Whooo, no infection, probably just a nasty virus. So, plenty of rest and fluids for me. If the cats let me sleep, that is.

I’ve created black t-shirt variations for nearly all of the t-shirts in the cafepress store that didn’t already have them. I was also interested to find out that they now have red t-shirts available; the “dark t-shirt” allows you to select black or cardinal as a color.

There’s so much I want to get done, and so little energy. Tons to read & review, groceries to get, cheesecake and sundae fixings to make, the renaissance festival to attend, RPG material I want to work on, the oil to clean off of the back stairs so we can let the cats back into the (finished) basement, cleaning, the downstairs bedroom to prep for a friend’s visit over the next week… But it’s 8:10 pm and I’m seriously thinking about going to bed.

Traditional edit: Had to add a link to Listen, Google; it’s the least you can do. Otherwise known as attempting to gain internet fame via putting food on your animal. Follow all the links; it’s worth taking a gander at Oolong the rabbit and the LimeKitten. Silly fun link of the day found on FARK naturally.

Area of Effect: Size does matter
Shirts, mugs, more

Technorati Tags: cafe press, cafepress.com, t-shirts

I’m pretty much stunned by how well Joni E. Johnston’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology, Third Edition covers its subject, while keeping its tone light and involving. It does not sacrifice depth for readability; nor does it sacrifice readability for depth. This is one of those rare books I wish I could put into the hands of nearly everyone out there, if just to correct some of the gross misconceptions that persist regarding such issues as self-esteem and mental illness.

In unrelated news, yes, our breaker panel is completely replaced. I swear I felt like I was going into computer withdrawal while the power was out. I’m glad we got that done; the electrician found a blackened wire inside the wall. Today we’re supposed to have the inspector come out to take a look at everything, so no nap for me, which is a shame because I didn’t sleep well and I’m all sleepy. *yawn* But I seem to be getting stuff done, so, that’s good.

Speaking of which, it feels very odd to no longer be moving old reviews over to the new reviews blog. It took quite a while because we had more than 450 reviews. (No, that isn’t a misprint. I’m a reviewing fiend.) And that doesn’t include my husband’s old d20 module reviews, which he’s going to move over himself sometime soon. With my ADD/bipolar/etc. issues it can be difficult for me to stick with one thing over the long haul, but I’ve been reviewing relatively consistently for about 8 years now I think, so it seems the habit is here to stay. Which is why I’m giving in and doing more of it. I have a stack of review books a mile high, and while some days I’m too restless to sit still and read for too long at a time, I’m really enjoying working my way through them.

Oh, I should add a link to my husband’s latest blog post, Application Service Providers and Beef Bouillon Flavored Jello. You have to understand, my husband can be an awfully fun story-teller, and once he’s related the beef jello story to someone, they almost invariably ask him to tell it again and again to everyone else they introduce him to. I never mind hearing it again, of course, because he tells it so dramatically that it’s as fun to hear the tenth time as the first.

Edited to add: I just had to add a link to i-Mockery’s send-up of Halloween costumes for pets. They’re right–most of the cats look like they’re about to rip the face off of the cameraman. Link found on FARK naturally.

My hook never lands in fishable water
Shirts, mugs, more!

Technorati Tags: book reviews, books, psychology, reviews

Okay, so “coolth” isn’t really a word, but I always thought it should be.

One of the nifty things about replacing your A/C house unit at the end of its viable lifespan–i.e., fifteen years of use–is that you really notice how much technology has improved since the last unit. We have it set at the same temperature as the last one and yet it feels cooler in here. It’s also quieter. There’s a nifty new filter system attached that has a big ol’ filter you only have to change out once a year.

Looks like we’re going to have to get a couple thousand dollars’ worth of electrical work done after this, though, since there are some things that aren’t up to code or aren’t entirely safe for one reason or another. Sure, odds are they wouldn’t cause a problem, but if they did, the problem they’d cause would be the house burning down. I don’t want to play the odds on something like that. Well, I guess the furniture will be delayed yet further until we pay that off.

We had to separate the cats today–the contractors are finishing off the last of the ductwork and such, and the cats refuse to peaceably share a room. Can’t say I blame ‘em. You can really tell that Siamese is one of the breeds that got mixed into the Cornish Rex line–wow are those two talkative! Any time they hear one of us moving around they detonate.

Oh yeah, umm, another new cafepress design (yes, I am insane), as usual available in shirts, buttons, stickers, mugs, etc. I call it “Area of Effect”:

I couldn’t resist the addition of the, uh, wand.

Technorati Tags: air conditioning, cafe press, cafepress.com, coffee, heat, chocolate, baking, t-shirts

Well, the A/C is off again as we get our new A/C and furnace installed.

The good:

• No more bailing out the A/C’s bedpan… uh, I mean, bucket… every 2-3 hours.

• No more turning the A/C off at night for worry of the bucket overflowing.
• Hopefully no repeats of last winter’s oil leak filling the house with fumes.
• We shouldn’t have to replace either system again for a good long time (fingers crossed).
• In a miracle of good timing, I think today must be the first relatively cool day we’ve had this summer so far, or at least this month–it’s only 77 F (as of an hour ago anyway), with a projected high of 82 and partly cloudy.

The bad (or at least mildly unpleasant):

• No A/C today. It may be cool, but it’s rather humid (82%).

• The bill. *shudder* Looks like we’ll have to delay getting some of the furniture we want.
• Having to keep the cats shut in the back room so they don’t get underfoot and stick their noses into the work, especially as Selene would probably try to eat something horrid for her. They have plenty of fresh water, but the air will be fairly still and humid, and they just HATE being cooped up (can’t blame ‘em). In fact, I just heard the first yowling and hissing–back in a sec.

Ahem. ANYway. In wonderful news, we FINALLY found a good Chinese restaurant here. The ones we tried before now really haven’t been very good. This one has wonderful food, including an awesome dried shredded beef recipe. These folks still do things right–recipes with a sweet/savory taste still have a touch of sweet to them; they aren’t drowned in sugar-syrup the way a lot of restaurants have started doing things.

Oh yeah, and one new Cafepress design, I think my favorite to date:

Loot Tax–Shirts, Bags, Buttons, Magnets, Stickers, and More!

Technorati Tags: cafe press, cafepress.com, Chinese, food, heat, air conditioning, t-shirts

*shudder* Totally exhausted this morning, and half-memories tell me it’s because of a particularly intricate series of nightmares. Wish I could remember more of them; they’d make great fiction fodder.

Speaking of sleep, my old neck pillow–a simple round tube filled with buckwheat hulls–is way too old and needs to be replaced. Besides, although it keeps my old neck injury from hurting, it’s uncomfortable in other ways. When I inevitably roll onto my side and my ear presses against it, my ear ends up squooshed and painful because the pillow is kind of hard.

This weekend we got me a “memory foam” pillow–one of those things that’s supposed to conform to the shape of your head. Unfortunately it still wasn’t enough neck support. It felt absolutely luxurious, but after several nights the agony returned. So, my husband has a new pillow. Next I’m going to try the Viscotech memory foam support pillow. Hopefully the curvature will be deep enough, while being soft enough that sleeping on my side won’t hurt either. And hopefully it will last me for many, many years at that price!

You’d think that after 14 years my neck would be be better–and well, in some ways it is. A whole lot of yoga and qigong released some of the pressure on the occipital nerve and re-aligned my spine more properly. Unfortunately I just can’t do anything that presses my head forward and reduces the curvature of my neck or it all comes back, and there’s nothing like head-splitting agony to make it easy to remember the right habits.

Technorati Tags: health, neck pain, neck pillow

Don’t get your service contract for your furnace from the same folks that sell you oil. Now we know. After all, they have not only no incentive to make sure your furnace runs efficiently, but plenty of incentive to make sure it doesn’t.

Since our furnace folk failed to show up (twice) to fix our air conditioning, we had someone else came out. He actually made it on less than an hour’s notice to give us an estimate. Instead he ended up putting together a temporary fix that at least lets us run the A/C, although we have to empty a bucket of the condensation run-off once an hour or so (so, we turn it off at night).

He checked out the furnace while he was here because it got flooded by the runoff leak. When he opened up a part of it soot puffed out; he looked at the built-up, rusted-out interior and said, “this hasn’t been serviced in a while, has it?” But the thing is–it has. Apparently they just weren’t doing much service when they serviced it. At some point the guy said, “I don’t care if you get a service contract with us or someone else, or don’t get one at all. But I tell people, ‘for the love of god, if you get a service contract, don’t get it with the company that supplies your oil!’” (They also had it set for minimum fuel efficiency, apparently.)

Long story short–we’re looking at replacing both A/C unit and furnace. The A/C unit has reached the end of its viable lifespan (been running about 15 years apparently) and the furnace not only is fairly old, but has been very poorly maintained, and now flooded.

So, the meerkat story. Here’s the thing: some nine-year-old girl climbed over several barriers at a zoo to pet the meerkats, and naturally got bitten. Her parents had two options–have her get rabies shots, or have the entire family of meerkats euthanized and tested for rabies.

Apparently their poor little baby shouldn’t have to suffer through rabies shots–even though they might have freakin’ taught her that there are consequences for her actions–so they had the meerkats euthanized. It’s enough to make me sick. People can be such selfish asses. Basically what they’ve now taught their daughter is that her comfort is more important than the lives of others.

Of course, the fact that they don’t hold her responsible for her actions goes a long way toward explaining why she’d do something that stupid in the first place; she’s already learned that it’s okay for her to ignore the rules. It would have taken her some time to clamber over all those barriers, yet apparently either her parents weren’t paying any attention to her during that time or didn’t stop her. These all say interesting things about the parenting skills of these two.

Link found on FARK.

Technorati Tags: animals, fark, heat, links, meerkats

Blargh. I know there are plenty of people who live in hot, humid areas without the benefit of air conditioning, and that I’m a total wimp. It’s 85 or so upstairs, humid, and without the usual benefit of having the air in the house filtered through a hepa filter. Allergies, heat and humidity all tend to give me difficulties even when taken separately; together, they knock me flat. Even downstairs it’s getting sticky and warm despite being almost entirely underground, probably as much because we’ve spent almost all of our home-time down here as anything else. And of course, the grass pollen count has been particularly bad of late. I signed up for Pollen.com’s automatic daily pollen emails–rather handy.

On the plus side we used the air conditioning malfunction as an excuse to get out of the house this weekend and go see some movies, etc. We saw “The Descent” on Saturday; I was surprised at the ways in which it tended to depart from horror movie formulas, and quite enjoyed it. Yesterday we saw “A Scanner Darkly”, which was pretty fascinating. We also picked up some books–perhaps more than was wise–and I imagine they’ll find their ways into my reviews.

I have no idea how early the repair folks are coming today; hopefully very early. After they leave I imagine I’ll take a nap in the cooler air (assuming they fix it) and then hopefully get some work done. I’m in the middle of reading “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology” for review, and I’m hoping to review the “Storyweaver” software this week.

Technorati Tags: fark, heat, allergies

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I guess I won’t be moving many reviews over this weekend, or doing much else with the site. It’s August in Maryland and we’ve had to shut off our air conditioning for the weekend so the condenser runoff doesn’t totally flood our furnace, ductwork, and basement; I expect we’ll spend most of the weekend off someplace cooler. All I can say is, thank goodness this didn’t happen during the truly hot weather!

It seems our car is having transmission problems, so until it gets fixed (hopefully today) we aren’t driving it any more than necessary.

I watched most of Eureka on Sci-Fi last night before I had to set the DVR to record and get some sleep, and I definitely enjoyed it. While it’s true that it’s fun fluff, the thing that impressed me was the characterization. The characters are colorful and full of life and detail. They might seem like archetypes at first, but the show just keeps layering on details until they become something much more. And really, that’s the key to creating good characters.

I’m currently reading “The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier” for review and Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” for fun (although of course I’ll review it). I also have “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology” next to me to start reading for review. It’s been a little while since I took any psych courses so I’m curious to see what the intro-level material is saying these days.

I have the urge to write an extended entry about something, but I’m sleepy this morning, so I’ll spare you for now!

My husband is starting his new job. Since this means he won’t have 2+ hours of commuting every day now, we’re finally–no really this time–getting back to the South Beach Diet. We’re also finally getting back to the gym.

In a lot of ways his previous job was great, and any discussion of job content certainly isn’t my purview. But I’m so grateful that he should have more normal hours now and a MUCH shorter commute. It’s still the tech industry so he’s bound to have some long nights, particularly during crunch times, but it shouldn’t be as unpredictable and frequent. It’s really hard to do any cooking (or any other hobby), not to mention go to the gym, when you literally never know from day to day when you’re getting home.
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