Thursday's still pushing the envelope

The long standing aversion to Thursdays took an interesting turn yesterday, and in a somewhat positive way. Alright, it was very positive, but still a surprise and still occurring on a Thursday and catching me off-guard. The Thursday wariness will still stand.

A brief time-line is order:

Tuesday - Beastiette spilt cream soda on notebook keyboard. Or cat did, according to Beastiette, which is likely as Puck thinks she can type better than we can; or she is just protesting the lack of food in her bowl by making herself an immovable obstacle until said bowl is replenished. Keyboard dried by Beastiette and first cleaning administered by me when I got home from work.

Wednesday - Second cleaning administered. Keys still slightly sticky and slow to rise [mostly the space bar, control, shift, and keys a, s, d, f, g. ASDFG!

Thursday - No computer. *blink* *BLINK*

"Mum! Guess what, guess what! I got paid and the notebook keys were crunchy so I took it up to BestBuy and the Geek Squad. They can't clean it today, but it will be ready tomorrow."

Which was terribly sweet and thoughtful of the eldest Beast, but if he'd told me whilst I was still at work, I could have borrowed more modern technology for last night. The Toshiba needs a new hard drive, and kept crashing on me [that goes up to the Toshiba store in Annapolis on the way up for Thanksgiving holiday with my mum] and the old Dell... well, it is an old Dell, enough said.

But, I'm looking on the bright side. The beasties were thinking of me and that gave me warm fuzzies all over, and I will have a happy and cream-soda free keyboard tonight. Beastiette also knows not to have drinks [or cat] so close to the computer again.

Hopefully I'll be able to watch The Devil's Whore tonight. Other than one of the best mini-series titles ever, the cast looks impressive and I'm a sucker for period dramas, so there we go.

Visiting the last century

I am at the museum's visitor centre working the meet-n-greet desk for the lady who normally does this, but, obviously, she needed the day off. Normally this is not a problem, and normally I have advanced warning so that I can be prepared for days like today. I was asked to step in for her at 10 am, and so find myself thrown back to a strange, old world.

I am using IE to do my web browsing today, and this version is so old that it doesn't even have the 'new tab' options. It also does terrible things to my IJ layout. E-mail? Right out unless I go straight to gmail because I cannot figure out how to configure Outlook on this old thing. I think it is coal fired. My work computer is at least steam-powered... I am not a steam-punk aficionado for nothing, my friends... and I really am pining for my HP notebook.

It is cold and raining, so visitation is nil and I am without my NaNo idea notebook, so I'm pretty much sitting here watching the rain fall and working up the bravery to attempt a bit more web browsing. If not, I'll find some scrap paper, or raid the photocopier for paper, and work on other ideas and outlines until I can get home and back into the 21st century.

Ah the past, it is a strange country when one does not have the proper tools to tweak technology.

On the love side of the relationship today

I have a love/hate relationship with Verizon. Today, though, they are on the love side of the line. I am back to normal connectivity and not the trickle the interweb information streams have been of late. I also think that the construction company working on Chancellor's Run road expansion might wind up being sued at least once before this absurdity is completed.

I have no illusions that I'll find any recompense for the few days of frustration here, although I would use it to get more minutes for the mobile as that has been more reliable with making calls since Friday. Love to be in the middle of a conversation with my mother and hear a horrendously loud crackle and then have the line be dead for anywhere from 3 to 20 minutes. This got old back in June.

On the other hand, one reason for this headache is now resolved. The other three are still living at home. Stresses of the season no doubt, but they've been mighty cantankerous this weekend. Also looking at my diet which has been entirely too filled with processed foods and sugar, etc., because of ease and convenience. This headache is the signal to forget that load of garbage and get the slow-cooker out. Hopefully now that fuel prices have gone down the cost of fresh produce will begin to reflect that, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that account just yet. Still, with a bit of creativity, I'll get there and wean myself off the junk again. All it will take is some extra planning each weekend and preparing meals in advance and then freezing them for taking to work instead of skipping lunch or grabbing crap at the deli.

Speaking of which, time to begin thinking about chow-time for the beasties. *resists temptation to get Papa John's to deliver as it's a holiday. Then again there's always Chinese... or Indian.*