Before I forget for the thousandth time

Screencaps abetting this stroke of genius kindly provided by beeblebabe and marici. Feel free to take/distribute with credit, btw. XD

Have been working on the computer in increments, since Wednesday. Somewhat to my pessimistic surprise it went off with only the most minor of hitches, even the SP2 upgrade (luckily; the disc was scratched and the last bunch of security updates failed cyclical redundancy check - Ced, I inform you so you know to burn yourself a new one. *g* I've made a copy and will hand this back to you whenever is good. &thanks; you saved me 1,000,000 years of downloading over dial-up). So now the USB 2.0 card is working properly, the DVD burner burns DVDs, the antivirus and firewall are up-to-date, and I've upgraded all the software from WinRAR to Dreamweaver to the CCCP Codec Pack to the .NET Framework (I can install ljArchive at home!). Still to go are camera and mp3 player software, Semagic, and chat programs. Ced gave me Gaim so I'll probably be using that. In the meantime you'll actually be able to find me on Gmail chat in the evenings now.

As apparent from the above life has been fascinating. I was so bored waiting for programs to download and/or install that I used the Win98 computer to sign up for writely.com and archive my ancient saved email/chat convos (z107m, serendip, there if you're interested. :P). It's an awesome utility I wish existed back when I was doing team projects at school. As it is I'm not sure I'll be using it all that extensively, unless it be for Monday mornings on which I mislay the USB data key containing all my WIPs, cough.

...Unless I set something up for SSBB submission? Must investigate.

I also finally finished reading Conrad's Fate. ( Cut for very vague spoilers. )

What else? Worked half-day on Saturday for the release then went to the Botanical Garden, as haven't been all summer. Met a cheerful middle-aged Yugoslavian man eating haws right off the hawthorn tree. They were quite delicious although I hear they have laxative properties in large doses so dunno what happened to him after that. XD; Other pesticides sampled include: rose hips, blackberries, blackcurrants (still not ripe wtf), cranberries (okay, I'm not dumb enough to eat those right off the plant), lovage, Vietnamese basil (which is spicy). Non-edibles in season: acorns, horse chestnuts, rowan berries, lotus (they do smell a little like the bpal note >_>). Did not eat anyone's vegetable plot. Took many photos of flowers and one disturbingly tame heron. All the lanterns have been installed in the Chinese garden already, and the Japanese garden's koi pond is filled with baby koi - you couldn't scoop out a cupful of water that didn't contain tiny fish, just big enough to show their markings. I wonder if they bother to sell them?

Of course there was a wedding (a Jamaican one, I think). They've sawn off the willow branch on which I used to lie and read Swinburne, but the weddings go on unchanging. XD

Haven't gotten any writing done, of course. Dear saints I don't wanna.