When I was much younger (high school age or so) I would occasionally get lockjaw¹ thanks to my gritting my teeth while sleeping. Then I went through a number of years when this didn’t happen. Well, it’s happened this week. And I’ve finally discovered the cause. It’s the stress! I do my best to go “ha ha!” to stress, but the fact is that when I’m sleeping at night, my teeth betray me. I blame the Fileserver for this.

Thankfully, the folks at work are more forgiving of me than my teeth seem to be. The superintendent assured me that no one is complaining about the computer jobs which aren’t done. They know I’m doing the best that I can with my 1 period a day. The high school principal later told me the same thing. And tomorrow when Dean and I (hopefully) put the new Fileserver onto the network, I’ll be getting paid for that time. (Dean took the old Fileserver with him today at 4pm in order to transfer the files to the new one – hope its going smoothly for him!)

Dad and I went to see Tipp City’s new high school today for the monthly county tech meeting. Before I taught at Newton, I taught at Tipp for two years. As we went to enter this gorgeous new building, dad said to me, “Just think, you could have been teaching here.” Yeah, yeah… Jim Wilson, the head tech at Tipp, took all of us on a tour after feeding us pizza². The building is gorgeous, the auditorium to die for³, the science labs are nifty, and the wiring closets are amazing (and still orderly).

When we were in one biology room, I saw my old Mentoring Teacher from when I student taught at Tipp City, Derron Brown. I replaced him when I later taught there when he went to try his hand at Troy High School. Then when I left Tipp to go to Newton, Brown came back to Tipp. Heh. He took me off to look at the chemistry lab and storage area (more jealousy) and I managed to lose the techs. Found ’em again once I got to the first floor offices and continued the tour.

After dad and I were suitably wowed by the new school building (next month we get to see Miami East’s new building), we went back to our OLD school and checked e-mail. Then I announced at 5 til 4 that the Fileserver was going DOWN. Then after five minutes, there were still a few folks connected. Dad and I went around getting in touch with those folks (or simply turning off the computers they’d left on) and I turned the Fileserver off. Dean then took it home with him.

I was exhausted when dad drove me home. First, I was a bit disappointed that Ghost Light still wasn’t in. Then, I felt too tired to go to BW3s. And Fall Fair was tonight – as much as I love watching the kids do silly things, I wasn’t in the mood. And the folks were going to head off to the Lake and do Octoberfest there. So I went home, read LJ, and started to mope. But at 6pm, I decided enough moping, it was time to go out and HAVE FUN. So I went to BW3s, had an amaretto sour and popcorn shrimp (something new) and talked with the Fishers and Weavers.

After the Weavers left, I headed off to Culvers for some ice cream. I got a wafflecone with vanilla ice cream and sat down. Just as I was finishing, someone stuck a number/marker⁴ on the table and I looked up, surprised. It was the Fishers. After I’d mentioned the ice cream, they decided to get some too. So we continued the conversations we were having at BW3s and they even ordered me some more ice cream. Damn, that’s mighty fine ice cream!

I’m home again, ready to rest and relax. Tomorrow I’m on call. When Dean’s got the new Fileserver ready, he’ll call me and I’ll head off to the school and we’ll get it all hooked up. And maybe I can stop gritting my teeth!

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¹Well, I don’t mean REAL lockjaw. No bacterial infection for me. No, I just mean that my jaw locks up and gets sore thanks to all of that gritting going on. It doesn’t help that I grit my teeth in time to the music that runs through my head during the day.
²When he sent the all call out to the county tech mailing list on what pizzas folks wanted, I was the first to respond and asked for cheese (or maybe even cheese and pineapple). One of the three pizzas that he’d ordered for us was half cheese, half pineapple. Yay! Thanks Jim!
³Seriously, this auditorium looked better than some professional theaters I’ve been to. Apparently, it was paid for by private donations. Simply an amazing place.
⁴What do you call those little plastic bends that have numbers printed on ’em? Some restaurants give ’em to you so they can find you in the seats.

In anticipation of Ghost Light‘s eventual arrival, I figured I really should create a page for The Curse of Fenric. It was the second SylvDoc DVD out in regions 1, 2 and 4. So that’s what I did today. I also updated Remembrance of the Daleks for prices and DVD comments. And updating to CSS. The main Doctor Who page on my site was also out of date, CSS-ways, so I updated it too (even mentioning the new series.)

As it’s the last day of September, I’ve just now decorated my computer for Halloween. (All I did was put a new desktop wallpaper up. My Halloween computer decorations aren’t as extensive as my Christmas computer decorations.) To get an idea of my Halloween Wallpaper, you can look at my Halloween icon. 🙂

Ghost Light hasn’t arrived yet.

I’ve been listening to Chumbawamba’s Un all night.

Maybe we’ll swap the old Fileserver out with the new one this weekend.

Leo’s sleeping on the desk in front of the monitor.

Everyone in my chemistry and physics classes is passing.

I’m sleepy and going to go to bed early tonight.

Before I head off to spend the evening reading (just for fun) I was inspired by gordon_r_d‘s video game post to write a bit about the games that I currently enjoy playing.

1. Insaniquarium: A Popcap Game (the folks who brought us Alchemy and Bejeweled) that I got from Real Arcade. I joined Real Arcade’s Gamepass membership over a year ago now and so every month, I get a free game. Of course, membership is $6.95 a month, so really I get a $6.95 game every month. Works for me! Insaniquarium is my latest addiction. So much so that I fear I may get carpel tunnel syndrome if I don’t watch it. You click like mad, but you get to have fish in your virtual aquarium. And you get to protect those fish from aliens. You have to feed the fish and you get money as your fish grow. And you can even buy fish that eat other fish. It’s crazy, manic, and sometimes painful. But I love it. In my virtual fish tank I now own 8 fish and can keep 7 pets (which I won as I played through the game) in with them.
2. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (expansion pack): From Blizzard Entertainment – which I bought when judiang got herself addicted to it. I don’t blame her, really. After a hard day’s work, it’s nice to come home and kill dead things. Thanks to Insaniquarium, I’ve not played a lot of Diablo lately, but I figure when the newness of Insaniquarium wears off, I’ll get back to my Assassin and her battles. Plus I’ve got several online games started with friends. This one isn’t nearly as painful to play, either. The expansion pack is even better than the regular Diablo II because with it you can be an Assassin or Druid.
3. Ultraball: Another game-of-the-month from Real Arcade. I love pinball games (see below). I love Breakout. So why not combine the two? That’s what Ultraball does. I’ve gotten up to level 74, but it only lets you start at every 5th level. So I keep having to start back at level 70. Eep! One day, I shall get to level 75! I hope! (Um, should I admit that I’ve only gotten to level 74 using the Easy mode?)
4. Hoyle Board Games & Hoyle Card Games: One of these I bought a proper CD of, but the other is yet another Real Arcade version. I’ll let you look at the links to figure out which is which. 🙂 (You can, BTW, get the Card Games from Real Arcade, too.) In the Board Games, I love the Rummy Squares (aka Rummikub) best of all. But thanks to the program I’ve learned how to play Backgammon and Dominoes. I’m great at the MasterMind-style game, too. I loved that game when I was a kid – still do. And am still good at it. (Someday I’ll challenge Judi at it.) In the Card Games, I love Canasta and Euchre. I love playing Spades, too, but I prefer playing that with the online version of Hoyle Card Games. The computer partner is much better there and I can bid double nil and have a chance of my partner not screwing me up.
5. 3D Ultra Pinball: I have ’em all! Well, most of ’em, that is. As it’s nearly Halloween time, I’ll soon be playing 3D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night once again. I do it every season. Real Arcade got me access to 3D Ultra Pinball: Thrillride, based upon Hershey’s theme park. I’ve nearly completed Creep Night and I have completed Thrillride before. Not as much luck with the other two – the original and the dinosaur one. I think there’s a NASCAR one, too, but I’ve no interest in that. I love pinball games – hope to someday have one for my finished basement. Have to finish the basement first, however. And get a Galaga machine.

Now these are just the top five games that I’m currently playing. But I’m a fickle person. I used to be gung ho about Lemmings (just about every version of it). Beetle Jr was one of the games that converted me to Real Arcade. And as I mentioned in my previous paragraph, I’d love to own a Galaga machine someday. Perhaps my most favorite arcade game of them all! And let’s not forget the various games that I have for my Gameboy Advance. (Which I haven’t played in a long while now.) Fickle, fickle treen. Someday my poor little fishies from Insaniquarium will all be belly up as I’m off playing the latest and greatest video game to steal my heart.

If you guessed “at work?” then you were right! 🙁

I just got home, rubbed the cat, and am going to type this up before going to bed. So, can anyone tell me why I decided to work on computers? (Rassafrassin’ computers!)

Last Monday, you may recall that JohnnyCache died on us. So I spent the day reinstalling the software on a new HD an all that jazz. Got it running by the end of the school day.

Today’s disaster was worse – the Fileserver went kaput. At around 8:30 this morning, several of my students informed me that they’d just gotten the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). Shortly after that, kids and teachers were popping in to tell me likewise. I checked all the servers and everyone was up and running. Oh yeah, except the Fileserver. Perhaps the most important computer of them all. Gah!

What made working with the Fileserver harder than with Johnny was that it can only been seen through Terminal Services. Still, I did hook it up to a monitor just so I could see what happens at the boot. But there was no keyboard jack. I looked like it kept hanging up at the boot, and when I’d try to access it, it would reboot again. Time to call in Dean, our technology partner.

He had another job in Troy to do first, but he was there before lunch. Dad (who was in working the morning only) and I were very happy to see him. He actually found a keyboard port when he opened the case and discovered which of the drives had gone bad. We started backing up crucial files from the server (starting with mine and dad’s, then the superintendent and secretaries, finally the teachers, e-mail, and grades. Students were not backed up at the time.) This took a hell of a long time, so I headed back home around 4 to change clothes and get mail (alas, my amazon.co stuff didn’t come today – I want my Ghost Light!). I returned, did more backups, drove off to Troy to pick up some Lo Mein and an egg roll, returned to do more backups. Around 8:30pm, I called Dean back to tell him I was nearly done with backups and by 9pm, we were trying to put the new HD in.

You’d think with RAID-5 and a mirror this would be an easy replace & restore operation. No, dammit. The C volume had errors – so we broke its mirror. But the RAID-5 volume did not have errors. And it didn’t like us swapping out the harddrive. So our final action was to start backing up the student files (these are all being backed up to my own computer’s harddrive) and we’re going to try and use the Fileserver as is (with the broken mirror) until the weekend. Maybe this weekend we can FINALLY get the new Fileserver up and running. (One of our summer tasks that we were unable to finish.)

I hope that my amazon.co order arrives tomorrow. Cuz if it does, I’m going straight home and watching Ghost Light. Twice. Maybe three times. Bleh!

Sorry about the bog-standard pun for my topic title. I went off to Famous Hair today (they were having a sale – only $7.99 per cut) to finally get my hair cut. I prefer short hair – easier to take care of in the morning. I wash it, brush it, and fuggedaboutit. My kind of low-maintenance hair.

I wondered what other folks thought about hair lengths. And decided to make a poll. As it looks rather long (even though it isn’t too long) I’ve put it behind an LJ cut. I was quite pleased with the number of responses to the family reunion survey (which you can still vote on or see the results here). Good to know I’m not the only one out there who likes to vote in surveys. I put the last choice in there for folks who wanted to clarify their votes, should they so desire to do so.

Wow – I’ve now seen three recently released movies within the past month. Maybe even four, if Princess Diaries 2 counts as well (has that been within the month?) Of course, two of these three/four are only recent for the US: Hero and now Shaun of the Dead. Heck, Shaun‘s already on DVD in the UK. (I think I may have to get that DVD when it arrives in R1.)

So yeah, as you might have guessed from the topic and first paragraph, I went to see Shaun of the Dead today. It wasn’t playing locally, so I took that as my excuse to go south of Dayton for some Indian Fud. For a change of scenery, I went down 741 through Moraine to get to the Dayton Mall area. (Usually I just take I-75 all the way to 725 and then hop on 741. But since few on my flist know what I’m talking about, I’ll just shut up now.) I started by going for lunch at India Palace. They have a lunch buffet, so I ate too much and then had rice pudding.

I lumbered back to my car and drove to CompUSA to look around and then to Best Buy (both very near to the theater). I bought a replacement MP3 CD player for my car (the good one died and its first replacement was crap). Got one that was pre-opened so I saved $3 and it was easy to open in the car. Once I had it in place, I could start listening to the latest Doctor Who audio, Faith Stealer, which is so far proving to be entertaining. Once I was done shopping, it was nearly time for the movie.

$6.25 later, I had me a ticket and was sitting in the theater waiting for the credits to end. (Wow, short movie! Heh…) They did the usual slide show of ads, which I missed because I was reading instead. Then some commercials (blech!) and some previews and a funny “what not to do at the theater” short which had Charlie Sheen and some others. And finally the movie. Yay! I’m not much into horror flicks, but I liked Spaced and love British humor, so I figured I’d enjoy the movie. And I did. Dylan Moran as someone other than Bernard Black was fun to see. (And in a sideways “ooooh!” moment, my DVDs of Black Books season 2 ought to arrive this week.) Simon Pegg was great as Shaun and the love interest was good as well. Some true laugh out loud moments, but often I found myself giggling when others in the theater were not. Ah well! (I was just impressed there were folks other than me there.)

After the movie, I headed back up 741 to I-75 and into Troy. I got some Science Diet for Leo (have to buy that at the pet store – why does my cat only like food that must be bought at the pet store?) and then went to Walmart for some items on my list. Which I left at home. Thankfully, I remembered everything that I needed and got a couple of other things that will come in handy. And while I was there, I decided to go for a hot fudge cake at Frisch’s for dessert (with supper to come later in the form of a bowl of cereal). However, I discovered at Frisch’s that they still had Cream of Broccoli soup. I was a good girl and ordered only a single bowl of soup. And then ordered my hot fudge cake (no cherry). I shall refrain from having a bowl of cereal now. 🙂

‘Twas a good day to be a treen, sayeth the treen.

And in honor of yates‘s birthday, I have my birthday icon on. Happy Birthday yatesy!

EDIT: Since judiang and elsaf didn’t seem to catch the gist of my “review”, I’ll say that yes, I liked the movie… (I suck at reviews, as you can see.) And I still don’t know what ETA means other than Estimated Time of Arrival. Any one know what it means?

I tend not to post politically. I’m not terribly good at articulating my thoughts on the matter. Basically, I distrust most politicians (“No Matter Who You Vote For, the Government Always Gets In”) and think schools should be better funded. I’m pro-choice, pro-LGBT, pro-goodness & niceness, anti-war and anti-mass-murdering-f*ckheads. And in this post, I’m going to put a link out that I think anyone who’s pro-Kerry or anti-Bush should check out. (And if you’re pro-Bush, maybe it’s best to just skip it.) It was written by elsaf and is funny and brilliant. Be sure to share it with your friends if you so desire.

The First Slacker’s Song, sung to the tune of “The First Lord’s Song” from HMS Pinafore, by Gilbert & Sullivan.

Very funny, Elsa! Way to go!

I’m Trina Short and I approve this filk.

I haven’t had a post with LeoPix in awhile, so I thought I’d do one tonight. I actually took these photos last night only to realize that I didn’t have my download cable here (it was with my laptop at school).

I’m not a big one for decorating at Halloween, but I recently bought a Halloween tablecloth for the dining room table. And as soon as I had it out, Leo had to make sure it suited him.

It did.

I love my cat. (Does it show?) 🙂

I started watching Star Wars last night and finished it this evening. By Star Wars, I mean the original feature. I don’t care what the “new title” is – it’ll always be Star Wars to me. (Man, do I sound like an old fogey or what?)

Anyhoo, the picture was fabulous and the sound rocked my chair. Damn – never was I so glad to have my surround sound on. What I *really* need to do is borrow the new LCD projector I just got at school and watch The Empire Strikes Back with it. Mmmmmm – sounds good to me!

Anyhoo, I noticed a glitch in my DVD. Thankfully, it only takes place in one section. When Leia is being interrogated by Grand Moff Tarkin, it jumps in a couple of places. As a matter of fact, it jumps almost as much as Leia’s accent does. “She’s English. No, she’s American! No, she’s English!” etc. So I think the girl broke my DVD in that place.

If any of the other discs have glitches, I’ll take the set back. As it is, that one particular glitch just seems rather funny to me. 🙂 (Yes, I find the strangest things funny. Makes for a more fun life, if you ask me.)