please don't SMS me!! (& pls sponsor my phone?!)

Oh man, when it rains, it pours!

So I check my phone this morning -- I usually check it like once a week -- and see three messages: one from bro, one from mother, and the most recent one from my dad, who is alone in PJ while my mom is in Switzerland for a few weeks.

Guess who essentially checked himself into hospital because he wasn't feeling well? [read: "I was wondering if I was having another stroke"].

So I started to reply to those messages... and by doing so, I must have used up the last few Ringgit of my prepaid phone (it costs RM2 per SMS, whether receiving or sending, while IDD/roaming), because I started getting "please top-up!" error messages.

Usually when my phone runs low/out, I ask my parents to top up for me (they keep a running tab, and I pay them back whenever I'm back in Malaysia)... but my mother's in Switzerland and my father's in hospital!

Hmmmm... how?

For the moment, for those who know my Malaysian h/p #, please don't SMS me: it won't reach. I sent a "sponsorship plea" via Twitter/Facebook, hopefully some/any of my pals see/s it and is/are willing to help! I usually have my parents top up RM100 at a time, it's more than enough to last a few months; I would hope that ~RM50 is something my pal(s) would be able to help out with. ... Y'all know I'm good for it.. I'm just halfway across the world from any resource right now! :(

... wait, we're not done!

While I was texting, the phone gave a lot of problems, wasn't "seeing" the correct keys/letters I was typing in... I know that had happened before, when the little nubbin broke off.... oh hey guess what happened?

The little nubbin broke off!!

GrrrRRrrRRRrrrr!!!

(Yes, I'm still using my ancient Sony Ericson P800. Not for very much longer, one would hope, seeing this latest development!!)

Things come in threes, they say... well, I count three, but all this happened before 9am... I'm just wondering what ELSE is awaiting me today... either nothing, or another set(s) of three!! AArrgghhhhh!!!

Hope YOU have a good weekend!

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The Guild: better late than never!

Patrick Rothfuss made reference to The Guild a few times on this blog. The Guild is what helped inspire Joss Whedon to create Dr Horrible during that writers' strike. And recently both Pat and Wil Wheaton were gaga over a music video released to publicise Season 3 of this web-series.

Curiosity finally got the better of me, once Kapgar also posted the video.

I hit play. And I was hooked. Why don't you try?



My fave line is: "You’ll touch my “+5 to dexterity” vest."
And yes, I'm geeky enough to appreciate this, even if I've never been sucked into the MMO world.

If Felicia Day looks familiar to you, you might recognise her from Buffy Season 7 (she was one of the many Slayerettes), or from Dr Horrible (his love interest). I've not seen the "missing" Dollhouse episode (Epitaph One), but she's in that too. Yes, she has done non-Whedon projects, I just haven't seen 'em. You can read more about Felicia and The Guild here (a Wall St Journal article!).

Anyways... so this The Guild thing... a series of webisodes about a local group guild of gamers who end up interacting in real life... to rather disastrous results. I've watched Season One, and will be move on to Season Two soon. Season Three just came out today.

Try it out!

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Too good to be true on CraigsList

Have you heard? We might be moved to Springfield in a few weeks' time!

So I'm looking around for possible apartments / houses to rent there... among other places, I try CraigsList. Here's one of the postings I responded to - way too good to be true, and more than we actually need, but hey, can't hurt to shoot an email, right?

Located in a working professional neighborhood, we're available to service your needs 7 days a week with 24 hour on-call facilities services.

Community perks include indoor fitness suite, fitness classes (like Pilates and yoga), pool and jacuzzi, fitness center, business center with hi-speed Internet , pool table, coffee bar, gathering area with flat screen television, locker rooms,, walking path, gazebo with flower garden, and attractive landscaping and waterfalls.

Apartments feature private entrances, laundry machine available, oversize garden bath tubs, walk-in closets, French doors, large windows with venetian, media, wired for high-speed Internet connection, built-in bookshelves and TV/media shelf, electric fireplace, ceiling fan hook-ups, arched doorways, ice-makers, dishwashers, screened-in porches or balconies, and ten foot and vaulted ceilings.

But now I am SO pissed... almost immediately, I received a reply:

ya i got some pics they're on my profile .. well i'm 5'7, long brunette hair, tight body and good sense of humor .. yaaa perfect :-) so tell me a little sumthin about you

ps: there's one little important thing i didnt mention in my ad .. umm hit me back and i'll tell you :-)


--
----------------------------------------------
Luella Mason
My Homepage <--- this was a link to a cliqmeet site
"Some people come into our lives, leave footprints in our hearts, and we are never ever the same."

take a closer look at the first line of the ad:
- working professional
- service your needs
... ummmm... okay, I was wondering about some choice of words, now I know....

I've already forwarded the reply to abuse@craigslist.org. I also pointed them to another similar posting (same words, different image) that is most probably another false post.

Let's hope the other two postings I responded to are genuine!

And in the meantime, I'll look at other more legitimate sites.

:p

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Gawd but do I lurve the internets!

So I'd stumbled upon this concept of "literal music videos" a few months ago when the version for A-Ha's Take On Me made its rounds through the internet. ... Then thanks to a tweet by @redeyechicago today I was pointed to The Huffington Post's article on The 7 Best Literal Music Videos of All Time, which contained not only the A-Ha vid but six others, some of which were absolutely hi.la.rious.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about... "literal music videos" are essentially voiced-over music videos, where the song now describes what's going on in the video.

Still confused? No worries! I'd like to feature three vids (only one of which is in The Huff's list, so don't worry, you can enjoy all those AND these too!) which I think are hella awesome :)

[There's a pop quiz question at the end, so pay attention!]

First, Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart:


Second, Meat Loaf's I Would Do Anything For Love:

Pay special attention to what's said at 6:55-7:10ish :D

Third, Air Supply's Making Love (Out of Nothing at All)


.. and now the question: what do these three songs have in common?

Submit your guesses in the comments :)

.. and have a great weekend everybody!

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"George R. R. Martin is not your bitch"

For those not in the know, George R. R. Martin is the author of the as-yet-unfinished series A Song of Ice and Fire. I've blabbed about the author and series before: bottom line is if you want an engrossing gritty realistic non-cookie-cutter epic fantasy series with flawed heroes, redeemable bad guys, and many intertwining plotlines, this is for you!

The "issue" some people have with George R. R. Martin is that it took forever to release Book 4 (A Feast for Crows), and that this ended up being Book 4 Part 1 because there were so many storylines to keep in mind and expand that only half the characters were advanced in Crows; the other half will be explored in A Dance with Dragons - which so far has had its release date changed/delayed quite a few times already.

So someone writes in to Neil Gaiman, asking his opinion on whether fans should be angry that GRRM seems to be working on other projects instead of churning out Book 4 Part 2 and however many books more to complete the series.

Neil's reply? George R. R. Martin is not your bitch

Bwaahahaahaha! Of course, Gaiman says more than just that, and it's a great read, but wow, George R. R. Martin is not your bitch kinda stayed with me.

As it did with other people too, obviously.

So much so that someone wrote a song about it. Please follow the link and give it a listen. If you like it, it's free to download. Serious.

Have a great weekend, y'all!

But don't blame me if the tune gets stuck in your head the whole weekend, k? :D

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.. so it's Chicago's fault?

Good news!

Tuesday afternoon, Kosh and I hopped in the car and were out of town for about 24hours. Upon waking up yesterday, my hives and itches were practically non-existent!

That's pretty telling: whatever that was triggering the outbreak, it's something(s) I'm exposed to in Chicago / the apartment.

Can't say it's just the new place tho, because the flare-up started in mid-June, while we were still in the previous apartment. So it's something we brought with the move (dust! old cushions, pillows, mattress?); or perhaps something in the Chicago air that's been at a higher than normal level since mid-June?

Something to discuss with the allergist, definitely.

Anyways.. I'm continuing with the pills regimen that previously was struggling to clamp down on the outbreak: hopefully it'll now be able to keep any outbreaks at bay. I have noticed one or two new hives appearing today.

Time for Xyzal and Benadryl!

Ciao!

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going potty: a forest in a bag, and other tales from the deck

After just about a month in the new place, things have settled down enough for me to then look at the deck and the legacy of pots left behind by the landlord. The previous tenant had said that she had not bothered with them at all. Most of them are in bad shape:

full of dead stuff

broken

cracked

A few weeks ago, I had gotten my hands on some spider plant offshoots, and had put them in water in order to grow out some roots. Today, most of them looked like they were plantable. Well, they had to be - the cat had decided she wanted to eat the leaves...

Here you can see how the leaves had suffered from the cat's attention! Hopefully they'll survive... spider plants are supposed to be really hardy things... right?

As I was doing my "gardening", I remembered vaguely a friend of mine from college saying something about baking old dirt / potting soil before reusing it ... heh... whatever - aren't spider plants supposed to really hardy and hard-to-kill? :D

So I've (re-)planted two small and two large pots with spider plant offshoots. Some of the pots are filled with (new) peat moss. Others are using the old soil that was in there, but totally crumbled and mashed up and mixed with another pot's soil. Again: spider plants are supposed to be really hard to kill, so hopefully they'll survive what I've done to them, LoL!

Had a great surprise when opening the unopened bag of potting soil that had been sitting on the deck for a year or three:

Yeah, it's a jungle in there!

Kinda cool, I suppose that bags of soil still have random spores/seeds/roots that can sprout? I know these bags usually have small holes in them, so water can get in... but I guess sunlight -- even if it's through the plastic -- was also sufficient for growth?

There are still many pots to tackle, but until I have more spider plant offshoots to pot, or other hardy herbs that might come in handy, I'll probably let them be for the moment.

If you have any suggestions about what else I could plant out there, by all means leave me a comment :) Take note that since the cat can't be trusted not to gorge on them, I can't bring them inside during winter, I don't know if that makes any difference in suggestions.

Thanks!

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