That’s it. I’ve had it with WordPress.com. This blog is moving to Supersized.org, the free version of Serendipity. My blog can now be foundt at http://manda.supersized.org. Happily, they have the exact same template I used here, so it should look much the same.

It looks like a fingerprint smudge (there’s another on the opposite edge), but it’s actually a disc defect that goes all the way through the second layer. It’ll play up to the scene in Tia Dalma’s shack, then the DVD player freaks out. Bah! Hopefully I’ll finally get to see it Friday.

On the bright side, tomorrow’s  Doctor Who episode has Shirley Henderson (AKA Moaning Myrtle) and Peter Kay! After such a crackin’ start, I’ve been mostly disappointed with the second series. The Cybermen were a bore. Mark Gatiss’s Idiot’s Lantern had a good premise, but the ending felt slapped on. Ditto for the Impossible Planet. ”The show’s running short - just have David Tennant make faces at the Devil for ten minutes. That’ll fill the gaps!”

Other than complaining about TV and DVDs, not a lot has been happened around here. I still haven’t gotten the new computer fitted so I can abandon the old. Part of the difficulty is that I’ll trying to start on the right foot with a firewall, anti-virus software, and Windows Update up-to-date. Now I remember why I gave up on all that - it takes hours and hours to download all the new updates on dial-up. The anti-virus updates alone were 30 MB (~3 hours) and it wanted to download even more last night. Windows Update had 48 critical updates  - another 35+ MB. If I don’t get DSL soon, I shall pull my hair out. On the bright side, I’ve started toying around with DVD copying backing up. All that extra ROM is super nice. 

Dear BBC America,

On Thanksgiving, while the rest of the family is in the kitchen catching up on recent events and generally being sociable, I can frequently be found in the living room playing with my uncle’s glorious digital cable. Thus, Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when I can watch your fine channel, and what programming do you choose for this magnificient day? A marathon of What Not to Wear! *sigh*

Do better next year!

Signed,
-Me

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

After 8 years of wallowing in Windows 98 I’ve finally entered the new millennium!

Old computer: Windows 98 (initially Win98, upgraded to WinMe then back to Win98SE)
New computer: Windows XP Media Center 2005

Old computer: AMD Duron 950 Mhz, 256 MB RAM
New computer: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM

Old computer: 6.4 GB hard drive
New computer: 80 GB hard drive

It’s a bit like culture shock when I work on it. I’m transferring things over very slowly since it’s likely some of the hardware and software I’m used to won’t work on XP. For one, my printer has a parallel port, so I’ll have to find a way to make it use USB instead. And I only have one monitor, so I have to undo/redo the cables every time I switch. With holiday plans and such I probably won’t be able to say goodbye to the old system until next week.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Edit (12/5): The “save the cheerleader…” promo line has been retired! Yay! [TV Week via EW]

If I hear/see the phrase “save the cheerleader, save the world” one more time I swear I’m going to scream. Much like SciFi and Battlestar Galactica, Bravo and Top Chef, you can’t turn on the channel without seeing something about Heros and I’m getting fed up about it. I don’t watch much NBC, so if they could just keep it out of Days of Our Lives’s timeslot, I’d be super happy.

Anyway, I’ve spent the majority of today with WS_FTP backing up every element of the old blog that I could ever conceivably want or need. Three thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight entries (my 6-year blogging anniversary is later this month) and every one is saved in three methods: mySQL database dump, Movable Type export file, and static HTML files. Considering how much cringe-worthy stuff that’s in there, it is doubtful I’ll resurrect those entries elsewhere on the web, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. [Incidentally, Kevin Donahue's method for exporting large MT blogs works great. Most of the other ways I came across needed command line access or involved writing special perl scripts or other overly technical ideas.] The domain expires today, and I’ve received a cancellation confirmation from 1and1, so the old blog should disappear in a matter of days, if not hours. Farewell, old blog. Farewell, Movable Type. And thanks for the 3 free years, 1and1.

So, on to the future. I fear my time here at wordpress.com will be short. My knitting blog has been on wordpress.com for many months now, but since I use BlogDesk to post to it, I didn’t realize just how sloow these servers are. Why don’t I use BlogDesk here? Well, I tied both blogs together under the same wordpress.com username. That seemed like a good idea at the time (no logging in and out all the time), but whenever I try to post to this blog using BlogDesk, it shows up at the other blog.  So I’m stuck using the slow and buggy (see all these weird line breaks? I didn’t put them there) web interface. At the moment, though, I’m too lazy to seek out an alternative. November isn’t a good month for decision making - or at least it isn’t in my head (think ADD to the max ;)), so I’ll stay put for the present - and perhaps try out Firefox to see if it works any better with it.

BTW, have I mentioned that I’m getting a new computer? :) Dad has surprised me with a Dell! It’s supposed to arrive late this week or early next week. Plus, I think I may have talked Mom into DSL. I’m trying to do the same with TiVo too, but I’m probably pressing my luck. ;)  2007 is going to be a good year!

Oh Internet, how we crave thee…

1. How much time do you spend on the Internet daily?
Let’s just say more than what’s healthy…

2. What are your favorite 3 websites?
Bloglines (still, even though I keep having to move certain feeds to other newsreaders in order to view them like I want), Listology (because I love movie & TV lists and am addicted to Netflix Tracker), and the DVDTalk forums (as bad for the credit card as the deal forums may be).

3. Do you eat at your computer?
Only when I realize that’s the only way I’ll get any sustance that day. I’ve thought about getting a folding tray just for that use, but I think that would be going too far.

4. Pick one and why - Reading the news online or in a newspaper?
Newspaper is more comfortable and pleasant (my desk/chair is very uncomfortable and monitors do nothing for my eyesight), but much of the stuff I’m interested in reading about is only online.

5. How many people are on your instant messenger buddy list?
I haven’t ran an IM program in ages. Back when I did run ICQ or AIM there were so few people on my contact list, and I kept such odd hours that I rarely ’saw’ anyone. It seemed like a waste of RAM to keep it running.

I’m not sure if it’s the time change, colder weather, or the impending holidays, but I haven’t much felt like blogging lately. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about instead.

1. Website worries - My domain expires in under a week. My hosting also expires around that time (after 3 years of free hosting, it’s tricky to get an exact date out of 1and1). I don’t wish to continue either of them, but my brain just isn’t working this month making decision making difficult. I fear I’ve left it too long to make a proper change in time, but I’ve set up a new blog at wordpress.com for now. Please change your bookmarks.
2. Pining for DSL an/or a TiVo - Bellsouth is currently advertising a deal where you get a free TiVo when you order DSL. That would be great if TiVo itself wasn’t already offering free TiVo boxes (plus, I really want a dual tuner :)). Still, I’ve just noticed that DSL Lite is now only $24.95 a month with no bundled purchases required to get that price. True, the speeds are more like ISDN than true DSL, but at that price it would be ridculous not to upgrade from dial-up. And ‘real’ DSL is only $8 more than that, quite a bargain as well!
3. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer - a British comedy pair that I’ve gone absolutely potty for. Vic Reeves Big Night Out has not left my DVD player in the past month. In that time I’ve watched at least one episode (usually more like 3 or 4) per day. They only made 14 episodes total so you do the math. I can recite these suckers in my sleep, and yet I can’t stop watching. But relief is coming -despite my guilt over purchasing a ‘me’ item in the height of my Christmas shopping season, I gave in and ordered The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer yesterday. I also just won a Fast Show DVD on eBay, so I’ll soon have some new sketch comedy DVDs to ruin my mind with. :p
4. Christmas Shopping - Pretty much done, thank goodness. Still have more than a few knitted prezzies to go, though.
5. Black Friday ads - Most of the major one are already up at BFads and GottaDeal.com, but they look pretty lackluster. The best thing I’ve seen is $15 X-Files DVD sets at Meijer.
6. DeepDiscountDVD’s semi-annual sale - It’s going on now, but I’m not interested this year - especially in view of how DDDVD hiked up box set prices just before the sale went live.