Archive for the ‘Books & Movies & TV & Technology’ Category

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An Inconvenient Truth

January 8, 2007

M & her husband got T & I a gift subscription for two months of Netflix for Christmas.  So we went online and set it up on Thursday night.  First on our list was Al Gore’s documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, which showed up on Saturday.  T & I watched it Sunday night and found it very interesting.  I will admit there is some obvious “partisanship” in it- he never refers to President Bush by his name and he does make a few digs at the administration.  But there are some very honest truths about the climate and ecology changes around the world and how the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere relates to that.  I recommend everyone watch it!

Of course, I’m hoping he throws his hat in the ring again for 2008, though if he doesn’t, I’m all for John Edwards  (my dream team is Gore/Edwards) :-P

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This sucks

January 5, 2007

The power port on ye old ibook is dead. No more will it recognize the power plug and this is the 4th plug I’ve had in 3 years. It is an incredibly poor design and, based on the support forums I read at Apple, this is not the first one to have this problem. And with the shape this thing is in, it costs far too much to get it fixed.

I have managed to get the hard drive backed-up to an external drive. But I use ye old ibook for everything: address book, checkbook, taxes, e-mail, internet, pictures, music.

Eventually, I will get another one (I want a black macbook) but I’m not sure when that will be possible with all the money crap I’ve got going on. Plus I know Apple is coming out with its new OS this spring, so it would be nice to get that pre-installed.

Until then, what on earth am I going to do sans a computer???

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I’ve been tagged

November 19, 2006

Nicole tagged me. I am supposed to write weird stuff about myself. I’m not sure they are very weird but well, here goes:

1. As a kid, I used to read the phone book when I was bored. Even now, if I have the phone book out (which I rarely do cause I use the internet to search for everything), I will look up my listing and then read all the other people with the same last name- the list was much shorter before I was married.

2. I got engaged in our band director’s front yard during a camp out after my senior year (T had graduated the year before but we met because we had mutual friends and we were all in band together). He and his wife were the master/mistress of ceremonies at our wedding. We had an itinerary for the wedding- he timed the rehearsal and then allocated specific times for the wedding itself. I have a copy of the itinerary in our wedding journal.

3. Homemade chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast. I figure they are no worse than some of the sugar cereal crap out there.

4. I read 5,000 pages in 5th grade for a reading contest (no that didn’t include the phone book). Over 10 times more than any other kid read. The internet has reduced the number of pages I read now. Bad Internet. Bad Blog. Bad Forums. Bad Erin ;)

5. When I was in 7th grade, I was part of a drug awareness play called “Pinocchio, Don’t Smoke that Cigarette”- we went to the elementary schools to “perform”. I played the Spine. My big line was “You’ll never grow big or grow tall. In fact, you may never grow up at all”. Very funny, ha ha, considering that I was about 4′7″ at the time. And quite sad that I remember the line.

6. I can remember phone numbers very easily. I only have to dial them maybe once or twice and I generally don’t need to write them down.

7. When I read books written by the same author, I prefer to read them in publishing order and I have to read them all. I will not skip ahead if they are a series. And generally, a year or more has to go by before I can reread them because I remember the plot too well.

8. I do not like paper to have any wrinkles. If a page wrinkles, I either get a new sheet or I tear the page out of the notebook, even if it means starting over on what I’m writing.

9. At 29, I still cannot cut in a straight line, even with a guide line.

10. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is my absolute favorite movie. Most people do not expect me to say that when I’m asked.

I’m not sure who to tag, so if you want to do it, post a comment to let me know you did.

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Speed

November 11, 2006

So we went back to a cable modem from dsl as our dsl sucked. It seemed to be stuck on 150-200 kbps and dropped all the time. The cable company was running a 6 month deal for $19.99. Wheeeee! It is fast! Direct hook-up to the computer puts us at 7 Mbps, wireless at about 3-4 Mpbs (our wireless router is about 3 1/2 years old, so that may be why it is slower).

I also dropped our home phone down to the lowest possible plan with no features, still $20/month but that’s 1/2 what we were paying before. Probably when we move, we’ll just use our cell phones instead of getting a new land line. Most people call us on them anyway.

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Curious George

October 19, 2006

curious-george-poster.jpg

 

This is Widget’s new favorite movie. She has watched it about a dozen times by now. We rented it first and after listening to her say “George? George? Where George?” after returning it, we decided to buy it.

Actually, it is a good kids’ movie. And I love that all the music is done by Jack Johnson (my favorite singer right now). I already owned the soundtrack and now when we listen to it in the car, Widget is very excited and shouts “George!” :P

curious-george-soundtrack.jpg

 

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Fall

September 21, 2006

I was going to write a post about fall because I love fall but both Overwhelmed with Joy and Jenna summed it up perfectly.

And I think I will watch You’ve Got Mail.  Fall always makes me think of that movie.  That and school supplies- I still love school supplies.  New pencils, folders, notebook paper, my favorites :P

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Days of Our Lives

August 29, 2006

I started watching Days of Our Lives one summer about 14 years ago when my parents went to Europe for work my dad was doing on a international trade agreement for tropical woods and I was stuck home watching my youngest sister and couldn’t drive yet.

Obviously during the school year I could never watch it except on vacations but when I went to college, my roommate and I had an arrangement with the girls across the hall where they would tape it-their tv had better picture quality via “rabbit ears”- and we would watch it together after our classes. We were so obsessed with it that we bought soap opera fan magazines and created a “Days” wall by plastering cut out pictures to our dorm room wall. I still have pictures of the wall and nearly every square inch was covered with the pictures.

I’ve watched it on and off over the years, depending on work schedules and so on. I hadn’t watched it in ages until a couple of weeks ago when Widget was still sleeping at 1 PM and I flipped it on. I had to laugh because one of the story lines is exactly the same as it was when I first started watching it with Austin, Carrie, Sami and Lucas - each secretly wanting one person but “stuck” with another. Some things never change!

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A new addiction

August 27, 2006

Grey’s Anatomy.

How did I not watch this show before?

Except I have a dilemma now: It’s moving to Thursdays at 9 PM which is when CSI is on- my other show addiction (now that West Wing is over). I’m going to have to tape one but how will I choose which to watch and which to tape? :-P

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Another book

August 11, 2006

I went out and bought a copy of the book our pastor suggested in his e-mail to me. So far I am finding it a much better read than the book #5 gave me and I would, even though I’ve only read three chapters, suggest that it could benefit any Christian, whether they are struggling or not. I do have to keep my Bible handy because he references various passages- sometimes he includes the verses, sometimes not. Actually that is a very good thing for me as I have, um, gotten away from reading the Bible on a regular basis.

In the second chapter, he lists his top ten symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality, one of which is denying the past’s impact on the present. At the very end of this section he writes:

The work of growing in Christ (what theologians call sanctification) does not mean we don’t go back to the past as we press ahead to what God has for us. It actually demands we go back in order to break free from unhealthy and destructive patterns that prevent us from loving ourselves and others as God designed. (pg 29)

And that is exactly where I am. Going back to break free. But it is a pretty scary prospect.

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The book

August 5, 2006

I finished the book #5 gave me to read. Now I know to get the most out of it, I should have read it more slowly, done the writing exercises, etc (I attempted the life script four times in my journal. Yeah, um, mental block. What I wrote here is about all I could handle). But the truth is I found it kind of hokey, a little too peppy, a little bit too much “You can do it”. It is a very Christian book, so if you haven’t accepted Christ and God, you might want to throw it across the room. And he focused a lot on what to do if you have built up anger or resentment or came from abusive background or were abusive yourself.

He had some valid points about needing to evaluate your past to see how it might be keeping you in a state of emotional exhaustion and then to “exorcise” those things to help you heal. I am definitely aware of that now.

One other thing that stood out came from his chapter on self-care:

Develop three relationships of significance: I know it is important that we have close relationships with people. We are a communal people. God designed us to need each other. I also know I’m pretty well lacking here when I exclude my family and my husband. What I find surprising is that he suggests one relationship be with someone older you can learn from, one with a peer, one with someone younger you can mentor. I’m not even sure where to start with this one, mostly because it goes along with my self-esteem issues that no one wants to be friends with me.

Except, of course, the one friend I decided it was better not to see. Sigh. I got an e-mail from her yesterday wondering if we could get together and try again. Somewhat my fault as I sent the first e-mail about a month ago, saying maybe I was wrong about not seeing them. Then, after that discussion which ended with a “maybe we could get together” on her part, nothing until last week Friday, when she e-mailed to ask me about the person at Sears Photo we like. And then the ones yesterday- it wasn’t until the third response from her that she said she wanted to get together. Part of me says “Yes, let’s since you don’t have any other friends” Part of me says “You are a complete idiot to even think about it.” (See self-esteem). I’m still not sure what to do. I’m waiting to see if I get a response to my e-mail where I try to explain why I’m so mixed up about it and that I have to make sure it is an emotionally healthy decision to be friends with her, not just for me but also for my relationship with T. I doubt she’ll understand that. Talk about someone who could stand some therapy. Heh heh. I suppose that’s a bit funny coming from my formerly anti-therapy self.