Shattered

Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for our physical science lesson. What happens when you put a snow globe, which is filled with liquid, into an ordinary plastic storage bin and then proceed to place it outside during the winter? If your answer was that the liquid inside it solidifies and then thaws, cracking the globe glass as it does, then you are absolutely right! And I have the ruined snow globes to prove it.

This one used to be my favorite one, but as you can see it’s now ruined. Even my Winnie the Pooh one, which surprisingly didn’t crack open, is ruined because from being damp nearly all of the characters on the outside of the globe have fallen off.

I know it was an accident and that my mother thought that the bin with my globes in it was inside in my room and not out on the back porch, but even so it doesn’t change the fact that they’re now ruined. And it just had to be them, didn’t it? Anything else and I wouldn’t be as upset. But I guess nobody really knew or understood how much those snow globes meant to me. They were some of the very few possessions of mine that I actually really care about.

I’m sure I’ll eventually be able to replace them, but it’s not going to be any time soon. Yet with every day I wait, it will be harder since they’re retired and I’m already having a hard time finding people selling them on sites like Ebay. But I’ll figure something out, I always do. Plus the search is leading me to a bunch of other globes that I’m falling in love with and want to eventually buy. But that won’t be until I’m out on my own and actually have room for them.

If we learned anything out of the whole experience: double check the storage bins when you’re deciding whether to put them out on the back porch or upstairs in Whitney’s room.

Thanks for the Broken Computer

So the static issue of last night was resolved by turning off integrated audio… That is, until I shut my computer down. Turned it back on this morning to find that the static was back and worse than ever. I checked all the settings and integrated audio was still turned off, so that definitely wasn’t the issue.

The boy and I decided to get creative and do some testing and it turns out that the static is only audible when I have my headset or speakers plugged into the jacks on the front of the computer. If I plug them in at the back of the computer (in either the integrated jacks with integrated turned back on, or into the jacks on my X-Fi sound card with integrated turned off) there’s nothing. Not even the tiniest little pop. So once again I hopped on the line with Dell support.

After another hour-long support session the technician finally believes me when I say there is no problem with the jacks in the back of the computer, it’s just the front and agrees to send a technician out to fix the problem. But now I’m really hoping that this technician calls to come tomorrow because if he doesn’t then I’ll have to go through all this crap again to get a technician to come to my condo since as of Sunday that’s where my computer and I will be. It just really pisses me off that companies like Dell send out computers that are broken out-of-the-box. I’m paying thousands of dollars for a machine that works and certainly not getting what I paid for.

Other than the fact that they shipped me a computer with bum i/o jacks, I’m really happy with my new baby. I love the screen the most of all.

I never used to like widescreen monitors but lately I’ve been falling into love with them. And I’m used to the 15″ widescreen of my laptop, so having this huge screen is really different and is absolutely making my week!

New Computer Fail

You would think that when a company sells a computer with a sound card installed in it instead of the normal integrated audio, they would at least DISABLE said integrated audio before shipping the computer. Well apparently with Dell this is not the case. I opened and set up my brand new Studio XPS 9000 only to find that no matter what all I could hear through my speakers / headset was STATIC. Even if my sound was muted. It pissed me off, but I never thought about the integrated audio so I didn’t check that.

Well I just got off the computer and phone with Dell support and hopefully now my issue is resolved because integrated audio has been turned off!

But yeah, new computer is about all I’ve done today. I was going to play some Xbox, but I never got around to it. I miss using my pretty controller!

I love the fact that my controller is pink! Michael got it for me when he bought me my Xbox and it never fails to get comments. Apparently not a lot of people have seen the pink controllers because every time someone comes over they’re like “you’ve got a PINK controller?” It makes me excited that amongst my friends I’m apparently unique.

Too Tired

Today has been the longest day for me in quite a while. It’s only 10:35 and I am about as dead as a doornail.

It all started by not getting to bed until about 4 a.m. and then having to wake up at 8 so that I could go to a doctor’s appointment where I basically get told “you have allergies” again, handed a bunch of prescriptions and then sent on my way. At least I have my insurance back so I don’t have to pay the $150+ for the pretty much useless visit.

After that the boy and I (probably stupidly) hopped in the car and took off to see Kyle and get some errands done for me before I have to go back to school. We spent most of the day down there and while we didn’t get to hang out with Kyle much because he had to work, we still had some fun.

That, and Mike finally got to go to Mikado, that teppanyaki restaurant that I talked about a while ago. From the very first time the chef set the hibachi on fire, he was in love. We got so much food that I couldn’t even eat half of mine. Oh well, it just means I have food for the next couple days!

I was supposed to drive home, but I was so tired that we had to switch and Mike drove the rest of the way while I slept. Not even my terror over his driving was enough to keep me awake, and that’s really saying something about how pooped I am.

We got home to find that finally all the parts to my new computer have arrived!

But now history has been made, since at this very moment my lovely, powerful, shiny, new computer that I have been anxiously awaiting since it was first ordered is sitting snug in its box. And I’m going to bed.

I'm a Cat With No Legs

After not getting to sleep until roughly 6 a.m. this morning, I’ve spent almost all of my waking hours today as a pseudo-zombie. I haven’t had the energy to do anything at all except loaf around and watch Doctor Who and Gilmore Girls on DVD. I feel like I don’t really have legs, so its pointless to try and go anywhere or do anything.

Sometimes I wish that I was a pet instead of a person. Everyone that I know has pets that just loaf around all day and sleep. To me that sounds like the perfect life. Well, as long as you have owners that care about you. If I could nap almost all day every day I might actually be able to catch up with my sleep.

Doesn’t he look lazy?

That’s what I want to do: lay around and look cute all day long. The Pudge sure does a good job of it so it can’t be that hard.

But alas, I’m not an animal, I’m a human. Therefore I have to get up in the morning and actually do something with my days. Though while I’m on vacation I’ve admittedly not been doing that much. Just some playing around with websites and PHP which can be quite fun at times. Ive been fooling around with some stuff for XMB that might help out over at Ecstasy and it’s making me really miss the days of Angelic and Hexadecimal. But I don’t have time to start a forum right now, so I’ll stick to being a postwhore over at EMB.

Winter Wonderhell

I haven’t been out of my house in four days and really, I’m not planning on leaving any time soon either. The outside world has become much to unbearable for me and therefore I must remain safely inside where the evil cannot reach me. Hell, I even fixed it so that the dog’s outside chain comes in the house and when he wants to go out we hook him up, open the door while he runs out and then slam it shut again.

What evil you ask?

I just cannot, for the life of me, justify going out there in that. I absolutely despise snow and ice and generally all weather related to winter. People go on and on about how pretty snow is, and how nice it is to watch it falling… Not me. I see snow falling and I am horrified. Because snow means cold. I’m cold when it’s 80 degrees out, so how do you think I get on when it’s less than 32?

The answer: badly. I’m absolutely miserable when I’m cold, and people who know me can attest to that. It’s just not something I cope with well. Some people who don’t like the cold actually like winter because they enjoy wearing sweaters and drinking hot chocolate. Well, I’m not a sweater person… I wear tank tops 90% of the time, and while hot chocolate is good every now and again, I’m not a big chocolate person, so neither of those things bring me much comfort.

I have always said that if snow was not cold, it would be my absolute favorite thing on the planet. I used to love to go sledding and play in the snow and maybe I’ll be that way again someday. But for now I will just stay inside and hide.

Technology Kicking My Ass

I am in pain. Physical, “oh my God I can’t move” pain. All thanks to a video game.

I bought the Wii Fit a couple days after Christmas after trying out my friend Kyle’s and deciding that I liked it. I played it a little bit before New Years, but just started using it regularly yesterday and already my whole body hurts. It’s not a “I did something wrong and hurt myself” soreness, but more like a “I haven’t used those muscles in a long time” pain. It’s really fun though, so the pain is worth it. While you’re doing it you don’t even realize that you’re working up a sweat since some of the games are so damn fun and catchy. My favorites so far are Rhythm Kung Fu, Birds-Eye Bullseye, and Rhythm Boxing. I’ve been too scared to try out any of the Yoga or Strenth Training ones since I tried them out on Kyle’s and almost killed myself (I have very poor balance).

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to pick up my new computer so I’ll have time to play with it before I go back to school. It’s a Christmas present from my mom since I’ve been without a desktop computer for over a year and my poor little laptop is starting to feel the strain of full-time use. It’s not the greatest new computer out there, but it’s just fine for me and wasn’t too expensive. Here’s a few of the stats:

Intel Core i7-975 processor (3.33GHz)
8GB DDR3 SDRAM
Nvidia GeForce GTS 240
500GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive
Combo CD/DVD/Blu-Ray R/RW drive
Genuine Windows 7 Professional, 64bit
22″ HD Widescreen monitor

Needless to say, I’m really excited about finally getting it. I go back to school on the 10th, and it will be nice to have a computer where I can have Photoshop and Illustrator open at the same time without having to worry about the amount of memory I’m using, or whether or not my graphics card is going to overheat while I’m playing a game.