Man-Made Terror

Excluding any disaster that threatens your life, I think there's nothing quite as scary as waking up to the "can't boot computer" screen of death. I woke to it this morning, and I really wished I were still dreaming. My little PC had tried to reboot in the night after upgrading one program or another, and somehow failed miserably at the task of just starting up again. I think the terror comes partly from knowing this piece of aluminum and circuits will rule your day and suck your time until you can tame it into running again. I have to fix a problem with the Registry Editor, it seems. I can foresee fun computer times ahead of me in the next few days.

I've Been Pretty Quiet of Late...

The summer has been a busy one. I'm currently wrapping up my internship. It makes me a little sad because I've had such a good time there. Worked a lot but it has been awesome. I'll miss it.

I got myself a new computer last week. It's a very pretty, very fast HP. And there were tons of sales so I got a good deal. Let's wish it a long life than my craptacular laptop.

Today, I went to the movies and saw Waitress, which I recommend, although I am not sure I liked the ending. Anyway, on my way to the movies, I saw a squirrel eating half an Areo chocolate bar. Oh, squirrel. Say no to refined sugar. Talk about the crazy diet of city-dwelling animals!

Oooo, Cupcakes and Computers!

Yesterday, the girls with whom I had dinner with had been to The Cupcake Shoppe before and were carrying those little delicacies with them. I will need to make a trip there to try some of their cupcakes because the menu looks divine.

In the realm of computers, my officemate found this nifty little software called Key Breeze that allows you to start applications, switch programs,... with only a key stroke. It's a pretty smart little tool to have that saves a lot of mouse clicking on your desktop.

Family Love Brain Diva

An Arrested Development reference is always appropriate! I'm going home for 10 days, and I can't wait. I'm happy that I get to spend time with family and friends, and I think the feeling is mutual. However, I just realized that I will be stranded as far as the Internet go. I will have to rely on my parents' crappy dial-up connection. My brother moved out and took with him his fancy computer and high-speed connection. It hasn't happened to me in about 4 years to have to rely on such a stupid connection. It makes me think of one of my techie friends who in 1998, had one of the first high-speed connection in Montreal. At the time, I couldn't understand his disdain for dial-up and he told me he couldn't use one anymore because it was too infuriating. Once you've experienced high speed, it is hard to go back. I guess, it will keep me off the computer for a few days! LOL

It is always weird to go back to suburbia as well. I can't walk anywhere. There is no coffee place around the corner. I have to drive at least 10-15 minutes to get anywhere. Wow, I've become such a city girl.

My Laptop Is The Biggest Pain In The Ass

My laptop is yet again having fits. This time, the screen has decided to stop working. I swear to God, it wants me to throw it out of the window. Argh.

Anyway, to improve my mood, I went on YouTube and found this:



So funny! Bringing sexy back! Michael and Dwight are bringing on something, that's for sure... LOL

Ugh.

Reformatted the hard drive, reinstalled Windows, still getting the dreaded blue screen. Computer is at the doctor's. I can't even begin to describe the stomach ache I have.

My Computer Has A Vendetta Against Me

Okay, so the power jack of my laptop got fixed, and it was working fine yesterday, and now, it won't boot. I've tried bootable disks to no avail, safety mode won't work, I'm now doing diagnostic tests on it,... I swear to God, I'm this close to opening my window, and throwing the laptop down 3 storeys onto the concrete. It would be unlikely to work much worse than it is right now. I didn't know a computer had the power to make me cry.

Nothing Like Technology to Make One Blog

In the great computer saga of 06, my laptop is at the computer shop, getting a 200$ tune up for a loose power connector. Oh yeah, that's what it costs! I checked all around! I really hope the motherboard isn't cracked though because it would mean a new motherboard, which is like 1000$! Anyway, all this means the computer is out of commission till Thursday. Not too cool seeing as I need some programs on there to do data analysis. So it goes. Thank God for my brother's old desktop I borrowed a few weeks ago. It's coming in handy.

Life is expensive these days, at a moment when I'm broke. It figures.

I Swear My Computer Wants My Death...

Okay, so I fixed the software issue, but now, the power jack inside the laptop broke. Argh. That's something I reeeally can't fix myself. So I have to drag myself tomorrow, and get that fixed. Technology hates me.

Suck It, Spyware!

Wow, my post titles contain a lot of questionable words these last few days. Hmmm. So after spending the night trying to fix the stupid computer (I was up until 5 am), it still wasn't working. I called a service, and they could come to fix it tomorrow. I made an appointment, but decided to take another crack at the computer. I think I may just have fixed it. I think it was some spyware that was bogging the whole thing down. I'm not done yet, but keep your fingers crossed!

I had to post a link to the Onion article, because the psych student in me can't resist: Report: US May Have Been Abused During Formative Years. It is just a brilliant satire. They made the DSM-IV (the Bible of psych diagnoses in psych) the Democratic Symptoms Of Maltreatment handbook. They have so many great reports, but another one is Cost of Living Now Outweighs Benefits. Business rules applied to the extreme. Hee. Man, I love funny clever people. I need to marry one of those.

Karma is Being a Bitch!

After the great apartment drama, now, my computer has decided to die on me! I have a virus or something equally bitchy happening to it, and I can't seem to fix it since the computer is sooooo slow and crashes all the time. I've wasted the last 8+ hours trying to fix it. Sigh. More money I don't have to send the computer to the doctor. Kill me.

Margin Tutorial

Okay, guys. I'll just show you what you need to alter in your code to change the margins. One disclaimer though is I don't if all the codes are written exactly the same but at least, you will have an idea what you need to play around with to get that.

For example, the chunk of code in my template that needed to be modified:

/* Content----------------------------------------------- */

#content {

width:820px;

margin:10 auto;

padding:0;

text-align:left;

}

#main {

width:560px;

float:left;

}

#sidebar {

width:240px;

float:right;

}

What is in red is what needs to be modified. They are the width in pixels of your page. First is #content width, which is the whole width of text. This is roughly approximate to width of main comment (posts) plus the width of the sidebar (which is where your profile & links on the side are located) . However, the number of pixels for content width is usually slightly bigger that the exact total of main + sidebar because it needs to accounts for margins included in the layout. So you will need to change the number of pixels for the content width, and do so as well for the main comment width. In my case, I also made my sidebar a tad larger. The values posted above have already been modified; they were something like 560 px, 330 px& 220 px initially. You just need to increase the values to something you like.

Live from Toronto, This is Tuesday Afternoon Live...

Wow. The creativity well is a little bit dry if we consider the title I've given to this post. It's funny for me to have this blog, where I'm basically blabbing on to myself. It's nice though. It's just an outlet I can turn on to blatter on about my non-work thoughts. Considering I spend the bulk of my day doing one of the 4 following things : working on my computer, reading research/teaching material, watching TV when I'm too tired to do anything else(not much of that one) or more work on my computer, I do tend to spend a lot of time alone. Certainly, it depends on the day (sometimes, I spend a lot of time with students or patients) but overall, my work tends to be solitary. Such is the life of the graduate student. The introvert in me likes the time alone working but my extrovert side needs distraction from it every so often, and feels it is communicating with the world somehow. So this is my gift to my extrovert side. Hee.

Friday is St-Jean-Baptiste (for all my non-French-speaking readers, if this blog turns out to have any, it's the celebration of Quebec heritage). Big day! So there are having some French concerts in TO. Paul Piché is the main act. As one of my friends mentioned, what is HE doing out of Québec on the day of St-Jean? No idea! Maybe independentist singers have been exiled under Jean Charest? LOL Anyway, so I'm hoping to go with a fellow grad student friend on Friday night.

Anyway, back to work for me...

"The Fake News is All I Need" T-Shirt

Glarkware - The Fake News is All I Need

Hee! I'm totally getting this t-shirt. I must proclaim my love of The Daily Show to the world.

I've decided to use this blog as my little kingdom. I'm disappointed that queendom isn't a word. Damn you, Webster. Anyway, this place shall be a melting pot of ideas and crazy links. I'll probably post mostly when I'm tired of working and need some relaxation. I've been working for the better part of the last 12 hours. I'm freaking tired. Do you think death by PowerPoint is possible?