Oh, Copyediting

So, there is an interesting headline on Yahoo's front page right about now:

Strangely enough, the headline of the article the link points to makes more sense:

For any screen-reader using guests, the first headline reads "Many TV stations will still switch to analog signal on Feb. 17" and the second reads "TV stations get ready to cut analog signal (AP)."  I just included the screen captures as evidence.

(Also, since when are article headlines not capitalized?)

Bad Nerd

So, somehow, I missed the fact that Amazon was going to announce the Kindle 2 today.

(Did we know that Amazon was going to announce the Kindle 2 today?  I looked for Kindle 2 rumors on a whim about a week or so ago, and everyone agreed it was imminent, but I don't recall a date anywhere.)

Let me start by saying that I have owned both the first generation Sony Reader (the 500) and the upgraded 505.  I don't own the third generation, touch screen, backlit 700 -- and after the firmware upgrade to the 505 that gave additional font sizes, I don't really see the 700 as a compelling upgrade.  Judging from the unit I played with in Borders, the back light, even when it's not on, decreases the contrast of the display -- and if my batteries are going to run out, I'd rather it be the user-replaceable book light batteries than the Reader's internal battery.

Let me also say that I've always been a voracious reader -- and a voracious re-reader.  There are novels, as well as a select few fan fiction stories I've found on the Internet, that I've read at least 10 or more times.  One of the most challenging things for me as a teacher is that I rarely have the mental wherewithal to read in the evenings.

So having the Reader, which I can keep in my purse to grab a few pages here or there -- not to mention bringing weeks' worth of reading material on trips for less than a pound -- has been a real boom.  It's been as transformative to my life and how I enjoy reading as the iPod was to how I enjoyed music.

The Kindle 1 would never have won any design contests, at least in my opinion (though I'm willing to admit that perhaps I'm biased towards the first device I own -- and am perhaps corrupted by the Apple minimalist design philosophy) while the Reader -- especially the 505 -- has always been slick and sleek.

But the things that kept me looking for Kindle 2 rumors, the things that had me wondering if, somehow, I could scare up some tax refund money, were two simple things: (1) you can buy books on the fly, using Sprint's EVDO network; and (2) Amazon's Kindle store has a number of older, classic Star Trek books (before Paramount moved in, took editorial control, and basically said that nothing was allowed to change by the end of a novel) that I really, really like and would really, really like to purchase legitimately.

Of course, they are available on the Internet for those of a mind to find them, but I try to be honest in my dealings.

(Remember that thing above when I said I'm a voracious re-reader?  If you counted only Spock's World, Q-In-Law, Dwellers in the Crucible, The Vulcan Academy Murders, Doctor's Orders, The IDIC Epidemic, The Entropy Effect, Uhura's Song, The Romulan Way, and Vendetta, I would imagine that would account for something like 150 novel readings in my life time.  The bolded ones alone probably account for 50.  Also, pardon me for not linking, but that's a lot, and Google is your friend.)

So when I checked Twitter tonight and found Molly Wood tweeting about a Kindle 2 review, I was...flummoxed.

The Kindle 2 sounds like an incremental upgrade, at least from the CNet review I read, but that's rather what I expected.  As you can tell from the generation numbers, the second generation (505) of the Reader was a "mere" +5 from the original 500, while the vastly redesigned 700 warranted a +200.

In other words, think software updates.  Way, way back, long ago, upgrading from Netscape 3.3 to 3.4 was a very minor change, while Netscape 4 became something totally different.

If I'm remembering correctly, the actual readable screen size of the Reader and Kindle are the same, but the large plastic casing around the Kindle makes it seem smaller to me.  Perhaps that would change if I could actually play with one for a few minutes, but one of the disadvantages of Amazon being an Internet-only operation -- as useful as it is in most situations -- is that there are no brick and mortar stores like the Sony Style or Borders stores where I've seen the Reader.

I like the fact that the buttons have been rearranged slightly, but I don't like that the Kindle 2 has no expansion slot.

(That said, my Sony Reader will play mp3s as well, and I've never loaded a one -- I would never want to drain my reader's battery by listening to music (that's why I have an iPod and a 9V battery pack for it) and I've never come close to filling up either its internal memory or the 1GB SD card I added to it, and the Kindle comes with 2 GB.)

The Read to Me feature is awesome, though.  I've used my own computer's text-to-speech capabilities to make "audiobooks" of certain things but it would be nifty to have a device that could read something to me on the fly -- especially DRMd books, which are exceedingly difficult to make work on my computer.

I'm ambivalent about the keyboard.  When I had a Rocket ebook reader (yes, I've been an ebook early adopter for years), it had a pen and limited handwriting recognition, and I did occasionally look up words in the dictionary (sward, for instance, is one I remember getting the gist of from the context but wanting to know for certain).  But I can't really say I've missed it on my Reader.  Obviously, it's necessary for browsing for books on the fly, but I think it adds to my impression -- again, probably psychological and almost certainly false -- that the Kindle's screen is smaller than the Sony Reader's.

The photos here show that the Kindle is nice and thin, and I like the styling on the back -- which makes me wonder if the people designing the front and back ever talked to each other.  I'm not sure I can articulate what I don't like about the front...and I might not feel that way if I'd ever seen a real one...who knows?

Six text sizes is nice, but a recent firmware update to the 505 increased the options for that as well, so that's not as compelling a feature as it used to be.

According to this review, the Kindle 2 now reads .doc and .pdf files -- I'll have to investigate more to see if it's natively (and, if so, how you get them on the device -- see below) as about 2/3 of my content is non-DRMed .rtf files such as my own stories, stories I've downloaded off the Internet, and so on.  If that's the case, that's a major deletion the "minus" column in my mental comparison scale for the Kindle.

Finally, we hit one last thing.

The Sony Reader does not work with a Mac natively.  There are 3rd party options, but they do not work with the Reader's DRM, which means that I can't purchase a book from Sony and put it on my Reader unless I boot into Windows -- and, if you've been reading my tweets, you'd see that my latest attempt to do so is not going so well.

So, there again, until I someday upgrade my laptop -- to, say, one of the nifty new unibody Macbooks -- and then install Windows, I don't buy or add books to my Reader as nearly as often as I would like, and am completely unable to do so, say, on a long trip.

So where does that leave me?

Unfortunately, back where I began.  I'm slightly tilting more towards the Kindle side of the equation -- because, usability issues aside, I feel more secure in Amazon's support for Kindle long-term (because its business is so huge and diversified, it can afford to support a niche market product like the Kindle, where I'm not sure how long Sony would be able to do so), and because Amazon actually carries a lot of books that I would buy, that are not available from Sony's store.

Huge draws:  Read to Me (text-to-speech) and WhisperNet (on-the-go buying).

Minor draws:  Long term, it might be safer to buy proprietary-formatted, DRMed books from Amazon than from Sony.

Drawbacks:  Clunky design (though Kindle 2 is a step in the right direction), already have a Sony Reader (is switching worth it).

Now, if I won the lottery, this would all be a moot point -- I'd just buy a bigger purse and have one of each. :-)

Pre-Trip Randomness

Somehow, I always spend most of the day before a trip updating various iPods.  Now that Patrick has his iPod touch, it adds another level of confusion: keeping the video contents of his iPod from overlapping with mine, so as to save space.

That said, watching the progress bars creep across on various iPods was amusing, especially....

This is my iPhone.

The free space is to make sure I have enough to snap some photos and blog or twitter with them along the way.  Notice that it is largely audio, for listening to during long lines and such.  It has a gorgeous screen, but video slurps too much battery life in case emergency calls are needed.

(Yes, I'm taking a charger -- I mean in case we get stuck at an airport or something, though right now the FAA says Detroit is within 15 minutes of takeoff on all flights.)

Anyhow, this is my iPod classic:

Notice that it's largely video, with very little audio?  That's for two reasons.  One -- some hotels have TVs with A/V inputs, so in case of too much Disney channel, we might be able to watch our own stuff.  Two -- even if the battery gets drained to zero on this, we won't be incommunicado.

Now, I also have battery backup -- a nifty little doohickey that takes 9 volt batteries (which I prefer for gadgets instead of AA or AAAs 'cause you can test the batteries using the tongue test), but I loaned it to my mom for her phone during a recent power outage and it's MIA.

About to shut down computer and put phone in Airplane Mode to conserve battery power, but will probably switch it off for twittering here and there.

See ya.

Quick Tech Hint

For Amie, and whoever else would need it.

To reply to a tweet on the web, hover over the tweet with your mouse.  On the right, you will see a star (to favorite, I think, a tweet?) and a curvy arrow thingie (just above the "reply to Amie31 -- when I took the screenshot, it ignored my mouse cursor).

Click the curvy arrow thingie, and the box at the top that normally looks like this:

will change to this:

Et voila, an @reply.  :-)

In semi-related news, if you've been following my tweets, you know that I'm looking for my wayward karma.  I'd say today trends to neutral, but I haven't tried to burn my News-2-You video yet (since I left my phone and iPod at school...I rock 8-/).

What the Heck?????

(How often do I resort to multiple punctuation marks to emphasize my point?)

CNN is shutting down its science-tech unit.

No, really.

No, really.

I just...there are no words.

Yes there are.

WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING?

I am spluttering in incoherent rage over here; I'm sorry.  Maybe someday I'll have a more eloquent post on the subject.

I'm gonna go listen to "Hope Eyrie" and "The Ballad of Apollo 13" now, and remember when science-type stuff united the whole world, even for a few minutes.

Neat

Forget all the other changes for iTunes 8 -- I'm digging one simple one:

"Play Genre."

I know there were ways to do this before, but this is neat and simple.  I like it.

And, why, yes, I do have 72 albums of Celtic music.

Data, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

I love my iMac.  I really do.  99% of the time, it behaves flawlessly.

Tonight, however, it has refused to print and connect to the Internet at the same time (which, I presume, has something to do with a tweak to my network printer that I made last night to try to get Lore to use it to print).

It has somehow permanently hidden Final Cut, where I lost...oh, about five hours' worth of work for a video I was making.  FIVE HOURS.  I don't usually work THAT long on videos I make for the kids (this was for our Olympics paper), but I like the Olympics, and was having fun.  FIVE HOURS.

And now, it's not printing with the laser printer at all, no matter how many times I re-set the router, and I still have social studies stuff to make.

Minor Whining Rant

Point the first:  When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, he said that the reason he chose EDGE over 3G and chose not to include a GPS antenna was that both would (a) drastically reduce battery life or (b) require a much larger battery, thus affecting the form factor of the device.

Cue a year of whining and complaining about not having 3G and GPS and furious speculation over when the iPhone would, in fact, include those technologies.

Point the second:  The new iPhone 3G has (duh) 3G and GPS.  It also has a shorter battery life while both are turned on.

AND PEOPLE ARE WHINING AND COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

I just....

I just....

Grrr.

Disclaimer:  I have an original iPhone and have yet to procure a 3G because I am too lazy to wait in the lines.  I did try one evening, gambling on the line near the mall's closing time not being too bad, and missed it by 5 people.  I just can't take the whining anymore.

Holy Relapse, Batman

Oops.  Spoke too soon.  I feel like I've been hit with a truck, my eyes hurt, and I had one of my not-fun stomach aches this afternoon while at the same time being so tired that all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

(Apparently, I eventually did...but all I remember is laying there hoping it wouldn't get so bad I had to get up and move.)

Meanwhile, io9 has a teaser poster picture of Sy--whoops, I mean Spock.

I rather wish, now, that I hadn't watched Heroes.

(I am now re-watching Heroes with Patrick, so that hopefully we can have a weekly "date" and watch it together, so he can protect me when Claire is flayed alive and such (blech).  We have made it up to the first instance of "Flying man!" and Patrick is very amused.)

Anyway....while Zachary Quinto's facial features do, indeed, bear a striking resemblance to Leonard Nimoy in the 60s...those eyes...those eyes are Sylar's.

(I think I've said before that I can spot actors even under many layers of sci-fi makeup, often because of the eyes.)

And, you know, Spock wasn't a brain-eating sociopath.

So, you know, "Shi'Kahr, we have a problem."  Especially, I imagine, when Spock is at his most restrained and emotionally controlled -- given that Sylar at his most sociopathic tends to be quiet and emotionless.

And we won't even get into "McCoy, Leonard McCoy."  (And, yes, I have more trouble with the fact that Karl Urban was "Caesar, Julius Caesar," than I do with the fact that he was Eomer and Cupid.

It does worry me a bit that the main poster (all four parts here) includes a bad guy, Spock, Kirk, and Uhura.  I mean...what the heck?  It was always Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Sure, Nichelle Nichols deserved a bigger part (or, at the least, to have her character's name spelled right in the credits of Star Trek VI), but...Uhura?

(By the way, and totally unrelated:  yay.)

Commercial Pointlessness

Okay, I realize the big digital TV transition is a big deal.

However -- what on Earth is the point of advertising on local cable?  If you have cable you don't have to worry about the digital TV thing in the first place...even the commercial says this.

Also?  The commercial that says the digital TV transition was mandated because -- note that conjuntion...because -- the picture is so much better.

Felgercarb.

The government wanted to auction off the over-the-air wireless spectrum for lots of money.

End of story.

The Phoenix Has Landed

Without getting into a huge debate over the practicality of the space program (I, personally, think that we're soon going to have several billion folks who need to go somewhere), I just have to say kudos to NASA as Phoenix joins her sisters Spirit and Opportunity.

It hasn't always been easy, but it's been a nifty string of successes y'all have had lately.

As for the debate I don't want to get into:

Say to me, "No more Apollo"

Say to me, "The job is done"

And I say, "Your words are hollow

And our work has just begun"

Say to me, "We need the money

Just to feed the poor"

And I say, "Gee, that's funny

It's for them that we explore."

Say to me, "We should be fighting"

Say to me, "The world's at war"

And I say, "We are uniting

People tired of war and more"

Say to me, "There's too much danger

Say, "We could be lost"

And I say, "I am no stranger to danger

That's the cost"

Say to me, "The world is dying,

Ready for its last hurrah"

And I cry, "Keep on trying,

We must find our Shangri-La."

Say to me, "No more Apollo"

Say to me, "The job is done"

And I say, "Your words are hollow

And our work has just begun

And our work has just begun"

 -- "Apollo Lost," Cynthia McQuillin

Save Those Wrists

About a month in, Data and I are getting along perfectly, and, for the most part, Lore has been behaving himself.

However, I have been having trouble with my wrists using the bundled keyboard that came with Data.  I have been typing on a Microsoft Natural keyboard for years, after I started having tell-tale wrist pains -- in high school.  Being a touch-typist, the split design was never a problem for me, and it dramatically increased the amount of time I could type before fatigue and/or pain started in.

I have been eyeing the Kinesis keyboard for about the last nine months, as even typing on the MS Natural started to hurt, as the next step up from the MS Natural keyboard, figuring that if a $100 keyboard kept me away from the carpal tunnel doctors for 15 years or so, then hopefully a $300 keyboard would do the same.

(The step up from that would be the Maltron, which is even more, and approaches the price point of, "Oh, forget it, just go see the scary carpal tunnel doctor."  Unless my chicken tendencies kicked in and went for the -- apparently at least temporarily out of business -- DataHand keyboard.)

Anyhow, the problem is that I actually like typing on the Apple keyboard.  Many don't.  Many panned its design when it was essentially introduced on the MacBook.  Having played around with a MacBook and tried typing on it, I agree -- it's not comfortable on a laptop.  But as a desktop keyboard, I've really liked it -- the tactile feedback of the keys is very nice, and I like the clicking.  Call me old school.

But my wrist...my poor wrists....  While working to get Data set up the way I wanted, I even had to start wearing a wrist brace again, it hurt so much.

So I had a dilemma.  I have this keyboard that I really genuinely like -- and, what's more, doesn't take up two-thirds of my desk.

But as all this is going on, I began to notice something -- even moreso than when I was typing, it hurt to use the mouse.  I mean, as in, I probably could have shown you exactly which nerves attached to which muscles on the back of my arm.

So I did some research, and it turns out that for many, the mouse is a bigger problem than the keyboard, because not only are you turning your hand in an unnatural way, you're moving it around and such.

With some trepidation, then, I decided to take an $80 gamble that may save me $300 on the Kinesis keyboard (or, at the very least, postpone the leap for a while).  I found the Evoluent Vertical Mouse while browsing, ironically enough, the Kinesis website, and the documentation on their own website about the problems with mouse usage seemed somewhat convincing.

So far, I can say that, while it looks...well...weird, it is very comfortable.  It's taken some training to use the middle finger (there are three buttons on one side) to right click and to remember that the pinkie button is the switch-applications button (equivalent to Alt-Tab on a Windows computer) but that makes sense because the muscles in the pinkie are weaker and you'd use that one less.

My only problem is that the tracking speed is way, way too fast for my poor eye-hand coordination.  I have it set to the slowest it can go, and I still seem to have to expend additional mental effort to get the mouse where I want it to be.

Will this save my wrists?  I doubt it -- but like my original investment in the MS Natural keyboard, hopefully it'll delay more expensive dilemmas.

The Visit

So, New Boy B's dad is visiting tomorrow, and then I have to dash off to meet with Psychologist JW and Speech Person DFT (when did she invite herself?) to talk about Superhero, whose tri is coming up.

I could rant about Speech Person DFT writing another email behind my back and trying to stir up drama, but I won't.  Suffice it to say that I was...miffed.

In other news, while browsing Adobe's site to see if I could upgrade my old version of Photoshop CS to CS3 (I don't think so, because I bought an education version of it), I came upon Photoshop Express -- half web-based image editing, and half Flickr/Picasa.  Pretty nifty.

Pet Peeves

Language evolves; I know that.  So I know that what I am about to be grumpy about may be completely wrong five or ten years from now, but please indulge me.

Everyone is all of a sudden up in arms about Microsoft forcing computer manufacturers to stop selling computers with Windows XP pre-installed.  Vista has been out since...what...last Novemberish?

Believe it or not, I'm with Microsoft on this one -- and that from the person that just bought a fresh copy of Windows XP for Lore.

However.

Computer companies have limited resources.   Yes, even Microsoft.  There are only so many geeks who can write operating system code.  So when you work to develop a new OS, sooner or later, you have to shift your resources away from the old OS.

Anyway.

When you have lots of people chatting about computer things, you hear some interesting stuff, and it reminded me of a few pet peeves of mine.

1.  Downloading is taking something "down" (from a network) TO your computer.  The image is that the Internet is in the wires and the air floating above you and you are taking it out of the sky and putting it down onto your computer.

So, you download movies from iTunes to your computer.

You do NOT -- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT -- download a program from a CD.  You install (see #3) a program from a CD.

2.  Uploading is when you take something from your computer and put it UP into that imaginary network in the sky.

So, you upload your video to blogger.

You do NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT upload a program to your computer from a CD (or ever, that I can think of).

3.  The following are all acceptable variants for putting software on your computer to use: install, load, putting XYZ on my computer.

Downloading software is NOT making it usable.  Downloading software is simply taking the file from the Internet and putting it on your computer.  Installing software is when you make it usable on your computer.

4.  You do not have "an iTunes."  It is a playlist or a library.  "Hallelujah" is in three or four playlists and is in my iTunes library.  It is NOT "in my iTunes."

5.  Windows XP is the operating system.  It is the stuff that is running on your computer ALL THE TIME.  Office XP/2004/etc. is an office suite.  It's a group of programs you use.  THE TWO ARE NOT THE SAME.

And finally...

6.  It drives me absolutely frelling bat**it insane when people say "I used my Word" or "I used my Works" or "I used my Outlook."  Yeah, you bought it...but you just don't say it that way. 

What a Difference Some Levels Make

Soooo, just like the other day, when I made my histogram discovery, I've been going through old photos and re-rating them in iPhoto '08.

And I've been correcting some of the ones I'd deemed uncorrectable in iPhoto '06.  While iPhoto '06 did have some rudimentary levels correction and some hack and slash brightness/contrast (I know better than to use those), so any images that needed real work needed the work to be done in Photoshop.

I do have Photoshop (CS), which means I can't fix some of the lens distortion in buildings (that came in CS2), but obviously its color correction abilities far surpassed iPhoto '06.

'08 still does not have curves, but it has a highlight/shadows correction, much more responsive levels sliders (that could be the much more powerful CPU, too, to be honest) and better color correction.

The result is that some images that I thought were beyond fixing are actually looking...okay.  Many of the skies are still blown-out messes (to correct them enough with the highlight/shadows command would make the rest of the image look ridiculous) but a lot of the dusk and early evening shots are looking much better, and, obviously, tweaking the black levels of the pictures shot with the point and shoot (versus the Rebel) makes them look much better.

At some point, when I'm done, I'll take down the Picasa Album as it exists now and re-upload the newly-minted 5 star images.  (There are so many 4 star ones now, it'd break the account if I uploaded them.)

Not Bad for a Tuesday

Wow...it's a Tuesday and everything is taken care of for next week except agenda book stuff and homework.  Nifty.

Meanwhile, I'm going through my photos from the trip Patrick and I took to Disney World in January.  The goal for that trip was PACK LIGHT.  We shared one suitcase, one laptop case, and one camera (my point and shoot -- more on that later).

And I've discovered something interesting: nearly all of the uncorrected photos have no real blacks.  Observe:

Namely, the left side of the histogram; I've had to drag the black level over 5% or so on nearly all of the photos (it actually makes a huge difference in the overall appearance of the photo).

Now, what I think -- correct me if I'm wrong, someone -- this means is that the camera tends to overexpose, as I don't generally have the same drop-off on the white side of the histogram.

I have no idea if that's common with this camera or not -- it got decent reviews when I bought it, though the SD 900 had been released at that point.  In point of fact, the SD 900 was not much more expensive, but the 800 had a nice selling feature for me -- a slightly wider-angle lens.

Real wide-angle lenses for SLRs cost a bundle.  My dad had some, but of course not for Canon digital SLRs (digital photography was in its infancy in early 2000), so even if I could find an adapter, they wouldn't manually focus -- and with my eyesight, manual focus is difficult.

(Not impossible, mind you, but difficult.)

Anyhow, real wide-angle lenses cost an arm and a leg, but the point and shoot covered a bit more of the spectrum than either the kit lens that came with my Rebel (18 - 55 mm, I think) and, of course, the zoom lens (60ish - 200ish, I think).  So I figured that if I was ever in a "oh, I just need a bit more screen real estate" pinch, the P&S would help.

Anyway, I really don't want to have to manually correct every single image that comes out of the camera -- right now, I'm just correcting potential 4 and 5 star images. But I'm wondering if there isn't an exposure compensation trick I can figure out with the point and shoot.

(All of which is moot if I'm interpreting the histogram wrong, but it was a fun thought experiment.)

Oh Dear

Communicate: Symwriter rocks.

I mean, it ROCKS.

Importing pictures is painless.  You can also place pictures free on a page (useful for simple symbol-supported books).  It recognizes parts of speech, and symbolizes things like, "Can I have a drink?  Yes, you can drink a can of soda" with the "can as a question" for the first one and a picture of a drink for the first "drink," and then the second can is "can as a verb" and "drink is a verb," and...

...and it's all great.

Except that it says it can't run under VMWare.  So I booted into Windows directly, and then Windows wanted me to activate it...again...which VMWare said wouldn't happen if I installed VMTools as they asked during installation.

Plus, nearly $300.

But, oh, would it make life easy.....

I Can NOT Afford This

Long time readers will know that Writing With Symbols has been giving me fits of late, though it seems to be working well on Lore so far.

But a few months ago, I was browsing some of the sites that have nifty products for people with special needs and discovered that there is a successor to Writing With Symbols: Communicate: SymWriter.  At the time, there was a trial available, but only for people in the UK.

However, the lovely folks at Mayer Johnson now have a trial available for folks in the US.  I think the nicest feature, if it works, will be the intelligent symbol use (i.e., it can tell the difference between "drink" the noun and "drink" the verb, and uses the appropriate symbol in the appropriate place).

I cannot afford this.  I know the district can't.

Someday....

Some Progress

Okay, so, I still can't get Lore to connect to my network attached storage, but I managed to get both Boardmaker working well enough to get homework done for next week.  Writing with Symbols is still iffy, as it's making me re-import a bunch of graphics, so the "This Day in History" part of journals is just not going to get done (I'm squinting at a 24" monitor...this means it's time to stop) until the weekend, nor are the questions for the next two chapters of Matilda (the text itself is done, but the questions aren't).

But, really, it's not bad, given that I had to start from scratch over the weekend and re-install Windows.

Also, 4th Grade Teacher VS talked to Other 4th Grade Teacher KC, and found out KC is struggling with having a 2-year-old and a newborn, so good thoughts sent her way would be useful.

4th Grade Teacher KC is a very, very nice person, who is responsible for both 4th Grade Teacher VS and 5th Grade Teacher EW actually liking me.  She insisted (rather, dragged me by the hair, more or less) that I come along with them on their weekly Starbuck's run (I drink neither coffee nor tea).  Before that, VS and EW were...polite but a bit disinterested and incredulous.

Yesterday, I ran into VS in the parking lot after school, and she thanked me again for translating one of her conferences, and mentioned that it must be very hard.  I mentioned (without thinking that it probably sounded like fishing -- but you know me and social skills) that the ladies in the office had once talked about me getting a stipend for it.

And she said she'd plead my case during the leadership meetings.

Which, you know, probably won't happen, 'cause she'll have forgotten by then -- but that she volunteered was very nice indeed.

Meanwhile, Bulldozer slugged Aide J today, but according to Aide S, she had...ahem..."earned it."

Superhero has been edging closer and closer to meltdown-land as the week has gone on.  I anticipate drama tomorrow.  Which, of course, is when Psychologist JW is coming to observe Mr. Voice to begin working on his tri.

And, I learned something today.  We had an assembly this morning during morning journal time, which is when 3rd Grader P has been visiting, so he came with us to the assembly.  Nothing terrible happened, but note to myself: Keep PH and Bart (just came up with the nickname...he has a Simpsons backpack and, now that I think about it, reminds me of Bart) away from each other at assemblies...or, you know, most of the day.

Yeah.

Oh, and, 3rd Grade Teacher RE said she's considering sending her son to me for his sixth grade year.  He's a cool kid, but she strikes me as a Scary Parent.  We shall see...she talked about it for fourth grade this year and ended up changing her mind -- which is good, 'cause his drama would have been too much for us.

More On Lore

Great...I kept thinking that Lore used to sing a song, and when I googled it, I remembered right away that he did sing (it starts at 1:30) as he entered the room in "Brothers"...but now I have it stuck in my head.

(I'd much rather have Miles singing "The Minstrel Boy" stuck in my head, but, alas, it does not work that way.)

Anyway.

(I now own two vocal and one instrumental version of "The Minstrel Boy," by the way, but the phrase "warrior bard" always makes me think of Gabrielle.)

VMWare Fusion has a 30 day trial.  I am already in love with not rebooting.  I still can't figure out how to get access to the network attached storage, though -- which is crucial, because the word processor is on the Data side, and you can't access the Lore side while Windows is running without doing lots of dragging and copying, which is redundant and ridiculous.

However, barring anything else, it'll work.

There's something surreal about a Windows shut down screen with my Leopard wallpaper in the background.

Not bad.  Just...surreal.

Now, having violated my rule by nearly 2 hours, and getting nothing out of it except the agenda book stuff...I'm giving up for the night.

(Also...the result of all that googling was getting Data's darned life forms song stuck even more in my head than the other one.)

I just...love scanning for life forms.

(Be afraid.  Be very afraid.)

Life forms...

(C'mon blogger, upload the screenshot.)

You tiny little life forms...

(I had to try to say "fluency" and "stamina" today, in Spanish, in regards to reading.  During the first conference, when my vocabulary is always rusty.)

You precious little life forms...

(I need to borrow someone else's Boardmaker disk...mine has a hairline crack that was never a problem before, but it's not letting me use these nifty (free!) tools that let me virtually mount Writing With Symbols and still have a free CD drive.)

Where are you...?

(Am I the only one who thought it was sexist that the saucer didn't plow into a planet until Deanna took the helm?)

It's official.  My brain has imploded.  I am now wondering if the emotion chip made it so Data could whistle too, and for the life of me, I can't remember.  Googling has not 

helped, and I now have Data's poem stuck in my head instead.

Felix catus, your taxonomic nomenclature

Connotes an endothermic quadruped,

Carnivorous by nature

Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses

Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations

A singular development of cat communications

That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection

For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents

You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance

(Something something) a true and valued friend.

Trust me...I am as disturbed as anyone else that I remembered that much, as accurately as I did.