You're Doing It Wrong

Future Tulips and Daffodils

I had some crocus (Remember that band Krokus? They had a hit “Screaming in the Night”? I’m going to see if I can find that on my iPod) that I bought specifically because they come early and are a tiny bit of color in the sea of bland. I saw them starting to peek out last weekend and when I checked them this morning, they were gone. Never even bloomed. Must be damn squirrels.

I wish I could put today in a bottle and take it out every February at this time. I dug around in the yard for a couple of hours. I cleaned up some stuff that I never finished in the fall and dug up some weeds.

We have a big compost bin and I have no formal procedure but every few years I empty it out into the garden. Not a moment too soon. That thing was so heavy I had to scoop out several shovels full before I could even move it to the garden. It smelled partly rich and composty and partly nasty badass. Lots of wiggly worms.

I think it’s going to be decent tomorrow so I can work some more. It’s nice to have a little bit of a head start on the garden in February.

Future Hyacinth

We’ve been getting these notices of doom from Comcast about how we need new equipment because it’s the dawn of a new era and the frequency is changing or whatever. I think it’s all a scam to make people pay for more stuff.

I read through the notice but I was confused because we already have digital cable. Comcast bills us for that. Wouldn’t they know that we already had digital cable? I looked the pictures of the stuff we can get for our TV and it looked different that what we have.

So do we need new equipment or not?

I called the magical phone number of information and it’s a scary recording with a lady that sounds like that generic lady on the Simpsons. And she wants me to say what I want instead of just pressing 1 for “I want someone to answer my questions.” And scary recording lady wants to know what equipment I have so she can figure out if we need new equipment.

Funny, because that’s why I’m calling her. I asked to speak to a real person and she offered to transfer me to my account executive. HA HA. You mean a person at a call center? And the real person asked me how many TVs I had without digital cable boxes. I said, None. She said, then I don’t need to worry about it.

And that is why Comcast has not taken over the world.

I did something I haven’t done in eons and I bought a computer game over the weekend. It’s called World Of Goo. I decided to get based on this review and viewing a demo. As has been well documented here, I’m not looking for any more things to waste time on the computer, but every once in awhile I think it’s a good idea to break out of my fortress of no distractions and try something new.

I’m not sorry. It has cute music and graphics and I had a great time figuring out the first two levels. That’s right, I’m already stuck after 15 minutes of play. Only about 85 more levels to go. I really don’t understand what’s happening but I drag and click on the goo balls until they make that squealing-laugh sound like either Jawas or Ewoks. I think I unlocked another window where I could buy something. I’m not sure.

Recommended.

When I was checking out at Trader Joe’s the guy made fun of me buying this healthy cereal. “I’m sure it will be great,” he said sarcastically. Turns out, it’s Sugar Smacks only with some flax thrown in. So it’s like the cereal of our youth cleverly packaged so we can enjoy it as adults. Bob has already finished most of the box.

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This day has been wonky so far. I did FINALLY finish a book.. But as per always I can’t seem to get organized and I had some unexpected distractions today that I’d rather not go into. Tomorrow will be magical.

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I love Demetri Martin’s new show. I’ve got Dollhouse and Sarah Connor waiting on the DVR for after dinner.

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Way back in the early days of the Internet I used to go through phases where I would compulsively subscribe to mailing lists and Usenet groups. My thinking would be I could scan through lots of things and find things I liked. Then I would get completely overwhelmed because I can’t delete things I haven’t looked at. That would be wrong. So eventually I would cut back to just one or two things I wanted to keep up with (e.g. alt.tv.xfiles or whatever it was called) and dump all the rest.

I am continuing this pattern with GoogleReader. I will subscribe to anything for at least 24 hours. At one point I subscribed to about 20 news sources and another 20 science sources. Plus any oddball sites that seemed promising. I subscribe to any blog if I know the person or strangers if I read two good posts in a row. Or anyone who leaves me comments. I’ve subscribed to Flickr feeds, Twitter feeds, comment feeds.

And then I get overwhelmed because I can’t stop logging in to GR and making sure it says All Items (0). Damn inner overachiever, goodie-two-shoes, OCD dorkwad.

Last week I finally went through and vigorously pruned the list. And I’ve pruned in the past. I had several subscriptions that hugely overlapped and it would get annoying seeing the same link to a youtube clip of a hamster juggling pancakes to the Darth Vader theme over and over. Honestly, 99% of the youtube clips embedded on websites are a total waste of time. People that I know and trust say: “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” and I can’t help it. I click and I last 12 seconds.

I am stepping away from the computer. I’m making Bob some beef for dinner with chocolate for dessert. That’s how we do Valentine’s Day at our house.

Not long ago I misplaced my lens cap again. Bob found it in the driveway.

I don’t understand why they don’t give you an extra lens cap with the camera.

They should sell them at Target in three packs and give them away free at restaurants in giant bowls next to the mints and toothpicks.

Going over Greyback, November 2008

This day is not going at all how I wanted it to. I stayed in bed too long and I have just enough of a head cold to feel fuzzybrained and I can’t focus and I’m getting annoyed. I’m going to make a hot drink and curl up and watch last night’s Battlestar Galactica and try again later.