This was not always the case. I loved my hair up until I got it cut back in December. Loving my hair had become an odyssey of sorts as I was the typical person who wanted what I didn’t have, probably because I was taught to hate my hair.
Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category
I Hate My Hair
Friday, January 23rd, 2009Staples: that was easy® – NOT!!
Monday, December 22nd, 2008Today Staples had a one day sale on QuickBooks 2009 where the sale and rebate brought the price down to $0. QuickBooks sold out quickly online and my local Staples was sold out as well, so I found a copy at a store about 45 minutes away, but when I tried to buy it by phone and come pick it up, I was told that was not an option.
“Can you hold a copy for me?”
“No.”
“Let me talk to your manager.”
Then the manager tells me that “for my own protection” they don’t take credit card orders over the phone. Wow.
Customer “Service” has no idea why they can take orders online or by phone and ship to a store, but can’t take an order online for pickup at a specific store – to circumvent the “can’t take orders over the phone” policy.
No one can tell me why I can place an order online, or with an online sales person who can take my credit card, but I can’t place an order with a sales associate in a store. No one can tell me why I must drive 45 minutes to buy a copy of QuickBooks that might not be there when I arrive. Nobody.
So I’ll shop where the policies make sense to the people who must follow them.
Situational “friends”
Monday, November 24th, 2008I really do get the concept of situational friends. Really, I do. Some friends come about through shared experiences, bonding-by-drama, etc. When that time is over, you go on about your business. They aren’t the people you pick up the phone and ask out to lunch or offer to watch their dog while they go on vacation. What I don’t get is when situational “friends” don’t observe the commonest of courtesy, such as acknowledging you’re alive outside of the situation. It’s one thing to avoid eye contact and make every effort not to touch someone you don’t know, but to do that to someone you do know and have have shared relatively intimate moments with is just – weird. (more…)
Google Search Problem Has Disappeared!!
Monday, October 27th, 2008I’ve spent the better part of the evening trying to figure out why this website had dropped in the rankings on Google for my name keyword, and lo and behold my site was back in first place. Hallelujah!! It was kind of embarrassing since I have been using organic SEO for about 10 years.
Inexpensive Graphics Tablet
Monday, October 27th, 2008I have been (somewhat) lusting for a graphics tablet for a few years. My sister had an unused one that I acquired when she died, but it didn’t have any supported drivers for XP. It was not fun to use. As much as I like the brand name stuff, Wacam was simply beyond my budget.
Aldi advertised a 6 x 10 graphics tablet for $49.99 in its Sunday flier. $50 is a pretty cheap date when it comes to graphics tablets. The main thing I was concerned about is that it wouldn’t behave well in Photoshop (kind of like how a cheap dance pad I got from Kraft behaved in DDR) and it would simply be another mouse.
I’m pleasantly surprised. It is working great in One Note and it works great in Photoshop (so far). I’m excited about exploring the possibilities.
Annoying Battery Problem zd8000
Saturday, October 25th, 2008I bought my HP zd8000 laptop back in August 2005 after my old laptop started misbehaving. This zd8000 has been a pretty good laptop, other than a heat problem and the lint problem I wrote about earlier – well except for the battery. I’m now on my 4th battery and it looks like I’m going to be heading to “batteries R us” and getting yet another replacement. Yesterday my laptop suddenly switched off and the battery hasn’t charged since, nor does the computer think there’s one in it.
This is more than a bit annoying. Right now, the only way I can type this article is by removing the battery. Otherwise, the keyboard is unresponsive. Not a big deal unless I actually want to type something like my password. The other problem is that the AC adapter has a weird connection into the computer that works its way loose. So there’s always the “will the laptop become unplugged and switch off without warning” dilemma. That’s always fun – not!! The only good thing about the battery being gone is the fact that the temperature on the wrist rest becomes about 20° cooler.
The heat problems are not trivial. I used to use the laptop on my lap. I rested the laptop on my legs until my legs became so discolored that I couldn’t wear shorts. I think my legs were being cooked by the laptop. I finally bought a chiller and put the whole thing on a lap desk. I got one big enough to allow me to add a mouse because the right button on the touchpad got kind of funky about a year ago, so rather than respond with a touch, it requires more of a massage to do right mouse things. Replacing the touchpad is a major overhaul and it’s not a part you can get from HP. You have to find one from a cannibalized system.
I guess since the laptop is 3 years old, it’s lived its useful life. It has become a friend. It saw me through school. I’ve added memory, a larger hard drive, and the 3 batteries. It has been to Egypt and Israel. Overall, it’s been a a decent machine, but it’s time for a new one.
Palin on SNL
Monday, October 20th, 2008So what did you all think of Sarah Palin’s SNL debut? I think she’s got a great game face. I had to wonder how she liked locking arms with a guy (Alec Baldwin) who threatened to leave the country if GWB was elected (so much for “campaign” promises), but I was impressed that she was willing to do something unscripted.
What do I think about the choice for VP? I would have liked to see someone who is a bit more aware of things beyond Alaska. She’s undoubtedly politically smart, but does she know her stuff?
Time will tell.
Sarah Palin and the VP Debate
Friday, October 3rd, 2008I’m a Libertarian-leaning Republican who has been watching this presidential selection process unfold with great interest. I’m pretty fed up with the way this whole system of government is evolving, but unfortunately Americans do the definition of insanity everytime we as a people stand before the voting machines and elect those who say one thing and do something else.
Enter Governor Palin. New kid on the block. Great looking. Not afraid to speak. Feisty. That’s not my beef with her. My beef about her during the VP debate was her reluctance to answer the questions posed by the moderator. There’s no doubt about it; the questions were not comfortable to anyone who has been defending this hot mess called Iraq, or who thought the financial stability of the country was just fine, but to literally change the subject every time something uncomfortable was brought up was not fair to the voting public. Yes, it is OK to defend Iraq from the perspective of the soldiers who have and are serving our country, and it’s okay to acknowledge the lack of knowledge about the financial crisis, but let’s get honest these things and just come clean.
Not that Joe Biden was that much more willing to let ‘er rip, even though the questions were geared more towards an antagonistic stance against the current administration. Could this be because it’s been a democratic led congress for the past 2 years? I don’t know. He was restrained in expressing his views, when that is clearly not his forte.
Note to Candidates: Main Street just wants transparency. Main Street wants to believe someone and not have its intelligence insulted by talking points.
I Love This Theme
Thursday, September 11th, 2008I really love the theme I’ve chosen for this site. It’s calm and classy. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the sidebar isn’t “widget aware” and all my attempts to make it so have crashed and burned. But I want this theme and a widget aware sidebar. So that’s one of the first things I’m going to work on once I’m done with this last class.
Wish me luck.
Michael R. Robison – May He Rest in Peace
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
Next month I will be going to a class reunion. With an upcoming reunion comes an increased desire to reconnect with old friends and even old boyfriends. Michael Robison, who I dated for several years in high school and after, had started coming to mind more and more, so I did my usual Google search. Ever curious about people who have once been a part of my life and are no longer a part, Michael’s name had been searched on more than one occasion over the years, but nothing had ever popped up. I thought that was unusual as computers would be the perfect way to keep filling his mind with information as it has mine. We were very alike in that way. However, I also knew that if he had a big disdain for something that he would avoid it like the plague. For all I knew, he had a dislike for computers, because I certainly had never found him.
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