I am testing on an iPad. This is super duper fun. I like this a lot more than I thought I would. This pleases me greatly. I really didn’t think I would be excited about an iPad. No really! I just thought it would be fun to play with. But the more time I spend with it the harder it will be to let go.

When I first saw the iPad presentation my first thought was “OMG WordCamp” and every other place I have been that was an all day thing, or even just enough of the day that it took longer than my laptop battery. I am really excited about this, I can see where this is something that could really make a huge difference in computing. I don’t want to be all hyperbolic about it, but really. This is such a big deal. I just don’t know how I can wait for my own. Argh!!

And yes, I typed this entire thing on an iPad. It was a pretty nice experience actually. I am trying SO hard right now not to be excited and everything but I am having a very hard time with that. I have itty bitty girl hands, I know, but this is still really fun. I like this a lot. Seriously I ADORE technology and I see a lot of it and even still this is exciting to me. I have to keep reminding myself there is a whole computer in here. It really is amazing.

I am going to save this as a local, then as a draft. Here is my ‘save as draft’ change. Woo!

Hey kids! Didja miss me? I know, I’m working on it. But because I know PRECISELY enough about WordPress backend mucking about to get it really wrong, but then stop before I make it much much worse, I’m slowly restoring. So instead of the little digging guy or something about pardoning my dust, I’ll just say if you are a WP backend ninja, catch me on the Twitters, will you? Or better yet, if you’re local, catch me at Beer and Blog tomorrow and see if you can hook a girl up. Thanks.

I have a friend who has a daughter. I adore them both. We were discussing books we’d read recently and I mentioned that I hadn’t spent a lot of time reading for fun lately, it’s all been the MySQL book I’m working through and researching this or that and what it comes down to is not a lot of “fun” reading. I like to read, and I have been known to devour books from time to time (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire took one day), and I like to read all kinds of stuff. So my friend’s daughter K said she had a great book for me to read. (It should surprise precisely no one that K and I have quite a bit in common. She is seven.) She brings me Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville. Then her mom says they read it every night before bed and even she was excited to see what happened next. It got rave reviews from the whole house so after I promised to take very good care of this book, K let me borrow it.

It was great! I remembered a lot of being a sixth grader while I was reading (my sixth grade year had, sadly, 100% less dragons than this book did though) and only a couple of times did I think “Wow, how’s that going to turn out?” and every time I thought that, whatever it was got neatly tied up at before the end.

I read the note from the author at the end, and he said he wanted to write a series of books about the magic shop he wished he had stumbled across when he was a kid. So far this is the only one of this series I’ve read, and I can easily see a book about at least two other characters in this book alone. Sadly, it was reported to me the other Magic Shop books aren’t as interesting, but since it didn’t take me very long to read this one, I think I’ll try my hand at one or two more and see how they are.

Now I have to return this book to K. I see why she was nervous about loaning it out, she was probably worried she wouldn’t get it back! So thank you very much K, and thank you to your mom for convincing me this was a book I would enjoy. I should have guessed you would be totally correct. (:

I watch Lost and this season as one of the Delta Park Project’s research interns I figured it would be helpful to liveblog my thoughts. First of all, the episode description from Lostpedia: Jack’s decision to put a plan in action in order to set things right on the island is met with some strong resistance by those close to him, and Locke assigns Ben a difficult task.

So here goes! I scribble these as I watch so I claim no coherency. It wouldn’t even make sense to anyone who doesn’t watch the show already and yeah, if you haven’t seen this episode, Thar Be Spoilers Ahead. Yarr.
Read more…

I watch Lost and this season as one of the Delta Park Project’s research interns I figured it would be helpful to liveblog my thoughts. First of all, the episode description from Lostpedia DESCRIPTION

So here goes! I scribble these as I watch so I claim no coherency. It wouldn’t even make sense to anyone who doesn’t watch the show already and yeah, if you haven’t seen this episode, Thar Be Spoilers Ahead. Yarr.
Read more…

I watch Lost and this season as one of the Delta Park Project’s research interns I figured it would be helpful to liveblog my thoughts. First of all, the episode description from Lostpedia: Ben, Locke, and Sun travel to the Temple so that Ben may be judged by the monster. In flashbacks, the origins of Ben and Widmore’s troubled relationship is revealed. It was originally broadcast on April 8, 2009.

So here goes! I scribble these as I watch so I claim no coherency. It wouldn’t even make sense to anyone who doesn’t watch the show already and yeah, if you haven’t seen this episode, Thar Be Spoilers Ahead. Yarr.
Read more…

This post is leaving in a minute anyway I just need it to claim my blog on Technorati.

Technorati Profile

I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, but I’m not vegan. I’m not a vegetarian either. And this is because I adore a good steak, but also, Bacon. SERIOUSLY.

And since I not only know the guys behind Bacn.com but as it happens I named their launch party, I feel it only fair to up my greasy salty devotion a notch or two.

From their site: Write a short blog post about this contest linking to bacn.com and leave a link to your site in our comments (so we don’t miss it).

And since I love bacon and this is the good stuff, I’m going to write haiku:

Delicious Bacon
Middle finger to “health food”
I will have seconds.
–
Bacon is the key
Unlocks inner meat eater
Please pass steak tartare.
–
Met a child who said:
I wanted to be veggie,
But Bacon…Smart girl!
–

So there’s three haiku in the name of Bacon. Enjoy.

Real quick-

Something is going on with the individual entry pages, so if you are reading me via RSS then hooray, and if not you might want to for the next little while until I can determine my layout issue. I’m going to work on it but not tonight. Please be patient and I’ll have it sorted soon I promise. (:

Friday had two notable lovely moments. Here they are. (I did have two separate posts but it didn’t make sense to have two about one thing, so now they are together. Enjoy.)
–
On Twitter, Liz Grover asked if anyone downtown could give her a ride to Beer and Blog. I told her I could, about 3ish if that worked, and she said that would be awesome. We finalized details and I met her and we drove off to the Green Dragon. We had a nice conversation on the way there and when we go there she reached in her pocket and handed me a small Buddha which I think is carved from stone. It is maybe the size of my thumb and she just handed it to me and said she really appreciated the ride. I was touched. I wondered for a moment about a world where things like this happen more and what a nice place that would be at any time of year. Even now on Monday I still can’t get over it. Out of nowhere! It was wonderful to get a token of appreciation like that, and it now has a permanent home in a particular pocket of my purse with my TARDIS key. Somehow to me that seems oddly appropriate.
–
Ever spend time with a little kid? I’m talking about 5 to about 9 years old, they know what they are telling you and aren’t beat down by society yet.

Well I know one such small person. She’s almost 7 and her mom and I are good friends. Friday night I was at Beer And Blog as I do, and as it happened, ma and pa were going to come and bring her with them.

She was very excited to see me, and I was happy too, because she’s always entertaining. So we sat down at a table in a restaurant full of people and got to talking as she was drawing a beautiful beach scene on the table (it’s cool, the tables are all chalkboard painted and artwork is encouraged). She said she was glad to get to show up and I asked if it was because she got to see a bunch of people she knew or if it was french fries (the ones at the Green Dragon are REALLY good). She pointed at me. I asked her if she meant everybody and she shook her head and pointed at me again. Just to be sure I asked her if she was SURE it wasn’t the fries, because I’ve had them and they are really really good, and she shook her head a third time and held out her hand, little finger up, in the customary Pinky Swear Position. So we pinky swore that she was happy to see me and me alone, everybody else was bonus. Then we colored some more on the table.
–
That was a great way to kick off the weekend. And I didn’t even tell you about Strange Love Live! There is a TON of positive energy around, you just gotta know where to look.

Well I know I went to the upgrade party last night to help people, and I actually DID help people. I helped some play Rock Band with a full band, and I helped some upgrade blogs and answer questions about upgrading and themes and such. It was a really good time but I didn’t get a chance to upgrade mine until right now. And it’s done! My favorite thing so far is that the dashboard has a spot for a quick little post and I am writing this from there! I have many things to say about the dashboard and such, but those are for another post. Every time there’s a “big” jump in updates I am more convinced that jumping to WP was the right decision. If you need or want help then PLEASE ask in the comments.

I’m not dead, and I’m (mostly) not neglecting this blog. I swear! I have been MONUMENTALLY busy lately, and currently I’m on vacation (till Monday, visiting Liplash and Rargirl in California) so I haven’t had a ton of time (or any time, really) to get my blog updated. I do spend time on Twitter and you can usually find me there if you’re looking.

Speaking of Twitter, it turns out local (KGW) news anchor Stephanie Stricklen is on Twitter too, and her and I have chatted a few times. She asked us for explanations of Twitter she could use on The Square (her news show at 7) and one of the explanations she put up was mine. Mine! I know! See for yourself! I guess she made it to the most recent Beer and Blog (yesterday) and after all the times we’ve just missed her and such she actually made it! And of course now I’m in another state. Anyway. She said she wants to talk knitting too so I’m sure we’ll hang when I get back. And now you have an update from a borrowed computer on borowed time (since it was naptime till a minute ago, and now the bulk of us are awake).

One last thing, I went and got my cyborg name and listed it below:

Get Your Cyborg Name

I am liveblogging each episode of Doctor Who as I watch it. I am publishing a raw stream of consciousness list of things I am considering and wondering about as I watch. In the interest of not spoiling anything for anyone I am putting all of it behind the jump.

This episode is the twelfth episode of Season Four (or Thirty depending who you ask), called The Stolen Earth. From the site: Earth’s greatest heroes assemble, to fight the New Dalek Empire. But a fearsome old enemy waits in the shadows…
Read more…

I like Japanese nonsense, and this is one of my favorites. All Kasugai snacks say something on them that ends with “And You”. Now on to the actual post:

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve rejiggered the sidebar over there. I did it to add two cool things to my sidebar: One is the Google gadget I titled “get your vote on” that gives you voter registration information no matter where you are (just feed it your city and state), and one is the bit underneath it titled “call your congressman” where you enter your zip code* and it tells you who your Congressional representatives are so you can get ahold of them and give them the what-for. It’s what they’re for, so don’t be shy!

If you want even MORE information about Congressional goings-on you can sign up for the newsletter offered by Congress.org called MegaVote and this one I like because it’s low traffic (once a week or so) and packed full of info. You tell it where you are and when bills are voted on it tells you how your representatives voted. I like this because I have every one of my reps in my phone and I call them and tell them how I feel about this or that, and then I check that against how MegaVote says they actually voted and then I follow up and either thank them for voting how I wanted or tell them I’m disappointed they didn’t vote how I wanted. For me that’s the good bit, the followup. It lets them know someone is paying attention, whether you agreed with them or not. I am not as good at this as I want to be, but I do a lot more of it than most people do (according to my informal statistics).

So check it out! Get involved! We need you more than ever. If you aren’t sure about some of the voting basics (hey, it happens, I’m sure there are a LOT of Americans whose only voting experience is calling in to American Idol) you can check out the FAQ at Declare Yourself. If you already know and you’re political to begin with you might want to take that act on the road. The Great Schlep is trying to get everyone to visit their retired Jewish grandparents in Florida so they know the issues and know how important the whole voting thing is for you. If the facts don’t seem so factual and you want to see if what one guy said about the other guy was true, your best bet is probably FactCheck dot org since they are nonprofit and nonpartisan (no really they are, not like the airquote fair and balanced of some news organizations), so they gain nothing by being honest. They come down on the side of facts, not the side of corporations or moral outrage or whatever else.

If I am missing a political resource that you find particularly handy, add it in the comments. I don’t want to leave anyone out!

*I want to make the results on call your congressman appear in a box below it like the Google gadget does. If you have any insight into this process and can help me make it work I will buy you a beer at the next Beer and Blog or a bacony treat of your choice.

…so I have to get this out of my head. Ever since I heard it I can NOT get it to frakking leave (I know that looks wrong but I checked) so I gotta post this and get it out of my brain.

In the season premiere for Battlestar Galactica (and it’s been like a month so this is not a spoiler) there’s a ship that gets blown up in the big battle at the start of the episode. Right out of the gate, wham! Roslin is on the bridge and when the sitrep comes in for the Pyxis the President (Roslin) looks physically affected, she holds on to something almost for support, and she says (something like), “My Gods, there were 600 souls on that ship…”

It continues to echo in my head, every time I hear about Iraq and how the number of casualties continues to increase. Because nobody says souls or people or young people or kids or any of that. I used to hear Americans a lot too, but even that not so much anymore. It’s usually “casualties” or “soldiers”. That’s crap. Here are some better words to use when reporting this:

souls
spouses
children
parents
friends
brave _____
volunteers

I’ve been known to toss up a political post or two in my time (ahem), but I’ve given up on most of it quite honestly because I got frustrated and I got worn down. I can blog about injustice till the cows come home, but let’s be honest here, I have a LIVEJOURNAL for gord’s sake and really I’m just not going to get the kind of attention others get who do this all the time and are all professional about it. But I can’t tell you how hard it has been the last couple of weeks to keep hearing Mary McDonnell in my head. I knew nobody else was hearing it but me, and we all know how THAT story ends…

So I am at the Green Dragon right now, anxiously awaiting the official start of the Beer and Blog session on design and how to make blog posts look pretty even if you aren’t a designy type person. So that should be fun.

It’s been so long since I have been here posting instead of on Twitter I barely know what to do with mroe than 140 characters! Weird.

But I’m hoping to see a bunch of Twitter folks and such, and I’m helping by adding my two bits about starting a blog and such for someone who wants to get going. Plus it’s only been officially started for six entire minutes and there are already three girls here! Honestly that’s very surprising. So when it’s over I’ll tell you more!

(:

• 22:19 Blog Update: Tweets for Today: 22:50 I don’t remember who said it but someone said @garyvee is .. tinyurl.com/4uqna3 #
• 22:30 Finished a hat I was making for my mominlaw’s office (Kaiser chemo ofc). Designed it myself and it’s neat if I may say so. #
• 22:33 @SamLawrence got any more of those E. Octopus stickers left? I’d like one if you do. #
• 22:40 saw a couple of adverts for shows I should really be TiVoing. In my head i thought “I really need to follow that show.” Twitter addict? #
• 22:45 @drnormal DOH! I did I would swear I totally mentioned it. I guess I meant to. I got it and THANK YOU!!!! #
• 22:45 @drnormal now to get the other thing back to you…. #
• 23:16 Sleepy. Off to bed FINALLY after hopefully convincing @PDXScott to update twitter and to model my newest creation. hopehopehopehope #
• 23:24 Worse than being a spammer is being a faux spammer. “I’m still looking at website.com it’s so neat!” It’s also your username. SHENANIGANS! #
• 23:25 This account is following me and I won’t tell you who (take that)! I vote Spamming Twitterers are called Twats. Who’s with me? #
• 23:35 And thus it came to be @verso declared it & @sarkenobi agreed that spam Twitter accounts shall henceforth be called Twats. In thy mercy. (: #
• 09:41 @chrisgear music group? Dish! #
• 09:43 @Jmartens We’re about to. My todo list today includes getting that up and running. #
• 10:05 @pixelmatrix Do you know why? Caffeine drops w/roasting time increase. A lighter blend will have more caffeine. Remember Black Tiger? mhm. #
• 10:05 I worked in two different coffeeshops which each made me take a class on coffee roasting and beans and stuff. I know WAY more than I should. #
• 10:49 @andrewhyde don’t forget: those behind the Twitter Spam are called twats: twurl.cc/th (: #
• 12:44 @gedeon how many Lego are we talking about and what on earth for? And have you seen these lego pics? twurl.cc/tk Enjoy. #
• 12:52 @mattking At Beaverton Mall when they were still Beaverton Mall, at the T-Mobile end. Empty shop that’s now Claire’s I think. #
• 12:53 @gedeon Darn. I was hoping if you are discussing Lego on that kind of scale you’re up to no good. (: Didja like Lego Stargate? (: #
• 12:56 @mattking I have some awesome lego sets. My next project is building the Millennium Falcon I got for Christmas from @PDXScott #
• 13:06 @gedeon that’s fantastic! I’m such a Lego geek sometimes…cuz I’m not a geek the rest of the time, I suppose. (: #
• 16:21 Off for beverages and then to class. yay for both! #
• 16:59 Drinking the house gin @ the Green Dragon & lawdy is it tasty! #

Tune in tomorrow for more! Or just check me out on Twitter

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• 22:50 I don’t remember who said it but someone said @garyvee is coming to Portland. Who said that and please site your source! #
• 22:54 @tmauch I’m watching now and just heard him mention it. I am in PDX and I want to talk to him if I can get like 15 minutes. I haz idea. #
• 23:04 @tmauch cool! I want to see what happens when we set him loose on all the beer in Portland. Which one will win? Him or the beer? (: #
• 23:05 @tmauch You say that now! (: I’ll be telling everybody soon enough and you’ll be bored with it. (; #
• 23:06 My First Twitter: playing with my Tamagotchi #
• 23:07 My 3rd Tweet: Wondering if Twitter is using a Performa 630 as their only web service since nothing happens on my first click on ANYthing. #
• 23:12 alas poor twitter. I knew it Horatio-a site of infinite tweets, of most excellent fancy. It hath borne my text on its back a thousand times. #
• 23:12 (I said that on 3/19/07. It’s like I could see the future!) #
• 23:21 @brampitoyo that wasn’t a prediction it was wishing. I’ve been saying it too! twitter.com/verso/statuses/782967497 #
• 01:27 Blog Update: Tweets for Today: 22:32 Blog Update: Tweets for Today: 22:24 Blog Update: Tweets f.. tinyurl.com/4kyyeo #
• 08:12 @spinnerin link for you: twurl.cc/sg it’s about making cheese and yogurt w/nice links. I almost want to try! #
• 08:35 PRO TIP: Don’t send a crabby message about how support never answers you if your mailbox is full. It’s not like we didn’t try you git! #
• 10:48 @PAgent but now I kind of want to try one…. #
• 10:49 @marshallk have a happy one! #
• 11:02 @mtrichardson That video should inspire someone to build WydenIsYourNewBicycle.com or something (: #
• 11:30 @Agent_M I demand a full review. AFTER the movie of course. I want to see it muchly. (: #
• 12:51 @pinatubo2000 the real question is this: Did you have pizza for breakfast? If not I declare you an amateur. (: #
• 12:59 @Agent_M I didn’t realize it was a SUPAR SEEKRIT screening. I just want to know if it’s funny or filthy or awesome or all three or what. (: #
• 13:06 @zappos my clock says 12:58: The reason mankind will never reach its full potential is, in a word, meetings. #
• 13:18 Lunch. even less motivated for it today than I was yesterday. What to have, what to have… #
• 16:00 @turoczy I submit option 3: Friends & Family in terms of who is your beta testing group. (: #
• 16:00 @Alsymer Have you considered the Creative Users Group meetings at MacForce? There’s training at such at those sometimes. And: Free! #

Tune in tomorrow for more! Or just check me out on Twitter

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• 22:32 Blog Update: Tweets for Today: 22:24 Blog Update: Tweets for Today: 22:29 Blog Update: Tweets f.. tinyurl.com/3hm2lv #
• 08:04 I’m currently considering whether or not to extend “But First, THE WHORES!” through Tuesday as well. #
• 08:09 @bryanstearns I think it is gonna be BFtW Tuesday as well. Who’s with me? #
• 08:27 Preview of today’s tweets: blah blah I’m speaking tonight re: Font Management in OSX at MacForce, details: twurl.cc/rs blah blah (: #
• 09:14 @mattking Of course I’ll tell you. But first, THE WHORES! twurl.cc/re (: #
• 09:15 @gedeon when I went to see what made you throw up that page has a giant ad on it, “Why you should kill your television” It’s him! (: #
• 09:16 @LenDevanna what other brand/blog monitors have you found? #
• 09:20 Say it ain’t so! Marvel’s plan for Iron Man Trailer: twurl.cc/ru (thx @Agent_M) #
• 10:00 @mattking They are coming to town y’know. I have tickets and I can NOT wait! #
• 10:02 @adamd Thursday is planning ahead for Beer & Blog-I mean, BeeRSS (: #
• 10:12 @thisKat I think there’s a place in Lloyd Center that can help you, it’s on the end near the Hair Salon I think. Outfits, maybe shoes too. #
• 10:34 @mikemorgan I see your tag and raise you the antidote: freerangekids.wordpress.com/ HOORAY FOR HER! #
• 10:53 @ahockley if it isn’t WP I use a draft in Gmail. Sometimes MarsEdit. #
• 11:19 @MarketingProfs what sort of issues are you having with it? I ran up against this recently myself. #
• 11:34 @MarketingProfs Yeah I had that, let me see if I can find my fix. #
• 11:38 @MarketingProfs take what they give you and ignore everything not between <embed> and </embed> & see if that works. make sense? #
• 11:41 @MarketingProfs I mean, I have an answer for you, BFtW! twurl.cc/re (: #
• 11:46 @GreenSmith It’s the Twitter equivalent of an email forward. Someone said it and I’m passing it on. #
• 12:06 @MarketingProfs you’re welcome. When I ditched everything except for the embed tags it worked in mine. Sorry I’m not more help! #
• 13:13 ok I should probably eat some lunch. It’s just that getting up and actually walking around is hard today. </whine> #
• 13:16 @JoannaK @geekygirldawn let me know what you think of the Sams book. If it is worthy I will pick it up too, PHP sounds interesting. #
• 13:19 @spinnerin Target is good and the closest Michaels/Joanns usually has them too #
• 13:23 Horry crap! If Apple did this and said so do you know how mad we’d be? tinyurl.com/6m8bvz GAH! #
• 14:29 @steffiwalk why is this Joico stuff neat? #
• 14:34 @goteamlowe k. but why is it amazing? I feel like I missed something. But then my “wow” for hair stuff bar is set pretty high. (: #
• 14:44 @steffiwalk ah ha! Well I don’t need to reconstruct it, I have way too much now! Can you make what I do have just behave better? (: #
• 14:45 @rynosoft I dunno about code but it’s a damned fine album, that’s fo sho! #
• 15:28 @davidcosand You better tell us how to vote for your film! (: #
• 16:26 Installing SUPAR SEEKRIT SOFTWARES! want a peek? Come see my talk at MacForce at 6 tonight. DM me for details. #
• 16:39 @ahockley I think it’s awesome that @ravenzachary has a five year old who knows anything at all about China let alone a greeting in chinese! #
• 16:41 and now I’m headed out to get something to eat and then off to MacForce for my talk! Will you be there? Why the heck not!? #

Tune in tomorrow for more! Or just check me out on Twitter

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