It's My Life

I thought that tonight I'd sit down again for a little while and write a real entry. It's a Friday night, I've started my nice long weekend, I've got a nice cold drink, so why not.I was technically finished working at noon today, and I get Monday and Tuesday off for Christmas. It was extremely nice of them to give me my birthday off, don't you think? SMILE! Okay, so that wasn't exactly planned, but hey, whatever works. So, this afternoon I've been taking it easy and just sort of hanging around watching TV. The other night Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was on, and that's the one HP movie I haven't seen yet. So, I got the great idea of taping it since I was busy the night it was on. Unfortunately, my VCR had other plans. We have three VCRs. One is a pain to program because you have to be able to read the screen and use the arrow keys to get around and there's no fixed starting place. The second one is in my office and has a bad connection, so half the time when I try to record on it I get a bunch of static instead of the intended program, unless I spend a ton of time wiggling the stupid cable connection around before hand. The third one is the best of the three, but apparently needs to be unplugged for about a week because no matter how often I tell it to switch to the cable band it keeps switching to antenna, so it won't pick up anything over channel 13. So, needless to say, I chose the VCR that I thought would work out the best for this little project; the one in my office. I set things up, programmed the VCR, and made sure the TV was positioned against the wall in such a way that the cable was held in the correct position. Things recorded all right, and when I got home from what I was doing, I checked the TV and the reception seemed great. Apparently though, in turning off the stupid TV, (which is too old to actually have a remote), I must have bumped it just enough to knock the cable from its position. So, the first hour of the movie is great. After that though, you can sort of hear the audio, but for the most part it's got a lot of static. I'm really disappointed, especially since this was supposed to be the extended version, with scenes that weren't even shown in the theaters. So, yet again, I don't get to see the movie. I swear there's something keeping me from seeing this thing.That was going to be my evening entertainment, so now I've got to find something else to do. I may set up my laptop and get some movies from Freedom Box, but we'll see what actually happens. I may decide just to read a book or something, but since the speakers I use for my Book Port are a little on the irritating side at the moment, I'm not quite sure what I'll do. Actually, this weekend might just be a good time to check out Overdrive. The Wisconsin Regional Library is participating in the Overdrive service that allows library patrons to download audio books for a week's time and then the files stop working. I discovered that these books play extremely well on the PAC Mate, so I could just plug it in and read all weekend. Hey, sounds like a plan! SMILE!Speaking of the weekend, we don't have anything major planned. Christmas Eve we're going to be going to a dinner put on by a couple of people who provide a dinner to everyone who's staying here for Christmas. They've done it every year since the building opened four years ago, and these people are really fun. On Christmas I'm making pork tenderloin, twice-baked potatoes, corn, corn bread stuffing, garlic rolls, and French Silk pie. No, these things are not all being made from scratch; Stovetop Stuffing is a great invention. SMILE! I haven't quite decided what I want to do on the day of my birthday. I'd like to do something different, but I really don't have any brilliant ideas. We could go out to eat somewhere, but I can't even think of a place where I'd like to go. So we'll see what happens.Right now I've got a couple of potatoes in the oven baking. I'm having a potato craving, so I think I'm going to make some cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. The potatoes I have are huge though, so aren't really good candidates for the microwave which is what I'd normally do. Cally is behind my head and Taz is on Jim's lap. I mentioned kind of in passing the other day that my wireless connection is down. I don't really understand what the problem is. My laptop connects just fine, but we can't connect with our PAC Mates, and nothing's changed in our router configuration. Okay, so I suspect that my brand new, two-month-old Ambicom wireless card is dead since it tends to lock up my machine when I put it in, or tell me that the card is unrecognized, even after reinstalling the drivers, but even Jim's won't connect. So, I dug out my Ethernet card and connected a nice long cable to the router. It's not quite the same as being wireless, but at least I'm not stuck behind my desk. I'm getting really tired of being in there, and I want something different for the weekend. So, hopefully the wireless will just sort of fix itself. I suspect that there's some sort of interference with something in the building, but nobody will ever admit to having any new devices that could cause problems. This happened to someone else not too long ago with some TTY equipment and I don't think anyone ever came forward.Anyway, I think that's about it for now. I just want to wish everyone of you a Merry Christmas, (or if you don't celebrate Christmas, happy holidays in general), and I hope the best for everyone in the upcoming new year. Be safe!