I’m going to gracefully bow out of NaNoWriMo this year. Much as I like the idea (I even
bought the book last year!), I know I don’t have a hope of getting anywhere near the word count. I kinda want to do
something, though.
NaBloPoMo is a little bit more my speed this year–just post a blog post a day, every day,
for the month. I think I can do that. I never have, mind you. My peak blogging rate tends to be about every other
day (and the valley’s somewhere around one a month…). I’m thinking, though, that committing to something like this
will maybe help me get back in the groove a bit. My blog needs more love.
Support and encouragement is important in these endeavors. Without getting all clingy and needy and stuff, if you see
something and can take the time to comment on something I’ve written, that really does help motivate me. It’s silly, I
know, but it’s true. That’s the same regardless of whether you’re reading this and commenting on the blog itself, on lj
or on facebook. I’ll read it one way or another.
I’m figuring I’ll start picking topics and expounding on them, but for today, you’re going to get a content-light post
to start things off.
I ended up getting something between thirty and forty trick-or-treaters at the door last night. I’m pretty sure that’s
more than last year.
In the very first group that came to my door, the little girl bringing up the rear tripped and cut her lip on my stoop.
She was wearing an excruciatingly adorable (and well-made) princess costume, and looked as if her little world was about
to shatter. I ran in to get her a Kleenex and when I came back (and handed out candy to the rest, as we all must carry
on in tough times), her mother was asking her if she wanted to go home.
She would have none of that. Oh, no. She toughened up right then and there, wiped a tear and held out her little pillow
case for some Cheezies and a peanut butter cup.
At least one raccoon has taken up residence under my porch.
Taking the advice of the Humane Society, I’ve spread
cayenne pepper around the opening, wadded up balls of paper towels, soaked them in ammonia and stuffed them in the
opening, set up a halogen light in front of the opening and bought a battery-powered radio and turned it to an AM talk
station and stuck it in the hole.
He’s still there. I’m pretty willful, but I think that sort of treatment would’ve convinced me to leave by now. The
raccoon has out-willed me, it seems.
I think the next step is probably going to be to call a humane wildlife control company. I’m willing to take
suggestions.
My laptop–a lovely G4 iBook–is nearly four years old now.
I didn’t get it for its power or anything, but it’s always disappointed me a bit in how it handles things like
Flash-driven web pages and video. And four years is absolutely elderly for any sort of computer, laptops especially.
I’ve lusted after the Intel MacBooks since they were released and have told myself that as soon as Leopard comes out,
I’ll get one.
That was what? A year and a half ago? Leopard comes out today. And I’m faltering.
Apple’s been a miserable douchebag the last few months. They’re doing more and more to make sure people can do less and
less with their own property. I hate that. I hate that a lot. General purpose computing means a lot to me. It’s my life
and livelihood. They haven’t shown any evidence of trying to cripple Macs, but should I really be giving these people my
money?
I actually use the laptop far more than I use my desktop machine these days. It’s not quite the useless toy I originally
expected it to be. I’ve switched over to using Ubuntu on the desktop, but I haven’t actually been using it very much.
Ubuntu’s been coming along rather well, and I’ve been thinking maybe I should standardize.
Dell is selling laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed and pre-configured. That would be awesome, except they aren’t selling
them in Canada. The nice thing about getting someone to pre-install Ubuntu on a laptop is you’re pretty sure the
hardware support is there. I’ve been able to find
only one Canadian pre-install
company, and I’m not all that keen on their (refurb) hardware.
I could buy a Windows laptop and put Ubuntu on it,
but I could do that with a MacBook, too. And I like MacBooks, being small
and light with the decent trackpad and stuff. So I’m still torn. I do like my Mac and I still like Mac OS X (and all the
cool software written for it). It’s just Apple that’s pissing me off right now.