Borrowed Internet

I went without internet all day yesterday (Friday) and I couldn't do it a second day, so I came out to Starbucks for some Internet and caffeine.  I suppose I should head home soon as I don't want to be out and about once all the drunken revelers hit the road.  But that means the end of my internet until tomorrow (and the tech had BETTER fix my internet tomorrow!)

I worked on the Closet from H3LL yesterday and made quite a bit of progress even though if you looked at my bedroom now you might not think so. Trust me, it is better than it was.

I am pretty blue about spending New Year's Eve alone as I am a firm believer that how you spend NYE sets the tone for the year.  I will, however, make the best of it and look forward to bigger and better things in 2012.  I refuse to buy into 2012 being "the end of the world"... I will, however, do my best to make the most of the time this year gives me.

Weird thing... before I came out today, I totally changed clothes and actually looked in the mirror.  That is not "normal" for me, but I have decided that I need to be more conscious of things like that.  I need to not settle for "good enough"...

Have a Happy and Safe New Year's Eve, y'all. Hopefully, I will be writing from home tomorrow.

On Hold

Tuesday night I got home late, went to log on to my computer and....no internet connection.  Annoyed, I reset the router and...no internet connection. The modem is in the livingroom, the router and computers are in the office. I went out to check the modem and...hmmm... that's not good, there were dark spots where there are supposed to be lights.  Cycle the modem and... no internet connection.  Tired and frustrated, I went to bed thinking it would all be ok come morning (as it has been before when this has happened).

I woke up at 4:30AM on Wednesday, stumbled out to the livingroom and... still a lack of lights on the modem.  Cycle everything (once again)... no internet connection.  Call Time Warner (don't like them, but they are the provider in my area. sigh.) and there is no outage in my area.  Tech asks all the standard questions, we conclude that maybe my modem (6 years old) needs replacing.  Great.  Just what I need. Especially on top of the fact that sometime between Sunday evening and Tuesday morning, the driver's side headlight had burned out.

Managed to get the headlight fixed (thanks to a handy co-worker) and get a new modem on Wednesday.  Brought the new modem home, installed it and...no internet connection.  Called the lovely folks over at Time Warner again and they say they need to send a technician out, how does SUNDAY sound?  Seriously? I live in a major metropolitan area where you people employ hundreds, if not thousands of people and I have to wait from Wednesday until SUNDAY (a weekend AND a holiday, to boot!) for a technician?  But... I took the appointment after griping about losing work opportunities being offline that long.   So, on Sunday, some time between 10 and 2, there will (allegedly) be a technician at my place and I will (hopefully) be back online.

I suspect that one of my illustrious neighbors was fiddling with the cable box and messed things up, because everything was working fine on Tuesday morning and I noticed that the box that houses all the cables outside has been tampered with.  (Welcome to the 'hood)

I am taking all of this as divine intervention designed to get my butt in gear and deal with the Closet from H3LL.  Of course, if I spend the weekend at the coffeehouse on the Internet, I will thwart divine intervention but not get things cleaned up.. place your bet as to whether it will be productivity or procrastination.

AdSense makes no sense to me...

A few weeks ago, after years of not joining Goggle Adsense because I didn't think it'd be worth it,  a friend talked me into trying it out.  This is a growing blog and I am experiencing a growth in traffic and I thought it might be worth a shot.

Lo and behold, I started getting some clicks. I got to the payment threshold and did all of the things you have to do to get a payment.

So, imagine my utter dismay when I get in my email box CHRISTMAS MORNING an email from AdSense saying that they are disabling my account for "invalid clicks".  Now, I run their ads not only on this site, but on my other sites as well. I have no idea which of my accounts was allegedly generating the illicit activity and Google can't (read: WON'T) tell me which account is the issue.

This is all highly suspect to me, because until I was in line to actually get a payment everything was fine.  Also, way to ruin my mood on CHRISTMAS. 

Google AdSense violated Wil Wheaton's Prime Directive "Don't Be A Dick"... I did nothing wrong, brought traffic to their advertisers and they have disabled my account, which after reading their forums seems to mean I am banned FOR LIFE with no recourse.  And the money I made? Yeah, not going to get it.  But to me, the worst part is that this all happened CHRISTMAS MORNING, when I was already feeling pretty blue about things.

Since I wasn't really counting on revenue from AdSense, the loss of the accounts is a petty inconvenience. I am, honestly, more insulted than anything else.  And if anyone ever asks me if AdSense is a good program I will tell them to not even bother considering it.  Nor will I ever consider using them to do advertising for my business or any business I am involved with. 

Makes no sense to me... Now, on to bigger and better things!

Since I already missed "bedtime"...

I was so happy that I had no plans for tonight because I was going to come home and get things done and now's it's about half past Midnight and I'm still up (AGAIN!) because I have kept telling myself "just one more thing..." and then here I am still awake 2 hours past the time I really wanted to go to bed tonight!

Tomorrow night (well, since it's after midnight I guess what I really mean is TONIGHT) I will go do my volunteering with the cat rescue so I won't be home until later.  Friday I am off work but have a critical errand to run. The majority of the weekend will be spent trying to organize the chaos that is currently the Closet from H*ll (an unfortunate side-effect from cleaning the Closet o' Doom).  I also need to get the livingroom whipped back in shape and the kitchen beaten into submission.  Don't get me started on the state of the bathroom or the fact that I have a pile of laundry to tame!

My original plan for Christmas was that I was going to go to Arizona to spend it with my Mom and The Girl (my daughter).  But, life happened and so I'm not going (which I've known for a couple of months now).  I have plenty to keep me busy this weekend, though, so I am hoping to not sit around being mopey.  Actually, I will probably catch up on my blog reading and posting and coupon clipping over the holiday. And maybe actually address holiday cards (yes, I KNOW they'll be "late" by traditional standards but I figure if I get them out before Valentine's Day, I'm doing well for me!)

If you are taking the holidays off from blog reading, allow me to wish you a Merry ChristmaHannuKwanzaSolstica!  (Try to include everyone there) and if you don't celebrate any winter Holidays, perhaps I'll see you around the blogosphere this weekend!

Need to get on the (cake) ball!

It seems in the last couple of weeks, everywhere I click around the Internet there is a mention of cake pops or cake balls and people, I have never had either and that's just not right. 

I will confess that my favorite part of cake is the FROSTING but I'm seeing these delicious looking little cake snacks everywhere and I WANT IN!

It is mind boggling to read all of the reviews of this pan or that pan for making cake pops/cake balls or this gadget or that meant to make "the perfect cakepop".  I just want to EAT some before I get to trying to MAKE some but haven't been able to figure out where to start.  I mean, I suppose I could give in and order one at Starbucks but honestly, I think they are $1.50 APIECE and I just can't justify spending that much money on one, maybe two bites of cake. I've never in my life had cake that was worth $1.50 per bite.

People are starting entire cake ball/cake pop BUSINESSES.  Are there really people out there who will pay for tiny tastes of cake? Seriously, people like this are getting $29.00 for 12 cake balls.  That's almost $2.50 APIECE.  And these are cute, but wow! $24 for 6...

I guess that the original cakeballs were cake that was crumbled and mixed with frosting then formed into balls and dipped in chocolate. Oh. My.   How is it that I have never in my life had a cakeball? I need to fix this. I need to fix this NOW.  And so... I am on a mission... I hope a delicious mission. I will find some cakeballs and devour them (in the name of research, of course).  I hope to not have to pay $2.50 apiece for the priviledge, though! 

Off now to get my labcoat (because you need a labcoat in order to properly conduct research).  Have a stellar weekend!

Wait, Christmas is WHEN?

I don't know why I thought I had more time, but the clock is ticking out if I am going to get anything mailed before Christmas. Every year for the past 3-4 years I've thought "This year, I'll send out Christmas cards" and, well... I have a bunch of cards still sitting here, waiting to be sent. So, maybe (no promises) I will get around to actually doing cards this weekend between bouts of trying to beat the Closet o' Woe into submission.

The sad reality is that I probably need at least one more closet and a couple of walls that are built-in bookshelves.  There are TONS of books that need shelf space and my cheapo bookshelves are already about to fall down from the weight of all the books on them.

I definitely have more to say, but the clock is ticking and it's an hour past the time I should have hopped into bed, so I will say goodnight for now.  More this weekend!

Wine & Writing Wednesday

Usually I am at the Wine Bar on Tuesday nights with my laptop and some other writers.  But this week, we had to rearrange things and ended up having Wine & Writing Wednesday.  I am so used to doing it on Tuesday nights, though, that I have been thinking all day today that today is Tuesday and then having to correct myself, which has been a bit weird. 

Tuesday nights, the wine bar is very quiet and we chat.  Tonight is pizza night, though. And live music night. And crowded as heck night.  Which has made things interesting. I don't know if it has made things more or less productive.

By the way, the pizza is Chef TJ's Woodfired Pizza and if you are in the DFW Metroplex, you need to find them and have their pizza. These are not your average pies... they are really tasty and unique.  And how fun is a MOBILE woodfired pizza oven? 

And if you haven't been to The Wine Therapist, you should make the trip. It's a nice little place and very writer friendly (like a coffeehouse, but with wine.... and ambience....)

So, tonight has been a nice night.  A welcome respite from the chaos that has been going on lately.  I think I have a date this weekend with the Closet o' Awful.    But once that's done, things should be much more organized.  I'm sure other things will come up, but it will be nice to get that done.