I really love reading my HoroSpoke last time I talked about it, it was dead on. My HoroSpoke for this past week says:

My Virgos might be having it rough this week, but they always know how to handle shit very efficiently. So you were just dealt some unsettling news, so what? There isn’t a better person this could have happened to. You are already all over that mess and ready to move on. Things might be somewhat shitty for the next few weeks or so, but everyone knows you made the right move. Oh, and on a romantic note, I totally see that someone is going to propose to you, like, really fucking soon. Hot.

Haven’t had the unsettling news yet, but I’m looking forward to the proposition proposal.

Jenna at GirlSpoke does HoroSpokes every week.

So I came home and took a nap after all my errands (I feel great now). Since then I’ve watched a bit of TV and now I’m thinking of funerals. This wasn’t weird dreams, it was what was on the TV show (didn’t you hear, someone was going to die on Smallville).

I still remember being freaked out at my first funeral. Here’s why:

It wasn’t why you think, of course I was sad and upset at the idea that Grandma had passed away and all the normal funeral things to get upset about. We did the normal stuff: did the funeral home for one or two days, did mass at the church, drove way the heck out to the cemetery, did a little service in chapel at the cemetery and then we left. That last part was what freaked me out, that we left. I’ve seen this a million times on TV and at the movies the next part is that you go to the grave site and put lower the casket into the ground and throw some dirt and/or flowers on the casket. Come on, everyone knows this stuff that’s just what you do. Needless to say, they thought I was nuts when I asked about it.

I was fifteen or sixteen at the time and to this day this still haunts me. I think about it almost every time I see this happen on a television show or movie. To this day I’ve never experienced a funeral like this. So I think I’ve come to a decision: If it’s possible to still have funerals like that, then this is how I want my funeral to be. That might seem a little weird, but I am (a little weird).

So far today I’ve managed to sleep in, get an allergy shot, an oil change, shop for living room furniture, get gas, lunch and a car wash. I’ve got to return something, play at the bookstore and that’ll cover most of my to do list. I could probably get some groceries too, but that can wait a day or two. It’s nice and sunny out so maybe I’ll got for a walk instead… The sun went away, I got the groceries instead.

Gas really seemed to be going up $2..29-$2.39 at most places, I managed to find a $2.15 so I topped it off. I passed a $2.11 but they were so backed up I wouldn’t have stopped even if I saw it before I got gas. (For the Detroiters, this was on Telegraph between Ford and Warren)

I saw some living room tables that I liked, I’ll need to get the opinion of some friends to see what they think, I’m not too good at matching things like that. I think the living room tables are the only furniture-type thing that I have that I didn’t buy (old ones from my Mom) or get as a gift. They’ve needed replacing but I never know what to get.

At the books store, I didn’t find anything that inspired me to purchase it.

So I noticed I haven’t been blogging (or even reading other blogs) much lately. I’ve been busy and working a little later and I’ve been cleaning around my house. Lots of garbage this week again and lots of organization. If I can get the Christmas tree down this weekend I’ll have even more room from that (and the holiday boxes that are pulled out of storage), I’ll miss the lights though…

So I noticed that this will probably be the fifth lowest month of posts I’ve done (these numbers show up in the left sidebar of the main page next to the months). What’s really odd is three of those five are January (the other two are in the first few months of blogging). So why don’t I get more blogging done in January? I should go back and read some posts and see what I was up to…

So I bought the iTunes Originals album with Liz Phair. It’s great so far I really like her commentary between the songs. I think it’s 12 songs and 11 commentary tracks for $9.99, now that’s a deal. She covers the whole range of her songs old and new so I think I’ll enjoy the rest. (There is a non-explicit version if you poke around the store, I’m assuming it’s missing a few of the older tracks).

I’ve seen her in concert a few times and I’ve always enjoyed her (I’ve mentioned Liz Phair before).

You can see all the iTunes stuff with Liz Phair here.

I got so much stuff done yesterday. Shopped for a new desk (which I never found). Ran countless errands on a beautiful day. Cleaned. Reorganized. Managed to get the last two done with out making the house a disaster. Got gas at a reasonable price. Ate delicious leftovers (my takeout Thai for the day before and some delicious BBQ chicken casadias from the day before.

I’ve been on a cleaning/organizing spree lately. Got rid of a broken desk (it was supported by a file cabinet), moved a bookcase to where that was. Most of my books that are out are actually in bookcases (not in a stack somewhere). Set up a table for the computer I want to move upstairs (this is where I wanted a new desk for). I always want things more organized but I always keep so much crap. Crap is old bills, bank statements, article clippings, computer parts, magazines, software, books, monitors, TVs, electronics, etc. I’ve thrown out more the last few weeks (and most of it clearly trash).

Free stuff: I’ve still got the Martha Stewart Christmas tree to give away for anyone who wants to come pick it up (this will not still be here in a few more weeks).
THE TREE IS GONE.

I’ve also got a few monitors if anyone local has some problems with their computer monitor (I think two 15 inch and one 17 inch). And two VCRs that only play.

Cheap: I’ve also got a variety of stuff that I’ll probably be putting up for sale if you know anyone who needs stuff cheap (TiVos, stereo receivers, speakers, CD changers [5 and 200], 15 inch TV, etc.). It’s all great condition, but I tend to upgrade often. I’ve just got to recoup a little of the cost. So if you know someone moving out / off to college, etc. ask me before they buy new stuff.

I love getting comments and feedback. They are great to receive at any time. Especially nice is when I’ve made a crabby post complaining about life (or something in particular) and people post nice posts hoping it “gets better”, “feels better” or something sweet along those lines. Thank you!!

Okay. So today is a better day so far! Got my Comcast cable fixed, super nice guy, said they must have disconnected me when hooking someone else up (at 3:33) so he tagged my cable so they’d (hopefully) leave it alone and he checked the signal strength for me to make sure it was a-okay. I’m well rested, which I really really needed. And not that I’d use computers for something that I shouldn’t (like Stargate or Galactica) let’s just say that today BitTorrent is my friend. It’s been sunny out so I’m off to run some errands while it’s nice out.

This is the most common reason that I know most of my friends have had to call in a repair request.

So it’s been a relatively bad week. I’m still sick (two weeks now) and they can’t figure out what’s up. I haven’t been sleeping well (got about 3-4 hours last night). I’ve had numerous overlapping appointments and meetings that made the week pretty goofy. I got a phone call from a buddy in the emergency room who wrapped his car around a pole (literally). Spent lots of time in the hospital and checking on things. I’ve been driving around with tin cans in my car since Monday and haven’t had time to take them back.

All I wanted to do after work was get some Thai food, go home, watch some TV and crash. So I get home and realize the cable is out and so is the Internet. (It’s SciFi Friday! How am I supposed to watch Galactica?!?)

So why did I decide I’m halfway to hell? The cable went out at 3:33…

Updates:

There is a reason that there is no mail and the banks and (some) schools are closed this Monday. Don’t forget…

Listen. Look. Learn. Pay attention, listen to what people are saying in person and on TV the next few days.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the third Monday in January, was first declared a public holiday in the United States by President Reagan in 1983. Born on January 15th, 1929, Martin Luther King became a Baptist minister and doctor of theology. He travelled extensively throughout the United States, preaching and working for Afro-American civil rights and was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee on 4th April, 1968.

The following is part of his famous speech “I have a dream“:
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I stll have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream, that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners, will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood – I have a dream.

The audio of his speech is on-line.

(Yes, this is pretty much the same entry I posted before.)

They promised me lots of sunshine today. I saw it peeking through the blinds while I was trying to sleep but in the few hours I’ve been up I’ve only seen about five minutes worth!

It’s just not acceptable :(

So I was going to write a post about the new Apple products (iMac, iLife 2006; I already drooled the other about the MacBook a few days ago) and the stats on the Music Store and the B & M stores but PeachPit Press did such a nice wrapup, I’m just going to link to theirs.

So I haven’t felt great this past week. Been sick / fighting being sick (mostly losing). The up side is I’ve been able to think, generally when I’m sick I’m all fuzzy and can’t concentrate and feel blah. With this, it’s the same but less, I’m a little fuzzy but not so much so that I sit on the couch and do the potato thing all day.

Today it was sunny so I ran (drove) up to the library to return a book and went to the cafe for some soup and some WiFi access. It’s the cafe with the goldfish on the table. So I ended up with chili and a Sprite. I’ll post this then head on home and pick up some Thai on the way home…

Technorati Tags: bored

On the goldfish: I think they’re down to just a few from when they stated using them (they were on the tables I think at their grand opening). Now that I look around the only one I see is the one on my table…

Michelle started the new year off right while giving a telemarketer a hard time.

It’s national de-lurking week so to celebrate be sure to post a comment on one of my posts. You wouldn’t want to be a party pooper and just lurk around here would you?!?

Thanks to Sheryl who started this and to WebMiztris for tipping me off that it was a national holiday!

Not a big blonde joke fan but this is the best blonde joke ever. And you know I don’t often tell jokes…

So I really want need the new MacBook Pro. The Specs are very impressive and it’s gat a great tag line.

“What’s an intel chip doing in a Mac?
A whole lot more than it ever did in a PC…”
- Apple.com

Plus it’s got everything a guy could want…

So I’m looking for a better land-line phone plan for my Mom (nothing higher tech than that) in Berkley, MI. She’s got nothing special right now but and I was looking at Talk America mainly for it’s wider local non-toll calling (a good chunk of SE Michigan). It’s about 22.95 with a wide non-toll area with toll calls for 7.9 cents and long distance for 6.9 cents (for $5 more you can get Call Waiting, Repeat Dialing, Speed Calling 8, 3-Way Calling, Call Return and Caller ID). She doesn’t do much that falls into those extra fee calls (and she could probably just use a phone card for those at 3.9 cents a minute) so I might just pick Talk America but I know I’ve seen them advertise better promotions in the past. I think it was cheaper when I got it and had 3 extra services included. Anyone know of any offers/promotions to switch? (I think she’s with AT&T now).

So it’s really cold out and icy! I needed to be at the shelter training for a volunteer panel orientation and I left extra early but they closed the expressways. I took some back roads and Hines Drive and I got there a few minutes late (but not too late to do my thing).

But these Michigan people and their four wheel drive have no clue how to drive. They were the ones sliding all over the place almost causing the accidents. Just drive reasonable and they’d probably be safer but they drive like the roads aren’t even icy. They closed the expressways, that should tell you something…

So that inspired me to change my theme to something cold but less Christmas-ish.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Web Programmer
Computer Trainer
Cook
Camp Counselor

Four movies you could watch over and over:

The Flight of the Navigator

The American President

The Cutting Edge

A Christmas Story

Four places you’ve lived:
Berkley, MI
East Lansing, MI
Haslett, MI
Dearborn, MI

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Gray’s Anatomy
Two and a half Men
Medium
Veronica Mars

Four websites you visit daily:
Blogography
SlickDeals
The Daily Meme
Google

Four of your favorite foods:
Pizza
Hot Wings
Chicken With Pineapple (Chinese)
Beef With Brocolli (Chinese)

Four places you’d rather be:
Egypt
Costa Rica
London
The Moon

Four albums you can’t live without (for the moment):

Avril Lavign Under My Skin

Anna Nalick Wreck of the Day

Tori Amos Little Earthquakes

Indigo Girls Strange Fire

I’m stopping at four (2 new & 2 old) but I really couldn’t stick to four…

Via Webmiztris via Kimi and Wendy.

So I was talking about being “obsessive compulsive” or maybe it was “anal retentive” but you have to watch when you mix your metaphors because it sounds a lot worse when you say that you’re “anal compulsive” compared to the other way around…

I’m not sure if this actually “mixing your metaphors”…

I was lying here (not sleeping) and I saw on the clock it was almost one o’clock in the morning (Eastern) which means there’s a Woot item for sale. Woot puts one item for sale clearance a day at this time every day. Whenever I’ve checked it’s either sold out (usually in the first 10-30 minutes) or something I don’t want. But tonight…

I ended up with a Microsoft wireless keyboard and optical mouse for 22.95 (+$5 s & h). And it’s Mac compatible!

Check it out. It’s a different item every day sometimes a $10 item, sometimes and $2000 plasma TV. You never know (although it’s always $5 for shipping) for sure what you’ll see (some times it’s refurbished, which is okay with me).

They even have fun stats like how many people bought how many and how long they’ve been woot-ing….

And they do a podcast too.

UPDATE: They sold out after five hours and fifty eight minutes. They sold one every 7.703 seconds. That was a total of 2796 keyboards/mice…

So I really like The Closer on TNT. I didn’t catch it until the end of last season (I think it conflicted with something else so I didn’t see it much), I like if more and more each episode. It’s pretty much a cop show with Kyra Sedgewick as Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson who says ‘Thank You’ so much you could probably make a drinking game out of it.

She’s got this great southern drawl and is always very politer (even when she isn’t). They just started rerunning them in order (I think) and I really like they way they are introducing the characters. She’s a messy, junk food junkie and she’s got an awful sense of direction so she’s late for everything.

She was brought there for her interrogation skills and to “close” the interrogation but from what I’ve seen it’s more of a detective show. A special unit called the Priority Murder Section.

I thought I had seen her in more movies but the only one I could recall for sure was Phenomenon about ten years ago, I also saw her in singles but I would have bet money I had seen her in more than that…

“I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every
other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the
locks, they are always locking three.”

–Elayne Boosler

Here’s another…

“Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I’m halfway through my
fishburger and I realize, Oh my God….I could be eating a slow learner.”
–Lynda Montgomery

From Don’t Forward.

So I have to give Jeremy Hermanns credit, it looks like his third personal blog post is about his airplane de-pressurizing and having to wear an oxygen mask. Oh, did I forget to mention that he manages to snap some pictures with his Treo during all the action.

It looks like he runs (works with?) a few other blog sites, but looks as if he just started his personal blog the week before.

I’m glad he thought to take photos, he’d have been kicking himself later since he had it on him.

If you actually want to hear about the incident, you’ll have to read it for yourself.

So just after midnight last night I tried to make a few New Year’s phone calls. I could get a signal (I had lots of bars signal) but I couldn’t get the network to complete a call, it just timed out. The same thing happened with the analog network but eventually I got through (on analog). Just made me think of disaster and emergencies and times you might really need to make a call…

It was enough to remind me to add the local police department number to my Skype list (done!). I suppose I should check for a different number for the fire department. Just in case there’s a problem, I don’t want to be fumbling around for that.

These days they should really be listing emergency numbers for the police/fire departments that dump you into the 911 bank so that you can call via cell and not have to be routed through the state police.