Working, more or less...

More less than more, but still better than nothing.
I started at the Halloween store last friday, and while I am not getting many hours, I am getting some, and will get more by Halloween. Then the fun (there) will stop.
I am also in rehearsal for a December show.
Got called in to play auditions and call-backs for a theater, which was nice.
Was asked to sing for Halloween concert at a church.
Not much (read: Nothing) from the substituting, but that's okay until Halloween is over.
Anyhow, I'm off for now.

Henh - a friend posted this somewhere, and I just love it.

     In other news, my friend's ex called to say she's gotten my laptop back into the land of the living. Miraculous? Perhaps not, but certainly more than I could have ever done. I will be grateful for quite some time.

     Alas - I think I must go home now to eat before a meeting I have to attend.

She is so nice and thoughtful, and kind...

I'd like to drop kick her across the grid. But then, it's obvious I'm talking about family, so why not just leave it out for the day. I'm too tired for this crap.
I did, however, enjoy seeing my nieces and nephews, as usual... and B-I-L was trying to be helpful, until sis decides she needs to be involved.
~sigh~

Late reading

Still having no functional computer at home, and therefore no internet, I am not really planning to write much here for a bit. However, I don't want to forget my password, so I will log in from time to time just to write something.
Lately, I've been re-reading some Dashiell Hammett stuff - 'The Thin Man' and 'The Contintental Op' - and enjoying them as always. I still haven't finished 'Ripley Bogle', but I will before I return it to the library. I've also been thinking about sampling some H. P. Lovecraft, not having read any of his stuff before.
Not much else to say.

New Neighbor

I met the woman who was moving yesterday into the building next to mine, and I met two of her friends, who were helping her move in. To make a long story short, the woman is the director of the Christian Family Counseling Center, of which I am (ironically) a client. This was actually the first thing she told me, after her first name.
Her friends were telling me about her husband, who is some sort of conservative political radio talk-show host locally. Already, I am missing my old neighbors, a couple who bought a house in a town nearby - probably with the intention of breeding. They were a nice enough couple.
In the five minute conversation I had with the new neighbor and company, I found at least five things to make my mind water and my tongue bleed (because of the biting.) Not least of all was the one guy who told me (after I told him that between my seven siblings and I we ran the full gamut between political and religious outlooks) that his family was similar because his younger brother took a much more literate interpretation of the bible than he did himself. I did not bother to mention the Jewish/Catholic/Agnostic/Atheist members of my family. I did not want to make the guy dizzy while he was doing all that work.
Still - they were nice enough, and presumably will continue to be if I keep far away from them. I hope I don't run into the woman when I show up at my next session.
By the way... the counselor I am seeing, while certainly a Christian, does manage to keep his religious views to himself for the most part. The one time he started to bring it in was when he cited St. Paul to support a comment I had made. I just stared at him, and I think it was the last time he did that.
Another time he told me that since one cannot disprove the existence of God, one might as well believe. I told him the same cold be said for unicorns. I did not mention that were I to believe in any god, it wold be Thor. At least I can see lightning.

Ripley Bogle. The first novel by Robert McLiam Wilson. The story is about an indigent and homeless man from Belfast, in London. The man was at one time a student in Cambridge, and presumably capable of a much better life than that which he is experiencing. I read somewhere that Wilson was himself homeless at some point in his life.

     It is noticeable that Wilson is given to the indescriminate use of large words like deracination (several times in Eureka Street) and vomacious (not even in my dictionary.) One wonders why. Still, Eureka Street was enjoyable.

     Somehow, given my current circumstances, Ripley Bogle seems a particularly ominous read for me. Perhaps, I think, it will offer some insight into the root cause of my own malaise. I fear that I will be somewhat disappointed if I read it with such a vain purpose in mind. My time might be better spent in seeking a more immediate solution to my problems, which are mounting.

     Did I mention the plumbing issues at home? No. I won't.

Little worth saying

I woke up at about 8:30 this morning with no hope of falling back to sleep. I tried to call the Source4Teachers number last night and today, but there does not seem to be anything for me there. I think I need to re-enlist with that agency. No calls from the CHNJ BOE yet, either.
So - I took a shower and came here to the library to check (fruitlessly) craig's list and one or two other sites for jobs.
I DID get a few bucks from BIL for gas, etc., and I am thinking about cancelling appointment with Xian guy.
Am reading Ripley Bogle. How appropriate that one seems.

Reading

Well, I finally managed to start a book - Eureka Street, by Robert McLiam Wilson (pictured) - that a friend had recommended probably years ago. The friend in question even gave (or leant) to me a copy of said book. Yes, I am enjoying the book. I think my friend discovered the book after seeing the television series that was based on same. Naturally, I am at the library checking to see what else Mr. Wilson has written. It's been 13 years since Eureka Street, and there have been no other books published, although Eureka St. was his third. There was a fourth repeated delayed, but I don't know what happened with that. Perhaps Mr. Wilson was been working on something else.

Not much going on.

I mis-spoke, whether here or elsewhere. My laptop is, in fact, fried, despite the fact that I thought I'd gotten it working. Oh, well, back to the old library.
Having no laptop to amuse myself with, and no money to seek alternative entertainment, I spent the last two days re-arranging furniture and generally cleaning up my condo. I still need to do the bathroom and the kitchen floor, but much improvement has been achieved.
I also got through a cheesy Stephen King novel and two "Inspector McGarr" novels by one Bartholomew Gill. The most amusing thing about any of the reading was a line in "Death of an Irish Lover" referring to some condoms found at a crime scene that were manufactured in Morristown, New Jersey. One of the characters liked the brand name of the condoms, very much. The line was a comment saying that there was some genius in Morristown, New Jersey. Looking at the author bio at the back of the book, I had noted that the author lived (at least sometime) in Morristown, New Jersey.
So, anyway. I am at the library - checking email, blogs, death notices, and jonesing for cigarettes.

Semi-productive day

I spent most of my day removing about 2,500 CDs from a carousel so I could move said carousel away from the window, which of course meant that I had to re-arrange the room entirely, which meant that I had to un-shelf and unshelf a whole mess of books, and vacuum as well.
Still, I am unsatisfied with how the room looks, but at least I can get to the window without squeezing. Really, I should just get rid of the entertainment center with the TV in it, since I don't watch TV. It is a relic from before my Mom died, almost three years ago. I haven't watched TV since. I do, however, watch an occassional DVD, and I also play CDs through the DVD player.
Maybe I will attach the smaller TV (assuming I still have it somewhere) to the DVD player in my bedroom. Then I'll need to get a new CD player (not top-loading since none of them seem to work for me.)
I'm still not finished. I want to replace the CDs, but first I want to be sure I'm satisfied with the placement of the carousel. Then I want to move one of the filing cabinets (presuming the wooden one) next to the desk where I have my laptop. I'll out the other desk in the backroom (where I got this one from) and think about moving the entertainment center into the other room, too.
It isn't great, but it is, at least, better than it was.

Oddly enough, I seem to have subjugated, if not beaten and killed, this virus.
My computer wasn't letting me open any scanning devices. More precisely, it was asking me to identify the appropriate program to open the device. So, ultimately I clicked on the 'browse' button (on the box that was asking me to identify the program) and then finding the program's location to use it. I didn't think it would work, but it seems to have done.
After scanning with one or two spyware-type programs (Spy Doctor was one of them) I copied down the names and locations of whatever problems were found - into a notebook, by hand. Then I went around simply deleting all those files, after stopping any running programs in the task manager. 
Honestly, I thought my laptop was gonna be toast. So I figured, "What the h**l have I to lose?" It seems to have worked. My hot-links are working again. I can now open any program. My AVG, Google-talk, and a variety of other icons have re-appeared and are functional. 
I am try also to delete old picture and sound files to free up space on my severely limited hard drive. Uninstalling some programs, too.

At the library...

I really do hate my life, occassionally.
Anyhow, I am at the library because my laptop still is not really working. I can use the 'Opera' browser, because it is not a Windows Application, so it has not been hi-jacked, and I can open 'My Computer' and other folders, but NONE of the programs of files. Apparently, it has something to do with my rundll32.exe file. The error message says it cannot be found, but I found it, so I am guessing that it is either corrupted or something is preventing the computer from finding it.
At any rate, my neighbors works with some guy who My Neighbor claims is a genius with computers. The guy took my laptop. He said he had been dealing with WINDOWS POLICE PRO (the virus, combination Trojan and Rootkit) for two weeks successfully. That was yesterday. He said I'd get the laptop back today, and my neighbor swears that I'll be amazed at the results.
We shall see.
In other news, I decided to apply for SSA disability benefits, among other things. We (or at least I) shall see about all that as well.

Grrrrrrrrr!

I think that I have gotten rid of the viruses, although several of my programs are still not functioning. At least I can get online to download some scanning devices to remove malware. Hopefully they will run.
More later.
BTW - I am emailing no-one, just in case. If it doesn't work, then it will be MY computer lost. There is no need to share the wealth, here.

I'd like to bore them

It was most enjoyable being online at home for a change, but alas, 'twas not to be. My laptop was invaded by a whole host of nasty viruses and so I am back at the library. Very soon I will be working again and able to cope with this situation, but until then it will fairly irregular blogging, emailing, etc.
The thing I may miss most of all if I irrevocably lose the stuff on my laptop will be, of course, my family tree. I do have a back-up copy of the tree on disk, of course, but not the most recent changes. Plus I will have lost my neighbor Lauren's tree, which I spent a day or two on last week. Then again, there are all the documents - census returns, newspaper clippings - that I downloaded in the past month or so.
Oh well.
The title refers to those zoo-sexual hackers who create all these viruses out of boredom. At least thieves I can almost respect, as they at least have a motive.