We got a LOT of white stuff as you who follow the weather may have noticed. However, it is NOT snow as is commonly believed. This is slushie mix. Thick, heavy, WET slushy mix. All it needs is flavorings and we could open a franchise. :P

I just got the front dug out, and I'm about to make dinner. I'm going to try to get some writing done before work, but given my asthma decided to hire linebackers to kick my ass, I'm not sure if I will. I might fall asleep after I eat for a while.

In any event, the roof is still not fixed, and while I think it'll be okay, that paranoia is lurking in the background. It might have been done by now, but I talked to my dad and he was going to contact the fella that did HIS roof, who would deal with the insurance and all that crap for me as part of the deal. However... Dad forgot and went hunting. He's now in a cabin up north and there's no way to contact him. Feh.

Beyond that, I'll get groceries after work in the morning, and I've only three days til I'm on vacation!

Gigan is back up and running with a new motherboard. Cost me a bit more that I'd wanted, but I got the software installs free at least. Woo! Below is the current incarnation.

Case: Antec NSK 4400 case

Power Supply: OCZ Technology StealthXStream 700 Watt

Motherboard: Asus M3N78-VM

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 64 Dual Core 3.01 ghz

Graphics: PNY Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 w/896 MB GDDR3

Memory: 2 gigabytes Buffalo DDR2

Hard Drive: Seagate 160 gigabyte Serial ATA/300 7200 RPM with 8 megabyte cache

CD/DVD: Generic CD-RW/DVD-RW drive

Monitor: Acer 17" AL 1716B LCD

Keyboard: Logitech EX-100 cordless

Mouse: Logitech Marble Trackball

Speakers: Logitech- Can't recall the specific model.

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Pro 32

Not a lot has been going on since I last posted, really. Life has gone on and things are pretty much as they usually are. I'm still blasting through books, and I'll be getting a few more tomorrow. However, something ELSE happens tomorrow too- the cats go for their yearly vet-visit. Its a bit early, but I've a reason- they've both been sneezing! Spaz more than Lady. Today I got another reason too- Lady pissed on the rug again by the TV stand. I replaced the litter in the box, but It might have some kind of territorial-thing with Spaz going on that's triggering her to to it. Regardless, to the vet they go. This'll prolly nuke the plan to get the Ipod, but I've got the laptop at work again, so its not that big a deal.

Its going to be about $200 between the two of them for the visit. Ouch. So I am DEFINITELY looking into pet insurance for them- that'll make for 'free' annual visits and shots, and the monthly cost will be easier to handle than the $200 once-a-year charge. In addition it'll help with emergency stuff, may I never need to use that!

In other things, I took a couple of days off as sanity-days this weekend. Four days away from work, woot! I plan to do very little, though it has been insinuated that we're gaming on Sunday, playing in a 'Dungeon Hack' in AD&D 2nd Edition. Yes, I said SECOND. The GM doesn't like 3rd or 3.5 for whatever reason.

Oh! Right, I nearly forgot. The (hideous, pain-in-the-ass) bifold door that leads into the basement broke this week. So I went out with mirrdae to Home Depot and got a new one. It needs to be finished, and I got a can of 'one step' varnish and stain to get that accomplished. I'll either do it myself or pay my brother $20 to do it- I HATE working with stain. I'm just bad at it, regardless how simple it actually is. This one lacks the dust-and-grease-collecting louvers that the old one had, and generally just looks better. I may get a second one to replace the door to the stairwell pantry too, and it'd look better and the hinges on the current door there are flat-out shot. Rather, the screws are pulled loose and hard to repair, and the bifold would be a MUCH easier solution than screwing around with the old door.

Lastly, the chance that we'll be getting new carpet seems stronger- the folks want to 'talk' about it, which is code for 'we need to figure out cost and color'. Woot! I think I'll repaint the front room before it goes in though- it needs it. Besides, with khirsahdrgn having moved the WII downstairs the room badly needs to be rearranged. All in all it ought to look pretty nice when its done.

Currently I'm thinking a nice light green or something for my room and the family room, and a 'neutral' tan or light blue or such for the front and hall- something that ISN'T the hideous off-orangish-brown that I currently have. As to the paint color up front, I've no idea. I'll talk to the folks (and friends) for ideas- If you have suggestions, keep it simple- I don't want real dark colors or fancy textural work. :)

... Is odd. s it turns out the mother board and everything I suspected could have been the problem were fine. It was the power supply. Which is weird as it had the same symptoms before the upgrades- maybe the old one was ALSO dying. But this will teach me for getting a refurbished power supply. The NEW one will be a 750 Antec. I'll also pick up a new cable for the stupid wireless so I stop knocking it over, and I might pick up a new set of cheap-ass $20 speakers- the power button on the ones I've got is dying. All in all I was expecting up to $300 for the repairs- its gonna be about $150 counting the cable and the speakers. Whee for not having to pay as much!

Nothing bad, fortunately. I now have a new battery for it (charging as I type!) and I picked up Iwork '09 for it too, to replace the getting-flaky copy of Appleworks that I currently use for word processing and such. I'll install that later. That leaves a) upgrading the memory-expansion from the 512mb that's in there now to a 1-gig (for a total of 1.256-gigs), b) replacing sticky-key keyboard that's in it now with a new one, and c) getting the bad connection on the first USB port and the power port fixed. the optional fix is d) a new 120-gig hard drive, but that can wait. :)

Hopefully, I'll get all that done in the next month or two. Oh! I also have to get a new, more recent copy of Photoshop. I've currently got 7.0 for mac, but it (like Appleworks) is old enough that it doesn't play well with the new OS. But given I got it free, no biggie. I've checked- I can get a copy of CS (legal) from Ebay for about $100. So that'll be later.

Other updates- I took the car out to the folks place the other day for some assistance with replacing a headlight; mostly because I've not futzed with anything on this car yet, and I wasn't sure how to go about it. We found that one of the tail-lights was ALSO out, so we ran to the store, got the bulbs and replaced them both. We bottled it up and I was just about to leave... And I noticed that the OTHER, driver-side headlight chose that time to die! Guh. I was tired and so said 'fuck this', and left it for later. I now have the bulb, and I'll get it in tomorrow in all odds.

Other than that, tonight is the last night of the week for me at work. Yay! I work Sunday and Monday morning next week, then I'll be on vacation for 8 days straight! God I need this.

First the house. The street numbers are up as is the new porch light. We've got the old back spotlight on the back porch/stairs to work, it's just a question of how long it'll last. If it blows again, I'm replacing it. The spots above the garage doors may be repairable as well. I'll get the numbers on the back of the house sometime this weekend. There will likely be a bit more painting, to deal with the yellowed parts of the windowframes.

As to the food- I made my experimental recipe tonight, and it seems to have worked. Here's what I did:

You need:

2/3 bag of wide egg noodles
1 package of Knorr Chicken gravy (powder- just add water and heat!)
1 package of three boneless chicken breasts, diced
1 red pepper, cut into halved wedges
1 green pepper, cut into halved wedges
Salt, pepper, Mrs. Dash and red (cayenne) pepper powder

prepare the noodles according to the package while you make everything else- this is a pretty fast recipe! Stir-fry the chicken (spiced to taste- for me it was four swirls of salt from a wide salt shaker, 6 shakes of black pepper, two shakes of red pepper) until done, then toss in the pepper-wedges. Prepare the gravy according to the package. When they're done, drain the noodles. Take everything and combine in a large mixing bowl, toss to mix thoroughly, and serve. :)

That was not fun. I had to replace the toilet seat in the upstairs bathroom, because the hinges on the old one corroded through. However, I ended up having to cut through one of the damned remaining hinge-mounts with a wirecutter (NOT fun), because the corrosion was so bad I couldn't remove the plastic lug that held it in place!

At least I got it done.

Before that nasty little chore, I prepped the caramel rolls and set them to rise. By the time I got done in the bathroom, they were ready to go in the oven, where they are now. All that's left is turning the pans over and dumping them out onto cookie sheets so the caramel goo is on top. From the smell, this is the best batch yet. Also, the biggest. 30 rolls in two baking pans. :)

After they're out of the oven I'll run to the liquor store. Then, I get to go to bed, finally!

My central air is back! Yay! Finally!

The list of what was wrong:

1) Low freon.
2) filters were clogged with gunk.
3) condenser coils were clogged with gunk (wet dust and such).
4) Cooling fan for the compressor unit outside was kaput.

And it was fixed for free. :) Gotta love repair plans via the utility companies. :)

In other things, life goes on. I had some trepidation when I headed into work, cos it really hadn't started to cool things down; however, it had gone from 83 to 76 overnight. :)

As it turns out, the reason that the serpentine belt stripped was the water pump locking up; so, I get to replace it and the belt in a bit. Dad's gonna point out what I have to do. Bleah. I was kinda hoping it'd just be the belt.

Whee. Cars. You can't live without one in the US, really. At least not easily. And thus, I have a car. Dad was fixing a few minor issues for me, so I was driving his for a week. Not bad- leather interior, nice stereo, reliable... Or so I thought.

Tuesday I had a little trouble with it- a bug my car has is a nasty tendency for the positive terminal on the battery to cake up with corrosion to the point that there is no current flow- it happens because the positive terminal has TWO leads going to it rather than one, making more gaps and more surface area. Whatever Fucking genius at GM came up with this, I dunno, but I wanna beat the living hell out of him- cos, rather than just losing battery power and running off the alternator, this little mess kills the car DEAD. No lights, no power, no nothing. Just 5000 or so pounds of steel with no real brakes coasting to a stop.

Well, Dad's car seemed to have the same problem. Same hookup, and wiggling it seemed to get it going. Did errands, got comics, and much later, went to work. That all went fine with no problems.

Wednesday morning arrived, I got into the car to drive home... Nothing. I got out to fix what I thought was the problem, and noticed something I'd seen but kinda ignored- a thick trail of corrosion-goo coming from the positive terminal.

Sinking feeling... I check, and sure enough, the bolt that connects to the battery is badly eaten away, and the stuff is from the battery. But, I managed to get it started. Yay! I'll just get it home, and let dad deal with it...

Nope. about 1/4 mile past Penn avenue on Highway 62 eastbound, it died in the left lane. blah. Commence a 20 minute wait in the cold til a State patrol officer came by and pushed me off the road and got a towtruck for me. I shoulda known better. But, Dad picked up the tow charge, fixed his car and I've got mine back. :)