Hmmmm.. My blog has emigrated and now everything look weird. Not bad, just… weird. Ah well, we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, haven’t been doing much, just working and hanging out. I made the mistake of getting back into playing Sims on my Gamecube. Yeesh. I forgot how much fun it was to play God. I ended up killing one of my Sims as he was trying to cook dinner, but I played odds or evens with Death and won so he’s still with us. I should have them throw a party or something. So that’s what I’ve been doing with my time while my daughter was is away camping.

She left on Tuesday and is due back sometime today. I’m so curious as to how it went because this is her first time in the wilds of Nebby, and it’s been a stormy and hot week. She does not function well in the heat so I hope she wasn’t too bad off. Her best friend invited her to go with her family, and at first I was kind of chuffed at the prospect of having a few days to myself (bad mommy!) but I really miss her and can’t wait until she’s home. I did manage to get her bday pressies sorted out. Nothing spectacular I’m afraid as I broke down and gave her the new bike for Easter so she’d be able to ride it more so that was the big present for the year. Still I got her some nice things she’ll enjoy and she’s having friends round to the Water park next weekend for an all-day swimfest instead of a proper birthday party. I think she’s getting a little too old for a traditional ‘skate’ party or something like that. When she’s older, and we live in a bigger space, she’ll be able to have parties grown-up stylie, but she’s completely thrilled to be able to spend all day at the water park for now.

Well, time to get back to work. I want to try to find some new modules for my sites.

Well I finished the book. We’ve had ever so much fun (don’t I sound posh?) this weekend and I’m so impressed and pleased. I took the kidlet and her best friend to the shop where, to be honest the ‘fun and games’ weren’t all that fun – but I got to hang out with my old co-workers that I haven’t seen for a while, so that was nice. We got last-minute panic calls earlier that day telling us we needed to ensure that we bought the pre-order gift card or else we might not get a copy, so had to rush out and grab a couple (I wanted 2 copies of the book). So midnight finally rolls around, one woman was going to have a minor heart attack if she didn’t get her copy. I wanted to smack her actually, she was annoying and her kid’s diaper needed changing. Not pleasant when you’re crowded close together in a packed line. Anyway, we got our books and my daughter carried them reverently to the car. Arrived home and went to bed. I know she was reading aloud to her friend for a bit, but I think I read for about an hour and a half before I gave in to sleep. So by morning I was about 5 chapters ahead of her and it just about killed me to stay quiet as we read. And did we ever read. Both of us, the entire day Saturday with small breaks for food and stuff. I wanted to just devour it and I didn’t want anyone to spoil the surprises in the book for me so I stayed offline for most of the day. It was so wonderful to curl up with my daughter on the bed and just read together. What a wonderful time.

I just couldn’t put it down and ended up finishing it around 3am-ish. I did have a couple of breaks, one to chat online for a bit with an old friend, and another to chat on the phone to another friend. The kid gave in to sleep around 1am and she finished the book this afternoon (poor thing slept til noon :)). We are both exhausted from our marathon reading session, but thoroughly satisfied as well. It was so worth the wait.

The reason I’m impressed is because I’m thrilled to see so many people – adults and children – lining up to read. Especially to read a book that’s nearly 1000 pages long. What an accomplishment. I admire JK Rowling so much.

Ahhhh… Now I’m going to re-read book 4, then read the 5th one again. Anyone out there reading this, I hope you enjoy it. If you’re not a fan, that’s okay – it’s probably not everyone’s thang. But I wouldn’t trade the experience the time I’ve had sharing this wonderful book series with my daughter for anything. Sappy, I know, but oh well 🙂

Ahhh my god this new computer is bloody fast. And I have to say the flat panel monitor is awesome. Really nice clarity. The only drawback is I have to re-download all my programs I had on my old one. See, I was told by our illustrious IS department that my old comp was so slow and old. We’ve been converting the hospital to Dells and mine was still an old Gateway. So I asked my boss to stick me on a list for a new computer and I figured I wouldn’t hear another word about it for another year. The wheels grind ever so slowly around here you see. a mere 3 weeks later I’ve got a new puter 🙂 It’s spanky. I managed to move my vital files onto my network so I didn’t lose all of that but half my programs are freebies downloaded from the net, or registered copies I downloaded. So it’s been tedious getting everything put back, especially since I will not have admin privs after one of the geeks comes to put Norton antivirus on here. I guess he’s a real nazi about not letting us peons have the ability to download stuff.

I wouldn’t normally be bothered by it, but 99.9% of my job is online and sometimes requires the odd download of a new program now and then in order for me to be able to get my work done. Now I will have to submit work orders for someone up there to come down, download and install for me, wasting their time and mine. Corporations are fun!

Friday night is going to be a big night for the kidlet. One of the bookshops in town is doing a midnight release party for Harry Potter 5 and I’m going to take her. She’s beside herself with excitement. We’re going to buy 2 copies of the book so we can read it together. But I bet she finishes before me. To be quite honest, I’m kind of looking forward to it myself. JK Rowling is my hero – single mum makes good, you know, that kind of thing. There are quite a few Potter freaks here at work and we’r going to meet up at the party, should be a good time. I just have to resist buying movies while I kill tim til midnight (it’s a video/music/bookstore). I’m at the point where I could hang a sign out and rent videos myself. The problem is a couple video stores in town closed down and are selling all their video for like, $3-$5 each and I’ve found about 8 I just couldn’t live without. *sigh* So in my collection I’m up to 166 VHS vids and 42 DVDs. Give or take the ones I didn’t inventory because they were just kiddie cartoons or recorded from television.

Hmm. With this uber-cool monitor, my background kind of looks shit on the movie site. Have to fix that after the geeks come install my new Photoshop proggie. *sigh*

Flu shots are feckin’ useless. I have just spent the majority of this week throwing up food I’m pretty sure I ate back in 1985. Ugh. I’m beginning to feel better now, but my chest and back are so sore it hurts to take a deep breath. Gonna try to go back to work tomorrow but I don’t know if I’ll make it the whole day. Just standing up tires me out. I feel bad for missing so much work, I hope the boss doesn’t get mad. He shouldn’t tho, he’s pretty cool. He’s weird, but he’s cool.

Still no word from the bellydancer. Again. Have not heard whether she likes the site, nor have I received payment for May. Argh. So frustrating! I need a big old mafia guy to go around breaking legs of those who don’t pay me 🙂 Bet she couldn’t bellydance then! My other job has been great now their domain woes are sorted out and they’re up and running. I sent the bill and got payment 2 days later. I really hate worrying about this shit. I want an accountant.

Anyway, short blog. getting tired and all this typing has worn me out. Gnight.

Oof Blackhawk Down is a bit of a downer movie. Well, I guess the overall message of the film is a good one. I suppose. *shudder* nevermind I don’t wanna go into it. Ahhh so Monday tomorrow. I’ve decided to make tomorrow my day at home this week. I have meetings on both Wednesday and Friday and nothing sucks more than having to drive into work just for a bloody meeting. I was trying to start alternating Wednesday’s and Fridays at home but it’s just not working out for me this week. But this is kind of cool, this not having to go in to work on a Monday. Andy was right 🙂 Heheh.. I have been debating which day to choose for a couple months now based upon my desire to either sort of have a three day weekend (either monday or Friday) or to have a ‘day off’ in the middle of the week. The benefits of all three are pretty good. Oh I know I still have to work, but there’s something to be said for doing your work in your PJs 🙂

I was afraid if I chose Friday, my boss would think I’d use it to slack off and get paid for three day weekends (which I’d never dream of, but you know how bosses are). Monday was kind of the same fear – no one likes to work on Mondays. So Wednesdays seemed safe enough.. Anyway.. sheesh I even bore myself sometimes.

Sorry, I don’t feel well. Throat.. nose.. Guess it’s good I’m working home tomorrow.

I installed Xp on this comp a couple of days ago and it went fine. But I didn’t realise I’d have to reinstall all of my programs 🙁 Ugh. I had so many. Please realise I am not a techie by any means. I’ve always said that I need to marry a techie/mechanic who has no qualms about killing bugs, and won’t make fun of me for not wanting to kill bugs. I know enough about comps to be dangerous and to my credit, I figured out how to grab and install my cable modem’s drivers and got that working again. Go me. Anyway, I’m still able to boot up my ME edition and use my stuff but now I have to operating systems running on here. That can’t be good. But then, what do I know.

Wednesday morning and my first day of working from home one day a week. I think I’m going to like this. It was a nice feeling last night knowing I didn’t have to haul my ass out of bed at ridiculous o’clock this morning and I can work in my jammies 🙂 I’ve a lot to do today. I broke one of my work sites right before I left work yesterday and now I have to fix it. *sigh* Silly me. I also hope the stupid IS department doesn’t choose today to give me my new computer. They’ve been pissing me off lately. I blame the director of that department for my depressed mood all flipping day Monday. I got in and checked email, to find one from him directing me to some shit site in Kansas because it was simple and easy to navigate. It was also clunky, ugly and outdated. Then he says he finds our website slow and confusing. Kat said I should have emailed him back saying ‘Well I find YOU slow and confusing but you don’t see me emailing you about it.’ I thought that was quite funny and cheered me right up 🙂 Told my boss about it and he said not to worry about it, web stuff isn’t exactly the IS guy’s forte, so that made me feeel better too.

I guess I don’t handle criticism very well. I mean, I can take it as long as it’s constructive. I can’t count how many times my boss has made improvement suggestions for the sites. But he does it in such a way that my feelings aren’t hurt, and in fact I get enthusiastic about making his changes. But ‘slow and confusing’. That hurt. We’ve only had this site up and running for over a fecking year now and not once did I ever hear that about the site. So I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a wank.

Grrr.

It’s 7.45am-ish on Sunday morning. Wtf am I doing up? My daughter was away for the night, I stayed up late watching Star Trek movies (bloody hell, how could I have missed First Contact?? It was great!) and I had every intention of sleeping in. Well I was having some disturbing dreams that I don’t remember much of apart from leaning over a guy to kiss the tattoo on the back of his neck, which led into a rousing romp of oral sex -nice enough except that we were standing on a roadside in full view of passing traffic. I also remember that this guy (I have no clue who he was but he was good in bed) and I were looking after a guy who was on the run from the NDASP (I clearly remember those initials on some letter written to us). The NDASP are better known as the Nazis.

So anyway I guess that’s why I’m awake. I think I’m going to have to stop reading about Hitler. I see in my last blog that I already explained my fascination with the Holocaust etc. Since then I’ve received a book I ordered from Amazon called ‘Hitler’s Niece’ and I devoured that. A fascinating glimpse into the private Hitler. The book is historical fiction which means a lot of it is supposition based on actual facts. Apparently, and I had never heard about this, but Hitler was in love with his niece, Geli Raubal who was the daughter of his half-sister. Eventually he moved Geli into his flat so that he could monitor her every move and she chafed under his watchful eye. According to several factual accounts, Geli and Hitler had quite a sadistic, masochistic private relationship that sickened Geli and in 1931, she was found dead from a gunshot would to the chest. The weapon was Hitler’s gun and it’s been a mystery ever since – did she kill herself? Did Hitler do it? Or was it Himmler who was afraid he was losing his Fuehrer to some insignificant girl? “Hitler’s Niece” makes its own assumption about that that I won’t reveal in case anyone should care to pick up the book. It’s written from Geli’s POV and I found it excellent. The fictional stuff aside, I learned quite a bit about Hitler pre-WWII. So that’s my new little hobby and I’ve no clue why. I don’t care about troop movements or battles – well obviously I don’t mean to imply they are meaningless. I want to learn about what made Hitler so evil. I have to admit I feel weird about this as well because I don’t ‘admire’ him or anything (before anyone starts thinking I’m turning into a neo-nazi 🙂 ) It’s just that he was so evil, so awful that I can’t imagine he was ever human, with feelings and emotions. That’s why I guess I’m fascinated by this story of his niece.

Enough of that. I’m hungry.