Random Bits and Pieces

Random stuff:

I have another sickly fish, unless he's already died. I lost another one about a month ago, so after this one goes, the population will be 4 orange platies, 4 zebra danios, and one huge Squiggy the Pleco.

I just finished the last of the M&M Kissables (a Kiss/M&M cross) from Valentine's Day 2007. In the fridge, we have a Pot o' Gold box of chocolates from 2007, too. Need to eat those before they go bad, but it's honestly not my favorite chocolate assortment. I like the round ones with the orange/lemon/raspberry cream centers. And the caramels, of course. My favorites.

Daylight Savings Time starts this weekend. We are not amused. DST doesn't change the amount of daylight time we get, so I'm really not a fan of the whole thing. And moving the dates this year is going to be a real PITA, because our outdated VCR will have issues with the built-in DST feature. I'm also skeptical about the supposed energy savings, given this little news article on Yahoo today, and this one from last year. Sure, probably not an in-depth study, but food for thought. (Actually, it's like debunking the gas boycott email that goes around - most people will just fill up the day before or after, thus using the same amount of gas, just shifting when it's purchased. DST just means we have more lights on in the morning than the evening, or vice versa.)

I'm ready to start the countdown for the new Indiana Jones movie, which was mentioned in the Heart of the City comic today. I've been waiting for this one, and hoping that Lucas would get in gear before Harrison Ford was too decrepit to pull it off. The man looks darn fine for his age, but keeping up with Ally McBeal may be taking a lot out of him. And then I remembered that this is George Lucas we're talking about, the man responsible for the amazing first Star Wars trilogy, but also the man responsible for the really not-so-good second SW trilogy. Now I'm just hoping that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn't suffer from some sort of Jar-Jar Binks problem, or that pathetic focus on CGI while leaving the script to be hacked out by monkeys.

Either way, we won't get to see it on Opening Day, because that's El Burrito's birthday and he's a little young for movies yet.

(Also, the IndianaJones.com website is totally Flash-based, and takes for-freaking-ever to load. And they don't give you a "skip intro" sort of option. Now that it's finally loaded, it keeps re-cycling all the little Flash windows about every 3 seconds. I don't have time to read them, much less click on a link. Assuming that any of the links actually work, which they don't for me. Gah!! It wasn't this bad last time I looked at the site.)

There was probably something else, but El Burrito is awake. He's been working my last sad little nerve for the past two days, and making it very hard to get anything done other than reading Grover books and looking at his pictures on the computer.

Other things I'm working on

So, for a not so crummy-mood post now. Because if I don't vent here, the poor fish have to listen to it. :)

I'm working on my sister's website a little more. It needs an update, and I'm working on the "look" of the background. She wanted blue, and the best color I could come up with then just doesn't do much for me. So I played with Paint Shop Pro this morning and came up with some other options for her.

Normal page
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Test 4

I got the spacing wrong on 1 and 2, it's supposed to be a dark border down the left edge of the page, not a page that's dark halfway across. But I like the blue on 3 better than what's there now.

And now I'm getting offline, because it's starting to rain again and I hear thunder. We've got a surge protector, but it's a new PC and I'd rather not risk it, you know?

* * * *

And now I'm back online. Another thing I've managed to accomplish lately - I got $2.48 in refunds from Amazon this week when they dropped the price on things soon after I bought them. This is all thanks to a website called Refund Please, where you can enter the things you buy and they'll email you if the price goes down within 30 days. They just ask for your email address, the date, and the item ID number, so I'm not worried about fraud issues. And they've saved me about $5 so far. It would have been more, but I got a bit behind on asking for refunds.

And I think I've got a copy of the Stargate episodes we missed being mailed to us. Only 8 (I think) left until the end of Stargate. :( :(