Author: The Jody

Sorry, sun came out. It won’t be out again until Saturday. I need to go absorb some rays to process my vitamin D, or however that works.

“C’mon honey, let’s go frolick with the other unemployed people”

– Timmy’s Dad on The Fairly Oddparents

I was pretty sad to see the demise of the Brunching Shuttlecocks websites, which I’ve read for a couple of years now. I know Lore et. al hadn’t been updating very regularly the past, oh, nine months or so. Luckily, they have two other sites that we can visit. I can’t vouch for how often Lore will update the new site, but he’s created a site for my favorite part of his site, The Book of Ratings.

What a fun day. What a fun weekend. I am so fed up with this weather, it’s endless. I’m not sure, because I haven’t actually walked in my back yard for a week, but I’ll be there are mushrooms growing over by the shed from all this damp muckiness. It’s a toss-up on whether mushrooms are better than crabgrass, quite frankly. If it’s sunny and even remotely warm tomorrow I’ll actually go outside and see how all my plantings are doing. I know flowers like rain, but I like pie and I know if I eat too much I’ll die. I don’t want these flowers that had tags saying “Full Sun” to die because I haven’t been able to provide full, partial or even a smidgen of sun.

A friend of mine just had to go out and buy one of the SAD lights that people use in the winter to simulate sunlight because she’s so bothered by the current weather patterns. I just keep staring out the window at my little cafe table and chairs and I wonder when I’ll be able to actually sit out there again.

Yesterday’s adventure in high tech was to buy and try to set up a wireless router for the house. I know, not in my best interest to spend that kind of money at this point (I just called in for my last week of regular unemployment this morning, won’t know if I qualify for an extension until next week or later. “Yes, I can make change, Mr. Mall Kiosk Owner!” if I’m not eligible. I obviously want to hold out for a writing position, and the market seems better now than it has for months, but obviously I have no control over whether or not people hire me. If I did I would have found something 9 months ago.

Anyway, I bought the equipment so that I could share the DSL connection (and eventually the printer) with the two systems in the house, and also so I could take the computer into different rooms and still have full access to everything. That way I could work up in my room, or I could work out on the deck, and not have to have wires everywhere. So I spent the money, tried to set it up for about 7 hours…spent 4 of those hours on tech support to I believe India (I’m not being sarcastic…I talked to three different people, and even the automated phone system voice had an Indian accent) trying to get it to work. It didn’t. So today I brought everything back. I guess I’d rather spend that money on bills. But the SECOND I get $200, I’m going to run my butt out and buy some Linksys hardware (which is what the Verizon Online people told me they actually sell if people want to set up a wireless router – so I know it will work with my DSL modem.

So yes, I spent $160 (there was a sale) but I only kept it for a day. Does that make me a bad, irresponsible person? No. It would have been tax deductible, and it would have made it easier for me to actually get work done. So it’s not like I ran out and bought something useless like jewelry. Right?