randomly be obsessed with an otherwise mundane object like that, and they're cheaper than can be found at Canadian Tire <3

Unfortunately, I have barely anything else to say about the rest of the day. I haven't touched Pic Pic since going back to work, mostly due to finding other things to busy myself with, but as mentioned a couple days ago, level 3 is done, and I've finished ~6 puzzles in level 4 thus far. I've also got some new (in a way) Christmas-related things to watch whenever I have time, but before I start grasping at straws like this again, I'm going to bed. Especially with starting at 5 on Monday. Thus far I'm looking forward to work tomorrow night so I can give George more cookies, and also hopefully to having a slow night at work, but nothing really more than that. It's the start of what I'm going to consider the final few days before Christmas though, and that's quite enough for now ^^~

Patience is a Virtue

2009-12-18T11:33:40Z

Yeah, I know it's cliched and whatnot, but it is still the truth. With all the visits I've been making to Real Canadian Superstore over the past several weeks, I've been able to keep a fairly close eye on those bags of chips I've amassed so many of. At first they were on sale at the regular price, being $3 per bag or something like that, but then they were brought down to 2 for $5. It was at that point I picked up my first couple, and bought three more the next time I went out there, because I think they were 3 for $5 instead that time. The next visit after that, however, they were down to $1 a bag, and skipping ahead to earlier this evening, the price has dropped even further, to 50 cents per bag. Well, that's what I would assume, because they're two for a dollar, but yeah. In sum, I bought for more bags of chips today, as well as a Santa hat to wear at work tomorrow night <3 All for the low price of ~$6.75, which I'm pleased with because I want to keep as much of this pay as possible in my bank account.

Still, assuming things don't change drastically before then, my plans to go out there one last time (late at night, at any rate) next Wednesday after work are still on, but I can see spending maybe $30 total between there and Walmart. Aside from that, not much except for Boxing Day, but I was thinking about withdrawing $20 on the way to work either tomorrow or Saturday and either going myself or having somebody else go to Tim Hortons to get something for everybody. Probably not though, because we bought more oatmeal today, so I just need to put in the effort to make one batch as soon as I get home tomorrow. Or maybe before I leave, but of course, that depends on when I wake up. I might take a break from Pic Pic tomorrow anyways, because I finished level 3 of the mazes tonight, and just have to create a full-window screenshot of that, which I will endeavor to upload tomorrow.

It's been an alright day otherwise, but waking up was kind of annoying. A certain eBay seller I dealt with back during the summer who had then gone on to make a separate-from-eBay online store and send an email out to all their buyers informing of that, sent me another two emails, which were first and foremost unsolicited, after I specifically requested to be removed from future mailings in the first email they sent. To make matters even better, the newest two messages were subject to the same problem as that forward Manoah sent me a while back. They put everybody's email address in the "Reply to" field, so on the good side I now have some ~750 more that I could use for whatever purposes if the desire ever struck me (probably not, but still), but am also annoyed that they both didn't acknowledge my original request, and also give me cause to send two extremely pointed replies about those matters. I realize mistakes do get made, but twice in a row and after there were no such problems with their first store opening email makes it seem exempt.

Tonight should be better for getting to sleep early though, because it's only 6:20. Well, 6:30 now, because no sooner than I typed that and I was off doing other things, but since I'm back to this tab now, yeah. All told, these 6 days off have been quite enjoyable. I can only hope my coming 5 are just as fun, but they should most certainly be, what with Christmas being right in the middle and all <3 We still do need snow, but there's nothing worth speaking of out there yet, so it's just going to end up being an incredibly mild Christmas. Fun nonetheless though, which is really all that matters~

Spontanaeity Isn't Always Good

2009-12-17T12:21:04Z

Today it saw me beginning with deciding to go straight to Money Mart after visiting Bun Master, then walking down Park Ave to get home, but stopping at the lights to consider checking Sobeys for air fresheners. My conclusion was that no, I wouldn't, because I'd already planned to go to Canadian Tire, and there was something else I wanted to look for out there anyways. So I continued down Park Ave all the way to Keil, and on from there. Fairly decent walk, with the only bad part being walking into Canadian Tire. Had I kept my headphones in for 30 seconds longer, nothing would have happened, but now I think the guy may have been taking information for credit card registrations, so if I get one from them anytime soon I'll just as soon send it back with a note saying "I don't want this". The rest of the night was better though, and something I watched made me start thinking about a somewhat unusual topic.

I haven't wanted to mention this for some reason (perhaps stigma associated with it), but I'm 100% certain the reason we've been having bandwidth issues lately is because I've downloaded every single episode of both Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Voyager. I just find them interesting, if anything, and the thought to look for torrents has come to me before, but that was back when I couldn't fathom downloading something totaling ~60GB, so I was left to watch one or two episodes here and there whenever I stayed the night at Josh's house. Anyways, I just finished watching the final episode of Voyager tonight ("Endgame"), and the very beginning left me with one big question.

The ship is shown having returned safely to Earth, where everybody is celebrating and things are generally festive, but since I can't quite remember where I was going with that, I shall divert to at least one of the episodes of "The Next Generation" that involved quantum realities. Some 200,000 (if I remember right) converge at one point, causing both hilarity (the deadpan "We're receiving 200,000 hails!") and sadness ("In our timeline, we're all that's left!") to ensue. Things are eventually sorted out, as they are in every other episode (well, almost every, to account for the several split into two parts), but that concept left me wondering for a while. Assuming the idea of quantum realities isn't just a theory, it's quite literally mindblowing to think of all the different timelines that would exist for mine or anybody else's life. For reference, the way it's portrayed in that episode is that for every decision you make, an alternate reality will exist where you'll have taken the opposite position. For example, if I couldn't decide when to go to bed tonight, and ended up laying down at 7 when I was thinking of staying up until 8, there could, by that theory, exist another reality where I stayed awake for that extra hour.

Of course, that idea has a huge flaw, in that there would have to be an infinite number of timelines from the very beginning of your life, in the way that eternity is also infinite. To illustrate, something I read recently that describes eternity quite well: "Imagine a mountain as tall as your mind can fathom. A bird flies over top, and as it reaches the tip of the mountain, the bird drops a small rock, and continues on its way, not to be seen for another thousand years. Even after the mountain has been worn down to but the tiniest pebble, eternity will have not yet begun". There's another saying like that that ends along the lines of "Eternity advances by a mere instant", but I don't like that one as much, because it implies that eternity is finite, even if on a phenomenally colossal scale - after many millions of years it will eventually end, and what comes afterwards? More accurately put though, there would be the exact same number of alternate realities at the end of your life as there were when you were born. Unless you want to postulate that additional realities only come into existence when you have to make a decision, but what about the choices that brought you to that point? Actually, it's more of a paradox. Given B happening because of A, how can A exist when nothing comes before it? It's no wonder I'm confusing myself just trying to write about this.

As for Voyager, it was something to do with why you would bother putting effort into living your life if it wasn't unique. In that episode, they're said to have returned to Earth after 23 years in the Delta Quadrant (it does feel a bit weird being that specific, but a little detail is better than just rushing over things so as not to seem too "into it"), but something about that seemed off. Perhaps it was their projected homecoming date in a previous episode, or another detail that I can't think of right now, but it didn't seem real, and sure enough, most of that episode was comprised of jumping between two time frames, being the present, while they were still on their way home, and the future, where the tenth anniversary of their safe return was being celebrated. Now, in fairness, the those two timelines were kept in sync, in that if something happened in the present, it would affect the future (which was another major plot mechanism), but the thought of any number of alternate realities, different than those mentioned above, is quite humbling.

Imagine, for example, that my life goal was to walk all the way around the world. Given the rules of that theory, there would be, say, ten different timelines where I was trying to achieve the same goal. Sort of makes you stop and think "Why am I doing what I'm doing if there are nine other versions of me doing the exact same thing?"

Now, I've been able to remember what I was thinking of originally, so I'll get back to that other train of thought in a moment. In the episode in question, the future crew is shown to have returned to Earth after 23 years, as I already said, while Voyager in the present is still trundling their way through the Delta Quadrant. Eventually those two time periods converge (which is another kind-of paradox, suggesting that time is nonlinear, although such are the wonders of time travel), and things are worked out without causing any more difficulties.

In a short sentence, it's like reading the end of the story first. If you know what's going to happen, why bother putting any effort into what happens along the way? I suppose you might want to continue living your life normally, because otherwise your inaction could aversely affect the future, but that's the problem with the story example. The end of the book will never change, so you could read the last few pages first then go back to the beginning and read chapter by chapter from there, but when you get to the climax again, it will be exactly the same as it was the first time. With time travel, however, the odds change a bit, and I'm about to start repeating myself when this isn't quite what I was going for in the first place.

Combine the present affecting the future, and the theory of multiple realities. Let's say you have the ability to view all of them at once, and see your future self visiting you in the present in, oh, timeline C. Everything works out beyond wildest dreams for that you, so why put effort into making the most of your life when you already have everything you could possibly imagine in timeline C?

Another thing this is making me wonder about is effectively living multiple lives in different timelines, but that's more or less straightforward, as long as they never cross or join together. Otherwise, things that are still quite difficult to fully comprehend, but nonetheless fun to think about and, in this case, write quite a few paragraphs on ^^ Oh, and of course, as stated way at the beginning of this cut, I downloaded both series in the space of about 1 and a half months, totaling 119GB, when our base limit is 75. Also with Adam and Naomi doing stuff on the internet as well, but thus far this month they've used about 15GB combined while I'm at double that on my own. I have Enterprise and Deep Space 9 both queued up in uTorrent as well, but as yet, that program is going to remain closed. Until January, at least, but preferably whenever Dad gets the bill and can tell us if we've, no, I've stayed within our limit this month.

With that out of the way, I have to say I'm a bit saddened at the prospect of tomorrow being my last day off for almost a week. Not that I don't want to work, but I'm starting to get used to this. Besides, I did most of my running around today, and I'm just thinking of walking home from Real Canadian Superstore tomorrow so I can stop at Tim Hortons along the way and get a sandwich for supper. Something to commemorate having 6 days off with, I guess (because I need to excitement <3), and I'd like to see what Mom says if I tell her "Go on ahead. I'll meet you at home." Within the past couple weeks I've walked out there close to 5 times, so I'm definitely going to miss them being open 24 hours. It's kind of the same thing as what happened with Sobeys though. Once, a long time ago, that place seemed much too far away to walk to, but now the only reason I don't go there more often is because they don't have much of interest to me anymore. Chips are about it, and maybe air fresheners, but I'm assuming they have those only because I think I remember seeing an aisle of cleaning supplies there before. Sure, Real Canadian Superstore is much farther away, but if I go there too often, it's going to become another normal store, and it's one of the few that are left. The Tim Hortons way out on Bloomfield is the only other place that comes to my mind at present, and I will get myself out there sooner or later too.

On a different note, I got to fiddling around with Firefox tonight as well, and after about half an hour of consulting Google, found an entry for userChrome.css that only hides the titles of bookmark folders. What that means is that I can now create any number of folders for whatever purpose, and assign them each their own icon. Before, I was limited to the custom RSS icon, because otherwise Firefox would've seen that both that folder and one of my live bookmarks had the same name (that being none at all), and applied the same icon to them. The only thing I've done with that thus far is subscribed to both Reddit's frontpage feed, and also the one for AskReddit. I enjoy seeing questions asked like "What was your most embarrassing moment?", and reading all the replies. Although I do still need to find out why it freezes up for such a very long time when I click "Load more comments", but it's definitely something specific to Firefox, because Google Chrome works fine.

Anyways, that'll do for tonight, because I'm getting kind of incoherent now, and it's after 7 again. That is, if I could stop opening more tabs right at the last minute, but maybe I'll get to them tomorrow. Or just read them now so they're done with. Something like that~

I'll Never be Satisfied

2009-12-16T12:16:24Z

Thinking of changing Paint's icon(s) again, and I just finished taking a quick look to see if there were any available for Google Chrome. It's fun, I guess, and nice because it's something I can immediately see the result of, but for the moment, I'm quite looking forward to getting back to work and doing something more productive with my time <3 Was there for about ten minutes tonight before Steve had a chance to grab my pay stub and a card from Karry, and snuck back to check next week's schedule so I could be more certain of what days I have off around Christmas, and it actually felt sort of weird. Concerning the schedule though, I work from Friday to Wednesday, which will be much appreciated with the name number of days off I'm in the latter half of right now, then have Christmas Eve through the 30th off. Helpful to know that for sure, and I'm also getting paid about $60 more than expected, which means $30 or so will be set aside for boxing day. Oh, sure, I'll likely just end up buying more food or additional things for my room which will ultimately go unused, but I'm still looking forward to it. Well actually, either on Boxing day or the 23rd after work. That'll be the last time they're open 24 hours this year, which is of some significance, at least to me ^^;

Anyways, since this is one of the nights where I haven't done much so there's little to write about, a dream that's been drifting around at the back of my mind for the week or so since I had it. Dad and I (it didn't feel like there was anybody else there) were driving along some road to a familiar place. Possibly home, or work, or some other familiar destination that doesn't come to mind, but the main point was it didn't feel out of the ordinary. Suddenly, a surprisingly tall building came into view, which we got close enough to so that I could determine what it was in an instant somehow. It was the Westin where MFF was held last (and possibly this) year, just quite a bit taller. All I can remember asking before waking up is "Why are we all the way out here?" Kind of weird, and with appropriate timing too because December was just starting back then

On a different topic, I think I might have some more walking around to do tomorrow. Originally I was planning to wake up early and ask Mom about going grocery shopping then instead of on Thursday, but the only reason for that would be so that I'd have been paid by the time I started to go to the few places I need to. In no particular order, Canadian Tire for Febreeze or some other can of air freshener / spray, because that's another thing I'd like for my room. The desire was brought on by those soaps, because every time I walk in again after being downstairs or out of the house for whatever reason, it smells like cinnamon and mint <3 Curiously, cinnamon is the strongest scent, yet none of the soaps are supposed to smell that way, but that doesn't change anything. I will eventually be ordering my own too, but before that I need to figure out if the shipping price is a flat rate, or based on the value of the order. In essence, if I'm paying, say, $12 for two soaps, I'd rather not see a $25 shipping fee at the checkout. Anyways though, Canadian Tire for that, then Bun Master because I want more pizza buns, followed by Money Mart which I've been putting off for a few weeks now, and finally Tim Hortons for a candy cane hot chocolate, and 7-11 for a small snack from there. Perhaps not in that exact order, because Bun Master closes earlier than the other places, but those are my plans at any rate.

Oh, and as a last aside, there's a little bit of snow on the ground today. I dearly hope that can be taken to mean we can expect snow for Christmas, because with that and the possibility of not putting our tree up combined, this is shaping up to be an awfully disappointing Christmas. As I say with so many other things though, there's still a week and two days left. My fingers are metaphorically crossed~

Only One Program Left

2009-12-15T12:04:26Z

Because uTorrent is compressed, I am unable to Reshack it, and thus have to make do with the program's optional tweaks. Replacing the tray and program icons, among others, which I was able to find a nice icon for, as shown in that screenshot I uploaded yesterday. For some reason though, VistaSwitcher refuses to display the 32×32 icon. I've checked it multiple times, and there are three sizes included, being 16×16, 32×32, and 48×48, and I've even tried extracting the middle icon and importing it again, to no avail. Weird, but NetWorx also continues to elude me, although I gave up on that again earlier. It's actually a bit frustrating, but the only other option I can think of right now is to completely reinstall the program, but replace the default .exe with my Reshacked one before launching it for the first time. Problem with that is I'd probably lose my saved data for December, but it'll be January before too long, so I'll see about that then. Oh, and since I've mentioned that program, I've exceeded my quota by 5.1GB to date. Yay :s

Going back to the icons, I was able to, using my words from yesterday, coerce shell32.dll into cooperating, but all I needed to do was open IconPackager and use the "Rebuild Icon Cache" and "Repair Icon Images" functions. Doing that resulted in the 16×16 closed folder icons and icons for all folders shown in VistaSwitcher to the ones I had replaced the defaults with. It is exasperating to think that as soon as I change my visual style and wallpaper again, but that too carries its own little set of rules, which may alleviate the need to change them each and every time..

Moving away from that stuff, one thought I've kept going back to throughout the day is how Christmas is next week. It seems so soon, and here we are without even having our tree up yet, and to make matters worse, on the way to Pizza Hut yesterday Mom said we might not put it up this year, because there isn't much free space in the living room. Granted, because the two tables in there take up quite a bit of the room, but if need be, I'll work on organizing and rearranging it tonight and / or tomorrow. Even if we have to settle on pulling out the small glass / porcelain / whatever it is tree decoration we have, setting it on the table, and placing the gifts around it. I can understand her not wanting to put the actual tree up, because it's alot of work to do that then have to take it down again a few days later, but it's not going to feel right without some sort of decoration(s). The living room will also have to be cleaned up considerably, but I can easily do that tomorrow. Also related to Christmas, I received an email from Streetlights earlier to say my second commission will "definitely be done by the deadline I've set", and that she's going to be sneaking some time between her exams or something like that. The thought hadn't occurred to me, and now I feel a bit bad for getting impatient, but I'll just take her word for it right now :3

As for anything else, Taco Bell's Christmas party was tonight, which effectively canceled my plans to go out for a walk. Not that I went to it (they went to the Bowlerama...), but the last thing I need is for somebody from work to see me, then word to get back to Sheila and for her to pester me about why I didn't want to go next time I see her. In all likelihood tomorrow though, especially because I'll be able to pick up my pay stub, but for now, bed as usual, because I'm still trying to trick myself into waking up on my own at 3 instead of 4. Probably not until the daylight hours start to change again, unfortunately, but there's still a certain sort of fun to it, so I'll just enjoy sleeping in while it lasts~

Several Days Too Late

2009-12-14T11:46:31Z

Again, it doesn't seem quite real to think that earlier tonight I was out at Real Canadian Superstore. Sort of a letdown going there, because I stopped by the bank on the way out and found that I have less money than hoped for, then also couldn't find what I was going to buy out there. Last time I went, they had these large boxes of chocolates priced at one dollar, and I was thinking of buying one because they were cheap, but was also worried that the low price might be meant to say that they were of questionable quality. Curiosity got the better of me tonight though, but when I looked, there were no more left. I might have gone to Walmart and looked there on the off chance that they would have them, but my money at present is such that I have enough to go to 7-11 once within the next 4 days (if I should end up wanting to), and that will be it until we get paid. Mostly acceptable with Christmas being quite close and buying the wrapping paper and other last-minute things I needed for it yesterday, but not good in the long run.

Stopped by Taco Bell on the way home as well to get a glass of water and chat with James and Manoah for a bit, then was being quite cautious for the rest of the walk after that, because on the way out I got pulled over (I've started to expect as much now) and asked to walk on the other side of the street, because they were going to have a dog out tracking something in some unspecified amount of time, but other than that it's been a decent night. I've done even more with Reshacker here (although changing Desmume's icon still eludes me), then had a fun time at Pizza Hut, up to and including the power going out for a few seconds during our meal. Now that I think of it, that may have actually been responsible for the ATM not working, because after we'd finished eating, I said I was walking just down the street to check my balance (much to Naomi's protesting I didn't want them to be able to sing Happy Birthday to me), but regardless, that was sort of funny. Not much to say about birthday-related things here, save for the runaround I was sent on to get my present, and another annoyance concerning the same, which I may write about in a friends-only entry if there's still time when I finish this.

Before that though, I saw a post on Reddit earlier asking "What does your computer desktop look like" so as you might expect, I quickly took a screenshot of mine and posted it there, and I will also do the same now, because I have put a fair amount of work into it over the past two nights. It can be seen here, and while writing the description, I started thinking that sooner or later I'm going to have to actually detail everything that's been changed from default. Aside from the wallpaper, that is, because that's one of the common themes I noticed while looking at the pictures on Reddit.

As for the rest of the night, I'd rather not be up until 8 again, so I'll probably just go write about that other thing then go to sleep. I have absolutely no plans for tomorrow, outside of maybe messing with shell32.dll some more to see if I can coerce it into displaying the closed folder icons correctly (if it is what's at fault). Not necessarily a bad thing yet, but I'll wait until tomorrow instead of making any assumptions now~

I Hate my Bed

2009-12-13T12:45:27Z

Well, more specifically the carpet, but without delving into those fussy details, one of the first things I did today was moved my whole bed to the other side of the room, so I could pick up the bits of garbage then vacuum up the remaining dust and debris. Those two actions went fine, but then I had to move the bed back, and all the trouble started. First of all, the carpet in the least-accessible corner when the bed is positioned as it is now is torn into at least three pieces, and is pulled out from the wall, so you can probably guess what happened when I tried to shove the bed back. Indeed, one of the pieces of carpet pushed up against one of the legs, and at the time I thought fixing that problem would be a simple matter of shoving the bed harder, but all that did was make an even bigger pile of carpet, so in the end I somehow managed to lift it up enough to slide the carpet back under. What's more, before it got to that point, one of the supports on the bottom bunk gave way, so the corner went crashing down to the floor. Nothing was under it, thankfully, and I'm sure it won't be the first time that's happened, but then I had to lift the whole bottom bunk up, mattress and all, then somehow pull that leg of the bed out to move the bunk up onto the support, and yeah.

The good part about those difficulties is that my room is now cleaner than it's been in a long while. Of course, there still are a few things I need to find places for, and I might have to consider going through my dresser again sooner or later, but for now, I'm pleased <3 Anyways, after all of that was done, I went to Giant Tiger instead of Real Canadian Superstore, because I really haven't the money to go to the latter right now. Picked up a roll of wrapping paper, three rolls of tape (because I couldn't find individual rolls anywhere), a box of gift labels, and a little box of 4 chocolates for myself. As such, I'm afraid I lied before. Now I have everything needed for Christmas, and as I realized while sending an email to Streetlights earlier, there are only 12 days left, just like the song :3

As for the rest of the night, I haven't done much that would seem readily productive, but have still been keeping myself busy. While looking for new visual styles, I happened to notice how the icon for Firefox in one of the screenshots looked different than mine, and assumed that was due to the one in the picture being Firefox 3. So I went downstairs and made a copy of the .exe from that computer, extracted the icon, and successfully put it in Firefox 2. During the process I also found where Windows keeps the information for the browser and email programs you can choose to display in the start menu (suffice it to say it's in the registry), but then moved on to replacing the main and taskbar icons in several other programs with better-looking versions. uTorrent, Paint, and Winamp for right now. I wanted to do VLC and Desmume too, but neither of them would work, and I can't find a decent looking icon for Notepad anywhere, so the one installed by the Tango Patcher will have to do for now. While I'm thinking of it though, since I still have 5 days off, I'm sooner or later going to have to update these (the first set) to reference IcoFX instead, and then maybe also make it a more general "How to replace icons with Reshacker" guide instead of focusing specifically on making them transparent.

No time for that right now, however. It's almost 8am again, and I'm told we're going to Pizza Hut around 5:30, when I'll probably be asleep until 4 or so. Thus far, my birthday has been rather disappointing, because it's raining outside instead of snowing, but getting all those other things done has been quite satisfying, and I may have even more to report tomorrow night on the off chance I get $20 or so as a present. Just need to hook one of my external drives up to this laptop and start copying some files for now though, then I'm going to bed. Tomorrow should be at least somewhat enjoyable~

All for Krazy Glue

2009-12-12T12:52:29Z

7:30 in the morning right now, and I'm just laying here waiting for 8:00 to roll around so we can go out to Canadian Tire, then come home to sleep. Once again, the headband on my ears broke tonight, but I don't have any superglue with which to fix them, and have little to no ambition for going out there tomorrow afternoon, especially when they close at 6. So there's that, and maybe some cable ties as well, but that depends on how expensive they are. Then tomorrow I plan to continue what I've started tonight, being thoroughly cleaning my room, the first step of which is pulling my bed out and vacuuming underneath of it. Most of the room has become messy to a normal degree, but the area under my bed hasn't been touched in some time, because it's too much of a bother to crawl under there with the vacuum. Yeah.

I'm also thinking about tomorrow night. At work earlier, I heard mention of another tax-free couple days at Real Canadian Superstore, which I think were Saturday and Sunday, but if I wait until the latter to go like I was originally planning, they could say "It's Monday so we're charging you full price". So instead, as long as my room is done in time, it would be more fun to go there tomorrow and get the things I need (including those little gift tags with "From" and "To" fields), then probably stop by work on the way back and pester them for a bit. Tonight's close was okay, with aside from the incredible number of 5 soft taco deals we sold. Then there was also some thing I said to Steve about possibly considering an egg beater a toy that I can't remember all the details of, but I think it's better that way ^^;

Also concerning work, something Manoah said that concerns me last time I worked with him. It's more or less a given that regardless of what shifts I work, I'll play one or two pranks on somebody else during that time. Mostly innocuous stuff, that's good to get a laugh and see reactions from. However, Sheila has seemingly taken that to mean something else. In particular, that I like Janeka. All I can think of that might have prompted it is teasing her about Manoah mistakenly calling her "Jamaican". Oh, and I put an ice cube down her back as well because she said it was too hot, but that's something I've done to other staff on more than one occasion, and her only once. Just... annoying, but not at the same time. She (Sheila) hasn't said anything to me directly yet, but that's about normal for her. Rumors are fun to an extent, but I've been lucky enough thus far to either have none being spread about me, or not hearing of them.

I should probably clear off my bottom bunk before Dad comes back though. He's just gone out to take Adam to work, and all I care about doing right now is going to Canadian Tire, fixing my ears, and calling it a night. The last one isn't very easy when there are cords and spare blankets all over the place~

Firefox is Being Difficult

2009-12-11T11:50:06Z

In theory, a simple matter of adding border-top: 1px dashed rgb(234,169,129) !important;" to the appropriate declaration in userChrome.css. In practice, however, a way to waste almost an hour and a half. That line (and it's border-bottom counterpart) were meant to add top and bottom borders to the selected tab, but that change didn't come quite as easily as I'd expected. Without going into an inordinate amount of detail, solid 1-pixel red borders at first for some reason, then the active tab being somewhat squished by the borders being forced into the size constraint, then finally, what I'm happy with for tonight, the bottom border being the only one to appear. Maybe I'll figure it out eventually, but in the same vein, I also gave up on TrueTransparency earlier, because I was getting tired of it screwing up focus in whatever program. For example, in Firefox, if I tried to type, say "that's", as soon as I got to the apostrophe, the quick find toolbar would pop up. I definitely like FindeXer though, and the one change I made thus far to it with Reshacker worked fine, so maybe I'll have to show that off in the next screenshot of my desktop :3

The only other thing still on my mind right now is those soaps. Picked them up from Shoppers earlier this afternoon, and I could smell them just after cutting the box open. Not a huge surprise there, so I tucked them underneath my table with the other Christmas gifts for safekeeping, then went off to work, with all its usual smells. Upon getting home and opening my door though, they were all I could smell. Well, not literally all, but they're definitely quite strong. And here I was thinking they might look really nice but not have very strong scents. That's going to pose an interesting problem when Christmas Eve comes and I wrap everything, but maybe those will be the one gift everybody picks up to smell for a hint first. Oh, and also, the Iceberg Madness soap is ridiculously... how to say... forceful. It smells alright, but just so happened to get packaged next to the bacon soap, so now when I smell that one, it's mostly minty with just the faintest hint of bacon. They're all separated now though, so hopefully by the time Christmas comes the scents don't overlap anymore. Although that doesn't even address where and how they'll be stored after use, but quite frankly, they're soaps, and gifts at that, so I really shouldn't be worrying so much.

In other news, Manoah was supposed to send me an MP3 upon getting home from work tonight so I could try to remove the copy protection, but obviously he's forgotten about that, and also I still haven't heard from Streetlights. If not by Sunday, I will be sending her an email to ask if things are still on track, but hopefully she gets back to me before then. I haven't much else to say tonight though, so it might as well be bedtime now. Of course, I'll probably tidy up my room first, because I went to Shoppers after work tonight for snacks, and just tossed the garbage onto the floor because the garbage wasn't nearby. Yeah. Normal things, at any rate~

Almost Thrice this Week

2009-12-10T12:03:50Z

Slipping back into this mindset again. "I should go to [x] just because I can". For at least a couple hours at work tonight, I was completely decided on going out to Real Canadian Superstore again once we'd closed, for more chocolate bars. I didn't, which is probably a good thing because I have only $2 left before dropping below $1,600, but it just goes to show what those two days did to me. Circumstances permitting, I may go out after things are done and over with on Sunday, just as a sort of birthday celebration for myself, but aside from that, I need to get used to being content with what I normally do. Oh, and since it sort of connects, I was wrong about when I have those six days off. They're coming up quite soon, specifically from Saturday the 12th, to Thursday the 17th. I do, however, have another five days off in a row around Christmas, going from the 23rd to 27th, I believe.

Things should, after tomorrow afternoon, be all set for gifts though. Thanks to me not paying attention earlier, I completely missed the delivery notice from Shoppers that was stuck to the cupboard, but that made no difference, because I can't pick the package up until tomorrow afternoon. As for what it is, soaps are the only possibility. I was originally planning on heading out when I normally would if I were stopping there before going to Heart and Stroke after, but now I'll more likely ask for a ride, because the wind today has been wildly unpredictable and, dare I say, violent (I was about half sure my tail was going to blow clean away while heading to work), and it's supposed to keep up well into tomorrow, and I don't want to risk the chance of the weather damaging them. Kind of an amusing coincidence how one of the reasons I declined going to Heart and Stroke's Christmas party was because 11am was too early to wake up, yet as it turns out I have cause to set my alarm for 1pm instead of 3 tonight after all.

Going back to the weather again, it's been interesting today. Last night it snowed for a bit, which was followed promptly by rain that had melted all of said snow by the time I woke up, but with the addition of much wind. It was unreal, going down the stairs to put my shoes on and head off for work, and being able to hear the wind whistling, howling, and otherwise blowing up against the outside of the house. Thankfully that didn't pose any huge difficulty getting to work, aside from blowing my tail around, but I also have something else to help this year. A fu(rred/zzy) headband that I bought at Shoppers that night I went there for cheese sticks. Used entirely to keep the wind from blowing my ears off, and also to keep my headphones in, because they have a tendency to come loose otherwise, made only worse by the cords becoming stiff in the cold.

Anyways, I have stuff to do quite early tomorrow, so I should be calling it a night now in preparation for that. I hope to have some new stuff to mention sooner or later (in particular, at least a sketch of my second commission from Streetlights, which I'm almost ready to email her about to make sure she's received my specifications), but normal things will suffice for now. At least until I stop waiting until the last minute at night to think about them, but it's nothing worth fussing about yet~

Just Over a Day...

2009-12-09T10:36:29Z

It doesn't seem quite real to think that at this time last night, I was just about ten minutes into my walk home. Far enough to get up to that jewelry store where a cop was parked, and of course I pulled my camera out to check the time exactly as I was walking past them, then also struggled quite a bit with putting it back into my pocket, so I thought for sure I was going to be stopped again. Although I suppose it's just as feasible to imagine that they were one of the two who had stopped me on the way out, but I digress. That feeling on it's own is something I find myself noticing quite often from time to time. Simply coming home from work, and resting just for an hour before thinking of what I was doing during my shift seems unreal, in a way.

I do wish I had waited until tonight to go, however, because it actually started snowing for a bit <3 Not before I gave up on waiting and went to 7-11 for the things I needed there, of course, but this banner on The Weather Network's page hasn't gone away yet, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing what things look like tomorrow ^^ Even moreso with knowing that I'm done at Heart and Stroke until 2010. Sure, their Christmas party is still being held this Thursday, but as far as I'm concerned, I will be sleeping right through it. Then I have work from 7pm - 11 for a change, and the schedules after that are going to hell all the same for a bit. Provided my memory serves though, the only day of that sort I'm actually going to have to worry about is New Year's Eve, as I could be sure I already mentioned a while back.

In other news, after digging through Bell's site for a good half hour earlier tonight, I finally found the specifics of our plan, which I've mostly needed to determine our bandwidth limit, which is, assuming this page is correct, 75GB. More than enough as long as downloading stays within reason, especially for me, because I'm already up to 13.7GB. The way I figure it, Mom uses the internet very little to not at all, and the same can be said of Dad, but only because he's concerned with the bandwidth usage, and will have to see the bill next month to know that we're keeping an eye on our usage now. Even back when he did do stuff online though, it was only email and online radio stations for maybe a couple hours at most a day, so I figure it reasonable to allot 24GB to Adam, Naomi, and I, then leave the remaining 3 to Dad. Obviously a flexible plan, just to compensate for possible oversights, and the same page says each extra gigabyte is $2.50. Would've been nice to know that much sooner, but as the saying goes, better late than never.

Other than that, I have a little bit of unexpected Reshacking to attempt before calling it a night (removing a couple annoying icons from FindeXer), and probably not a whole lot aside from that. It is 5:30, after all (which was when I just got home last night...), and extra rest before going back to work definitely wouldn't hurt~

A Night Well Spent

2009-12-08T12:02:43Z

The first part of today was mostly standard. Did 15 more puzzles in Pic Pic, put some new music on my PSP, and not a whole lot else. At 3:30am though, I took off for another walk. This time to Walmart, Real Canadian Superstore, McDonalds, and 7-11, all in that order <3 Walmart had new work socks and the variety of Skittles I mentioned needing in my previous entry, Real Canadian Superstore had chips and a package of dark chocolate Kit Kat bars, McDonalds had their $1.39 sausage McMuffins, and 7-11 didn't have what I needed from them, but I'll just go to the other one (at Richmond and Lacroix) after I've finished the dishes tomorrow. Walmart and Real Canadian Superstore weren't anything special, outside of it feeling strange to be out there at ~4am, but I must extend thanks to the old guy in McDonalds who apparently saw himself as some sort of authority on the weather for telling me that the cold was "not good for my skin". Hardly a concern sir, and if you think that's bad, you should see how I walk around outside during January and February. Oh, and I got stopped by two cops on the way out there as well. Hardly unexpected, and I made it there without incident otherwise, but it's sort of a record to be stopped by two, so yeah.

Given that I just walked about 8km during the time I'd normally be getting to bed though, I'm almost at the point of being exhausted right now, but I'm not about to set this entry aside until tomorrow, because then I'd forget half the things I was going to write about. One example is a picture, being of my complete Skittles "collection". Walmart had all five types, for cheaper than Real Canadian Superstore, amusingly, so I purchased the two purple and one of the blue bags tonight ^^ As for the socks, there are either holes in the heels of the pairs I have now, or the area surrounding the heels is becoming loose, which is really annoying because I prefer socks to be snug-fitting. Four pairs for $8 though, which should last me another good while, and whenever I need more in the future, I know it's not beyond me to walk out there and buy more.

On a completely different topic, there are five days left before my birthday now, and I finally remembered earlier tonight to tell Mom I want to go to Pizza Hut for supper. Her reaction was predictable ("Really?"), but after I told her I've wanted pizza for a while, and therefore was being serious, she said that was fine so now I'll have that to look forward to <3 What's more, to the best of my knowledge Pizza Hut doesn't provide those inane celebrations brought upon by one of your other party members saying "It's so and so's birthday". I know they're meant to be fun, and for anybody else, I would consider it to be quite humorous, but where I'm concerned, I'll do what I can to prevent that just to see how far they might try to take it ^^;

Anyways, I think I should be getting to bed for now. Just have to send Michele an email asking if she needs me this week, then possibly sort out the stuff I bought earlier so I'm not tripping over bags whenever I get up. Awesome night altogether though, and I can only wonder about maybe doing it again before Christmas. Not soon, by any means, because I have everything I need from those places (up to and including ten bags of Skittles and eight bags of chips :x), but maybe one of those nights in the six I have off coming up, assuming they're near that time. We'll see then, as I seem to be saying with so many other things these days. Yesh~

Apparently I Am Crazy

2009-12-07T10:01:24Z

According to both Adam and Naomi, said in reference to my walking all the way out to Real Canadian Superstore today. It was well worth it though, because the bags of chips that were on at 2 for $5 on Thursday had changed to being $1 a bag. As such, I purchased four, and still had one left from the three I bought on Thursday, so there are now five bags of chips resting up against my bedside table <3 Plus seven bags of Skittles, because I bought four more, and added them to the three I had from a couple weeks ago. Way too much food, in all honesty, but I still need to get another one of the blue bags of Skittles next time I'm out there, then also wonder if Sobeys might have the purple packages in the same size. I've seen the smaller ones at 7-11, but Real Canadian Superstore didn't have any of them at all, so Sobeys is the only other place I can think of to try. Maybe Food Basics too, now that I think of it, but I must do that so as to have a complete collection before opening any of them ^^; I might even go back there this week sometime, because when I got out there tonight I saw the big sign on the front of the building that said "Now open 24 hours!" Definitely a fun thought, but that all depends on when my next day off after Wednesday is. Saturday, if my memory serves, so we'll see what happens then.

Speaking of days off, while at work last night Orlando showed me the extra schedules Sheila had made up. Enough to cover all the way up until December 28th, which George wasn't impressed with because he's supposed to have New Year's Eve off or something. As for me, I can't remember when exactly they are, but sometime between now and then, I have six days off in a row. Yeah. Should be good for getting more puzzles done in Pic Pic, and hopefully for giving me plenty of time to wrap Christmas presents because I'm about halfway certain that stretch covers Christmas Eve, but as for the rest, I'm going to run out of things to do :x Also, since it involves work, I got the brilliant idea to clean out the grease trap again last night, and somehow fouled it up in a way that caused it to overflow and make a terrible mess. That was shortly followed by several trips out to the grease bin and back with however much of the water / grease / dish debris combination I could fit into the bucket, and then I had to scrub the floor afterwards to clean up the oil that had spilled out in some way or another. It worked after that, but now I know next time I do that, to just skim the stuff off the top instead of digging right in :s

Moving on to a different topic, I made sure to send Streetlights the money and description needed for that second commission last night, so for now, I'm just waiting to hear back from her. I'm going to eventually remember to take a picture of the banner I want to have included though, because I pass by it on the way to work every night (it's in the window of that antiques store on St. Clair), which was one of the main forces behind deciding how I want that commission to look, but to date I just haven't wanted to stop, then earlier tonight had forgotten to bring my camera with me. Now that I've had a bit to think about it though, I may go back out there (to Real Canadian Superstore) tomorrow, because I still need to put more money on my Mastercard, then could also take a picture of the banner to show her what I mean, instead of leaving her to rely on my description. That would be fun, especially with the ability to go there at any time I please :3 Also, while I was writing that, I received an email from LiveJournal saying "You have received a virtual gift!". Upon checking my profile, I saw that it was from Munedust, so if you see this, thanks ^^ I'll admit I'm not sure what the occasion is, but I'll just assume my birthday, because it's quite close now.

To end this entry for now (because those three paragraphs are quite long on their own), today has actually been pretty fun, now that I've taken care of the one pressing matter introduced previously. Ten mazes done in Pic Pic, a nice long walk out to work and well beyond that, followed by plenty of time to relax and even have a bath, because I felt it one of the more fitting things to do after all that walking <3 Now, however, it's almost 5 in the morning, and I might actually try getting to bed somewhat earlier as such. I've another day off tomorrow, and likely will go out to Real Canadian Superstore again sooner or later, but I think for the time being, probably later. As in, 4am later, because there's one thing being out then would definitely facilitate. Whether or not that happens obviously remains to be seen, but for now, sleep, and whatever happens tomorrow when I wake up~

Definite Cause for Concern

2009-12-05T12:00:06Z

The title references one of the more interesting things I have to write about tonight, but I cannot think of any way to write them aside from in another list. This time, however, I will use letters, just to make it a bit different <3

a] First of all, what the title is about (obviously). While I've written about it before, I was on the way home from 7-11 a long while ago, when a couple girls sitting on the porch of one of the houses asked me why I had a tail and ears, then said there were pictures of me on Facebook. I heard the same thing tonight from Brandon, except he said there was also a movie (possibly more than one, but I didn't ask), and also something that shows where I live. Whether it be a picture of the house, or a screenshot of Google Maps, I don't know, but that's what makes me worry. I don't mind the pictures or video(s) (although the latter is kind of creepy), but something that shows where I live? No. If there really is, nothing has come about from it yet, which is definitely good considering, but it's still disconcerting. Makes me all the more glad I don't have a Facebook account though. Even stranger is how that was brought up. Some lady I've never seen before said she lost a bet because of me, and the stuff about Facebook was revealed through me telling Brandon I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Oh, and if it makes any difference, the name of the group they're in is apparently something like "The cat boy of Chatham". I am neither mere "cat" nor "boy", but not in any position to worry about that right now regardless.

b] Marissa was supposed to close tonight, but continuing with her trend as of late, she called in sick. Apparently she's given her two weeks notice as well, and I'm still not sure what's going on with her, but (this is going to sound unkind) I'll gladly take a few extra shifts here and there as a result of her quitting so I can start seeing amounts higher than $300 on my pay stubs again. Anyways, who would come in to close tonight but Eryn, to my surprise. I thought she was gone for good last time I worked with her, but she's back on the schedule now, so that's interesting. Since mentioning that reminded me as well, one of the things Melissa asked me tonight was kind of funny. With everybody crowding around her while I was standing at front cash, she asked me to tell them how I'm able to book days off simply by leaving notes for her. I know there was quite a bit of fuss when she first made that change, from me included, but I thought everybody else would have gotten used to it now. However, I see I was wrong.

c] Just yesterday night I mentioned wanting another candy cane hot chocolate. Guess what happened at work tonight? Steve offered to buy something from Tim Hortons for everybody, so that's exactly what I got <3 Certainly a nice surprise, although I still plan on getting another one come Sunday or Monday night. Then if I get paid enough on the 17th, possibly doing the same thing myself (buying something for everybody), because it's both a fun and nice thing to do, and also increases the odds of somebody else doing the same again in the future. Speaking of my days off coming up though, I'm definitely going to Real Canadian Superstore on Sunday, but I'm not as certain about either of the days after that. We'll see then, I guess.

d] Two things related to emails. Number one, I received a $15 refund from Soapier today, which I'm really hoping can be taken to mean that my order has been shipped out. Time is becoming increasingly short now, but at any rate, said $15 is being transferred to my bank account right now, just to add a little extra leeway to what's left in two weeks. The second thing is getting a reply from Streetlights, saying that the one change I wanted made to that commission is easy enough (but for some reason asked if I wanted that change made when my pointing it out in the first place would mean "Yes"), and also that the price for another one would still be $25. I would have sent her the money already, but would like to send the email with the specifics of what I want right after logging out of Paypal, so probably tomorrow. I do know what I want. It's just a matter of describing it without getting too complicated.

e] Other odds and ends. For one, my total bandwidth usage is already up to ~5GB after only a day and a half. I haven't checked Naomi's yet (and likely won't do so until the end of the month), but the computer downstairs hadn't even used 1GB when I checked it this afternoon. Yeah. Also, not that it's related, but I keep forgetting I need to think of a place to go for supper soon. While out getting groceries on Thursday, Mom asked me to pick out what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday, then some time after that asked where I wanted to go for supper. I have no idea, to be honest, but right now Pizza Hut is pretty tempting. Amusing too, because we always wanted to go there as kids but never could, for not having the money, then we just sort of grew out of that, and now here I am wanting to go there for my 25th birthday because I've wanted pizza for quite a while ^^; My birthday is on the 13th, so there's still plenty of time to make a decision, but I think it may be already.

Anyways, bedtime, because it's three minutes before 7 this time. Not good. There isn't too much to say about tomorrow right now either, but I'm definitely looking forward to bringing some cookies in to work :3 Knowing my luck I'll do that and we'll be so busy I won't have a chance to see what anybody else thinks of them, but there's that much to anticipate for now. Better than other nights, by any means~

A Decidedly Productive Night

2009-12-04T11:15:57Z

Only on three counts, to be honest, but they are as follows:

1] Found and installed a bandwidth monitoring program on the computer downstairs, as well as Naomi's and my laptops. From what Dad said, we're still having an issue with how much is being used per month, and that's the best way I can think of to see where it's all going. Possibly to me, because since I installed it earlier tonight the "SUM" field is already up at 1.27GB, but that's because I'm downloading season 6 of a new TV show in uTorrent right now. In my defense though, the program will be closed until January when that's done, which I feel is a fair enough compromise. Besides, I advised Naomi and Adam to try and stay under 20GB, and applying the same rule to myself, I should still have plenty of room to work with.

2] Made cookies. Assuming my estimate is correct, close to ninety <3 Some with vanilla pudding, some with chocolate, and even more with peanut butter (and cocoa, but I'm not sure if I should count that). Thing is, aside from the couple I might nibble on between now and then, they won't be touched until Saturday, because George was the one who gave me the idea to make them again in the first place, so it's only right to put some in a margarine tub to take to work that night (since he closes), then let everybody here pick over the rest and possibly take some more to work after that if any are left on Wednesday.

3] Other forgotten things pertaining to reinstalling XP. In particular, running both a disk and registry defragmenter, adding CCleaner to YourCPL, and moving the pagefile to a different partition, then increasing the size of it to 10GB. Maybe a bit excessive there, but Firefox gets to be quite greedy when I have more than 20 tabs open, so any extra helps, especially considering I have the space for it. Speaking of which, it was fun explaining the concept of a cache to everybody in the kitchen earlier, but I guess it's better than them blindly using programs like they were before. Among that, other questions asked were "Does IMVU use alot of bandwidth? What about going on Youtube?" and such. Fun, but I'll just see what things are like at the end of the month.

As for normal matters, I still feel a bit guilty about something that happened earlier. As I was getting in the car so we could go get groceries, I thought I heard somebody shout "Kitty!" at me, but Brandon is the only one who has ever done that, and even then, only at work, so I dismissed it as me hearing things, and sat down. Only when I looked out the window after that did I see him walking back to the corner then stand there as if he was waiting for somebody. Hopefully I'll see him tomorrow though, so I can apologize. It might not seem like that big of an issue, and really, it isn't, but despite what that friends-only entry a couple days ago may have made it sound like, I do like to be polite and generally nice, so it makes me feel a little guilty when something like that happens.

If he doesn't work tomorrow though, hopefully on Saturday, because after that, I'm off for three days in a row. I'm already making plans for them too, which consist mainly of walking. First of all, Real Canadian Superstore did, unfortunately, not still have Skittles on sale this week, but their chips were, and while I picked three bags up today (for $5), I'd like to get more while they still have that deal. Thing is, to make it worth my while and so it becomes one of the main parts of my day, I want to walk out there, which would also give me the chance to stop at Money Mart to take care of this month's fees, then possibly also Shoppers to see if they have the same cheese sticks as the one on Queen St. Then the other two nights? Normal (but hopefully long) walks to get out for some exercise, because I've been needing it lately, and also think it would be fun to stop at the Tim Hortons on Keil for another candy cane hot chocolate and maybe a donut. Weather permitting, of course, but right now I can't see there being much that would stop me.

Anyways, I think it's about time I was getting to bed tonight. The pillow thing sort of helped earlier this afternoon, so I'll be trying it again tonight, and other than that I can only think to say that I hope to have received a reply to the email I sent about getting a Christmas-themed commission earlier tonight by the time I wake up tomorrow. Preferably before too much more time goes by~

This Will Never Be Done

2009-12-03T12:04:33Z

I would just notice that. In the cut I posted yesterday, I forgot the .png extension on the "bookmarks-small-hover" image. Easily fixed, of course, but it will require Firefox to be closed, and I can't do that quite yet because I'm writing this entry. Still along those lines, I've decided instead of making a step-by-step list of what to do when I reinstall XP, next time I get around to that it would be better to create a list of the less-common things. For example, exactly how to mod Firefox's extensions in case I forget, as well as reminders to disable the welcome screen, and also to change the power options. I had a hell of a time with the latter this morning, out of forgetting to disable Windows going into standby when my laptop was closed. I woke up twice and immediately checked to see if Michele had responded to my email, both times almost falling asleep again while waiting for it to resume from standby, and the second time was greeted with a "No need to come in today" response for all my efforts. Then I promptly went back to sleep and was out until 5.

That seems to be a recurring trend lately though, which has led me to wondering if it's something to do with the weather. Possibly, but my guess is more along the lines of how early it starts getting dark these days. It seems reasonable to assume that almost anybody would associate sleeping with it being dark outside, so maybe part of my body says "It's still dark out. Stay asleep" or something to that effect. Of course, that wouldn't explain why I don't seem to be sleeping any later than 5, but I'd rather not risk seeing if I can go for longer than that right now. Anyways, my experiment for tonight will be putting pillows in my windows before going to bed, so that way I see no natural light from the point where I fall asleep to when I wake up, possibly making me less likely to sleep later, and / or making it easier to get out of bed when I do wake up. As of late I've wanted to do nothing more than lay back down and drift off to sleep again, and it hasn't always been that way.

Anyways, a curious thing happened at work tonight, and it actually won't be the first time for it, but I forgot about it before. In a nutshell, as I might have mentioned a while ago, Warren is the only one there who knew what furries are, and therefore why I had a tail and ears without me telling him. Since that night though, however long ago it was, I hadn't seen him for at least half a year. Our schedules just don't intersect that often. Still, we worked together for about half an hour one day last week, as well as for the same amount of time tonight. On the former occasion, he said something to himself that sounded like "Yeah, I forgot about that... yiffing" (yes, I know, but it's the context it's being used in here), and then tonight asked me if my parents really didn't mind me doing [some acronym related to chatting]. It was either "MUD" or "MUCK", and as I told him, I have heard of them, but never took an interest in either. Then after that he went on to say that it was something his brother was into, and how he didn't understand it, but still, it was sort of... weird. Slightly uncomfortable too, but that could simply be because I'm not used to being asked questions outside of "What're the tail and ears for?"

It's about time for bed now though. Going grocery shopping at 4 tomorrow, as I said yesterday, then after that, I might make cookies depending on what time it is. Either those or more work on Pic Pic, so it all depends on how things go then. Oh, and as for the song up there today, I heard it on the radio at work and liked it enough to find an MP3 when I got home <3 I can't quite think to explain what made it stand out at first, but it just sounds more... empty than the other music I listen to, which is cool in a way. That's about the best I'm going to come up with though. Time to go put those pillows in the window(s) and see what sort of sleep I get tonight~

Worst Decision Ever

2009-12-02T11:21:49Z

As stated yesterday, my plans for tonight were to make cookies after washing the dishes. I even went so far as to have newspaper with wax paper on top laid out to put the cookies on, and checked more than once to make sure there was enough oatmeal before realizing we didn't have anywhere near enough sugar. Peanut butter too, at that, but I was able to find several peanut-free recipes that listed pudding mix instead. We did have some of it, but alas, there's not a whole lot that can be done without sugar. Maybe I'll still make them on Thursday, or one of those three nights I have off in a row coming up next week, but that left me with alot of free time tonight, so what did I decide to do? Reinstall XP so I could figure out exact directions for Manoah. Even better, all that required clarification was which program to run first. So yeah. I've been from about midnight to right now getting everything set up again, and I gave up on typing out specific directions for myself, because it came to a point where doing that was taking too much time.

Aside from the typing though, Firefox just would not cooperate, which was fun. Well, not Firefox, per se, but rather one of the extensions, being Personal Menu. For some reason, replacing that extension's files with the ones I had backed up on my USB stick (to add custom icons) didn't work, and after that it took me at least an hour to figure out how the CSS file was laid out. Since it's difficult to explain without said file, here's the relevant part of it:

/*set buttons' images */
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-menu{list-style-image:url(menu-small.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-menu[chromedir="rtl"]{list-style-image:url(menu-rtl-small.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-menu:hover {list-style-image:url(menu-small-hover.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-menu:hover:active {list-style-image:url(menu-small-hover-active.png)}

#cm-bookmarks{list-style-image:url(bookmarks.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-bookmarks{list-style-image:url(bookmarks-small.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-bookmarks:hover{list-style-image:url(bookmarks-small-hover)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-bookmarks:hover:active{list-style-image:url(bookmarks-small-hover-active.png)}

#cm-history{list-style-image:url(history.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-history{list-style-image:url(history-small.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-history:hover{list-style-image:url(history-small-hover.png)}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #cm-history:hover:active{list-style-image:url(history-small-hover-active.png)}

Either I was getting the filenames wrong, leaving out the toolbar[iconsize="small"] bits where the icons were small, or using #cm-menu{...} for all of them instead of #cm-button name here, and just... I've had enough for tonight. There are still a few minor details that need to be tweaked, such as the focused tab's color, then other things in Windows itself as well, but I'm not going to so much as think about those until tomorrow. Possibly quite near the end of the day, at that, because Michele hasn't emailed me yet about coming in, so I sent her one before starting the dishes earlier today, then there's also work after that. Towards Heart and Stroke though, I suppose it's as good an indication as any that she doesn't need me this week if she hasn't emailed me yet, but all the same, there's a possibility that she's been so busy she hasn't had a chance, so I'm not going to get my hopes up. As for work, nothing out of the ordinary there. Manoah and I are closing, which will give me ample opportunity to ask if he needs anymore help with his computer, and otherwise, hopefully it won't be too busy.

After that, grocery shopping on Thursday, but the only thing I'm looking forward to about that at this point is seeing if they still have bags of Skittles on sale at 3 for $5. They did last time I went, so of course I bought one of each type, but they've been sitting on my bedside table since then, because I haven't wanted to eat them for hopes that I could still buy more at that price, and have them last even longer whenever I decide to open a bag. To go a completely different direction now, the other unfortunate thing about today was not being able to make much progress on Pic Pic. Finished two more mazes before going downstairs to wash the dishes, but I haven't touched it since then, outside of making sure desmume still works properly just now. I'll definitely finish the other three in that set of 5 tomorrow, but doing more after that remains to be seen.

In the interest of getting a decent sleep just in case I am needed at Heart and Stroke tomorrow though, I'm off to bed. Hopefully Michele responds before I wake up, because otherwise I'm going to assume I have this week off too~

Too Much of a Good Thing

2009-12-01T11:02:41Z

To think it's only 5:30 right now and I'm just about dead tired. I woke up at 3 today, actually feeling quite refreshed and ready to go, but laid back down until 4, and have felt ever so slightly sluggish since, which did nothing but increase as the day went by. Work was still decent despite that, and the walk home was completely awesome thanks to the first sign of snow I've seen this year, as well as the wind. Quite fitting that November was quite mild, and now, on the first day of December, conditions outside have changed just enough for typical weather around this time of the year to come our way. I might have even walked home along a more lengthy route tonight just to enjoy it, but had to get home in time to copy my XP SP 3 CD for Manoah, which he picked up on his way home hoping it will solve his computer problems. I don't see why not, because it's the same CD I've given him before when he asked, but last time I used it to reinstall XP on my laptop, I had to also make use of a couple other less-legal programs to disable WGA. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume he'd have to do the same, but without reinstalling XP myself I have no idea of what specific steps I took, and I know they were different from what the readmes included with said programs advised. I have three days off coming up though, so maybe I'll do that then (it certainly wouldn't hurt, save for not being able to work on Pic Pic that day). We'll see.

As for what I wrote about yesterday, my expectations were completely wrong. The only thing Dad said to me even remotely linkable to the content of my entry yesterday was "It's nice we were able to talk for a bit" after I told him what my schedule for the coming week was on the way out the door to work. That's not to say I'm going to back off from the main thought posed in that entry (as much as I'd like to, in all honesty), but I'd like to see it as something to accomplish by the end of 2010, since this year will be ending in one month. Yeah, that thought may be laughable, because looking back now I haven't yet met any of the resolutions I set out for myself at the beginning of this year, but at any rate, just... I'm not sure what to say. Maybe it'll happen, and maybe it won't. It's something that needs to sooner or later, however, and by my definition at least, the time of "sooner" has long since passed.

Concerning usual topics, Pic Pic is still progressing pretty well, but I might not get as much done on it as I have been recently tomorrow. I have the day off, but not without doing the dishes, and staying down there for longer to make some more of those no-bake cookies, not only because George wants more and there might be enough to make two batches, one of which could be poured into a brownie pan and cut into squares instead of made into blob-shaped cookies, but also to give Mom and Dad a chance to talk to me, if it'll at all mean they'll back off a bit, so to speak. I'm all for not provoking further problems in this situation, but I do wish they would leave well enough alone. That can't happen in this case though, so a compromise is the next closest option to my mind. Assuming Adam works on Wednesday I might also use the time he's in bed to scan at least one of those notebooks as well, but that reminds me that Michele still needs to send me an email about coming in this week. I sort of hope she doesn't, but it seems more likely that she'll want me to help her (or somebody else) finish up whatever last-minute things need to be done before the holidays. I know I would, anyways.

For right now though, bed, and likely more interesting dreams in such. I haven't been able to remember any, unfortunately, but over the past couple nights I've had at least four that were all going somewhere or were intriguing / interesting in some way or another. That might sound boring or normal, but most of my dreams don't seem quite as... exciting as the ones recently have been. As with anything else, I have at least one theory as to why that is, but it's too early to go into detail right now. Maybe tomorrow, but I'll have plenty to do before that~