penn

Random Nothings

Tonight, I backed up my laptop and I completely cleaned off our old computer. We're giving the old computer to a friend so she can try it out. She's never owned a computer, so I want her to try mine to see how much she uses it before she spends a lot of money on a new system.

I also cleaned all the dust out of the fans in my laptop. HP laptops have three (3!!!) fans. There was tons of dust. My computer no longer sounds like it's hacking up a hair ball. It even seems to be running a little cooler, although that might be because I just sprayed it with a ton of canned air. Still, it seems happier -- let's hope.

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I've been really busy recently. I went to go see the Lemony Snickets movie, A Series of Unfortunate Events, with my buddy Steve. He and I had an excellent time; we got dinner first and bubble tea after, and we both liked the movie. It had some plot changes from the book, but it was a great movie overall. It's PG, so it's definitely appropriate for the kidlets. It was both funny and a little disturbing, just like the books. The filming was good. Not much more to say, except to mention that I enjoyed it, and the movie comes highly recommended.

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I saw Phantom of the Opera on Christmas Day. What a great movie! Even though it was really long -- 3 hours -- it was worth every minute. I didn't even check my beautiful new Timex watch at all during the movie, even though I'm in love with it (side note: first new watch since I was 16).

Again, this movie had some slight plot derivations. However, it was still quality. The movie was done just like the musical, but with a bit more dialogue. The filming was beautiful, and so were the costumes. I thought the main guy, Raoul, was pretty cute ^^ Also, since it was a movie, the filming was nice and close, so it was really easy to follow the story. My dad is not the musical fanatic that my brothers and I are, and he still understood almost everything.

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I'm leaving for Costa Rica on Saturday, but I promise I won't leave the blog completely hanging. I'll do something, but I'm not sure yet what. I'll be back somewhere around the end of January.

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PS confidential to Jimmy: THANK YOU. You rock. The card was totally unexpected, and it made my day ^^ cheers :-)

Pre-Christmas Ebay-fueled Rant

I sell CDs on ebay. It's a total pain, and I'm almost done selling a big backlog of stuff. Once I'm done with it all, I will probably be done with ebay selling, although I might sell the occasional item. I don't really enjoy selling stuff on a regular basis, because it's a pain to list, and I find it nervewracking to wait for an item to close (actually, that's how I feel about ebay in general).

Anyway, my big rant is this: why does it take so long for people to pay? When I purchase things on ebay, I make sure I'm around at the end of the auction. Immediately after it closes, I go through the checkout process and pay via paypal. Paypal accepts credit cards, so you don't need a balance to pay. I usually pay with the balance I've built up from selling.

However, I get plenty of people who wait a day or two or SEVEN to pay for items. Currently, my biggest rant is the purchaser of my Mariah Carey Christmas CD (hey, I was young!). It's in great condition, because I hardly ever listened to it; I prefer the Muppets Christmas CD (or tape or album, since I own all three). I put the Christmas CDs up for sale awhile ago, because I wanted to make sure they got sold in time to be shipped off for Christmas. However, this buyer is dragging her heels. I've sent her three emails now, and there's still no payment. Tomorrow, I will file a dispute against her, and then I'm offering a second chance to the runner-up bidder. Still, I'm worried that the second bidder won't want it because s/he either won another auction or doesn't want Christmas music after Christmas.

Also, I'm also ticked at someone who bought a CD via buy-it-now and still hasn't paid. If you bought the CD immediately, is it that hard to pay for it at the same time? I mean, I don't send items until after the payment has cleared paypal. He lives in the US, so there's no question about shipping (flat rate -- $2.95 per CD, which is encased in cardboard and a padded envelope and shipped THE DAY the buyer pays). Honestly, why hasn't he paid yet? Yes, it is wonderful that he bought a CD for $8 that was going to be ending in 2 hours with a start price of 99 cents. But pay already, mister.

I suppose I should calm down and cut people some slack, but I really just want to be done with all this ebay crap. I've almost cleared $100 over Christmas, but I won't clear that if I don't get paid for items. Please people, pay me! I'd like to buy myself a nice little toy when I get back from Costa Rica; maybe a slide scanner would be nice. Please pay.

Depth of Field

The Cleaning Frenzy

At Christmas, my household becomes a frenzy of cleaning. You would think that cleaning is best in the spring (after all, we do have the dreadfully cliched phrase). Or perhaps a little cleaning in the summer, because the kids are often home then. But the bulk of our yearly cleaning occurs at Christmas, when we are busy trying to decorate, get presents ready, and enjoy having the family together.

Since I got home a week earlier than my brothers, I've been trying to help out. I've cleaned a fair bit of things around the house (still have to wipe down the fridge, goshdarnit). I've also listed 40 CDs on ebay (username: elaypenn -- but they're all kinda weird CDs, or they're Christmas music).

The ebay thing is interesting. I'm hoping to list up some crap from my room, but I doubt I'll get that far over the break. I'm listing CDs that my dad gave me from a collection he's gleaned at garage sales and thrift stores over the past couple years. They're all CDs we thought would sell well . . . and there are always surprises.

Of my recently sold CDs, the two highest were a Grateful Dead CD and Amy Grant's Christmas CD. However, no bids on Oasis, and I didn't even bother to list some Aerosmith CDs because they hadn't sold well. It seems to me that the highest selling CDs are actually nostalgic ones; people love Best of John Denver or Janis Joplin. However, there is NO market whatsoever for TLC, Pearl Jam, J-Lo, and tons of other CDs now relgated to a "CD store trade" box.

I think we, as a family, are now giving up the "buy things to sell" mentality. It'll be healthier for all of us. Now if we (erm, I) can just clean up the house in the next day, the week before Christmas will go smoother than usual.

Really? Just by studying?

My hectic semester has paid off. Who knew that, when you studied, tests magically got easier? Papers write themselves faster and my grades get better. Imagine that.

I'm perfectly pleased right now. I was actually more concerned with individual class performance than with the overall GPA, but everything worked out well. I didn't manage a 4.0, but I think a 3.9 is an acceptable alternative; I mean, I got an A- instead of an A in math modeling. Hell, I'm happy my grade was that high in math modeling.

Mostly, I'm excited about the two A's I received in studies in fiction and molecular biology. Molecular is supposed to be a tough-as-nails class, and I pulled it out [editor's note: yeah, but only because the prof offered extra credit since almost everyone failed the second test. Since I didn't fail the second test, and I did the extra credit, I raised my test average to an A overall. That helped a lot.].

The Fiction grade is great because it means that I'm graduating with a 4.0 in English lit classes, which speaks volumes about my ability to write and think critically. I also have a high grade in writing (A's and A-'s). The class was difficult, and I had a hard time making it through all the books. The professor was great, but he also has a reputation for being a hardass.

Basically, I'm just excited that I can perform across the breadth of my classes. However, I still have the huge dilemma that confronts all graduating college students not bound for grad school: how the hell do I get a job? I've never before had to apply for a job; I get them through connections. Furthermore, how do I even find a job? Holy hell.

New Tangled Bank

For those interested in science-writing, check out Tangled Bank # 18 at CodeBlueBlog.

Random Tidbits

1. I'm home for Christmas.

2. I'm enjoying a signficant amount of downtime after the hectic nature of the school semester. It's really nice, actually (well, obviously). I've been running errands for Christmas presents, helping out with a holiday gift drive (a little bit, because it's almost done), and seeing some friends.

3. I taught one of my friends how to play scrabble yesterday (well, my parents helped). Great fun. I can't believe there are people out there who like words and haven't yet played scrabble.

4. My friend taught me how to knit. It's going slowly, but it's going. I've frogged my scarf (read: taken it apart to restart) several times in an attempt at improving my technique. I hope I can finish a scarf before next Christmas.

5. I got a hamster. She's uber-cute. However, it's really hard to take a picture of her because she's all black with no contrast. My cat loves her, though I'm not sure that's a good thing.

6. I hope everyone else is getting geared up for Christmas. It's a bit hard to get in the spirit in the rainy northwest; I miss snow.

How to have a citified evening

Today, I went into Portland to drop a friend off at the train station. Not one to waste gas, I decided to bum around town for awhile before Zoolights at the Oregon Zoo started.

My first thought was dinner. It was only 4.30, but I was hungry. I had only eaten a cupcake and some saltine crackers so far. Now, where to go in Portland for dinner? There are a plethora of excellent sit-down places, and I know there's probably plenty of good take-out joints. However, I don't know a single quick place to eat that isn't a chain restaurant, and I'm not a big fan of chains. No Taco Time or Burger King or even whatever the weird Mexican chain near Powell's [ed: yes, with an apostrophe. Proper name is Powell's City of Books]. I didn't have time to get something fancy on 23rd or go to a restaurant downtown.

As I was driving around, I noticed:

Ahh, yes, how did I survive in Europe? By eating at grocery stores, and that's how I will survive again tonight. Whole Foods has a beautiful deli section, and I got a delicious slice of grilled vegetable pizza and a bottle or organic apple juice. I would love to live in Portland just so I could shop somewhere like Whole Foods every day. Yes, it's expensive, but it's the price I pay for aspiring to a yuppie-like natural foods lifestyle (when possible . . . ahh, those glory days when I have enough money to always make it possible).

After Whole Foods, I ate my dinner outside while sitting on a bench. The night was crisp and cool, but not cold, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Then, I meandered over to Powell's and admired:

Then, I headed to the zoo to partake of the zoo lights by myself. Oh, it was wonderful. I adore zoos, and my zoo membership got me into the ZooLights for free, of all wonderful happenings. Enjoy a few of the pictures I took, and I'm going to go play with my new acquisition. As soon as I can get a clear picture of her, I'll share it with all of you here.

The Joy of the Self-Timer

My friends and I went backpacking at Lake Ozette over fall break this year. It was my first backpacking trip, and I loved it. Then again, maybe I loved it because I had the lightest pack. I thought it was seriously easy (only 3 miles in). I'm up for more of a challenge next time.

Next semester, I'll be taking Outdoor Recreation, which is a class in basic outoor skills. I will hopefully get to do some snow camping and rock climbing for the class. I'm definitely excited for both of those possibilities.

Guerilla Photography

This photo was taken from across the street and under the arms of random people. I'm lucky I got a clear shot. Taken in Brugge, Belgium.