Caught up in the editing nightmare and the race against the deadline, I managed to miss the second anniversary of Owls’ Court last Thursday February 12.
I must really have been fried to miss the hordes of tap-dancing owls wearing pointy party hats and blowing noisemakers.
One hundred and eighty dollars later, I now have new lenses in my second-to-last pair of glasses to use at home, and my last year’s pair will stay in my purse. Now I theoretically can’t leave my glasses at home next to the computer, which is what’s been happening.
Something’s wrong with my host server for Owldaughter; the control panel also seems to be rejecting my password so I can’t log in to find out what’s up.
Wrote my foreword for the first book being released by the new imprint yesterday, and sent it off this morning. They’ve already pulled a quote from it to use as cover copy.
Eep.
Update: Ah. My host is migrating servers yet again. It would be nice if they warned us.
Looks like the spammers have finally figured me out. The latest non-sequitur subject header that fell into my inbox read bibliography minerva coronet.
In a new interview in Empire magazine, director Mike Newell lays to rest the speculation that GOF would be split into two movies. “As far as I’m concerned it’s absolutely possible to do it in one. I think it would be slightly embarassing to do it in two,” says the director in the March issue of the magazine, available on newstands now.
“Slightly embarrassing.” Interesting phrasing, that.
And –
Mother Owl Stops Work at NASA: A great horned owl has decided Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the perfect place to hatch her eggs. NASA has stopped work at the site until the babies are born. Just look at that expression – you’d stop work, too.
Apparently there’s another owl nesting where Atlantis is to be launched in the fall too. Coincidence? Maybe Great Horned Owls are monitoring our space program.
(Both tidbits found at The Leaky Cauldron.)
Is it too much to ask that the electricity we pay for stay on for at least three days in a row?
Yes, we lost power again last night. Four hours of no heat during the coldest part of the night means that we lost all the warmth stored up in the apartment once more.
I no longer care what the reason may be – whether it’s the major NDG power transfer system finally dying due to old age, or the lousy wiring job in our apartment possibly shorting out the entire block – I just don’t care. I’m tired of resetting clocks, alarms, and volume levels. I’m tired of having to blast all our ineffective heaters just to get things to a comfortable temperature so I can function like a relatively normal human being again.
At first it was charming – we’d light candles, sit and chat quietly, watch the snow fall. Then it became slightly irritating, as the power would cut out when I needed to reach a deadline, make dinner, was expecting a call, was in the process of finishing something valuable on the computer, or some such thing. Now it’s just an instant anger-inducing inconvenience that makes me growly no matter what I’m doing, even if it’s as benign as reading on the sofa with a pile of cats.
Forty-seven days until spring. As the days count down, the temperature will rise, and people will consume less electricity, reducing the stress on the outdated power grid. Perhaps then we’ll experience fewer interruptions in our electrical supply.
I’m trying to be optimistic about it.
Pursuant to my decision to abandon the high-speed project:
Skippy says I have the required equipment, but no drivers, which can be remedied. Elim says he can repartition my drive with no loss of info.
All say the salesguy was a jerk.
I loves my geeks.
The high-speed package arrived. Yay! said I.
There were a couple of issues. Namely, the fact that all the manuals were in French, and that even though the salesguy had been told that we already had Sympatico service and wished to keep our e-mail address, we were assigned a new address, and a new user ID. I know how bureaucracy works. We’re likely to lose our current e-mail for a time, if not forever, while they sort things out.
Despite all this, I tried to install it this morning.
The operative word being “tried”, of course.
I wasn’t home when the salesperson originally came to our door. My husband therefore handled the transaction, with the best of intentions. The salesguy took a look at the back of our computer and checked off certain things on the contract, like the fact that we have a USB port.
“We don’t have a USB port,” I said when my husband told me this.
“Sure we do!” HRH said. “The salesguy checked!”
Yeah, well, guess what. The installation software ran a diagnostic on the computer and told me that I couldn’t install my new high speed kit because of two reasons: my hard drive wasn’t big enough, and I had no USB port.
The software doesn’t allow you to choose what hard drive to direct it to. My C drive was partitioned when Skippy constructed my machine, so of course it says it’s smaller than it actually is. I use my new second hard drive for programs now.
So: Sympatico gets called tomorrow. The high speed thing gets cancelled, and I’ll return this useless kit. When I’m ready, I’ll call and upgrade my service myself. I have been promised a new/old computer by the end of February (thank you, Ceri and Scott!); I’ll try again then.
My technical frustration has been assuaged by the production of an entire short story (which means I can take one of my story assignment postcards off my bulletin board), and eleven hundred words of a second new story. And a new version of the anthology proposal. And a glass of champagne celebrating t!‘s 100,000th word of Baker’s 12.
Plus t! said that the whole idea of being a gutsy author was nonsensical, since he had solid support from fellow writing-type friends which filled him with confidence.
Still, I’m vaguely frustrated, for some reason. There’s a warm bath in my future.