Today is a nice day to goof off and play with my games. Mostly I’ve been playing City of Heroes and getting Icy Hot Man up to level 7. Even better, gordon_r_d‘s Spitfyre invited me to join the British Bulldogs SuperGroup. So IHM now has a second uniform to wear. You can see his main costume here.

Icy Hot Man of the British Bulldogs

Thanks Gordon – hopefully we can get a game in together sometime! 🙂

Now, I haven’t just been playing CoH today. I’ve also been redownloading all of my Real Arcade games (since I’ve yet to do that from reinstalling Win98SE several months ago). They’re raising the price of the GamePass monthly subscription (AKA, my Game of the Month club) in March (or April?) and I’ve decided to leave GamePass. At least for now. I’ve gotten 22 (counting the one I’ve yet to pick for February) “free” games from them since I joined. Gee, that would mean I’ve been a member for nearly 2 years! (For $7 a month, you get 1 free download of any game they have, plus discounts on their other games. I was in it for the “free” games, myself.) Of the 22, there’s probably 5 to 8 that I love to play. A few that I sometimes play. And a few that I probably shouldn’t have downloaded, but there ya go. Oh yeah, and the price they’re raising to? Well, only a buck more a month… So it’s not like it’s evil or anything. But there aren’t that many games I’m interested in downloading anymore. Perhaps when even more new games show up, I’ll re-up my GamePass.

This morning, I also went to Curves and Walmart. Then off to Tokyo Peking to get dad and I General Tso’s (with egg roll, crab rangoon, and hot & sour soup) for lunch. We watched last week’s episode of Monk and then went off to Tipp City in search of stained glass. (He and mom make stained glass items – actually, mostly him – since they took a class on it together sometime last year.)

So all & all, a fine day for Trinas. (And Bachelor Dad, for that matter.) Hoping that Mom is off having fun with Amy & Rachel! (We figure they’re having a ball together.) Tomorrow, dad and I are off to New Madison Unitarian Universalist Church cuz he’s preaching. And I’ll probably just goof off the rest of the day too. I love a good Goof Off weekend. (All weekends should be, you know?)

Re: Yesterday’s Blackmail. To make the person being blackmailed sweat a little. I will admit that said person is on my flist… But isn’t: akadriver, elsaf, kiri_l, michaellee, rustyverse, or versaphile, to name a few…

Remember, $100, unmarked bills, paypal account… 😉

In other news: Sylvester McCoy is currently touring the UK in a production of Arsenic & Old Lace. It’s playing all over the country, so if you’re there, look for it in a nearby theatre. He’s playing a part that I know all too well – Dr. Einstein. (The part that I played in my HS production of it.) I do wish I could get over to see it, but it doesn’t look financially viable at this time. Alas! Thus far, I’ve only found one review of it, and Sylv wasn’t flattered by it. (Actually rather unusual, since he’s usually praised for his stage work.) Still, it’s early in the production and that’s just one reviewer’s opinion.

The Seventh Doctor and Ace have recently been added to the BBC Cult Galleries, I discovered tonight. There are quite a few pictures of Sylv there now. And lots of other Who notables, too. My particular favorite would be this one (from That Circus Episode of Doctor Who.) There are a couple different ones in the Sophie Aldred Gallery, so be sure to check there as well.

I need inspiration for another Sylv LJ icon… Suggestions on a post card, please, sent to this address:

Tonight’s a new Monk – yay! I think I’m gonna watch it “live” and eat graham crackers w/ chocolate frosting between them and a tall glass of milk. Mmmm!

Trina Short, scatterbrain, signing off!

As seen on IRC during Truth or Dare, December 5th, 1998:

<trinalin> Do you think Sylv is cute?

<Evil_****> Well, yes, I do think there is certain puppyishness about those droopy eyes….

The identity of the above person will be revealed unless $100 in unmarked bills is deposited in the PayPal account of my choice… (I leave the rest of you to ponder the identity…)

I have modified my original “Valentine’s Day” icon to be a little redder. So this is a Gratuitous Icon (Modified) Post. 🙂

Isn’t it the way? rustyverse is complaining on IRC that he can’t update his LJ cuz it’s currently Read Only. And I’m complaining on IRC that I don’t have anything to write about tonight…

I listened to some Shonen Knife and Bally Sagoo tonight.

It’s Ash Wednesday.

Leo’s sleeping.

I got Icy Hot Man to level 5 and Van De Graaf to level 4 on City of Heroes today.

Tomorrow’s Thursday.

Hmmm, I think I’ve written enough for tonight. 🙂

Firstly, a celebration of dehydration – I think I finally unplugged my dryer – yay! While talking with dad about it last night on the phone, he mentioned using a buret brush to try and get further down in the dryer. I actually had thought of that some time ago, but couldn’t remember where my buret brushes were stored. I found a nice big black beaker brush which I brought home and had been using to help clean out the vent. Of course, weeks passed and I saw my buret brushes in the lab and thought “Oh! There they are!” but didn’t think to take one home. Today, however, I took one home and punched through from the top where the lint filter is and from the bottom where the connection to the outside vent is. Then I ran it shortly without being hooked to the outside and a whole slew of lint blew out. Yay! I swept up the lint, rehooked it to the outside, and made my second attempt at drying my jeans. After just 20 minutes, they were noticibly drier.

Secondly – Mardis Gras! I used to give up things for Lent when I was younger. (We’re not Catholic, but we still celebrated Advent and Lent.) I don’t do that anymore, but I still celebrate Fat Tuesday. And so do my folks. Mom called to invite me out to eat for supper tonight. Woohoo! For those of you who celebrate either (or both) Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday, I hope you had/have a wonderful celebration!

My clothes dryer is being inefficient. I’m 99% convinced it’s because of the vent being clogged by lint. Dad and I fiddled with the tube that goes outside, but I think we’ve cleared that out pretty well. So it’s just a matter of getting rid of the blockage in the dryer itself. I was down in the basement today trying to get rid of the blockage. And I’ve got a load in the dryer now attempting to get dry. (It’s basically like a sauna when I open it – lots of heat, lots of moisture. Hence my conviction that air/moisture isn’t venting.)

While moving the dryer out to fiddle with the back, I accidentally undid the external ground wire. I checked with dad (who is a qualified electrician, among his many talents) who said it was best if I unplugged the dryer before reattaching it. Of course, no actual plug – the dryer is hardwired in. No matter, it’s hardwired directly to a circuit breaker. So I turned off the circuit and reattached the ground wire. It’s times like that when I realize that I actually am growing up. 🙂 (Yeah, Trina, you’re 34, you’d better be growing up!)

I’m just hoping that I’ve sorted out the vent blockage because the next step is to pay for a repairman to fix it. And if that won’t work, buy a new dryer. (Isn’t that the way – get your tax rebate & suddenly appliances decide they need fixing/replacing.)

As always, to keep me grounded in frivolity, Leo insisted that we play with one of his toys for 15 or so minutes. I love my cat – it makes being a grown up easier to bear. 🙂

Ah, the joy of First Come, First Served! I managed to be the third person today. I arrived about 15 minutes before opening, and already folks were waiting. And what’s more, some apparently had been & gone, but came back after we three hangers on arrived. I figured I’d just smile & nod a lot and if it looked like it was going to take a long time, I’d just schedule a time to get the thing installed. It turned out to not be a problem and I was officially third.

So, once I gave them my receipt, car key, and cell phone number, I headed in to shop around Best Buy. (I did no BB shopping yesterday other than the CD/MP3 player because I knew I’d have waiting time later.) I bought a couple of regular CDs – Heart’s Little Queen (cuz my favorite song, “Say Hello” has yet to be available for purchase by download) and Ricky Martin’s Almas Del Silencio. Nothing else really caught my fancy, so I bought the CDs and wandered around Big Lots before returning to the Mobile Install place at BB.

I sat & read more from The Princess Bride (my purse book) while I waited for them to finish and around 1pm, they gave me my key back, etc. On my way home, I played one of my MP3 CDs as a test, and found the balance was off. At first, I was afraid they’d hooked the front speakers to the rear jacks, but once I got home and checked out the manual, I found where to change the balance and have it pretty well sorted out. It’s really lovely – and best of all, it remembers the last song it was playing! Woohoo! (This has been my biggest annoyance with my other methods of playing MP3s in my car.) Best of all, when I turn off the car, the deck turns off too! (Yeah, of course it does, but when you’re used to using MP3 players and CD players separate, you have to turn them off when you’re done.)

So, now that I’m set with my car audio, I can sort out my in-house audio more. I’m thinking of maybe moving one Rio s10 into my reading room and move that MP3 player to the bedroom. Or something. As for my PC, I’m testing out MediaMonkey as my MP3 player/ripper/organizer. There are some features about it that I’m already loving. (It sits in my system tray and I can control play/pause/etc and see the current playlist just by right clicking on the little monkey.) I don’t care much for how it does Playlists (keeps ’em in a database rather than as separate .m3u files), but it works with my folder of pre-existing playlists just fine, so that’s good. (It can export to .m3u, apparently, though I haven’t tried that yet.) I gave up on MusicMatch for a few reasons. Mostly, they never pay attention to suggestions from us paying customers. (What’s worse is, back when I liked the program well enough, I paid for unlimited upgrades.) They’ve now got their online streaming audio service so entwined with their regular MP3 player that it’s annoying. If I want streaming music, I’ll stick with Rhapsody, thankyouverymuch. Oh yeah, and the latest version of MusicMatch doesn’t work with Winders98, so I’m screwed there.

I’m hoping that MediaMonkey will prove to be my player of choice. The things that it can’t do, I’m beginning to learn I can do without. So that’s a good thing.

First, before I write up tonight’s post, I’ll give you the answer for last night’s post. As everyone who responded guessed, the answer is 8. Why figuring out the number of F’s might be a challenge has to do with the word “of.” When F is pronounced as a V, it isn’t always recognized as an F. The real question should have been “how many did you count the first time versus the last time?” I must admit, the very first time I encountered that sentence, I was a bit low on the total…

So, onto tonight’s post. Well, it’s mostly about something that I purchased today, but which I won’t get to enjoy until tomorrow at the earliest. After a few years of using alternative means, I’ve decided to finally get an MP3 capable CD player for my car’s dashboard. I went to Best Buy and quizzed the hell out of the sales guy there and finally settled on the Pioneer DEH-P4600 In Dash CD/MP3 Player. They were having a sale and offering free installation on it. It was only $140, but after I paid for the 4 year service (I’ve had too many problems with MP3 players to stick with the standard factory warranty) and installation ingredients, it shot up past $200. I was expecting that, so no pain there. It would have been $50 more for installation had I not picked the one with the free installation.

Well, on the weekends, Best Buy does a “first come first served” installation service and they were behind by several cars. Since I was on my own, I couldn’t leave the car for 4 1/2 hours and keep myself entertained in that time, so I decided to wait until tomorrow. I’ll head in first thing tomorrow morning and see if I can get in early. If not, I’ll schedule an installation time during the week. So I haven’t had the chance yet to hear my new device at work. Still, being the geek that I am, as soon as I got home (after our family gathering tonight) I went online to see how my new device fairs. It’s getting good reviews from epinions and ecousics. Yay! I done good! And paid the right price, it seems.

The family gathering, BTW, was round at Uncle Doug’s. We had cheeseburgers, mac&cheese, banana salad, and other good eats (Aunt Charlene made a really good salsa). And I worked some on Uncle Doug’s computer, trying to get rid of spyware and get his programs running faster. (Biggest culprit we’ve discovered is Norton’s 2005 Suite! Go figure!) It was fun to see folks again.

Hopefully tomorrow, I can report on my new in-dash player. I’ve got tons of music to play on it already. 🙂

How many times does the letter F appear in the statement below?

Fanny Filinger was of the impression that eighty-six years of history show that scientific research is of the utmost importance in every case of future generations.

After botching up my joining the Scientific American Book Club, they’ve screwed up my latest order as well. They were advertising a “Buy One, get 10% Off! Buy Two, get 20% Off! Buy Three, get 30% Off!” sale, so I bought three books, expecting the discount. Of course, I was concerned when no discount showed up on the online page, but there was a disclaimer that discounts are not displayed on the online summary. Gee, that’s really nice. So later, my account balance showed the non-sale prices. Being the concerned Trina that I am, I e-mailed them asking about the online balance, and the person e-mailed back that that doesn’t always reflect the actual balance. Gee, that’s even nicer! Shortly after that, I got my books, and the bill with them had the nonsale price as well. Fuckers.

So anyhoo, I immediately e-mailed them back saying that the bill didn’t reflect the discount either. And waited for a response. And waited. And you know, the bill says if I don’t pay by Feb 12, they’ll tack on $4 to the already inflated bill. So I’ve e-mailed them yet again. I figure I’ll get no response again, so I’ll pay their damn bill and then quit their club.

They don’t realize what a goldmine they could have had in me. I had 11 books already in my WishList with more to follow (cuz I am a book addict). But now I’ll have to buy them from someone who actually plays straight with me. (I’ve printed off the list of titles so I can look for them in other places.)

So the moral is, if you receive a flyer from Scientific American Book Club, chuck it in the bin where it belongs!

The second moral is, don’t let a book addict join a book club, ever! I mean, you wouldn’t let an alcoholic join the Wine of the Month club, would you????