Sunday, November 7, 2010

Little things make me laugh...

...like looking at my the search history in the drop down menu of my Google tool bar. Today's contained such an amusing assortment of searches...


1. In order to blog this with the above image, I had to Google how to do a screen capture on my Mac because I do them so infrequently that I never remember how.

2. I think I'd like to take a family trip to Philly sometime next year. We live in the same state, but we've never been there. And I know there's at least one good yarn shop to be visited, as well as all that historical stuff.

3. I had a momentary vision of whisking my family up to Cook Forest for a short little getaway over Thanksgiving, since most of the rest of our family is abandoning us this year. But considering current budget issues thanks to the recent floor project, the unexpected new fridge, and -- as of today -- the unexpected new desktop (don't get me started), I think we'll just have a low-key, stay-at-home Thanksgiving as usual.

4. I was recommending a recipe for Sweet Potato Biscuits to someone today on Facebook, and I couldn't remember where I'd seen the recipe originally. It was here.

5. and 6. I love doing different things with my hair. Most recently, I went darker and got deep purple highlights. The other night, though, as I was watching a fourth season episode of Psych (love streaming from Netflix!), there was a character named Willow Gimbley who was very, very goth, and she had the most WONDERFUL hair! It was shortish and very dark, with what looked like deep red swaths painted on segments down the one side. I LOVE that hair! I WANT that hair. Or something like it. I was trying to find a picture of the character online, to no avail. Perhaps a screen capture from the streaming video? Hm.

7. I have a bag fetish. My roomie at Spring Fling last year and a Tom Bihn bag that I thought was awesome, but pricey. Still, every so often, I go to the site and lust after it.

8. I wanted to see what day of the week January 1 falls on next year. I was hoping for a Monday. Alas, it's a Saturday.

9. I've often wondered at the purpose of dyers reskeining yarn after they've dyed it, as I've seen several of them mention it in blog entries. Honestly, after reading several of the pages Google returned to me on that search, I'm still not entirely sure. It seems to have something to do with providing a better representation of what the colors will look like, particularly in hand-painted yarns. Anyone know another reason?

10. Emma and I are both doing NaNoWriMo, which we usually refer to as "NaNo," as in, "How many more words do you need to write on your NaNo today?" The kids are doing chemistry this year, so Emma started referring to NaNo as "sodium nitrogen oxide" but she wasn't sure if that was really what "No" stood for. So I Googled it. Turns out that "NO" would be nitric oxide (or nitrogen monoxide), but "No" is actually the chemical symbol for Nobelium (atomic number 102 on the Periodic Table of Elements). So now we can more correctly ask things like, "How's your sodium nobelium going?" Um...yeah. ;)

And as a bonus, I'll share with you that -- had my screen capture search not kicked it off the bottom of the list -- the last item would have said, "Dell enter power save mode," because that is the message my desktop monitor has been giving me regularly lately. The monitor is new, so I knew it wasn't likely the source of the problem. After testing several theories that the Google search offered, I finally came to the conclusion that my video card is on it's way to being toast. I checked that theory with Kevin, and he agreed. My desktop is going on five years old, so it's not completely a surprise that it was going to need replaced sometime, but seriously? Now?

Granted, we could just replace the video card, but since there are other things that don't work well, or at all anymore on the old desktop (i.e. the media slots for the camera cards, the one CD drive, as well as several software compatibility issues), it seemed more prudent to spend the money on a new machine. So that's what I did today. I've got a brand new HP tower sitting in my office. Still in it's box. I'm trying to build up my motivation and stamina for the dreaded task of backing up the old machine before it dies all together, and then setting up the new one. I hate doing this with a bloody passion, but I'll be darned if I'm going to pay the Geek Squad a couple hundred to do it for me.

4 comments:

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

I'm not a dyer, but I think your guess makes sense, based on what yarns look like before and after they're re-skeined. Quite a difference!

Anonymous said...

These are hilarious! I was thinking of doing something like you on the search terms that lead to my blog... some of them don't make a wit of sense whatsoever to me!

Lisa B. said...

Michele, that does make sense the more I think of it.

Lina, I've done that too...it's always a hoot what the search engines pick up!

ang klocke said...

RE: #1 - Me too!