Friends

There was ice in the cans in the recycling bin this morning. I finally turned on the heat in the house, though I'm keeping the thermostat low enough to please my mother (who never comes to my house, but is nonetheless my mother and would know) and to keep the cats affectionate.

The drive in was rough today, with lanes down on 270. My nail polish spilled in my purse. The office is drafty. Work involved urgent emails, of the sort where people come by to ask if I've answered it yet before I've finished logging into my computer for the morning, followed by a new meeting to add to my schedule.

On the plus side of things, I put an order in to Villainess and shall be spoiling myself shorty, plus I've learned a new song for Chanty Sing tonight (Royal Mile pub in Wheaton, let me know if you want a seat). Everyone welcome, so show up and make some noise.

eta for your amusement, via Neatorama, Awful Library Books Blog.

Tuesday Morning Football Talk with Duffy Moon.

1) Sure, Drew Brees is a wonderful talent (From when the Big 10 knew how to produce quarterbacks. Well, parts of the Big 10. The part that's called Purdue.). But, come on, that was the world's easiest throw because:

2) How can you just let the President of the United States streak across the middle like that and nobody lays a hand on him?! Are you serious?! Did you seriously not see Barack Obama, the President, just streaking across there?! What, you thought maybe he'd check down to another receiver? Like that 12-year-old girl in the too-big jersey?

3) And wasn't that Troy Polamalu in coverage? He needs to hang his big hairy head in shame. You can't let a rookie posterize you like that. He should have been all over the President on that play. Obama should have, at the very least, paid an excruciatingly painful price after he caught the pass. At the very least.

4) But so, in Polamalu's defense, maybe he went ahead and actually LET the President make that catch. Maybe he knew that President Obama apparently went to the Plaxico Burress School of How to Handle a Live Ball After a Big Catch. Because did you see the Prez just toss the ball to that girl? That is the biggest, empty-headedest mistake I've ever seen a rookie make. Even worse than Mr. Burress (pre-self-inflicted-wound), who just spiked the thing. You just can't cough it up like that.

5) But the takeway here, boys and girls, is that the replay officials of the NFL need to have access to those cameras all the time. I could practically measure the President's pulse by watching the high-def carotid twitch.

bookfails
Planning to do your part to help boost the declining publishing industry this holiday? Better check here first. Sure, there are plenty of folks who post glowing reviews of their favorite books. But what about the epic fails? Compose and/or discuss snarky, incisive critiques on the books you despise most.

foundphotos
Ever stumble across a frayed photo in your grandmother's attic? How about a faded picture tucked in the sleeve of an old novel at a used book sale? This is the place to post them. An amazing, eclectic collection of photographs sure to delight anyone with a penchant for history or nostalgic memorabilia.

note_to_cat
Having trouble conveying the concept of accountability to your cat? Now you can share letters to your significant felines and give public witness to your declarations of love and domestic negotiations. Whether you want to publish an apology for falling short on your cat-nip obligations or you need to raise a delicate hygiene issue.

Hey all, I had some questions and was hoping maybe some of you could help me out.

I'm an American living in Belgium, and I want to get a degree so that I can potentially do TESOL in the future, in places where degrees are required to teach. I discovered the OU recently and it seems like a great place, but I'm a bit confused by a handful of things.

1) Some posts here have mentioned "tutorials" and going to things on campus, do all courses require these things? I thought the "distance" part of distance learning was that there was no on-campus (except possibly for some potential exams) stuff with it? How does this work?

2) I am, accordingly, looking at the degree plan for the BA in Modern Language Studies. Thing is, I want to get started on this, but it says only 60pts of Level 1 courses, but the beginner language courses are only offered at the end of the year! Which means I have to wait a full year before taking them. That seems incredibly backward to me, and is quite frustrating. The only 2 Level 1 course options left, then, are Introducing the social sciences (DD101) and The arts past and present (AA100), which are both 60 pts, and would leave me still needing to take the language courses! This would be a waste of my time and money, since it would be unnecessary and I'm guessing a decent workload, since it'd be a 60pt class. But the main point is, I'd still need to take beginner and intermediate language (I'm thinking German), which ridiculously I cannot do for another year. Is it possible to take a Level 2 course (Exploring the English language (U211) is the compulsory Level 2 for that study path) before the Level 1s? I know it'd have a heavier workload, and it says you should have prior classes, but I've gone to university in the US years ago, it's not like I've never done this before...

3) I'd really love to actually TALK (just through email) with an actual person there, not these stupid contact form email things. I'd like to be able to actually discuss this stuff with someone! Especially about the courses, which I know the site mentions advisors, but it looks like that is more geared towards those in the UK only? Either way, it'd be nice to discuss the "can I take this course while I wait for those??" questions to a real person who works there, and have a back&forth with them. Is this at all possible?

I think that's essentially what it comes down to, right now. Can any of you offer me any insight here? It'd be much appreciated.

Lovely start to the week here - The phone rang at 6:45, which is never a good sign. It was my Mum calling to say Granny (my Dad's Mum) had died in the night :( I'm not too bad, just lkeep remembering things and getting tearful, so decided I would be better off not going to work today. Can't go in tomorrow either as no childcare (My Mum normally does Tuesdays, but they are in staffordshire sorting things out). Wednesday we were due to drive to Leek to go vititing, so I had a half day, but I suppose I won't need that now.

But yep, any cute youtube videos to make me grin would be much appreciated today.

Izzy is fab though. She thinks Mummy crying is hilarious and kees making me laugh. She also stole a chocolate this morning and stuffed it in her mouth before I could get to her, so she is rather sticky. But never mind, she is normally sticky with something!

I'm sure I have lots of cheerful things to update about, but I can't think what they were now, I shall come back to you on that.

Tribal Cafe tonight was a great time. I always say that, but this is because it is always true. This is why I keep going back.

I think I had more members of the general community come up and greet me and hug me and talk to me than usual, and I am so very, very grateful for these wonderful, artistic people who welcome me into their performance space. They are, without exception, warm-hearted and generous, and it was all very much of the happy and grinning-making.

Niamah, after her set, was sitting near me, panting and sweating (she does amazing shimmies for forever and a day when she dances), so I fanned her for a while, since it was the appropriate action of a fangirl, and I aim to be an excellent dance minion.

kiaroskuro brought a great sense of humor to her dance, in addition to her usual darkly sparkling magic, dancing to remixed holiday music, including the Dreidel Song (involved a lot of spinning).

mavidancer did a performance using Flamenco influences (or at least it looked that way to me), somehow combining this with a remix of "The New Shit" with something that sounded a lot like French opera music. Welcome to fusion style dance (are you sure that's legal?).

My friends and I shuffled around the floor, sitting in different places during each piece, trying to keep out of the way while getting a good view, and making the management (that'd be notalj) comment that we were crazy. Yeah, but entertained.

The night had its downsides earlier, but Tribal Cafe was awesome, and friends who understand that I sometimes have to give shoulder massages to people to calm myself down are awesome, and people, in general, are pretty good, and it's great to see what we create when we gather together.

Hello, which operating system can u recommend me for my COMPAQ N400c pentium3, 256mB memory? Now i have ubuntu 9.10 but it's really heavy for it. Thank you.

Question/Problem: Fails. Blank screen that says,"This Page Failed to Load".

Operating System, Version and Service Pack: Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2 64-bit.

Web Browser and Version: Firefox 3.0.15

Your level of experience: Beginner-Intermediate

When did the problem start? I'm pretty sure it started when I had to change to a different wireless router (like 4 months ago?). It was working fine when we had a Belkin router but my dad had to upgrade to a new SBC Yahoo! Modem that includes a built-in wireless router thing and since then....argh. I don't know. My guess is that it's a Security problem? Connection problem? I don't know.

Any steps you've taken to troubleshoot? I tried uninstalling my anti-virus but it doesn't help. I tried to disable my firewall but it didn't help either. I put the "windows update" link on the exceptions list on IE 8 but it didn't work.

edit: Nevermind. I uninstalled AVG and disabled my firewall and then enabled it again and then the next day it worked. I also noticed that the layout of the Windows Update looks different so maybe my computer was having trouble connecting with the new version of Windows Update or something. -_-

I recently bought the HP Pavilion p6243w-b desktop computer and asked around about weather or not the sims 3 or other PC games will work on it. The answer was mostly no, because of the graphics card. Does anyone know of a good graphics card that I could buy that will allow games to work good? I just started PC gaming now so I'm sort of clueless about this stuff right now.

Graphics Card:
Integrated graphics using nVidia GeForce 6150SE
Also supports PCI Express x16 graphics cards

Processor:
AMD Sempron LE1200 processor - 2.1GHz

Hard Drive is 320 GB, 3.0 GB of memory and comes with Windows 7.

Question/Problem: My sister is having problems installing Itunes on her laptop. She's installed it before but she uninstalled it and now she can't get it to install properly.

Operating System, Version and Service Pack: Windows Vista

Web Browser and Version: Internet Explorer 7

Your level of experience (we simplify or explain instructions based on how you answer): Beginner

When did the problem start? Has it been going on constantly since then? It started about 3 weeks ago and she hasn't been able to fix it.

Any steps you've taken to troubleshoot? She's uninstalled Itunes and reinstalled it and gotten three different error messages (screen caps under LJ-cut).

If you are receiving an error message, please include the entire text of the message:

( Screencaps of error messages below cut )

We've bought a 'just add eggs' American cake mix and I'm wondering what is best to use to replace the eggs? I can't afford to experimemt as the mix is really expensive, so would prefer to get it right first time! Is Ener-G egg replacer as good as I hear?

Brief update: have been in hospital on drips, after very severe adverse reaction to the new treatment. I need a much stronger anti-emetic to cope with this Irinotecan stuff; dehydrated very badly, and had to be carted off to the A&E in an ambulance.

Back home, on stronger stuff, hopefully, will be able to continue treatment in two or three weeks.

Let me introduce you to my friends. Comment here with five things you are interested in (as specific or general as you'd like) and I will respond with at least one of my (hopefully active) lj-friends you should friend based on those interests.

(Since it is the holiday season, it might be as late as next week before I get all this done, but let's get this started now.)

Tweaks and enhancements

1. In order to improve site security, we've temporarily suspended the ability to change passwords for old email addresses that haven't been used for over six months. For further information and support, please visit our customer care page.
2. We've launched a new mobile site with an enhanced UI at m.livejournal.com. View spotlights, post to your journal, read and post to friends pages, and more, no matter where you roam! Please let us know what you think, since this will eventually replace our existing mobile interface. You can update your mobile preferences on your account page.
3. We've upgraded from Beacon to Facebook Connect to improve dual posting. If you've already signed up for Facebook Beacon, you're good to go. If you wish to update your Facebook Connect setting, visit Account Privacy settings and scroll down to the option labeled: "Send information about my updates to Facebook." You can choose Always or Ask each time. Remember to save (on the bottom left corner of the page). To learn more, check out FAQ 249. While we're on the subject, if you happen to be visiting that side of town, please join our Facebook fan page for a touch of home away from home.
4. You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock."
5. Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.

Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!

Photos of the week

We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.

Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!