Gonzai Gallery

I've spent much of the week trying to find the source of a beeping sound in the house. Doesn't matter what room you're in, it sounds like in it's in another one. Originally it beeped a couple times a day, but by today it was up to every ten minutes. I thought it might be the smoke alarm, but I changed the battery in it and that had no effect. Still beeping. Today I tried, for the heck of it, installing a new battery backup on the computer. The old one wasn't beeping...not when I was near it...but there hasn't been a beep since then. Fingers crossed.

Because now I have a new, much more annoying problem. The TV's volume has a 50 point scale. Usually we have it between 20 and 30, depending on the show, etc. Well, tonight the volume started going up, rapidly, by itself. No one anywhere near the TV or the remote, sometimes it jumped to 35, sometimes 50, sometimes...100. Besides being really loud, we don't know how it managed to go to double what we thought it could do. Also, to drop it back to normal, I have to press the button once per number. 70 times is a lot. This started during the football game and by the time OUAT came on, it was doing it every minute. I took the batteries out of the remote, but that didn't help. I think the TV is possessed.

So far today, I have had 2 backup drives fail, the internet has shut off 3 times of its own accord, and it turned out the Kindle doesn't like pdfs or epubs. The epub was my mistake, I didn't catch that the Kindle doesn't do those, but the pdfs were supposed to work and they're screwy. I'm clearing off a couple of older drives to use as backups and found a document conversion program, but I really wasn't planning to spend the day fighting with the computer.

Apparently, I'm not meant to watch it. I don't have Starz, so I need, er, alternative means. I'm not home all weekend so it's Monday before I get to it. Computer issues meant I started it later than I wanted. As soon as it starts, my brother calls and it turns out my mother told him she could babysit when she was committed to something with me, and never bothered telling me any of this stuff. At great length we think we may have straightened it out, except now I have to leave my event early to babysit when I'll almost certainly be too tired to do it.

I turn on Torchwood again and a beyotch of a thunderstorm starts almost immediately. Lost the power and had to restart everything twice. Oh, and Mom has forgotten everything I said about this new TW and I have to repeat myself over and over the whole show. Just spiffy.

When I finally got myself going, at least, I desperately needed some sleep but they're building some sort of business a block away and the bastards started hammering on the roof at 7am. Once I was movi ng, though, I went to the gym, gave CJ a bath, did grocery shopping, put away all the laundry, cleaned and dusted off my desk (for the first time in 4 years at least), searched for new software, did some cleaning of my computer drives, and took the car back to the garage because it was rattling. After a lot of test drives and tinkering the conclusion was that one of the shocks they installed last week was bad from the gitgo. They didn't have a new one in stock so the car has to come back later next week. Spiffy. At least I don't have to pay for it. Don't really need the car next week anyway with the surgery on Wednesday, I'll probably be prohibited from driving for at least a week.

TV time now...

Because that's how much my right hand hurts. Typing is a big owie. Also my back hurts and I just got over a short term stomach virus. And I still haven't gotten the game or the wireless gadgets working. Got the ITunes library working again but now I have to edit the damn thing, and it's apparently decided anything insufficiently labelled must therefore be 'Blues'.  

Yes, I did decide to get up bizarrely early today, but not as much as I might have. I passed on Target's sale in favor of sleeping another hour and going to less insane stores (I've had poor experiences at Target on BF). Kmart was a breeze, except that most of the clothes I hoped to get for my mother weren't there or weren't in her size. Got a couple though, and sailed through the cash-only line. When I got back in the car, the DJ was playing Root Boy Slim's 'Christmas At K-Mart'. Snerk. No luck for Mom at Modell's either, I'd like to get her something of Ray Rice but she doesn't wear t-shirts and jerseys are way out of my price range. In range, however, was a Ravens windbreaker, and I've been needing a light jacket as I don't have one. Then to Office Depot, where I got the last of the hard drives I was eying - cost more than Target's, but still way cheaper than usual and without the drama of Target. Picked up an assortment of stocking stuffers while there, then went home, picked up Mom and we went to Michael's in search of more stuffers. I actually managed to find some ornaments, which makes me happy. Then to breakfast, which was nearly disaster when we found out 2 of the restaurant's 3 cooks didn't bother showing up for work. Didn't take as long as they said to get our order though, and that may have been the best bacon I've ever had.

Hung around the house for a while hoping UPS would come for the Amazon return, but they didn't. So off to Elkridge for an extended gaming day, normally they start at 7 but this time it was noon and I was there by 3. Full house, as it turned out. Learned Metro (and nearly won it), got my first look at Dominion: Prosperity (and almost won that), taught Can't Stop and 10 Days in the Americas, and ate a lot of pie before giving a ride home to someone I never met before today. Turned out she lives less than a mile from me so I insisted I drive her instead of the host (it would be an hour round-trip for him, 3 minutes for me. He saw the logic :) ) And now winding down.

Today was Mom's hip replacement surgery, and I had to have her at the hospital by 5:30am. Which meant, amongst myself, the dogs and her, I had to get up before 4am to get everything done. Fortunately I did get it done, we walked into the hospital at exactly 5:30, and after a lot of slow test/paperwork/procedure finally sent her off to OR at 7:15. I settled in for a wait. The good news is the waiting room had free wi-fi. Bad news - a lot of websites were blocked from it, including LJ and all of my e-mail accounts. I was able to catch up on news but that was it. I tried gaming - that worked OK at first, then it started blocking gaming sites 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off. I gave up and switched over to reading Doctor Who: The Quality of Leadership, which includes stories by terri_osborne , neadods , tiggerallyn , puppetmaker40 and kradical , among others. I have had this book since February of 2009 and I finished it today. Yes, I am most embarrassed. And for better or worse, it's the only work of fiction I've read in the last 18 months. Yikes.

Mom came through the surgery fine (the anesthesiologist told me she only used half the allotted morphine; I asked if I could have the rest. Yeah, I went there :) ) She'll be in the hospital until at least Sunday. I wandered off and got lunch while I waited for her to be moved to a room, then went up there to wait for her to wake up. She was reasonably awake when I left. I tried to get home before the rain started but failed miserably - anyone want some wet, muddy dogs? 

And oh yeah, just if anyone was wondering - Mom is not in THAT hospital. She's at GBMC, where just about everyone was quite glued to the television over the Hopkins situation, which needless to say was a bad case of a seriously messed up person being allowed to have a gun. I imagine there'll be metal detectors at hospitals next week. Terrific. Off to my PT now.

CJ woke me at 6am, again. Grr. Finished building the new media shelf and moved all of the DVDs onto it. Then tried, for an hour, to teach Mom how to use the DVD player. I've been trying to teach her for over a year now. You'd think I'd learn. I gave her Tenspeed & Brown Shoe for Mother's Day and she really wanted to watch it, so I tried again.

Then went to Alphabet Soup with Dave, where I went 11 for 12 on names. For me, that's really good. Game-wise, lost at everything. And except for Settlers, lost badly. The only new game I got to play was Rumis, not exactly a hard learn, but played Underground again and have a good grasp of it now. Went back home to find Mom managed to bollux not only the TV/DVD, but also the computer. Took half an hour to get the computer back to snuff, although the TV was an easy fix. Watched Who and SNL w/ Betty White (another item for Mom) before passing out.

Mom is off to Pennsylvania to visit with her brother and I'm home alone with the dogs. So far so good. I went out to pick up a prescription, which got me quite thoroughly soaked, but otherwise camped at home cleaning up the computer's files and burning DVDs. Beats being outside. I think I saw an ark.