This should be a short lived problem though as my dear sweet man will be upgrading me to the newest version of WordPress this week. Great new things are near.

I’m with the family in Michigan for the weekend and my FIL was showing us his new toy. He recently got a Toshiba network for using at home to check his email and do some minor web surfing. He added on an AT&T wireless connect card to use when he’s on the road and when he saw me salivating over this nifty gadget he graciously handed it to me to play with. We’re now cruising down an expressway heading for brunch with some extended family and I’m blogging.

It’s pretty nice little machine. The keys are standard size and although the keyboard is cramped on the non-alphabetical keys, everything is in the usual place so there’s no searching for arrows or function keys. The touchpad is also a reasonable size but its location leaves a bit desired. It’s so close to the space bar that I’ve already brushed it with my hand several times while typing which results in my cursor jumping to the wrong position. The screen, which is hyped as being large, is 10.2″ but what they don’t explain is that the diagonal dimension is achieved with a fairly wide screen that is quite short. When IE is opened the program header takes up about 25% of the screen height.

Overall this is a pretty good little machine. If I find out that I can use it to comfortably read ebooks I may end up putting my $300 into this rather than a Kindle or Sony e-Reader.

Providentially I found another site that uses the exact same java application and isn’t restricting play money hours. Check out www.holdempoker.com if you need a new place to play and if you do look for thndrclouds at the kiddie tables.

In addition to reading library books like a fiend, cooking more “real” meals for my kids and spending more quality time at the park I’ve added a couple other hobbies to my list. Back in good old BC (Before Children) I used to enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles and running so I thought now would be an excellent time to re-engage in those past-times. Unfortunately it turns out that neither of them is good for my health.

To most people running sounds like a healthy activity but there are some who would call it something akin to self-inflicted agony and pure torture. I tend to lean towards the healthy side except for one thing. I have asthma. So what the hell am I doing running? The long and the short is that it’s a challenge. A coworker sent out an email about a race he’s doing in September and invited anyone who was willing to join him then insinuated that the whole office was a bunch of wussies because no one jumped at the opportunity. He might as well have just looked me in the eye and said “I double dog dare you” because two minutes later I was signed on. Now I’m supposed to be doing the Muddy Buddy with my pal Mikey on September 10th and I’m gasping all the way there.

Fine, so running is bad for my asthmatic lungs but what on earth could be wrong with jigsaw puzzles? They are made from cheap cardboard. Due to my allergies to all manor of plants and trees, alive or dead, I am also allergic to materials like newspaper and cardboard. The cheaper the material (ie. the closer it is to resembling compacted sawdust) the more it makes me sneeze. The bad news is that within minutes of leaning over my puzzles my nose resembles a leaky faucet so much that I buy a new box of kleenex every time I purchase a puzzle. The good news is that my itchy eyes are a great motivator and I finished my last 1000 piece puzzle in 3 days.

Tonight I ran 2.4 miles and though I’m wheezing like emphysemic chain-smoker I’m getting just enough oxygen to my brain to register that the puzzle I finished the other night looks really trippy when viewed through watery eyes. I’m killing myself but at least I’m not bored.

Back when I started “googling” people it was known by a less attractive name. I wasn’t running a quick search to locate the guy I’d been set up with on a blind date, I was cyber stalking. I had a couple less tech-savvy friends ask me to work my magic and stalk old boyfriends with whom they hoped to rekindle the romance but even they said it was kinda creepy how I could find just about anyone. I just have a knack I guess.

Now that it’s societally acceptable to search for people online I feel all right admitting that I do look people up online. Not for anything malicious, just curiousity. If you’re reading this because you’re a friend of mine who likes to indulge me and my rambling then guess what, I’ve googled you. If you have your own website, I’ve been to it. If there’s an embarassing quote you said 10 years ago that got put in a newspaper, I’ve seen it. If you post regularly on a message board, I’ve read it. If you exist anywhere in the cyber world, I found you. That’s what I do. And when I’m really bored I start looking for other people, those unfortunate folks who no longer have the pleasure of being a constant and integral part of my life.

I’ll admit, the longer I’ve been out of touch with someone the harder they are to find, but usually I can do it. I did it tonight. I found a good friend from high school, someone that I’ve known since 6th grade, and haven’t seen in at least 8 years. He was actually pretty easy since I knew not just his full name but the nicknames he goes by. That and he’s got a really uncommon last name. Then I looked at what I found and remembered why sometimes googling isn’t a good idea.

There are those people from your past, like the really popular kids from high school, that you really hope aren’t doing anything great or interesting with their lives because they spent four years making you feel inferior and it would be really nice to know that your mom was right about you being more successful in the real world. Usually it turns out your mom was right and you feel really good about yourself. Then there are the old friends who you just want to know are happy and when you see their wedding announcements you get a warm fuzzy imagining, probably inaccurately but who cares, how happy they are in their wonderful lives. Then there’s the last category. The people who you cared about and hope to find a little note in some unsecured company intranet newsletter about the birth of their third child but instead you find what I found tonight. Success.

I’m not talking about little success here. This isn’t husband and kids with a nice house in the suburbs and an attached, dare we dream, three car garage. I’m talking about raging success. The kind of success that isn’t fleeting. A girl who graduated a year ahead of me that I knew from the theater group is not an actress in LA. She’s been on three different shows that actually made it onto the network schedule. They were all cancelled after one season. Sure, she’s working but I’m not impressed so whatever. I could tell you her name and you’d have no clue who she is and if I told you I can just about guarantee you wouldn’t care. Kelli knows who I’m talking about

Anyway, the guy I found tonight isn’t Hollywood successful, he’s life successful. You’d never in a million years recognize his name but that’s not the important part of success. He went to U of I (University of Illinois for you folks outside flyover country) and got a degrees in sociology AND political science. Then he joined the Peace Corps and traveled all over the world helping third world countries develop better sanitation management and other important global type stuff. After that he went to NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service to get his master’s degree in Public Administration. Now he has a job with a firm (not a company, a firm) with a hoity-toity name when he consults on projects for major companies. He is, without a doubt, a mover and shaker.

It was one of those people searches that left me impressed and wildly proud that I actually knew this guy during his formative years and at the same time makes my own little life seem, well, little. Now I don’t want any comments from anyone telling me how important my job as a mother is. I know that so shush. I’m just saying that managing to get 2 kids into bed on time is sort of underwhelming compared to say, coordinating emergency reconstruction aid to earthquake victims in Central America. See what I mean?

I may not be quite as up and coming as my old friend but I am comforted by the picture that I saw on his company profile. The poor guy is balding. A lot. Small comfort but I’m a petty person so I’ll take it. By the way, for those of you who feel so inclined to start googling me I have just one thing to say. Good luck. If you find me make note of the page number because I’ve never been bored enough to go through more than 50 and I have yet to find myself. No pun intended.

Dandy Warhols – Welcome to the Monkey House

Aaaaaaaanyway, pretty much everyone I know watches Lost and/or Alias or both. And everyone that watches those shows loves to talk about those shows. I recently stumbled onto a post on another site about Lost and starting commenting and after horning in over there for a few days I figured it was probably time to bring my thoughts back home. So here we are. Me and my thoughts. All by ourselves. Is it me or is quiet in here?

Right, so the big things right now are whether Boone is going to stay dead, what’s going to happen to the heroine from the plane that killed him and what exactly did the guy on the radio say to Boone before he went cliff diving? Share your thoughts and comments with me and the other JJ Abrams junkies.

I’m also open to hearing what everyone thinks about Alias. Just when I think the season is lost (no pun intended) and nosediving we get an episode like tonight’s that sucks me back in. What’s the deal with Elena Derevko, how are they bringing Lena Olin back and what is up with the guy at the end? I mean really, how creepy is that?

Oh goodie, something for you to look forward to! Sleepy time now.

Over the next few weeks I’m hoping to enhance the aesthetics here. The changes I’ve made so far are pretty minor but just in case anyone is wondering here’s what I did:

• Got rid of the funky picture of yours truly. It didn’t match the new decor.
• Added a new moon phase image. It seemed logical.
• Removed some annoying background colors because it seemed too busy.
• Took off the “Recent Posts” links and the “Search” section. I don’t think they were very useful and they just took up a ton of space.
• Broke the navigation. It looks all right in Mozilla but IE breaks the bloody thing to pieces no matter what I try. DAMN MICROSOFT!!!!

If you’re having problems with the site please shoot me an email and I’ll do my best to accomodate. If you’re have problems because you use MS IE consider switching to browser not made by an evil corporation who wouldn’t understand the term “standards” if Mr. Webster dropped by to define it. Oh, and if you miss any of the sections I removed let me know and I’ll see about putting them back up somewhere.

“Now it is night. Night is a time for sleep. Sleep dogs sleep.”

Not just any video game though. A somewhat lame video game. I mean, it’s fun and obviously interesting enough to garner continued attention, but it’s not one of the new 3D graphics heavy PS2 super games. It’s not even retro like an old copy of Frogger for the Atari. It’s from that middle phase of video gaming that people recall as being cool at the time but skim past in search of something a little more current.

So this game that has become my favorite post-bedtime pastime is for the Nintendo 64 game system. You’ll all know it. It’s Mario Karts. You know, the one where all the characters from the Super Mario games are in little go-carts driving around these insane courses and shooting colored turtle shells at each other. Yeah, that’s the one. Eight possible players for me to be, sixteen courses to race around. I actually spent an hour and a half over the weekend attempting to beat the time trial record for Yoshi’s Valley. And I never did.

Yes, I really am this lame. But they talk and giggle and yell. Every time you pass someone they say something. That Peach is a real bitch about it too so I derive great joy from dropping a banana peel directly in front of her and watching her fly up and out of my sight.

My personal favorite is Yoshi. I’ve been a Yoshi fan since he first entered the Mario world. I was 14 the first time I saw Yoshi shoot an egg out of his mouth and that was all it took. I was hooked. He’s a quiet little fellow but a great racer. Yoshi and I make a great team. Someday Yoshi will get the attention and admiration he deserves, until then he and I will just while away the time by knocking Bowser off bridges.

Right, so I’ve gotten a little bit wrapped up in this game. When that little guy on the cloud waves the flag things get a little intense, but it’s good to have an outlet for my aggression. Right? I think I’ve been a lot calmer since I started releasing my anger on Wario. I mean, it’s all harmless fun right? So I just wanted to say thank you to the dumbass who I dated for almost two years and who left me a pair of drumsticks, a fan and an N64 when he took off because it’s probably the nicest thing he ever did for me. Yoshi and I are very happy without him.