I can be such an odd fangirl at times

And it's the little things that make me happy.

No one's going to take me alive
Time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive -- "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse

I treated myself to a Muse CD. They've been on my to buy list ever since I first heard "Knights of Cydonia" and claimed it for a Biker Mice song. Cydonia is an area of Mars, made famous by the Face on Mars controversy. So I was pleased to squee a little to find a photo of Mars under the CD in the back cover.

I played it on the commute into work and think that a few songs on the album might be applicable to BMFM soundtracks.

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The BookWorm

Let's hear it for Central Plumb It Yourself!

At work today, I mapped out three plumbing supply stores on my route home to look for an adapter to make the connection between my sink faucet and the new portable dishwasher. Took all my manuals and the aerator, and faucet adapter. Felt like crap all day, if I could have curled up for a nap, I would still be asleep now. Finally got to leave work at 4:20 (after arriving at 6:55 this morning; don't ask). And last thing I wanted to do was go shopping, but wanting a working dishwasher won. The first stop was Central Plumb It Yourself.

I walked into a bathroom showplace and sighed internally, but made a mental note that I might want to check their prices on bowl sinks when I'm ready for the project. I figured I had gotten a decorating store that specialized in bathrooms. A saleclerk came out of the employee section and I explained that I was looking for parts. "Oh come on to the back, the girls back there will fix you up." And led me through a door labeled "Parts Dept."

Now the store reminded me of a hardware store, racks of plastic enclosed plumbing doodads. I explained what I needed, she took the parts, opened up a tool box, got another employee's expert opinion, and put the new adapter onto the faucet adapter with a washer and rung me up. Took about fifteen minutes. Total cost of the dishwasher now is $68.22.

So now I'm finally getting to test the dishwasher! There is a leak at the faucet, but none from the machine, WOOT! I figure I didn't tighten the faucet adapter enough and it's not shooting out and making a mess. Mustard's not sure what to make of this noisy new white box, but I find it's not any louder than any of the window AC units I'm running. (I'm worried about the office one, it sounds horrible.) Once I've made sure all the water has drained out, I can start my first official load!

SQUEE!!!!!!!

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The BookWorm

Tropical Storm Bonnie

Tropical Storm Bonnie should be making landfall Sunday. *Crossing fingers* Hopefully, it won't intensify. It will be going through the oil spill zone. Though luckily they've been having trouble finding oil floating in the Gulf since the cap has allowed them to catch up, the radio DJs just told me.

I still think somebody needs to invent the submersible rig from the Abyss. Underwater operations could continue, even if the ships had to skedaddle.

Saturday I'll probably have to spend cleaning the porches. Hopefully, I can find the parts I need for the dishwasher today so I can get the pile of dishes cleaned before I lose power. I have a generator now, but I'd rather not turn that on just to do chores. *SNORT* Looks like I won't get the plate rack built this weekend either.

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The BookWorm

It only took ten years!

I got home and found this waiting on my back porch. (Picture taken once we moved it inside the house.)



Mom dragged Dad to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore today and spotted it. The portable dishwasher has never been used. Their price? Sixty-five dollars. I wrote Mom a check for it as soon as we got it in the kitchen.

Now I'm off to actually do my dishes! BWAHHHH!

EDIT: Foiled by technology! The dishwasher has faucet adapter that you screw to the faucet (once you remover the aerator). The hose to the locks to it to get the water. And it's too big for my pipe. *headdesk*

So I spent an hour at Lowe's, picked up the last of the items to build the plate rack (cross your fingers on that), and finally get some customer service to find out they don't have a part to make that adaption. "Another lady was in here earlier with the same problem."

ARGH! It's not so much that they don't have it. Lowe's is hit or miss with small items so specialized. It's that this took an HOUR, thirty minutes spent waiting for a sales clerk. Me patient? What the hell is that?

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The BookWorm

The Toxic, Hidden Toll

Andrew Sullivan's post alerted me to this short film by Thomas Mortan on the impact of the oil crisis. Follow the link and watch. "Our nation's most well-spoken rednecks," oh that made me grin. He does call it what he sees "a total clusterfuck."

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The BookWorm

Assessments are kicking our butts

Assessments are a lot simpler than how they were done when I first took this job a decade ago, but the sheer volume with the new system kinks adds up to overtime Monday and Tuesday. My sleep schedule has been shot, but hopefully, I can even up tonight and wake up on time tomorrow. Maybe.

I really haven't gotten to start on anything writing-wise. I'm supposed to be finishing the edits to Hyrueliana, but it's so hard to find the energy. I don't want to promise my weekends to anything because that hasn't been working lately.

Lunch is over, back to the grind.

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The BookWorm

Hello World

It's been over a week since the new program to classify the revenue debuted at work. The list of 2- to 25 items of "FIX NOW" to "this is annoying" degrees of importance is down to 12. Not to bore you with the details of how this has been so hair-pulling frustrating, I'll sum up with this:

Whoever's bright idea it was to start using a new fiscal program at the beginning of the new fiscal year when the books must be balanced and the assessment invoices go out should be fired, so we don't get any more bright ideas from idiots them.

I'm not overly thrilled with the "show off what we've built while building and then the users are trained and have given us input on how to improve it" operating procedure. Too many issues are glossed over until the users actually using it break the program. The good news is after week of breaking it in, it looks like we have found most of the bugs that stop the program cold. Then they put out a new build to fix the bug and lock us out of our job functions with security features. (About the fifth time first day that I went down to the programmers office my question became "what did you give us permission to do?!") Any way, they got the whole list of 12 today and I don't care if they have to work all weekend. I don't want them to, but nothing will run right on Monday either.

An important life lesson: Programmers never realize how many times they click on the mouse. So when they say they'll make the program so you click less, just smile, nod, and feed them more caffeine. Yeah, today's meeting we were told that everyone else loves the multi-screens and pop-up windows telling us were good and we don't because of the repetitive nature of our job. Yeah, okay, whatever. Our jobs suck and thank you for rubbing it in.

Sheesh, I am SUPER grumpy. I woke up this morning and something up between my shoulder blade and spine decided not to work and grab hold of all other muscles so turning and bending my neck is impossible and stretching my arm out pops my spine. That's not normal. I already iced it down and I'm saving more ice for when I go to bed. I haven't decided if I'll stay home if it doesn't clear up tomorrow.

Adventures in Wood Building
I need a plate rack. I have been needing a plate rack for a long time. I found a plan I liked in Great 2x4 Accessories. I bought the materials and then promptly let it get buried.

I uncovered it while cleaning up the sewing debris before the 4th of July long weekend. It still isn't built yet. I had planned to build it while fogging the house. The screws had gone missing, and I discovered this much too late to buy screws. Bought new screws during the week to build it July 10th or 11th. Then after that shopping trip, my parents take my sister in Texas their jigsaw I had planned on borrowing.

Sunday I go buy the jigsaw. Then I wait for it to get a little cooler. Then decide that isn't going to happen and get started. My extension cord is in use charging a car battery without my knowledge it had been borrowed. Okay, rearrange the sawhorses to reach the outlet with the jigsaw cord. Then I decide I should mark the stuff shown on figure two before cutting and my tape measure refuses to roll back up. I pulled all 25 feet of it out completely trying to make it roll back up. Then it starts thundering again, so I pack it all back inside so my wood doesn't get ruined by my leaky porch.

After all that, I double checked my drill bits and found I still need a 3/8 one for yet another step. So that means yet another shopping trip. And I don't know if my back will want me working with power tools.

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The BookWorm

New Month

Don't have any real lofty plans for the month of July. I spent my three day weekend liberating my house from sewing debris and the back bedroom from fleas so I could store the sewing stuff again. And whoever fixed the vacuum valve on Space Bags is my new bestest friend in corporate America. No more losing the cap! And the seal is much better now. And while I was having fun storing blankets, I also went through the garb closet and got rid of a basket's worth of things I don't wear and probably won't ever wear again. Then moved the winter clothes out and now I have room in my wardrobe.

The only bummer news I have is I think the leak is getting worse. *Pulls hair* Second bummer news: I would like to use the back bedroom as a sewing space and a workout space. I only have room for one or the other to be the priority. And even then, it's a tight fit.

When I replace the roof and the back half of the house, I will have to expand the footprint of the house. I need room to put a guest bed somewhere after all.

At the paying job, we're switching computer systems on how we track the money. Many things are breaking. I'm going home at 4pm no matter what; I don't care if we have no money to deposit tomorrow.

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KLCtheBookWorm

Fresh Start Monday

*Snort* It sounded so doable yesterday. Course that was before I couldn't fall asleep on time last night and ended up waking up late this morning. Abbreviated morning routine, bought breakfast and lunch, and then discovered getting off the Interstate was the only way to get to work.

Welcome to Monday, folks.

Goals for the Week

• Using the allotted chore time, clean up the sewing debris.
• List Big Rocks.
• Decide on Zy's novel or Strix's novel.
• Exercise.
• Primal eating.

in all honesty, I should start on the Tin Man Adora uniform for Halloween, but I just made my shoulder angel and shoulder devil burst into tears with the suggestion. So a break while I improve the sewing environment is probably necessary.

Improving the sewing environment: I discovered that moving the sewing machine to the living room so the extending table in the back room is free for cutting works, but not on my mother's six-foot-long folding table.

My idea is to modify a rolling kitchen cart to be a rolling sewing machine cabinet with panels that fold down into table tops for the fabric. I haven't gotten any further in the planning process than that.

Big Rocks self-explanatory.

June is almost over and I haven't worked on either Zy's or Strix's novels. I may end up flipping a coin.

Exercise & Primal Eating: two hundred sit-ups starts this week along with removing grains from me diet lifestyle. I've been following Mark's Daily Apple for a while now, and my health is not getting better according to Conventional Wisdom's way to treat metabolic syndrome. I had planned to go more cold turkey into primal eating this morning, but this morning left me unprepared for breakfast. My foraging included an English muffin.

Primal Blueprint 101, if you're interesting in reading more.

I think that's all for today. I'm off to find a kitchen cart to modify.

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The BookWorm

Wedding pictures!

What has consumed my life for so many months, making this outfit:


Best shot I have of the flower girl and ring bearer:


The happy couple:


Maid of honor, me, and the second best man, Chris:


The sewing odyssey will eventually go up at the Garb Closet; I just have no idea when.

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The BookWorm

The wedding is done

Suzanne and Eric are off, finally. I'm home. I left only my pillow and the Byetta pen in New Orleans. *headdesk*

I'm going to bed. You may here more from me tomorrow or Monday.

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The BookWorm

"Boom" from GQ

Boom from GQ explaining impartially what went wrong with the Deepwater Horizon.

BP should be prosecuted for 11 counts of murder just to start.

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The BookWorm

Big Rocks or Scheduled Tasks?

Today's the day to review if the schedule works or if it needs more tweaking. So far the only thing to tweak is my ability to stick wih it. If I don't go to bed on time, I don't wake up on time. Nearly everyday but Tuesday, I've had issues with this. The nice thing about this schedule is I jump right into what I should be doing after a minute of making the bed.

After too many days of missing my Byetta dose, I've decided to move it to breakfast instead of supper and eat before leaving the house.

Yesterday, I found this post on setting a minimum standard: Thinking Small without the Guilt. The daily To Do list is my minimum standard now, and I felt pretty good about that. Then I took a look at my Big Rocks. Big Rocks is a concept from Zen to Done at Zen habits. I've been using it for nearly two years now to plan my week.

Only without me realizing it, the Big Rocks list has become everything I want to do on ongoing projects instead of what I can and will finish this week. See. I know why I do it; I have an overdeveloped sense of fear of being bored. Mom related a story of how one of my teachers in elementary school berated her at Open House because I was bringing college-level books to class to read and when she took the "too old for me" books away, I colored my fingernails with crayons. My mother answered "Kindra's bored silly, so let her read the books we're letting her bring from home."

So it's no stretch when I'm doing my weekly review to jump in with "what are you going to do if you finish that?" and the next thing I know twenty-three slots are filled. *headdesk*

First step: move the items that have a scheduled day to the daily schedule. That opened up four slots.

Second step: identify what items have a deadline.

• Steampunk story - pen
• Bridesmaid dress - H
• TM_Challenge 12 entry - pen
• FFGarret WT #13 - web
• FFGarret EL #13 - web
• Edit Hyrueliana - pen

So this takes me from twenty-one items to six. And keep me from getting lost in the sea of projects. Everything not on this list needs to move back to the projects lists and wait for an opening.

That was pretty painless once I actually looked at things rather than just carry the items forward a week. See the new version.

The A-Team this weekend and the last of the sewing! *Crossing fingers.*

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The BookWorm

At least I don't have tires under my eyes*

Declaring to test the schedule last Thursday and Friday was treated like a joke by my body. If I had paid attention to the smudges under my eyes, I would have recognized I hadn't been getting enough sleep. I regrouped this weekend; not enough to get up on time today but no tires in residence on my face* either.

So Thursday will be schedule evaluation day. Tuesday will be two hundred situps exhaustion test, pegging to start the workout next Monday. And if the wedding schedule messes it up for any reason, they built in 'stay at this week longer' tests so taking longer than six weeks isn't unheard of.

In not fixing the daily routine news, I got the shoes to go under the bridesmaid gown Saturday!

And I wore them a good chunk of the time I was sewing Sunday to get my body used to heels that high. Today, I decided to wear the black high-heeled sandals that were bought Saturday also. My feet currently think this was a bad plan.

Alan Cumming has discovered Tin Man fanvids. "But there are loads of them up there [YouTube]. Where do you all find the time?" Sheesh, I ask myself that nearly every day. :p

And the shoes went off at noon, stayed off until I had to go home.

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The BookWorm

* = "Tires under my eyes" is a reference to my Biker Mice From Mars fanfic Put Me Back Together in the Wars Are Won By Those Who Dare series.

June Already

It’s gotta be better than May, right? We have oil spewing in the Gulf, hurricane season has started with predictions of a repeat of the 2005 season, and we’re supposed to go live with a new system at work by the end of the month. Positives: making tweaks to the schedule, Suzanne and Eric are getting married, I think I can make the deadline for the steampunk story.

Tweaking the schedule: it is good to follow my To Do list, but chores make a lousy reason to get up in the morning. Stepcase Lifehack asks Do you have a morning ritual? and I had to answer "not really as such."

And as hard as it is for me to get up most mornings, I think I need to heed their advice and find something I want to do. This ties into my To Do List actually.

Step One: Draft a short list of the things you do each morning and what you'd like to add. I already have this list as my Daily Chores on my To Do list.

• Exercise
• Writing hour
• Website Hour
• Make bed
• Wash dishes
• Empty inbox
• Empty Gmail and LiveJournal Inboxes
• Budget
• Weekly chores
• Get dressed
• Pack breakfast, lunch and snack
• Commute

Granted, if I don't finish this list before going to work, I can finish it through the day. But out of these items I can see what I'm not crossing off consistently or what I can add.

What I'm not hitting consistently list is much shorter:

• Exercise
• Writing hour
• Website Hour
• Empty inbox
• Budget

Too often, I'm using the weekend to catch up on what I missed during the week and skipping exercise altogether.

I got rid of the inbox by adding a “budget” and a “needs filing” folder to my box of 42 folders. The plan is to empty those every day and not keep a basket full of paperwork I just keep on my desk.

Step Two: Figure out how much time it'll realistically take to do everything on your list. This is where I think I fall down badly. I have no clear time of how long things should take in the morning, and let's face it trying to wake up doesn't help remembering how to do things.

Julie Morgenstern recommends timing yourself doing routine tasks because you probably don't know how long it really takes. When I read that advice, I realized I had no idea how long anything took to do, so I timed myself over a few days and took averages. The results:

• Make the bed = 1 minute
• Washing dished = 30 minutes
• Empty folders = 23 minutes
• Weekly chores = 45 minutes
• Budget = 30 minutes
• Getting dressed = 26 minutes
• Getting food = 11 minutes
• Exercise = 15 minutes
• Writing = 60 minutes
• Website = 60 minutes
• GRAND TOTAL = 301 minutes = 5 hours 1 minute

I get up around 3:00am and try to leave the house for 5:45am. So here I was trying to squeeze five hours of stuff into less than three hours, and then beating myself up for not doing everything. This hammered home how easily I can over extend myself.

Step Three: Adjust your wake time to accommodate your new ritual. This is the fun part. My first draft had me waking up at 2:30am. I’ve tried and it doesn’t happen, so 3am is the earliest and that means 8:30pm is the latest I can go to bed. That should be a big enough window to get everything done, right? If only I didn’t have to go to the paying job.

First thing to face: I can’t have a full hour of writing in the morning and clean house. But I can have thirty minutes.

June A.M. Schedule

• 3:00 = Wake up, Make bed, Wash dishes for 15 minutes
• 3:16 = Exercise
• 3:31 = Writing for 30 minutes
• 4:01 = Get dressed
• 4:27 = Get food
• 4:38 = Empty folders
• 5:01 = Weekly chores
• 5:46 = Leave for paying job

While at the paying job, I’ll clean out email inboxes, write and work on website projects as much as I am able. The evening schedule has to have more flexibility built into it because if I work late, getting anything finished is just a dream. I’m basing it on my usually and preferred habits.

June P.M. Schedule

• 5:00 = Arrive home, Take medicine, eat supper
• 5:45 = Wash dishes for 15 minutes
• 6:00 = Budget
• 6:30 = Finish writing hour, website hour, or special project
• 8:15 = Set stuff out for tomorrow, Get ready for bed
• 8:30 = Go to Bed

That only thing inflexible is the bedtime and that I need to do what I have listed. If I end up running late, I can borrow time from the one hour forty-five minutes section before starting the bedtime routine.

Step Four: Go through your list each morning for at least two mornings before making adjustments. So by Friday I should know if this works or not.

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The BookWorm

Life Update

I've been quiet on the personal front for a while. A busy spell, getting my finances in order so I didn't lose my house. Long story in short form: I was making partial payments to the mortgage company but didn't talk to them. They served me with foreclosure papers. So I've been in a scramble to find more money ever since. I managed to get less than half of the reinstatement fee together with the loan modification came through. My house note is now about half of what I was paying, which means I'll have money to pay on other debts now.

The snowball method vs. pay off the highest interest rate first is a non-issue; the loan with the lowest balance is the one with the highest interest rate. And I think I have a system in place to make sure I don't get complacent and forget the important bills. Because when head goes into sand is when I get into trouble.

The stress has been killer on the steampunk story and house cleaning naturally. I have a three-day weekend thanks to Memorial Day. Mom has already booked Monday as a spa/getting ready for the wedding day. So Saturday becomes cleaning day mixed with a little writing, and Sunday will be sewing day mixed with a little writing.

May 7th the Bachelorette Party: It was fun. Renting a hotel room on Bourbon was a great idea. I managed to have fun even though I was still reeling from having just been served with the notice of seizure. The only bad thing was it was a hotel right on Bourbon. I don't remember anything after then boom-booms from the clubs finally stopped, which means that's when I passed out. But I had been trying to sleep for a long time before that.

If we do that again, I'm packing the air mattress too.

May 11th new medication: My doctor put me on Byetta, otherwise known as the prescription that scared me silly last visit. My taking it has been spotty, thanks to late hours at work. What will help the most is regularly scheduled exercise and I know it. :p

May 15th High School Reunion: It was a lot less awkward than I feared it would be. I even managed to have fun for over three hours. Judie and I caught up, and I found out what many of my classmates have been up to in the fifteen years. We should do a better job getting the word out for the next one though.

Work aggravation: My hours are 7:30am to 4pm. I try to get in around 7am so I have some time to settle, eat breakfast, check email, etc. Thanks to traffic, I usually get home somewhere between 5pm and 6pm.

You wouldn't know it with all the overtime I've been clocking. I don't mind the overtime, if it's our busy season. I DO mind--a lot--when it is happening every single week for multiple days. It makes me irritated and I don't do anything when I get home hungry and irritated. And my old routine of just have supper in the city and wait for the traffic to go away is now kaput. You have to take Byetta BEFORE supper and I keep it at home in the fridge.

Happy camper I have not been over this.

Sewing progress: I'd be a lot further along if I would stop coming home too late and tired to work on the bridesmaid dress. :p I'm fairly confident that I can finish most of it this weekend and turn over what I can't do to Mom.

To Do List Progress: I need to get back to this. I started to analyze what was going wrong and then foreclosure crisis put a halt on the introspection.

Current shoulder pain: I have no idea what I did, but the right arm and shoulder hurt to the point I'm having trouble reaching full range of motion. I've ruled out lifting anything heavy or differently, so that leaves sleeping on it wrong or now that I have dealt with the financial stress my body is letting me know just how bad it was for me.

Exercise plans: I've been trying to find something uncomplicated to do. I really miss the old days where walking was as easy as just leaving my dorm room. I got pointed to One Hundred Push Ups and I really like how you just concentrate on one thing for six weeks. Hopefully my arm and shoulder pain will clear up so I can start on this next week. If not, I may started with one of the other exercises: Two Hundred Sit Ups or Two Hundred Squats.

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The BookWorm

NARNIA!!!!!

I have posts of more substance that will have to typed later. This news is too good to pass by.

Out of the whole series, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Silver Chair are my favorites. I think because Eustance and Jill overcome more in their journeys. And I was more than a little annoyed that the Prince Caspian movie didn't have an Easter egg at the end referencing the next book. They could have focused on the picture of the Dawn Treader and got in tighter until it came alive. *Sigh* That missed opportunity would have been so cool!

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The BookWorm

Wednesday Progress Report

Monday: I only crossed of four of the ten daily items, but I crossed off four Big Rocks for the week and put in forty-five minutes on the bridesmaid's dress.

Tuesday: Crossed off three daily items and one Big Rock. Working late killed my concentration for more creative pursuits. But I did enlist my mother's help on the sleeves on the real dress.

Wednesday: Looks better than Tuesday. I already have four daily items crossed off, but I will be late arriving home because of the chiropractic appointment.

Usually this is a great opportunity to catch up on writing hour time. I just have to find something that doesn't require a computer. :p

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The BookWorm

Big Plans

I have big plans for today. I plan on crossing off everything listed for Monday!

It's really not polite to laugh like that.

Seriously, I need to reestablish order over the chaos and that means following the list with actual rewards. I have earned quite a bit and still haven't watched them.

The Oil Spill: Mix of good news and bad news.

Good:

• It's Louisiana sweet crude which doesn't act the same way the heavy crude that the Exxon Valdez spill was made up on. So we probably won't see a black tide event.
• The weather and currents has been making it hard to clean up in the open water, but it has kept the bulk of it offshore.
• We've got great facilities like the Audubon Institute to take care of the injured animals.

Bad:

• This is not a spill; it's a spew. They've given up trying to calculate how many barrels of oil are leaking into the Gulf now. Until we plug the source, we have no idea how bad it can be.
• The source is a MILE under water. That's 1.60934 kilometers for you metric readers.
• Seafood is a renewable resource, but it will be hit hard. Worse, the bans keep the commercial fishermen from earning a paycheck. Yeah, BP is going to pay restitution but you can't count on a check you don't have.

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The BookWorm

Facebook *Snarl*

It's done and I hate it already. It doesn't understand HTML code, there's no place to put the links for what I actually use, and did I mention it doesn't understand HTML codes in posts?

I've been building my own frakkin' websites since 1997, have a basic understanding of creating and maintaining Drupal powered websites (even though I can't make them as pretty or as user friendly as the head model is), been on Blogger since 2003, forget how many damn years at FanFiction.Net. < SARCASM >Yeah, I LOVE it when you computer social network places/corporations decide I am too stupid to know what I'm doing.

Hells bells, I put HTML coding when I write stories longhand so I know what I wanted to do with that text when it comes to typing it.

Okay, I took my medication and I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow's Friday, should automatically be better, only we're looking at an ecological disaster happening in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill will probably hit land tomorrow. And that land will be our fragile and necessary wetlands. *Sigh*

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The BookWorm