The kittens are more cats than kittens now, and their bodies got freakishly long over just a week. They got their last round of shots and came in at 4.6 and 4.8 pounds. Wow, how they've grown.

Not much more news. The kittens weighed in at 3.4 and 3.5 lbs at their last vet visit. We went to BlizzCon, had great fun, but we're glad to be back in Austin. Been working too much so I've been too tired to post. Siiighhhh.

Not much news in the kitten front, other than they're getting really big really fast. They're certainly more cat-like than kitten-like. Now the hard task of trimming their claws is at hand.

We recently got some brown rice bowls from Costco, and they're really tasty! (And a really quick way to make dinner.) Our fancy rice cooker has a brown rice setting, so we got a bag of it and made some the other night. That was definitely not quick. It took over an hour for two cups. Why is that?

The things I do while waiting for my energy to replenish on Mafia Wars (a Facebook app game).

We took our kitten in for their first round immunizations today. They seem to be just fine, unlike their brother. We're dropping off a sample of their poop to check for worms but otherwise, they have a clean bill of health. I was rather relieved. Hopefully they'll be our companions for many years to come.

Jayna is the pretty one, with a great marbled tabby coat. She's the one in front in the picture below. We call her the princess cuz she knows she's pretty and she'll go up to anyone that will appreciate her beauty. She also howled up a storm when the vet was taking a blood sample to check for feline leukemia and FIV. Newt, though she's more skittish, was a trooper and barely made any sound when they were checking her. During the physical exam, Jayna was squirming like crazy, while Newt just protested a bit and then just resigned herself to the handling.

As promised, a picture of the ladies:

Rest in peace, Dorian Gray.

He had a good 8 weeks, where people loved him and an entire staff of veterinary professionals tried everything they could to keep him alive. But in the end, his trauma was too great and he was just too little to operate on.

The vets had a last ditch effort where they decided to stick a catheter in him and stitch it on so he'd have a permanent hole to pee out of. That's when they discovered that the scar tissue that held his prepuce shut was starting grow over his entire penis. Whatever damage had been done to him in the first few weeks of life had sealed his fate. Poor little guy.

But I'm glad he had a chance to live a good life, as short as it was. He was the sweetest kitten with the loudest purr I've heard coming out of something so little. He was always so happy that we never knew if he was in any pain. But comparing him to his two sisters, who are bigger and a lot more active and rambunctious, I can see that he has always been uncomfortable. He just never let it show. Even as we played with him last night, knowing it was last time he'll get to climb the cat tree, he was still so sweet and loving.

Watching the vet give him the drugs to put him to sleep and then drugs to stop his heart was one of the hardest things I've done. But I'm glad I was there. I was amazed at how quick it was. From the moment the first drug was administered to the time the vet listened for a heart beat before telling us he was gone was mere minutes. I'm glad I got to say good bye to this little guy who was in our house for such a short time but will forever be in our hearts.

Wow, where has the time gone!

In the time since my last post, my family has come and visited us in Austin, we've gone back to California to visit and for a friend's wedding, and then we got 2 kittens, returned one and got another.

Well, I can't write about it all, but I'll write a bit about our kittens. Our friend Kathrenne found three feral kittens on her back porch in the middle of May. They were about 2 weeks old, and she decided that she didn't want to increase the feral cat population in her neighborhood, so she took them in. Whateley and I have been talking about getting a pet, and we were debating between getting a dog or a cat. Then we decided that since we're gone 12 hours a day, four or five days a week, that we'd need to get two animals so they wouldn't get bored and tear our house apart. And then we got to thinking, taking care of two dogs is a lot harder than taking care of two cats. So when Kathrenne told us about the kittens she found, we told her we'd take two of them. She had been trying to get us to take all three, but jumping from no cats to three seems to be a bit more crazy.

Anyway, there were two females and one male, so we decided to take the male one and one of the females. We decided to name them Zan and Jayna, after the Wonder Twins. ("Wonder Twin powers activate! Form of a cute kitten!") Well, after we got back from our trip to California, the kittens were old enough for us to take. The day after we took them, however, we noticed that Zan was going to the litterbox a lot and peeing very little each time. He had had a urinary infection when Kathrenne first found him, but that had cleared up with antibiotics. Though, his swollen junk kept getting sucked on by the other kittens, so the swelling never truly went down.

Anyway, we took Zan to the vet and they told us his bladder was very full, and his prepuce was stuck together and he wasn't able to stick his penis out to pee. They pried it apart and let him pee, and they thought that may have cleared it. Three days later, Whateley notices that he's not peeing again, and he described one attempt by Zan to go to the litterbox and giving the most pitiful meow when he couldn't.

He took Zan to the vet again and they told him it was a good thing he brought him in since if we had waited one more day, he would've died.

Let's just say, these were emotionally draining days.

The prepuce had "healed over" and shut closed again. They weren't sure what they needed to do, but it looked like he was going to need careful watching and with us working and being gone half the day, it may end up with us coming home one day and finding him dead. So we gave him back to Kathrenne, since she doesn't work. But I did feel bad that we basically "returned" a sick kitty to her. But she's gotten rather attached to him, and was willing to take care of him, so we were glad that at least we can go visit the little guy should he make it. They recently operated on his prepuce and basically cut and stitched his prepuce open. They can't do any other surgical procedure on him until he gets bigger. He's only 2.5 months old, and with his bout of urinary infection, his growth got delayed and he's a week or so behind his sisters in growth. But should he make it a few more months where he's big enough, they may be able to do a more permanent surgery on him to fix this problem. Poor little guy. He's so sweet and friendly despite all the problems with his junk.

Whateley originally didn't want to take the other kitten, but we talked it over, and we originally wanted to have two cats to keep each other company, and our other perfectly healthy kitten would still need that. And we could also give Kathrenne a break from having to care for the other kitten while she took care of Zan. So we took the other kitten in and named her Newt, because her skittishness reminded us of the little girl from Aliens.

So our two newest addition to the family are Newt and Jayna. Funny, Kathrenne renamed Zan to Dor (short for Dorian Gray, cuz he's a gray kitty), so Jayna's themed name gets a bit lost there. I'll post some pictures as soon as I download them from our camera.

Whateley here with another "bored while the wife is asleep" blog.

It finally happened today, I am officially over this remaking movie craze that Hollywood is in. I could feel the nails start to slide into the coffin back when Keanu did "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Which if you are into classic film, you really owe it to yourself to see the original. Sure it's good all the B-movie Sci-fi trimmings, a theremin, a flying saucer, a big giant robot, and a "Gee-golly" kid to boot. But the acting is pretty good, especially out of Klatu (Michael Rinnie), and its message is actually topical today, and must have been downright scandalous back in the 50's. But the remake was this hippy dippy enviornmental message that completely missed the point of the original, or of it's own movie. For somebody opposed to killing as Keanu-Klatu claimed he was, he sure did murder a ton of people.

Anyhoo I wasn't upset when they started remaking old TV shows, because we got "The Brady Bunch Movie" out of it which was a piece of ironic genus. I wasn't upset when they started remaking horror movies, "Dawn of the Dead" was quite styilish even if it had nothing to do with the original beyond a mall. I wasn't upset when they started redoing classic Sci-fi, that has it's roots going back to the 80's with the big screen non-porn emergence of Traci Lords in "Not of this Earth." I also was ready to be mad but very charmed by "Star Trek" even though in a way it invalidates my two favoriate Star Trek movies, Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, and Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country.

Basically I wasn't upset when they were taking the classics and trying to do something new and interesting with them. But it's gone to far. Every week on my usual Sci-fi sites I hear a story about how they are redoing this, or booting this franchise back up. Enough is enough. There was a reason why "A Nightmare on Elm Street" was popular back in the 80's, do we really need to see Freddy hyped up to the new generation played by "The Watchmens" Rorschach? Does "Hellraiser" need to be redone with new F/X that are created by a non-drunk director? Most of the reason these classics (and yes they are classics damn it) sunk anyway wasn't because the original movies or the 3rd sequel were really that bad. It was because the 4th, 5th, 6th etc sequel was bad. Hollywood sucked the life out of these movies like Edward wants to suck the red groovy out of Bella. And now they are standing up over the drained corpses and saying "these need to have a fresh start." Damn it! Just let it go! They are classics because they said something about another time and scene, and hooked into something. Instead of looking back (as people love to do with their rosey colored glasses), why not look forward and try to create something new?

But alas, I expect to much out of Hollywood. Why try something new which could (and probably will) fail. For every "Jeepers Creepers," or "Dog Soldiers," we have twelve dozen crappy horror movies that nobody will watch. Also as sad and pissed as I am I know I'm going to end up seeing the "Predator" remake (probably because it's very likely it will be made in Austin), and I will rent "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Hellraiser." Hell I'm probably going to buy "Star Trek," especially if they make a version with all the deleted scenes. Why try something new, when an old hit is a sure thing. It's probably why you find so many covers to Beatles songs out there.

Anyway this is my silly little voice saying to Hollywood, please give filmmakers a chance to do something new. I don't want the epic experiences of my childhood remade with computers and young hot stars. If I want to relive my childhood I will pop in the DVD I already own. Give me something new. Sure people are going to experiment and fail, but if you give them money to do this, but every so often they will build the new franchises that you can drain dry 10 years from now. But thats just my opinion I could be wrong.

/rant

Horrible storm is brewing outside, but at least it's broken the heat wave!

Awww... the kitty is gone. Xeo came back from California and the little ball of allergies has gone back to her master.

It did make us want to get a pet, though. Whateley is a pet lover without a pet. But with our schedule the way it is, we can't have a dog cuz we'll end up leaving him alone for 12 hours a day, and the dog will go crazy tearing up the house. Whateley did some research and found Corgis do well being left alone, so that's an option. Otherwise we were thinking of getting a cat, since cats don't need a pack to not go crazy. But having Xeo's kitty for 3.5 weeks did a number on our immune systems. I don't think I'm allergic to the cat hair, but the dander doesn't help my daily stuffy nose.

Anyway, our work schedules will be up in the air soon, and we'll see whether or not we can get a pet. We're also thinking of procreatin' though, and I'm wondering, isn't that like the most ultimate pet? Or as they said in Scrubs, it's like having a dog that eventually learns to talk. Though, I think it's illegal if we leave a baby alone in the house all day.

We've got a kitty!

Temporarily though. Our friend Xeo had to go see his family back in California, so we offered to take care of his cat while he was gone. Rather than stop by his place every day (which, while it would be on the way during a work day, it would be out of the way during non-working days) we opted to cat-sit by bringing her to our house. We were a bit worried since cats can get rather crazy when you move them to a new location, and we fully expected her to stay in her carrier for days.

But she surprised us and after just one day, when we opened the door to the pantry where her carrier, food, and litter box was, she came out and started exploring. When we were at our computers, she came by and hung around our feet. She's such a sweet kitty....

Whateley's been loving it since he's a huge animal lover. Whenever the cat comes around, he drops to his stomach to pet her and scratch behind her ears. I like having an animal around, actually. I didn't really grow up with pets (though sometimes not for lack of trying), but after college, I've always had roommates that had pets. But it's really nice to be doing your thing and then I catch out of the corner of my eye this little furry being just sniffing around.

The only annoying thing is that she's a very furry cat, and no matter how much you brush her, she still sheds fur wherever she goes. So far it hasn't gotten too bad, but it won't be long before we have cat hair all over table legs, sofas, and the carpet. I've been lazy about vaccuuming, but we really can't with a cat around.

Another thing is, I think I'm allergic to her in some way. I don't seem to get the classic allergy symptoms, like itchy, watery eyes, sniffles, and sneezes. But mostly I get stuffy noses, and every morning in the shower, green and/or white gunk comes out of my nose and I can breathe normally for a few hours before it starts getting clogged up again. It's usually worse during work days when I have to step outside, and Texas pollen drives my nose nuts. When I just hang around the house, though, it's usually not as bad. But the past few days, my nose has gotten really stuffy. It's hard to tell, though, whether or not it's the cat or if there's a new type of pollen in the air. After all, with the rainy season upon us, the pollen count has risen.

All that aside, I'm considering whether or not to get a pet. Whateley really wants a dog, but we work such long hours that a dog would go nuts being alone for 13 hours a day. So we were thinking of getting a cat, except that Whateley's somewhat allergic to them and we'd have to keep the house a lot cleaner. Well, having Xeo's cat around for the next few weeks should help us figure out whether or not we can keep a cat. We're thinking of trying to have a kid sometime soon, and we're both very lazy. Having to take care of a pet in addition to taking care of a kid sounds like more work.

We had an eventful game night last night.

Yellowbeard's younger brother, DreadPirate, turned 21 that day, so of course, we got booze. Lots of it. Our friend Kathrenne even got a baby-sitter so she could come over to hang out. Our dinner option came to be a frozen lasagna which we popped in the oven shortly before the game began. We had fruit and salad shortly before the game started, but it wasn't much, and the lasagna was going to take 2 hours to cook. Anyway, the young DreadPirate and Kathrenne started downing shots of tequila. Two different types, actually. And before we knew it, they were hammered out of their minds. It was pretty interesting, actually. DreadPirate is rather notorious for getting his math wrong (what are my attack bonuses?) and rolling really crappy, but apparently, when he's drunk he does both really well.

Once the lasagna was done, we all went downstairs to have dinner. We ate, we poked fun at DreadPirate, we laughed. We had a good time. But Renavato made a point to tell us we should have a bucket nearby, just in case. Which turned out to be a really good idea.

Now, prior to this point, in the middle of the game, Kathrenne opted to leave our gaming table since she was starting to spill things. Before we knew it, she had started to camp our downstairs bathroom.

So while we were a bit concerned since she wasn't coming out to have any dinner, we figured she'll get better eventually. 4 hours later, she finally came out so Xeo could take her home.

But poor DreadPirate... I say, I've never seen anyone puke their guts out that much in that short of a time. This was a lesson to us all: Orange Tequila and regular Tequila shots on a near-empty stomach = Not a good time. We kept thinking the tequilas were tainted or something, but I've had some of it, and both bottles were from previous get-togethers so we've had them before, so I'm guessing it's just old-fashioned "not drinking responsibly." We joked that at least DreadPirate will always remember his 21st birthday. And a lot of people have similar stories for their 21st birthday. Not me, though. Apparently I'm a bit of a square cuz I can't even remember what I did for my 21st. I think I was going out with my then-boyfriend (now ex-, and the relationship didn't end well) and I'm sure I did something with him, though I really can't remember. Maybe I blocked it out. Or maybe it was just a boring birthday. Eh, I think I'd prefer the boring birthday to the birthday that ends in a long prayer session to the porcelain god. I had to lend the poor boy a pair of pants since Whateley's smallest pants would still be too big for him. Too bad I didn't have a really girly pair. =)

I was tempted to get my semi-permanent lipstick on him, but I didn't want to touch his post-vomit lips with it.

Some of our friends and co-workers are freaking out cuz of what Time Warner Cable plans on doing. Mainly, the people who don't have TV and the internet is their main source of entertainment are afraid their monthly bills will skyrocket. Especially since their largest cap is 40GB per month, which can easily go over if you watch a lot of streaming video.

The biggest issue seems to be that cable companies run on monopolies, and there's very little other options for high-speed internet.

Hello readers, this is Dr Whateley posting because... well I'm a tad bored and the Artiste is sleeping. I just wanted to pat myself on the back real quick because I feel a bit spiffy. I don't remember if the normal author mentioned this but we recently invested in some home exersize equipment. We decided to get something really nice and high end because we could afford it (our company has been very recession proof thus far), and I don't believe in messing around when your going to do something like this (like computers, I don't buy top of the line when I get a new one, but I spend a fair amount of money. And because of that they tend to last a bit longer, especially with a few key upgrades along the way).

Anyhoo, I've been at it for 6 or 7 weeks now, and I'm not sure what has happened in terms of inches. But I'm 10 pounds lighter than I was. So huzzah to me :)

People at work keep griping that they need to have more healthy snacks there for purchase. To which I think before I started exersizing more often I did quite a bit to cut back on my bad eating. I switched from soda to tea. My vise is I still have a Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea every day, but for 4oz more it has far less sugar and calories than a can of soda (http://www.sweetleaftea.com/). But if I need more caffiene during the day I just go make some Green Tea. I switched to whole wheat everything, stopped eating red meat pretty much all together. Made an effort to have more salads, with dressings that aren't just liquid fat (I miss ranch a lot). Yeah I tried the whole "if I eat better I won't get fat" diet that people seem to think works. You know what, I still ended up weighing the most I ever have because all I do all day is sit on my butt and look at a computer. Which I think proves something that everybody keeps saying but nobody wants to believe. You don't lose weight by eating better, you need to get off your buttocks and move around a bit. I'm not a sports guy, so I just work out on an eliptical 3 to 4 times a week for an hour or so, while watching Science Fiction and horror movies I get from netflix. Not only is it a nerdy way to work out, but I have lost at least a pound a week doing it, and I haven't changed my diet.

Anyhoo I'm going to go kill zombies in Left 4 Dead now, thanks for listening to me.

One of the things we inherited from buying our house was a slow cooker. Two of them, actually. I finally put one to use. We had gotten an onion-and-garlic-marinated pork loin from Costco awhile back, and after sitting in the freezer for awhile, I decided to experiment and cook it in the slow cooker. Let's just say, I've been researching slow cooker pork loin recipes for days.

Pork loin's not the best type of meat to cook in a slow cooker since it has relatively little connective tissue, and it's fairly dry. Well, I put it in the cooker with a bottle of beer and went to work today. We came back to the house smelling amazing. Basically, all the fat rendered out but the wet cooking method kept the meat moist. We just shredded it. We had invited our friend Xeowolf over, and he and Whateley ate the pork by piling it on top of nachos. I just put them in pita pockets, the first one with some hot sauce and soy sauce, and the second with lots of barbecue sauce. Let's just say, shredded pork goes really well with barbecue sauce. Yum.

The meat did need a little more salt, though. Next time, we'll add some salt to the cooking liquid so it'll have 8 hours to soak as it cooks. Actually, I want to try cooking a more appropriate cut of meat too. Brisket seems to be a good choice. And being in Texas, brisket is king for some odd reason.

My next cooking experiment, though, is finding a good noodle to go with curry. I just don't think Italian pasta is the way to go. We got some Asian ramen noodles, so hopefully that'll taste appropriate. I would like to have gotten rice noodles, but they only seem to come in the really thin kind. Like vermicelli. Maybe I'm just being too picky.

Life's been the same, I guess. We were finally taken off mandatory overtime, so Whateley and I have been enjoying our full weekend. Though today we had to work overtime, and I'm afraid we might end up on it again. Sigh. Well, it's better to have too much work than none at all.

I've been prohibited from listening to NPR at work by Whateley cuz he says it makes me all paranoid about the economy. (But I do anyway. I just try to avoid listening to too many "how has the bad economy screwed you" stories.) I am pretty grateful to be at a company that's still doing well. Whateley got a call from a high school friend back in California who got laid off recently. Apparently, he was thinking of moving to Austin since a few of his friends had done so already. We're meeting a lot of ex-Californians here. Lots.

With our Christmas bonuses, we bought an elliptical exercise machine. A pretty fancy one, too. But all our research tells us that for a complicated machine like an elliptical, with a lot of moving parts, it's best not to cheap out cuz it'll break after a few years. Whateley's also... well, on the heavy side, so the cheaper machines can't support the pounding he'll give it.

Anyway, we've had the machine for a bit over a month now, and we've been pretty good about keeping up a regular exercise routine. No weight loss yet for me (sadly) but Whateley's already lost a few inches. I've lost just a bit of fat here and there, and Whateley's already lamenting that my butt has gotten smaller. I wish I could keep it there and in my boobs, but alas, biology is cruel. I'm sure the last fat to go will be the thighs and stomach. Curse you Mother Nature!

On a completely different note, the University of Texas is on Spring Break which is also coinciding with the South by Southwest Festival. I should probably go to it one of these days, but we've got time. But what I do love about it is there's no morning traffic! We live by an elementary school and I think all the school districts schedule their Spring Break for the same week as UT, so we haven't had to deal with parents dropping their kids off. And on the freeway, where there's usually rush hour traffic in certain parts of the freeway, it's free sailing with virtually no slowdown. Our commute got cut down from 45 minutes to 25. Crazy!

Living in a college town is bringing back memories of my years at Berkeley. I wonder if all the locals got annoyed by the college kids too.

And speaking of college, we got season tickets to the Broadway Across America series, where the University Performing Arts Center is one of their venues. We saw Spamalot last week. It was hilarious! The story is ripped pretty much from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, though they made changes here and there and the ending is different. It's funny how they handled the fight with the Black Knight, running away from the French, and the killer rabbit creature, of course. The songs are funny, though I wouldn't call them musical masterpieces. Of course they have the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

Next month will be Avenue Q. It's suppose to be about muppets singing about really wrong things. This is the show from whence came the classy song "The Internet is for Porn." Youtube it if you wanna hear it.

There's been multiple articles out there about whether or not running a guild in WoW can help you get a job or not. Some say that WoW sucks up your life, so you'll never get full commitment from these people and they're more likely to pretend to be sick to play or something. Others say that managing a guild builds valuable management skills and shows that you can successfully handle the needs and wants of many people while still accomplishing a goal.

I'm not sure what the verdict is, though I do have to say both can certainly apply. There have been many minutes wasted at work when we should be concentrating on work stuff but we've been distracted by guild drama. But on the other hand, running a guild, especially a raiding guild, has been so very difficult and we've had to work extra hard to make them work.

For those of you non-MMO-gamers out there, raiding is basically where you have a group of 10 or 25 people gather together at one time to run through an instanced area with set encounters. Back when WoW first launched, it used to be 40 people, and that was difficult to organize.

Luckily for us, now that you can raid with just 10 people, we can actually go through these raid instances with our guild. We currently have about 13 to 15 people that can raid on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, as you can do the math, that means that not everyone can go. And there are certain roles that need to be filled, such as the tanks (the ones who take the damage and keeps the bosses focused on them), the healers (the ones who heal all the damage people take), and then the DPS (that's WoW's term for the damage dealers). So right now, we've got quite a number of tanks, not enough healers, and a fair number of DPS, though only a few really good DPS. It's been a management nightmare since the few healers we have then have to go to the raids, and we only need 2 tanks per raid but we've got more than we need, so of them we take the ones that can actually do the job well, and then making sure we have enough DPS, and hopefully of them there will be enough good DPS.

So in a nutshell, here are the management nightmares: the people who play healers have to raid all the time and can't get a break. There are too many tanks but only a few have the gear to actually tank a raid successfully. So we end up taking them all the time, and the other tanks don't get a chance to get the gear to be able to tank. And then the DPS (of which there is the largest number in a given raid) are unreliable because if there are too many not-as-good DPS, then it takes us forever to run an instance. Otherwise, some people sign up, but think that since there's plenty of DPSers, there will be someone who can take over their spot, and so they just don't show up.

So meanwhile, it's like pulling teeth getting 10 people to all sit down together and devote 4 or 5 hours of their lives, and not have people be late, or not show up, or be hurt that they can't join, or whine that they didn't get the loot they wanted. And all the while, we have to motivate them to just suck it up and do the best they can for the greater good of the guild.

And people say this is just a game.

Hey, I'm not saying it's not fun. It's fun to see my character decked out in nice gear, and see the huge numbers flying around my screen, and to take on a boss challenge and win (eventually). But it's not fun dealing with people's egos, and whining, and other drama. It's not fun having to tell a person they're benched cuz they just can't deal enough damage. It's not fun telling someone we've got 11 people signed up for a 10 person raid, and they're the weakest link (so good-bye). It's not fun gathering everyone together and wondering where that 10th person is, scrounging around trying to call them, only to find out they overslept, or forgot they signed up and made other plans, or didn't feel like coming, or you just can't get ahold of them outright. It's not fun hearing people whine about how they had to pass on so much loot and they never get anything.

But that's the price of leadership, I guess. Cuz since we run the raid, it means we get to set the time, determine who gets to go, determine who gets what loot. And Whateley and I signed up for guild leadership because in the end, we want to see this content, to participate in these raids, and the best way to get them to happen is to do it ourselves.

It would be nice, though, if we can get at least a little gratitude for the work we put in.

My 30th birthday came and went, and all in all, it was a pretty good birthday. Whateley had no idea what to get for me as a present, so he just said, "I'm forcing you to spend money, now get what you've always wanted but never bought."

So I got myself a sewing machine.

I'm so lame, but ever since I started watching Project Runway, I've always wanted to make my own clothes. Well, I've been "designing" since I was a kid, but it's mostly me doodling characters, usually women, and coming up with costume ideas for what they're wearing. I used to take old clothing scraps and make fugly Barbie clothes out of them. Anyway, since Whateley made a mandate, I went ahead and got the best sewing machine I could find at Target.

I also got some fabric and a pattern for a nice, simple dress, and I was thinking, I'll have this done and ready in no time! Then I actually opened the pattern and started reading the directions. Let me tell you, sewing is a lot more complex than it looks! Actually, the hardest part is all the terminology that has developed since the invention of the sewing machine, and the people who write the patterns just use them like a sailor littering their speech with "colorful" language.

So my machine has yet to be set up, and instead, for the past week, I've been poring over Sewing for Dummies, which, unfortunately, contains way too much of the same terminology and a dearth of illustrations. So I picked up another book that proudly proclaimed on the cover that it had over 1100 photo illustrations. It helped a lot.

Anyway, I think I've got the book knowledge for this stuff. Now it's just a matter of sitting down to actually make the dress. I got some extra fabric since I fully expect me to mess up a lot. I thought about getting a really simple pattern, like a tank top or pajama pants, to start off with. But then I thought, that stuff is usually ugly and frumpy and I'll never wear it, so I'd much rather struggle and take a longer time with my first project, especially if it seems like it'll be something I'll actually wear.

There's a small part in the back of my brain thinking, maybe I'll get good enough to get on Project Runway! But I don't think I'll devote enough time to it to get that good. And with my luck, I would end up being the person they portray as bitchy.

My computer's back to the way it was. I ended up reinstalling Windows XP on Xeowolf's loaned computer, but there's an odd issue with XP. Mainly, when it first shipped, it really didn't know how to handle networking. I believe all that got resolved with service pack 1. But the stupid part of XP out of the box is, it usually can't connect to the internet to download all the updates. So after a couple of days of trying like mad to get the computer to recognize the ethernet drivers, or even using a ghetto USB wireless networking card, I got frustrated and turned my borked computer back on.

Apparently, a few days shut off gave it a good slap to the face or something, because the mouse and keyboard started being recognized. I just booted up the computer as usual, and everything was back to normal. I think it was the WoW gaming mouse that I had gotten. It's kinda nice cuz it has a lot of the WoW commands pre-programmed, and it's got 16 buttons along with an LCD color changer. But it may have been the cause of my computer borking out. When I plugged it into Xeowolf's computer, it made the keyboard totally lag. So I switched it out with Whateley's old mouse, and then it stopped mis-behaving.

Anyway, next on my agenda regarding my computer is a fresh install of Vista, and hopefully my months-old monitor problem will get solved too. I'm also hoping to get some digital art software installed. My art skills are getting a bit rusty.

So I am convinced I am cursed when it comes to computers.

My current computer, which is less than 2 years old, has decided that it no longer recognizes USB drives. Or more like, it's perfectly willing to give it power, but that's it. It doesn't want to acknowledge that anything connected to it wants to have anything to do with it other than draw on it for some juice.

Anyway, a week ago, I put my computer on sleep mode, and when I took it out of it, the next time the computer went automatically to stand-by mode, it decided not to recognize my USB mouse. So Whateley thought he should re-boot the machine so the mouse can do its thing.

Well, when it rebooted, it decided that along with the mouse, it will also no longer recognize the keyboard. Now, my computer is running Vista, and Vista requires you to login by clicking on your profile.

Yeah, you see where I'm going.

So since the mouse doesn't work, it won't let me click on the profile. So then I tried re-booting it and getting into setup. But to do that, I need to hit a key at the loading screen to do so.

... yeah....

So no matter how many times I restart my computer, I can't do anything but watch it go to the login screen and then just sit there. After a few restarts, the computer freaks out and gives me the option of loading it in Safe Mode, but only if I use the arrow key to select that option.

Uh huh, you see why that can be a problem.

After a few more restarts, the computer freaks out even more, and tries to start up System Repair upon booting. Only thing? It prompts you to PRESS ANY KEY to start up System Repair.

So what about plugging the keyboard into the PS2 port? Wouldn't that work?

Yes it would... if my friggin' computer HAD a PS2 port. See, I got my computer from Dell, and apparently, they don't make motherboards with PS2 ports. I HAVE to use USB keyboards and mice. But what the hell are you suppose to do if the USB ports aren't being recognized?

Sigh....

Our friend Xeowolf decided to lend me his spare computer so I can at least play WoW and make the raids while we decide what to do next with my computer.

And yes, I'm cursed when it comes to that too. :-(

Y'see, that computer has Vista installed on it, only it's the same product key as his current computer. It hadn't been updated in awhile, so I started installing Windows updates, mostly cuz that computer didn't have any separate virus scanners installed. Well, turns out, my installing these updates, it also prompted Vista to verify the product key, found that it was running on two machines, and invalidated that one. So it kept warning me that I had 10 days (and counting down) to activate the Windows, or it'll shut down or something, I guess.

Sigh....

Xeowolf brought over his XP disk and we've just re-formatted a fresh install. This is going to take awhile.

I don't know what's the deal. It seems me and computers just don't mix. Well, at least computer ownership. The one that just borked out I had gotten because my previous computer had borked also.

Perhaps this is a sign that I should shun all technology and go live in the woods.