MILES to GO || before I sleep

I've uninstalled Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium. Not just Photoshop, which was really the only application giving me issues, but all of it. I have the trial of CS4 and should be getting the CS4 backpack that is my graduation present soon-ish (it's on backorder from JourneyEd.com), but the problems...they aren't going away.

I uninstalled CS3 using the uninstaller in the Applications/Utilities folder. Everything was a success. Then I ran the CS3 Clean Script from Adobe's Support Center--twice. Everything seemed to go smoothly there, except it also apparently removed Shockwave Flash (Safari is now protesting I don't have the right plugin for some websites) and InDesign CS4. I re-installed CS4 and then Photoshop said it was missing components. So I reinstalled Photoshop. And everything seemed to be fine (again) for a few minutes. I opened some documents and prepared to get to work.

And then it crashed.

AGAIN.

Same error as before EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP).

I have tried everything at this point short of fully uninstalling Intego (but you'd think if that was really behind it, the error messages would say something relating to Intego, right?) and wiping the OS and reinstalling. I have NEVER had to do this with a Mac OS, so I'm obviously a) very worried and b) very reluctant.

This has happened with Photoshop, while I got another Initializing Extension Data... hang with Dreamweaver CS3. It only happened sporadically, though, and hasn't happened with Dreamweaver CS4. Only Photoshop seems to hate me, and I don't know why. (Why, Photoshop, why!? Was it something I said?)

Oh, and then there's Firefox. So after I couldn't get into my Photoshop for class, I thought I could use DeVry's iLab environment, which is run by Citrix. Blah blah, got the latest extension, went into Firefox because supposedly it's more compatible with Firefox than Safari (lamesauce, Citrix, LAMESAUCE!). Firefox didn't even seem to recognize it. So I uninstalled and re-installed (after a bit of a scuffle with a crappy beta). I let it be shiny-new, as is, for a while. Citrix seemed to be there (though not in the Add-Ons list, the way 1Password is despite being an external install), but the second it tried to launch Photoshop via Citrix, CRASH! The Citrix online plug-in, that is--not Firefox. Actually, it happened with ANY of the Adobe suite programs I tried to launch via Citrix (didn't bother trying Microsoft gunk--should I?), so it doesn't seem to be just Photoshop-related.

However, since that fresh install of Firefox, the app itself has crashed--repeatedly. It looks like the same error message as the Photoshop one, which is to say: not helpful at all. This tells me that whatever Adobe tells me to do to "fix" Photoshop won't actually help, because this is starting to look more and more like a system issue. I disabled XMarks, since that would cause freezes that would force me to quit Firefox, but the problem isn't really solved: Firefox takes around three "clicks" to get it to start. I can launch it from the Dock or via Quicksilver, but either way, it'll be in the Dock for a split second, even have the "running app" indicator below it, but it'll still just vanish without a word. No error, no crash reporter, nothing. And I'll try again. And again. And again.

And then it works, acting like nothing's wrong. It doesn't APPEAR to be as slow as it used to (which is why I switched to Safari in the first place), but it may depend on the website. And I still do have a lot of extensions, because to be frank: if there's going to be a limit on Firefox's number of extensions, then TELL ME SO from the outset. Give me a suggested number, or tell me how much memory each extension will hog up, or whatever. Because most of them I got because they're actually USEFUL and I need them in some fashion.

I think I'm going to have to make another appointment at the Apple Store. Hopefully I'll get someone who actually knows that Snow Leopard doesn't have Archive & Install as an option anymore, and that dust can't creep into your computer and make your hard drive explode (Yes, it's been said).

Another thing to add to The List of Mer's Computer Woes? My Time Machine is definitely on its last legs. My lovely new-ish Western Digital MyBook Studio has begun ticking, a bit like a soft clock. It doesn't always mount, and even when I do the whole unplug-to-power-cycle thing and re-plug, it doesn't always work. And I'll hear a soft tick-tick-tick...like a clock, only not as regular. Maybe every few seconds. This one might still be under warranty, but what's the use if I'd just end up replacing it with another WD drive? WD doesn't seem to be nearly as reliable as I thought. :( What are the HDs the "Geniuses" use at the Bar, I wonder? They look pretty compact and sturdy...

Finally got my MacBook Pro back from the Apple Store. I think I mentioned how the graphics card or something somehow caused the logicboard to fry, and the whole thing had to be replaced? Yeah, but at least it was part of a "program" where they knew about these defective boards, so I didn't have to pay a dime. Looks like it may have been partially related to my battery issues, too, as my battery life seems to have improved a bit. I only bought the new battery back in December, so there's no reason why it should be horribly unhealthy by now (even with the fact that I use it every day and leave it on A LOT... but in Sleep mode, mostly, and almost always plugged in, too).

I also finally got the annoying issue with getting a self-assigned IP resolved. None of the usual fixes (renewing the DHCP license, turning the AirPort wireless card on and off, restarting the computer, switching to Ethernet, etc.) were working, but I dug around in the Apple Discussion forums (on the old iMac and at school) and found a fix: switching the Firewall to "Allow all incoming connections." Ta-da! Of course, I'm hoping to switch back to my more selective mode, but in the meanwhile, this'll do. Now just to see if it works at home, too.

ETA: It does, but at school, it doesn't. V. annoying.

I was also having issues with the computer just generally being slow, and I don't know if it's time for me to see if I can upgrade the memory in this to 4GB. This is an older model MBP, so I don't even know if it CAN hold that much. Plus, it'll cost (lots of) money, and with the way my previous attempts at installing additional memory have gone, I'd rather do it at the Apple Store-- pay for for the Apple Certified stuff and get the product warranty and in-store customer service that comes with it.

Firefox is still apparently a memory hog, but it doesn't help that I'm one of those people that has hundreds of tabs open (some of them duplicates). I tried to close a bunch down today, write them down if I need to, and bookmark a bunch of others. Hopefully it'll help some. I'm also testing out Firefox 3.5 beta 4 because I wanted to play with Weave, a project from Mozilla Labs that allows for TAB SYNCING. I never thought I'd need it, but geez it'll be nice to open up my tabs on my now-slow MacBook Pro on the speedy Windows (eeeeew) machines at work. Mayhap I can get more done that way.... Now, I wonder if there's something that can sync extensions?

This entry's actually been sitting here for a few days; I just didn't post it. I have a lot more to say, but it seems like it ought to go in a separate entry some other time...maybe after finals or at least after tomorrow, when I have my Table Appointments (read: table setting) quiz in my Contemporary Issues in Nutrition class and my Yoga final (physical and written). I'm kind of nervous about the physical Yoga final, because even with a class of 30+ people, last week the professor said she WOULD be working with us one-on-one, which has me thinking she'll be sitting there and go "okay, get into X pose!" and I'll just blank and forget how to do it!

...My Time Machine external HD is mounted, but it won't back up, even if I manually tell it to. When I go into Time Machine preferences, it says the back-up drive cannot be located. WTF!?

No, not really.

But I could be an apprentice for drug cocktail waitressing... er, that is, I went to the doc's today and walked away with not one, not two, but three medicines! One's for the weird super-dryness of my skin that just started a few days ago (and has started to fade ever since), one is another dosing of Prilosec, because this morning I had another heartburn-attack-from-Hell and no amount of Maalox or Gas-X helped (well, not THAT much, anyway) and the doc recommended I up the dosage to one before breakfast and one before dinner. The pain from this morning still hasn't gone away completely. Oh, and then there's a muscle relaxant for my "around-the-head" headaches, which the doc said are probably caused by muscle tension. Hm, sounds like me-- always tense.

And I had a blood test on top of all that, because my "cold feet" might be caused by a thyroid problem. Stupid thyroid-- causes so many problems in the body! On the one hand, it'd be nice to know there's a cause behind my problem and that I'm a) not imagining it and b) can do something about it, but if it means MORE meds or something... ugh. So, two days from now and we'll see.

Oh yes, we got the new Airport Extreme Base Station today, and I set it up. So we've still got Earthlink DSL, but thanks to an APPLE product, we have wireless (no thanks to Earthlink) that is reliable (same), secure (same), and easy to configure (same). Problems? Well, for some lame reason, Gary's wireless printer doesn't seem to see the new network or accept the password. Technically the name is only two letters off of the old network name-- all I did was change the capitalization of two letters. The password's nearly the same too, but I made sure to retype it in perfectly and the printer still won't connect. I don't know why. When I tried to print using the printer already configured in my preferences, it only got as far as 62% (spooling), with nothing actually coming out of Gary's printer. In any case, I'm sure that bit will eventually work when we get Comcast this weekend.

We connected Mom's HP PSC 1210 All-In-One to the Base Station, but my install of OS X 10.5 doesn't have the drivers for it, and the HP website and assorted Mac websites don't have them either (because they're supposed to be on the OS X 10.5 install disc, which I stupidly didn't bring with me). The 10.4 driver doesn't work, as the HP Setup Assistant doesn't even see the printer via Bonjour when I try to set it up. So when I have to select a driver, the one for our model doesn't come up, even though I set it up via USB before. What doesn't make sense is, I probably set it up using the disc, which is only SUPPOSED to work with 10.4 and below, but because it was USB and not Network, it DID work. Or something like that. So I picked another HP PSC driver, but who knows if it'll work.... (the printer queue seems to think it finished sending a test page, but I haven't seen/heard the printer respond!)

So, on the bright side, I'm back in the 'Net game... for now. I have some late papers and such to turn in, school work to catch up on, personal projects I'd like to make headway on, etc., but no shortage of things to do, places to go.... Like LJ. Must catch up on LJ. Way behind. But also-- way tired, because I was up way early for me considering when I got to sleep last night (new bad habit: not finding a good place to stop in my books, so staying up until 3am to finish reading them) and the pain was not a fun thing to try and sleep through. So I might just take a nap before CSI: now.

Speaking of CSI, the writers damn well better use this episode with the return of the Miniature Killer as a reason why Grissom finally up and leaves Vegas and goes to find Sara. The idea of him hooking up with Heather again --when both of them know better!-- is patently absurd, and I can't stand how Grissom can go through so much and be willing to throw it all away because of inaction. So, I hope Grissom gets a happy ending (with Sara, dagnabbit!) within the next few episodes, if not this one.

Well, I restarted my computer THREE times and each time, the keyboard/trackpad was frozen or non-responsive. It's been getting more and more frustrating, and I don't know what to do. There's no single solution from other users that have experienced the same thing on the Apple Discussion Boards, and the fixes from the "Genius" at the Genius Bar and the "Expert" from Apple that I called didn't work permanently.

I'm obviously concerned, because, like the last time I went to the Apple Store with a serious problem (the memory card pin-holder in the old MacBook Pro), the Genius made it sound like it all boils down to the logic board, which is a $1300 repair. My laptop's out of warranty because I didn't have $300+ to spend at the start of September, and I didn't think to put it on one of my credit cards on time. So that $1300 might actually be MORE, because I don't know if that's the in-warranty quote or not. Last time, that price tag convinced me to buy a whole brand new laptop, this time... I can't afford that. I don't know what to do, especially since I'd never risk opening the top case myself to see what might be wrong with the keyboard/trackpad (assuming I could even tell by looking; I'm not a hardware person by any stretch of the imagination).

I'm hoping to take it to the Apple Store again and find out. Maybe they can open the top case and diagnose the problem, but not necessarily charge me for it unless I ask for a repair? That might be too optimistic, what with how busy the Genius Bar usually is.

This sucks, because it's another major incident that renders my laptop unusable by itself, but it's not enough to get me to switch back to the hell that is Windows. Right now, I'm using a USB keyboard Mom found (turns out the plug I'd examined in the back of one of her dinosaur PCs was actually an adapter-- good thing I didn't run out to Radio Shack to pay $16 for something I already owned!), along with my usual Wacom tablet.

( Smell my feet! )

Greetings from... Santa Cruz, CA. Incidentally, the day I came to S.F., I completely spaced about having a Biology quiz, so I missed it. I'd already gotten one extension from when I got mugged and I knew the professor wouldn't give me another, so... argh. It's not as if it'll be a big dink to my grade provided I keep up with everything else, but it's not as if keeping up is EASY. We're well into the "tough stuff" of this "basic" biology class.

Anyway, I'm in Santa Cruz because, like forgetting my biology quiz, I also forgot that my cousin Brooke's baby shower was THIS WEEKEND rather than "the 7th," which is Tuesday. Because Brooke and Shaina are driving down to Fresno (where the shower is located, at their mom's house) on Friday morning, I had to meet Brooke here in SC *today.* So I took a bus downtown, a Muni train to the Embarcadero, the BART train from the Embarcadero to Fremont, a bus from Fremont to San Jose, and then another bus from San Jose to Santa Cruz. I stuffed myself with 3 horribly unhealthy tacos from taco bell and stared at all the pretty shiny books at the Borders I met Brooke's hubby, Honis (aka Mike) at.

And so here I've been at their place pretty much ever since, studying my geology (which I've been slacking on; I've already taken 2 quizzes but have 5 more due within the next 24 hours; 4 of those are probably fairly easy, but only if I do the reading and make an effort to concentrate and take notes). We did go out for a quick bite at this homey diner called Jeffrey's and talked family, jobs, and the evil brainwashing that is Disney.

We have to wake up at an ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow to head to Shaina's, but she's the one who's going to be driving, so Brooke and I can conk out while we drive to Fresno and do who-knows-what while we're there a full day before the actual shower. I know in my case I have to stay awake and STUDY, sucky as that is. Actually, what's truly sucky is I'm more or less relegated to sitting at some table near an outlet, because my MacBook Pro has been suspiciously sucking with keeping its charge. A few days ago, I noticed that, even after it was supposedly fully charged, it only had a life of 40-55 minutes, rather than a good hour and a half or more like it used to have. I got the iStat Pro widget, and it says that even though my battery's "fully charged," it's at 97%, not 100% (or even 99%), and the "battery health" is at a dismal 45% (it was at 38% at my mom's house). I don't really know what's going on or why; I tried the SMC reset, but it didn't seem to help. I'm really worried...

Staying at my mom's house is a bit awkward this time around; rather than staying in the "Tovstin," aka what used to be my room and is now Gary's study/bedroom (he never sleeps in there though), I stayed in my mom's room. Bigger bed, but... er, not as comfortable. Maybe it's me and my picky back (destroyed by Disney), but I couldn't lay flat on that bed. The only way I could sleep (and not even comfortably, because I kept tossing and turning all night, and woke up with the comforter all haphazard) was on my side. Staying in the Tovstin would mean "inconveniencing" Gary, because his closet is in there, and unlike my mom, who's on her leave, he still has to work everyday and access his clothes. And I've seen the closet in my mom's room, there's just no way Gary's stuff'll fit in there. -_-

So, it looks like when I go back on Sunday I'll be sleeping in the living room on the couch. Awwwwkward.

Speaking of awkward, did anyone catch the vice presidential debate tonight? Things I found amusing, somewhat sad (read: pathetic), and kind of weird:
* Joe Biden referring to himself by name, rather than with a proper pronoun such as "I" or "me" or derivatives thereof
* Sarah Palin being kind of "cutesy" and saying stuff like "you betcha" and "darn right" (don't get me wrong, some people think that her speaking to the "average American" and coming across like a "soccer mom" is a good thing, but I think it made her sound very unprofessional and most definitely un-vice presidential-like)
* Sarah Palin saying "um" a lot (no, really, she did. If you re-watch the debates, you'll notice she said it OFTEN. Speech coach, much?)
* Joe Biden looked like he had an eye lift
* Sarah Palin looked like she had Botox (cheeks!)

I guess what it boils down to is, are vice presidential debates supposed to be about the candidates selling their running mate, or about THEIR personal opinions, policies and actions should THEY get elected into the office of VP? Maybe I'm mistaken for having thought it should be the latter, but the bulk of the debate came off as "Obama this" and "McCain that," and I was like "Yeah, but what do YOU think?" I know that Biden wouldn't be Obama's running mate if they didn't agree on a lot and share the same policies, nor would McCain have Palin if they didn't agree on at least some fundamentals (they at least have some more clear-cut differences though, which is interesting... sadly, for other things, she's more or less his parrot, and can't talk about her opinions because she doesn't have the knowledge to have formed any substantive ones).

The thing that pisses me off about both candidates: they agree that gays should have the same rights as committed heterosexual couples (read: a man "married" to a woman), but they refuse to redefine the word "marriage" outside of the traditional "man" and "woman" sense. This is bullshit. It's a WORD, you nimrods, it has nothing to do with politics, ethics, the Constitution, etc. You don't OWN a word. You don't get to say who uses it and how. The more you say a group can't/shouldn't use a word, or the more you use a word in a derogatory sense, the more people will rise up and do just the opposite: they'll use the word, and they'll use it to empower themselves! (See: Nigga, Queer, Colored). It just sounds ridiculous, the thought of a governmental body saying "this word is going to mean THIS in our country" even if it has a different or more general meaning elsewhere. Of course, definitions in general are subject to societal standards and values, as I'm sure is apparent from other words throughout the centuries, but to get everyone's knickers in a knot over the use of the WORD "marriage" just seems a waste of energy.

For me: marriage is the sealing of a lifetime commitment between two PEOPLE, regardless of gender. This allows them to be listed on each others' insurance, have visitation rights in hospitals, adopt a child (or children), have shared property rights, joint bank accounts, etc. Sure, politicians can say that a "civil union" between gays should have all these rights, but then why not just call it what it is: A MARRIAGE? Why is it "necessary" to create a different word, process, paperwork, etc. just because X couple is gay but Y couple isn't? That's hardly equal rights when there's a simple snit over WORD USAGE, of all things!

*sigh* I need to get to bed. My brain is fried.

Last night I went out with Mel, Nancy, our advisor Vicki, and Joe B from NSCS to meet the Scholar Ambassadors who are "in town" (more like "in the region," because they're visiting a ton of schools in the SoCal area in a matter of days), so we went to the Elephant Bar in Burbank and had a rather nice dinner (Shanghai Cashew Chicken, garlic bread, and Apple/Blueberry Walnut Cobbler for me) and some very looooong conversations about everything from ethics and integrity to the sad and sorry state of "my" generation, which has a vast majority of students who have "entitlement issues."

Rewind a bit: on my way to meet Nancy and Joe (because we were carpooling to Burbank), I was right near one of the Science Buildings (the one with the planetarium in it; I can't remember which one that is off the top of my head, because I haven't had science classes IN YEARS) and I felt like I was about to bump into someone. As I was turning my head, I saw this movement of not-quite-white-- you know, almost a florescent bluish color? It looked like a skirt or a scarf tied to the side of someone's hip or something. By the time I finished turning completely, whatever "it" was was gone-- and there was no one (no lamp posts either) anywhere NEAR me.

I think I saw a ghost.

O_O It wouldn't surprise me, really-- I mean, I kind of "sense" stuff already (and you can call me crazy, it wouldn't be news), and I'm pretty damn skilled with my Tarot cards, if I do say so myself (and so I've been told by others-- I have done readings for others, never for a charge, and even without knowing the question they're asking, apparently the cards and the way I interpret them is always spot-on).

( Read more... )

Moving forward again, yesterday all the discussions reminded me of one of Yakko's songs from the Animaniacs. I struggled last night to remember some of the lyrics, and at last, I remembered the whole first verse and chorus... well, here's the song, for your nostalgic enjoyment:



That reminds me, I should get an Animaniacs icon. I've filled up almost all my icon slots, but so many of them just have such RARE uses... I'd like more "general" icons that are fun and can be used at any time. Like the one I'm using now. :D

That said, a few more random blurbs:
(1) I finally got approved to build the Star Ocean 3 shrine at RPGClassics! Yes, I'm biting off more than I can chew again and I know it, but I'm so excited! I've already built the Items page and am working on that now-- I figure since there's more text throughout the shrine, I'll finish that first and then worry about ripping images from the game using my EyeTV. You'll be sure to hear more about this as I progress.

(2) My laptop is STILL acting weird-- if I close the lid and it goes to sleep and is "sleeping" for more than 30 minutes or so, when I open the lid, the screen will flicker as if I can resume work, but then it'll go black and then not turn on. The keyboard will be responsive, but the screen still won't go back on. If I close the lid again, the keyboard becomes unresponsive. Battery and power-swapping tricks have failed to work, and often when I restart the computer, I'll get the loading screen (the Apple icon with the "wheel" timer) and then a light blue screen-- sort of like the default desktop (which I don't have set), but then nothing else loads for over 10 minutes. It's very frustrating and I don't know what to do, and when I took it to the Apple store Genius Bar to try and replicate the error, I couldn't! Any suggestions?

( New desktop. Oh yeah. )

Man, I wish I were in S.F. right now. I read the Macworld Expo update, and... gawd, I am so stoked for 2008. Not like I'm going to dash out and buy an iPhone (not until it's no longer attached to AT&T without hacks involved) or a MacBook Air (...this laptop is new enough for me. Until it breaks, I'm using it. Plus, I happen to like having an optical drive and a huge hard drive...), but DAMN. Apple just... kicks ass. Have I mentioned lately? You really oughta switch.

I personally think if I could have gotten a single measly day there and been back here... it would have been worth it, just for Steve Jobs' keynote speech. Sure, he flubbed a few times, but it sounded SO fun. And a play-by-play just isn't quite the same as being there, in the flesh. (Yes, the play-by-play had to suffice; it made me jealous) So I have a goal for 2009 (besides graduating in the Spring, that is): Go to Macworld Expo 2009. Network, network! (Who knows, maybe I could impress someone important and get a job at Macworld? Tee-hee.)

What else I'm excited about: the Time Capsule, the companion hardware to Leopard's Time Machine. It basically acts as the AirPort Base Station I spent $179 on, but it comes with a hard drive, supports 802.11n Gigabit Ethernet. A 500 GB (the smallest version available) is $299. I think I paid $250 for my 120 GB MyBook Pro external hard drive, so in terms of pennies per GB, it's very much worth it, in my mind. For die-hard downloaders, there's a 1 TB (!!!!!) version for $200 more. It ships out in February... around the same time as the new student-licensed version of Office 2008:mac, which I've been wanting, because Office 2004 on the Mac is kind of a bitch. Plus, I want more templates than Pages can offer. I didn't realize until today, when I had to make a flyer, that Word is really better than Pages for that. I hate still being Microsoft's bitch in any respect... but with all the years gone by, they have made a powerhouse of a word processor.

What I'm dreaming of: it would kick ass if more companies (including the ones that make $9.99 cheap games for Best Buy, Target, and the like) got on board with Cider to make games Mac-compatible. With Cider, there's only one source tree to manage (from what I read), so it's not like there's a whole overhaul involved. Basically, you take your game and wrap it in something that's friendly to Macs. Nothing changes about the game, the interface, etc. Of course, Cider has its limitations, and since it's not for end-users, it's not like I can just download something and all of a sudden be playing Doom again (*sigh* I miss killing Imps! And NO, I don't want Doom 3! >_< I like my pixellated pigs, thank-you-very-much). But I'd love to be able to play Riddle of the Sphinx, Pharaoh/Cleopatra, and similar Egypt-puzzle games (my favorite) again without going into Parallels. In reality, Parallels has felt like a waste of money to me, because... well, what the hell was I using Windows for? I hardly ever go into it. Blah. I hope there's an update that gets my games working again (in the meantime).

What I should be doing: the 30kisses update. I've already got the T-Z stuff from a_white_rain, though I have to sort through it all to put it in the right order-- by fandom. Today's the first day when my sleep schedule's semi-normal (and my computer hasn't been overheated), so I'm going to get it done-- especially since I said I would do it by yesterday. I'll also have to combine that with Phase Five of the Claims List Purge-- but as for the actual completion of the Tags Removal and putting the dead claims into the Memories, I'll need help. Mod Squad, you still around?

What I'm testing the waters with: Scrivener, a... humungo writing program JUST FOR MACS (eat that, Windows biznatches!). dqbunny, you might like this one. If you try it too, we can compare notes. :D I'd also like to try MarsEdit2, a blog publisher. I use xJournal now, and have Phoenix as a backup, but frankly, one of them is always lacking SOMETHING. I wonder if MarsEdit would make a difference. I already know it's compatible with LJ; the question is if it supports all those tiny little features that aren't necessarily blog-platform-cross-compatible (e.g. stuff you'll only see on LJ and its off-shoots, not other blogging platforms like Blogger, etc.) For some reason, I'd get my panties in a wad if I couldn't change security settings or screen comments by default. I'm still kind of PO'd that xJournal doesn't support Location (okay, my location hasn't changed in the past two weeks, but still).

Anywho, to work, to work!

I blame ceruleansan for this one. Her and an_ardent_rain for providing me with Azureshipping to make me jealous of, and guardian_kysra for writing "Clean" and "Unclean," which will forever be stuck in my head. THUMBS UP, LADIES!

( This isn't Grimms Fairy Tale, folks... )

Tonight wasn't too bad at all. I finally met up with Erin and Joyce (actually, they picked me up after getting lost here in S.F. Haha! I don't know SF driving-wise at all. I think of everything in terms of bus routes) and we headed to IKEA in Emeryville and then got a bit lost trying to get to Dad's place in Alameda. Erin and I played with Roy a bit (Roy still loves me :D :D) and then we went to dinner at this small Thai place with a "cute" young waitress (Joyce kept saying she was "cute," even though I thought the girl wasn't that young; she was probably between 16 and 19, which I think is beyond "cute" age in the usual sense of the word). The food was good, though I had leftover Gai Yang, so I brought it home.

We went back to S.F. and I got to see Erin's new apartment (in which I broke the toilet somehow, because it was running/not flushing and my opening the lid and dropping some tube thing didn't help), which is small, but very nice. And when she gets all the stuff she put together from IKEA set up, it'll look very nice. I helped her schlep all the furniture up the 2 flights of stairs, since she doesn't have an elevator in her place yet (but it's still nice, even though it's tiny as all hell and she's paying $400 more than my mom is- and my Mom has 2 bedrooms and a sunroom!).

Anywhoozles, tomorrow I head to the DLP in Moraga-- alas, the people I was going to carpool with either switched DLPs or are going on Saturday, so I'll be going all by my lonesome (hah) on the BART and bus. No biggie, been there, done that. The hard part's always packing light, especially since this is supposed to be a big important business-type event, so I have to ONLY bring what I need. And I still "need" to figure out some way of using Gary's printer (an HP Photosmart C6100) wirelessly. I figured how to do it Computer-to-Computer (ad hoc), but then it messes up any computers that DO use it wirelessly via Mom's router. Anyone have any idea how to do this? The instruction manual seemed pretty useless on this front.

I hope I can get up early enough tomorrow to still get my nails (and maybe my brows) done, and if I'm feeling bold, I can swing by the Metreon to grab that Writer's Toolbox from Chronicle Books that I want. Maybe the more craft books/kits I have, the more inspiration I can get/dish? akavertigo and I are supposed to be challenging each other to get writing, but 1) her challenges were HARD HARD HARD (and I don't see how to fit them into WDKY at all, let alone WDKY25), and 2) I can't think of anything to challenge her back with atm.

Of course, I don't even know if I'll have Internet access this weekend, but regardless, I want to have my laptop so I can at least "write" things down. I would hate it if inspiration DID strike and I had nothing to write/type on but little scraps of paper like I did back in the day.

That said... I should probably get to sleep. :P I kept napping throughout today, which explains why I'm always so tired in the daytime, but relatively perky at night. If I just force myself to go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour, maybe I won't feel so compelled to sleep in the daytime-- which, this weekend would be Very Bad (meriting caps, you see).