Shut your cake hole, sexist vitamins!

Thank you, One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins. You advertise the benefits of healthy muscles for him and healthy skin for her. Because men are strong, and women are pretty. Can you imagine what would happen if a teenage boy had healthy skin? Or -- Get this! Ha! -- if a teen girl had muscles? What a crazy world that would be! Thanks, One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins, for keeping the world safe for stereotypical gender norms!

Oh, One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins, how I loathe thee!

It's like the Sahara

Ugh. I've already failed on one resolution. My plants would be better off if I left them in the desert, I swear. This includes my husband's family's heirloom Christmas cactus from the Mother Country. Why they entrusted it to us, I'll never know. I keep hoping some long-lost last will and testament will be discovered and we'll learn that the cactus was supposed to go to Great Aunt Tilly with her green thumb and sunny verandas, not the Planticide household. Until then, it stays with us, since we were the ones who unofficially inherited it and we can't find any other family members who want to take on the responsibility. Believe me. We've tried.

Mid-year resolution

Be it so resolved: I'm going to update this baby a little more regularly. And since I didn't make this resolution in January, I'm calling it my mid-year resolution. Maybe this could become a regular thing. What else should I resolve to do? And do resolutions stick better in the hot summer months, with a relaxed schedule but the distractions of outdoor activities? Or do they work better in bitterly cold January, when all you want to do is stay inside in thick socks and a warm sweater?

So just for fun, I also resolve to water my plants before they start to droop and I can actually hear them croaking "waaaaaaater." And I resolve to add more classic literature to my To Be Read pile. I'm looking at you, 100 Years of Solitude. Oh, and I resolve to enjoy gossiping less. Notice, I'm not resolving TO gossip less. Just to tamp down my enjoyment of it. There's a difference.

Looking for a Christmas gift for the romance reader in your life? Here's a suggestion.

Success!

I passed! I got approval from the requesite committee members, I've made the requested changes, and I'm officially Dr. SaraBear. All that remains is to give that big ol' document a final proofread and send it off to the university's grad school for a format check. It's such a relief to have this burden off of my shoulders. I've been living with this goal for so long. Gotta finish the dissertation. I'll do that after I finish the dissertation. Not until I finish the dissertation.

Now I'm left to wonder ... what happens next?

D-day

It all comes down to this.

On Monday, I'm defending my dissertation.

I have no idea what to expect. Major changes? Tough questions? Wholescale rewrites? Prolonged, derisive laughter? Tears, either on my part or on the faces of my committee members?

I really don't know. But whatever you're doing on Monday afternoon, please take a moment and pray for Mojo.*





*I am not, in fact, known as Mojo. I am referencing a Simpsons episode. Feel free to laugh.

Burning love

I am a successful DVD burner. Bow before me.

No, really, it's a big accomplishment for someone whose forte isn't electronics. I had no luck with the Cheetah program, but I didn't tinker with it for very long because the very nice technical support guy at Sonic got My DVD up and running. What worked for me might work for you, so I'll put it here.

First, uninstall RealPlayer or RealOnePlayer (or OneRealPlayer or the OneRingRealPlayer or the PrecioussssssPlayer) or whatever variation of "real," "player," and possibly "one" you might have on your computer.

Second, turn off all the programs that automatically launch at the computer's start-up. Yes, it disables your virus sweeper and various other components. You can turn them back on when you're done burning; just don't forget to turn them off before your next burning session.

Those two steps worked for me, and I'm burning like a champ now.

Aren't you proud that I got through without a "burn, baby, burn" joke? Oh, does that count as one? Drat.

Help for the hopeless

So I'm a TiVo gal. Don't have one? Go get one, ASAP. No, really. I'll wait.


So now that you've got one, you'll probably want to save some of your favorite shows forever and ever, my precioussss. TiVo lets you do that with TiVoToGo, where you can send programs to your computer and then burn them onto DVD. Sounds pretty sweet, right? The problem is that the officially recommended software, MyDVD, doesn't, um, work. It's a huge hair-pulling, gut-clenching pain in my non-techno-savvy neck.

A possible solution came to me today from a very nice man at TiVo support, who told me off-the-record and very hush-hush that I should by no means use MyDVD. Instead, he recommended I use Cheetah to burn my DVDs once I get my shows onto my computer.

My optimistic heart beats a little faster. Let's hear it for Cheetah and its magical (I hope!) ability to solve my burning problem! If you've had this same problem, check them out for yourself: www.cheetahburner.com

Here's hoping I saved you the half-hour you might have had to spend with TiVo support.

Is this thing on?

This is my inagural foray into the world of blogging. I have no goal in mind for this corner of the web right now. We shall see what unfolds.

The title of my little venture comes from, of all places, an ad I once wrote for a garage sale we hosted. At a loss to describe the shards of our lives we were putting out for sale, I simply ended the ad with "and intriguing miscellany." I figured it would spark a few people's curiousity. And sure enough, two twenty-something women told me they made a point to come to ours because, "Look! Intriguing miscellany! How can we skip that?"

Do I remember what they bought? Alas, no. But I hope they remain intrigued by it to this day.