Day 223

I took my mom to Yang Chow in Chinatown for her birthday. The food was good. We had Slippery Shrimp and Three Ingredients Tastes with Snow Peas. Slippery Shrimp was especially good. I wish I had the recipe or at least lived a couple of blocks away from Yang Chow. We also go to-go boxes with Sizzling Platter with Beef and Scallopes, Kung Pao Squid, Szechuan Chicken. I don’t particularly like dishes with squid because squid is usually too chewy. I got another fortune cookie. Here’s what it said:

Your senior years will be happy and fulfilling.

I have no desire to know what my senior year will be like. I still trying to cope with being 22ish. But anyway.

My mom says I drive slow. Not only that, but I have a tendency to follow behind slow vehicles. I can’t help it if I like to take in the scenery. I don’t like driving fast because my truck burns too much gas. I thought about getting a smaller car, but I don’t want another car note so I will just have to suffer until my truck falls apart.

When we got home we watched Meet the Spartans. It was a really stupid movie. I thought it was going to be funny, but I guess my sense of humor is different. I just don’t get it. They way I see it, if someone can write this movie and it paid, I can write a movie too.

We also watched Stop-Loss. I didn’t like this movie either. It was hard to watch. The acting was horrible and it couldn’t help but sense politics.

I know when I got called back into the Army, there were a few soldiers that got out of their deployments to Iraq because they had already done multiple tours. I guess I lucked out by being sent to Afghanistan despite my orders saying Operation Iraqi Freedom. Urban warfare ain’t no joke. I think a few innocent bystanders would have died if I found myself in a situation where there were people shooting at me and I couldn’t tell who was doing the shooting. Kill or be killed. Better them than me.

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. Hopefully I will have some work to do. I can’t wait until my vacation in two weeks. It’s only 9 days but it will be a much needed break.

Day 222

I didn’t do much today except outline my paper that’s due on Monday. I plan to write it tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to get it done. I’m really tired of school and would normally have finished it by now but there is something else I’d rather be doing. Like biting my toenails.

I was looking forward to some Japanese food but had to settle for Panda Express. Panda Express is about the best Chinese food available in the Antelope Valley. Sad really since it isn’t all that great. I don’t even like the fortune cookies. Here’s what my Panda Express fortune for today:

Executive ability is prominent in your makeup.

I have to get my blogging done for the night. I’m tired and need to get some rest. I have a lot to do tomorrow.

Day 221

I don’t have much to blog about. My day went by like all the other days in the work week. I’m hoping to finish with my paper tomorrow so I can go treat myself to Sushi and see the Temptations perform.

There is going to be a Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicle marathon this Sunday! I love that show! I can’t wait until the new season starts.

I’m watching Hellboy on tv. It seems to be a good movie. I wish I had paid more attention to the beginning because I think the movie explains how Hellboy came to be.

I’m going to get some sleep. I want to get up early (after the sun rises) to work on my paper.

Day 220

Someone commented (by email) how she could see the Bento box picture. I guess she thought I was hosting my blog using iWeb. My response to her was:

“I wasn't using iWeb for that. I just linked to a picture on Amazon. The pictures on use on shavonne.org are either from flickr (which is blocked by Edwards) or other web sites also usually blocked by Edwards(which is why you can't see them). I could upload the pictures to my server at dot5hosting but
I will still need the url of the picture on my server, which is a pain to figure out. I don't know how Sandra manages to post pictures to her blog. Maybe her web hosting is easier to use or something but I have to imagine it's an outright pain.

If I host my blog using iWeb you will be able to see all the pictures/video I upload to my site. It will be much easier for me using iWeb to create photo albums that can be viewed on my blog. The drawbacks to using iWeb are:

1. I can't turn off comments to individual posts. For example, I was thinking of turning off comments on my entire blog and then only allowing comments for when my blog has questions for readers.
2. I won't be able to edit comments. I like how I'm able to respond to individual comments with my words in hot pink. Can't do that with iWeb. The only thing I can do with comments is accept or reject them.
3. I have steller web stats with the hosting I have now. I know information about the people who visit my blog like IP address, web browser used, length of time they spent reading my blog, days/weeks/months with the most visitors, most read posts. I can block people from my site because I'll have their IP address. The only thing I get with iWeb is a hit counter. I have to decide on how important those features are. To view my web stats, I have to log into Dot5 and I rarely do that. But it's a nice option to have just in case I have an idiot troll but so far I haven't had any issues with people being unpleasant on my blog.
4. Web sites hosted using iWeb do not look good on Internet Explorer. Here is the web site of one of my acquaintances from Korea and flickr. http://davemcnally.org/web/Welcome.html (Check out his 365-Day Project. It's awesome but not as good as 2007) The site looks much better when I look at it from home on Firefox or Safari.”

My mother annoyed the hell out of me tonight. Every time she sees Melanie Brown a.k.a Scary Spice of the Spice Girls, she makes a comment about how Mel is getting work because she had Eddie Murphy’s baby. I’m almost certain there are more people around the world who know who Mel B is than Eddie Murphy. Comedy doesn’t translate well overseas because what one country considers funny isn’t to another country. Heck, I don’t even think Eddie Murphy is funny and I’m American. So, Eddie Murphy (comedian and actor in mostly comedy films) would most likely be an unknown person outside the USA. But, according to my mom, Mel B is only famous because she had Eddie Murphy’s baby.

I caught a couple of episodes of Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, and I can understand the tension between Tori and her mom. If I wrote a book about my mother, my mother would look incredibly bad. Everyone who thinks she’s a divorcée, when in fact, she’s still a legally married woman.

Day 219

My mom’s birthday is in 6 days. I still haven’t gotten her anything. I guess I will take her out to dinner at Roma’s or something. I should call and make reservations tomorrow.

I’m so hungry but I don’t feel like cooking. There was something I wanted to blog about. I’ll keep writing until I can think of it.

I went searching for software for my computer. I can’t seem to find the right combination of software. The bundles come with programs I will never use.

I have devastating news. I burned a hole in the lid of one of the bowls that goes to my Zojirushi Mr. Bento lunch box. Holy moly! I’d post a picture of the lid with the tiny whole but that would mean getting out my camera, taking a picture and downloading it to my computer. I don’t have the patience for that tonight. I have to try to find a way to order a replacement. Gosh, when they said microwaveable, they didn’t say anything about the lids not being microwaveable. It isn’t very pretty to see the tiny hole in the lid. I just hope they will have a way for me to be able to purchase a new lid or bowl because to replace the entire box would be rather pricey. But I love my Mr. Bento lunch box. I’m able to give myself good portions, which is a good thing because I have a tendency to over eat and since it’s been a couple of hundred weeks since my 20th birthday, my metabolism has slowed down. (Yes, I can no longer brag about having a girlish figure.)

I really enjoy blogging with iWeb. For the past 10 days, I’ve been composing my posts in iWeb (instead of TextEdit) and then copying and pasting into my blog. I’ve been wanting to change the look of my blog for a while because I’m tired of it. With iWeb, changing my blog is so easy. And I can add my photography with every post rather than using my pictures as a background for my blog. It looks really cool. And adding pictures is so easy. I don’t have to link externally for my flickr account. Just drag and drop. Okay, let me stop. I’m starting to sound like an advertisement.

I really don’t feel like blogging. i just want to go to bed.

Day 218

♫Baby come back! You can blame it all on me.♫
I can’t get that Swiffer commercial song out of my head. I don’t know why because I can’t relate to it. There isn’t a man on this Earth I wish I could reestablish contact with.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, I’m supposed to be single for life. Genetics prove this. I’m not going to go into detail about this evidence. I’ll save it for another day.

I can’t wait until my time off from work. I will have 9 days to get to create three really good resumes.

Strangely, the stuff I wrote in my journal at work don’t seem adequate enough to actually post to my blog(s). Bummer. Sometimes that happens. I’ll write something at work and then totally scrap it.

For the most part, I think (Dang, I can’t remember what I was going to write).

Well, I think it’s time I go to bed. When I’m so tired I can’t remember anything, (Dang, I forgot what I was going to write).

Day 217

My mom had to take her dog, Keiko, to the vet last week. I noticed the dog has a loss of appetite (which is very unusual) and she had been panting heavily (on a not so hot day). The vet did some blood work on the dog and it turns out Keiko has elevated potassium levels, which means she could have a heart attack.

The last time I took the dogs for a walk, Keiko practically passed out before we made it home. I thought that was strange because the dog usually has a lot of energy. I guess that was sign # 1 that something was wrong with her. Then a few days ago, Keiko vomited. It stunk too

If the lab tests show that she has whatever (Addison’s disease I think). If this is indeed what the dog has, she will spend the rest of her life on medication. Poor thing. I’m hoping the medication isn’t in the form of a suppository because I have a hard time with the idea of sticking something up my own @ss, so I doubt I’ll be able to stick something up a dog’s @ss.

Well, as of today, the Army has 16 more days to call me back, otherwise it’s adios!

Day 216

The more I play with iWeb, the more I want to host my Web site using iWeb. After figuring out how to change the template to my specifications, I really dig the program. My only issue is I’ve already paid for a two-year hosting service with Dot5Hosting.

The reasons that have kept me from using iWeb and dot Mac (now MobileMe) is the price of using MobileMe ($99/year) and Web sites maintained using iWeb generally do not look good when viewed using Internet Explorer. I don’t have any qualms about Internet Explorer because I don’t use it. I prefer Firefox. I would use Safari exclusively, but many of my banking institutions do not support Safari. It’s important that I have access to my money.

I find my computer an absolute distraction. I haven’t been able to get a good start on my paper all weekend. I’m constantly logging on to the net and surfing. I plan to finish this paper today. (It’s now 4:30 p.m.)

It’s not just my computer that is distracting, it’s the darn tv. I discovered Wild China on National Geographic, and because I want to go to China, I’ve done nothing but watch the documentaries produced for China week. I completely forgot about the Olympics in China this year. Oh, if it weren’t for that Army recall, I would have gone to see the Olympics in Beijing.

I must find a new job so I can travel wherever I want.

There was some other stuff I wanted to blog about but I will save it for another day. I will probably blog about in a few weeks when I don’t have school or going to work. Well, at least I don’t have to go to school tomorrow.

I’m so disappointed about not getting my paper done on Saturday or today. Well, here’s to getting it done tomorrow morning.

Day 215

I was invited to a picnic but decided I didn’t want to go. I didn’t feel like being in the heat and fighting the flies for food I didn’t have a taste for.

It is nice to not have to cook.

Speaking of food, I came across a recipe for Naan. I can’t wait until I’m done with school I have so many recipes I want to try.

I’m really happy to learn that a friend has decided to write a novel. She’s using the NaNoWriMo method to write her book only she’s writing this month instead of November. Oh, how I wish I didn’t have school. I would love to participate. It will have to wait until next year because I don’t have the time to devote to much because of school. 27 more weeks to go.

I need to take some more pictures. I haven’t done any photography in months.

I didn’t get any writing done on my paper. I plan on knocking out the paper tomorrow morning when the major distraction goes to church. I can’t wait until it cools off so I can lock myself in my room.

Day 214

I’m going to make it an early night. Actually, my night didn’t end as early as I thought.

I went out to dinner with my mom. We decided on Chinese food. It was hard trying to find a restaurant because all the Chinese restaurants are buffets. We managed to find one restaurant but the food was terrible. Panda Express is much better and I don’t consider Panda Express the ultimate in Chinese cuisine.

Other than that, my night was so boring. There was nothing on tv so I was forced to watch the Dog Whisperer. I like the show but the format has changed a bit. I hate the psychology sessions with the owners. I like to see Cesar Milan just get right into interacting with the dogs and owners.

Well, I guess I need to get so shut eye.