Ooo! Bad Author! No Author Biscuit!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Book Reviews, Kvetching, Reading
I just finished reading the all three books that are currently available in the Morris & Chastain Supernatural Investigations series by Justin Gustainis. I have no complaints about Black Magic Woman or Evil Ways, which hang together pretty closely.
Sympathy for the Devil, though, ended with a cliffhanger! How dare he! The reader is left completely unsure of the fate of one of the main two characters, as well as several others who were pivotal to the plot. Honestly, anybody who is reading volume three of a series has proven enough commitment that there’s simply no justification for such a cheap tactic. Bah!
Tags: Justin Gustainis
Heat
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Kvetching
It is just too bloody hot. I couldn’t sleep last night and it’s too danged hot to sleep again tonight. I do not enjoy summer weather.
It Is the Flu
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health, Kvetching, Reading
And now I have it, too. Damn it. I had tried to get back to blogging daily, but good intentions just didn’t hold a candle against the entire household coming down with the flu.1
For some reason I thought Tamiflu was a one or two-pill affair, but I suppose I had it confused with one of the other antivirals. I have to take this for ten days! And apparently it gives quite a few people stomach flu symptoms on top of the misery they’re already in or trying to avoid. Happily, that isn’t happening to me so far.
I’m not feeling very chatty, though. So I think I’m going to curl up with the new delivery of mailbox books from the library and apply myself to some brainless reading. Anything that requires brain will have to be sent back and requested again some other time, because I won’t be able to appreciate it. (I admitted that I was sick when I kept re-reading the same few pages of Halting State with absolutely no trace of comprehension.) Now I wish I’d made different selections!
1 Kiyoshi isn’t infected, but he isn’t very helpful at the best of times.
Tags: Charles Stross, flu, Halting State
Microsoft Fail — MS Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000 Review and Tale of A Painful Free Upgrade
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Kvetching
That shouldn’t be worth posting about, but it took more work than it should have. Summary: I probably should have stuck with Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combinations, because I didn’t have a problem with the previous set I had and never had occasion to call their technical support. But since I bought a Microsoft product, it was worthwhile to hound them until they came through on their warranty, despite the fact that the experience was somewhat painful.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Logitech, Microsoft, review, tech support, Wireless Comfort Desktop 4000, Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000
Tired Now
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health, Kvetching, Reading
I had a pain doctor appointment last week, but wasn’t up to going. So Sam rescheduled it for me, and I headed across town today.
Apparently this was the day for “fitting in” everybody who has canceled an appointment in the last Goddess-knows-how-long, because I arrived to find no parking (even on the street in front of the practice). Patience was rewarded, and I got a spot that opened up as someone left, and was still 20 minutes early for my appointment.
I was seen shortly before the woman who came in after me, after stopping to glare at me from her streetside parking space (hey, it wasn’t as if she had been in the lot waiting or anything!). Her appointment was actually 15 minutes before mine, so I have no idea why they saw me first.
Still, I was very glad to have my a back-up ebook on my PDA, because it took over 2 hours to get out of there. They usually run absolutely on-time, so I only had one “normal” book with me, and I finished it.1 That office is always so overheated, so I was really dozy by the time I left.
Sam and I agreed that I had no business driving very far, so I got some fruit and water and went to his workplace. I had a brief nap, then he was off work and we were off to fill my prescriptions. We committed naughtiness by grabbing pizza for dinner, but it was yummy naughtiness.
This is the man’s “Old Farts” gaming night, when he meets up with some of his buddies and they play whatever they can agree on. The girl is going out with friends to see Watchmen (again), so I think I may be going to bed early.
First, I need to close some tabs in my browser, but I wanted to share the links with you! (You’re SO lucky!)
Elf Detection 101: How to find the hidden folk of Iceland.
Read the stories on the Nebula ballot!
It’s Read An eBook Week! So celebrate by downloading some of the free eBooks listed on their site 🙂
1 And then gifted it to someone who had been waiting before me and was still unseen when I left, who kept moaning about having forgotten to bring a book.
Tags: Books, elves, short stories, whinging
Feeling Pouty — Please Skip, Whinging Ahead
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health, Kvetching
Bah. I don’t feel good and I can’t sleep any more and I’m the only one awake. There’s a very childish part of me that wants very much to find a way to wake Sam up so I won’t be alone. No, I wouldn’t feel any better, but darn it, I’d have company!
But I’m not actually 3 years old, so I won’t do that.
Yesterday, I had a coughing fit that started around 5 am. It was turning into an asthma/anxiety attack, so Sam brought me a Xanax. I don’t take those often at all, as evidenced by the fact that the bottle I have was a one-month supply prescribed 4 or 5 years ago. One of the reasons I don’t take them often is that they knock me out completely. I could barely manage to get the oatmeal Sam made for breakfast from bowl to mouth, and yes, I ended up wearing some. The spoon was just too technical for me at that point.
I was completely unconscious (but not coughing!) by the time Sam left for work. Katie checked in on me periodically, and apparently gave me some Dayquil around 2:30. Sam called to check on me a couple of times, but whatever was said is a mystery to me, as I was in a benzodiazepine coma. I think I finally got up around 6pm, after he was home again.
I just couldn’t shake the grogginess, though. For the first time ever, we had to re-schedule our regular “date night” because I was a zombie. Back to bed with me, then—and I didn’t even remember to take my normal sleepy-time meds. I was vaguely aware of Sam coming to bed at some point.
At about 2:30, my body informed me that we were Done Sleeping and would now move on to babying my tummy.
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Have you gone a day without your cell phone?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Kvetching
I had not one, but two cellphones die in just a few months last year (or the year before? I’m fuzzy on it now). We have replacement insurance on our phones, but the company takes a few days to get the replacement to us. Since we don’t have a land line any more, I felt especially isolated each time.
The “insurance” company (Assurion) also doesn’t necessarily provide the same model (or brand) phone as a replacement 🙁 After the first incident, I got a really nice Nokia phone. After the second one, they didn’t have anything like that available, so I ended up with a Motorola that isn’t nearly as sweet.
It Burns!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Kvetching, Reading
I was reading Eileen Wilks’ Tempting Danger and mostly enjoying it, until I hit one of the sex scenes. And then, she wrote something like, “This time adagio,1 rather than fortissimo.2″
There wasn’t one editor or proofreader with any musical knowledge? Those are very basic terms.
Of course, at one point a character’s name changes from “Therese” to “Josefa” with no explanation. And while I won’t swear to it, I’m pretty sure that the organization called “Church of the Redeemer” had a different name at one point (“Church of the Exalted” maybe).
Tags: Eileen Wilks
Too Hot!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Kvetching
It’s 90 degrees F outside now. It was 103 earlier. We’re still in the first week of June. I have no idea what the “effective temperature” (or whatever they call it) is when the humidity is factored in.
Even with monthly filter changes and window units in both bedrooms, the air conditioner just can’t keep up.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any reason to think we’ll be able to move to points north before we find out what it’s going to be like here in July and August.
Ugh.
Aren’t there any Canadians who want to adopt a nice family of three?
Tags: heat, humidity, temperature
Blah
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Kvetching
That’s pretty much my opinoin today. Blah. Blah blah blah. I couldn’t wake up enough to drive safely, so I missed an appointment that will take months to reschedule.
For every assignment we do in the tech writing course I’m taking, we turn in a rough draft and receive two peer reviews and feedback from the instructor before doing the final draft. I got the two peer reviews this morning from the assignment I turned in on Sunday, and they were ridiculous. Seriously–both reviews were full of nonsense like, “your submission wasn’t double-spaced” (that’s because the instructions said to single space it, doofus) or “there aren’t double spaces between the paragraphs” (yes, there are–I double-checked) or “you have to spell it ‘co-housing’ ” (not when the authorities in the field spell the word ‘cohousing’ kid).
They get graded on their peer reviews, as I’ve been on mine, so hopefully they’ll get sucky grades. I got counted down on one of the first ones I did because I wasn’t harsh enough. Yes, that person’s piece needed a lot of work, and I could have ripped it to shreds. I was trying to stay “congenial” as instructed. My true thoughts were more along the lines of, “Why are you in this course? Only TCOM majors need to take it, and oh please $deity do NOT tell me you’re majoring in TCOM when you can hardly write a readable sentence.” That wouldn’t have been congenial, would it?
The idea behind the peer reviews is that most technical communicators work in teams now, so we have to get used to giving each other constructive criticism and accepting the same. I can handle that. I don’t, however, see why people who can’t manage to sort out “there” and “their,” or who don’t understand that an apostrophe does not mean HERE COMES AN “S” are even permitted in the course. They’re all supposed to have passed the basic English courses before taking anything in the TCOM department, but obviously “passing” and “mastering the material” are not closely related concepts.
Tags: TCOM, technical writing