Author Archives: Jodi

Amelia

Holy birth of Christ Day, Amelia!

We join the monkee as he attempts to sell someone the latest version of my software.

“And the latest version of [jodi’s software]? Holy Christmas!”

Amelia: Holy Christmas? What does that mean?

Jodi: I don’t know, I guess he means it’s really really great.

Amelia: so great he cannot come up with a logical exclamation?

Jodi: I don’t like him talking about my software.

Amelia: Wait, don’t you want him to sell it?

Jodi: Yeah… it’s just…. it’s non-denominational product! Separation of church and software!

Amelia: Ahhh….

Jodi: Don’t push your Christian holidays on my software, it was made by people of many faiths.

Amelia: Holy politically correct Winter Festival that adheres no no one specific religious belief!

Jodi: batman.

Holy Christmas is now the interjection of choice among members of my department.

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sims

It’s not that I lack will, I am just too passionate. Right, River?

To those of you who voted that I give in to my incredibly passionate nature, and buy the Sims2 yesterday, despite my need for housecleaning, bless you. You are my people. You “get” me.

To those of you who voted that I sacrifice my own needs for pleasure to better secure my family’s health and safety, ie: clean the bathroom, I’ve let you down. I’m sorry. Please don’t be too disappointed in me. I couldn’t stand it if you if you thought ill of me. But… I couldn’t find a sponge. No, seriously, I really couldn’t. Besides, there are two more days until she gets here. I’ll get it all done by then. I’ll pick up a sponge on the way home. Trust me.

The Sims2 is way different from the old Sims. It’s pretty freakin’ awesomely fabulous! I love creating new sims, I could spend hours just manipulating the shape of their face, the tilt of their eyes, the width of their nose… it’s wicked cool. Playing the actual game takes some adjustments. Lots of things have changed. I had to do a lot of exploring. There are things that are out of my control now. One sim went to work in an ok mood, he didn’t have a lot of valid skills, and all of the sudden a dialog came up – he was facing a situation, and had to make a choice. Actually, I had to make the choice. I made the right one and he got promoted. My other sim went to work in a great mood, with lots of applicable skills, I was again prompted to make a decision. I picked the wrong one and she was fired! She came with a cold, the game informed me, was totally sick, and incredibly depressed about the loss of her job. I had to send her to bed. Her energy was down, her hygiene was down, everything was down. Actually, she took a shower first, then rested in bed until she had enough energy to get up and eat. Then sat in a chair and red [for Fun, Comfort, and Energy] But the depression! She moaned and wailed and cried. Now “getting fired” shows up as one of her fears. And it’s one of her “memories” as well. Both things are new to the Sims2. It’s ok, we spent a couple of days getting healthy and happy and increasing a couple of skills, and then got another job in the Science field. While her partner is in the Law Enforcement field. Because that is what he wanted. It said so right in the control panel. However, his main mission in life, his emphasis…. his raison d’etre is Family. Hers is Knowledge. At this point, they are Good Friends, and I am trying to work my way, their way, up into love so we can trade the two single beds in for a double.

A while back, I was talking to Chris about the great names spammers use. I said that when I wrote my best selling novel, I might give all the characters names I got from spam. And so I started to keep a list. And it seemed that it would also work for Sims. So their names are Pansy and Dimitri Merona. Not the most exotic names on my list. But come on… Pansy? Such a smart girl and her name is Pansy.

This is the first time, in a long time, I’ve played without the money cheat. But I had started to rely on it too much, and it took some of the challenge out of the game. So the Meronas are saving their simoleans for a nice Telescope. Something else that has changed… you have all sorts of new options. For example, instead of just Read, Look for a Job, and Recycle options on the newspaper, you can now also Make an Airplane. Which the sim will then play with until you stop them. They will also play some kind of weird pirate game in the bathtub. Food flies everywhere when they eat. And they make cuter noises.

And I only played until 11 and that includes a long break during which I chatted online with real people. So… you know… I can stop any time. I can!

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macs

Certainly not the last temptation of Jodi

Dan pointed me to an article that says the Sims2 is showing up early in some stores. But.. but… if I go get it today, if I can find it, I’ll never clean the bathroom before my Grandma gets here. However… I have noticed a trend when she visits, she likes to feel useful. She tends to clean anyway.. so.. um.. maybe.. NO! I have to clean my own bathroom! However, I might just need a jamba juice for lunch. And the jamba juice is just two doors down from the Apple store, so if I happen to walk by and peek in….

I have zero willpower.

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Amelia

Amelia and the miscarriage of justice.

“Dude! He got off! He got off on all counts. Yeah.. all of them!”

Amelia: what’s he yelling about now?

Jodi: hmm? Oh, the Michael Jackson trial. He was found not guilty of about 900 counts of child molestation.

Amelia: was he really innocent?

Jodi: I doubt it. It’s not normal for grown men to have slumber parties with little boys.

Amelia: but why is the monkee yelling like that?

Jodi: He’s probably excited to have a reason to yell, to hear his own voice. Plus, he probably wants to be seen as hip, being the first to tell everyone.

Amelia: That’s not hip, that’s sad. The whole thing makes me feel ookey.

Jodi: Yeah. Besides, at least two people told me the verdict before he started yelling. I’m way hipper than he is.

Amelia: Word.

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music

When we’re about to do something stupid, we like to catalog the full extent of our stupidity for future reference.

Well, I think 10 out of 10 people polled say “no money for people who come to your door to beg!” Excellent.

I decided, in preparation for my grandma’s visit, I should do some cleaning this weekend. The bathroom really needs a good scrubbing. And I did clean, in my own way. I’m tired of all the music that’s on my iPod and hard drive. I wanted some new stuff. So I unpacked a box of cd’s. I never unpacked them when I moved in October. Now, first I had to make room on my old computer to store more mp3’s, which turned out to be a bit trickier than I thought it would be and I had to go into Terminal and get all sudo and chmod on it’s ass. But finally it was clean and sparkly and I had cleaned off 10gb’s of crap. So I unpacked the box. I cataloged each CD into my Delicious Library, setting aside the ones that did not bring up a cover image, so I could scan them and make one myself. Seriously. Other’s I set aside to rip mp3’s from. The rest, I put away in alphabetic order. [except for the soundtracks.] All that took hours, 147 cds. And there are two more boxes. But it’s just the type of “cleaning” I like. And if you box up all your music for over 6 months, when you open it, it’s like brand new stuff! You are so excited because you have not seen these cds in so long.

I was thrilled to see my really old Chris Isaak stuff and my Peter Gabriel cds. My Sarah McLauchlan and Letter’s to Cleo. Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and Jesus Jones. So fun! I still have a pile of cd’s to work through, ripping to mp3. I don’t know if I will finish the boxes before this weekend or not. I really should do some kind of “practical” cleaning. bah.

In Sims2 news, it starts shipping today. It won’t be in stores for another…. 3 days 10 hours and 25 minutes as I write this. I know because aspyr has a nice countdown clock on their website. And no, I’m not just sitting and staring it, in anticipation… much.

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Uncategorized

Oh, she can’t help it. It’s just her tough luck that she wasn’t born deaf and dumb.

Remember when I told you that I don’t like answering the door if I am not expecting someone? Well, this is why. I’m sitting in the purple chair, reading a rather dark and twisted mystery, when someone starts banging on my front door. Not just knocking, but banging. Then they ring my door bell three times, wait a beat, and start knocking repeatedly. I’m thinking, this has to be a neighbor and it has to be an emergency, what with the knocking and the banging and the repeated doorbell ringing. So I open there door and there is a woman standing there, she hands me a business card. On the business card it says “I am deaf.” It goes on to say something about looking for work, not having any work, oh did I mention I am deaf… this part was hard to read because the card had been copied from a copy many times over. Then at the bottom it says “Donate as much as you wish.” In her hands, she held a pile of bills. Not a lot, but enough to let me know that other kind souls had, apparently, given her money.

I was speechless. Which hardly mattered in this situation. Now, I only know a couple of things in sign language:

“Surprise!”

“Dead Dog”

“Shut up, bitch, go make me a turkey pot pie.”

None of these seemed appropriate. I did not know the sign for “What? Are you kidding me? You come to my home and bang on my door, ring my bell over and over, and I am supposed to give you money? You come to my door to beg for money?”

So I’m stuck. Do you go with compassion, or do you go with indignant annoyance? I went with annoyance. The sign for “oh no, no thank, no… shutting the door now!” is universal, kids. But it ticks me off, because some part of me wonders if I am supposed to feel guilty because I can hear and I have a job. While the other part of me is thinking that this is a total scam and the previously mentioned part of me is a sap. The sap side of me tells the cynical side of me to have a heart, and remember how very very fortunate we are. So the cynical side of me smacks the sappy side of me upside the head and tells her to quit being such a pussy. And then they get in a big fight and are currently not speaking to each other.

And that is why I don’t answer the door.

And yes, I really do know how to say “shut up, bitch, go make me a turkey pot pie” in sign language, although I find very little use for this knowledge.

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50 Word Fictions

50 Word Fiction Fridays X

Ooo.. hey, you guys, sorry. I was caught up in a book last night and completely forgot to prepare the 50 word fiction. Ok. so this week’s theme is “ennui” considering I am suffering from it. You don’t have to use the word, just the idea of it. I’ll have to post mine a bit later, as I am already late for work.

Bad bad Jodi

EDITED to add:

The girls leaned out the window of the third floor dorm room, arms outstretched. The water balloons were straining with their cargo and poised for deployment.

“Ready? Ennui! One…. Two…. WHEEEE!”

The fell back onto the bed laughing, as soaking wet sorority girls screamed their annoyance below. Ah, sweet satisfaction.

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books, macs

I think so, Brain, but where are we gonna find a tattoo parlor that’s open at this time of night?

I had a lovely email discussion the other day with Chris about books. The recommendations were flying fast and furious, I know I put some books on my reserve list at the library already. I’m going to have to review those emails and make myself a little list. Anyway, the point is, one of the books was available yesterday. [ “The Sparrow : A Novel” (MARY DORIA RUSSELL), in case you are curious. ] Since I had finished The Shadows of the Wind book, I scampered on down there to get it. But it seems that somewhere between the arrival of the book, the updated status in my account, and my scampering, the book disappeared. And I just looked at that librarian with frustration and thought ” Cmd+F! Cmd+F! come on… Cmd+F The Sparrow, it’s gotta be here somewhere!” [that would be Control+F for you Windows users.]

That is what the computer has done to me. When I can’t find things, my mind instantly thinks “Cmd+F” and I’m always so disappointed with my brain remembers that life does not work like the Mac OS. More’s the pity. Am I the only one who does this? Have you ever done something and then instantly thought “Cmd+Z” because you wanted to undo it, to take it back?

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books

What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.

I am reading the most delightful book right now, “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Actually, I am almost finished. I went home yesterday and picked it up, to start it, thinking I would be reading it over the next week or so, it’s almost 500 pages. But I could not put it down. I kept reading until around midnight, when I was just too sleepy to keep going. The title is from the book, from one of the more enjoyable characters I’ve read in a while, Fermín Romero de Torres.

On the radio this morning, the dj’s were talking about advice for graduates. Some woman called up and said the best advice she had was to do what you love to do, do what you did naturally at about 8 or 9 years old, because that is probably your passion. So I thought about it, and these are the things I can remember doing. [I don’t have the best memory]

  • watching tv, mostly sitcoms and cartoons
  • eating candy
  • finding money to buy more candy so I could eat it.
  • reading
  • playing with barbies
  • building forts, both inside and outside.
  • engaging in a pine cone war with the neighbors
  • riding my bike
  • playing a game with the neighborhood kids we called “murder!” Could only be played at night.
  • playing a game with the neighborhood kids we called “babies.” Could only be played in the basement of the Murray house.
  • playing elaborate games of fantasy that required a great deal of back story. And horses.
  • swimming
  • writing letter’s to Donny and Marie, as well as the cast of Little House on the Prarie
  • interviewing people with my little tape recorder
  • singing and telling stories into my little tape recorder
  • convincing the youngest Murray kid to do whatever we told him to do. Run out the house naked… eat a slug…. I was really not the ringleader here. My brother was.
  • listening to my mom’s records. Either with giant headphones on my head, or while dancing and singing in the living room. Depended on the album.
  • avoiding my brother and his wrath
  • sledding
  • eating more candy
  • playing in my grand parent’s bar before it opened, pouring cokes with four cherries
  • not doing my math homework.
  • occasionally telling some pretty wild stories. some might call them lies. I call them stories.
  • Playing dress up.
  • not cleaning my room
  • living in a fantasy world all my own.
  • contemplating my existence in the universe and the meaning of life.
  • listening to music on my little radio.
  • trying to look into the windows of the funeral parlor across the street from my Grandparent’s motel, to see if we could see a dead body. Answer: no.

And I probably rounded the whole thing off with more tv watching, candy eating, and book reading. Can someone please tell me, now, what I should be when I grow up?

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