The Rock cannot protect you

I had a really scary dream last night. I won't describe it in detail, but suffice it to say there was a serial killer after me and even The Rock was powerless to protect me. For once, in a dream, I *wasn't* Buffy or any other superhero, just regular old me. I guess having The Rock in the dream makes it automatically sound silly, but it wasn't; it was really scary and freaky. (Why did my subconscious throw The Rock in there anyway?? Perhaps because he has replaced Arnold Schwarzenegger as the quintessential strongman in pop-culture consciousness.)

Last night my throat felt scratchy and my coughing sounded more serious. (I've been coughing a lot lately from being congested, but I hadn't worried about it since they say it's normal during pregnancy.) I started to worry that I was coming down with something and that my stomach-upset of the past weekend might have been a symptom. So I had soup and went to bed slightly early. I think I feel better today, knock on wood.

I'm all excited because I'm getting ready to call RCN and sign up for a phone/cable-TV/cable-modem package. Now that I'll be working from home a bit -- and more when chickpea arrives -- I need a faster connection than dinky little 56K! And RCN has a pretty good package for about $103/month, which is not much more than I currently pay for those three services separately. I just gotta call the lady back and find out how soon I can get an installation appointment, and then I gotta get myself an Ethernet card, and then I probably ought to clean up my apartment at least enough so that the installation guy can, like, get to the computer. ;) Man, is my apartment a disaster zone right now. But that's a topic for another day. Or possibly never.

Happy birthday glamsith! And a belated one to velcroswench! I totally forgot to call my friend Dave on his birthday this past Saturday. :( I only remembered belatedly because my mom wished me a happy International Women's Day, and I immediately thought of Dave and went "oh crap!" So I left him a message last night. Ah well. His birthday was a Saturday; he was probably out partying all day anyway. ;)

Now to work, and to try to figure out why I'm in such a good mood for the second day in a row. Weird. ;)

gifts

My friend Julie in Florida sent me a huge boxful of her homemade soap. Isn't she sweet? :) I used it in the shower once already and it's really nice. She claims it's unscented, but I find it to have a nice, subtle, soapy smell. She has a dog, which might explain the half-hour or so that Bini spent sniffing the box. ;)

Then my friend Lori, who had a baby last fall, sent me some sample packets that her doctor gave her of lotion that's meant specially for the chapped nipples of pregnant and breast-feeding women. I had mentioned that I was having nipple issues, and she had the samples lying around so she sent them. Isn't she sweet? :) When I emailed her to say thanks, she replied, "Always happy to think of your nipples!" LOL!

And one of my friends told me that he has two birthday gifts for me, because he forgot to bring my Hanukah gift to my cookie party. Isn't he sweet? :) He could have just given that one to me as a birthday gift and not gotten me a second gift -- I never would have known. He always gives great gifts, too. He's one of those people who make you feel pressured when *his* birthday comes around, because his gifts to you are so good you feel the need to get him something equally good. You know?

And Laura, from whom I always get my technology, is sending me her Visor Prism (PDA)! It's so funny; she's the early-adopter type -- always has to have the latest gadget -- and she frequently seems to wind up giving/selling me her old stuff when she upgrades. I got my current Visor from her when she upgraded to the Prism; plus she sold me her old digital camera for cheap, although it died last December and I had to buy a new one. Now she says she feels bad about the camera dying (which I told her is silly; it wasn't her fault, it was old, and I'd already had it at least a year) so she's sending me her color Visor for free. Isn't she sweet? :)

People are so nice. I love my friends.

In related news, I may soon be giving some of my maternity clothes to my coworker whose wife is pregnant. It seems strange to be giving them away already, but already it seems like a couple of pairs of maternity pants that I bought are getting too tight! Dammit, stupid maternity stores charging tons of money for clothing I only wear for a few weeks. :P Well, I'll wear them at least once more and see how they feel. My tummy does seem to be growing by leaps and bounds. (Heh, and I almost mean that literally, when you consider how much wiggling is going on in there....)

Gifting. It makes the world go 'round. And it just makes you feel good. Speaking of which, Dan's Chocolates (www.dans.com) is having a 30% off sale ... who do I know that NEEDS chocolate? (Aside from, you know, everyone?)

so much for THAT good mood.

So first I have to read about how the U.S. House of Representatives' cafeterias will now be serving "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" instead of french fries and french toast. This severely pisses me off. Some restaurants have been doing this around the country for a while, and to that my reaction is "morons ... eh well, I won't eat there." But now it's our fucking government, and that is seriously Not Cool.

I was pissed enough to look up the names of the six Republicans and three Democrats on the committee that made this decision, although I haven't actually written to them yet. They are:
Robert W. Ney, R-OH
Vernon J. Ehlers, R-MI
John L. Mica, R-FL
John Linder, R-GA
John T. Doolittle, R-CA
Thomas M. Reynolds, R-NY
John B. Larson, D-CT
Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-CA
Robert Brady, D-PA

I'll probably write them a nasty letter or email when I feel coherent enough to do so. Meanwhile, as a PSA, let me once again inform you that if you are a resident of the USA you can look up the names and contact information of all your elected officials -- federal Senators and Representatives, and state Senators and Representatives -- at congress.org. The vast majority of them have email, and those who don't have phone numbers and/or snailmail addresses. Remember, if you write to one of them, include your full name and address and, if possible, demographic information (gender, age, education). They will pay more attention if they know you're one of their constituents.

Anyway, I had just barely begun getting over the pissed-ness for that, when some asshole in grammarpolice decided to flame me for my icon. In reference to the picture of my pregnant belly, he said that I was advertising the fact that I'm doing something that requires no talent, and added that I should be sure to breast-feed in order to further broadcast my "skills" to the world. So I flamed him back a little (although really I think I was too polite to be truly called flaming) and his responses were unsatisfactory, and then I had an attack of conscience (not for anything I said, but for being so far off-topic for the community) and deleted all the comments. But I'm still steaming about it.

So, for the record: I am pregnant and single, both by choice, and proud of it. If you don't like that, you can fucking go to hell. And hey, if my icon offends you? Feel completely free to avert your goddamn eyes while you click away to another page. Fuck you very much.

I RULE!!!!!

I'm so freaking proud of myself! I figured out a way to get around the copy-protection on my "Buffy" Season 3 DVDs! *does the happy dance*

Really what I figured out is how to copy DVDs onto my TiVo. And since I already know how to copy from TiVo to videotape, I'm all set! Sure, it involves having to run through each thing twice -- and I'm sure there will be some degradation of quality -- but hey, don't argue with what works! :)

Thanks to my brother for suggesting it, btw. It was one of the things I had considered trying, but I was so discouraged after all my other ideas failed to work, if he hadn't suggested it I might not have gone to all the trouble. It *did* involve some futzing around with the TiVo (nothing that will void my warranty, just stuff that took a while and was tedious) and, according to some posts on the TiVo forum, it may slow down the performance of my TiVo; but we'll have to wait and see. If there's a really noticeable slowdown, I can always undo what I did and then redo it again if I ever need to tape from a copy-protected DVD again.

So now I can finally make Wendy her tape of Buffy S3 episodes! Although, Wendy, if you're reading this, don't hold your breath. I got a lot of stuff to clean off the hard drive first. *sigh*

Yay. I'm so happy. I'm sticking it to The Man!!! Woohoo! Never has my Spike icon seemed more apropos! :)

Now I just have to decide whether to buy the Buffy S4 DVD set, which is coming out soon. S4 was the weakest season in my opinion. It started off well with "Fear Itself" and "Beer Bad," but quickly went downhill. OTOH, it would be weird to own all the other seasons on DVD and have a gap. Hmm....