www.sillyspot.com

See Ya’ Next Year!

Well, I’m off to bed so I guess that means I won’t see any of you until next year. Have a happy new year!

Super-Man Space

So, yes, my new desk does rock. The audio system sounds better sitting on a desk rather than on the floor under makeshift tables. I can navigate 3 computers at the same time - I feel like a king. And I got another monitor for the one, and another server for my one unused monitor, so it’ll feel like I’m running 5 systems. I figure there’s room for maybe 9, so I’m half way to maxing things out (and probably 1/2 way to a divorce if I really try to get there anytime soon). I need to look at chairs (Jenn sneakily intonated that our superior office chair should be hers, so before she catches on that she has earned a good chair, I should try to find a replacement for me so that I’m not left standing).

Gotta Love Holidays

I have spent the last week sleeping and reading, it has been great! I was at hotel Mitchell in Brampton, which now has an indoor pool. No hot tub but the exercise was better for me anyway. I did a little bit of shopping - the City Centre, Sherway… and random other stores. Got a new dress coat and a Sizzix machine. I had a very relaxing time and got caught up on some of the sleep I have missed out on the last four months.

The last four months have been quite confusing. I still can’t remember that I don’t live in Kingston - sounds weird but it’s true. I’ll see an ad for something in Ottawa and think that would be fun to do this weekend - then remember it is six hours away. Oh well. I miss that there isn’t a Michael’s in town but have discovered (my Mom told me about it and I forgot) another art store that looks quite big so hope to go explore it this weekend. Not that I am arty or crafty but it is fun to look at.

As for new year’s, we will be doing our usual HUGE party of pizza, a movie and being asleep by 10.

My brother is here for a few days to visit so that is nice. Our first sleepover guest!

Saw Narnia this afternoon - and I loved it. It’s like Harry Potter, but the things I disliked about Harry, I loved with Narnia. Harry was too dark, too overt in the evil/good extremes, an adult’s movie marketed to kids, too Hollywood (all adrenaline, poor character development, no continuity in plot, etc.) - Narnia is so much superior. Maybe it also has to do with the fact that Harry is an overworked theme, and Narnia is fresh, creative, imaginative, rich in details, true to the root of the book, and full of cuteness that makes you smile (Harry just made me sad and scared).

I built the desk for my man-space (or rather, super-man-space) and it is HOT! I’ll upload some pictures when I get a chance, but it’s really more than what I hoped for. There’s room for expansion, too.

Gotta go to work for the next 3 days. It should be quiet and productive and fun and short and fast. Then next week I’m off for a week’s vacation! Woo hoo!

Oh, I’m almost finished reading the book “A Million Tiny Pieces” (or something like that)… and it’s so raw and real. It really builds an attachment to the main character without having to flower it up with a plot (who really wants a plot anyways??). It’s rampant with swearing, but only to the extent that it really happened - I think it is an autobiography (of sorts). Anyways, really good.

Christmas was good… as Jenn said, I’ll be in my kitchen alot.

And are Boxing Day sales just regular sales with 10x more hype? Best Buy and Future Shop are the worst for the hype.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas! I hope Santa was good to all of you! Doug and I both did very well - we must have been extra good this year or hid things well from his elves. Doug will be spending the rest of his holiday in the kitchen with all of his new toys! I will be smelling wonderful with all the Bath and Body Works stuff I got!!

What Happens When Someone Sees You After A Long Pooh

Two new rings discovered around Uranus
… and if it’s someone from the news, it gets published on CBC!

Interesting

There has been this Santa debate on a few webpages… and one of the pages had lots of feedback about whether Santa was good or bad. Well, they were against Santa yet we ended up with a homemade Santa card from them…. very interesting. I’m getting confused with these mixed messages…..

*sigh*

Is tomorrow really Christmas eve? I can’t believe it! I had a great five week plan and now those five weeks are up and I have no idea where the time went. School was a little chaotic this week - the last hour of today was a little loud with a carol sing in the gym… Yikes. We had a turkey dinner in my room yesterday that was a big hit! We all brought stuff in and the kids peeled the potatoes. We made rice crispie squares for our reading buddies and they made little snow globes for us. Good times. I left my room so that I am at least ready for the first day back. I have brought lots of work home but we’ll see how much I really do. I plan on enjoying many days of relaxation as well as spending some time unpacking the rest of the boxes I hid in the basement.

The news today was so depressing and reminded me how thankful I am for all that I have. There were so many fatal car accidents last night and today. A husband lost his wife and 2 children. Very sad indeed. Losing anyone is hard but I always feel bad for those who lose loved ones at Christmas as it ruins this holiday forever. I also heard that a good friend of mine broke her pelvis this week and is now spending Christmas in the hospital. Hopefully I will get a chance to go and visit her over the holidays.

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

6 days

Hard to believe there are only six more days until Christmas! Yikers! I guess I am ready but am just not mentally ready. I haven’t enjoyed the season at all - just haven’t had time! I will have to wait until March to get my Christmas spirit in this year (I always go to Christmas town in March). So with that in mind, it makes it easier to let Christmas come and go this year. A lot has happened and I look forward to catching up on my sleep this holiday.

Happy Birthday Doug

Happy 29th Birthday - enjoy the first of many 29th birthdays to come!

Beer, Not Kids

Doug says:

Support Rick Mercer’s initiative - sign the Beer Not Kids Petition, and ask the politicians to not bash the beer drinker.

… Some Canadians do in fact choose beer not kids.

Some of the comments are wonderful, like beer. Some are stupid, like politicians.

*please be a snow day please be a snow day please be a snow day*

Make-Believe

There has been some debate on a few webpages about Santa. Although I don’t agree with you, it has made me think - how far are people willing to go? If you take away Santa ‘because he is not real’, what else are you taking away? Do you take away imagination, make-believe, pretend tea parties, etc? Does no one escape to a make-believe world to get away from the real world? Isn’t there going to be enough pain and suffering in ones adult life that they can take time to live in the make-believe world. I love so many Christmas movies because they take me to a world of creativity and imagination. I don’t always want to watch the news and see who is being executed, who is still at war, and how some body lost their life at such a young age. There is so much trauma in the world already that I don’t see the problem with escape some times.

Sometimes Homemade Is Just Bad

A while back, I blogged about the funniest toques I had ever seen. They were scary and hilarious at the same time. Well, someone has developed on the theme but creating a blog entitled, What Not to Crochet. Excellent for a Sunday afternoon chuckle.

Sometimes Silly Can Be A Different Sort of Silly

And now, for Brock, something a little disturbing but thoroughly entertaining:

Paul Robertson’s art is quite impressive. To be able to create this is amazing.

Christmas Atmosphere

Doug and I headed to Niagara for the day! We went to Niagara-on-the-Lake first for a walk (bought some yummy fudge) to get some Christmas spirit. Lots of great decorations! We then drove to Niagara Falls - very pretty with ice all around. For dinner we went to the Rainforest Cafe. It is a place we went to a few times on our honeymoon so we like to go back now that it is in Canada. We hadn’t been in a few years so it was nice to go again. After dinner we strolled through the casino, through a few stores, and then stopped at Starbuck’s to warm up a little. We walked by all of the lights and attempted to drive by some others but the line was TOO long. It was quite pretty though and a perfect day. A little chilly in some parts but Doug lent me his thicker mittens! What a good boy. I gave him the rest of my caramel mocha…

Just a head

This morning, Jenn and I had this really great idea - wouldn’t it be neat if we were just heads. If we didn’t have a body, all of our essential organs could fit in our head. We’d have a small stomach, so our diet may be different, but we wouldn’t need the motor/sensory parts of our brain (and much of the brainstem), so there should be room. People could just set us on the table to socialize. We worried about what would happen were you to sneeze, though. A frightening thought. You might fall off the table and get a concussion.

Late Again..

It seems on snowy days I am always late for work! No, it’s not because the drive is slower… it’s because I lie in bed longer listening to the radio hoping that they will announce that it is a snow day!! And when I say late for work, I mean I’m not there an hour before school starts! Alas, it wasn’t a snow day today.

All I Want for Christmas…

My computers are so sick - one is just a little Pentium with 16 Gb and probably only 128 Mb RAM, running Win2K. Surprisingly, it’s the most stable, but that’s because I do so little on it. This Celeron with 40 Gb drive and only 256 Mb RAM is running Linux, but it sadly needs a reinstall. But when I try to download it, the progress kicks out at a few megs. The new Sun with 36 Gb drive and 1 Gb RAM was running Solaris, but then it decided to not reboot - just got stuck at the command line. Re-install is a long process, and I wanted to try a Linux on it (Debian or Gentoo for SPARC) but alas, the download issue continues to limit. I want to just start all over - put the stuff I care about on a single drive (maybe I just need a 200 Gb USB drive) then reinstall on one, and then just move through all the rest, getting networking running smoothly, until I have 3 new systems functioning as one (ideally a couple of them would be stable). Then any new computers would be toys and I wouldn’t care. I’m too scared to mess with these lest I lose something good.

Thinking about renovating this basement - I’d like to get some walls up, build a desk here, put some carpet in, install a great sound system, get a projector (that works - sigh, the junk one will cost $650 to replace a stupid bulb), hook up the xbox, and then call in sick for 2 weeks. Then it will be spring and I can get the canoe and gardening stuff out and … yeah, my life is always changing and evolving.

Not the most thrilling post of my life, but heck, it’s what’s on my mind. Thanks for caring (or at least being bored enough).

You Know you are Tired When…

You know you are tired and ready for a break when you left half of your year out of your Christmas letter. I thought the letter was a little sparse when I wrote it but it had all of our major events in it. I neglected our summer trips, Doug’s solo camping trips, his first moose sighting, and many other great things. So I apologize that it is lacking this year but it does describe that it has been quite the year.