Fushigi

https://www.fushigiball.com/ - bad site design.

Be careful on the website if you're ordering any of these.  Say "no" to all the additional questions they ask (unless you're sure).  You will NOT be able to modify the quantities in your cart before checkout.  As soon as the questions are complete, the order is placed.  I find this to be bad juju, especially since I figured this was a completely separate order (which I wanted, but to a separate address), and have spent roughly 10-15 minutes on hold waiting for someone to talk to about it.

I figured since I was patiently waiting, I'd blog about this experience, and post everywhere I can find something about fushigi, just as a forewarning.  But since I wrote the above paragraph, someone came on the line and politely informed me that my order won't download into the computer until tomorrow and I should call back before 9am pst.

I am quite frustrated at the moment so will hold back on any really snide comments on web developers who are either morons or assholes depending on how the company intended their site to look, but the company might want to know that had they refrained from inserting shitty tactics into their site, I would have been a customer twice without having to bother them and now not only do they get extra work but so does their customer.  This means I get frustrated, which turns into anger, which turns into bad PR for them.

BS is getting less and less tolerable as I get older.

~nv

I HATE IPHOTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iPhoto is officially a fucked up mess in my book now.

They effed up the way you send photos to people.  Now it's geared towards old crotchety people who don't know how to read numbers.  (Sorry, but it's true in most cases of older folks, with few exceptions.)  You know how you could send photos and include the descriptions, the photo names, etc?  Well, now you CAN'T.  They made these weird, memory-intensive, costly templates to house the photos instead, so the names and such are either gone or hidden so well the typically lay person will never ever ever find them in a million years, making this poor techie's life even more miserable.

It used to be that when I emailed my mother-in-law or whomever some pictures, she could write back and go, "Oh, yeah, I like number 7631.  Can I have that full size?"  Now she's gonna get a stupid-looking bunch of pictures all nicely formatted into a big stupid sheet with no identification other than what the template permits me to write.  Well, no, she's not, actually, because I'm going to upload my pictures into iWeb and send her a link.  iWeb, I can still control whether the numbers appear or not.  I think...

Yep, I can...

Stupid developers.  I am so tired of the need to "improve" things.  Egads.

~nv

Communication

The other night my cousin told me what my mother's computer issue was.  I agreed and mentioned something along the lines of having ruled out the hard drive earlier in the day.  She replied to that with anecdotal evidence that hard drives don't sound like that.  I know hard drives CAN sound like a fan's ball bearing when they're on their way out, but whatever.  She's not as experienced and didn't realize there are different sounds to a dying hard drive.  Her statement was like a fallacy; my hard drive died and sounded different, therefore all dying hard drives sound like mine did.  A child's statement - like saying, "Because I'm white, everyone must be white."  Then you see someone from India or Africa and go, "Whoa..."

Anywho, the experiences I've had with CAPD have taught me many things, one of which is "don't go flying off the handle at every little annoyance."  I've noticed this to be a handy thing to remember in relationships, and especially in my relationship with Dale, because we both have the same problem with understanding people at times and replying "appropriately."  So, I try to hold back reacting until I have had a chance to think about things more rationally, whenever I feel slighted somehow.  This even carries over into non-communication issues, like two days ago, when I brought him lunch at work.  I wanted to surprise him, so I drove down without calling first.  Both doors were locked.  I couldn't get in and had to call anyway.  He seemed almost annoyed that I called, but I know that sound - it's not quite annoyance, but more like, "Wait, you never call me at work, and I'm at work, why are you calling me, and why are you saying you're outside with lunch?  You're throwing me through a loop here 'cause you never bring me lunch anymore since you work days now.  I've been put on the spot and cannot think."  So I said, "Oh, you have lunch, sorry.  I'll go home."  "Do you want me to come out?" I heard him hesitantly ask.  "No, no, don't worry about it.  I'll just head home."  So I left.  I was upset on the way home, letting my imagination run away with itself... work is more important than me, just because he's already got lunch he doesn't wanna see me...  But ultimately, I realized I wasn't upset with him nor did I have reason to be.  I was really upset with the fact that my plans to surprise him had failed.  Instead, I spent 40 minutes driving for no reason other than to feel completely stupid.  THAT was what I was upset about.  So I reasoned it out further.  "Okay, Self," I thought.  "Next time, call first.  It's still spontaneous but then he has a chance to react and you don't waste time.  You don't have to just pop in to surprise him.  Besides, giving him a 20 minute heads up might even be nicer for him, so he can mentally prepare for the visit and also look forward to it.  You know how YOU feel when put on the spot like that.  Why would you want to do that to someone else?  It's your own fault your plans failed."

So, I brought myself out of my misery and enjoyed the rest of the day.  Unfortunately, what I didn't know until later is that Dale felt bad all afternoon because he didn't even come out to see me after I went through all that.  We discussed this and I assured him as to why I wasn't upset and why he shouldn't feel bad.

Funny what an act of spontaneity and lack of forethought can do, huh?  This is why open communication is so important in a relationship, and why it's so critical to listen and care about the other person.  Most of our misunderstandings, in fact, arise when one of us is trying to be helpful to the other but doesn't explain that.  We're so independent that we miss it at first and think something weird is going on.  Reminds me of this show I saw once where a guy was taking dance lessons to surprise his wife at their anniversary... he wanted to take her to dinner and ask her to dance, which she had always wished he would do.  She, however, noticed his weird excuses for "working late" and began suspecting him of having an affair.  She ended up being in a really bad mood on their anniversary, but he asked her to dance anyway.  She asked, "Wait, you don't dance, how did you learn?" to which he explained all the long nights "at work."  Then of course she felt like a crud and began to cry.  I forget what show that was but it's another example of how secrets can hurt, even when they're well-intentioned ones.

That's all for now.

~nv

Lady

One day when I was a little girl, I was eating breakfast with Mum.  As I slurped my cereal, I began to let out the longest fart of anyone, anywhere.  I stopped slurping and began to laugh as my mother looked on, first with an expression of horror, then disgust, then sheer disbelief.  My laughs punctuated the farts, changing them from the reverberating making-you-bounce-on-your-chair kind to the gutteral type caused by intermittent crack-sealing.  Eventually it morphed into a long and winding squeak, more reverbs, some sliding sighs, and more squeals.  Meanwhile, my mother starts holding in her own laughter, eyes dancing with amusement mixed with utter horror.

I finished with one finalizing poot, and Mum and I sit there for a second before she finally says, "You know, when I named you, I had envisioned this fine, respectable young lady with her hair swept up and dainty pearls about her neck.  And now look at you!!  YOU'RE FARTING AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE!!!"  We both began to laugh at that and I've never forgotten it.  It is one of my fonder memories of my youth; Mum acting disgusted with me, but laughing anyway.

Well, I'm still no lady, but I'm a little bit closer.  This morning I made muffins and lemon squares for later tonight.  Tonight, you see, Dale and I are hosting "tea."  A couple friends are coming over and we're all going to squish into this little "tea room" I made upstairs.  I figure we'll pile into a heap up there and talk about farts whilst having tea and sweets on my heavy piano plates.

I'll make sure my little finger sticks straight out while I sip and that my hair's swept back into a pile on my head.  I don't have any pearls, though.

~nv

Am I British?

I was writing to my mother this morning and typed in the word "counselling."  Gmail immediately underlined it in red.  I re-typed, too lazy to carefully read whether I mistyped, and it came up again.  WTF, I thought.  I know this is right!!  So I looked it up.

Dictionary.com, at least, has the spelling I used.  However, it mentions that the double L is primarily British.

There's a guy at work that had suggested I should just move to Britain.  I was like, "Why?!" and he laughed and said, "about, scones, clotted cream, tea, and your various spellings of words."  A few days later I stumbled across mild frustration and jokingly said, "Oh, bloody 'ell" to which he laughed a bit more. The thing is, though, it felt quite natural to say even though it's not a common thing for me TO say.

I'm curious, now, to know if "manoeuvre" is also British.  I should go look that up, because I remember learning that word in school and thinking it didn't look right as "maneuver" (I think that's the spelling I learned).  I soon found "manoeuvre" and that somehow made so much more sense to me.  I cannot explain why, but it does.  Something about the "oe" combination, and the "re" at the end, makes it more proper somehow.  Oh!  Theatre is another one that tends to flow out of my fingertips more easily than "theater," which takes more concentration.

Not sure where all the British fancies come from, I mean, my mum's family is from a variety of places - England, Ireland, Scotland - so maybe they all use these things and I just don't remember them.  The few things that others would comment on when we'd moved was supposed to be "a Down East thing."  You know, "Don't upset the apple cart."  Once while I was in school, I got "What does 'puffed up with pride' mean?"  I remember glancing over at the teacher, who seemed, herself, slightly perplexed at my use of it on the board.  She knew what it meant, though, and saved me by explaining it to the other students, some of which made comments about "odd" or "weird" and "where did she ever hear that from."  Probably Mum, that's where.  Admittedly, I don't recall ever reading it or hearing it elsewhere.  Maybe it's another "Down East" thing.

Incidentally, "Mum" is a term my mother coined in our family... I believe her mother was "Mammy."  I am aware that it sounds British but it's really not, she just wanted to be called something different than her own mother had been, is all.  I personally like it better than "Mom" which has a long, drawn-out, whiny sound to it.  "Mum" is short and to the point, and kinda cute, especially to look at.  Of course, I tend to call her "Ma" to her face.  Bah, hah, hah!

Let's see... oh, another thing I found out is considered British is eating "continental style."  This is when you hold the fork in your left hand and the knife in your right.  I've done that on and off for a long time, naturally, and find it more efficient than doing everything right-handed and switching when you need to cut something.  I've always been somewhat ambidextrous, though, so I didn't think anything of it until I found out it's actually a style of eating.

Whoa!!  There's a whole site on English stuff!!  Check this out!! http://projectbritain.com/americanspelling.html

Jewellery is another one.  I have "misspelt" that so many times, and always thought, dangit, I always get that wrong!  But it turns out I'm right!!  (If I were in England.)  Every time I type that, I get underlines and eventually figure out it's "jewelry."  Which I have to think about every time.  Now, I cannot explain why "jewellery" feels right to my fingers, but it does, and I have a heck of a time getting that word to come out as "jewelry."  From a phonetics standpoint, the latter looks right... I dunno.  Somewhere I read it the way I want to spell it and it looks more normal to me despite it looking atrocious from a phonetics point-of-view.

I think I'll continue down through the list I just found.

realise - yep

cheque - no, not really.  I'm aware it's OK but usually spell it "check."  I like the look of "cheque," though.

kilometre - yep.

theatre - yep.

cosy - no, and this looks very wrong.  It's cozy.  It's funky, though, because "rosy" is rosy, not rozy.

favourite - all the time.

colour - all the time.

humour - a lot of the time.  I suspect I've spelt this both ways.  The funny thing is that gmail isn't underlining that one, nor "cosy."

dialogue - It looks right.  I'm not sure who uses "dialog" though, other than for maybe "dialog boxes."  I think that's the only place I've ever seen the "American" spelling.

tyre - I generally do not use this one.  Dale has, though, but usually when discussing Hakkapeliitta tyres. Whups.  I mean "tires!"

the "little girl's room" is not just English.  I have seen this used a lot in America.

couch is American, too!

So are several other household things.

There are a lot of these... some I recognise, some I do not... I wonder if recognise is in there.  Nope.  But it's primarily British at dictionary.com.  Sigh.

Aight, off to make more food.  :)

~w

Tea Room

So, Dale, Amy, and I visited a placed called Dobra Tea.  It's a lovely little tea shop with a couple little "rooms" for people to drink tea in and chit chat.  I liked the experience and decided I would try to duplicate it in some form or another.

Welcome to my little tea room.  It "opened" last night despite not being fully completed.  I just put in a couple old couch cushions I've been toting around with me for years, rearranged my playpen, and now there's a purple and white wall separating a third of the room from the rest.  A table flanks the open end so there's a tiny little spot to get into the cushioned area.  It's JUST big enough for three people to sit comfortably.  (Small people, mind you.)  I think I can squeeze in four but it'll be pushing it.  Still, for a shorter time than the three of us were in there last night, I think it'll be OK.

Amy stopped in last night and the three of us enjoyed our various beverages and snacks and generally just had a good time.  Dale ended up inventing a game of throwing our socks at each other over the "wall" of the thing, so he stayed barricaded in the tea room while we ventured out to the other side of the wall to bombard him with socks.  It was fun and helped to warm the room more.  Then it got late and I began to fall asleep on the floor and Amy went home.

Fun, fun, fun evening, and the nausea that has plagued me for two days has finally subsided.  I'm glad because I was getting _very_ annoyed by it... mostly because I hate nausea but also because I couldn't eat without feeling worse, and you know how I feel about eating!!

This morning I've baked some goodies for tonight's venture and am about to work on more.  :D

~nv

tea

I just realized that my tastes in tea have been changing.  Used to love Earl Grey, and then it kept oscillating between Ceylons and Keemuns and Kukichas, and now I'm into Oolongs.

My favourite at the moment is Da Hong Pao, which is an oolong from the Wuyi region of China.  I read yesterday that the first infusion is considered the worst and it's the third and fourth that are best.  I'm like, BS! but this morning had my third infusion of this wonderful tea and just brewed it longer to gain more flavour.  You know, it /is/ a bit better than it was before.  Smoother, and a bit... more oolongish, but with something else at the back of my throat, like the flavour is going up through my sinuses before I really get to taste it.  It's weird and I like it.  I had read also that one idea is to take sips of the tea as it is brewing - every 30 seconds - and note the differences as it brews.  Teas "open up" certain flavours at different stages of the brew.  I suppose it makes sense... some people like al dente pasta, others don't mind it smooshy.  I personally don't want it crunchy...  I also love Osmanthus Oolong, which is a blend I discovered at VT Liberty.

My sorta-current likes:  Most non-green oolongs, smokey blacks, earl grey, a few herbals like blood orange and dandelion leaf, kukicha, and the occasional green (not many I like but Dragonwell seems OK).  I also like this chai that Mary found for me.  Not all chais are created equal.  Before now I had only enjoyed Pacific Chai and now I don't really like that... but the chai she found for me is absolutely awesome with no milk or sugar whatsoever.  Perfectly refreshing, awesome blend!!

Dislikes (which seem to linger):  Most greens.  I also think whites are to me as most tea is to Dale:  tasteless leaf water.  I also hate pu-erh.  OMG it's horrendous.  The dude at VT Liberty told me that pu-erh is not supposed to taste like fishy sawdust but everything I've read about it says that those who hate it says it tastes exactly like fishy sawdust or moldy earth.  It's gross.  A friend of Dale's at work sent him home with a little container of various wrapped teas, little cakes, and I suspected they were pu-erh but thanked her and took them home, eager to find out.  I was sooooo right.  I still have them, but I know I will never, ever dare to drink them again.  Cringe.

DALE happens to love Rooibos.  It's an herbal.  He will tolerate jasmine-infused oolong tea, especially at a restaurant.  He'll also drink a combo of that with rooibos.  I don't know what it is about that stuff.  I think it's kinda weird and I'm not overly fond of the stuff.  I could probably drink it if someone served it without giving me a choice in the matter, but I never brew it for myself.

Lisa, my rat, apparently dislikes Dragonwell.  She's quite prone to tumours, and this morning it dawned on me that perhaps she could benefit from the greens I hate.  So I made her some Dragonwell, which actually, I like to some extent.  She passed by it with two inches to spare, obviously avoiding it like the plague.  The wanted my Geneva cookie, instead.  Then she asks, "What's in YOUR cup?"  Thankfully, she didn't poke her nose too far in when I let her sniff my blessed Da Hong Pao.  She sniffed, then looked at me like, "Why do you drink that stuff?"  She is definitely not Gracie.  Gracie loved my teas.  Then again, I never had Da Hong Pao when she was around.  Maybe she wouldn't have loved that one. I should see if Lisa likes Earl Grey.

Addendum:  Lisa just got bored and is now drinking the Dragonwell!!  At least, a few licks.  Hmmm... there might yet be hope...  Oh well, off to get ready for an outing with Dale and Amy.  We're headed out to find a tea shop.  I'm going to get some more Da Hong Pao while we're up there, and will also try something new.  We hope to find a seat in the back.  :D

~w

Snow Leopard

If I had known about this ONE FEATURE, I might have upgraded just a bit sooner from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

When you take a screen shot, it does not save it as "Picture 1.png" or "Picture 2.png" any more.  Oh, no. It finally makes SENSE!!!

Here is the new format:

Screen shot 2010-11-13 at 8.11.24 AM.png

Is that cool or what?  Now when you dump a bunch of fresh screenshots, never renamed, into the pictures folder, you don't end up having to rename them (unless you want to).  Why someone hadn't done this sooner is beyond me.  But the fact they did is BEAUTEOUS!!

The other thing I would have liked to see, but which has been remedied by a handy program called SizeUp, is the non-snappage seen in Windows 7.  SizeUp is a small program that runs in the background, however, which allows the same keystrokes.  It has a sibling that does it via mouse, like 7 also does.  I prefer keyboard so I purchased this one instead.

I think the creator is going to get a kudos email from me soon.  It's exactly what I had been hoping for.

Anywho, my current ramblings.  Oh!!  And our friend Amy has created a new blog:  http://picturewordbook.blogspot.com/?spref=fb

I like her writing.  She had told me that she writes sometimes, but she never produced anything for me to read (of hers).  It's nice to finally see some of it outside the usual business-oriented places.

~w