elanya

Woohoo! Long weekend! Gonna do all the things, productive and entertaining, right, yeah!

....except the internet is out at my house as of yesterday afternoon. Thrill! It turns out our modem is archaic and was not compatible with the new IP technology standard. Our ISP updated their network and suddenly it could not communicate. They had apparently sent notices with the bills, but they were being paid without being see so.... yeah. We have a modem that *is* compatible (where 'we' = my roommate), but we can't get it to work because ??? reasons? I don't know. We might get a tech out on Wednesday?

So that's utter balls, because this is my last major weekend to do much of anything at all, and if I want to have any contact with the outside world, I can't be home. It's really frustrating! what I'd like to do is pack a little, play a little - and if I play for longer, do so with privacy and comfort and in charge of my own distractions. That is not so much an option :p I am currently at a café that is a little ways down the street from my place, and there is a bunch of (I think) Chinese grad students hanging out right behind me, chatting loudly and having fun. It looks like they are setting up a board game, actually! Which is good for them but is not an atmosphere very conducive to concentration on much of anything.

Anyway. I am actually doing pretty well for packing. All the books are packed, all the non-essential clothes. There are random odds and ends still. The pod is being delivered on Tuesday, and then I'm (hopefully) going to grab the last few things out of my storage unit, and that will be that! There are a couple of things I still need to dispose of - an old futon, some things to take to half-price books.... and my filing cabinets -_- I have a 5 drawer steelcase filing cabinet! I can't get rid of the darned thing! Honestly I'd prefer to keep it and hoard it forever and ever but that's not really a practical response -_-

I think when I go home tonight, I'll take the art off my walls and pack it and the few things of filing I am actually planning to keep... Then maybe I can offload one of the filing cabinets (the crappier 2 drawer one) tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow early afternoon I'll probably be back here, nursing drinks I don't really need to be buying...

Using the Magic of IFTTT and dreamwidth RSS feeds, I have given myself the power to crosspost selected entries to Twitter or Tumblr at will!

The power! THE POWER!!!! Many thanks to azurelunatic for letting me know how the RSS tag feed things work :D

So what this means is that I can continue to use social media in a space I am comfortable in and still have content go off on its own to explore new horizons. Yay!

Now, if I can figure out if there is a way to autolink AO3 stories that I post, as opposed to those on a particular tag, I will be all set!

The internet is a magical shiny tool, y'all.

I think I am starting to burn out at work - I'm having a harder time making myself actually sit down and do stuff, and this is annoying because I am really really soooo cloooose to done with the major part of it. But I'm getting annoyed at various things, like about how in some ways I am really honestly the only one who understand how our system works and what you can and cannot do with it - and even I am not always sure, but damnit I also feel like I am the only person who a: is willing to contact our support desk for the software and b: is about to do so in a non dickish way. I have seen other ppl's emails that they've sent, and no wonder they feel like the ppl don't want to help them! To be fair, the worst offender has gone - she was a GA and has graduated. (She sent them a message once which was basically "This isn't working, fix it." No explanations of the problem (probably because she didn't understand it) and not even a 'please'!) I'm not being egotistical here - I use the system every day, and everyone else does so rarely, and when they do they are mostly just looking at things I put in it, because that's my job. I don't blame them, it is just frustrating, because the information on how it works is readily accessible.

I really need to start looking for a new job seriously. The Edmonton thing I'm guessing at this point did not pan out, and while I've been keeping an eye on the Canadian site there really has not been much that I'm qualified for come by there. I need to figure out the best places to look for USian jobs as well, because someone else might want to renew my visa even if A&M doesn't (the fools - see above about no one else really knowing how things work >.>) I'm also frustrated about having the same conversations over and over because ppl don't remember how they have told me to do things. I am trying to be understanding because this is something that I deal with every day but they maybe look at once a month or so, if that. But it is still annoying. So yes, I'm looking forward to being done with the stuff I'm working on now, which should happen in the next few weeks.

I'm trying to find a good time to get my spirals tattoo finished. I love it so much, and I also have a really hard time explaining why to anyone else. It just feels really right to me and for me. Hopefully I can get it done the last weekend this month.

What else - I am going to a birthday thing tomorrow and I am going to make pistachio pudding squares because they are delicious and I know the birthday-haver loves pistachio flavoured things, so errybody wins. I need to go start those shortly.

I didn't get all my to-do list sorted yesterday, but I did get to my gaming, and I got my knitting un-fucked at lunch today (more or less), and I am probably going to go dye those pants here in a few minutes, or maybe after I start the squares. And then I can cut JJ's nails once she is home, and I will spend the rest of my night writing fun things instead of looking at job stuff, and maybe eating more terrible food. Ugh. So far September is not my favourite month this year :p

As an aside I just have really been feeling the weight of a lot of the negative things flying around in my online spaces. None of it is directed at, or even relates directly to me or even indirectly, but I just find it all very wearying and I can't seem to disengage. :/

So, the DDoS attacks on LJ, though I understand their reasoning and really don't hold anything against the service, have made me decide to try an actually start using my dreamwidth account as well. I've had one for a while and have used it to keep up with some friends who have fully migrated, read some communities (when I remember) etc. I'm not giving up on LJ, though, partly because I feel like I have real roots there (my journal there is almost 10 years old!), and partly because knowing that it is a meaningful world community makes me feel strangely.... Internets Patriotic? I dunno. But feeling like I have any kind of connection to people who are doing Good Things (like being a voice for democracy) makes me feel a vicarious pride :p While that is somewhat selfish, I feel like running away from mild inconvenience is also selfish. Anyway - there are people in both places I want to be in (better) touch with, so welcome to crossposting city. If anyone has any good suggestions about posting clients that crosspost well, I would be interested in recs! Right now I'm doin' it from the main dreamwidth page, because that seems easy, but I generally prefer to post from a client.

Anyway, hello possibly for reals DW people - I don't post much anyway, but my journal import seems to be complete, and now you can expect more real posts from moi, where more = maybe 1 or 2 a month, and 'posts' may quite often be tedious to-do lists. Lj folks - carry on, nothing to see here @_@ My username is the same in both places.... much like the content :P

Oh yes, hello facebook too, let's see if I can cascade post to two platforms :D

So, onto my Spartacus/Mythos-ish dream from last night... Okay not I have to figure out the code for cuts in dw @_@ ( okay, so that was easy ;) )

As an added welcome bonus, have a link to badass video from the French Mozart Rock Opera that I also watched with Julie this weekend. So much win! This is a song about how (hot emo) Salieri feels when he first hears (hot gothy) Mozart's music ;) Stupid disabled embedding.... go watch :D It is in French, but potential language barriers in no real way impede its awesomeness, I promise!

Reposted via Shan! Take note fellow Canuckistanis!

(Reposted, because it's important!)

The CRTC just announced they will reexamine metered billing practices. They are seeking public input right now! This is a huge opportunity to stop Internet metering, and to ensure Canadians have access to an unlimited Internet.

Please take a moment to send the CRTC a message here: http://openmedia.ca/crtc

OpenMedia.ca asked Canadians to send Ottawa a message about Internet metering, and wow did you ever respond – over 420,000 signed the petition!

The CRTC's move to review the imposition of billing practices through a public process is in direct response to our petition - they even cited the "public outcry". 

At the same time, we all know a Big Telecom-friendly compromise is being pushed behind closed doors. To avoid another industry crafted solution we urgently need to send a message to the CRTC HERE.

We must sway the CRTC now to make our previous victories stick. If we don't convince the CRTC, all could be lost - all Internet users could face a metered Internet and pay up $4 per gigabyte! 

We’ve already moved politics in Canada and made it easy for politicians to champion the Internet. Let’s force the CRTC to do the same. 

http://openmedia.ca/crtc

We’ve come this far, let’s not stop now, 

~ The OpenMedia.ca team

Support this campaign by making a small donation to our Stop the Meter Fund at: http://openmedia.ca/drive (this donation will cost you a lot less than UBB)

SOURCES:

Strombo Talks Internet Metering

http://openmedia.ca/strombo

Vancouver Sun - How B.C. activists fought off the Internet billing plan

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/activists+fought+Internet+billing+plan/4222362/story.html

Georgia Straight - Geek Speak: Lindsey Pinto, OpenMedia.ca

http://www.straight.com/article-373231/vancouver/geek-speak-lindsey-pinto-openmediaca

Globe And Mail - A metered Internet is a regulatory failure

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/a-metered-internet-is-a-regulatory-failure/article1881250

Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2011/01/26/InternetLosers/

TorrentFreak - Massive Protest Against Canadian Bandwidth Caps

http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-bandwidth-caps-110131/

CBC Visits OpenMedia.ca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZSq5Gh0uo8

Just to let people know, I got to Albuquerque just fine. The first part of my session starts at 8 (a.k.a. Ungoldy Early - it somehow slipped my notice that this was actually mountain time here :p)

They have wireless in the rooms, but it is the kind that costs you 10$ a day. I might get it on Saturday night or afternoon until I leave on Sunday - we'll see.

I went through my presentation twice yesterday - it isn't flashy but it gets the job done. I present well, I think I'll be able to field questions well.

Anyway, try not to miss me too much ;)

I *know* there are several awesome ladies online... They should all come online and hang out in #changelign with moi ^-^