I was fine until I got home

My younger sister had our little family get together with my mom's
sister (our aunt) and her hubby at her home today. We had a nice meal
and all.

I took in the gifts for my nieces that I had and the 2 packages Mom had
managed to get earlier this year, and they liked them.

Then I got home and lost it. I sobbed. She didn't get a chance to do
more for them like she always would, spending money she didn't have. She
didn't get to see their faces as they saw the gifts she got for them.
And she won't be able to do that anymore. If you don't count the dolls
she bought when she was working - she intended to give them to her
granddaughters when they got old enough and had a place to put them. I
don't know when that will be. She obviously had some idea when they
would be able to have them.

I don't remember what else mom had bought over the net and I stored in
the extra room that she also intended to give them, but hopefully I will
be able to go through the room and maybe find something. I don't know.
It was pretty hard to give my youngest niece the Dora set that was still
here back in October right after mom passed away.

As a kid, I used to like this time of year. As an adult, I grew to hate
this time of year perhaps jaded because of worldly reality. I find
myself unable to reciprocate in a way I wish I could. But with my mom
not here anymore, it's just downright goddamn depressing.

I didn't have the annoyance of helping mom wrap gifts like last year.
There was no decorating. It's so bizarre that without her, I actually
miss doing that with her, except the decorating.

It's not fair she's not here anymore. She deserved better than she got.

I really need to find someone.

Stuff on TV during the day

As usual, one of Ted Turner's channels did its 24 hour repeating of A
Christmas Story, the movie adapted from Jean Sheppard's "In God We
Trust, All Others Pay Cash" book. Other channels also did repeating of
some other movie over and over or marathons of popular shows, and that's
nice. You get used to seeing the movies and eventually, you can
summarize them. A Christmas Story is like this:

- Higbee's Window (btw part of the movie was shot in Cleveland, Ohio if
you didn't know)

- Scheming

- Furnace Problems

- Goofy Teeth

- The Metal Pole Triple Dog Dare

- The Christmas Theme (essay)

- Neighborhood Bully, Scut Farkis

- "I won!" and the Redneck Dogs

- Getting the Piggie to Eat

- The Major Award, then Radio Time

- Ralphie has Thematic Delusions

- Buying a Tree with Fudge and Soap

- Gifts for Teacher (how does he afford that basket?)

- Decoding the Secret Commercial in the key of B2

- Furnace Trouble leads to Award Trouble

- Christmas Theme grade and Bully Beatdown
(you can see a bit of a crew member shadow on a chair next to the
kitchen table at the part the mom talks to Randy under the sink)

- Seeing Santa

- The Tree is Up then Christmas Morning

- The Red Rider BB Gun

- The Bumpus Redneck Dogs ransack the turkey

- Chinese Restaurant

- fin

She shoulda stayed home

Moments ago, my sister brought up the subject "helping" to pay on that money that's going to our aunt. Then the subject about rent. Then she goes on to say that I'm expecting her to pay everything, which I'm not. I can't handle all those other payments on things and my credit cards, too. It's just not happening. I don't have anything extra coming in. I'm still waiting for BVR to help me with something.

It's getting blood from a rock.

I knew this would happen. Mom's gone, she's picking a fight with me about money. I don't know what she thinks I can handle. I don't understand why this has to be an issue.

It must be ON for a REASON

So my older sister is up for the holiday break.

Already she's done some boneheaded things. Minor, but it requires a
talking to when the time is right.

I have my mom's reading light on a timer. It turns on some time in the
morning, shuts off at night. It's my way of retaining some normalcy so
the light is coming on and turning off as if my mom was still using the
light. It's a 27 watt fluorescent. It's a pittance of electricity.

I also use one of those little electric radiators in the downstairs
rooms. It helps with heating, uses less electric than the useless
baseboard heaters. Without it, the baseboards would have a hell of a
time heating the rooms on their own, requiring me to turn them up to
maximum.

I go downstairs to notice it's colder than it should be. Then after
getting my breakfast, I notice it's also darker than it should be. Wait,
it's after 10 am, Mom's light should be on.

The light and heater were both switched OFF. Doesn't she realize the
heater is kinda required? Only time to shut it off is when I'm using the
microwave in the kitchen (the circuits in the house are funky). The
light is on a timer. It's not a burden to keep it on.

WHY WAS THE HEATER TURNED OFF?? Oy Vay.

Heh. I have my proof again

In case anyone wants to doubt my problems of late with random internet trolls putting derogatory comments on my blog about a post I have moved for the time being to a private blog... I recently got into checking my pages rescued off Geocities with Jimdo. On a random decision, I decided to check my guestbook. Sure enough, derogatory comments were left there, pretty much matching in content the comments I removed from my blog. What these asshats don't know is that, fortunately for me, my guestbook host LOGS IP ADDRESSES. Thankfully also for me, There are plenty of IP Database lookups on the net, even including approximate map locations.

Now, it's no mystery at all who was doing this and the reason they were doing it. But now I have absolute proof with this additional information. I am currently compiling evidence. Enjoy your visits from authorities.

Random thoughts about Christmas

As a child, I never wanted clothes as a gift. That was the kind of thing
you got bad kids, I thought. I, usually like other kids my age, wanted
toys, but my grandfather would always say "You can't cover your ass with
toys and go to school!" Either he just didn't get it, didn't appreciate
grandchildren, or thought of us as an extra expense he felt he shouldn't
have to pay because mom didn't have a job and we were on welfare and
kind of depended on her parents to help us with things like clothes.

Browns Win, 10 degrees

I'll bet Cleveland is just hopping today after the Browns beat the
Steelers in a cold weather game last night. 7 sacks on Rothlesberger
(sp). Of course, if I still had Cleveland locals, I could have watched
the game on WKYC, but as it was, NFL Network had the game anyway, so I
got to see the last half. But I missed seeing them talk about the game
on WOIO 19. Quinn was the QB for Cleveland. I hope this gets replayed!
They came so close in the last 2 games in winning, but a stupid
defensive penalty let the Detroit Lions win, and I forget who the last
game was against, but it was a close loss. Now the players can feel what
it's like to beat Pittsburgh again! Get used to doing that!! The Defense
was doing its job, but it would have been nice to see Quinn be more
productive.

Mom got to see their other win earlier this year, and I wish she could
have seen this win. She'd have really enjoyed it.

The temp went down to 10 degrees overnight and this morning and I pulled
my battery for the first time this year. I know it would have been dead
today if I hadn't.

Just Great. Really. (sarcasm)

So tonight while I'm on the computer doing stuff I hear this odd tap noise coming from the kitchen. I think it's the cat playing with something. Only it doesn't stop. So I go out there and find the drip that's been attempted to be plugged from the roof is coming through the crack recently put up with the drywall. So that spot is leaking again!!!

I'm all for just sawing off the supports to the stairs and such for Apt. C here and covering it with a layer of plywood and then properly shingling the roof instead of this stuff that comes in rolls. Or a sheet of metal of something. Then let the stairs and such for Apt. C just rest on top of it. The way it's been built is not working at all. Just because it's leaking isn't a reason to abandon it. Fix it right at least and in a way that actually works!

So anywho, I panic, do some stopgap temporary things to try to help the situation and call my sister. While I know she can't do anything about it from where she is, I thought it best to at least notify her about it. Then the next couple of things she says annoys me.

Maybe it's not practical to live here. Maybe in a year somewhere else. WHAT??? I have no where else to go!! What the heck is she thinking? There was an agreement not to kick me out for any reason. Mom was so worried that is what would happen to us, and to me when it would come to pass that she's no longer here.

It's been about a month since going to the J&FS office for things, and I've faxed her documents on 3 different calls. I've heard NOTHING.

Where did that urge come from?

For some odd reason, I got around to making 2 blueberry pies today,
single crust version which had to be put back in for a longer bake time
so the cornstarch had a chance to set up and jell with the juices. Then
I got to finally cutting the free head of cabbage into two pieces (it
weighed 2.5 pounds) and shredded one half and used a slaw dressing
recipe we found earlier this year for a purple head of cabbage that when
it finally had a chance to do what it did, tasted like our favorite
Marzetti slaw dressing. I might use a cup of Blue Cheese salad dressing
in place of the light mayo to make that missed variant of Marzetti's
product. I had to put celery seeds and salt on separately because I
don't have celery salt. I might try shredding a couple carrots and add
them in. I used Dijon mustard instead of the standard Yellow stuff and I
think it has a nice flavor. The other half of the cabbage was also
shredded and I'll make and freeze some okonomiyaki with that.

Then for some reason I made a couple pizzas from scratch, dough in the
bread machine and all.

Things I miss are having Mom tell me she wants the expensive Pepperidge
Farm stuffing and looking for a cheap turkey, around $10, and then
making the sweet potato dish that she likes but I find inedible. These
past 3 or so years I produced nice looking roasted turkeys, cooked with
a golden brown color and roasted so long and slowly that it fell apart,
with every bit juicy and delicious. Then gathering up the juices and
making a nice smooth gravy (or grane' if you like) with a tablespoon or
two of sifted flour. No, you don't need a special Gravy Flour for this!

Then a couple of years in a row, I made delicious Shwarma sandwiches
(thanks to a dear friend for the spices) with the leftover turkey. Oh my
we all loved those!

I might get around to roasting the chicken I got last week, and making
the chicken stuffing, along with a toned-down green bean casserole once
I figure out how to french fry some onions. If French's can do it, I
should be able to as well. I still have a can of cranberry sauce sitting
in the cupboard from earlier this year. Man, the price of cream of
mushroom soup at WalMart is twice what Aldi's charges.

But every time I think about how mom would have liked those pizzas and
what I'm not doing this year, I break down and sob. I didn't even get to
say goodbye. I wasn't even invited to dinner anywhere. I don't know if I
would have gone, but it would have been nice to be invited all the same.

The holidays at this time of year used to be fun, but for some reason at
some point, I don't know when, it became a pain in the ass and
depressing. It's not Seasonal Affected Disorder. It's something else.
With mom not here, it's even more depressing.

Important Announcement

I hope to leave this up long enough for people who need to see it can
see it.

I have plans to turn this blog private, viewable by only by those who
have an invitation. This is something I can do and I should have
implemented it a long time ago, seeing as how recent events has shown
how the privilege of a publically accessable blog has been abused twice
so far.

I do not intend to see it abused any more.

If you wish to continue being able to read my blog, you probably know
one of my many email addresses already - so please drop me a note with
the email address you want the invite sent to. That way I can let my
most trusted circle of friends still read the latest and yet keep out
those who really have no business seeing what I have to say, and I can
control and track if something gets leaked to people with untowards
intentions.

I will wait long enough to gather the list, which I don't expect to be
long, and then do what I need to do. I'll confirm the sending of the
invites and hope people keep up on it.

I'm sorry, but it has to be done. The number of people I trust has
drastically been reduced as of late.

Mystery solved

People may not agree with what I post here or what I have to say, but nobody has a right to tell me what I can and can't put here. This is my blog, not yours. 1st Amendment rights. I know who was responsible for trying to hijack my blog with derogatory comments that were completely untrue. Be careful what you accuse people of being - it can be considered slander and you can get sued for it. So unless you have proof of what you're claiming, you hold your opinions to yourself. You don't know me at all, and it's your loss. You can't see past the end of your nose.

So we see someone's true colors and I see the real reason in place of what I have been told instead. Someone is obviously spreading rumors about me that are untrue, and I demand to face my accusers to find out where they got their crazy ideas about me. People are believing completely untrue lies about me without even asking me about them!! Is this fair?

I can always let the courts decide whether or not something harmful is happening...


PS. After talking with my older sister, what it likely is this: People see me, see how I act, and something bugs them but they can't quite figure it out what it is. So they come to an incorrect conclusion without even trying to talk to me and find out what's going on in my head at any given time. I can't control that. I don't even know what I'm doing that makes people treat me like that. If I could figure it out, I would take steps to fix it.

Maybe I will go...

but I'm not ready to commit at this time. At least they could have impersonally lied to me and said they just had too many people and they're just asking people to take a break or something. Which isn't altogether a lie, but at least partially truthful. The personal attack wasn't necessary, and I felt the points made to me were weakly supportable.

Dealers, for all intents and purposes, rarely get to see staff members taking an actual interest in what they're selling. They go to several conventions, and each convention staff has different "unwritten" rules, but it seems it's up to each individual interpretation whether it's "privilege" or "abuse" depending on whether or not they like or hate someone and how far up the echelon they are. It's not like in Canada where dealers who can be from the U.S. actually do have to wait until actual operating hours of the dealer's room, because in that case they're employing Canadians and not touching any money in the transactions.

Most dealers realize that staff members, once a convention goes into full swing, will have practically no time to visit the dealer's room because they'll be so busy dealing with what events they have going. So any time a dealer sees staff taking an active interest in what they're selling, there's no way they're going to pass up what might end up being a guaranteed $100 in the pocket, cash money in hand.

I've been to Anime North enough times to be practically on a first name basis with many dealers. Anime Pavillion used to go there until it just became an annoyance just crossing the border. When you see the same dealers often enough and buy as much as I have, they remember you, know what you want, and if you've been reliable enough, they count on that sale that makes their weekend when they bring something you will be buying, something they hold back from the Great Unwashed to make sure you get your first choice.

Once again, being a person with Asperger's, I got "bit in the ass" because of people who don't understand why I am the person I am because they don't know me at all.

Asshats need not apply

I will be moderating comments made to this blog from now on.

This post has been restored, because fuck it.

I don't need to put up with treatment like this:

Subject: Re: Colossalcon Staff Review

"The criteria for this decision is based off of several factors with the first being your going into vendor's room and shopping on Thursday night."

In my defense, I was invited by one dealer who knew me well. I was of the understanding that other staff members were also given preferential treatment. I didn't feel comfortable in there, but nobody seemed to think there was a big problem with it.

"You were scheduled to work in the video department, yet you barely spent any time in the video rooms, or really doing any sort of video/programing work all weekend."

On the contrary, I was there as needed, in fact more than others. But the thing is while I was given duties to do, other people already did them for me, which I was annoyed by. So if I was given things to do, why take my duties away? I was to do set-up, but Tim and a few others were
doing that instead. I don't know why they were doing what I was supposed to be doing. When I tried to let them know they were all like no we got it. Whatever.

"This is a repeat of a pattern of staffing behavior from the previous years you have worked at the convention,"

Apparently you do not know what I had done for Colossalcon 2008, when I had nobody else to f-ing help me the entire damn weekend. I ran all 3 video rooms practically all by my goddamn self!! In fact, the room that showed Gunbuster2 I had to sit in on, not just to change the DVDs, but to keep an eye on the equipment. Adam himself even acknowledged that the computers keep freezing up due to bad RAM. It was a nightmare that whole weekend having to keep tabs on all the video rooms because of that and I will say this again I HAD NO F-ING HELP. Everyone else that year took off and did other things.

You know what? I bet you spoke to one guy that came from Michigan, you know with dark hair and glasses? He made some curry thing that year. He doesn't like me.

"You did spend a lot of time cooking in OPs which in and of itself is a liability"

NOT TO MENTION OTHER PEOPLE IN OPS COOKED AS WELL. So it must not have been much of a liability, or did you send notes to them as well? This point in invalid.

"but you cooked with seafood, forcing several staff members to leave operations and unable to perform their jobs because of their food allergies."

I cannot be blamed for not knowing who is allergic to what. This is not my fault and I refuse to allow you to blame me for something I had no prior knowledge of. It is not fair and you know it! Everyone there did their best to make sure there wouldn't even be an odor left over. When
we were all informed of this after the fact, we knew how well we had to clean up the area and how soon it all had to end. I had a friend in grade school who couldn't even attend on days the hot lunch was fish and he was quite allergic.

This is something I did out of the kindness of my heart, I paid for it all, and I did not ask for anything in return. Nobody told me there would be any problem with that. If you have a problem with that, I'm sorry you feel that way. But it's unfair to go lump this all together and use it against me in this way. It was not an unsanctioned panel either.

"Again, this shows a level of disrespect to fellow staffers,"

What about the amount of disrespect I had to put up with? I wasn't sure I felt like helping out this year because of 2008. I got really shit on that year.

"This decision is based off of feedback from the various department heads, the convention chair and myself, the vice convention chair."

I'll bet it's based off the opinion of 3 people, the way it sounds like to me. A lot of those people don't even know what I did. A few people don't like me, and I guess that's all it takes, doesn't it?

"That is an attendee, which you are more then welcome to be, and we hope you enjoy yourself as one."

I took my responsibilities at Colossalcon very seriously. I had nothing but the best intentions of the convention.

I have to laugh at this whole thing. I got fired again. Just because someone didn't like me. It sounds [like] much of this is personal issues though.


comments:
Didn't you get a vibe that Chibi Jae had some kind of problem with you anyway?
I say go ahead and go to CC, but don't staff, don't volunteer, don't do any panels. Don't lift a finger to help. Just go as an attendee and to hell with trying to help out if they don't like the way you do things and won't communicate with you in order to help you understand what's "OK" and what's "not OK".

Blogger Mrshoujo said...

Not only Jae, but Tim, and one guy from Michigan. I have a shot of him on tape so I can grab it and show people. Adam called me just now, and we discussed the points and problems. I wouldn't mind it if I did panels. There's at least 3 I can think of wanting to do. Much of this seems to be to be a point of view. Certain people do it, it's "staff privilege" but other people do it and they don't like them, then it's "abuse" and "inappropriate." Doesn't that theme sound familiar?

11:16 PM

"Not only Jae, but Tim, and one guy from Michigan."

And that one woman, the one who I think was in charge of the Masquerade a couple of years. I got the vibe she wasn't too fond of you, either.

"Adam called me just now, and we discussed the points and problems."

I'm curious about his take on the situation. Adam knows you a little better than the others, and he outranks everyone except Donnell at the con, IIRC.

"Certain people do it, it's "staff privilege" but other people do it and they don't like them, then it's "abuse" and "inappropriate." Doesn't that theme sound familiar?"

IE: Let's get rid of the "creepy weird guy".

11:28 PM
Delete
Blogger Mrshoujo said...

The lady in charge of the masquerade in past years doesn't like most people in general. If they do their job, she's got no beef. I never dealt with her at all. As far as Adam's take on things, you'd have to discuss it with him next time you see it. He has to sort of back them up on this, but his take was we had way too many people on staff, so if I didn't get the hours I was supposed to, there isn't much to be done about it. I didn't know who was in charge of setting up the video rooms anyway.

11:33 PM

Finally, an answer

So I called tonight to DirecTV to find out why I'm not getting local
channels, Cleveland or otherwise.

It's because the technician who came out to replace the dish didn't
replace my box, which will be HD Capable, but will still work with my
analog TV. The nice lady looked further into my problem and figured out
my receiver box was not the right one.

Still it amazes me they couldn't adjust the signal from their end or at
the box so I wouldn't need a new receiver.

It helps to laugh at corporate "wisdom"

So anywho, DirecTV was so desperate to have me take an upgrade to my
equipment because there was going to be some sort of change in the way I
was going to be receiving my local channels.

OK so I get the dish upgrade, my receiver stayed the same.

What they failed to mention until later was that for some F-ed up
reason, there was some stupid 2004 law or FCC rule, what have you, that
required satellite TV providers to carry local channels based on ZIP
code. What's more picayune is thanks to Nielson Media Research, they
narrow it down even further to where you live in your ZIP code.

OK, Who the Hell Made Nielsen the f-ing god mother of all media crap
that allows them to say which local channels people get?

In my case, for all of my life that I've lived in my ZIP code, Cleveland
has been our market for "local' channels. Nielsen for some reason seems
to think we should be getting Youngstown stations. OK, I'll go with that
AS LONG AS THE REST OF THE ZIP CODE PEOPLE IN OTHER COUNTIES ALSO HAVE
TO CHANGE AS WELL!! Screw you, Nielsen Media Research. Your Data Is In
Serious Error.

I've never watched Youngstown stations for important stuff, except for
Browns games that were blacked out in Cleveland when they were on our
cable TV system.

So anywho, today was supposed to be the big switch. Cleveland stations
disappeared from my channel line up. I waited all day, and no other
locals have appeared on my service. No Youngstown, nothing.

If things were just left alone, I'd still have my Cleveland stations and
I wouldn't be complaining. As it is, I called DirecTV, and the nice man
on the other end tried a few things, but my channel guide still goes
from 1 to 71, 74, 77... No Local Stations. At ALL.

Now, I hate Cable. The continual rate increases (what mom would call
their Yearly Christmas Gift because that's when it happens) really left
a lot to be desired, plus being charged "regulatory" and the illegal
local kickback "franchise" fees really pissed me off. And yet I can get
local cable and they'd STILL have Cleveland stations. Due to stupid FCC
rules, however, they can't carry stations like WPGH in Pittsburgh even
though everyone around here with an antenna could, nor WTRF in Wheeling
though it and Channel 9 in Steubenville were practically like a way to
test your TV because they came in without much of an antenna at all.

I'm going to look into what I need to set up a way to receive those
digital TV broadcasts. I've been told the reach of these signals are
twice what analog was, so it should be interesting to see what I get
here, in spite of predictions by that government website.

In short, I'll probably be dropping DirecTV in March like a lead balloon
because of this crap. I really should make an effort, though, in seeing
what free over-the-air digital signals I can get.

I just have to laugh.

Figure kit photo set on Flickr

At the request of a Sailor Moon forum post, here's some pictures of my recently completed figure kits. I finally finished all those outstanding kits. I wish my mom could have seen them now.

Long John Silver's in Alliance, OH is OUTTA HERE!!

All you selfish people in Alliance - You will have No More Free Food from LJS. They apparently and finally got wise to your scamming ways. Much of my existence, from the time the store had opened until the time I was fired is chronicled earlier on this blog and here. 10 and a half years to the day, literally, I suffered at the hands of customers, and management from time to time as well. Some of the people I worked with were decent people and worked as hard as I did, but to my credit, I worked harder than most. This was a job that at times was kind to me (easy enough to get time off for going to Anime North), and at times was cruel (was still making under $6 an hour after all that time and no paid vacations!) as well as the stupid customers that we all had to deal with. It was that page that for some reason I still don't know how, but corporate LJS found and decided to filter a communication of sorts down to the franchise and the very store and they demanded I be fired, never mind that they didn't sign my paychecks! It shouldn't have been up to them at all - my manager at the time knew how hard I worked and how many times we scored 100% on quality because I was the day time chef. I want to take credit that I was ahead of the times - I was the first person I know of who was fired for having a page (before there were blogs even!) griping about the crap at work.

If I had known how Gordon Ramsey had handled complaining customers, I'd have had more pride in my work, but seeing as how I have Asperger's, it's amazing I had that job as long as I did. I had nothing else. I couldn't think of doing anything else even though I have a good background in computers, now qualified with my CompTIA A+ certification.

	In this first image a friend sent me, you can see how all the signage and any outside decoration has been removed. At one point, while I was there, they had been offering Rax sandwiches. Soon after I left, they dropped it. I wonder why. Also I had a friend who still worked there, and they drummed up some bunch of bullshit lies and used it as their excuse to fire her. She was fired because they didn't like her. Plain and simple.
	As the image caption shows, the drive through sign has been cut off and removed. Please see my page of stories about how that drive through lane was the bane of the store.
	The drive through window and related signage has been removed. The store had undergone some remodelling a while back. The ceiling was painted black, and a self serve pop machine had been installed.
	And finally, the road sign has been reduced to a stump. I think this is a sure sign the store ain't open anymore.

Congrats everyone. I'm not sorry the store's gone. I feel sorry if anyone lost their jobs though. Kinda interesting that the store closed 5 years after I was fired from there. I think the lease ran out and Performance Foods, the owner of the franchise store, didn't want to renew it.

Tendou noren from Ranma 1/2

As I thought, about 7 minutes into Ranma 1/2 episode 9 are a couple shots of the noren used in the Tendou house to the kitchen. This is the noren I want to make. It has a simple geometric design with squares. It should be easy to make.

One Stop

Currently over at One Stop waiting for my BVR appointment and decided to post something since I got good network reception here.

An Eureka Moment

I will be able to finish my 2nd Bunny Makoto figure kit after all. She's supposed to get these fishnet stockings on her legs and the kit came with some material for making these. Only thing is I don't know how to make them without a pattern, and I don't know how to do that in general.

So I decided to check the dolls I've collected over the years and sure enough, I found a doll with fishnet stockings that work on my kit's legs! In case you're wondering, it's the Schoolgirl Britney Spears doll. I may replace those with the customary Loose Socks at some point, but I don't typically have a doll like that on display, and the fishnets look better on a work of art.

My problems on using them include painting the parts and coating with a clear coat so when I put the stockings on, the paint isn't rubbed off. Then figuring out what to drill to add pins to hold the shoes on her feet, and finally how to keep the stockings on around the hip of each leg as they get superglued on the rest of the body.

I don't have to wait anymore. I was kinda hoping to find a doll sewing pattern for making these things, but all I managed to turn up from a short search were places selling pantyhose accessories for 12 inch fashion dolls.


Re: The Car dropping dead

Even after tightening the bolts for the wires, I still had the episode of the car dropping dead when trying to start it today when I went to get the Sunday paper. Only this time it came back to life a few times (still refused to start though) before I went and popped the hood to check the battery and all and only then did it start. My brother in law thinks it could be a loose wire to the starter or a dirty connection somehow somewhere. After I looked at things again, it could be the positive terminal shorting by touching the inside of the front hood as well. The red rubber cover for the positive terminal has cracked. I don't know when this happened. So I'm going to see about insulating that terminal better tomorrow. I did try his suggested cleaning of the wires and terminals with water and baking soda though. If it's a loose wire, I hope it won't cost much to have it tended to.

At least I have AAA Gold membership.

Noren

What is a Noren?

In Japan, this is a divided curtain hung to divide a room, cover a doorway. It's usually used outside restaurants to show they are open for business. In a Japanese home, though, a decorative noren is hung at the top of the doorway to the kitchen.

Why am I bringing this up? I'd like to get one or at least make one. I was able to find a shot of the one used in the Tendou house in Ranma 1/2, if I remember right it's about 7 minutes in during Episode 9, first season. Something like that. I can check to make sure.

Right now we use a clear shower curtain in the doorway so as to keep cold air from coming in here from the kitchen. I've even found an image of a Ranma 1/2 decorated noren, though I'm sure those are impossible to find if you want to buy it. I could play with the image I have and enlarge it...

Some noren are long, like down to the floor from the top of the doorway. Some are short. I prefer a short one. It's been something I've been wanting to figure out. First part was getting the word of what it was I wanted.

It's very easy to sew one though. Might end up making one or at least having someone who can use a sewing machine make it. I think I have the pattern I found. Wait, it was a webpage. I should be able to find it again.


Tomorrow will be one month since mom passed away. Damn, time passed too quickly.

Things this week

Having a few of those solar-power charged LEDs, I notice that when it's been a sunny day, my lights are nice and bright like they got a nice charge. Not only that, but I notice all around when other people's lights also got a nice charge and are nice and bright. I see them all around, even in one cemetary nearby, especially when they're nice and bright.

After a few weeks, yesterday I came to realize that Mom was pretty much bored being house-bound here. I don't know why we didn't like ask my younger sister to borrow her van and once a week or something and take my mother out with her power chair thingy and do something like eat out or go to a movie, at least before she had to be on oxygen all the time. I'm sad to realize now that it's a lost opportunity.

Which explains why mom spent so much time online with Pogo and her email. She read a lot because you can watch TV only so much before you realize that after seeing programs you kinda like, there's not much else on.

I've also come to realize and understand that in some anime episodes where there are people working on their own cars (Miyuki in Taihou shichauzo, for example) almost all the time. They're making sure the right bolts are tight and that it's always ready to go.

That's because last night I went to visit a friend (he treated me to dinner) and I brought over my DVD of The Rockafire Explosion documentary. Only after I helped him with a tricky printer part I went out to start up the car and it just dropped dead. No lights or anything, even when I had my Open Door light lit up. So I popped the hood, jostled the battery, and it started right up. I was uneasy for the rest of the evening, barely enjoying the latest Ghost Adventures on Travel Channel. I would have to wait until morning to find out what was going on, but from experience, it would involve some connection to the battery.

As I checked the battery after it got suitably warm enough, I see that the bolts to the positive terminal that hold the wires on are loose! So I get my wrachet handle and socket and tighten all the bolts on both terminals that hold the wires. This could explain the recent cold morning starts, but I don't excuse the battery entirely. It still doesn't like winter temps. But the car started no problem, and after losing power, my check engine light is out again. (niko niko)

The fruits of my labors

I've been busy.

Just one more piece

Officemax advertised this week they were selling SanDisk 16G thumbdrives
for a mere $39. Compared to other makes, this was $50 off list price. I
could not pass this up, so I went out today to get one, as well as
getting pet food. All I need now for my P4 tower is a suitable IDE DVD
burner and I'm good to go to make more DVDs from my video files.

I treated myself to a couple $1 burgers from Burnit King on the way
back.

Also I really should post a video rant on Youtube about Coke's latest
attempt to rip off people. What this entails is their new "100 ounce"
packaging. This is 2 50-ounce bottles which sells for about $2.50 to
$2.80, depending on where you buy it.

Consider that a 2 liter bottle is about 67.6 (rounded up to 68) ounces
which are frequently sold for a $1 a bottle, you end up just over 32
ounces ahead and save about a dollar on average if you buy 2 2-liters.

100 ounces for $2.80? or 136 ounces for $2?

The only time I will buy something like this is when there's a coupon
being offered, which I saw at Marc's. Buy One Two-pack, Get One Free.
Wow!!! 200 ounces for $2.50! It's about 62 cents a bottle that way.

Really, though. This dual-bottle thing should not be priced more than
$1.75. I don't understand stores that charge $1.89 for a 2liter bottle,
$1.25 for the 20 ounce bottle, but then have pop machines outside that
could have cans for 50 to 75 cents a pop or the 20 ounce bottles for the
customary ripoff $1.25, which if you're going that route would be best
to go because - ta da! - you don't have to pay sales tax on a vending
machine pop purchase!!

I've seen 20 ounce bottles even go as high as $1.35, but then in THE
SAME STORE (Dollar General for example) sell 2 liters for less than
that. If you're going to undersell the 2liter bottles, why not lower the
price on the small bottles as well to something around 75 cents? I've
seen places offer the 16 ounce bottle for 99 cents. Well, gee, the 2
liter is one more penny!

And I tend to drink Coke Zero, and for some reason the product in the 2
liter bottles tastes better than the stuff being put into the 50
ouncers. I don't know what's going on with that.

Coke, wise up or your 100 ounce packaging option will die like New Coke
did. Lower the price to what would be sanely considered a reasonable
value. If I can get 136 ounces for $2, then 100 ounces shouldn't be more
than $1.75. Maybe the extra $$$ is in there because of the extra shrink
wrap and tape used in the packaging to keep the bottles together? It's
just stupid anyway.

Pricing on pop is just crazy anymore. It's also sad when you can buy it
cheaper than water.

Hope to post a photo of my completed Bunny Makoto #1 kit as well as
Bubba's Princess Tutu, painted as interpreted by me. I just need a good
accurate color guide for Chibi Urd in her one-piece strapless swimsuit
and I'm good to go with my new "0000" size liner paint brush. I had to
replace the fine liner one I bought some time ago because the hairs fell
out when I tried to clean it. It didn't have a size designation number
on it, something I discovered when looking for a new brush. The 4 zeroes
indicate how fine the tip is, and it looks like it will work out. I
wanted a 100% real sable hair brush, but I had to settle for a blend
with synthetic materials instead. I wish mom could have seen it
completed, but she did see the pictures of the original figure I found
one day on 4chan which prompted me to order it from e2046. I need to
find a way to heavily weight down the base so she won't fall over.

Watched House tonight, then got to thinking how mom's missing it, as
well as the last of the Harry Potter movies she was looking forward to.
Oh man... I keep telling Melody that mommy's in the hospital and keep
waiting for her to come home. I don't know if or when she'll show signs
of grieving. Some animals do.

Yesterday I burned some of the waste wood that came out of the kitchen
ceiling project. Damn near filled the burn barrel and let it smolder
overnight. Went out this morning to see the barrel practically empty. At
least that waste wood pile is about half gone. Had to move it away from
the fence post so it won't catch on fire again. (oops)

Still trying to get by

Dammit. Got my CompTIA A+ Certificate in the mail yesterday. Why could
have this arrived sooner??!!?

Still have no idea what is going to be done with the utilities and all.
At some point something will have to be done. I've done all the
notifying to the lady at J&FS about stuff and looks like I will be able
to reverse my hasty decision about Medicare Part B.

I'm still in shock mode. I find it hard to feel emotions, like some of
the positive ones I used to feel a few weeks ago. Both Melody and I are
still "waiting for mom to come home from the hospital." It certainly
still feels like that.

After watching for what must have been the 3rd time of Sam The Cooking
Guy "Just cook this!" in Hong Kong, I finally got motivated to do his
basic Fried Rice thingy he showed.

Basically, heat a wok on Medium high (I used the nice non-stick skillet
I bought last year, it's sorta wok shaped and all, but at least it works
on an electric stove), and then get your vegies ready.

Julienne (cut into small short strips) vegies like carrots so you can
put them in first. The more hardy of your ingredients should be put in
first, and carrots fit the bill there. Heat for a while, put in a little
oil, canola or peanut, whatever you like, and let that begin to sizzle.

I put in some green pepper strips, cut up some celery that way as well,
and put in some Taco seasoned pre-cooked beef crumbles. Sam put in some
bacon, but I didn't have bacon on hand. I bought a pouch of that beef
stuff when we visited the local "rescued food" stores around here and
saw that and it wasn't too much.

Then I chopped up an onion, and eventually remembered the mushrooms. Sam
used fresh mushrooms which I don't doubt would have been awesome, but I
had a small can of sliced mushrooms anyway.

Now, the trick to fried rice is to use day or 2 old cold cooked rice.
But before you put any of that in, get 2 eggs ready by cracking them and
stirring in some soy sauce (light soy is fine) and a few drops of sesame
oil. Sam advised not to use too much as it is overpowering.

Put your cold rice in and then pour in the egg mixture and just stir for
a while until you can judge that the eggs have cooked. Used in this
manner, the eggs moisten the mixture in your wok or what have you and
produce a really nice aroma.

In fact, any time you have to cook some rice, make some extra for fried
rice the next day or so after that. I had some in my rice cooker insert
from the last time... I cooked sweet and sour pork for mom earlier in
October...

I had the fried rice with one of those larger noodle soup cups, shrimp
with tomato and garlic flavor. It was a nice meal. Mom would have liked
the rice.

stuff and today

Finally cooked that kick-ass macaroni and cheese I had planned to do a couple of weeks ago. Had some of the New York White Cheddar that Aldi's has been offering lately and put some in.

Conducted some business of paying a few bills today after cashing my check. I couldn't figure out how to log into the account for the electric bill so I just sent something along with a note so they can send paper bills in the mail again.

Also left the computer running during a download that would take a while after I started it with the plans to be back just as it would finish. As it turned out, I got back just in time to see the computer finish reloading after restarting for some reason. My file finished downloading, but I have no idea why the computer would restart about 7 minutes later. I found one page that 'credited' the use of Firefox for this phenomena, but I'm not so sure. I hope the RAM isn't going bad, but then I've had it on for hours without a problem, so I have no idea what to check and find out what's going on. I certainly hope it's not the power supply. I can replace it, but having to buy one is going to be a bitch.

I don't have a download manager or accelerator in use that would contribute to XP restarting, and all other bits I found to check do not indicate there was an error that required a system restart. There's likely something else I've not checked yet, if only I knew what to check. Firefox dutifully restored my tabs when I asked it to come back into memory. (shrug)

Edit: I found out around 3 pm today that it was the wind blowing the power lines around that caused a hiccup in the electricity, as I saw a light flicker and the answering machine beep right then and the computer rebooted. So after the computer came back up, I shut it down and waited for the winds to stop. I had another hiccup around 3:50 pm, so I was glad I shut things down and waited. I checked the hard drive for errors and all seems well.

Mom is back home, sort of

My younger sister finally brought back mom's ashes today. We picked out a nice green marble urn for her. I just anticipate paranormal things happening, since it's been documented before that such things can happen. If so, I want mom to try to get in touch with me because I'm sure there's more stuff she needs to tell me that's important.

I got to thinking how there's going to be one less person at the dinner table for Thanksgiving. It's going to be noticeable. I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle that.

I see the BVR people next week. Hopefully we can get something going.

In a pit

Sunday I finally did some things around here that needed done. The cat
pan got cleaned out and new sand put in. The Tidy Cat in the red lid
really controls odor, I've noticed. Also did dishes since I was running
out of cereal bowls and spoons.

Finally made the lemon and blueberry thingy Mom wanted 2 weeks ago as
the week's dessert but I wasn't able to make it because I was sick. It
turned out well. Mom won't get to taste any of it, though.

I noticed there are quite a few things around here I'm going to have to
pay for now. All the more reason to seek out a roommate as soon as
possible. I don't know how I'm going to deal with the electric or the
phone.

Nov. 12 (I hope) I meet up with the BVR people and hopefully they'll
have more of an idea of what I'm going to be doing than I do.

I've got stuff to fax and a letter to write. I hope after that I'll go
up to see This Is It at Tinseltown in time for their first showing of
the day.

Had a problem on Facebook. Someone in the feed posted how they hated
their house. So I responded in a manner I felt was OK. Then I get
someone going ape sh!t over me about it, saying oh how dare I say that,
this is my 15 year old daughter, yadda yadda. OOOh.. Kay. I had no idea
what age she was, in fact I don't generally check the age of people in
my feed. Having Asperger's, I am bad at understanding the ages of
people, generally. Anywho, she apparently was this girl's mother, and
now I understand why the girl originally posted that they hated their
house. I mean, without more to go on as to the source of the hate, I can
just guess it's because of her mother. This b!tch of a mom even went so
far as to leave me a note in my Inbox. I reported it as spam, got back
on the original bit in my feed and said so, then removed the girl from
my friends list - I "unfriended" her. Rather than put up with more of
that abuse, I removed her from my contacts on Facebook.

I generally feel that if you're allowed to Friend people on Facebook,
you're of the right age to be on Facebook to begin with. Just keep
family members off your feed. I mean, this b!tch had no business butting
in like that. So to the girl whose over possessive and over reacting mom
got on her Facebook feed, I feel your pain. I feel I said nothing wrong,
it was spur of the moment, and yet again I was misconstrued. I refuse to
take any blame.

The short CD of music at mom's memorial service

I was disappointed in that none of the aides from Caring Hands made it
to the little meeting, as it wasn't much of a memorial service as it was
just friends and family gathering to talk. I was kinda disappointed it
wasn't something more formal and organized where people got up to speak
about my mom, hopefully to recall important moments and such.

I put together a short CD of music and for those who are curious as to
what was on it, and for those who missed it, consisted of:

Track 2 "Dea Cantat The Goddess Sings" and Track 24 "Coro Di Dea The
Goddesses Singing Voices" from the Oh My Goddess Movie soundtrack CD. I
considered addding Track 27 "The song of an angel", but the 3rd track
was "Will you be there" by Michael Jackson.

This is too much grief for me to handle. I miss my mom, and I still find
myself sobbing. My mom deserved a better memorial service, but before
that she should not have had to die. It's probably the guilt of this
whole thing that I will have with me for some time. If I knew what my
future would have for me, I could move on easily. I don't know so I'm
having a very hard time dealing with this. I'm scared.

I noticed very few (read: none) of the sympathy cards were addressed to
me. I'm thankful that Sandy, one of mom's aides on alternate Saturdays,
did send one directly to the house addressed to me when I told her in
email.

I partly expected (for some reason known only to me) some show of
support and maybe money. Don't ask me why, I really shouldn't expect
that. I just hope I can get that kind of help pretty soon.

I'm still in the mindset and mode that mom's just in the hospital for a
while and should be coming home soon. But I also know she's not coming
home. I want her to come home.

I need to get married. I need someone else out here, someone to take
care of. I don't want to be alone.

I must stop typing here otherwise I'll not get it sent.

Didn't I tell people? The Screwing has begun

So now I'm being hounded for keys that people don't need for this
apartment. I prefer to have security and privacy, but my older sister
feels she needs keys for each lock. She doesn't need those keys. She has
1 for the back door. That's enough.

Oh so she's threatening to change the locks if she doesn't get keys she
feels she's supposed to have. That REALLY helps her position (sarcastic)
Then tries to cite some safety concern should someone need to get in
here if something happened to me. I already have a problem with her
walking in without knocking or ringing a bell. I fear for the safety of
mom's stuff. She'll just come in here and start gutting the place.
There's been talk of throwing out my mom's bed. WHY?

Then there was the promise of my older sister to help out with property
taxes and the electric until I got working again and had some money to
be able to pay that. But now she's talking about Oh I have to go online
to fill out Move In info because otherwise they'll shut the electric off
next week.

WHAT THE FU?

We can't change the name on the account yet, I thought. And I distinctly
remember her saying she'd help on the electric. Now she's lying to me!

I saw the bill mom had for this coming due date. It was $174. I don't
have the money to cover that, the phone, and Road Runner. I just don't
have it!!!

SHE PROMISED.

I threw a fit and then she threatened to call the police. RIGHT. That
REALLY HELPS your position.

I'm getting screwed so soon after my mom's death. I wish she had just
stayed where she was.

1 Gig of RAM

The package arrived just moments ago.

I took Mom's Dell upstairs. It's the first time since we got the system that I've had to open the case. Up to now, I didn't even know how to open it.

It's got a Pentium 4 with the processor fan setup like the rescued P4 tower upstairs.

It's got PATA aka IDE drive interfaces. I don't know what's causing the CDrom to act wonky at times, so perhaps that will have to be just outright replaced. I checked all the cables.

Carefully vacuumed out dust on the processor heat sink. Then removed the Samsung 256MB stick and gingerly installed the Kingston set. I bought a PC2700 DDR 333 pair meant for dual channel use, but it'll work as a single channel 1 Gig set up as well.

Got it downstairs and hooked it up carefully. Turned it on, thing beeped at me saying the amount of system RAM has changed. Damn straight. F1 to continue.

Oh my god. I wish mom could have seen this. The Dell booted up in around 1 minute. It was so sweet to see it do that. Imagine the amount of time we could have saved if this had been bought sooner.

1 minute. All icons except for the printer showed up. I mean it just leaped to life.

Right now will be a "burn in" test. It may be on for a few hours to make sure it's going to work out, but this is a Kingston product. Same brand as the dual channel set I put in that one lady's system.

It was so sweet. 1 minute boot up time. XP sees 1 Gig in there.

EDIT: Actually, the boot up time is about 2min 39sec. Much faster than the 4 minutes that became the norm after AVG Free became bloatware.

Video found on the computer

Christmas 2008 with Grandma Carol

Taking it day by day

So anywho, I was out and about yesterday. One bit of good fortune is
checking out the Alliance Big Lots and stumbled upon Shuffle disk 3.
There were 3 DVDs in the set I needed, but wasn't sure if it was 3 or 4.
I get home and check one blog posting. I needed 3 and 4, with Shuffle #2
being the one I bought at another Big Lots a couple weeks ago. But
nothing else jumped out at me as needing bought. I hope Myers and Myers
got their xxxHolic DVDs they might have wanted. But at least I have only
1 more Shuffle DVD to find.

I had tried to put an automatic timer on mom's bedside reading light,
but the mechanism inside stopped working right. I was trying to set up a
bit of normalcy with the timer. I can't find the other one I got when we
moved out of my grandparents' house. They used a few on lamps when they
went away on vacations. I'd like to get another timer and pay less than
$7 for it.

I also began using the TV's sleep timer and automatic On timer. The
sleep timer at least gives me some noise in the evening as I go
upstairs, and it shuts off like mom would do when I went to bed. She'd
watch CNN for a while, then go to reading her books. I have the Auto On
timer set at 8:30 in the morning and it worked fine yesterday. Only
today it came on at 8:30 am alright, but when I got down there a bit
later (9 am) the TV was off!

I hadn't noticed it had switched back off before I got there. I didn't
turn it off. I'm not sure what would cause that. It would be neat if it
happened again.

Today I conducted some of my business that I needed to do. I got the
statement from the credit union that I'll need to take to a Time Warner
office to get them to haul out the required forms so they can refund the
2nd $71.85 that came through when I hadn't realized mom had paid the
bill already. Both that and the phone bill payment that cleared after
she died. Time Warner sure is happy to take your money, but getting it
back they're assholes about it and make it difficult. They can't just
push one button and it's done.

Geez, these places sure jump on you when they want their stuff back. The
people with Lifeline called yesterday to get their phone back on
Thursday. Give me some time to grieve already.

Ponyo is scheduled to come out on DVD in March 2010. Why Dizzney is
missing the holiday season with it is beyond me.

Out

Tried to do some shopping but just ended feeling horrible about the whole thing. Maybe I should've stayed home.

Memorial Services planned

re: a memorial service for friends and concerned people, my sister says
Grace Chapel is having one October 24, 2009 from 3 to 5 pm.

Notices will be going out to the newspapers ASAP.

Maybe I know one thing I could use

I think I know what people can do for me: Just come by and visit. I'm
used to cooking for at least 2 people, so maybe the occasional weeknight
Let Me Cook a Recipe You Pick type of thing. They pick the recipe and
bring the ingredients. That would give me some of what I'm missing. Just
show up around 5 pm and keep it simple, expect to stay until 7 or 8 pm.

My mother

I found some images on the computer of my mom. I'm going to put the earliest of the 3 that I took in town today and got put on photographic paper.

In 2004, just after she got her Dell.

Mom's savings bond / expenses paid?!

I just now dug out Mom's savings bond that she got when working for the
plastics company back in 1995 for perfect attendance. The last time I
had checked its value was December 2007 which was $40.90.

According to the info, it takes 30 years for EE U.S. Savings Bonds to
mature. Mom would have to have lived until she was 81 to collect the
full face value of this bond.

Sadly, she fell short by 16 years.

I'm still in shock. I want her to be coming back through the door at any
moment, her daily aides coming in to help her with stuff. I find myself
thinking about something, wanting my mom to be there and I'm just
blubbering. I can't help it.

My Mom isn't supposed to die. It's supposed to be someone else's. Oh
wait, someone else's mom had already died. It was our turn this time.

It doesn't seem fair. I wish she had asked me to take her to the ER
somewhere. There was a time window if she had gotten the right help,
where maybe she'd still be alive, or she could have still died at a
hospital.

...

My younger sister just now called while I was typing this - someone from
her church found out what had happened, called the funeral home - and
will be coming down with a check to cover my mom's funeral expenses.

That made my cry even harder.

I have GOT to get some rest.

Finally ordered that 1G of RAM

It still makes me sad to think about it, but I finally ordered the RAM upgrade for mom's computer. I'm always going to call it Mom's computer. She bought it in 2004 from money awarded from her worker's comp settlement. I say it was the best thing she ever did, even if it has a couple quirks that when the RAM kit gets here, I plan to do something about once and for all.

But not before I run a system backup on the drive.

*sigh* This all has been so sad.

We're currently making plans to have the cremation paid off for a suitable memorial service for my mom in a few months time around her birthday. I hope I get to say something. After all, I've been with her since... 1995? I forget when my younger sister moved out and began her family.

Every few moments I stop to think about something and Mom, and I can't help but break down and sob.

I wondered if I'd miss her if she died. I said so June 1st 2009:"It makes me wonder if I would miss my mom if she should happen to die at some point."

It chills me to think I put that on my blog just over 4 months ago, but you know... Do I miss her now?

Oh, yes. No question.

Little things set me off to tears

I look at the shopping list and the meal plan my mom wrote last week. All those meals she was looking forward to enjoying. Then I look in the fridge, and there's all those quart containers of hand made saurkraut made at the Algonqiun Mill Festival a couple weeks ago. Then as I put a bag of trash from the clothes hamper she had near her bed in the trash outside, there's the pizza box from Friday (or was it Thursday?). Her last pizza.

Then there's that stupid ball on a rope tied to the pole that she bought for some reason, thinking my nieces would go out to play with it. I probably should bring that ball and rope in.

She was looking forward to getting her other cataract operation over with so she could see without glasses for the first time in over 40 years.

We got done today making arrangements for services and payments with the funeral home. At least we also know now who to go to and have my grandfather's DOD engraved on his marker.

I called her Uncle Wilbur's family suddenly having his name come to mind. His wife answered and thanked me for letting them know ahead of the notice appearing on the local cable channel for such notices. We still have her sister, currently on vacation, to get ahold of. I'd like her notice to appear in 2 papers at least.

These are the kind of things nobody should have to deal with but will have to at some point.

Mom, I got your air conditioner out of the window last night. I'm taking care of Melody for you. We were simply blessed that my best friend's parents found her and she made her way to us after Ariel died.

There will be a coroner's report. No autopsy. We'll have to figure out who to contact in regard to getting a copy of the report. They did the usual lab and blood work. Mom will like that. She's always want to do blood work since graduating with a Medical Laboratory Technician's degree (Associate) in the early 1980s. Never got a chance to use her skills.

There will be some items we'll be selling since none of us really needs it. Mom certainly took advantage of being able to get the things she needed for her comfort. She went all out. Toilet riser. Hospital style side table. She needed the CPAP, but at least got things like lights and such.

She was house bound and her entire life was getting on Pogo, other online stuff and shopping... Oh yeah, I was up all night getting through a lot of that crap. Ugh. She got a credit card somehow, and naturally fell behind trying to pay it off, and due to late charges, got a 29.99% APR. Last statement I see here has that on it.

I managed to get into most of her important accounts (utilities, financial (paypal)) as well as some for websites that for some stupid reason she paid for a membership. Some had auto-renew memberships. I turned those off NOW.

I've been awake since Thursday morning, not a wink of sleep. I might eventually get some. Melody is sleeping and snoring on the bed. At least we'll get back the pillow(s) that went with mom the other day.

I wonder when we'll eventually find the box for her other walker basket that we thought got lost?

Well, it's 12:30 and I don't think her aid is coming today, so the lady got my message.

Ironic how her ordered ink cartridges arrived the day after she passed away. I was able to cancel 3 unshipped books from Amazon.

At least she got to see me pass my CompTIA A+ exams, even if the certificate isn't here yet. I'd have really liked to have her see that.

She liked fishing. I don't know why. Her favorite photo is from one trip to Lake Erie with my grandfather and best friend. You can't see either in the photo of The Big Catch because one isn't in the shot, and the other is on the deck of the boat, seasick. ^_^

I'm starting to feel tired. Ah good. I'll get some rest. I've got so much yet to do.

My mother just passed away

I hate thinking my father is going to load up my blog and see this. I hope he will just butt out.

I hate to inform my friends and anyone who really cares about me that my mother passed away this afternoon, some time between 2 and 3 pm, 3 pm being when I found her. I tried to wake her up to let her know I was going in town to get her medication that Nurse Amy called in for her recent chest congestion, which unfortunately she probably got from me.

I've been trying to contact all her doctors, friends, and services in regard to her passing. I have a lot of crap to deal with in the coming weeks and beyond. Utilities to change into my name. Services I'll need to sign up for. I'm likely going to need counseling.

We never got around to putting that 1 Gig of RAM in her Dell. She got to see me pass my CompTIA A+ tests the first time through.

Nobody had EVER say that I was neglectful, that I did not do enough. I will smite thee, as the saying goes. Don't ANYONE ever say that about this to me.

The oxygen concentrator is off. It's so quiet now. The TV isn't on. I don't know what I'm going to make for supper. My nieces are going to be so sad.

I wish I was married already so I wouldn't have to face this alone and then be alone. I have my friends, but they don't live with you. I don't know what I need exactly, but I sure could use a spouse with an income at the moment.

My mother was the last person standing in my older sister's way to keep her from screwing me over.

I had some pretty dark days following being fired from the grocery store.

I miss my mom.

They could have explained this in the manual

Well, after a significantly long recharge, the phone works again.

Really, they should have explained what the phone will do when it REALLY
needs recharged. I'll bet they never thought to put something like that
in...

A mixed bag

So anywho, I can finally say for now the Check Engine light has gone out
for about 2 weeks. So far, so good.

Browns won their first game of this season.

And I hope it's just a battery that needs charging in the cell phone. I
tried to turn it on while waiting for my mother's prescriptions to be
filled, but all it would do is come on, give me a white screen for a few
moments, then shut down immediately. The battery wasn't dead by a long
shot. It had at least 2 more bars of battery charge showing. I last used
it Saturday and I remember shutting it down when I got home.

If it continues this immediately shutting down business, I don't know
what to do with it. It still has some months of service left and over
600 units of airtime left. I almost got mad enough to slam it on the
floor at the store. If it's a nearly dead battery, OK, so that's what it
does when the battery is damn near dead. Other than that, I or my
friends who got it for me may have to call Tracfone and bitch them a new
one. I still have some pics (correction: maybe HAD) I wanted to get off
the thing.

As much as they are useful, it's stuff like this that makes me think why
people even have them when they go bad. I've taken very good care of it,
so I have no idea what happened to it or anything.

I wish I had a SIM card reader...

If it works again like it should after charging, I'll try sending a post
to let people know.

Liz's Magic Knight Rayearth bling

Liz's MKR Bling on Youtube

Recent video I've finally put up on Youtube. It took an hour and a half due to our slow connection. It was captured with the Tevion USB video capture box, recoded into an MP4 to fix the gamma and contrast and some bottom edge clipping, then re-encoded without loss of resolution into WMV where I was able to edit the clip into what I put up.

Hopefully this will get her attention and finally get in touch more regularly. I don't know if I have more footage of her...

In Memorium: Duane Dawson, 20 years later

While today's date, October 10th, holds some happiness for me (my
youngest niece's birthday is today), it also holds some other sad
meaning for me and a friend.

While attending Stark Technical as it was called then, from 1987 until
when I graduated in 1990, I got to meet people and for a short time my
friend of who knows how many years at that point also attended. During
1989, thanks to another friend who used the local BBS handle of Lord
Humungous (aka Rick), we got to meet a fellow by the name of Duane
Dawson.

My friend and Lord H got to spend more time with Duane than I did, but I
got to know him quite well and he was a "cool dude" to know. He even
drove me and Lord H to my house after classes one day.

I wish I had a photo of Duane. Or even of his friend Ed, who had an
Apple II system he was wanting to sell. In my archive of stuff, I still
have the handwritten in pencil ad he wrote so I could try putting it up
on local BBSs or someplace hoping to score him a sale.

Just before the week of October 10, 1989, Duane finally managed to buy
the leather jacket he had his eye on for some time. However, on October
10, 1989, he and Ed were on their way home back to Wooster or
thereabouts to their jobs after classes. Unfortunately, it was raining
that day and Duane was driving way too fast. His car hydroplaned and
crossed the center line, crashing into a van headed east.

Both were killed upon impact.

I still have the copy of the STC Student Newsletter that has the
announcement of the accident. Hopefully I'll dig that out and put it up
here, and in addition to that, maybe the clip of video I had recorded
(with audio) of us doing our Techniques of Writing presentation, with a
"Mad Lib" type of program I wrote. Duane, my friend, and I did this for
each of the blurbs we were supposed to present. I think we got a good
score for it. Aside from that, the only other thing I have of Duane is
him belching into the mic of my micro cassette recorder. He was fun
because he did things like that. Though I'm sure and I hope he'll
comment, my friend who spent more time with Duane and Lord H as a group
has more interesting stories to tell, like the bat in the sporting goods
store at the mall. Even though he was the one to blame, it's stuff like
that I missed out on.

I might have said some heartless things to Lord H in email on local BBSs
that off the top of my head were the first things I could think of, but
knowing now that I have Asperger's, it was the only way I knew how to
deal with something like that. It probably also drove a gap between me
and Lord H, whom I really liked. He was cool, too. In some years
following Duane's death, I used to call Rick on October 10th when I
still knew his number and we'd talk for a while. I forgot when I stopped
doing that. Last time I knew anything about Rick, he was working for
FedEx or some place like that.

Duane and Ed. I was hoping to get to know Ed as he seemed an OK person
since after all he was Duane's friend. I can't believe it's been 20
years already.

T.T

A RANT: The Big Screw by Satellite TV

OK so a while back, we used to have Dish Network. But because we moved
only 1 mile to the east, but still part of the same zip code, Dish
Network forced a change of "local" channels to Youngstown instead of
Cleveland stations we had been getting.

Only because we moved 1 mile to the east, on the edge of a neighboring
county, but still SAME ZIP CODE.

So we dumped Dish Network, and DirecTV promised us, yes we could still
get Cleveland stations through them.

Just this past week, and even today, I get notices that Oh Wow DirecTV
is going to be changing something about the locals we get. Well, if it
means getting the WRONG locals for our SAME ZIP CODE as before, then
there's going to be a problem.

This somehow involves an "upgrade." I don't see how this is an upgrade.
It's a downgrade. We're still in the SAME zip code.

For some stupid reason, they cite some 2004 law, claiming they're using
Neilsen research to determine local market stations based on ZIP CODE,
but it looks like they want to use where you actually LIVE in the ZIP
CODE.

What does this mean? I HATE TIME WARNER. This Forces My Hand - I'll Drop
Digital Satellite Altogether If we're being forced to take local
channels that isn't our market. My committment to DirecTV is pretty much
up. They're more expensive than Dish Network, but up until now, we had
the right market for our ZIP code, namely Cleveland. When Channel 3
shows the Browns pre-season games, we would end up missing them because
they're not shown anywhere else.

Why Do I Hate Cable? Continual Rate Increases Every Year. Kickbacks to
the local government to allow them to remain a monopoly. They pass on
"franchise" and "regulatory" fees instead of taking that as an expense
of doing business. CABLE IS EVIL. Time Warner Also Doesn't Have NFL
Network. They may have Big Ten, but they're being asses about the NFL
channel. Gee, digital satellite services have it at no extra cost!

Plus Satellite TV gets unfairly taxed.

So what do I do? Can I explain to these people I'm STILL IN THE SAME ZIP
CODE? Can I refuse this "upgrade"? Would I stop getting Cleveland locals
as a result and have to pay an unfair fee later?

Youngstown is not my market, and I should not be force to have to get
locals I do not want.

What took them so long to do this? Why now? Their Neilsen research data
is FLAWED.

What is the absolute cheapest cable TV service I can get without being
forced to use a cable box?

Article: Just Add Water

Found this webpage linked to from the autism newsgroup.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/wave-hello-to-the-surf-genius-with-aspergers-1797025.html

Some of the comments below it are of interest to me, such as:

I have Asperger's, and I suffer because of other people.

To most people, I would say "Please make the effort to get to know me in
spite of my behaviors." Some of the few who already have would say good
things about me.

Taiyaki

First takoyaki, now taiyaki!

USB PCI Cards are neat

Got my ordered $5 USB 2.0 PCI card from Microbarn yesterday. I let it
sit around to warm up from being outside. Jeez, the last week or so has
been darn cold, or at least cooler than it really should be around this
time of year. I really hope this doesn't mean another 10 below Zero kind
of winter. OH SH....

Anywho, I get upstairs, open up the P4 case, and into the slot the sound
card was, goes in the USB card. NEC Chipset and all.

Power it up, and XP finds the card! And seems to like it very well. The
CD that came with it has drivers for Windows 98 so I don't even need it.

I begin attaching devices to it. The little $10 digital camera still
doesn't seem to work well as a PC web camera. Oh well, let's get to the
high speed video capture box. That installs easily and it WORKS. OMG.

Plug in a thumbdrive, no complaints that it could run faster! Plug in my
external hard drives. Seagate comes up fast! Plug in the Maxtor - it
doesn't give me delayed write errors. Wooo!!!

Now to get the DVD burner and keep looking for 16G thumb drives.

This card has an internal USB port. I could probably put the 16G drive
on that. I'll have to see if it doesn't cause problems. Too bad I can't
reconnect the front panel USB ports to that internal one. They're good
for game controllers anyway.

ANY time you run into a system with No or Slow USB ports, get a 2.0
card. I could have easily wasted $35 at Best Buy but instead got this $5
card that does the job. Cheap but still high quality!

So now my younger sister uses the Aspergers excuse...

So anywho, my younger sister shows up so she can do some stuff in the
kitchen as far as getting the walls scrubbed so they can be painted.

She sits down and talks about some stuff with my mother. I'm nearby
trying to do one of the daily crosswords in the paper. Heck, I'm in the
same room.

Then she gets to talking about some "meal swap" thing they do (I guess
in relation to the church they go to) and complaints about other people
in this thing complaining about the quality of the meals each other
gets, and add to the fact that they'll be getting some deer meat in the
next month or so (and some of the people in this swap thing claim they
don't like it), they'll have to take a break from it. That and the
presence of MSG in stuff that the other people make, even though she's
been telling people that if they swap dinners with her family not to use
things with a whole lot of MSG in it.

My sister, for some reason, is on a big Anti-MSG kick. She says there
was some book my father brought to their house that she read about all
the things that MSG causes. But I've been on Snopes, and as I remember
reading, MSG doesn't do all the things people claim. My father is nuts
and will find anything to support his claims of anything, whether or not
it actually has properly researched scientific proof behind it. I don't
know what book it was. I don't particularly care, either.

Glutamates are in lots of food. Milk for one. Soy products. The
Monosodium form comes from Yeast processing. It occurs naturally
otherwise.

And of course I'm ready to point out the bufoonery of that belief that
it causes fatigue, depression, etc. Just like artificial sweetners can't
be causing so many unrelated conditions, the same is for MSG.

She comes back with the "Asperger's excuse" like my older sister did,
and of course that puts me on the defensive and I get annoyed and angry.
I fight back with "Don't invalidate me with that excuse" and it doesn't
go well. So rather than talk it out or something (the computer
downstairs was on, someone could just as easily gotten on it and loaded
Snopes to settle the discussion), my younger sister gets mad and leaves.

So while she's out, and before she gets back home, I call her up and
leave a message. I tell her she owes Mom an apology. And I deserve one,
too. For her and my older sister to use Aspergers as an excuse to
invalidate me as a person, and my opinion as well, I deserve better
treatment, and that it's not fair. It's not fair.

I get better treatment from my friends and the BVR people than I do from
my own family! heck, even the counselors I've seen!

She called a while ago before I completed writing this posting,
apparently she and my mother spoke for a while, maybe things are going
resolve themselves. I don't know. At least one person here might have
gotten an apology.

My first house call?

Got to work on someone's computer today at their house, my first since
getting A+ certification. Actually, it was a daughter of one of the
ladies who come in to help my mother with her personal care and stuff.

From what I was told is that it just stopped working and wouldn't boot
past the Windows XP logo screen, and would reboot after a while. Some
other bit was about her Symantec AV reporting she got some worm or
something before things went bad, but then her "subscription" to that
had expired. But in the meantime, they had hooked up the computer of the
lady I had helped with earlier this year.

Without AntiVirus software on it. Yeah, Not Smart, in spite of how much
this daughter thinks she knows. I promised the lady I helped that when
they're ready to put it back on the net, I would finish what I had
started and put in security it needed.

So anywho, before I take a look at the problem system, I get to
installing the security stuff I think will help them with little problem
and worry. Since her RAM is 1G and dual channel, and a nice beefy AMD
Athlon processor, I decide that AVG Free 8.5 is going to work well for
them. After running scans (nothing major thank goodness), I get
Malwarebyte's tool going and it finds stuff. Spybot Search and Destroy
goes in, adding its resident TeaTimer and it finds a few more things. Ad
Aware AE goes in, and this time it doesn't find a whole lot, which is
extra good.

I put in a few more goodies. Firefox 3.5.3 goes in to update what I've
put on there already and then slip in all the security and other goodies
I like and show her how to use NoScript and FlashBlock as well as Ad
Block Plus. With NoScript, when you load up a page and nothing is going
on, allow any of the currently blocked scripts. Note which domains have
blocked scripts (like ad serving domains), and carefully allow or
temporarily allow stuff until the page works. Some pages you temporarily
allow things when you're not going to be there much, some you Always
Allow if you are going to be there much. Just allow enough to make the
page work. I showed her a few examples of what to allow.

Also turned on Cookie handling so she can get to training Firefox what
to block. Same with Ad Block Plus.

Media Player Classic Home Theater edition went in. And then created a
desktop shortcut for her Microsoft Works word processor. She forgot I
put that back in on her HD.

Had that finally nicely locked down and onto the problem computer. Dummy
me though, I took my extra monitor and forgot the power cord... I was
hoping to set up both systems and use the net connected one to look up
solutions while I worked on the other.

Only it didn't get quite that far. I got the problem system hooked up.
one thing I forgot to bring was the diagnostic CD for various things, so
I grabbed a copy there and burned it to a CD.

Her drive was a 200G Seagate, a few years old. It's been across the
country and back. It's probably been left on for long periods without
actually needing to be on.

It was showing its age.

Ran SeaTools off the diagnostic CD. The drive was unable to pass the
Short Test. So I ran the long test. Sector Read errors started popping
up. I could hear a lot of activity by the drive as it ground through the
errors. SeaTools eventually clicked up 99 errors before it stopped. I
ran it a few more times, trying to get it to repair problem sectors. One
early sector it claimed to have fixed resurfaced a bit later as being
bad again.

I had managed to check only the first 4% of the drive (about 8 gigs)
before concluding that any more work on it would not yield anything.

Actually tried to boot the drive into its Recovery partition, and it was
unable to recover. Tried to boot into XP on the primary partition and it
did exactly what she described. Well, the boot process was unable to
complete because it couldn't read part of the drive!

The error pattern was odd. It would get to LBA 74000 or so before it got
errors, would grind through a bunch, then hit a patch it was able to
just sail right through until 17400000 (something like that). So the
entire drive wasn't bad. After some of that, I tried to boot XP on the
drive and it attempted to fix something with the file structure on the
drive, but the actual system files it was still unable to successfully
load.

She'll have to buy a new drive, and she just goes and says she knows a
few people in the service (somewhere, I didn't catch where) that do this
as part of their job (family relatives) and she'll send the drive to
them to see what they can do with it.

About the only way this drive will have any data recovered off it is if
the drive is taken apart and the platters put into another device.

The problem being faced here is her system had a working DVD burner
drive. It wasn't working anymore though. She had pictures on the drive
copied off her camera's memory card. No backups. No burned CDs, no flash
drives, nada. Photos from Italy where they had been for about a year or
so. Not to mention resumes, financial info. Stuff that should at least
be on a thumbdrive!

It would take intensive forensic work on that thing to get anything off
it. IF she's lucky, with a big IF, that drive is put into another
system, any important info should be quickly copied off because that
drive is on its last days. I don't know what kind of damage happened to
it, but the chances of getting things off it aren't very high.

I kinda got the idea that maybe she didn't think I knew what I was
doing, but then I did get the front off her system and pulled the drive
out through the front of the case. ^_^

If anyone else seems to think as I do that her drive is likely done for,
by all means leave a comment saying so. Some drives last a long time,
some don't, it's all relative.

Oh yeah! Almost forgot about the printer! They had tried to hook up an
HP Photosmart printer to it via USB but without installing the drivers
for it. I mean, if you can't find the CD, why bother hooking it up?
Anywho, someone did. And it wouldn't print. I solved that by going to
HP's support website and finding the XP package of basic software and
drivers for the printer. Shut down the 'puter, unplugged the USB cable.
Start it back up, run the driver install, and turned on the printer and
plugged it in when the installer said to. Device was detected and it
prints now. That seemed to surprise her. ^_^

About the only other thing I was unable to work on was a JVC mini
digital video camera. It had a USB plug as well, but they didn't have
any CD of software for it at all. The camera DID have an SD Card slot,
but no card. I told them to get a card (2G would be kinda nice) and use
it with the 'puters many card readers. That would solve the other
problem until they got a CD or whatever for it.

Lucky Star OVA DVD

Oh man, I don't know. Bandai looks like they're getting ready to get out
of the U.S. anime DVD market or just really trying to cut corners or
save money. Special Edition release for Lucky Star v.6 was cancelled so
that just the DVD was released, and now the OVA DVD is Sub Only. The
menus are sparse - no animation or music. It's like bare bones
everything. Kyon must have done this during an all-nighter. A stark
difference between this and the TV series DVDs which are very nice.

At the end of the main part, there's a frame before it ends that shows
they could have put on Japanese TV commercials as extras but they
didn't. What is nice is the end part with the Live Action Lucky Channel
is shot on video, also included as a no-credit extra but with subs. I
can now delete the video file I grabbed to preview the OVA, since I've
heard the audio goes out of sync and isn't subbed at that point.

I could have ordered it from Right Stuf at a slightly lower price, only
to have shipping compensate for Best Buy's price. So in the end, it
evens out.

I enjoyed the OVA, good to see more Misao!

I've been ordering the Lucky Star manga from Bandai, so hopefully
Diamond will ship V.2 and future books when / should it be published.