squweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

nextweeknextweeknextweek!!!!!! squweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Holy craahp! It's that time of year already??

You know the time of year I'm talking about. the time of year that Styx goes into a frenzy and disappears (oh wait, I already did that... they'll never notice....) for the next several months while praising the creator that invented the Hi-def tv. American Idol season!

Only this year's gonna be different. There isn't going to be any loopy Paula to keep things interesting on the show. This will be (supposedly) Simon's last year. Top things all off, I'm still very much addicted to my games over in Crackbook. If Chicagolady hadn't been so kind as to remind me, I surely would have missed the first few weeks dealing with the tortureaudition rounds. Now the huge question is:

Which addiction is going to win out?

Surely I don't have enough hours in the day to deal with both, right?

Or...am I going to go insane trying to get it all done?

So much to do to get ready.... time to make a check list.

01) get note book out and in customary place on desk
02) either sharpen pencils or test pens to make sure I don't run out of ink
03) wash and iron panties in case there is a decent male singer or three worthy of a good pantiflinging......

Did I forget anything?

Some possible excitement (hey Lainie look!)

Now, if I recall the Bo Bice site has a premium area (meaning you pay for access, kinda like the Gold accounts in Classmates) and I only have to assume the little blurbit before the music comes out of that area of the site as I didn't see any confirmation in the general free areas. If there is some truth to this (and I'd assume that there is as there are some peeps from that site on YouTube and if they ever saw their site name in a video, you can be damned sure that they'd be up in arms if it was an unauthorized usage and wrong information), then it's time to get very excited as the local WalMarts will be carrying a new Bo Bice cd. WHOOT WHOOT!!

Now, if you'll excuse me...I've got company for the next couple days and really need to get the CrackFacebook fix in quick before we get started for the day. There are a few things we'd like to get accomplished today...get her a blog set up, for one! I have a hunch it's going to be ALOT like my Padded Room entries but Im not sure yet... I wanna talk to her more about it first. Help her get some good footing before she leaves here in the next day or so.

Distractions and obsessions

Well we're down to the last few days of my primary obsession and NO Chicago...I aint picking until I absolutely HAVE to. Even down to the wire, it won't matter much because I like them both. It would be better if Kris won though because I'm sure Adam's going to have an easier time getting signed. Both will have great careers though.

Anyhow. With the monster entry I do weekly in the Jukebox and all the reading I do for that show, last thing I really feel like is writing about anything else. It also doesn't help that I have been fighting "those" kinda days.

Not to say the show (and a few other things) has become a huge time-suck over here, but I've been thrown clear off my usual daily rituals. I'm lucky if I get the blogs read and commented daily AND (are ya sitting?) I've gotten mostly "edjumakashunal" free. Yep. There's only two strips I MUST read and everything else for the most part is ignored now. Go figure I finally got their links sorted into folders in my favorites. *laffz*

I've been really enjoying my new camera (picture at left from online). More than 500 pictures have been snapped with it and I've used up ~maybe~ 6 sets of batteries. The juice gets sucked down fast because I keep the camera on while we're travelling in the truck...so I don't miss anything. Oh, this reminds me.... I still have plates to post in Photobucket. I haven't really been in any hurry to get them uploaded because HLP got hitched this past Saturday (the 16th...congrats hun, I hope you have better luck with that date than I did!) and won't be doing anything new for a couple weeks while she's on her honeymoon. Excuse me for a second....I gotta go deal with this horrid flashback.....

Anyhow...while hubby and I were out a couple weeks back, we were visiting McKays Secondhand store (music, videos, and games) and I saw they had the The Movies PC game. Ok, honestly, I saw it several weeks back. I'd pick it up, look at it and think "nah, not today...not at that price"...I really wasn't sure if I really wanted it that badly. Well, this last time (after about the 5th time picking it up and setting it back down) hubby asked if I was going to finally buy it. I told him I thought the price was too much and he told me that I was looking at the wrong sticker. *D'Oh* I was looking at the tag on the outer sleeve of the game, McKay's places their tags on the shell casing itself. So instead of the nearly $40 I was seeing on the sleeve, the game was only $5. Well for THAT price, even if it's a dog of a game, it wouldn't matter if I was able to get my money back or not (and the only way I get a refund on software there is if the game doesnt work). This game has gotten to be extremely addicting. I'll start playing and next thing I know, several hours have passed. Oh no! I guess I WON'T be getting to bed at 4am tonight either! I'm still learning the ins and outs of the game.




Age of Empires. Ok, this one isn't really as much as a time-suck as a game only lasts me about 90 minutes with the way I set it up. My trouble is if I'm having a bad day and decide to play more than one game, then I lose track of how much time has passed. This is one of those games that allows me to work out some anger/frustration/aggression (pick one...it'll fit the sitch) without ripping loose on someone I love or beating a hole through the wall. Another good game for times like that is Alpha Centauri or it's expansion pack Alien Crossfire (which both take HOURS to play for total world conquest). Neither game do I allow surrender... just total annihilation. Yeah, I know... violent. At least no one in the real world is getting hurt in the process. Heh. Reminds me of some of the games dickweed liked to play. Those stupid war simulations with the little cardboard pieces and dice. I hated those things. He'd insist I play too.... until that one New Years Eve. He proceeded to tell me he'd play it "historically" and told me how history went for that battle. I aint stupid. I didn't play historically. Let's just say the Allies didn't take Normandy that game. He never asked me to play again....I wonder why?

This is a screenshot of my profile page on my newest obsession. http://www.blip.fm/

Big HUGE time-suck. It's actually something I can play around with and multitask with easily if it wasnt for the fact I have this habit to keep an eye on my email account and say thank you for every prop I get (and I get ALOT). I found that this is ~almost~ a substitute for streaming... but not quite. In some cases it's better. Oh granted I don't get a live chat with it, but it's pretty close. I can come and go as I please, Im not stuck to a schedule, and there's ALWAYS some blippers on site (hi Simchabe!! *wavez*). Yeah, so ya really wanna proof the tune before you blip it and make sure there's no errors in the song somewhere (not to mention the fact you need to be creative in some cases to find the song you want....and even then it's a crap-shoot) and the others aren't hearing your song right now, but you also don't get people harrassing you while you're on the mic (no mic so they can't) and in the 2 months I've been actively blipping, I've yet to see someone say they hate a person's taste in music. You don't like their music, you just don't click play...better yet, don't follow their station. I've put a thingy on the sidebar that will allow you to play my last 25 blips. I wish they'd get something on site that would pop the blip up on my blog when I blip on the blipper site. I may have to get a Twitter account and see if it'll scroll them live on my page. As it stands right now, you kinda need to know when I'm on and refresh the blog page. I'm really workin on it so peeps can come to my blog and hopefully hear me at least somewhat "live".

Oh...and we got some news on that other front. I'll put it in the Journey to Parenthood blog as it' snot really fit to discuss such matters in this blog.

Holy cow!

So I skipped about half of my reads yesterday (which is better than the 4 DAYS of comic reads I hadnt gotten around to), ~maybe~ about 90 minutes worth of reading total for the blogs; and this is what I found when I pulled up my Google reader a few moments ago.

Yeah I know a good third of it is more than likely because of the 3 blogs I follow during American Idol season, but damn! In case you cant read that one number it says "All items (70)" meaning I have 70 (yes, seventy) new entries since I left Blogger last night (it aint helping matters that Blogger's not posting the entries to the readers until hours AFTER they were posted!!)! *sigh* I'll catch up, honestly...but if you were ever wondering why some of your entries get comments and others dont (especially those multi-entry peeps)....well now ya know.

There is another entry in the works, but I have a few more things to add. Maybe I should just break things down into bite-sized bits and post what I have now.....

mental blow up

Ok. So first and foremost, Im going to apologize to all of you as I havent exactly been the best bloggy buddy lately. The green-eyed monster likes to pay me a visit around the end of December when people start talking about going to visit (or having over) family for the holidays . Why? Well because my family happens to have gypsy tendencies and is scattered to the 4 corners of America so the ONLY family I manage to get to see during the holidays is my hubby's family (who all conveniently live in one place). God forbid if we were to plan a trip to see my family or my friends because somehow we'd just have to visit his family anyhow (cutting the trip to see mine in at least half). Ok, his gramma's in her 90's and frail...I'll give them that... but still. We wont even go into the fact that they ask every other phone call (and both sis AND mom call once a week each) when we're coming back in.


If the family issue wasnt bad enough, Christmastime is usually when some blogs go into high gear posting about the kids in their lives....sharing videos and pictures of little ones having a great time opening presents and joining in on the festivities. I CANT be telling others that they can't discuss these things as they're THEIR blogs and I have absolutely no right to tell others what they can and cant discuss such matters. All I ask is that you understand why, at times, I seemingly just fall off the planet. Thing is, I was married before for more than 10 years.....and there are no little ones (other than the furbabies) gracing my home. Although some days Im grateful that one didnt come along at that point of my life because the divorce would have been worse than it was, the fact still stands that Im going to be 40 this year and the clock's ticking away. I know there are a few of you out there that know exactly what Im going through.

The end of January was a little rough too. I was running on a high from my appointment and a low from the bug (discussed below) that I almost forgot a couple of very important dates. The 28th is an important date for me.....this year is Independence Day 4. On the 31st, was my daddy's 63rd birthday and my gramma's 2nd year Heavenly Birthday....man I miss her.

The last month or more hubby and I have had a cold going back and forth between the two of us. For the most part it's been lasting a day or so with me and then pops back over to spend time with him. The same bug's been going around his work as well. This past Thursday, after that wonderful appointment, I came home and wasnt feeling so well. My cheekbones were hurting and my face felt warm. I felt so unwell that I took the first dose of that antibiotic that's been sitting on my counter (it was issued to me over a month ago "just in case")...I even skipped my bike ride. Yeah, I felt ~THAT~ sick. I crawled upstairs to watch my usual Thursday night line up and ended up putting on my long sleeve night gown AND the plush robe.....and I was still cold. I ended up cancelling my shot for Friday because I cant have it if I've been on antibiotics. Friday I was still ill enough to keep me off the bike. Saturday I felt a bit better so I did a gentle ride that day as well as Sunday and Monday. I was schedulled to go to level 8 on Monday *IF* I felt well enough but when I went for my ride, I felt I better not push things. Im going to give it another week or two and see about increasing at that time. It'll all depend on the dr's appointment on Friday. The ZPak didnt seem to do too much good this time around and I suspect by Friday I'll be miserable again. I've been so out of it that I not only failed to keep up in the blogs in a timely manner (there are more than 50 I follow and some of ya'll write many times a day!!), but it was also Monday evening before I switched my tunes out in my MySpace..... Oh man...and I still have a few awards I'm meant to be posting (and then update in the Awards entry) but for the life of me I cant remember who all awarded me ones lately. If you'd be so kind and check...if you have one you awarded me and I havent posted it yet.....leave the link to the entry in my comments and I'll get to them............................I promise.

I havent written my review for Idol yet. There werent too many I was really thrilled with. Alot of "I likes" and not enough "Hell yeahs" to fill an entry...even with 3 night's worth of notes. Im wondering if this will be my last year watching ...or if I'll even make it through the whole year. So damn many plants this year. We'll see once we get through Hollywood week. The big question is, do I really want to put myself through that work again this year?

My SCSis is presently staying with her sister and mom in Ga. The last call I got was loaded with boo-hoos because she'd had a ~really~ horrid day. I wont go into details here. I will say that I finally had enough for the most part and as she was raging at all the things she wanted to do to the man (and I can understand those feelings...I had them at one point or another myself)...I told her to "shut up". Yeah...I used that term with my bestie of nearly 30 years. I told her that yeah I know she wanted to do all this mean, hurtful stuff and it's ok to feel that way BUT she shouldnt ACT on it and proceeded to tell her why she shouldnt (can anyone say stalking and harrassment with the intent to do harm?). I then gave her a suggestion to check out a certain not for profit organization that might be able to help her out, if not directly...then certainly they may have certain resources that will get her steered on the right path. I told her she needed to go sooner rather than later. She did do one thing right though....she called ME at 1230am...and NOT her x2b. Im so proud of her for that. She's also started taking steps for life after divorce.....address change and bank account changed so he has no access to her funds (not that she has any to work with anyhow). I wish she would have done all this sooner to be honest. She IS facing the fact that she's "screwed" and has actually used that term. The one mistake she made during this call was when she asked me how I'd feel in her shoes. It's a mistake because Im likely to be alot more blunt with what I say when Im feeling poorly. I was extremely blunt with her. I told her from day one I would have been packing, getting my ducks in order, changing accounts and would have been talking to a lawyer already. It would have all been done BEFORE I lost my job (not that that was expected but you have to figure if the jerk you're living with gets you thrown in jail, it's highly possible they're going to find a way to leak info to someone in Human Resources or a Co-Owner and manage to get you fired from your job )...at least I would have gotten the first meeting out of the way so I had an idea which steps I needed to take. I qualified it with a "but then again, Im much more pessimistic than you". Boiled down, I told her "I told you so" without being overly cruel about it. Yeah, I know it wasnt really nice, but it was stuff she needed to hear.

We started getting some mixed precip last night (Monday). When I peeked outside, it looked like we were getting some white stuff on the ground again. YAY. The weather's calling for a couple days worth of snow. It'll be nice if the ground gets fully covered over again.

We're on the night shift here. I havent decided if I'm going to stay up real late as per my usual or if Im going to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Im leaning towards the latter to be honest. Not today, obviously....maybe the next sleep cycle. I could use the extra sleep....

I have scads of stuff I emailled myself that I've meant to blog. With any luck, I'll be getting the email cleaned out in the next few days and get some of it put up. I think there's a game or three in there that I saw in other blogs that I wanted to do in mine....I know there were a few jokes that will be going up in the appropriate blog area.

I think that's it....if you can think of something that I didnt cover that you're wanting to know about....put it below in the comments.

Oh...and if someone could kindly talk me through those nifty little messages that some people have up near their comment boxes (Jeannie....Dorky.....someone.....anyone....)...Im thinking I'd like to add something like that to my blog as well.

just a quick note

Calories burned: 379.0
trip miles: 10.82
ave mph: 21.64

Busy busy and lots of reading to do today as the American Idol sites I have bookmarked are in full swing now, so Im kinda running behind. I still gotta get dinner made and things set up for tonight's show. Thank goodness I got my write up from Tuesday's show done last night (it's over in MySpace...I may have to add one contestant from last night to tonight's review as I had a chance to listen back on her performance). Not sure how Im going to manage things once we go to nights around here. I may have to just stick to my own schedule.