Am re-installing Vista- wait, no, have re-installed Vista and am re-installing everything else amidst pretty! shiny! distractions!

Also, laundry.

In the process, somewhere between picking tomatoes (anyone need some? I have... a lot. And no time to can this year. Yikes) and unearthing the table (so that's what was holding up all that stuff in the kitchen!), I found JOHN SHEPARD'S DESKTOP WALLPAPER. I'm convinced. One of many, I'm sure, but definitely part of the collection.

ETA: Also, I had forgotten my love for DS9. I mean, sure, The Next Generation - Jean-Luc Picard, hello? - but I had quite the affair going with DS9, too. Does the fact that I could recall Rene Auberjonois' name (and and how to spell it) but not his character name mean I'm a lapsed Trekkie or just Odo odd? I never thought I was a Trekkie...

*blinkblinkblink*

Kermit Bale

I ♥ the Internet.

Anyway, I have pics to share thanks to my AWESOME NEW CAMERA (of the point-and-shoot variety). I decided we were going with a Nikon L18 in ruby red. I would've been happy to have a Nikon D80 substituted instead, or (while we're dreaming) a D200 even, but, alas, not yet. *g*

Yes, D, it had to be the red one. Because I said so.

Under the cut, kids of the furry variety. ( Reasonably sized so they're halfway okay for dial-up. )


Fun (and useful) new find of the week: Artisteer blog design software, via one RSS feed or another. Artisteer is still in beta, and when I submitted my email for notification of download availability, I received a link right away. It's a ton of fun and will chipperly export in either HTML or Wordpress, with support for other software on the way. It's a very different way to design from anything else I've used (and did I mention easy?), pretty much an extreme WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

Tomorrow! The picture essay of what I did today (day late and a dollar short, as had been said a number of times, thanks): SCRAP. No, no - probably not anything you're thinking.

It's the Sandusky County Restorers of Antique Power's annual Labor Day weekend event that wraps up with a rather large consignment auction, which happened today. It's really quite a large event (last year they had over 10,000 attendees and the consignment auction totaled out at over $408,000) and hard to believe the group itself just started in 1986. D's been there all day - he called ahead to warn me he spent too much money.

Yes, I know y'all are breathless with anticipation.

Loads Completed: 3 (FOLDED AND PUT AWAY OMG. I was delayed by gum in the dryer. Grrr. D - the gum chewer - cleaned it out today as assigned.)

Plain White Undershirts Folded (HATE): 17

Pairs of D's White Socks: 24

Pairs of D's Briefs: ...4 (No, I don't know where the rest of them are. It has me slightly concerned.)

Loads Still to Go: *snort* Still can't tell. BUT, I do have a hallway. Sort of. Okay, the laundry is only in the hallway now. The designated laundry, anyway, which doesn't count the stuff that needs washed (puppy blankets, whatever Bangkok's taken to laying on this week, etc.) that hasn't actually made it that far yet.

Now? Now I'm working on bills. *waves leetle pennant*

Am presently, for the first time in a while, actually, ensconced at ze coffee house. For the record, I've actually accomplished a couple of things this morning, which are notable only because of my predeliction to be distracted at the speed of sight. To whit, shopped for and bookmarked a potential point and shoot camera for D to look at - ours needs replaced and we've done some random shopping seperately, but I needed to actually look and see what model I wanted (in terms of features and price - if price were no object, it would have been a different selection *g*). Also! I shopped about for a new laptop sleeve as I've never been happy with the one I bought initially. I found one I liked, but I'm using D as a purchase sounding board lately, so I want to run it by him (my brain is more than happy to not be the final decision maker - plus, it gives me time to consider if I really want to buy something with the click of a mouse).

I have a new layout! Yes, again. Commitment issues regarding these things, remember? Anyway, it's Layout #001 by cosmfabric - beautiful, fresh color scheme with remarkably full integration into LJs quirks and nice mouseover effects (the icons are slightly dimmed until you cross them, then they brighten!), as well as Tiny Icons by FamFamFam. I find it easy to read while still being pretty, which is always awesome. I did change the size of the "comments" and "leave a comment" links in the CSS, so if you'd like to do the same and don't know how, I'd be happy to help. As always, layout is credited on my Profile (at my Profile? in my Profile? Hmm) along with notes of/links to my past layouts.

Now if I can just suit up my old iPod with music and playlists for permanent residence in the Camry (it has a nice mp3 player port that I'm not making use of right now), I'll have been wildly productive. But that requires deciding on a media player/music management software and that's driving me bonkers. I need something that'll preferably play/work with mp4 and ogg files, plus sync the iPod (which is currently Scully, but shortly to be Kaylee. The 4 GB USB drive is definitely a Scully), so it's liable to stretch into the evening at home while the laundry is processing. It doesn't help that I'm terrible at categorizing music. *sigh*

I'm ahead on my tagging again this week! Coding, no, not so much yet, but-! Tagging! For the record, in addition to the 313 personal & community LJs I follow on my own friend list, I'm also checking over 154 communities/off-LJ feeds and 246 personal LJs every week for sg1_debrief (This exceeds the items listed on the watch journal's profile due primarily to the additional feeds for the media and cons sections). I distinctly remember splash_the_cat saying this was a 'small' section when she first handed it off to me. :P And the next person who says that SG-1 is a dying fandom now that the show is off-air will be drawn and quartered [proof that it's, um, not so much]. I send all my code off to splash_the_cat for checking, final formatting, and integrating, and, wow, I keep expecting her to go blind from some heavyweight issue or another! *hands Splash cookie*

...Right. That's all I've got.

Okay, fine. So after something like a dozen mentions of them, I watched a couple of the House previews for the upcoming season.

...O.o

Ze writers have been reading [slash] fanfic?

Promo 1
Promo 2

You know how you usually have to put on slash glasses? This is more like slash sunglasses.

Have y'all seen Delicious.com, post upgrade???

Wow, this screen is huge! It's been so long since I used the desktop for more than five minutes (D's usually on it while I'm almost always on my laptop of late) that it's like I can see again! Hell, I didn't even have Semagic installed since the XP reboot, which is crazy talk.

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes yesterday, especially as it's something I'm quite terrible at! Nothing too exciting happened around here as I worked all day and then just vegged in front of the laptop (BLISS) while nibbling dinner, which consisted of last nights garden bounty: 4 tomatoes, a couple dozen steamed green beans, and some cucumber slices, all salted and cut up as finger food. Delicious! *g*

The excitement this morning was discovering that the dog-jumping-against-the-screen-door noise last night and River's-insistence-on-going-out-whining were actually Jack leaning against the screen door and having it open for him and River really wanting to go out and find out what Jack was up to. Jack whining to be let out this morning turned out to be Jack whining to be let in.

No collar. No nothing. Just Jack looking a little beat after spending the entire night outside.

For the uninitiated, beagles do not go outside without collars. EVER. And most shouldn't be let out without strict supervision. This is because they have great noses and a sense of curiousity that puts cats to shame - they'll follow a scent trail no matter where it leads without paying attention to anything else around them, including oncoming cars. If they're lucky enough to avoid oncoming traffic, they may well end up in the next county.

We lost Hunter to a moment's inattention, a scent trail, and the highway. Hunter lived up to his name and, in hindsight, should never, ever, have been off leash or outside a fence unless he was actively hunting or inside with us.

You have no idea how grateful I am that Jack and River, with no where near the level of tracking skill as Hunter, are a rare breed of what I call, with tongue firmly in cheek, homing beagles. Jack is perfectly happy to run in circles around our three acres, or rummage through the woods behind D's mom's house, while River trails along behind, occasionally sussing out the trail to get him back on track when he loses it.

Hunter would have been an ideal canidate for the Beagle Brigade - he was a beagle ambassador, friendly to everyone, and had a killer nose. Jack and River have had to un-learn being anti-social with anyone outside the pack, they're only just learning to walk on a leash well enough that I can handle both of them at the same time, and while they do find a rabbit from time to time, River really prefers watching hummingbirds or eating pizza, thanks. They do, however, like to hang around the house and stay relatively close to their pack and oh THANK GOD for it.

I thought they'd seen a moth or something and... which they may have. But Jack's just so darn quiet when it comes to asking to be let in or out...

So there he was this morning on the front step, whining that he'd really like to come in now, without so much as a collar. Dear God.

*stumbles in, looks about blearily*

Is it September yet? No? Damnit.

*stumbles back out*

...*pokes head back in*

Have seen The Dark Knight and X-Files. Both fantastic. Both disturbing. Scully still kicks ass (♥) and I now remember why the show used to scare the piss out of me every week. Heath Ledger's performance was absolutely amazing.

Loved both movies. More on them later.

Still have to see Wanted and Wall-E... My summer movie slate seems to have an odd man robot out in terms of tone, yes? Hmm.

*eyes cross, yawns, ducks back out*

ETA: ALSO, just in case I didn't have enough to not be doing, the gateverse_remix is live [Master List]. *WHIIIIINES*

Note to dumbass (aka self): Opera mail in IMAP is vastly different from POP3. You set it up in IMAP and delete it in Opera? It deletes the message in gMail. This is especially true when you empty the trash can.

I have no fucking clue what I might have deleted, let alone what of it might have been important. Obviously, I should not be anywhere near technology right now as I have a problem with my fucking brain being missing.

That's so bad I can't even freak out about it. And I'm... I'm just gonna back away from the computer now. Slowly.

Obsession. by `zemotion on deviantART

This made me think of all the purple lovers on my flist (and enderwiggin24 in particular). *g*

Today was... not as bad as I feared. More like the third level of Hell versus the seventh level or so that I was expecting. Still, by the end of the day, I had zero brain cells and/or energy left. So, napped and then started blindly clicking across the net. Somehow this led to fonts.

I should probably mention at this point that I have a small font obsession. Does this surprise anyone? No, I thought not.

Anyway, point is, it's not like I need more fonts right now (or, ya know, ever) but they're pretty! And - God help us all - I discovered this evening that over in the Resources section of DeviantArt they have fonts. As in, lots and lots of fonts!!

*quivers*

Fortunately, font files are small. My hard drive is infinitely grateful for this fact.

I have to admit that there are a couple of things that continually annoy me about custom themes. The first is incomplete RSS support - generally, the only thing that comes through on FeedDemon with custom layouts (including mine) is the title. As this is how I tag/code for sg1_debrief, it means extra work for me. The second annoyance is comment pages without the option to browse for a userpic. I really, really, really love userpics (it's one of my more harmless neuroses *g*) and being able to select one visually is always a pleasure.

I work around both these annoyances continually, but the fact that they're sitting right in my own LJ is twitch inducing.

Add to this that, these days, I'm most often on my laptop and the screen is set at a pretty high resolution (1440x900) for a 15 inch widescreen. This has the unfortunate side effect of making the print... small. As much as I adore the sharpness, consistently reading text that claims to be 12 pt and I would swear is more like 6 pt, it's a bit hard on the eyes. Suddenly website accessibility/legibility becomes a pressing issue! Yes, I've upped the default font size system-wide and for Firefox preferences, but a few pt sizes is really all you can do before things start to go wacky since I would prefer that the resolution itself stays the same. But I would at least like the webpages where I spend the most time to be pretty darn legible and for me that means gMail and my friends page among a handful of others.

My friends page displayed in my usual themes just wasn't up to par, and considering the issues I have with custom layouts (see above), I checked out LJs templates for the first time in a while. In short... Nice! The little magnifying glass in the corner of each thumbnail pops up a new browser window with a preview of your LJ using the style in question, which is a very cool feature. There's some nice designs, too. My favorites:

Circular by ChaseTheStars
Fleur Purple by Mena Trott
Scribe by Paulina Bozek
Swimmingly by Lorraine Barte

Now, these are just the purtiful ones I picked out this evening - there are plenty I would be happy using that simply have pleasing color palettes in a sane layout. I've opted for the Fleur Purple for the time being, another color variation of which I've used before.

...Oh yes. Muuuuuch better. *g*

(This is brought to you by work de-stressing as I've spent a portion of today in the fifth level of Hell. Tomorrow I'm descending a few more levels, but at least I get to wear jeans.)

I am alive, for the record. Computer issues have made things somewhat more interesting lately, but all the bits and pieces are up and running again. I've been doing some work for the OTW and periodic bouts of non-existant computer and/or internet connection has resulted in me being behind on those things, not to mention tagging and coding for Debrief. Thank heavens for the long weekend, just to catch up on work and sleep.

Speaking of The Debrief, issue 49.5 is up and includes links to any Don S. Davis tributes and memories (ones that were more than just a few lines), so check it out if you have a chance. If you can submit any other links which might have been overlooked or might be in LJs not on the watchlist, it would be appreciated.

Just to keep you in the loop, I present My Home Office: ( Two images! Should be dial-up friendly. )

I've found some neat things lately which I don't have time to do an exhaustive coverage of, but in particular, Stylish for Firefox, which acts like Greasemonkey and lets you tweak details of particular websites. The reason to opt for it over Greasemonkey is that I found a very nice userscript to configure Del.icio.us: The Trebuchet Chocolate Navigation Bundle. Sweet stuff!

Actually, now that I'm looking at it, you can use it with Greasemonkey, too. Hmm, forgot that bit. So there you go! Pretty Del.icio.us!

*sigh* Now if only my bookmarks at said site weren't a mess as well. But sleep is gnawing at my brain again, determined to get caught up despite the speed (or the speed is just lacking determination to overcome the ever present threat of tolerance, I'm not sure which), so I'm going to try and nap (again). Yes, it's the same way sitting at a desk in an office ten miles away under flourescent lights. This particular variation on the home office just makes the aches more tolerable!

I'll be curled up with the pups over here if anyone needs me. *g*

The winner of the shortest lifespan of an electronic component goes to *drumroll* the wireless router!! Hmm, lemme see... it lived for about 5 hours.

No, I'm not kidding.

The wireless router that I was so excited about getting hooked up? Dead as a doornail. I even tried contacting Linksys customer support, but they agreed: return it. *sigh* Seriously, anyone know of similar problems with the new Linksys? It is, specifically, Linksys WRT110 wireless router RangePlus with MIMO. Basically a kind of wireless-G/N hybrid.

*pets poor dead equipment*

OMG. I HAS WIRELESS. IT ACTUALLY WORKS. OMG. *flails*

(Verizon complicates everything, by the way, and this is process attempt number something or other. BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER. WORKS NOW. OMG.)

So, I've been around fandom, and this is the proof. Fic which I've been reading! This covers the last 6 days and lists a total of 36 fics read - or, rather, 36 fics I liked. I read more, but, um, some of them were terrible. So if you have a fic on this list? I liked and/or loved it. Anyway, out of 36 fics, 19 were read today. There are also 6 links to rec pages/fic lists and 12 fics added to my endless To Read list. Decidedly Iron Man and Battlestar Galactica heavy! *happy sigh*

The numbers following the links are the date the fic/etc. was originally posted (YYYY.MM.DD). This is mostly for my own uses but, hey, why not post it? They are not, at this point, in any particular order - I just get overwhelmed with tagging all the damn things into Del.icio.us. *sigh* Also, um, all these links? I haven't left any feedback yet. Please don't hate me.


( Recs/Fic Lists )

( Iron Man )

( SG-1 )

( BSG )

( SGA )

( Other Fandoms )

Typical. I went in the kitchen to get a paper towel and ended up re-arranging the counter. And then forgot the paper towel. Or as a friend sent me yesterday:

I'm ADOS: Attention Deficit O'hhhh.... Shiny!!
or
CDO: Like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in alphabetical order like it should be.

It's like they know me! Oh hey! I need a paper towel. I'll just go get one. Don't wait up for me.

Morning, Campers! Yours truly has not, in fact, fallen off the face of the Earth. I have been besieged by a combination of work, out-of-town trips, and one very persistent headache from Hell. Laundry and dishes have also languished with a lack of attention as may be evidenced by the pile of clothes and bedding in the hallway. D's been doing the dishes when he get desperate and I just don't look too closely. It's better that way.

Today, though, is Day One of Week Long Vacation. Wheeeeee! The morning pup (aka Thing2) had me up at 7am regardless, only to be going back to sleep himself at 7:40 (monster).

Not surprisingly, I have 30 million things I'd like to do this week, but how many of them are accomplished remains to be seen. The bulk of it will be a trip home to see an aunt and uncle visiting from down south, with a side trip to Dayton for fangirling over SGA thus re-enforcing Kisti's move to the Dark Side. There are also the pile(s) in the hallway which need attending (or I need to go buy some more underwear and socks, it's one or the other at this point), bills to be paid (today), tagging and coding to be done, half a dozen new Linux distros to try out, a complete OS re-install to prep for, some cleaning that is already desperately delayed, and, um, that's just the stuff I really, really need to do.

*facepalm*

As it turns out, D will be away at training in the middle of the week, when I'm liable to be gone as well, so D's mom will be babysitting the monsters pups. Fortunately, their grandma is accustomed to their shenanigans. *g* Normally, I'd take them with me, but, um, no. Just... no. Side trip to Dayton, some stops to make on the way back, and all the confusion at Mom and Dad's make it impossible.

I wish it were easier to travel/go out with pets, especially the pups. But it'd have to be a considerably more animal friendly world (puppy seats in the front of carts at the grocery store! with little harness clips so they didn't lunge for the meat case! puppy strollers you could take around the mall!). They are, after all, my kids as well as my back-up; they're on my side when I'm out braving the wide world. Sure, it's easier traveling alone, but it's also more boring.

Did I mention wireless networking in the household to set up? Right. Off to get cracking now (speed's kicked in, coffee is waiting). Next post: IRON MAN and why I need to revise my Profile now. ♥

Lifehacker is a wonderfully dangerous thing. Tonights distractions include Better Gmail 2 (with a very nice Redesigned skin - yes, I'm a little behind) and RocketDock (link goes to the Lifehacker post as the RD homepage has embedded media that would load slow on a dial-up connection). RD gives us poor Windows users a Mac like dock, fully customizable, from which to operate. Combined with setting the task bar to auto-hide, it's making me quite happy!

( small screencap )

The nice part is that various setting mostly have sliders, and the live preview lets you see the changes immediately, so customizing is easy. Whee! There's tons of ways you can do it, though. I added in paths to files like Semagic (currently running in the screenshot), MainType, and Deskpins, plus there are customized icons for Firefox and FeedDemon (both available on the RocketDock site).

I spent maybe half an hour playing around with it (and there's no one here but the cats and I who might know differently) and had it tweaked six ways from Sunday. Not to mention it's a quick download and easy on the system resources. Even better!

One cautionary note for Firefox users: I'd forgotten I still had a FF2 folder laying around as, by default, FFb3v5 installs in a seperate folder. Also, if you navigate directly to the FF2 folder, the one marked 'Mozilla Firefox', and execute the program? It will let you and then ask if you want Firefox to be your default browser, which it isn't ("Wait. What?"). Just make sure the path to the file is to the beta folder and all will be well. :)

(Sadly, I didn't notice it was the wrong Firefox until the address bar couldn't tell me what address I was looking for and was generally unhelpful. I thought I'd broken it for a moment.)

Here. Have a puppy. Now smile.



That wasn't so hard, was it? Oh, and you can click on the cuteness for a larger version.

Having been randomly researching dog breeds this morning on teh interwebs, I concluded that I am a die hard beagle lover. Fortunately y'all are too far away to smack me upside the head and say "d'uh!". Tragically accepting my fate, I've been reading about the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Beagle Brigade, just because I can (it was a terrible week and this made me happy, so I was going with it).

I'm a huge fan of the Beagle Brigade! See, the breed has a reputation for being extremely cute and TROUBLE, both of which are absolutely true. The little monsters are curious to a fault with noses that just don't quit and - if you asked them - bottomless pits for stomachs. As someone once said to me "They're cute enough to get out of all the trouble they get into."

Yep. That about covers it. ( The Beagle Brigade - A Front Line Defense. No. REALLY. (Images behind the cut, re-sized for portability!) )


Beagle Brigade Basics

( Beagle Brigade Basics )


( Answering the Question 'Why Beagles??' )


( Beagle Brigade Links! )

Beagle, as defined and psychoanalyzed by Wikipedia (good article, actually, with an interesting history of the breed and, from my own beagle possessed experience, a spot on summation of personality).

Photobucket album with these images and a few additional.