Archives: August 2002
Saturday, August 31, 2002
So finally after waiting since April 30th I have the Nightmare Before Christmas mugs that I won on eBay! Supposedly this is the fourth package sent with those mugs, if I believe all the emails I've gotten. After the third one didn't arrive and I didn't get anymore email responses from this seller I decided to get PreZ to email instead... he got a response after sending a kind of "I'll sic my lawyer on you!" email ;) and finally we have mugs. One blueish, and one purple. One with Jack and one with Sally.
I don't think this is a seller I'll be wanting to deal with again, unless I get delivery confirmation. I had insurance on the package, not delivery confirmation originally, mainly because I didn't think a package from North Carolina to New York would go astray and that breakage was a bigger risk than loss. I guess not. The seller already has a number of negative feedbacks about similar situations, though had many more that outweighed the bad, and was also super friendly about replacements originally. Yet, before you know it, you're 3+ months down the track, your seller doesn't respond anymore, you've long since passed the date that you can reverse the paypal charge and you can't even leave ebay feedback anymore.
Oh, and I really hate sellers who don't give you feedback as soon as you've paid, which they should, because that's your part of the bargain completed... it's like they wait till you've left your feedback for them so they can retalliate in case it's bad. Bastards.
While this is turning into a rant anyway I might as well just add my current peeve... people having unprotected sex, and the various obvious repercussions of this behaviour. This one has surfaced several times recently, and my only comments to this are the fact that it's the year 2002 and there is NO excuse not to (be able to) protect yourself. Furthermore, if you're not responsible enough to protect yourself and consider the consequences of your actions, you're not responsible enough to be having sex.
And that's all I have to say about that.
@ 03:09 AM EST
Thursday, August 29, 2002
When it rains, it pours. So spoke a friend of mine this morning just before she had to run off and catch her train. It's true in many cases currently, mostly with personal relationships of others. So here and there I'm lending a listening ear and offering some advice... it's interesting being able to give people different perspectives on what's going on. I seem to be very good at it... I can play devil's advocate in pretty much most discussions and conversations if need be, a handy trait. In the end however you have to wait and see what other people do with your advice.
Sometimes it's not necessarily better knowing both sides of a story, being the side of each person, not the various other sides I can conjure up to consider. It helps because you can give tentative hints to the other person involved as to things to consider etc. but sometimes it just complicates things more, especially when one might have a viewpoint you sympathise with more or if something that happened is kind of understandable to you even though it hurt the feelings of the other person. It's the kind of thing that can give you a headache, of which I currently have one, though I think this one is more dehydration related than balancing the issues of a few seperate sets of friends.
I think I'm glad I don't do counselling as a profession... though I guess the money might be nice ;)
In other less rivetting news I've been reading a lot, ploughing through 3 Iris Johansen books and on to the 4th. Entertaining fast reads.
@ 09:11 PM EST
Saturday, August 24, 2002
I forgot to mention the other day that my slipcased numbered editions came. They're gorgeous and I'm so happy with them. Because I'd declined to have the books personalised (which can decrease collector value) I got a personalised chapbook included which was very cool.
Other than that over the last few days a bunch of Iris Johansen books I won on eBay have been arriving. Fast reading thriller stuff, always entertaining. So more books to pile onto the 'to read' stack... the stack which never seems to get smaller, no matter how much I read ;)
In other groundbreaking news I cut off about 2 inches of my hair. My life is *so* entertaining, don't you think? Oh, and I've been playing The Sims. I really want to get the add on packs, as there are loads of nifty Goth Sims skins that only work with the add on's.... and I want to use them!
@ 10:51 PM EST
Friday, August 23, 2002
Woo! This new computer is definitely a delight. No more locking up due to too little memory... much faster speeds... and of course the nifty GAF black case ;) It really is good to have a new computer, the one I was using before was a Celeron 433 and was really locking up a lot which was very frustrating. I was also allowed to name my box within our local network, rather than have a name from within the network theme that PreZ had, so I dubbed it Obsidian, fitting considering the case colour. There's also a Freda Warrington link to that name for the interested.
PreZ got his systems parts on Tuesday and has been setting up his system ever since, and upgrading some of the other systems on the network as well. Our place looks like a recycling center with so many boxes and bits of plastic around. I've taken out loads but it still consumes a lot of space for some reason. Not to mention the computer guts strewn across the floor in the comp room.
Other than that things are okay. Somewhat disorganised with all the furniture additions and rearrangements and new systems, but good. PreZ has a phone interview lined up for early September, amusingly enough with one of the direct competitors of his former employer... so the competition is not doing as bad as they are considering they're hiring and not firing.
I've picked up playing Pharaoh recently which is amusing, even though I'm stuck on the level I got stuck on last October which is frustrating, but I will prevail.
Still slacking off on GOTH.NET which is a bad thing, I think I'll plan the upcoming weekend for that considering we have no other plans, I might put in some work on friday. We're also considering GOTH.NET merchandising (shirts, mugs, stickers etc.) in an effort to do some fundraising to cover the costs of bandwidth and upgrades and the like. Opinions about this can be left on the GOTH.NET forums in the "Future & Feedback" section.
@ 03:00 AM EST
Monday, August 19, 2002
Lots of shopping over the past weekend. Saturday consisted of a trip to Ikea down in Elizabeth NJ for some additional desks to house our new computer gear, some other units to store monitors/kb's in, and a proper coffee table and tv stand. Finally! we don't have to use a crummy cardboard box as a makeshift coffee table and tv stand. It's nice to have real furniture. We also got some other stuff and some picture frames so I can frame the papyrus Egyptian print that my mother sent me some months ago, and my Japanese Amélie flyers.
Sunday more shopping... another Palisades Center trip. This time Home Depot for some power tools, so we can drill holes into the units for all the cabling and some other stuff, and then a few clothing items for myself. I never thought it would be that hard to find decent black calf or ankle length skirts, but it is. Nearly everything is mini skirt length or they're pants. But, I made off with a new sweater and 2 other tops. I'll have to go elsewhere for some decent skirts, I believe Walmart had some decent ones, for $14... can't beat that. This stuff all has to be relatively 'corp goth' considering I went shopping for clothing that I can wear to a job.
So, later today we'll finally get our new computers... yay! As always UPS managed to fuck up by not delivering a package on friday... no matter that you give special delivery instructions when you order, they managed to claim it as undeliverable that day, even though both PreZ and I were home all day. So now there are notices on the door of the upstairs neighbours, and even one on our door explaining that he should knock as the doorbell doesn't work. Somehow the FedEx guy got it right, as he delivered stuff on friday without problems.
A very tiring weekend though. Thanks to Kit for helping us on Saturday and driving some of the stuff, and Cherie for letting us use her car for that purpose.
@ 04:33 AM EST
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Zoo Tycoon can be very frustrating. Especially so when you've just replayed a scenario for the third or fourth time and have failed yet again, this time at the last moment.
The downside to the current scenario is the fact that you need 3 different endangered species to breed, and they're generally very fussy. Even if your exhibits are perfectly suited and the animals are perfectly happy, there's no guarantee that they will breed. So it's not something you have any control over which is probably the most annoying part. After having to replay the scenario a few times due to reluctant black leopards and okapis this time I actually managed to get them all to produce offspring (with 2 black leopard and 3 okapi exhibits mind you)... and then in the last day or so my guests decide to be picky and their happiness rating drops just enough to make the scenario fail. Argh!
To add to that frustration that of a more down to earth nature... the fact that I see a great job advertised in the local paper, only to find that they've forgotten to include any contact information whatsoever, and no name or location to even track the company down. I know the job was for assisting with projects and internet searching (yes, get paid to browse the web!) but trying to search that out is slightly ridiculous.
And now it's 7am and I'm about to traipse off to bed, and next door they start the backhoe gardening again. It's just one of those days.
Upside is that PreZ put in the order for most of our new computer gear, so come next week we should be in the posession of snazzy fast machines. Pharaoh here I come!
@ 07:14 AM EST
Monday, August 12, 2002
Saturday we went to the Palisades Center, because I wanted to go back to the Joann's and because PreZ wanted to pick up some stuff at Home Depot in preperation of our tax return and subsequent computer buying. At the Joann's we picked up a few Halloween items, as well as the two pot holders I'd seen. They look like arched windows, flat wooden frames and wrought iron curls inside with two loops that fold down, like cup holders for plant pots. You screw them up onto the wall. I want to put shallow glass dishes in it and use it for candles rather than plants. They need a little touch up due to some corner damage, and probably a coat of paint as they're brown right now, but they're very cool.
Some other items like clothing and accessories and also a couple new games at the CompUSA. PreZ got the Warcraft 3 Collectors Edition, which does look lovely and contains a whole load of stuff like a rather large book with concept art and a dvd. Unfortunately neither of us can play the game on our computers right now because our video drivers are outdated. I cannot wait until we have our new computers! I picked up Zoo Tycoon for myself.
Recently I started playing a few games again, after not having played any in ages, mainly due to this computer not being adequately fast enough to play Pharaoh on properly (building those great pyramids just takes way too long). Last time we were at the CompUSA I picked up Settlers 4 for $10 and I played several missions of that before moving onto other things for a while, like creating this website. Recently I started picking up with a few missions again against the Dark Horde. I'm now up to Dark Horde Mission 6... so far so good. And then yesterday I had to get started on Zoo Tycoon as well. This is a sim that will take a while to master, with all the animals and their specific needs, definitely fun though.
@ 06:49 AM EST
Friday, August 9, 2002
I won my auctions on eBay. Granted, I wasn't really expecting all that much competition for these two specific items due to the high price of them.
So I'm now the proud owner of Signed Lettered editions of Caitlín R. Kiernan's From Weird and Distant Shores and Caitlín R. Kiernan and Poppy Z. Brite's Wrong Things. Both letter 'Z'. Leather bound, signed and slipcased. I already own signed limited editions of both, but these came up and it was an offer too good to pass up, as I have each of them now for two-thirds of their retail price. I can't wait to get them in the mail.
@ 03:57 PM EST
Wednesday, August 7, 2002
So last night at the cinema I was reminded why we usually prefer the midnight showings of movies (we went to the 10pm). We were blessed by a group of people, adult and some teenage kids I think, that all had popcorn and snacks. I think popcorn is probably one of the worst things to have someone eat during a movie... it sounded as though we had a herd of cud chewers behind us. Yuck. And then there's the invariable teenage couple that giggles and chats way too much throughout. Is it too much to ask to want to see a movie in silence?
I must be getting old.
Oh yes, another snippet of AIM inanity today:
XxXxdibXxXx : hi
Varencienne : hi
XxXxdibXxXx : how r ya?
Varencienne : fine thanks
XxXxdibXxXx : i guess i`m ok
Varencienne : cool
XxXxdibXxXx : cookie
Varencienne : no thanks, don't want to spoil dinner etc. ;-)
XxXxdibXxXx : ok well i gotta go!
XxXxdibXxXx : i wasn`t offering u the cookie
XxXxdibXxXx : i was tellin u i had one
XxXxdibXxXx : !
Varencienne : ah
Varencienne : c ya
XxXxdibXxXx : ok now bye bye then
Since when is "cookie" the equivalent of "I have a cookie here"?
This also reminds me of an email encounter I had with an AOL user who ran into issues with the GOTH.NET Chat...
First email, in it's entirety mind you:
"cant get on to chat"
This, obviously, is very descriptive if you consider that on the site we have a java web chat applet and also state how to get onto the server via an IRC client, and I don't know which option they're trying to use. I can make an educated guess (AOL user after all :P) but that's beside the point. I follow up with an email asking for some more clarification.
Next email (also verbatim):
"I CLICKED ON CHAT ON THE SIDE OF THE PAGE AND IT WOULDNT COME UP ITS CALLED
DARKNESS OR SOMETHING"
Is it an AOL thing that people don't know where their caps lock button is? They're definitely the people who tend to go overboard with caps the most.
Again another descriptive email... the chat network is called DarkerNet, the chat applet is DarkerIRC, and the only thing that is remotely near 'the side of the page [...] called darkness or something' is a button that links to the DarkerNet website by opening a new window. Again I email asking for slightly more clarification, met with the response "forget it". To that I just emailed a response saying that until such time as he was actually able to articulate his problem I wouldn't be able to help him. And I pointed out that nobody else seemed to have a problem connecting to the chat :P
My guess is that he probably didn't have the proper version of java installed on his browser. But then, that's clearly outlined on the page, so I'm not going to bother rehashing it AGAIN, because people can't be bothered to read.
Did etiquette also go out the window at some point that people don't even bother to greet you with a "Hi", or bother to sign their emails with their names (or even screennames for that matter)?
How high is the suicide/homicide/job turnover rate among AOL tech support anyway?
@ 06:52 PM EST
Just waiting for the sleeping meds to fully kick in so I can sleep at a somewhat reasonable time. Yes, 3am is considered 'reasonable' right now.
PreZ was lovely enough to let me bid on those 2 books, so now I'm waiting for the clock to tick down on those auctions, still a day and a half to go yet, so the clock will be ticking for a while. I don't really anticipate losing these auctions due to the price they are at. But, knock on wood... knowing my luck something will happen at the last minute ;)
I need to get my resume proofread, and possibly polished, and then I can start attempting to get back into the world of the working again. It will be good to be around other people on a daily basis again, and have stuff to do... build some more confidence and the like. And a paycheck, always good and especially necessary with PreZ out of work at the moment and the job searching being a lot slower than early last year. Oh what a difference a tint of recession and a terrorist attack makes. Even without me working, we'd be fine at least until the end of the year, so anything I bring in would add to the financial buffer which is good.
We saw Signs tonight which I really enjoyed. PreZ had a few comments about the ending and the physics of a few things, but I didn't mind that. I'd not recommend it if you're expecting a movie about aliens... while they do feature and the plot involves visitation from outer space, the main crux of the movie is the human drama. Very good casting too I might add, with all actors giving good understated performances.
Sleep now.
@ 03:14 AM EST
Monday, August 5, 2002
I hate those nights when you go to bed really tired and you sleep a whopping 2 odd hours before waking up and finding yourself unable to get back to sleep.
It doesn't help of course that it's fairly hot and muggy again, even though we had a short but hefty thunderstorm with some rain earlier in the evening that apparantly didn't alleviate the muggyness.
When I wake again I'll need to put my resume together and fax it to a place that I found an ad for in our local Pennysaver. It's here in town which is good and sounds like an interesting job as well. My own paycheck would be a nice luxury right now, that way I'd not feel so guilty ordering special edition books. Of course as it happens one of my favourite authors is going to be moving house and is getting rid of a number of her books to lighten the load for moving... and 2 of which are lettered editions of books of hers, starting at half the cover price with a fairly low reserve. *Covet*.
If the job prospecting goes okay I'll see if I can sweet talk PreZ into letting me get these ones already.
Yes, I'm geeky and I collect books :P There are worse hobbies to have.
@ 07:13 AM EST
Sunday, August 4, 2002
Nothing much to report. I've been working on the dread pieces, I need to dread a few more on the second hairpiece, and then fix a whole bunch of them with boiling water and I'll be all done. It's been an interesting project to say the least.
We had a magnificent storm on Friday... loads of thunder and lightning for hours, which is rare here. Most thunderstorms seem to last all of about 10-15 minutes before they move out or dissipate. It was incredible. I always love the sound of them.
I've been updating GOTH.NET today (Saturday), going through all the links I trawled and received, so they're waiting to be added. Then the Art and Writings submissions tomorrow. Amazing how I still get submissions for the latter even though it's mentioned several times that we're not currently taking submissions due to a backlog... *shakes head*. The inability of people to read on a text based medium is scary. I get it a lot with people signing up for websites, people who blatantly ignore basic requirements (full name or the 'no dripping blood bars/cheesy graphics' rules), or the people who sign up for the forums and message within 30 seconds when their account isn't instantly validated. "Your account needs to be approved by an administrator before you can post" seems to be too hard to comprehend for some.
In the scheme of lacking in comprehensive reading skills/basic comprehension... this snippet from an AIM chat earlier tonight:
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: whatcha doin
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: ?
Varencienne: discussing room set ups with my husband
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: oh,having fun?
Varencienne: well, it doesn't fall under the 'fun' bracket, just 'necessary'
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: lol.....ok
Varencienne: just discussing how we're gonna set up new furniture
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: are u guys living together?
Varencienne: he's my husband... so yes
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: yeah but.........u know
Varencienne: 'you know' what?
Varencienne: we're married...
Varencienne: married... husband...
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: ok
Varencienne: usually you live together when you're married
XxXSaNeGoThiCXxX: i get it
I think I was absent the day they explained that married people don't live together... *sigh*
@ 05:07 AM EST
Thursday, August 1, 2002
Well, the loose hairpiece I finished the other day and considering I have so much hair left over I decided to try my hand at a dread hair piece. It's definitely a lot more time consuming, but the upside is that at the end of it, dreads require little maintenance and won't do nasty things like tangle. I still need to add a few more dreads to this one, and then I'll make a matching piece, as I still have enough hair for that as well.
I need to go to the store for some fabric covered scrunchies and the like, and then spend a few hours getting frustrated in front of a mirror ;)
I also need to update my main site. I've been wanting to add a decent picture gallery to it. I also want to tweak the font colour too... I know the current shade is easier on the eyes for people, brighter and all, but I'm not too fond of this particular shade actually. And I also need to sign up for a few button/etc. exchanges.
@ 01:53 AM EST