Coming home from school, I had a huge scare: my TiVo's hard drive started making loud, whirry sounds. Eek! I'm not sure I could survive without my beloved TiVo, and I'm not about to go with Comcast's generic DVR (I hate my apartment complex for forcing us to switch from Charter to Comcast next month.) Fortunately, the noise is gone, but I'm ( Read more... )

Just talked to my parents, who are flying in tomorrow. ( A wee bit of parent-visit-angst. )

Our Novell network here sucks in many profound, as-yet-unexplored ways. Among them: the way it keeps insisting I have "too many simultaneous logins", even though I'm only logged into ONE computer. Is one login too many? Are they trying to tell me something about my future here? Or are they just idiots who don't know how to manage the network ( Read more... )

Hey, non-American friends -- I have a favor to ask! Tomorrow, my students are starting a unit in which they'll compare and contrast the United States with another country. To get things started, I'd love to have some examples, but from a non-US perspective. So, would any of you please answer the following questions ( Read more... )

Last night, I finished knitting what is, quite possibly, the most beautiful scarf ever! ( See the pretty! )

Today, my 8th graders are reading a vaguely Halloweenish article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It starts off as a spooky story, then it shifts into a straightforward news article about the local legend of "The Wog" -- how some legends die out while others continue to spread, even in the suburban age ( Read more... )

1. Last night I downloaded the new version of Firefox. ( Blather about customization. )

Once again, I'm amused that the Hyundai dealership (where I'm having them do some warranty work) has free wifi. I just finished watching this week's episode of 30 Rock. It's not magnificent, but it's pretty darn good, and I laughed aloud several times. How many sitcoms actually make you laugh these days? Well, okay, there's The Office and ( Read more... )

While on 8th grade hall-monitoring duty this morning, I saw a goofy kid wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Well. Deciding to have a bit of fun, I asked him if he even knew who Che is... and the kid was able to give me a surprisingly comprehensive (if partially incorrect) mini-biography which was especially impressive for being off-the-cuff in the ( Read more... )

I originally posted parts of this at lunchtime, but then I decided to delete and repost now that I'm in a slightly less ranty mood.

1. ( Why QuikTrip sucks in the mornings. )