Category Archives: Cyberspace & Technology

Fun! Games!

Join Autumn and her Gentle Readers as they play the “Will the comment box show up for me this time?” game!

Yes, it’s the tricky sometimes-there-sometimes-not comment box. I have no idea what’s causing it. There’s no commonality among people having the issues: it’s not one browser type, or a Mac vs PC issue, or whether you had coffee or tea with your toast this morning.

A simple thing to try: When you’ve clicked on either “X responses” or “Leave comment” make sure you scroll down all the way to the bottom where the comment box lurks. A few people have missed that. If that doesn’t work, try reloading the page, or typing in the URL anew. Clearing the cache may work as well.

If you can comment, please do, even if it’s just a “Works for me” or “Tried before, didn’t work, now it does” sort of thing, so we all have some sort of idea how this is shaping up. And have fun. Because really, that’s all we can do at this point.

ETA: We know about the ‘comment box overlapping the comments in a long comment thread’ issue, too. Odd, isn’t it.

Winter: Present!

Yesterday after doing a bunch of HTML for the pro site (yay me), I spent much argh-filled time whacking at php and css code about which I know, well, exactly nothing (argh, why does WordPress hate me so?). Then I played the cello very loudly for about an hour, polishing up the recital stuff for this coming Sunday. I toyed with the idea of suiting up in my down-filled winter coat and going out to vote (because here in Canada our punishment for being less than stoic about sub-Arctic temperatures is being forced to vote in YET ANOTHER ELECTION — did I mention that my municipal riding has a by-election I must vote in next Sunday as well?) but decided to wait for HRH and the boy to come home so we could all do it together. I played more cello instead. I’m really happy with how my technique has firmed up over the past two months with my teacher: my sound is so much better.

Going out with the boys was kind of fun, because we looked at all the Christmas lights that are up in the neighbourhood as we walked to the polling station. And also because the boy carried my voter card and handed it importantly to everyone who needed to look at it, telling them with confidence, “I’m here to vote.” He went in with HRH, and as HRH and I swapped places I could hear the ripple of “He’s so cute!” comments coming from the tables of scrutineers. Apparently he helped HRH hold the pencil to mark the ballot, and put the actual ballot in the box. (Which isn’t entirely legal, but evidently the cute factor won out over hard-hearted scrutineers who might have insisted on By The Book electoral activity. Everyone seemed to approve of the Start Them Young attitude we have about it.) (Oh, the election results? Our province elected a Liberal government for a third term, this time as a majority. The PQ has surged back into the position of official opposition, the leader spouting all sorts of rabid separatist rhetoric in the post-results speech that wasn’t really heard during the campaign. Thanks for stirring up local anti-Canada sentiment again with your idiocy at the federal level, Stephen Harper. You idiot, you’ve thrown our province back into the late seventies.)

Today, however, the boy is home with a cold. He impressed his teachers to no end yesterday by asking to have his nose blown when necessary, and then actually blowing his nose when a tissue was applied to it. “We have five year olds who can’t do that,” his teacher said in astonishment. I’m hoping he’s over the really bad part so he can go to school tomorrow, otherwise I suspect he’ll be home until Friday. (And as if on cue, there is a call of, “Mama, can you blow my nose please?” from the living room.) With the number of colds making the rounds of schools and just about everywhere else, I shouldn’t be surprised. Most people I know are sick, too. This is the part of winter that isn’t so much fun.

Last night I also cast on my second armwarmer and am two-thirds of the way done. Amazing how quickly it goes when you’re curled up in front of the election coverage. I might even be able to start my scarf today, if I feel up to trying the lace pattern that I twisted so badly on my test yarn.

Right. Off to return to the boy, who is watching Richard Scarry cartoons on TV while I check out what’s going on in the world. I intend to finish that armwarmer before lunch. I need them: my office is on an outside corner and is poorly insulated, so I get all sorts of cold radiating in from the corner in which my computer is set up. Yesterday I wore woollen tights under my jeans and a shirt under my heavy woollen sweater. Also, they’ll help my hands warm up faster when I play the cello.

Erm

Messing about the with journal today. Specifically with the sidebar. Beaks and wingtips inside the journal at all times please.

Also handled a pile of pro site stuff today. Am feeling very accomplished.

ETA: Best I can do for now. I can’t restore my original Owly theme; it appears to be very broken all of a sudden. When I try to edit the background of this one, all the style vanishes completely. I miss my header. And how much do you want to bet that the RSS feeds are now broken *again*?

ETA again: Yup, they’re broken. Stupid error message! It must lie in the mySQL tables! About which I can do NOTHING!

ETA yet again: And huzzah, now the feeds are broken in a different way. I give up again. *headdesk*

Headaches

Yesterday, not long after I wrote my journal entry about practising, my Internet connection went kablooey and I spent the next couple of hours unsuccessfully trying to fix it. I ended up turning the damn thing off and going to work in the living room. It gave me writing time, but I had tons of Internet-associated research to handle and correspondence to catch up on, and it made me very cranky. Also, I lost an expanded ETA form of that last post in which I rhapsodized about a particular shift that I love doing in one of my lesson pieces. And the post didn’t actually post thanks to the kablooeyness, I discovered this morning. Gnarr.

However, I managed to play cello for a while longer, and accomplished this as well:

Orchestrated:
New words yesterday: 2,508
Total word count, Orchestrated: 26,246

Uh-oh. The protagonist’s mother came home early and found her with a boy in the house. Alone. Playing music, but still. Also, a date? With someone else? What is this turning into? Where the hell did that come from?

Orchestra last night was good. I don’t know if someone mentioned something about our situation to the guest conductor but he’s really focusing on interpretation and phrasing. Quite nice. And the principal showed me a terrific fingering for the opening phrase of the Wagner clarinet piece we’re accompanying (five flats! dear gods!).

Today I have an awful, awful headache that extra-strength Tylenol is doing nothing to assuage. Thanks to this headache I fell asleep again while the boy was playing this morning and didn’t get him to the caregiver’s till just before ten o’clock, so the day started somewhat later than usual. I did get the Internet connection up and running once more, thanks to an installation CD lent to me by the upstairs neighbours (bless them) so that headache has been taken care of although it took an hour to do. We have groceries for dinner. I have mostly caught up on correspondence and stuff. I have even eaten lunch. There are more errands to run tomorrow morning.

Now I get to do a draft of a ritual, and write some more. My head hurts an awful lot, though. Time to drag out the white flower balm, and hit what I suspect is a baby migraine with some extra-strength Excedrin.

Delays, Delays

Despite being told I had a new assignment on Friday afternoon the required manuscript still hasn’t appeared in my work folder. I’ve sent a second query to the controller; we’ll see what happens. They’d better adjust the due date accordingly.

The good thing is that my copy of Strings just landed in the mailbox, so I have something shiny to distract me while I wait. I think I will attempt some soup, too, and maybe a cracker or two. I wish we had a Lipton’s chicken noodle packet; there’s something comforting about fake soup, although the recipe seems to have changed. As it is I believe that there’s a can of minestrone in the pantry.

I should activate the new phone, too. Unfortunately, transferring my account to a new phone can’t be done online; I have to actually speak with a customer service agent. I’ll wait until it’s past lunchtime to do that, though, or I’ll be on hold forever.

Oh, Great

HRH lost my cellphone today between school and the metro station. He couldn’t find it. Someone else did, and used up four dollars worth of time between when I accessed my account online and when I cancelled the damn thing.

People suck.

HRH is buying me a new phone this weekend. I have little faith in someone handing mine in to a lost and found either at the school or the STM, even if it doesn’t work and has been reported as lost/stolen to the provider.

Hurrah!

We have achieved a decent operating level of health! It’s amazing what nine hours of sleep can do.

Of course, now we are in the post-sick weak-as-a-kitten stage. But being able to think straight, stand straight, and breathe is such a novelty that I can deal with the weakness. A walk would kill me.

I finished up my freelance evaluation this morning and I’m uploading it to the client’s server now. I’m wiped for the day, of course, but that’s fine; it will take a day or so to get it approved, and then I can grab another one. There’s a backlog of material to evaluate, so the client is doing a pay-and-a-half promotion this week. Extra money is very nice.

Now I can go curl up under the afghan or in bed and browse secondhand iBook listings. Goodness, they are affordable…