I HAS A JOURNAL!!!1!

A recent phone call, five minutes before the end of my shift:

I'm sorry, sir, that book you'd like on differential mathematics is out of print. No, I can't order you a copy, it's out of print. It's unavailable anywhere. Because it's out of print. It was published in 1968. Yes, there was a reprint, in 1969, but that's out of print as well. I can try ordering it used, but it will be very expensive. Oh, you've already found it used? You're right, that is expensive. Well, yes, that's the distributor we use, too, so it would cost us the same amount. Why don't you try the university bookstore? They can't get it? Well, they specialize in academic texts, so if they can't get it, we certainly can't. You'd like another book instead? You have the ISBN? Great! That makes things easier... oh, wait. This book is out of print, too. I don't know why, but my guess is because it was last published in 1959. No, we don't have a copy on hand. We don't usually stock 50-year-old books about experimental geometry. It is a pretty specialized topic, and we're a small shop. I know, it's a real shame. No, sir, I am completely certain we can't order either book. Because they're out of print! I'm sorry, none of that author's books are still in print. Yes, I'm sure he was a genius, and the foremost expert in the field, but I can't control which books are in print at any given time. None are available. None of them. No, I can't get them. No, really. Really. Yes. I am sure.*

Gordon Bennett!

*Translated from the French

 I've been tagged by

nonelvis for the following book meme:

Grab the nearest book, open to page 123, find the fifth sentence. Then post the next three sentences. Tag five people and post a comment.

I'm at work right now, on my lunch break. I work in a book store, so there are plenty of books at hand. It just so happens that the book closest to me is a book I have ordered for myself, but have yet to pick up. It's waiting for me at the server computer in the back of the store, where I usually have lunch and search teh intarwebs. The book is Jane Austen: The Complete Novels, and page 123 falls in Sense and Sensibility:

"It is merely a melancholy consideration. Born to the prospect of such affluence! I cannot conceive a situation more deplorable."

Jane Austen's works are always popular here at the store, and we have a hard time keeping them in stock! It's amazing how her books have endured. I recently read Pride and Prejudice, and the character of Mrs Bennett struck a chord with me. Everyone sees her as a comic figure, interfering in the lives of her daughters. It's easy to forget, from our perspective in the 21st century, how her preoccupation with finding husbands for her daughters wasn't just her being meddlesome. It was a necessity. She had no sons to provide for their unmarried sisters, and girls couldn't inherit. If they didn't marry, the Bennett girls would have been left destitute once Mr Bennett died. 
 
Jane Austen: The Complete Novels is a gorgeous volume. It's a  blue leather-bound hardcover, with gold-edged pages and a ribbon bookmark. It's $21.99 Canadian, too, which is about a third of the price one would expect to pay for a book like this. I ordered it for myself because I have a weakness for books in general, and beautiful books in particular. I also like omnibus editions. I've been thinking about collecting Jane Austen's works, but so far all I have at home are Pride and Prejudice and Emma. 

And now for the tagging. I call on the following people to answer this meme:  eponymous_rose, lizbee, laeb, iko, and shaxophile. Have fun!. o

 

I have finally taken the plunge and dyed my hair a colour that is not blonde. Boy, is it ever not blonde! It is currently a very bright coppery red. Kind of like Willow from Season three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Only without the kickass magical powers.

It's pretty bright at the moment. My hairdresser says it will lose a lot of its intensity with the next few washings. When I got home my hair looked less Willow-esque, and more like Milla Jovovich from The Fifth Element. I've already washed it, and it does look more natural.

I've been thinking of going red since high school, but I've never had the nerve to do it. Hell, I only started getting blonde highlights when I was 27. I've always been resistant to colouring my hair, partly because of the upkeep and the possibility of massive fail, and partly because I am a big coward. But I've decided that it's time for a change. I've been blonde or blonde-ish for 32 years. Still, it's a little odd looking in the mirror, and not seeing blonde hair.

I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to take a decent self-portrait, and I just don't have the knack for it. Instead, here is a picture of Alyson Hannigan:
 


Isn't she cute?


Rejected titles for this entry:
Leeloo Dallas Multipass
Rude and Not Ginger
One Non-Blonde
In Which I Am No Longer a Dumb Blonde
Ginger Snap!

PS: Note that I managed to fit not one, not two, but three geeky references in one entry! Go team me! Ooh! There's another one! And I'm not even trying!

I went for an MRI today. The sinus specialist recommended it because I've had two x-rays already, and the doctors haven't pinpointed the cause of my sinus problems. Let's hope this one comes back with something useful!

The MRI itself was cool. I lay on my stomach with my chin on a platform, and the bed I was on moved back and forth into this big, white donut thing. The whole exam took maybe five minutes. I guess I've been watching too much House, because I was expecting one of those big full-body scanners. I didn't even know they made them that small!

The only drawback is that I've been really dizzy and shaky ever since. I don't know if that's a side-effect of the scan, or if it's my sinuses, or if I really just need to eat something-- although I ate something a little while ago, and I still feel weird.

Does anyone know how to use rewritable DVDs? I had this brilliant idea to use them so I wouldn't be wasting DVDs every time I wanted to record something new, but although my computer recognizes them when they are blank, it won't recognize them once I've written to them. Also, the test disk I made just now doesn't want to work in my DVD player. It's a fancy-pants new player that can read all kinds of files, but when I try to load the DVD+RW I made, I get an error message.

Technical stuff: I am using FujiFilm DVD+RW with 4.7gbs and 4x speed. My computer is an HP Media Center PC with a Lightscribe DVD SuperMulti Drive DVD/CD writer, and I run Windows XP Media Center Edition. I used DivX Player to burn my test DVD (I usually use DivX to burn DVDs, and it works fine, just not in this case). My DVD player is an LG.

Look at that. Isn't it gorgeous? That is the Hemnes dressing table from Ikea. It comes with approximately eleventy-squillion parts, none of which are marked. My husband and I spent all afternoon putting ours together. We were on the home stretch, putting the tracks on the drawers, when I realized something: I had put the drawers together wrong. All three of them. I had the side pannels facing the wrong way, so now the holes the tracks are supposed to screw into are inside the drawers. Simple to fix, right? Just take apart the drawers. But the tricky thing about Ikea is that once you put something together, it is next to impossible to disassemble it again (on purpose, anyway). For some insane reason, the drawers are held together with plastic pegs with barbs on them. Like regular screws wouldn't have done? I can't get them out. I've tried everything. They are stuck in there. These are the most solid drawers ever.

Anyway, I after about half an hour of trying to get the stupid pegs out, I decided to just drill new holes, using the tracks themselves as templates. Wouldn't you know it, both of my drill batteries have died! Neither will hold enough charge to drill butter.

So now I have to go buy a new drill battery. I needed to get one, anyway. But if I hadn't been so impatient, the bureau would be finished now, and my clothes would be put away. Instead, there are bureau parts everywhere, my clothes are still in piles all over the place, and it'll be another day or two at least before I can fix this. So let this be a lesson to you all: Make sure you read the instructions properly. Some mistakes can't be fixed so easily.

Tomorrow will mark our first full week here in the New Condo. And I have to say, I'm still in love with it, and despite the hell of moving and all the money that is flying out of our wallets on a daily basis, we don't regret doing this at all.

We're still living among boxes (Boxville, Boxhenge, Boxtopia), we still need to buy lights for most rooms, and I really should install some towel bars in the bathrooms. But the kitchen is mostly put away, and we have a functioning living/dining area. It's not done, but it feels more like home than the last place ever did. Also, this one is ours, which makes it that much better.

It's amazing what a bit of paint, a new light, and new floors can do. Even though we still have the same boring white melamine cabinets, our kitchen looks brand new, and all it took was a few small cosmetic changes. From being the room that was hate at first sight (and was almost the dealbreaker, I hated it so much), it's become my favourite place in the whole condo. I love spending time in there! I still want to hang my pot rack and change the door handles, but it's pretty much done.

The living room is shaping up, too. We're getting new bookshelves today, which means that I can finally unpack my boxes and boxes of books, and my new bureau arrives today as well, which means I can start putting the rest of my clothes away. In the old place, we had almost no closet space, here, my husband and I share a walk in closet. My side of the closet is almost twice the size of the one he and I shared in the old apartment. Oh, to be able to find clothes again! Our stuff was jammed so tightly into the old closet that I couldn't remove a shirt or dress without three other things coming with it. Putting stuff away was a nightmare, so I didn't bother. My clothes lived on top of the dryer (much to my husband's consternation).

At the old place, we couldn't use the dryer and the stove at the same time. We had a big switch in a cupboard that we had to flip if we wanted to use one or the other. It meant we sometimes had to choose between having supper or having clean clothes for tomorrow. Here, we can do laundry and cook at the same time. And, since the washing machine and the kitchen sink aren't connected, the kitchen isn't flooded when the washer goes into the rinse cycle. In the old apartment, the kitchen sink used to back up every time we used the washer.

The best part, though, has been going to bed at night, and hearing nothing. No stomping, no running up and down the hallway, no moving of furniture at 2am, no TVs, no marathon sex. Nothing. We can still hear our neighbours a bit, but nothing out of the ordinary or intrusive. Mostly, it's just hallway noise. In the last place, though, the constant noise was so bad that my husband would go to bed with earplugs in. Although I never really got used to it, I learned to just accept it. But that first night, when there was no noise at all? That was bliss, let me tell you. Bliss. I forgot what quiet was like.

As soon as I have the time (and I find the cable for my camera), I'll upload some before and after pictures.

Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.

The cover of this book caught my eye today. Look at the little TARDIS, flying in and out of that wormhole! 

I love books that try to explain the science behind sci-fi, and this one explores whether or not it will ever be possible to have phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel. I flipped through it for a while, and it looks like a really interesting read. But the cover is kind of misleading. Nowhere in index is there any mention of Doctor Who or the TARDIS! There is a whole section on time travel, citing Back to the Future, Star Trek, The Time Machine by HG Wells, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, but not word one about a police box that's bigger on the inside. 

I feel a little cheated! I wanted to see how Kaku would address the TARDIS and the way Doctor Who handles time travel. Why would they put the TARDIS on the cover of a book that doesn't mention it?*

*I know: to sell books to geeks like me, but come on, not even one mention?

It hardly seems fair that we're having another blizzard, when we just had one on Wednesday.

This one is worse than the one we had on Wednesday, though. Sitting in my computer room, I can't see across the parking lot to the next building. It's about -20 with the windchill, with gusts of wind at about 83km/h. The best part is that Environment Canada says "Light snow". Apparently they don't have a window.

At least the storm held off until this afternoon. I've been planning a children's event for the store, and the news of an impending storm (oh, you thought I was going to say "Oncoming" there, didn't you?) was freaking me out. I was certain that the blizzard would hit just before my event, after all the planning and coordination and stress I went through. It did snow overnight, but the snow stopped this morning, and there was a window of glorious weather.

We had about 22 kids, plus their parents and a group of adult fans of the author. It went brilliantly, too. Since the book had a beach theme, I asked the kids what kinds of things they would bring to the beach. They said stuff like "a picnic basket" or "a beach ball" or "a parasol", but one kid brought the house down by saying "a kangaroo!" Best answer ever, kid! The author was a huge hit and the kids had a blast.

It's a good thing we had a beach theme, too, because given the howling winds outside, it looks like a while before we'll see real beach weather.

(ETA: My power is flickering on and off. Shiny. I'm going to run around and turn stuff off, now.)

Despite the fact that she was given to me by my brother for Christmas six years ago, Mojo is 100% devoted to my husband, and basically only tolerates me when he's not there. Or if I have food. At night, she will walk over me to snuggle with him. She is his cat, through and through, and has been since she was a wee kitten. I am very jealous of that.

Butterscotch is my cat. I've had her for almost 11 years, and she's usually somewhere in my general vicinity. (Right now, she's on the sofa behind me, absorbing solar rays.) She wants to keep an eye on me. She's not much of a cuddler, though, and never has been. Scotch is far too cool for cuddling. You will never find Scotch draped over me, or curled up on my feet. That's not her. But she'll usually hang out with me if I'm feeling down, and will even indulge me with a minute or two of cuddling if she senses I'm upset.

But last night, after I finally finished the worst day of the longest week ever, it wasn't my pal Scotch who came over to comfort me. It was Mo. She jumped in my lap and purred, and let me move her around so I was more comfy (usually, she bolts if I so much as breathe funny). She even permitted me to rub her belly, and didn't kick me once. She hung out with me when I took my bath (even though she's petrified of water). She even snuggled under the covers with me when I finally went to bed, and lulled me to sleep with her crazy loud purr. She stayed with me pretty much from the minute I got home.

You'd almost think Mo liked me, or something.

And where was my pal Scotch? She was nowhere to be seen.

Thanks to chicklet73 for the word "Snowpocalypse". It's my new favourite word, and it accurately describes the Weather Event that is raging outside. You know, Quebec City already has so much snow that we have run out of places to put it. We really don't need more, thanks.

  

That picture really doesn't do it justice. If you stand in my dining room and look out, you can't see to the end of the street. The house across the street is almost completely hidden by a giant snowbank.

The storm is so bad that my boss closed the store and sent everyone home early. I wasn't done, though. I took a cab to the CBC to record a book review thing, and then walked over to the Literary and Historical Society carrying two tote bags full of very heavy books that I had used for my review. (I had to drop off some promo stuff for an upcoming event.) It took about 20 minutes to get there from the CBC building, when it should have taken about five minutes. Then I trudged back through the snow to catch a bus. When I got there I had a 15 minute wait, so I went to a café for a hot chocolate. When I got back to the bus stop, my bus had been canceled, which sucked, because that bus would have dropped me off on the corner of my street, whereas the one I had to take drops me off about four blocks away. In the middle of a blizzard, four blocks feels like about ten miles.

When I got home, I met my husband on the stairs of our apartment building. He decided that now was the time to carry our air conditioner over to the new condo. Why? Because he is a freak.

Now I am wearing PJs and my face is finally warming up. I'm going to have a nap before book club. I suggested we cancel, but everyone else seems game, so it's still on. I'm getting a lift, thankfully!

(ETA: The current conditions in Bridgetown, Barbados:

Conditions for Bridgetown at 5:00 pm AST

Current Conditions:
Mostly Cloudy, 26 C

Bastards.)

You guys got all but one of the clues from the movie meme. Here's the one nobody got:

"My parents wanted to move me into high school out of the sixth grade, but we decided to chuck the idea because I'd have trouble making friends, blah, blah, blah. Now blah, blah, blah is all I ever do. I use my grand IQ to decide what color lip gloss to wear in the morning and how to hit three keggers before curfew. "

That quote was from Winona Ryder as Veronica Sawyer in Heathers. One of my favourite movies ever-- and not only because three of the main characters share my first name.

(Besides, I always identified with Veronica.)

I just finished watching the first three episodes of Jekyll. I knew it would be scary and twisted. Blink scared the shit out of me, and Doctor Who is a family show. So imagine what Steven Moffat could come up with without the teatime constraints?

He doesn't disappoint, that for sure. Jekyll is one big ball of crazy. This is my favourite kind of horror. There's plenty of blood, sure, but that's secondary to the psychological suspense. What will Hyde do next? How will Jackman stop him? And will I be able to sleep tonight? The second DVD should arrive tomorrow. Mark Gatiss is supposed to make an appearance. I can't wait!

The movie meme:

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb, and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

There's only one left! You can do it!

I am a klutz. This is obvious to anyone who knows me for more than 0.0005 seconds. I have tripped over lines in the sidewalk, sprained my ankle falling off my own shoe, burnt my hand on the element inside the toaster oven, and just this morning I collided with a very pointy acrylic book display. I am a walking disaster.

But I pale in comparison to my wonderful, but jeopardy-friendly, husband. Here's what he just said to me.

Him: I am very talented.
Me: Yes you are. What did you do that was so wonderful?
Him: I am the only person who could be working at a worktable with not one, not two, but four knives... and cut myself open on the lid of a cat food can.
Me: You are a god among men, honey. And I am so blogging this.

For the record, he has also:

• Been hit by a car "five or six" times*,
  
• Ended up in the ER after walking though a glass door,
  
• Broken the same elbow twice by falling on the ice,
  
• Been clotheslined across the throat by barbed wire,
  
• Slipped down ice-covered stairs and concussed himself on a concrete slab,
  
• Had a second-degree sunburn,
  
• Had a stick shoved (far) up his nose while playing hide-and-seek,
  
• Been stung by a nest of hornets.

*FIVE OR SIX TIMES!!!!!

My husband is the morning news guy for a local radio station, and this is what I heard after the 7:00 news this morning:

"One of the great things about this job is being able to do stuff like this: I want to wish my wife a happy Valentine's Day!"

The two hosts went "Awwwww!" (His co-workers think we're very cute. ETA: We so are.)

Happy Valentine's day to you, too, hon!

(It's a little late in the day, but that's OK, he's already in bed. He wakes up at 2:45am for work, and I worked this evening, so we're doing V-Day tomorrow!)

Oh, sweet Tin Vagabond Jeebus, the sinusitis is so bad tonight. It feels like somebody has punched me repeatedly in the face. My left eye hurts, my teeth on that side ache, and it feels like my nose is broken. Every time I breathe in, it feels like I'm inhaling powdered glass.

I've taken some Sinutab to depressurize my head, but it hasn't kicked in yet. I was a complete mess at work today because of this (decongestant high + pain + lack of oxygen to brain = CRAZY HEATHER), and it's gotten steadily worse since I've been home. This is the worst it's been in ages. I don't know how I'm going to get to sleep tonight.

WAH. I know. But seriously, this fucking hurts.

I just spent the last two hours reading Wil Wheaton's blog and checking out his photos on Flickr. I used to read it before my last computer crashed and burned and took all my bookmarks with it to Silicon Heaven. I had forgotten about WWdN until someone on doctorwho linked to his blog entry about Genesis of the Daleks. I am so glad I've rediscovered it.

When I was a nerdy little 12-year-old, I got made fun of for having a crush on Wil Wheaton, while all my classmates were drooling over Kirk Cameron or River Phoenix or whoever else was hot at the time. Having a crush on the kid who pushed buttons on the Enterprise was so unspeakably uncool. Not that I ever had any chances in the cool department, really. I was such a hopeless dork. Wil Wheaton appealed to me because he offered me the hope that geeks could be cool, too. OK, Wesley Crusher is probably the least popular character on Star Trek ever*, but did you ever see Kirk Cameron fly a spaceship?

And now, 20 years later, I feel justified for not following the crowd and plastering my locker with pictures of Kirk**.  Wheaton is a published author, living in California with his wife and step-kids, writing books and his blog and going to cons and having what looks like a very cool life. His writing is funny and poignant. He rolls mental dice to make decisions and can quote obscure movies, TV shows and song lyrics. He loves MST3K and old-skool video games. He went to Star Trek: The Tour, sat at the Conn of the Enterprise, and typed in the command that he used to put the ship in warp. I was a geek for liking this guy, and it turns out he's a geek too!

That makes my inner 12-year-old very, very happy.


*He was still cooler than Adric.
**OK, I did have pictures of Kirk. But they were the REAL Kirk-- William Fucking Shatner!

Today was a great day. I wore my PJs all day, baked bread, watched TV, read a book, played on the internet, cuddled my cat while having a nap, had a bath, hung out with the husband, and ate nothing that didn't have chocolate in it*. Every day should be like this. 

*I had: Chocolate No Knead Bread (once with Nutella-- that was too much, I think), chocolate mint tea, chili with chocolate, and some sort of chocolate dessert thing. Also, my bubble bath, lip balm and foot lotion all had chocolate in them. I didn't eat them, though. That would be weird. 

ETA Link to bread recipe!

I had Francophone call the store just now, asking for the definition of the word "wanking". He couldn't find it in the dictionary, you see. 

When I stopped laughing*, I gave him a carefully worded definition, and told him that maybe he could get better information from the Internet, and not a bookstore.

*He knew I wasn't laughing at him, BTW-- I think he got what the word meant from the context of the book he was reading.