Inane Chatter » website

Strike up the band

Zannah — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:42:45 +0000

Stand back, people, history is happening. This post, this very special (not all that special) post, is my 1000th post. That’s a lot of zeroes. That’s a lot of inanity. I always miss little milestone like this. It’s only dumb luck that I happened to look at the number of posts this morning. I missed my car’s odometer passing 100,000 miles when we drove to Long Island to visit John’s grandmother on Christmas Eve, even though I knew it was coming because I noticed how close it was the day before. I remember birthdays (usually) and anniversaries (sometimes), but even though I try every year, I blow right by the smaller things (like the anniversary of our first kiss, or the anniversary of adopting Roxy and Riley). I remember it a few days early, think to myself “don’t forget this year”, and then I remember again a day or two after it’s passed.

My point is that the fact I noticed this and am doing something about it (however little) is as momentous as the fact that this is post #1000. Where’s my musical episode? I should have had ten of them by now. I guess I’ll have to settle for these. The last one isn’t from a sitcom, but you’ll have to forgive me because 1) it’s awesome, and 2) it’s my special blog day!

Truth in advertising

Zannah — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:26:49 +0000

I’ve watched this video three times now and even though the title spells out very clearly what I’m about to see, it surprises me into laughter every time.

Love it. Now please accept my apology for my absence lately. Pretty please. I’ve been studying. Also, there’s this long weekend coming up during which I will not be blogging. Like, at all. But I’ll be back!

(By the way, the video came to me courtesy of The Daily What and was originally posted on Say OMG.)

I’m not lost

Zannah — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:25:55 +0000

Just busy. Taking notes. Will probably have some time tomorrow night (when I’ve been abandoned by all who love me) to catch up. See? So busy I have to start in the middle of my sentences.

It wasn’t that hard

Zannah — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:41:24 +0000

I downloaded a second installation of WordPress, created a second database on my hosting site (so it would belong to my domain), copied the theme over so it would match, and linked it here. Run, Zannah, Run! exists as a second blog at www.inanechatter.net and you can find it by clicking the link for it under Pages on the right. If you’re interested. You don’t have to be. It might only be interesting to me, and I can’t even say that for sure.

Not a good sales pitch.

Anyway, I took it down on Blogger just now. Which means I should probably disable the link in the last post. Hang on.

Done.

Now let’s talk about what irritated me today. Last night, while thinking about this whole being healthy thing, I stopped by the gym closest to our house to look into membership options. (It’s in the shopping center where the Bloom used to be.) They’re month to month only, no initial fees, no cancellation fees. All equipment and classes are included, and the only extra fees are for things like personal trainer sessions and massage therapy. It’s a chain, but it’s a small one (I think), and I talked to the owner of this one on the phone before I went for a tour. They gave me a free pass for the week to check it out. I’m mainly interested because I want to be able to join a class (yoga, dance-type aerobics, etc – something that’s not running) AND (more interesting to me) I want the availability of a treadmill when the streets and sidewalks are covered in ice or snow. So really, the month-to-month thing is appealing because I can join for December, January, and February, and then quit until next December. And it’s less than a mile from the house, IN the neighborhood. Anyway, I got the tour, everything looks nice, and the guy (not the owner) said the front desk isn’t manned all the time, but members can get a keycard for access during those hours. I didn’t think to ask which hours were the ones that require a keycard, and he didn’t volunteer them. Which brings me, finally, to why I’m irritated. I got all dressed to go run at the gym (in the warm), got in the car, saw the OPEN sign all lit up in the window, and then couldn’t get in the door. There’s a sign on the door listing the hours you need a keycard, and it includes most of Saturday and Sunday. AND the early morning weekday hours I was planning to try out the gym this week. Frustrated (just a tad, you know?), I went home to change into warmer clothes so I could run outside. Stupid winter. Tomorrow, I’ll try to get in touch with the owner again and see if he’ll let me borrow a keycard during my trial week.

There must be a way to have two blogs on one website

Zannah — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 03:13:59 +0000

I’m working on it.

I decided this morning that I need a place to track how much I exercise. I did it on this site once before, but it was just a big blank page that I updated every day. I’d rather have a post every day, but I don’t want those posts to be part of this blog. So. Separate blog. For now. While I work out how to put a second blog on another page of this website.

If you’re interested in watching/reading about/commiserating with my attempts to, you know, lose weight and be healthier and all that stuff, I’ll be tracking that at Run, Zannah, Run!, my temporary home for all things healthy.

Update: I disabled the link to the Blogger version of Run, Zannah, Run! since I added it to this site. Hope you don’t mind.

Damn kids today

Zannah — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:39:48 +0000

I’m enjoying running this week. Because of the time change, the sun rises earlier, which means I don’t have to run in the dark. I don’t like running in the dark. I don’t have any reflective thingys on my clothes (but I’m pretty sure my shoes have reflective strips), and when it’s seriously dark, I run with a flashlight. Which I’m not particularly crazy about. But at least I can be seen, which is more than I can say for the kid I nearly ran over on my way home tonight. Not even 6pm, and it’s pitch black outside. I was in my neighborhood, driving perhaps a tad faster than I should have been, and as I came up to the cross street right before mine, I saw a flicker of movement go whizzing by in front of me, from left to right. I got a better look when he got under the streetlight on the other side of the street, and I saw some kid flying down the hill, crouched down on a skateboard, wearing dark clothes. I was hardly the only car on the road. After he crossed in front of me, he was nearly hit by somebody backing out of their driveway. Maybe he gets a thrill out of near death experiences. I just think he’s crazy. And I’ll stop speeding in my neighborhood. I’d feel pretty guilty if I hit someone, and Mom says I’m not allowed to feel guilty anymore.

Oh noes, I almost forgot. Again. I forgot last year. Happy Blogiversary to me! Two years ago today, I started this blog. Yay me.

Update: Hell. It was yesterday. I missed it again.

I’m in hiding. Just a little. Just from the Internet.

Zannah — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:04:25 +0000

The Internet is a distraction. (Understatement of the year.) I love the distraction, but this week I don’t have time for it. Work is nuts (or I am nuts because of work), and I have to stay offline or I won’t get anything done. Just this week.

Pre-vacation brain drain

Zannah — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:10:12 +0000

My brain is starting to shut down. Work was hard today, and tomorrow I’m going to be mostly useless. You know why? I’m going on vacation! Woo! Not a long one, but it should be nice and relaxing. The worst part (and I’m telling you this in advance to try and prepare you for this traumatic experience) is that there is NO INTERNET CONNECTION where I’m going. I will have to skip updating this here blog for several days IN A ROW. Blog aside, what am I going to do without the Internet? Here’s where I realize I may have a problem. Do I really think I’m going to be scarred for life if I can’t google the lyrics to that song on the radio or find out what weather.com says the temperature is rightnow for a couple of days? I think I’ll manage somehow. And when I come back, I’ll have lots of pictures.

But hey, the withdrawal doesn’t have to start just yet. My vacation doesn’t start until the weekend. According to my brain, however, it started around lunchtime today. Ooh, that reminds me of breakfast today. A guy on my project won breakfast for the office from Chick-fil-A! That place might have the best fast food breakfast in the world. They certainly have the best fast food chicken sandwiches in the world. And since that’s basically what goes on their breakfast menu, I think they’ve got the breakfast trophy all sewn up. Which reminds me…I used the phrase “hungry as all get out” the other day, and that made me wonder where “as all get out” came from. I was driving just then, so I couldn’t google it, and I’ve only just remembered.

[Pause for googling]

Okay, according to one forum, the OED says it was first used in Huckleberry Finn in 1884. I couldn’t find any other references to the origin of that phrase, and I don’t have access to an OED myself (and I don’t subscribe to OED Online, although maybe I should – mm, no, $30 a month), so I can’t check. That’s not very helpful. Maybe I’ll be just fine after a few days without Google. (Look! I can tie things together! (Oh, is it not cool to point that kind of thing out? Better to be subtle and let others notice on their own? Oops. Guess I’m not cool.))

Productivity is my middle name

Zannah — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:09:20 +0000

It rained all night last night. A welcome change, and really soothing to fall asleep to (several times, since I woke up a few times last night). We woke up at 7 this morning to find it still pouring, so running was out of the question. We found ourselves breakfasted and in the basement before 9am, and we spent a good hour making some donation and trash decisions. We’re not done getting rid of the crap in the basement, not by a long shot, but we made a sizable dent. (That looks weird. Sizable. Sizeable? Still weird.) Around 10:30, I went to Costco for Roxy’s medicine and then to Target (yeah, I know – again), and I was supposed to be home before noon so we could leave at noon to meet Erik and Margaret for lunch and a movie. Well, you know how Target is. I got sucked in, and it was almost noon when I got in the car to come home and get John. So we were late. I hate being late, but this time I can’t blame anyone by myself (sorry again, guys!). It didn’t help that I got off the toll road going the wrong way on 7 and had to turn around and THEN wade through the normal traffic in the area. Lunch (at Maggiano’s) was good, but it was more about catching up with E&M, who we hadn’t seen since mid-May, and that was much-needed and much fun. After the movie (Knight and Day – the first half was funny and pretty entertaining. The second half was okay, but less fun.), I bought a new wallet (a nice red, big, adult-type wallet to replace my falling-apart, overstuffed, tiny little wallet that gets lost in my purse and was meant to only hold the bare necessities but got drafted into full-time use because I don’t know why), and we came home, checked on the dogs (they’re fine), and did geeky website things together (I updated my Pages section. See?). Tomorrow might not be so productive, but you never know.

WASP! – Now with flowers

Zannah — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:48:18 +0000

We have a wasp’s nest just outside the garage door. A baby wasp’s nest. A nest for baby wasps. (Not really. Actually, that, too.) It looks like it’s just the beginning of a nest, so it’s still really small. There were about five wasps crawling on it and I refused to get close enough to find out what kind of wasps they are. I looked up how to get rid of them and that’s almost as scary as leaving them there. Apparently, the first thing you’re supposed to do it go make sure you’re not allergic to wasp stings. If you are, call an exterminator. If you’re not, go buy a pressurized can of wasp killer/poison, wear multiple layers with long sleeves and long pants, tuck your pants into your shoes, tuck your sleeves into your gloves (wear gloves), and wear a hat and goggles. Oh, and it’s suggested that your top layer be something non-permeable, like rubber. Wait until dark and spray the hell out of the nest. You’re also supposed to make sure you have an escape route just in case you don’t aim very well or the poison doesn’t act fast enough and you end up with a swarm of angry wasps chasing you. I wish I were making this stuff up. Just google it. I want nothing to do with this.

In other news…am I fixed? It looks like it on every browser and every computer I have access to, but I no longer trust that. If it looks weird to you (no picture, tag line in the wrong place, etc), please let me know. John found a way to make it work again, but it’s not the right way. Of course, it is, it works, but we can find no earthly reason why it wasn’t working before. I’ve compared my CSS file to the original one, before I tinkered with it, and we don’t see any differences. But hey, it works (I think), and I still might tinker with changing the look over the weekend. This whole thing started because I wanted to change the picture, and I still want to do that, so we’ll see what happens.

So John is wonderful (I don’t say that enough), not only because he fixed my website, but also because he came home with flowers for me today. He stopped to buy wasp killer, but the store didn’t have it. Instead, he bought ice cream (for himself – I swore off ice cream when I quit eating pound cake) and flowers for me. ‘Cause that’s what you do when they’re out of wasp killer. Or that’s what you do when you know you can’t immediately kill the wasps that are threatening your wife. I love flowers.