Atropa Belladonna~ Raven (a.k.a. Nightshade)'s Weblog ~
These are the ARCHIVES of March 2006. For more archives, visit the Archives page. For the current Weblog entries, check the Main page.
Atropa Belladonna| Thurs, March 30, 2006 (9:45pm) Boring week. Boring is good. I have read an entire book, watched 3 DVDs (including Memoirs of a Geisha. Mmmm...), made yummy food, written & submitted characters for a Sunfall LARP, took my kids swimming, loved my husband, meandered the web, answered a third of the messages languishing in my inbox, baked cookies, and even went to bed early - twice! - in the last 7 days. Life is good. I'm sure it'll get interesting again soon, though. Which is for the best. After all, there's only so much boredom I can handle before spontaneously deciding to run a Quest or something. Which reminds me - I really need to find out how Anna's Dungeon Quest went. Anna?!?! |
| Fri, March 24, 2006 (3:15pm) Rough Day at the Office If anyone heard a bloodcurdling scream today around 11:30am, that would have been me. (I promised myself I wouldn't post too many boring posts about my kids, since this is absolutely NOT a 'MommyBlog'. So instead, I'm going to post about my work. Alas, I can't post much about my healthcare job, since that's covered by Privacy and Confidentiality clauses, so you get to hear about my other job. The one which doesn't pay so well. So there.) Today, I discovered that one of my co-workers here at VanderBrown Enterprises decided to redecorate the office. The decoration scheme involved approximately 2/3 of a Costco-sized tin of Hot Chocolate Powder. Poured. Everywhere. I was ready to throttle the moron in shipping and receiving who'd forgotten to lock the supply room. Instead, I had to do immediate damage control. I corraled the junior associate who appeared to be the instigator of this un-approved redecoration scheme, and sent him off to check on our company's liquid assets while I called for Housekeeping. Housekeeping, as usual, did not respond, so I got to deal with the mess myself. My. Freaking. Goodness. The production floor, the main office, and even the breakroom were covered in a thin (or not so thin) layer of sugary chocolate powder. Some areas had even been moistened (did I ever mention that my co-workers drool?) and the powder had been turned into a chocolate goo. Then, in the middle of clean-up, the junior associate in charge of floors came in, and decided to experience the new decoration scheme in a full-contact sort of way. GAAAAaaaaaAAAAAHHH! So I sent him to assist the previously mentioned associate in our liquid assets division. And I went back to cleaning. (Note to self - Send a request to maintenance to have the vaccuum bag changed.) And that's when Mr. Redecorator returned from his sojourn in Liquid Assets to streak through the office - dripping - and fling himself into the uncollected piles of brown powder. I can not express my displeasure in words. I did, however, express some of my displeasure in volume - which caused much covering of ears, and production of tears. I sent my co-worker for a repeat visit in Liquid Assets with firm instructions to STAY THERE. He did not comply. Let me assure you, I will be lodging a complaint about this co-worker with upper management. |
| Fri, March 17, 2006 (11:50pm) - edited for math & spelling errors on Sat, Mar 18 Cat5 o' Nine tails  Maskwa came over for the usual Friday evening Gamer night... and helped me fulfil one of my life's desires. We made a Cat5 o' Nine Tails. It's a whip made, not out of leather, but out of Cat 5 network cables. Patch cables, to be precise. 4 fully functional patch cables, and one which is non-functional 'cuz it's only terminated on one end (dang that 9 for being an odd number!) I'd intended to terminate the last end, too, and just have it loose near the handle of the whip... but then our friendly neighbourhood RedNecked Rabbit showed us her mad skillz in creating a proper hangman's knot to make a nice handle for the whip, and I think I like that better. Yep, there's nothing like mixing modern technology with a little BDSM to keep your mind off life's odd twists and turns, hm? |
| Thurs, March 16, 2006 (11:45pm) Does anyone have, or know of someone who has, some X-Files season DVDs which they would be willing to lend out? I've been wanting to watch some good classic X-Files lately - the Mulder ones, preferable with Krycek, or any of the 'special' episodes (the Jose Chung ones, or COPS, or um... that other cool one). And I am, of course, too cheap to go down to the local video store and rent them... particularly when I could give that money to friends who wouldn't charge me late fees. Respond via email or Quick-Comment? BTW - Jase is doing much better now. Whew. |
| Tues, March 14, 2006 (2:00pm) Waited in ER last night for a mere 3 hours to be seen with a sick kid. They were very busy, but kudos to Triage for doing what they could to help a baby with breathing trouble before lesser problems. Still... three hours. Ug. All is well, tho. Jasen is on meds for Croup, but not hospitalized this time. Tired, now. |
| Fri, March 10, 2006 (7:00pm) We interupt this Weblog to bring you a SPECIAL Connor Report! Connor has been using more spontaneous words lately, including 2-word combinations, like his favorite "Want Juice!" He has recently expanded this to include a number of foods and drinks, like "Want Cookie!" or, just this morning, "Want Coffee!" But this evening, he made his first spontaneous non-food object two-word request. Shades had taken a knife out of the knife-block (to prepare stir-fry vegetables) and left it on the counter. Connor lifted it, carefully, and held it out for the world to see... and announced, "Want Sword!" Yep. He's our son, alright. And we are proud of him! |
| Wed, March 8, 2006 (4:00pm) - Edits below posted on Fri, March 10 (9:30am) Open for Business I decided to buy a split-level home tool for my favorite architectural design program, on Monday. Spent a bit of time playing with it, and although it has some annoying quirks (you can't place doors properly on the split levels) I've learned how to build some interesting new house styles. It also included several new windows and doors, as well as new wall coverings and flooring samples for decorating your virtual homes, and quite a few new objects too (including new chairs, beds, and a very nice set of counters) to furnish them. And then you can spend hours and hours playing Sims in these nice new houses. Yes, I broke down and bought the new Sims2 Expansion. I told several people that I wasn't going to buy this game, but when I heard that it had a split-level tool, I gave in. Building houses is one of my favorite activities in The Sims, and the lack of split levels had been stifling my architecural creativity for some time. I had to have it. It also comes with new hairstyles (only 2 or 3 per age&gender category, but they actually look good, unlike the styles included in the University Expansion), new outfits, and some new pie-menu choices. Of course, there's a bunch of new activities your Sims can do once they open their own business, like buying and selling, hiring and firing, crafting and pricing... but I haven't touched any of those. I've been playing the game for 3 days, and have yet to even touch the 'Business' end of things. I've been enjoying the new interpersonal choice options (no longer do my Sims find themselves forced to have Pillow Fights for amusement when a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors will do) and the new Fridge option simply called, "Make..." which allows Sims to cook one or more food choices without the need to then sit down and consume the food which they made. (That always used to drive me batty! Your Sims have to cook for their kids because the kids can't make anything more complicated than a cup of juice, but the parents automatically start eating the food they prepare. Or, you can tell them to "Serve..." food, but they will make enough food to feed 6, even if there's only 1 hungry kid. Grrr.) It appears that the makers of The Sims put a lot of thought into ways to improve and enhance the regular game, instead of merely adding a secondary game like they did with the University Expansion. Oh, and the outfits - a lot of them are actually very good! They have an amazing Ninja outfit (meant to be used as a mascot for some business or other) and some cute teddy-bear suits for kids. There's not very many new outfits, unfortunately, but I can think of a use for almost all them (with the exception of some mascots like Submarine-Man or the Gorilla). Certainly better value for money than the University stuff and even most of the outfits from NightLife. So, that's my summary of the game so far: pretty decent content, if you completely ignore the 'Business' end of it. It may even be good content with the 'Business' end, but I can't be bothered to micromanage someone else's business right now. I'm too busy playing Supreme Lord and Master of their Domestic lives. |
| Comment added: Fri, March 10, 2006 (9:30am) RavenBlack has this Public comment: I bet the Sims doesn't still have the features I want my house to have though, does it? Is there a batpole for split-level transit? Can you make concealed doors? Can there be an archery corridor in your house? Then what good is it!? - - - Excellent point! I shall write to EA Games immediately and point out the error of their ways. How can they expect budding evil geniuses (Genii?) to plan their evil lairs without sufficient architectural considerations. I'll also ask them to look into the possibility of including spiked pit-traps for wandering salesmen, oh - and flag poles, from which to fly the Jolly Roger, or other nationalistic emblems. |
| Fri, March 3rd, 2006 (2:00pm) This is Not a Mommy Blog ...But despite that, I must talk about my children. Again. Jasen had his SLP assessment today. Guess what? It looks like we have another 'Special Needs' kid. He was diagnosed with Severe Language Delays. I'm not sure if it was Severe Receptive and Moderate Communicative delays, or if they were both Severe, but he only needs 1 delay at Severe level to qualify for PUF. That means he's likely to be accepted for special programming, like Connor was. Amusingly enough, if he'd had his assessment just 3 days earlier, he wouldn't have qualified - at least not yet - because March 1st is a cut-off date. Prior to that, PUF won't provide assistance without requiring a follow-up assessment. However, because he is within their acceptance dates, he's on the list for getting into a program. And, what's more, he's at the TOP of the list, because he's the first kid who has been diagnosed with a Severe Delay within this period (The SLP told me that, herself. She also told me I was very observant and pro-active to be bringing my kid in this early and getting him the Early Intervention he needs. Yay me.) I am of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm glad Jase will be getting assistance and that I noticed it early enough that he'll get the best help he can. On the other hand, I wish I'd been wrong, and that the SLP could have said he's perfectly fine and there's nothing to worry about. I don't want a second Special Needs kid. Hrm. Then again, the first one is really cute, and doing absolutely fantastic with his programming. There's no reason to think Jase won't do just as well. And since we're not worried about Autism in Jasen's case, we may discover there's something else involved which we can ctually do something about... like conductive hearing loss (which the SLP said was a possibility). There's so many options and lots of help available. - - - A Connor Report Connor is using a lot of words spontaneously now, and sometimes even putting 2-word phrases together for familiar requests (like "Want juice!"). Yesterday he did something new, however. His therapist had gone home for the day and I was tidying up prior to getting Kalen from school. Connor was wandering around looking bored. He came up to me and said, "Want Kay!" He wanted his sister! |