Alien Spouse

Bathroom - Twenty/Tenned!

I've been following feeds on Tumblr for a while now, and I did swipe the Alien Spouse Tumblr name but I haven't actually posted anything there.  I find it's tricky enough to keep up with my blog, Facebook and Twitter, let's not add another epic time suck to the game right?  Still there are a number of great Tumblrs that I enjoy reading, and I have come to particularly like "Unfuck Your Habitat".

It's a sort of support hub, with motivational swearing, rewards in the form of celebratory gifs (The acolytes of UfYH regularly post before-and-after photos on their own Tumblrs, which they tag for the UfYH guru to share with the group and award gifs as appropriate) and a database of cleaning techniques.  The really genius part of the whole thing is that it follows a very basic rule, which is not to try marathoning your way through all the cleaning in one go, instead cleaning sessions are broken up into 20/10s; that is, work for twenty minutes and then take a break for ten minutes, and repeat until you have finished or run out of time for that day.

There is an app for the iPod (but not yet for the Android - She's working on it though!), and I bought it the other day so that I could both support the Tumblr and use the tools it provides.  Rather hilariously Apple will not allow any app to have the word fuck in the title, so it's been renamed Unfilth Your Habitat; equally hilarious and annoying is the fact that ALL of the negative reviews are about the use of bad language, when that's clearly mentioned in the app description and signposted by the bloody logo.  Honestly people.

Anyway...

So Doc and I have a new agreement in place where in we intend to bring the flat up to code, and then each do a one or two 20/10s a day to keep the place in order.  Today Doc did the recycling, cleaned the litter trays and emptied the bins - He marathoned it, because that's what he was in the mood for.  Then I used the apps 20/10 timer (I picked a very fun techno ring tone as my transitional alarm - Love it!) to clean the bath & the toilet; and then thoroughly scrub the bathroom floor (on my hands and knees with a scrubbing brush and everything).  It took four sessions to get it all done properly, but that was a lot less intimidating to me than marathon cleaning and I think I did a better job than if I'd allowed myself to get tired and frustrated halfway through.

I think we'll overhaul the kitchen next, and then it's just maintenance all around.  It feels distinctly pleasant to have such an elegantly manageable plan in mind, let's just hope we can stick to it.

Sleeping and Waking.

As I've mentioned before, even though Eva is sleeping like a log at night (which, again, I am thrilled by and hope that I'm not jinxing), I am still woken up very easily by any noise in our apartment.  On Saturday night we went to bed as usual, and I was jolted awake by really loud music at quarter to four in the morning.  The music was coming from our living room.  Which was odd. Doc C was sound asleep and so was Eva, and I didn't want them to be woken up, so I got up to see what the hell was going on.

The stereo was blaring a Michael Jackson concert.  The cats were awake and were just kind of nervously milling around the room, so I thought that one of them must have sat on the remote and turned on the stereo.  I wanted to turn off the music, obviously, but I couldn't see the remote so I just pulled the power cable out and went back to bed.  When I got up the next day I plugged it back in, and found the remote; it was right in front of the stereo but there was a lot of other bits and bobs around it which made it seem very unlikely that the cats could have touched it.

So I have no idea what that was about, and it hasn't happened again.  Weird.

This week is pleasantly truncated by Thanksgiving, not that it makes any difference to my schedule really but it is lovely to have Doc C at home for a nice long weekend.  So there will be lots of sleep most likely.

To kick off the week, on Monday night we took an impromptu over-night trip to our friends Randy and Laura's house, which is where has been Doc C staying during the week this semester.  The reason we chose that evening for our first overnight experiment with Eva was because Randy and Laura would be away at a conference, so if, Eva's usually excellent sleep pattern was disrupted by the change of location, then the only people she would keep awake would be us.  As it happened she slept just as well in their house as she does in ours, so we will be able to visit them when they are actually at home!  Yay!  (Although their poor cats won't be happy about that, they were really not comfortable with there being a baby in the house and hid from her.)

Malfunction.

What is it with lap tops? We've had our current HP laptop for less than six months, and the fan has stopped working; this doesn't sound like too much of an issue in the winter to me, but the damn thing keeps shutting itself down after a couple of hours!

Blogging will therefore be patchy until we envoke our warranty and get this sorted out.

Grrrrrh...

Early Alarm.

I don't think that I've mentioned that Eva is really good about sleeping at night, I didn't mention it because a) I didn't want to jinx it and b) it's just so smug isn't it, to say "My 7 week old baby sleeps at night"? So smug and not at all helpful to anyone who might wonder what magic I've weaved to achieve this, because really it is all her! She just likes to sleep at night!

Eva usually sleeps for a few hours in the evening whilst Doc C and I have dinner and watch TV, and then she'll settle down for a nice long stretch from her last nappy change at midnight until six in the morning.  There are the occasional snuffly noises at around 3, but really that's it and she doesn't actually fully wake up then unless she's unusually uncomfortable.

The thing is, though, that I'm still woken up by anything that sounds remotely like Eva's voice; so if one of the cats simply miaows outside our bedroom door I'm wide awake instantly, so it's a good thing that they don't tend to do that very often.  Last night I was jolted awake at four in the morning, Eva was completely zonked, Doc C was also asleep and there were no cats to be heard; I settled back down to sleep and then I heard the noise that had clearly woken me up.

It was my damned phone.

Somehow the stupid thing always runs out of power at the worst possible time, and then it starts making these plaintive beeps avery few minutes to indicate it requires recharging.  It is SO annoying, especially when you have a young baby who is perfectly capable of waking you up to be fed but crucially has not, to be woken up by your phone! Ugh!

Actually I haven't had a phone I really liked since I signed up with Verizon (the Samsung Juke was probably the least problematic) and I am beginning to suspect that Verizon only has slightly crappy cell phones, specifically so that one feels compelled to get a smart phone and therefore have to pay more for the data plan necessary to make that smart phone function properly.  It's paranoid I know but, seriously I research my options every time I'm due an upgrade and I just keep getting lemons that wake me up at inconvenient times.

Squirrel and Nut.

This afternoon I was in our bedroom and there was a weird loud scritchy noise coming from just outside the window.  I looked out, and there was a squirrel draped over a small branch gnawing at a nut.

I loved how nonchalent the wee beastie was; just hanging out in his tree, eating his nut, totes happy.

I also filmed it, but I am having a really difficult time downloading the film to the computer from the camera data card.  It's only 90 seconds of footage, yet it is taking FOREVER via the wi-fi link and the card reader keeps getting turned off by the lap top.  I don't particularly care about this short film, but what about when Evalyn does something that needs to be filmed?  Hello?  First words?  First smile?  Clearly I'm going to have to fix this technical issue before it messes up something important.  Updates as they happen!

Three Days After the Move.

It is SO nice to have the internet up and running again, even if it is the old school cable version until we pick up our own wireless router (It's a bit mean of Charter to not tell you they are retracting wireless, if only because it means the poor engineer on the job has to explain why he's taking your old wireless router away with him. I could tell our guy was sick of having that conversation.)

Anyway, we are here in Asheville now and just getting the flat organised.  It feels like for every box I unpack there are another three lurking behind it, but we are making some progress I'm sure.  Hey at least we've got the kettle out, so we can have tea!

Both cats seem to have settled in already, it helps a lot that the apartment is surrounded by trees so they have plenty of birds to stare at longingly.  We've also let them out onto the balcony, because there really isn't any way they can get off it (apart from old-fashioned jumping, which I'm not totally convinced they wouldn't be stupid enough to try).  This is a huge success with both cats, and I'm 90% sure they don't even remember the old house now.  They do only have teeny tiny cat brains after all.

As for the humans, we seem to be settling in quite well too. I think this could be a pretty good place to live... Once I get rid of all of these damn boxes...

New Laptop.

We have decided to get rid of our Dell desktop, because after four years it's become something of an unwieldy paperweight. Doc also took our laptop to the university's computer clinic, because we suspected that I had seriously maimed it; actually it turns out I had kind of killed it.  This left us with something of a gap in our technology, because nice as the iPad is, it's simply not designed to do everything we need it to do.

So after work today we went to Staples and bought a new HP laptop.  Squee!

Doc is kind of freaking out about spending money on things like this right now, but honestly we can't move to a new city with a new baby without the necessary tech to hand.

Blog and Baby Update.

So!  I heard back from Typepad, and there are a couple of things I can try to resume posting properly, which would be, you know, nice.

In the meantime, a quick Eva update: She is fine and has a nice healthy heartbeat which we heard today in our monthly check-up.

In said monthly check-up I had my glucose levels tested (which I think is to check for pre-natal diabetes) and anything under 140 was fine - My blood scored 120! Yay! We had a doughnut on the way back to the office to celebrate!

We were also given information on local birthing classes, and discovered we should have signed up for them in week twenty... Nearly two months ago... Oh.  Whoops.  On the one hand I sort of feel like Doc and I didn't do our homework, but on the other hand I sort of assumed that my doctor would give me a nudge at around the normal time to sign up, I mean she has the leaflets right there after all!  Anyway, we still have plenty of time so I'm not too worried about it, and what are they really going to teach me anyway?  I just push when the doctor tells me to, right?

Eurovision Anticipation.

Hello Friday! I am SO pleased to see you!

And it's not just because tomorrow is the Eurovision, but I will admit that does have a little something to do with it.

Actually maybe quite a lot, because Doc C and I have plans to curl up in front of the computer and revel in a glorious celebration of Euro Pop.  I actually rescheduled a haircut specifically to make sure that we didn't miss a single moment of the wonder.

Bring it On!  Squee!

Technical iSsues.

For the past few days I've been coming home, writing a blog post on the iPad, hitting publish and watching as absolutely nothing happens.  It doesn't save the post, it doesn't publish the post and the rest is silence (or blank screen to be more accurate). Inevitably I forget that until the next time I sit down to write a blog post and... Nothing happens... I think it must be something to do with the iPad's Typepad app since I can publish from other computers, but I don't know what that problem might be or how to fix it.

Not to worry, you haven't missed anything earth shattering - Last night's lost blog post was all about FINALLY finding a book of knitting instructions that could coherently explain Kitchener Stitch (why is this so difficult? Mostly the other instructions I found never mentioned when I was supposed to drop the damn stitch I was working on and move onto the next.  ugh.) and I know how desperate you must be to read all about that!

Still, it's annoying.  After sitting at my desk all day, I don't want to go into the study to turn on the desktop and sit in there - I want to be blogging whilst I recline on the sofa with at least one cat settled on me and a police procedural on the television.  That is how you are supposed to blog. It is the industry standard, damn it!

Pinteresting, Very Pinteresting.

Oh! A weird hodge podge of my photos are turning up on Pinterest!  

I'm not sure why people are linking to me for the "TARDamask" image, because that's a Threadless t-shirt and the actual link is but a click away on that post.

The most popular of my own photos are the perennial favourite pictures of my pink net underskirt, with the origami cherry blossoms following closely behind - So I'm strongly associated with pink as far as Pinterest is concerned.

Examining the Boiler Entrails.

This morning we were woken up about an hour before the alarm went off by the sound of rushing water. I immediately thought that one of the cats had jumped into the kitchen sink and somehow knocked the tap on, if only it had been that cartoonish a solution. What had actually happened was a pipe on our hot water boiler had burst, and was busily flooding the downstairs bathroom and study.

I sleepily turned to Doc C and asked if he thought it was an omen. "An Omen of what?" was his response, and I had to admit I didn't really know because I'm not au fait with omens as such. Probably the fact that I'm re-reading Douglas Adams' "Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" put such a notion in my head, the plot mostly involves Norse gods, so there are a fair amount of portents in it.

The boiler flood was very exciting, but once we had the water turned off at the mains there wasn't much else to be done and I still had to get to work. With no shower to be had, I tied my hair up in a scarf (it would appear that two days of dry shampoo is pushing the boundaries) and went with a slight Rosie the Riveter vibe to my clothes (red t-shirt, jeans, blue canvas jacket and brown Doc Martens) to make the head scarf look intentional. My fashion theory is that you can get away with nearly anything, as long as it looks deliberate.

Doc drove me to work (only to turn round once he got there to come back home and tend to the boiler), and I made it safely to my office; where I switched on my Mac. I've set it up so that images are selected at random from a file of photos and wallpapers to display as my desktop background. The first one this morning was this flowchart:

OMEN!

And that is a whole hell of a lot less ambiguous, isn't it?

(Update on the boiler: It's been replaced already, but can't be switched on until tomorrow - So we get to use the shower in the house next door, which is vacant. This is a bit weird, but I've been dying to nosy around the place, so, actually, kind of cool)

Internet Black Out.

Edith does not approve of SOPA.

Working Hard for the Money.

It's still a ghost town in my office ate moment; which is great because I have things to do. Mostly these are boring things, but they're fiddly and require some concentration.

To keep things interesting I've been listing to vintage radio plays on Relic Radio dot com. Personally I'm a big fan of Strange Tales, which usually have a ridiculous plot and an imaginative sound effects guy.

Phoning It In.

Today we had afew things to do before going to Jack and Amber's house for dinner and cooing over their preternaturally cute baby son.

First we had to take out the recycling because it was at the falling-on-you stage, and as our preferred recycling center happens to be close to a Verizon shop I decided to upgrade my phone. Well, actually, I did not want to upgrade my phone, because an upgrade to me would mean a smart phone and I do not want to pay for the monthly data plan - In fact I wanted to get the simplest of the basic phones, I'd actually have quite liked to down-grade to something without a camera or an MP3 player, because I never use those features. I tried to explain this to the assistant at the Verizon shop, but I think he'd just taken some cold medication or something else that advises you not to drive or operate heavy machinery, I soon realised I was on my own out there. In the end I grabbed an LG Cosmos 2, which was fairly cheap, had a slide out keyboard and uses a micro USB to charge. When I got home I second guessed myself by checking on-line reviews and it seems to be a good texting phone and have a good battery life. Perfect.

After that we bought a cherry pie and came home to get changed for dinner.

Happy Pink Cloud.

As I mentioned at the time, we went to Asheville this weekend, and I took a photo of this rather cheering mural. Obviously it was the happy pink cloud that caught my attention initially, but I particularly like the black half-cloud at the top left; it's painted on a bit of masonry that's sticking out slightly so there is a pleasing 3D effect.

It's always been my aim to have a photo up every day, but that has definitely been dropping off recently. The main problem I have with downloading and editing my photos at the moment is purely that I have to use the desktop in the study to do that, and it's a temperamental beastie at the best of times.If you plug in a USB before switching it on, then it crashes and Doc C has to physically take it to bits and re-build it. This sort of thing makes me wary of using it.

Anyway, I had read about memory cards that had built in wi-fi and would just automatically upload all your photos when in range of your home network (or any of the 32 other networks you can give it permission to use). So I bought one, and it's all set up and raring to go. So far I've just taken some test shots of an empty cake stand, but once I've got something better than that I'll post them here.

Book Box.

Have I mentioned that I bloody love my Kindle? I've been curled up with it for pretty much the whole of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and, since it arrived a week ago, I've read three novels on it. Well, a novel and two vintage murder mysteries, if you're being pedantic about genre differences - but I'm not too much of an intellectual snob to say that I far preferred the company of Tommy and Tuppence, or Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin to the miserable Anthony and Gloria of F. Scott's "The Beautiful and the Damned".

I've sort of given up on Goodreads, since the book swap feature has been closed, but I've set up the Kindle to prompt me to tweet a star rating when I've finished a book.

Oh, I've also re-named my Kindle from the out-of-the-box "Jennifer's Kindle" to "Jennifer's Box of Delights", after the John Masefield book. It is somewhat ironic that after I did this I discovered that "The Box of Delights" itself is one of the only titles I've looked for that doesn't have a Kindle version available.

Internet : The Return.

The Internet is back at the Alien Spouse house! Yeah Baby!

Doc C tells me there was actually something wrong with the cables, so it wasn't the modem as we had been told the last couple of times this happened. So despite our modem being black-listed, apparently, it still hasn't been replaced which is a bit weird, but ok as long as it keeps on working. So fingers crossed, eh?

Whilst the engineers from Charter were here Edith stayed curled up on the ottoman, but Doc had a nasty few minutes when he couldn't find Nancy and he thought she might have scampered away. It turns out that Nancy didn't actually make a break for freedom, but rather that she was hiding under the futon in the study. Poor little scaredy cat! She's fine now, and has spent a fair few minutes this evening happily chewing on the straps that fasten Doc's courier bag. Because that is Nancy's idea of a rockin' good time.

Sneaky Office Blogging - Shhhhhh!

Doc C has called Charter and made an appointment for a house call tomorrow morning - So I am hoping against hope that we will have blissfully uncomplicated internet access this weekend.

Apart from that it's been a fairly quiet day in the office, hence the quick blog break, but I am really looking forward to going home because we've got last night's "Top Chef: Just Desserts" Willa Wonka reunion special to watch. Squee!

Also, red lipstick. I don't want to wear it everyday, but, when I do feel like it, I find it makes me quietly confident and happy. Useful to note.

Frenemy Status Update.

Today I noticed that Facebook had changed it's privacy filters, again, to make it easier to fine tune individual posts privacy. It is kind of cool to be able to just post photos to a few individuals wall, but I hate how every time there is a change of this type it ignores my previous settings.

I went in and set everything up the way I'd had it before, and posted a status to suggest other people do the same.

Is it ironic that the first person to comment on that status was precisely the woman that my privacy settings were supposed to prevent seeing anything? And did it strike her as odd that the very first wall post of mine she can comment on is a warning that the privacy settings seemed to be in a bit of a pickle? Is this really all too daft for a woman in her mid thirties to be giving a sod about? I suspect the answers to these questions are no, no and yes.

Hankering for Autumn.

  

This is an approximation of the outfit I am particularly looking forward to wearing as soon as the weather cools down enough. I put this together from the options available to me on Polyvore, and when I totted up the total worth this particular version costs $2292.

Gulp.

Fortunately my Mum gave me a pair of gorgeous red leather gloves a couple of years ago so I don't need to spend $345 to get those. Then my new herringbone jacket is from L.L. Bean rather than D&G, so it cost $50 in the sale rather than $635, and my jeans were $10 not $80. The major saving though is in the boots mine are Doc Martens that were under $200, and the boots in the picture here are Rupert Sanderson riding boots which retail for $1145. Good grief! Who wants riding boots that cost over a grand? That is ludicrous!

The real-life ensemble would therefore be under $300 (if we're including make-up and socks etc), which is roughly $2000 cheaper then the fictional version. I suddenly feel very thrifty indeed.

I don't have a red leather flower brooch though, but at $6 I think I could splurge. 

Book Pile-Up.

I love books, but I especially love second-hand books. When I discovered Goodreads I was immediately smitten by the swap feature, which allows users to list books they no longer want and then other readers can pay the shipping and get the book.

It does still cost $3 or $4 in postage fees, so I try to limit how many books I request, but occasionally a glut of titles that I want happen to be listed in close proximity. This is how I ended up receiving Donna Tartt's "The Secret History", Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger" and Tim Gunn's "A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style" in the post this morning, whilst I'm still only about half-way through "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

Books! FOR ME!

cough *Charter* cough

Please allow me to vent for a moment about the deplorable lack of internet this holiday weekend. Essentially our wifi router is the same one we've had since we moved to North Carolina in 2007 - so it's at least four years old, and it's been fine for pretty much all of that time.

Right up until Friday evening actually, when our internet access started to become erratic and it just got worse through out Saturday. According to the tech that Doc spoke to on Sunday our wifi router model was black-listed, which meant that it couldn't cope with the higher speed internet that was now available.

My question is this; clearly something actually happened on Friday to speed things up. Why do that on the Friday before a long weekend? And, if there is a really really good reason to do it on that particular day, might it not be polite to contact those cutomers who might be effected by this so they can make alternative arrangements in advance? Hmmm?

Model Molecular Starburst Clock.

Our new clock arrived! It looks like a cross between a vintage starburst clock and one of those cool molecular models made from huge beads and dowling rods.

Doc C collected out new clock from the post office this morning and brought it to me at work because he knew I would be super-excited. The packaging was a corrugated cardboard box big enough for me to hide in. Doc had to put both seats down in the car to fit it in!

We both thought, based on the packaging, that the clock was an awful lot bigger than we had expected. Had we mis-read the dimensions and ordered Clock-Zilla by mistake?

Well, no. Inside the huge box was another one which had the dimensions of a large pizza box, and the clock was inside that. It's Clock-Zuki, a much less intimidating time piece all together.

I immediately unpacked it and hung it on my office wall, firstly because it is such a great clock I wanted to bask in it's starbursty goodness. Secondly because the pizza-sized box had been in the me-sized box without any sort of packing materials, and you just know that it must have been tossed around a fair amount on it's way; so frankly I wanted to be sure the clock worked before we took it home and had to move furniture to hang it up.

Long story short, the clock works perfectly and we put it up above the TV as soon as we got home.

It looks great!

 

(We ordered the clock from Modcloth.com by the way, and they have more in stock. Not to mention all the other things I want to buy from them.)

One Two, One Two, This is Just A Test.

This morning I was testing out a new microphone in the office, and I had just started recording when a group of students walked past. Much like the Brian De Palma film "Blow Out" (1981) I inadvertently recorded a conversation. Unlike "Blow Out" it wasn't evidence of a murder, but a more mundane student discussion about their intention to skip class tomorrow.

The microphone worked just as it should and I got a crystal clear recording, which I think would make a particularly excellent ring tone for disillusioned academics.

The Eleventh Doctor.

We are about to start watching the first of new "Dr Who" on Netflix, which we haven't seen since Matt Smith took over.

This may be a mistake because I was vaguely intending to sleep at some point, and once we start watching we may not be able to stop.

Terribly Comfortable.

Today was super exciting because I had been waiting all weekend for the post office to open and release the delivery of make-up that I'd ordered from Sephora. Doc C went to get the post mid-morning and brought it to my office, where I tore open the box in a frenzy and many exclamations of glee.  It is no exaggeration to say I immediately ran to the ladies' loos to put on my new red lipstick.

This might not have been the best of moves, after all I have worn neutral or rosy pink lip-stick for several years now, so it has been quite sometime since I put on a really red lippy. Plus I'd ordered this particular lipstick on-line, without seeing the colour in the real world before hand. Plus it is actually more of a lip stain, that promises to stay put for a long time, and I was going to be at work for another 6 hours, and I don't care how understanding your boss is, having a lipstick emergency is never going to be a good enough reason to leave work early.  Even if you do look like an unfortunate clown lady. These things can happen.

So, all things considered, it was very fortunate that this particular lipstick turned out to be exactly the shade of red that I wanted. I took a photo and posted it as my Facebook profile picture, where it garnered several encouraging and complimentary comments from kind friends and family.

What was really funny was that no-body mentioned the tiara that I was also wearing, because, OF COURSE, I'm wearing a tiara around the office on a Tuesday morning. What is more normal than that?

(Oh, they also didn't mention the black bar because that wasn't there. My super secret blogging identity must be maintained, blah, blah, blah, you know the drill.

An added bonus to the black bar is being able to quote "The Princess Bride" in my post title:

Fezzik: Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid, or something like that?

Man in Black: Oh no, it's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.)

A Small Fault.

When I was growing up it simply never occurred to me that I might one day marry a man who would not notice that the computer monitor was set on completely the wrong resolution, meaning it stretched out the image and drove me crazy. Yet that is exactly what has happened, and this misfortune has caused me to spend a good half hour trying to work out how to resolve this issue before I could edit my photos. How could he not notice this? He works on this thing every day! And everything was all stretched out! It was making me feel queasy!

On the other hand I am married to someone who cooked me a totally delicious yet very low calorie dinner, and who laughs at my jokes. Which are both excellent points in his favour, I'm sure you will agree.

Glamour Puss.

Edith was displeased that I was taking photos of something other than her, that cat loves the camera.

After I'd got some suitably glamorous shots of Miss Cavell-Cat I went into the study to edit them in Picnik, Edith followed me and lolled around on my lap until I'd finished cropping the image; adjusting the exposure and colours; before finally giving her the merest soupcon of soft focus.

Once content with her cheesecake shots Edith retired back to the futon in the study to get some more beauty sleep. She is very careful to get at least 16 hours a day.

The Red Metal Cabinet.

Monday. Ugh.

Fortunately we don't have to dwell on the horror that is the first day of summer school classes, we have much more pleasant things to consider; such as our new TV cabinet.

I love being able to close the doors and shut away all of the wires, gadgets and accessories, it makes the whole room look tidier straight away. On top of that it's actually got a slimmer footprint than the hideous tables, so it takes up less floor space giving us about a foot more space in the living room.

Right now the only minor problems are the cats, who are both, naturally, fascinated by the new piece of furniture, all the more so because it usually has closed doors. Closed doors are an anathema to cats, and so whenever the cabinet is open both girls are drawn to it like a magnet. They didn't give a toss about the PS3 or the cable box before, this is purely because of the doors.

(By the way the images on the TV are from a game called "Red Dead Redemption", it's set in the wild west and I believe Doc C is currently hunting bad guys for the bounty on their heads)

Slightly Chilled.

Today's weather was mostly notable for a twenty degree drop in temperature, which meant it felt really quite cold, and, even though I thought I had dressed for the conditions (a long sleeve dress, tights and tall boots), by the end of the working day I felt physically tired from just being a bit chilly all day. Naturally this called for Gentlemen's Relish on toast with a nice hot cup of tea and the second part of a time-travel adventure that I am enjoying very much.

After that I spent some time this evening decorating my Sack Person's Pod in "Little Big Planet" in a loosely steam-punk motif. If the Play Station Network was up I could take a screen shot and post it for you, but as it is you'll just have to take me at my word when I say it was half an hour very well spent; and that was before I even started playing the game itself.

My feet still haven't fully defrosted, but I have slippers on, with a fleecy blanket over the top and Edith sitting on top of that, so I hope to be less zombie-like by the time I go to bed.

Mid-Week Update.

The laptop is still dead, and Doc C has some work to do so I'm pecking at the virtual keys of my iPod. This is fine, except the typepad app doesn't insert breaks between paragraphs (the breaks appear on the draft, but not on the published posts. I can go in and add HTML code to get the formatting I want, but that is a bit fiddly to do and if I'm posting from the iPod it's usually for the convenience so I don't really want to be messing around with coding) and I can't upload pictures from my camera. Also I'm getting back into working out after I get home from work, so I really should have had a shower by now. Instead, I'm watching police procedurals with Edith curled up on my feet.

Normal Service Resumed.

Hello from our desk top computer in the study, that I never use and can't quite get used to!

So essentially what happened was that Doc C had been using our laptop at his conference, so on Friday afternoon I got back to our room and saw the laptop I pounced on it. I plugged it in, checked my e-mail, looked at some websites and wrote a post. I noticed that the battery icon in the bottom left-hand corner was running down, but it would occasionally change to the power cord icon so I thought there was something odd going on with the socket I was using.

By the time Doc got back the laptop's battery had died, and I had realised that in my rush to connect with the web I had plugged in the power adaptor for the speakers which is a slightly higher voltage than the laptop requires... And this seems to have fried the laptop... Oops.

At that point I decided to just take a weekend break from the internet, and that's exactly what I did.

Irritation Vs. Style.

My office phone spontaneously changed it's own ring tone from a fairly innocuous trill to a sirenesque cacophony which just grated on my nerves. It also turned up the volume, so it made me jump out of my skin every time it rang. This is apparently irreversible, based on my trying to fix it myself through experimentation; working my way through the instruction manual; researching on-line; and, finally, calling the help desk of the manufacturers (who could not grasp the issue I was having with the phone, give me any useful suggestions or understand what my name was). 

The irritation factor was really quite something.

Fortunately I was wearing a mini shift dress that I brought back from my trip home, accessorised with the fabulous silk scarf that Liberty released for Comic Relief this year, a pair of lovely Pilgrim earrings that my cousin Ella gave me for my birthday ages ago and my new pewter ballet pumps from M&S.

Being dressed as though I was a calm and collected grown-up lady very much helped me to resist the urge to throw the damn phone through the window.

Boring Spreadsheet Code Aide Memoir.

This will no doubt sound like a ridiculously simple problem to anyone who understands how to write Visual Basic codes for Excel, but I don't know how to do that. I know just enough about Excel to be dangerous, in that I'm aware it can do some pretty useful stuff that should theoretically save me bunches of time but it will take me hours to find out how. Naturally I tried searching on-line, but usually what I want to do is clearly remedial level Excel and there are no internet Excel guides written in crayon unfortunately.

Today I really wanted Excel to compare two sets of data and simply tell me where there were any discrepancies. It took me freaking forever to work out how to get it to do that, and my solution is as simple as it could possibly be, so I'm prepared to bet that what I ended up with could be much more sophisticated, but it will do.

The code that I eventually got (with the aid of the Excel function wizard) was:

=IF(A1=B1,"Woot!","Boo!")

It's 25 characters, more or less, and I'm making a note of it here so I don't have to spend hours trying to find it again. What it does is look at cell A1 and compares it to cell B1; if they are equal it writes Woot! in cell C1; if they are not equal it writes Boo! (that's what this one does, my one at work checks for room numbers and course titles, etc, so it might say "Room?" instead of "Boo!")

Really quite satisfying, and all the more so because Doc C looked at it too and couldn't get it to work. It almost makes him beating my Little Big Planet high scores, as I am writing this, not sting quite so much.

Neck Ache and New Games.

My neck is cricked, so I woke up feeling achey and horrible today.  Fortunately I'd already put together breakfast before I want to bed last night, so it just needed to go in the oven for half an hour before Doc and I could enjoy baked french toast.  It was delicious, even though we didn't have any pecans, and I will definitely be making that again.

After that I took some pain killers and went to have a long nap in the loft, which Edith joined me for.  That definitely helped but meant that Doc was super bored by the time I woke up.  I'd suggested a while ago that we take our large stack of PS2 games to Gamestop to trade in and exchange for some PS3 games, so that's what we did.  Different games are worth different amounts when you trade them in, based on how likely they are to be re-sold; this meant we got just over a dollar for the PS2 EyeToy and the four games that went with it, whilst Doc's copy of Dark Alliance fetched $19.  We exchanged them for Zumba and Red Dead Redemption (which Doc C is playing right now!), as well as a second Move Controller.  Having two controllers means we'll be able to play table tennis against each other, or I'll be able to have a shield in one hand and a sword in the other when I'm in the gladiator arena.  Hurrah!

A New Toy.

Damn it! As a "back-to-school" present to me (and let's be honest, to himself as well), Doc snuck out this morning and bought the PS3 Move bundle.  It's got a camera, a controller and the Sports Champions game.

We've been playing Bocce fairly competitively for about two hours now, and it turns out I'm just as wildly inaccurate when hurling a virtual frisbee as I am when it's the real thing.  Also the gladiator game is good, really good, but both of us would love it even more if there was a light saber and some Force involved.

I will, of course, be buying the work out game that goes with the system with my next pay check.  Unlike Kinetic, it's not affiliated to Nike; instead of a totally fictional trainer this time I shall be bossed around by an avatar of Mel B.  It's going to be like I'm on "Dance Your Ass Off", but with more leaping around in my own living room and a lot fewer sequins.

 

 

Countdown to Halloween: Thirteen Days

One-eyed clown cat head on a stick!  Wooo!

In other news I am getting really sick of PCs in general and this laptop in particular.  

Next time we are buying a MAC and that is freaking final.

Countdown to Halloween: Fourteen Days

Pumpkins have been carved.

And I have, retroactively, added my skull photo into today's post finally.  All is right with October.

This is the vinyl patch I sewed onto Doc C's courier bag after he bought it on our first trip to Boston together, so it's been there for 6 years.  I love the way it's aged through day-to-day use.

 

 

Halloween Technical Issues

There is clearly some sort of conspiracy to prevent me from posting photos this weekend, because I just cannot persuade the computer to upload the skully photo I have all ready to go.

Fine.

Hopefully I'll be able to, after we get back home from Asheville tomorrow evening.

 

Countdown to Halloween: Twenty Seven Days

I had another look at these shiny skulls when we went food shopping yesterday, and sadly they just look tacky without the benefit of being able to fiddle with the exposure and colour levels.  

Isn't it a pity that you can't use Picnik in real life?  These are so fabulous with just a soupcon of tweaking, which I will illustrate through the magic of a classic before-and-after shot.

Walking Cats.

I've been worried that Edith seems to have been more mischievous recently, which, coupled with her habit of flopping dramatically on the floor, made me think she might be bored.  This is unknown territory for me I think because I'm used to having outdoor cats, (even the one and only pedigree cat that we had when I was growing up, the one that was supposed to be a pampered indoor cat too stupid to cope with cat flaps, ended up going outside more than happily) who make their own entertainment.  Usually by killing something.

Anyway...

I have been playing with the cats in the morning for a few minutes before I go to work and for longer in the evenings, but I did some googling to see if there was anything else I could try.  The consensus of the internet was that cats like paper bags and boxes, which I knew of course, but hadn't given the cats to play with in a while.

The internet also suggested putting a harness on the cats and taking them for a walk.  We had tried this before and it hadn't gone well, but we still have the harness and lead so I thought I might as well give it another go.  As ever Edith reacts as though the halter is made of lead and slinks around very low to the ground when she's wearing it, but she did seem to enjoy having a look around outside.  On the other hand Nancy knows that she can get out of the harness by pulling herself out backwards, but she behaved herself very nicely this evening and got to enjoy a roll on a nice sunny patch of deck for her reward.

I still feel a bloody idiot walking a cat, but if it makes my sweethearts happy I suppose I can swallow my pride.

Links - Two Set of Three.

It's a rainy Tuesday; Doc C is playing video games; Edith is asleep on my feet; Nancy is asleep on the stairs and I don't have a lot else to say about today really.

So here are some links!  Yay!

First food links - Because I haven't had dinner yet and I'm getting peckish.

1. Artisan tonic water - Q Tonic.
2. The Observer Food Monthly's Top Ten cookbooks of all time.  We don't have any of these!
3. Pictures and Pancakes. Gorgeously styled and photographed food from a couple, who happen to be a food stylist and a photographer. And to your left you will see Chocolate Guiness Cake.

 

Now onto the Dragon Con links - because I'm getting quite excited now.

1. One of these t-shirts from Think Geek, or both?
   
2. The Skeptrak schedule of panels sounds particularly interesting.
3. This is the guest list for 2010 - So much squeeee in one place!
   
   
   

Home Internet Access. Yay!

Oh Internet.

You have returned to me, and we have so much to catch up on.

For one thing I'm almost a week behind on Chateau Thombeau, I am starting to suffer from a Vitamin Glamour deficiency.

One More Day Without TV and Internet.

Damn it!  I forgot that I had to write my post at lunch time, and instead I slept for an hour.  I cannot wait until Charter connects our TV and wifi access at home tomorrow.

There had better not be any further delay, or I will be seriously displeased.

Moving Saga.

When we got home from work yesterday we had a cup of tea and a choccy biccy before settling down to our allotted tasks.  Doc C had a lecture to write, so he got on with that whilst I continued unpacking.  Mostly I wanted to get the study clear, so that the Charter engineer could hook up the wi-fi with not too much hassle when he came this morning, remember this salient point.  First I had to interrupt Doc to get him to help me drag the futon mattress up to the loft.  It fitted perfectly!  It is so comfy up there now, all I need is a lamp and a steady supply of snacks, and it will be bliss.

After that it was fairly easy to arrange the study, it just took ages.  My own personal favourite furniture ninja move was putting the wire shelves (the ones that Doc had bought them for his plants, so they were in front of the living room windows in the old house) under the stairs.  This doesn't sound particularly brilliant, but I positioned them so that we can use the shelves from the kitchen AND Doc can still easily fit his bike under the stairs.  It was extremely satisfying to see that work in real life almost as well as it had in my head when I thought of it at 2 in the morning.

I also carried several box loads of stuff up to the mezzanine, which is where I'm going to be keeping my bookcases and craft stuff.  This was made considerably less easy by the cats, who continue to adore lounging on the stairs and being annoyed if made to move.

Once that was all done, we settled down with a glass of Pimm's and "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962).  Doc insisted we had already seen it, but I am equally certain that I hadn't ever watched it before.  It was one of those debates that is impossible to prove any part of your argument in, beyond the simple fact that is is highly unlikely I would forget forget Angela Lansbury being that evil.

Of course the punchline to this story is that we didn't get the phone call we expected from Charter last night, or this morning.  When Doc called them and asked what time to expect them, they said "Today?  No mate, Thursday" (I paraphrase).

sigh.  Two more days without TV or internet access at home.

We Have The Keys!

Doc C picked up the keys to the new house today, and got the ok to start moving our stuff in!  Yay!

He also got the TV and internet sorted out; this was slightly more involved than one would think, because basic cable is provided as part of the rental arrangement of the house.  Great!  Except it confuses the hell out of the cable company when you then try and get the internet hooked up as well, because their records show someone is already registered at the address.  Doc managed to explain things to them eventually, but then called me with the tragic news that we might have TV but probably not the internet until TUESDAY.

TUESDAY!

I think I can cope, but don't be surprised if blog posts are patchy over the weekend.  I may try texting posts from my phone, but I'm not going to promise anything at this point.  We have a lot of boxes to move and I may well just be asleep when I'm not physically carrying stuff from point A to point B.

Ah, moving day...

Mad Men On Demand.

We are moving in four days - But it's really humid, so naturally I'm curled up on the sofa watching TV.

I got sucked into "Mad Men" by Tom and Lorenzo's analysis of the costumes in their Mad Style posts.  So then I caught up by reading my way through all of TLo's episode re-caps, and now I'm watching season three, because I've just discovered cable's On Demand service. 

It's probably a good thing that only the last season is available to watch.  I really should be putting things in boxes.

A Cheaper Chairless.

I was looking at a design website, because moving makes me think for some reason we are going to stumble over a big pile of money and be able to buy some cool new furniture, and I saw a picture of Chairless.  If you click on that link, you'll be taken to the official webpage (and it plays music by the way) where you will find photos of the product itself, the nomadic tribe that inspired the design and the designer himself.  Please look at the designer, he didn't put that much product in his hair not to be looked at. 

One thing I can't find out though, is how much the thing costs.  It's essentially a webbing strap, but in a selection of different colourways, with the designers tag on it and a percentage of the profits going to a non-profit organisation; so with that much hipness attached to it, how much could it possibly cost?  Well they've sold out via the website directly, and don't list the price there, so I googled it. One design blog claims that The Conran Shop is selling them for twenty quid, which is actually cheaper than I would have guessed from the look of the people posing with it on the website.  I can't actually find them on the Conran Shop website though, so I don't know if that price is correct.

Anyway, the cost doesn't really factor into this for me, because the moment I saw the thing I thought "Hmmm, that looks like a yoga strap.  I've already got one of those."  So I went and grabbed the yoga strap from my yoga/pilates shelf and now I'm sitting with it looped around my back and knees.  It's not uncomfortable, but it's not the height of luxury either, which is pretty much what one would expect really.

Good Reads.

I've signed up to Good Reads, which is a website where you can keep track of books that you've read, are reading and want to read.  It's geeky fun!

At the moment I've only got 18 books listed, and the majority of those are Dorothy L. Sayers because she's my current Queen of Crime.  I might add in books retrospectively, but otherwise I'll just add books in as I read them.  One thing I really like is that you can note down the page number of your current book on the iPod app and it syncs that up with the website, it even tells you what percentage of the book you have read so far.  This is oddly satisfying information to have.

You can also use it to swap recommendations with friends, so if any of you are on there already and want to friend me that would be great. I'm dead easy to find, as I've listed myself as Jen Alien-Spouse, and my avatar is the Green Queen.  Naturally.