Category: Misc

I had the grandmother of all headaches last night. It started around 3 PM. I still don't know what caused it. It was probably my body rebelling against a combonation of lack of water (I usually drink 8 glasses/day, but I had had hardly a single glass) and a lack of sinus-clearing shower that morning. It escalated all day until it was throbbing in my right temple as we were coming home from a party. I hit the shower and advil (again) and went straight to bed… at 8:00.

Lo and behold this morning, it's still here. Not big. Not bad. Just in the corner of my head. It took a lot for me to come to work this morning. Especially since it's absolutely gorgeous outside. Staying at home and playing with Loki seemed like a very good idea. *sigh*

I do so dearly hope I'm not developing migraines.

Keeping life organized is a challenge for me. I've tried lots of systems over the years. I thought I'd met my perfect match in PDAs, but the teeny screens, cumbersome software and data entry and battery life left me longing for paper. So while I keep my organization neat on my computers (office and home), paper is my traveling companion. I maintain calendars and contacts in Thunderbird (at home) and Outlook (at the office) but maintain them manually based on the calendar I print once weekly and add appointments to by hand. My to-do list is a word document with special sections for Target and grocery store shopping lists. Reminders are a shared task between my phone and computers and most updating is done manually. Since I have a relatively small amount of data, it works well for me. But of course, I'm always open to change.

How do you organize? Continue reading “Organization”

This blog turns two years old today. Hard to believe it's been two whole years. Weird. Take the Way-Back-Machine and check out some of my first entries.

To celebrate this blog's 2nd bday (and I keep saying blog instead of Jesser.org since Jesser.org existed long before the blog), I'm going to be doing some (hopefully) major updates. I want to add a bunch of pictures that I've taken since the first of the year and some media I've been loving but haven't added… and maybe just maybe some crafts and links and … possibly a new section. But I've got to think that one out a bit. Cuz it kinda overlaps some stuff and I dunno about it just yet.

My B'day was very nice. I went out to lunch at TukTuk's with my mom and sister. They gave me two video games, the ones shown above. I put wrap-ups of both in the media section. That evening, Matt made me dinner, the lovely streudel below and then we just spent time hanging out which was a nice change, because we'd had a very busy week last week. He had already gotten me a present … my new video card (that makes Sims 2 fly, by the way) and we played my new video games. It's not over yet though. We do spread-out birthdays in my family. We're going to go to dinner later this month to celebrate both my dad's birthday and mine and some friends who were out-of-town will celebrate with me sometime this week (hopefully).

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes.

Well, I got a new computer this past week. We had actually ordered it in early July when CompUSA did this whole midnight madness thing. It's about a $500 computer and we got it for $200 … after rebates, of course. Since we're such geekos in our house, we've always got a pile of rebates to send in because practically anything that's a good deal from CompUSA you have to get a rebate for. Actually, electronics in general, wherever they come from usually have a rebate. We've probably sent in about 10 this year already. They're a pain in the ass, but they won't go away because, of course, they work the way the companies want. 41% of people forget to turn in their rebates. I get a little pissy with all these games, especially when you get two rebates on the same product and they both want the original receipt. C'mon!!!

I'm very fond of places that don't make you jump through hoops for your discount. Usually Target and Wal-Mart (though I hate Wal-Mart in many other ways) are pretty good about this. My theory is that if we all send in our rebates they'll decide that they're not such a good scam anymore and get rid of them … so people, SEND IN THOSE REBATES!

When Helen Adler accidently took the wrong pills, her life was in danger. Her granddaughter Deborah Adler was inspired. She came up with the new Clear Rx packaging being used by Target Pharmacies nation wide. It features a label that doesn't wrap around a curved surface, large easy-to-read writing of the prescriptions name, a handy info card stored on the bottle and a colored ring that you can coordinate to a member of the family or a specific medicine or type of medicine.

I'm lucky enough to only take Zyrtec, but I know this will be of much benefit to others who take a myriad of meds.

I'm sure we've all felt the pointlessness of signing credit card recipts. I have “see ID” on my cards, and still, practically no-one asks to see ID, indicating that they haven't even looked at the signature panel. And if you've gotten fast food lately or maybe even groceries at the U-scans and definitely gas and paid with plastic, you probably haven't been required to sign.

Well someone decided to test the whole thing out and see just what the heck he could get away with. Here's his story.

Amazon and Walmart both mistakenly issued emails to their pre-order customers telling them that they wouldn't be getting their books until 20 July (instead of 16 July as promised). They were, of course, inundated with phone calls and emails asking, “What gives?!”

An outrage fan had this to say on the Mugglenet boards: “I got one of those e-mails. I'm getting a second copy at midnight just in case, because if it doesn't arrive I'm canceling my transaction. I'm still furious.”

Well. Don't you know? Harry Potter is serious business.

Happy Almost Harry Potter Day!

I've been running into a lot of cool things lately. Lots of them courtesy of Life Hacker and the balance courtesy of StumbleUpon,which is where I found Life Hacerk in the first place. Here's a quick summary of some new faves:

• Google SMS –This is a demo of the Google SMS system that allows you to text GOOGL (46645) with queries like weather Denver, CO and it will text you back with the results. Damn cool.
• Send to Phone, in sort of the same vein, is an extension for Firefox that allows you to highlight text in your web browser (say directions, or prices on an item) and send them to your phone as a text message.
• DHTML Lemmings is a fantastic time-waster … the classic Lemmings game played right over your web browser … yowsa that's cool.
• Adventure Quest is a cool, free, online RPG that you play in your browser. It's not exactly complicated, but it is entertaining.
• BackPackIt is sort of a web-scrap book where you can keep lists, notes, and if you're willing to shell out some $$, photos and files.
• Sims 2 for your phone is showing up this September and from the looks of it, I think it will be very cool
• The Hipster PDA organizes you in simplicity and style

Share some of your own favorite links!