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I’ve been hearing about this NaNoWriMo thing here and there for about a month, and I’ve finally figured out what it is. It’s National Novel Writing Month. I read up on it, thought about it for a few minutes, and then I thought… What a perfect opportunity to get in gear and finish Seasons Past!
The deal is, you’ve got thirty days (the month of November) to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel. I’m sure the general idea is an entire novel, but hey, I’ve got a job and a life and I’m really not all that far into Seasons Past.
I’ll try to keep you posted this month as to how it’s going. I’m excited!
My friend James and his dad are hosting a tour to Israel in Spring 2009, and they invited me. My first reaction was “Oh, yay! I’ve always wanted to go to Israel, ever since I was old enough to realize it was a real place!”
And honestly, for just over a week in Israel, the price isn’t all that bad either. If I save a certain amount each week between now and then, it won’t be too overwhelming. Just get that registration in pretty quick and you won’t have to pay quite as much.
Honestly, though, the more I think about it, the scarier it gets. Not the actual going part, but the “committing to paying this huge amount” part. I’m afraid of committing and then having to pull out at the last moment. It’s happened to me before. The first time I tried to enroll in college, I went ahead and signed up for housing, because at that time, I was going to have my trust fund money by the time school started. Well, things with my grandfather fell through and I had to pull out… but because I had signed up for housing, I ended up owing the university no small bit of money.
Which they still hound me about.
I’m just afraid of that happening again… committing to this Israel thing and then having to pull out at the last moment because of things completely out of my power. I can’t afford to lose anything like that.
I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to think about it some more.
So yesterday, I was so proud of myself for clearing up half of my hard drive, right? Huh. Not anymore. Well, kind of.
One of the problems I found was my iTunes music. When I had transferred all of my music to my external drive, I didn’t delete my old music files from my first drive just yet. You know, just in case; I had bought some stuff from the iTunes store and I didn’t want anything to… not work. Except I never went back and deleted my old files.
iTunes stores its library information in a little file in your music folder… and apparently, my iTunes was still writing to the old library file.
Which, yesterday, I deleted. Imagine my surprise when I went to put two new songs onto my iPod and my iTunes was COMPLETELY EMPTY. Oh no!
I guess it’s okay. Then I can get my library organized anyway. Right? Ugh!
Is it kind of weird when you watch movies or TV or something so that you won’t have to think about real life for an hour or two… and then the characters either have the EXACT same problems you do, or they just straight up look and act like someone you know.
Am I the only one that does this?
Of course, it doesn’t help that nine out of ten plots contain The Triangle. You know full well what I’m talking about. The Triangle, when, for example, a guy likes a girl who likes a different guy, who loves her back, leaving the original guy sunk. Or girl, if it goes the other way. But seriously! Or the girl likes the guy, who is clueless, and keeps telling the girl about all his other girlfriends. Either way, it’s The Triangle, and it’s everywhere.
But I digress.
I think I’m just as much at fault with the “oh! He looks like so-and-so.” I’m always the only one that sees it. I guess I’m just too much of a people watcher.
That was really random, guys, sorry.
It’s no secret that I’m absolutely counting down the days until I’ll buy a brand-new iMac, complete with the newest version of OSX and souped up to never, ever let me down. It’s also no secret that the computer I do have is a five-year-old low-end Dell laptop… which is pretty well known in the Dell circle for its awesome ability to overheat and melt down the inside. How it’s lasted this long is beyond me.
I… don’t really like Windows. I don’t really like my computer. However, it’s what I have to live with for a while, so I might as well tweak it so it’s the way I want it, right?
Disclaimer: This is just an informational, nerdy post I’m making after spending all day messing with my computer to get it working right again.
Windows XP, which is what I’ve used most of the time I’ve been on computer, is complete eye-candy when compared to older versions. If you’re like me, though, this isn’t enough. WindowBlinds gives you almost full control of your desktop. You can download and switch between themes which can give you almost any look… from high-tech to a Mac look-a-like. It’s a paid program, but the free trial version does almost as much. (more…)