picked a handful of violets in my name

My weekend has come to a satisfactory conclusion, with all work completed on time, even with social media sanity breaks. \o/

Ellie has decided to Clean All The Things. The apartment totally needed it, but it was a little stressful to come in from Special Work Event after lunchtime and find Even MOAR Stuff in my bedroom.

Also, today I talked to my mom about getting a new computer. My Macbook is five years old!* It's still a perfectly adequate computer for my needs, except for two problems:

1. The fan makes loud angry noises whenever the computer is sleeped/hibernated/shut down, carried in my bag, and woken up again.
2. The plastic case around the screen and keyboard/trackpad has begun to chip off. Including right under where my right wrists rests when I'm mousing.

But, as my mother needs a new computer (hers is so old she can't update past Firefox 2, and she's understandably worried about Bad Shit From The Internet), we have decided she can have the Macbook, since she won't be moving it around or using the trackpad.

So now my goal is to locate the best Macbook for the least money. We have determined that it is a worthwhile investment to get a better computer than I need Right Now, because said computer will serve me for more years.

* I have been pretty impressed with the longevity of the Macs I've owned. 6 years, 4 years (would have been longer but Evil Ex stepped on it and refused to admit it was his fault the screen died), over 6 years (since AFAIK the iBook I gave to Cameryn is still kicking), and 5 years. Mom's iMac is 7.

Anybody know a good way to get soot and wax off novena candle enclosures after the candle is burned away? I'd like to reuse them (especially the printed ones) but want to clean them up first.

Related, a Helpful Hint, if you are the sort of person to do odd things involving candles at weird hours: don't burn loose incense on charcoal several hours before going though airport security. Especially not when you don't quite know what you're doing yet, and run out of both incense and desire for things to be burning, well before the charcoal ceases to burn.

You know that stupid black Western-style shirt Gerard wore in the really early days? I think I found one like it on Etsy. Someone prevent me from buying it, since I lack the skills to cut it down to actually fit me?

Also, things you should not leave until 3am before your flight:

backing up your computer (I have a Mac, I use Time Machine, but I do not live plugged into my external hard drive)

copying all 12gb of downloaded vids to your computer from the other external drive

re-lacing your 14-eye Doc Martens (yes, I fly in these shoes in order to avoid packing them. No, they are not the least airport-friendly shoes I've gone through security with. That prize goes to my other boots, which have wooden platforms and soles like tire treads, which were the only thing I could feasibly remove from my over-weight suitcase.)

Will be leaving shortly, but you'll hardly know I'm gone; I do my internets while Cory plays video games, and he plays a lot of video games. Toodles!

It is really cold in Boston today. And the entire MBTA died. (Well, the bus system seemed to be in good working order. It got me to campus, at any rate.)

I've mostly been going to class, decluttering, and being ill. Sinus infection. Which would have been fine if I had been sick and then got over it, but noooo. At least at this point I can breathe through my nose again.

( Here are some links that are kind of old, since I fell off the face of the earth between compiling them and updating my freaking journal )

And finally, the subject line... when Ellie and I were getting groceries on Saturday, I decided I would bring my lunch two days this week (Monday, when I have a break between classes, and Wednesday, when I have a break between work and class), and I decided I would bring ham and cheese sandwiches and salad. So we got bread and ham and I insisted (correctly) that we still had an unopened, unexpired package of Swiss cheese at home.

We were so desperately hungry when we got home that we tore into the lunch supplies. But there was still ham and cheese enough to make one more sandwich, which I could then eat on Monday, after which I would take myself to the store and replenish the supplies.

But she ate my sandwich! :( I slept really late yesterday, and when I woke up, she had forgotten that the whole reason we had the ham and bread in the first place was so I could have lunches, and she had eaten my sandwich.

So I'm so hungry my stomach is trying to digest itself and there's still ten minutes before the fast food joints in the student center open for lunch.

Recently

Today's lulz: letter from Glamour magazine attempting to get Mr. [Sofia Blackthorne] to subscribe. My legal first name is technically unisex (I was named after my great-grandfather), though in English-speaking cultures, Dominique pretty much female (although I wonder, given the number of times people have attempted to call me Dominic to my very cis-female face - can they not pronounce -que endings or something?).

Also, Ellie is eating all my Green & Blacks milk chocolate. :\

Links

• scottpilgrimslash: comment-fic-athon


• via holyschist: [Activist Modus Operandi] Methods of Communication


• tim: How To Fail Out Of Grad School Without Really Trying

  There's a saying that you should never take advice from the survivors, and I felt that way reading this list of reasons Ph.D students fail. If I interpret this article as advice, it's good advice. But if I interpret it as a compendium of reasons why students fail, it doesn't really capture my experience or that of other people I know who left grad school. One reason why is that the author attributes failure only to individual students, ignoring the important role that unsupportive faculty members and indifferent institutions can play in encouraging failure. As Barbara Lovitts shows in her book _Leaving the Ivory Tower_, there are disciplinary and institutional patterns to grad student attrition, suggesting structural reasons for why Ph.D students fail that cannot be reduced to random individual variations in character.

• via #dreamwidth: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names


• via rydra_wong: I love the smell of dreamwidth in the morning.

  Every day that you're online, scout around dreamwidth. Find one person you don't normally comment to and comment on an entry. Pick a community that looks cool or that you're a member of and don't normally post to/comment on, and leave a post/comment. Post something of substance in your journal. Start a conversation. Engage. Enrich the community.

Plans

Need to redo the purple on my hair this weekend, or maybe sooner if I feel like it. It's starting to fade significantly near the roots. Also need to go to the post office, since those bastards have stopped leaving international parcels on the porch. Also should install software updates and restart my computer, especially since it might fix the problems that exist between Adium and Facebook chat. Also also should order some tights for extended skirt-wearing season.

From today's work (testing the floppies with a Mac): files last modified on 2036-11-19 and 1903-12-31.

Hello, folks! Internet is fixed. I have no idea how. (Ellie's theory is that someone else in the neighborhood called in a problem early enough to get a Saturday tech, and that this problem is similar to the issue we had at Thanksgiving, where the tech had to do something atop a telephone pole. So a neighbor's fix might have also helped us.)

Last night, we went to a Shirtless Shindig to celebrate Jamie's top surgery. The guest of honor himself made me pasties out of adhesive-backed glittery craft foam, and requested that he be allowed to style my hair on unspecified future occasions (apparently, he does lovely updos). ♥ my burlesque-affiliated friends. They always create a comfy, accepting atmosphere in small group situations like the Shirtless Shindig.

( blah blah ipod problems )

I suspect this ipod is in its death throes. :\


Got another series of calls from last week's unidentifiable number - finally picked up on their third attempt and confirmed that it was a wrong number. Hopefully the guy figures out what number he really needs to call, and stops waking me up.

Ellie and I went shopping today. I got a bunch of candles at Target. Also a purple plaid cape. We got groceries and then came home and ate the entire box of frozen mozzarella sticks.


Dreamwidth code push soon (8pm Pacific)! I will try to answer comments first - ikea hacker accidentally my weekend.

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die". Just introduce us to some new things to read.

intro_to_cs is a community for people working through MIT 6.00: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming. The lectures and readings are available online, for free, and a new group of students will be supporting each other starting some time this month.

python and perl

follow friday tag feed

***

My parents have gone home. I'm quite tired in the wake of their visit - more people time than I'm really used to, even if they are family-people.

(Next time, I think we are going to visit them in December. Brrr.)

( Follow Friday: all-communities edition )

As always, please share your Follow Friday posts at followfriday.

***

Today is Dad's birthday. (I am not actually sure if he still reads this. Mom does. I already said 'happy birthday' on the phone, but it doesn't hurt to mention it again.)

I've bugged my honors advisor again, about the junior/senior project this time. It's not a requirement for the honors program (one can earn a course distinction and/or project distinction, and I'm on track for the former), so unless the history department will let me count it as my capstone, I don't think I'll do it. The effort:tangible-benefit ratio just isn't good enough.

( blah blah spring blah )

Why yes, yes that is two days off and no class earlier than half past one in the afternoon. *smugface*

I love this thread sooooo much.
Edit: The follow-up.

(Read geekfeminism_feed on DW or geekfeminism on LJ.)


Relatedly, I need to find some time to bring my laptop to the Apple store. The comma key isn't working properly (I have to bang really hard to get it to type the necessary character), which makes it hard to do anything requiring angle brackets, either. Or any wordcount-boosting writing.

I think prying off the key cover and cleaning under it would fix the problem, but I don't want to do it myself, since last time I tried that, I couldn't get the cover back on and had to bring it in anyway.