A Tale of Three Computers

So, you know how I said that it was hard for me to get online lately what with visitors who also have email to check and three children who have suddenly become enamored of computer video games? Well, it all just got a little worse.

We have been having a grand time with my parents here, doing lots of cool touristy things. You can read about it here on my Mom's blog. But I have all these photos I want to share with you and show you about the trip and while they were not lost, my photo organizer and my Photoshop program are both on my computer that went up in smoke the other day.

The computer was new, so its still under warranty and got sent back to the shop as it were. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the hard drive is safe and sound in there since it seemed like a heat issue. (Can overheating destroy my hard drive??)

So! We dragged out the backup computer and booted it up and only a couple hours later did the kids' computer die (a re-installing of Windows problem that can be fixed in time. Maybe a good long time, but definitely fixable). And then this morning, we could hear the backup computer boot but it wouldn't show up on the screen.

That's 3 useless computers if you were counting.

So, we got the backup back up and running. And the kid's will get around to working again someday soon, but my main computer is sick and in the hospital for surgery. Send your prayers, cross your fingers, rub your Buddha bellies.

Since I do NOT have any good pictures from the visit just yet, I will leave you instead with my results from the fun new thing everyone is doing from the website Obamicon.Me! You too can be on an Obama-esque propaganda poster! This last one is what it looks like if you choose a landscape oriented image.

You do have to register and join to be able to get your own, but its a really fun little site to play with!

Separated At Birth

Okay, enough about behavior problems and fish oil.

I found this website you just gotta go check out. It's called Totally Looks Like, and it pairs up people in photos who look alike. Some are dead ringers and some are just funny. I went through every page in their archive laughing at the pics. It's one of those reader-submitted sites so there are lots of posts.

Check these out:

Who Should You Vote For???

While reading a few friends' blogs this morning, I ran across one (Hi, B.C.!! ) that posted a link to this website that asks you questions about your political beliefs, and then tells you which candidate most closely matches your views! Interesting! It even asks you how important each issue is to you on a sliding scale.

On the fence? Give it a try!

Here are my results... Not that it helped, everyone so "neck and neck" and all. I have to say I am leaning toward Obama, though. I know he doesn't have much legislative experience, but I would love to see what a young person, as yet relatively uncorrupted by politics, would do in there.

But I have to say, after listening to lots of debates... Not even the least of the republican candidates scares the bejesus out of me like George W. does!!

Yay for ANY change!!

92% Hillary Clinton
91% Barack Obama
90% John Edwards
88% Chris Dodd
79% Joe Biden
78% Bill Richardson
64% Mike Gravel
63% Dennis Kucinich
57% Rudy Giuliani
44% John McCain
38% Tom Tancredo
34% Mitt Romney
31% Mike Huckabee
21% Fred Thompson
17% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Was die Hölle?

Okay, can someone explain THIS webpage to me?

I was doing a search for webpages that link to my blog, and found this page which looks to me like a german translation of a post I wrote back in August, and posted to a different blog!! Odd...

It seems as though the link back to my original source article, so I guess its okay.

Just weird...

Book Fiend

Well, I was so excited about discovering swaptree.com, that I ran around my house last night looking for books that I no longer needed. I found 3. Entered them in the database, and it seems they are books nobody wants.

Sad... :^(

So, it occurred to me that sometimes there are books available on craigslist or freecycle so I popped over there before bed last night, and there was a posting saying that the library in Poway was giving away THOUSANDS of books!! YES!!

It started at 10am this morning. But did I ever mention to you that I have twin toddlers? And that its not always easy getting out of the house when you want to? I pulled up at the library at 10:20 and there were hordes of people with boxes and boxes of books. Someone LITERALLY had like 15 boxes stacked up outside the room and had hired children to tell people that these books were taken, thank you very much.

Then the horror...

The sign, posted beside the door, and above the line of parked strollers, stated, "NO STROLLERS INSIDE ROOM", said room being where all the freeness was! Inside I could spy any number of women with a child on one hip and a tote bag on the opposite shoulder, browsing happily. Well not exactly browsing. More like speed-browsing! Books were being grabbed and bagged up left and right!

Now, did I mention I have twin toddlers? Ones who are very heavy now and do not like to hang out on your hip when you are in a new place. Ones that, in fact, if they were to stay on your hip, take up BOTH hips and leave no room for a bag of books. Who, in fact know very few words but do know how to scream, GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET DOWN! while doing that thing babies do where they stop clutching you, turn slippery and slide down your body like a greasy fire pole.

She must have seen my panic and my need for tradeable books.

This kind lady sitting at a cafe table with her family and feeding her own small baby, offered to watch the double stroller so that I could go in.

I thought about all those bad mothers, and how you shouldn't leave your babies with strangers. But then, I also saw that she had four kids of her own, and people with four kids don't often kidnap babies much less twins, and likely didn't even have room in her minivan if she did want to kidnap my babies. I looked back into the book room. In that moment of decision, another hundred books had been scooped up by the rabid masses. I figured, gee, her kids are sitting there so polite and nicely, if she did steal my kids, they would probably turn out better mannered than I could ever make them.

I decided to risk it.

I popped out a couple baby bottles, thanked her profusely and ran in with my empty tote bag. I was kind enough to pop my head out every three or four minutes to see if she needed relieving or had run off to make my kids her own, but they were all fine.

Obviously, most of the best books were gone by now, but I scoured. Not so much for stuff I wanted to read, but for stuff that was popular and tradeable. I came out of there with 35 books, including The Lovely Bones, a book I had planned to put on my WANT list anyway!

I again thanked the woman profusely for not stealing my children, and I came home with my booty, put the kids to bed for their overdue nap, took a fleeting look at the dirty dishes in the kitchen, the toys all over the floor, the fingerprints on the mirror... and sat down to enter all my books into swaptree.com.

Now I am done. It seems the database doesn't recognize many of the older books, but I was able to enter 30 books. And now! Now! Now I have my choice of 516 books, 147 Music CDs, 122 movies, and 9 video games!!

Isn't that awesome!!??

I need to go out and get me some shipping envelopes with the little bubble wrap layer inside.

OOooooooh, this is gonna be fun. Now I just have to find time to read!!

Swap To It, Baby!!

Okay, you have to know first that this is a completely unsolicited recommendation for a VERY COOL website. This might be the best thing that has come down the pike since eBay, baby!

Its called SwapTree.com

It's still in Beta and only very recently opened to the public and its still working out some quirks, but check this out...

You get on there, and you list all the books, the DVDs, music Cd's and video games that you have that you want to trade. Then you make a list of all the things you would like to OWN. Then you sit back and wait, and when someone who has one of the things you want, wants one of the things you have, the site contacts you with the possible trade! You accept (or reject) it, and you pay to ship the one you own, and then you get the one you want in the mail!

Yeah!

Now what else is cool is this: Say you have a book that Joe Schmoe wants, and he has a game that Jane Doe wants, and Jane has a DVD that YOU want! Well! The system can work three way trades out and will contact all three of you. If you all agree, you pass to the left and take from the right, and all is well with the world!

Just like eBay, you leave feedback on how the trade went, and people use that to decide how much they trust you to do a trade.

Everything is one for one, so you don't put anything up for trade that you wouldn't be willing to pay for shipping on, or trade for ANYthing on your want list (it sounds like they frown on trade rejections for no really GOOD reason). If you have the whole Season One of Lost and you have a desire for a slim poetry book on your list, then you should be willing to trade the 4 disc set for the one little book.

They don't accept videos for trade, but want to add audio books in the future. You can swap discs without the original box, if you describe its condition that way, but no bootlegged anything.

Oh, and did I mention its FREE!!??

At this point I am really disappointed that I ditched all my spare books before moving across country, but you can bet I am going to be scouring the garage sale bins for anything popular from here out!!!

Go check it out here.

Sign up.

Be happy!