I'm here all alone today. At first I enjoyed the silence, and then I decided to put on some music.

It's The Monkees.

Hey, hey, we're the Monkees... people say we monkey around...

A bit before my time, as far as the "heart throb" thing, but I grew up watching them in syndication, and, you know, as musicians, they're honestly not that bad (and they did play their own instruments). Peter Thorkelson (aka Peter Tork) is still a musician, actually. So they were the Prefab Four, so what?

Anyway, regardless of where they are now or what they're doing, I like The Monkees stuff from the sixties, and that, by golly, is what I'm listening to.

And then I saw her face... now I'm a believer... not a trace of doubt in my mind... I'm in love... I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her if I tried...

In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
 
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

(My comment: Gee. What a surprise. *roll eyes*)

Well, the nasal irrigation is still weird, but I switched from the medically prepared wash I was using because the taste of the preservatives was so awful it was making me gag.

Instead, I found a recipe for basic nasal wash using sea salt (because it doesn't have any additives) and baking soda. It's just basically water with salt and baking soda diluted in it, and it tastes much better than the other stuff (not that it tastes GOOD or anything, but it doesn't make me gag, anyway). You basically just squirt the stuff up your nose and then tip your head to the side and then the other side and then back and then forward. I know the trick of closing off the nasal passages in the throat (many years of swimming!) so it doesn't run down my throat before I'm ready, and I have to pinch off my nostrils (I use a tissue to do that), and then I have to blow my nose (yuck, salt water dripping from one's nose is a weird sensation). It stings a bit, but I'm told that you get used to it.

It does seem to be helping, anyway. Between this and the antibiotics my sinusitis seems to be clearing up, and I definitely seem to be sleeping much better!

Well, this was a new experience. Today I got breath tested for sobriety. It ws a random thing, I just happened to be where they were doing the testing (I wonder how many drunks they catch at 1:15 in the afternoon, but it might really surprise me).

It took several tries to get the thing right and to figure out how to blow properly. Apparenlty I was putting my tongue and lips on the pipe a bit too much.

I think I'll leave it at that. *ahem*

Oh, but the good news is... I was sober! (That is just a joke, of course. I haven't had a drink of anything alcoholic in months and I certainly am not in the habit of drinking in the middle of the day, and even if I were, I would never drink when I was going to drive.)

Before cops threw the book at him, Jakub Fik threw something unusual at them -- his penis.
 
Fik, 33, cut off his own penis during a Northwest Side rampage Wednesday morning. When confronted by police, Fik hurled several knives and his severed organ at the officers, police said.

Spam king and online drugstore operator Christopher William Smith, aka Rizler, 26, who is awaiting trial at the Sherburne County Jail, Elk River, Minn., used his phone privileges to arrange a hit on a witness and the witness's family.

While chocoholics love to indulge in a block or three every now and then, few would ever say it was doing them any good. But now a group of Adelaide researchers is looking into a theory that cocoa and cocoa rich chocolate could actually help people lose weight and they hope that one day that what is now a guilty pleasure could become a healthy pleasure.

(Thanks to me mate Murray for the link!)

I went to lie down after dinner last night. I was only planning on a little lie-down but I ended up sleeping through the night. I got up once around 10:30 to take off my clothes and empty my bladder, but I pretty much slept for 12 hours or so.

My sinuses are starting to clear up, hooray! It's partly the antibiotics, I'm sure (these have a special ingredient, Clavalanic acid, that helps get rid of infections with resistant bacteria, which might explain why no other courses of antibiotics have helped get rid of this). My ears are popping like crazy, and while my sense of smell was okay before, I'm now catching little whiffs of all kinds of stuff (my perfume drawer was driving me nuts last night; I had to get up and shut the drawer!).

I kept coming to the surface last night, and for some weird, weird reason, I was always dreaming about Alan Rickman (no, I haven't seen an Alan Rickman film lately, and no, I don't have a thing for him or anything like that, so I can't figure out why I was dreaming about him all night). It's the first time in a long time I've been able to remember any of my dreams, though. I don't know what that means (Fibromyalgia sufferers don't lack REM sleep, they lack deep sleep, and of course, I've no way of knowing how much deep sleep I got).

I do feel pretty okay, though. Not especially fatigued or anything. My back is a little stiff as it always is when I sleep too long, but even my neck isn't too stiff.

I've been feeling really crappy lately (for the past several weeks, ever since this year's hay fever started), so I'm hoping that it really is related to the sinus problem and that the combination of antibiotics and nose drops (which I still find very weird and I hate the taste of them when they run out in the back of my throat, ugh!) will improve my general state of health.

And then if I can get rid of my teeth (yes, all of them; the gum disease is very pronounced and treatment is lengthy, costly, and probably wouldn't save all my teeth, anyway), that'll be one less persistant infection in my bloodstream, and perhaps I'll enjoy better general health. One can hope.

Went to the doctor today to get my usual course of anti-depressants for the winter. It doesn't totally alleviate the Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it helps, so I take them, generally starting around the equinox and continuing through August or so. It keeps me from totally losing the plot for the 2-4 weeks around the solstice, generally.

I also spoke to the doctor about the sinus problems I've been having lately. He said this year has been very bad for allergies and sinusitis (lots of bush fires in the area, lots of particles of stuff in the air). He gave me a prescription for anti-biotics and I've also got a prescription anti-inflammatory (for something else, but it helps for all kinds of inflammation, including sinus). Plus, he told me to get some saline nose drops and really irrigate my sinuses regularly to help clear the irritants and infection. It's VERY weird putting a dropperful of stuff up my nose, not very comfortable (you know that feeling when you get water up your nose in the pool? like that, but not as painful because this hasn't got chlorine in it). Not sure yet if it helps, but I seem to be breathing a bit clearer at the moment, so here's hoping.

I'm definitely hoping that the sinus problem can be cleared up so that I sleep better. Poor quality sleep is common when you've got sinus problems (sleep apnea, among other things), and that leads to fatique and chronic pain (my old friends). If I can get better quality sleep, I'll feel better in general, I'm sure, so if pouring this weird solution up my nose will help, you can bet I'll be doing it!

Well, I've done something very unusual (for me). I've bought skirts. PLURAL. After years of never wearing a skirt, I've bought TWO of them.

I used to wear skirts back when I was younger. But then miniskirts came into fashion, and even when I had the legs to wear them, I wouldn't have (I just don't like them, simple as that). And then skirts got a little longer, but they were narrow and not very pretty, so I didn't wear them then, either.

But now, lovely full gypsy skirts are back in fashion, and by golly, I've got some. One's black (because black is the new black as far as I'm concerned) and the other is a sort of paisley mixed print in shades of bittersweet and brown. Both are wrinkled, which is good because you don't have to iron them, heh.

I also bought myself some new shirts because, well, I just needed a few. One of them is one of those new tshirt styles where there's a gathered front and a very deep neckline, i.e., a cleavage shirt. It seems that cleavage is back in fashion, yay. I have very nice cleavage if I do say so myself, and I've never been averse to showing it. However, when it's out of fashion, if you show too much cleavage you just look like a tart, so I was pretty reserved with that (I'm not terribly fashionable and I'm not at all trendy, but I don't like looking like a tart).

So now I've got shoulder length, layered hair (very 70s), gypsy skirts, and cleavage-showing shirts, and since big silver hoop earrings are back in style, I've been wearing them, too, and I've got jeans with flare bottoms, as well.

Under no circumstances am I planning on wearing wedge or platform shoes, however. The 70s may be back in fashion, but I've got more sense now than I did then, and twisted ankles just aren't that attractive on a woman my age...

I've just made PowerSeller on eBay. This was a goal I set for myself, but I hadn't expected to meet that goal this quickly. I was expecting a couple more months at least before I qualified. But tonight I got the invitation to become a PowerSeller. According to eBay:

As pillars of our community, PowerSellers are committed to upholding and embracing the core values that are the very foundation of eBay. They are exemplary members who are held to the highest standards of professionalism, having achieved and maintained a 98% positive feedback rating and an excellent sales performance record.

In actuality, you just mostly need to do a certain volume of sales, which apparently, I have. And I do have an excellent feedback rating and I hold myself to very high standards of professionalism (because that's just who I am; nothing to do with selling stuff).

I cannot tell you how chuffed I am about this. WOOT!

Isaac Hayes did not quit his gig voicing South Park's Chef over some Scientology flap reports TV Guide.

Or, there's this:

'South Park' Cooks Up Plan For Chef In Season Premiere

Andrew and I announced our engagement on April Fool's Day (1998). The choice of the date was deliberate. We got married on April 4 the following year (it was Easter Sunday that year). We tend to celebrate our wedding anniversary any time around the first week of April, pretty much.

This year, we're going to have a day out on April Fool's Day (because it's Saturday). We're going to have a very Melbourne day. We'll ride the train into the city and have lunch at Southgate (in the food court, and I'm going to have an A&W Root Beer - one of the few places in Melbourne I can find the stuff - and we'll then get some "pick your own mix" Jelly Belly jellybeans from the lolly shop).

Then we're going to the National Gallery of Victoria and see the Flower in Fashion and Textiles exhibit and probably some other stuff as it strikes our mood, and we'll certainly stop into the Members Only Lounge (because we're members, of course!) and get some coffee or tea or something (which is free in the lounge; membership has its privileges).

Then we'll have a wander along South Bank for a while (dunno what we'll do precisely, it's sort of open at this point ) and then we're having dinner at Bistro Vite, which will be a totally new and different place for us, and the food sounds fantastic.

After dinner, we'll probably have a bit of a walk, possibly might get some sort of ice cream or gelati (depends how full we are after dinner!) and then we'll take the train back home.

And we're going to do all of this - wait for it - without the children! Woo hoo.

I'm surprisingly excited about the day. We rarely get to go to the gallery without the kids (and they're a real pain to take there!), and it's even rarer that we get to actually eat a nice meal in a restaurant without them, let alone do both on the same day...

In 1986 researchers filed a patent application for a method of testing the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid, in the blood. They went one step further and asked for a patent on the basic biological relationship between homocysteine and vitamin deficiency. A patent was granted that covered both the test and the scientific fact. Eventually, a company called Metabolite took over the license for the patent.
 
Although Metabolite does not have a monopoly on test methods — other companies make homocysteine tests, too — they assert licensing rights on the correlation of elevated homocysteine with vitamin deficiency. A company called LabCorp used a different test but published an article mentioning the patented fact. Metabolite sued on a number of grounds, and has won in court so far.

It seems I didn't mention it in this blog, but I've started offering customized eBay templates, logos, etc. for sale on, where else, eBay. I'm actually listing via the U.S. site for various reasons (better exposure, mostly). Anyway, if you'd like to have a look at what I've got so far, visit the template/logo section of my eBay store.

Very keen observers with very long memories might recognize a few of the templates as being recycled licenseware graphics from my Alicorna site, but you'd have to have, as I said, a very long memory and a damned good mental inventory of my previous work. Heck, some of the stuff I wandered through on my hard drive even I didn't remember...

It'll be the equinox in a few days. This means I need to get to the doctor and get my annual prescription for anti-depressants in order to combat my customary Seasonal Affective Disorder. The medication doesn't completely relieve the symptoms, but it takes the edge off. I'm not thrilled to take it, mind you, but it's better than totally losing the plot for 2-6 weeks (depending on how limited the natural sunlight is that year and various other factors I haven't determined) because I just want to hybernate!

I'm not putting this in "Moron Mail" because it's not moronic, it's just strange. Here it is in its entirety, although I'm going to blot the name and phone number for the writer's privacy:

Dear sir/madam,

One of my clients has a Original Unicorn Horn in his possassion and want to sell it. Please let me know the possibilities. In case you require, more details can be sent.

regds.

[Indian Sounding Name]
+91 xxxxx xxxxx

I had to look it up, but the 91 country code is India and the IP address was also from India, so I'm assuming this is legitimate. Or, at least, it's legitimately someone who's looking to sell a unicorn horn (which is probably a narwhal horn or the horn of some other animal with a twisty horn, like some sort of gazelle).

Still, it'd be interesting to see such a thing, wouldn't it?

Honestly, I get the most interesting mail sometimes regarding that unicorn site. I think I may have to add a new category in this blog just for stuff relating to it...

Well, I hope you were all watching the opening ceremonies for the Commonwealth Games. They're being held in Melbourne, and there were some gorgeous shots of the city at night (okay, so it was dressed up with tons of fireworks and other cool stuff, but it's still Melbourne!). It really is a gorgeous city, with a river right through the middle of it and lots of tall buildings and a big stadium appropriate for, well, opening ceremonies for a big deal like the Commonwealth Games.

And it didn't even rain!

Scientologist Isaac Hayes has quit the Comedy Central show South Park where he did voiceover for the character of “Chef” for a decade. Hayes claims it’s because of “intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs” reports the New York Daily News.
[...]
“This has nothing to do with intolerance and bigotry and everything to do with the fact that Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist and that we recently featured Scientology in an episode of ‘South Park,’ In 10 years and over 150 episodes…Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show,” South Park co-creator Matt Stone said in a prepared statement.

I just had another customer who was rightfully unhappy. She paid for what I advertised as at 50ml bottle of Tresór, and I sent her a 30ml one. Eeek! The problem was that I had it written down incorrectly in my inventory and the Tresór boxes are REALLY big because the bottle is this funny inverted pyramid shape. So I didn't even look at the box to see that it was, in fact, 30ml and not 50ml. Really, really DUMB error, and I felt pretty stupid about it, to say the least.

Anyway, the customer was very pleasant about it. I gave her several options and she opted to send it back to me and get a full refund. I even offered to pay the return postage (because, well, it was totally and completely my mistake, and I feel I owe her that much, at least!).

The funny thing about all of this is that I've had two customers with legitimate complaints, and they were both just as pleasant as can be, very nice and easy to work with. Either one could have been really crappy about the whole thing (the first was the ring with the manufacturing default which, honestly, I hadn't noticed, and then this with the perfume which was absolutely, totally, and utterly my own dumb mistake). The one customer I had who was crappy and demanding and rude was the one who was in the wrong.

Isn't it strange that the customers with legitimate issues have been lovely, and the one who was just not able to work out how to use an eBook (or something; never did totally figure out what his issue was and I never got an apology from him) was quite obnoxious and really ruined my day.

People are weird. Customers are even weirder. Good thing I'm weird, too.

Well, I've been planning on doing this, but I finally did it. I've done up some eBay Auction Templates and logos to sell, of course, on eBay. I listed them via the U.S. site, so the prices are in USD (bigger audience and the US Dollar is fairly universally understood), and since shipping isn't a concern at all, I figured I'd do it that way. Besides, a colleague of mine in Queensland sells eBay templates that way, and I thought if it worked for her, it might work for me.

What's that? Oh, yes, of course you can go see what's there at the moment (more is on the way; I've been reworking some of my unreleased templates for just this purpose).

Even the designer of the cubicle thinks they were maybe a bad idea, as millions of 'Dilberts' would agree.

(Really interesting article; it starts out being about cubicles and work spaces and ends up talking about changing trends toward telecommuniting and so on.)

I actually went to a face-to-face business meeting today with a client. We already host their site and set it up and did the design for free (it's a site for an autism school, that's why we did it pro bono), but now they're willing to pay me to do general maintenance and a bit of digital grunt work, so I'm taking them up on it. The maximum they'll pay for is ten hours a week, so it certainly won't be a big time sink or anything.

Anyway, I had to decide what to wear. Not my jewellery (no brainer there: my usual rings and cheap but attractive watch, silver strand drop earrings and cubic zirconia trillion studs - because I have a fair number of holes in my ears), not my clothes (jeans and a decent button down casual shirt), not my makeup (easy: none because I hardly ever bother wearing makeup), but.... my perfume.

I've got a whole drawer of the stuff, you see, and it's always fun to pick what I want to wear. I eventually settled on Tresór, my favorite and my standby, because it's sophsticated but still very feminine. I did toy with the idea of a couple of others but one (Miracle by Lancôme) was too perky and another (Dior j'adore) was too lush and a bit too extravagant, and a third one I considered (Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers) just didn't suit my mood. Tresór, being my favorite and being fairly expensive and very French, makes me feel confident and secure.

Perfume, I'm starting to realize, is as much an emotional thing as it is an olifactory thing...

Scientists have discovered the area of the brain linked to dyscalculia, a maths learning disability. The finding shows that there is a separate part of the brain used for counting that is essential for diagnosis and an understanding of why many people struggle with maths.

(This is of particular interest to me because I have every sign of having dyscalculia, and it can be a major pain in the neck, believe me.)

MAKERS of the hit cartoon The Simpsons have a filmed the show's opening titles using real actors. (And there are downloadable videos of the sequence!)

I had a real go-around with an extremely demanding customer the other day. I shan't go into details because that would be unprofessional, but suffice it to say it was quite frustrating and very annoying.

Today, though, I got a personal note from a lady who bought one of my cubic zirconia rings and was delighted with the ring and the quick service. I mean, she took the time to actually write to thank me, how good is that?

I need to always try to remember that for every complete jerk out there, there are decent, pleasant, encouraging people. I know this, as I worked in retail (like, face to face) for a while and did phone tech support (which is easier in a way because you can roll your eyes and make rude gestures to the other techs, etc.). The thing is, you tend only to remember the really nasty ones, and that's a real shame. The good ones are far MORE worth remembering.

I need to remind myself to do that. Heck, even the young man who bought the ring that turned out to have a manufacturing flaw (and it does, too, but it was subtle and I didn't notice it before I listed it) was pleasant and easy to work with and gave me a positive feedback rating.

So far it's just been the one who was, shall we say, difficult. That's not a bad percentage at all, and then now and then one or another customer will be so pleasant and friendly and thoughtful that it really does make it all worth it.

My little "intro" page (which I use as an intro on various sites of which I'm a member) has been updated. The design now matches the design on this blog, and I've freshened the information a bit. You can have a look if you want.

Well, I've uploaded some new freebies to my Alicorna site. I didn't write/create any of them, but I have full redistribution rights, of course. None will work on a Mac, unfortunately, and for that I do apologize (just wanted to save Mac users a bit of time).

The first is a Basic HTML Tutorial in ebook format. It's very clear and easy to follow. I was considering writing one, myself, but why reinvent the wheel? Free to use, and free distribution, but may not be sold.

The second is a little program to quickly and easily generate a quicky photo gallery page. Very cool. Not very well documented, but not very hard to figure out.

The third is another program, this one to quickly and easily generate drop-down menus. I haven't tested for cross-platform compatiblity of the code, but I had the program around and thought, "Hey, someone might find some use for this," and there it is.

I used to wear White Linen quite a lot. I always got compliments when I wore it, too, so it must work really well with my chemistry. I wore it because my grandmother, lover of perfumes that she was, used to get me a big bottle of Estee Lauder perfume every year at Christmas, and she knew I liked White Linen so she got me that.

I wore it all throughout my late teens and well into my twenties, and then I sort of... stopped.

I'm not entirely sure why I stopped wearing it. Partly, my grandmother died and I didn't have the money to spend on perfume (White Linen isn't the most expensive perfume you can buy, but it's not cheap!). Partly, too, I had a big "life change" in my late twenties and very often when that happens, all sort of changes take place (hair changes colors and gets much shorter or is grown out much longer, clothing styles change, etc.).

Well, last night, I put some on. I have a little mini bottle of it (I LOVE mini perfumes) and for some reason I thought, I know, I'll put on White Linen.

Wow, talk about a blast from the past... Smells are among the strongest possible triggers for memories, and this is no exception. I remembered, for example, that I wore White Linen on my wedding day in 1994 when I was all of 19 (and had the boldness to get married in a white wedding gown!). I remembered a lot about my life with my first husband (who, I've said before, is not a bad guy). I remembered, oh, just flashes of times and places a long time ago, when I was someone else and had fairly big hair (hey, it was the 80s after all) and didn't have two clues to rub together.

Mostly happy memories, actually. Not, like, happy-happy, how I wish those days were back again type memories, but nothing I regard as especially unpleasant or anything.

And all that from a perrfume...

Anyway, I still like White Linen, and I think perhaps I should start wearing it again. Other people seem to love the way it smells on me, and maybe I can start some new memories associated with it.

I wonder, years from now, what I'll think of when I smell Tresóor (which I only really started wearing fairly recently), but then, I might have to stop wearing it for a long time in between...

Stupid people so completely piss me off. I can't give details because it's conceivable that someone reading this blog could figure out what I'm talking about and work out the person's identity, but suffice it to say that it seriously pisses me off when stupid people blame everyone else on the planet because THEY are stupid and can't figure out what the hell they're doing.

My hayfever was momentarily better. It rained a couple days ago and that causes the pollen or dust or whatever out of the air for a while. But the past couple of days have been dry and now I've got the damned headache and stuffy head and sticky eyes again. It's partly my own fault. I sort of slacked on taking my Rhinocort and Zyrtec. Bad idea (I do this because I hate the idea of overmedicating, and also because I'm a bit of a scatterbrain).

I also ate chocolate yesterday, and now I have a headache that will NOT go away. I can eat some kinds of chocolate (Lindt seems to be fine) but not others (Cadbury, Snickers, Mars, now I find Nestle is a problem...). I don't know which ingredient it is, but it seems that very fine chocolates such as Lindt and the lovely hand-made ones Andrew got me for Valentine's Day don't have whatever the ingredient is. It's mostly in the less expensive chocolates, it seems.

Anyway, so today I have a headache, and I'm not a happy camper. I'm not even wearing any perfume, dammit (most kinds of perfume make my headache worse if I already have one from hayfever; I'm not allergic to perfume, though).

So, blah. At least I got my hair colored last night (same color, just did a touch up and put in some highlights, etc.). In a moment here, I'm going to go and get some panadol, since the nurofen didn't help (and yes, you can take both at the same time, but you have to be careful and not overmedicate and you can't do it often).

I love Australia, I really do, but I hate whatever native plants cause this misery every autumn and every spring...

I love Constant Comment tea. I've loved it since I first started drinking tea regularly when I was a youngster. It's nicely spiced and it's not your usual cup of tea. Apparently, it's America's best-selling specialty tea, and that doesn't suprise me to learn.

Well, I can't get it here, not even at the American food import store, so I thought, "Well, I'll just have to import it myself," and I did. A case of it (can't get smaller). And a case of Constant Comment Decaf. And a case of Earl Grey Decaf because I can't get it anywhere in Australia that I've looked (I used to be able to get it, but not any more). So, well, now I've got a LOT of tea.

I decided I'd sell some on eBay because I figured, hey, it's nice tea, maybe expat Americans or Aussies who like spiced tea will buy it, and well, I've got a whole case of the stuff...

Today I had "kinder duty" (being the parental helper at Miranda's pre-school, pretty mind-numbing, I find) and I took a couple of teabags with me. One of the teachers and I were making tea for all the adults (two teachers, a special aide, a couple of volunteers who were observing something or other) and the teacher was going nuts for the smell of my tea. I told her how I acquired it and gave her the extra teabag I'd brought. She loves it, said she'd love to buy a box from me.

So there you go. I sold a box of tea without even having to list it on eBay... Although if it proves to be a good seller, you can bet I'll be importing more. I know it's okay with customs because they left me a little pamphlet in the box after they opened it to examine the contents.