I can't think of any other year when *everyone* wanted to say "good riddance" to the outgoing year. In the past, maybe somebody who lost a job or a marriage or a family member would say "this year sucks," and their friends would nod sympathetically while secretly giving thanks for their promotions and pay raises and kids' college scholarships. But ( Read more... )

1. I am still rocking the two-monitor setup on my desk. The fact that it's an older monitor, with an aspect ratio slightly less "widescreen," actually helps with displaying documents. And when I want to bring the laptop into the living room, it's easy enough to unplug the second monitor. More cheap tech goodness: a few days ago, I scored a free 500 ( Read more... )

The past couple of days have seen me take steps toward greater productivity.

I have been wondering whether a second computer monitor would help me when I'm doing a Zoom interview or simply writing up my articles. I wanted to get one secondhand, but the cheapest place I know to get one, the Terrapin Trader surplus-goods shop at the University of ( Read more... )

So, Y2K. I am living proof that planes did NOT fall out of the sky at the moment of the "Y2K crisis ( Read more... )

Very busy. I finished the feature article in the wee hours between Monday and Tuesday, then went to sleep until noon or something. I did nothing productive except go to Teleri's monthly gathering and play around with air-dry (non-food-safe) clay ( Read more... )

1. Lately, my LJ layout seems to be completely broken on the Chrome browser, but it looks normal on Firefox. Has anyone else (or, anyone else who still does LJ/DW, that is) experienced this problem?

2. After a year and a half, I finally updated my "Lady Patricia of Trakai" blog. Check it out3. Today I spent some time working on my class for next ( Read more... )

Incidentally, I'm using the boy toy's old (Windows 7) computer for now. A few weeks ago the fan on my 4-year-old laptop started getting unusually loud. It gradually subsided to normal volume, but by Monday of this week the fan started cycling fast and slow, like a car's engine going vroom-vroom-vroom when somebody keeps tapping on the accelerator. ( Read more... )

This past weekend was "Dumpster Weekend" in my condo complex. Three or four times a year the condo association puts out a big Dumpster for us to use, over and above the usual trash bins. Since my dishwasher hasn't worked for a few years and is just taking up space, the boy toy got the notion that we should take it out to the Dumpster ( Read more... )

Wow, barely one post here per week? C'mon, Patty, you CAN do better than that ( Read more... )

Happy 98th Birthday! Oh, wait ... you didn't get to be anywhere near that old. If you could come back to Earth today the way you were when you died, you'd be just nine years older than I am. I have some friends older than that, or in your approximate age group, at least. You might like them ( Read more... )