we got all night

Big Bang Theory wasn't as funny as I expected it to be. I kinda saw through the whole fanboy-actor fan service idea and the B-story was almost insulting somehow. Eh.

White Collar, though, was better than I expected, although I'm still wondering how the series will unfold. It reminds me of Leverage and Burn Notice and Neal feels like if Barney Stinson and Shawn Spencer merged.

Onto the point of this post. I cleaned out my computers recently and picked up a few tricks and software along the way, so I thought I'd share a few links. I tracked down two Windows equivalents to two Mac-only apps, although try those at your own risk since I haven't (obviously) tested them. Most of them are shareware, but I haven't run into anything besides reminders to pay.

StickyWindows - Back in the days of Mac OS 9 you could turn your windows into tabs along the bottom of your screen and every now and then I'd still catch myself trying to do this. So now there's an app that brings it back! It keeps my desktop cleaner, while still keeping the windows I need right there.
DiskInventoryX - Scans and then presents the contents of your hard drive in a graphical way, so you can see where the space hogs are hiding.
* Windows: WinDirStat and/or SpaceMonger
Hazel - NEAT MAINTENCE UTILITY. It's gold to have, trust me.
* Windows: RoboBasket
OnyX - Runs maintenance tasks, clears out log files, deleted orphaned files-- all in all, it helps un-bloat your system.
AppCleaner - Generally Macs don't use uninstallers, but sometimes things get orphaned if you just throw out the application (preferences, log files, etc.) There's also AppZapper and AppDelete, but AppCleaner doesn't have restrictions on its free-ness. XD

iScreensaver - Make your own screensaver! Available for Mac and Windows. (I'm using this ripped by File2HD.com)
SaveHollywood - Turn any Quicktime file into a screensaver. I used to use this to play movie trailers before, but I don't download trailers much anymore. Every now and then I'll be obnoxious and set a Weebl's video on there.
FadeText - Displays any text as a screensaver. For a while I had filled this with Shoebox quotes, and then I had the lyrics to "Do You Want To Know A Secret?" by The Beatles. :)

Lia

Yesterday was an awkward day. I went shopping with my sister and I realized how much my taste in clothes has changed since we last went shopping. It made me kind of sad, because I wish I was still determined to be more feminine with my clothes, but my depressive state of mind is so all-encompassing that I don't even care what I look like anymore. That said, I really liked a few things at Wet Seal, but I'd already bought three tees at Express and Aeropostale, so I was already over budget in my mind. My sister was apparently paying for it all, but I don't like when people pay for my purchases. Which is one of the reasons I hate traditional dates. I also hate buying clothes that I don't really need, and all I ever buy is tees to begin with.

And then later on, the red carpet for the Oscars was on and my mom was like, "let's watch it together!" But I don't care about dresses and fashion (there was a time when I said I wanted to be a fashion designer but that was a cover for another interest), so I stayed in my room. Of course, between my grandmother's snoring, the steam rising from my room's heater and the damn howling wind, I barely heard any of the telecast. Good thing I always have closed captioning on.

The awards themselves were okay. I only really gave a damn about Boyle winning, only because I've been a fan since about 2002. I've seen all his movies. He deserved that award, if not for Slumdog Millionaire, then for everything else.

And now we've come to this. I had a ton of things I wrote down to do when I turned on the computer this morning. It always happens that I make a list in my head and then get distracted by Twitter or YouTube or a file I downloaded to watch. And nothing gets done. But today I made a list and put it right in front of my keyboard. Then I turned on the computer and decided I should finally upgrade it to Leopard. But I also wanted to start from scratch. So right now I'm sending all the application files and music folder and such over to my external drive and then I'll re-install everything. But the estimation is that it'll be done copying in 36-99 hours. There's 48Gb to move and only 2.66Gb done so far. It's gonna be a while, lol

Lastly, I finally gave up on Photoshop CS and upgraded to CS3. I forgot why I didn't immediately upgrade when I got the damn thing before (and they're up to CS4 now, right?) but now I'm in the mood to get back into iconning. I know vampira34 wants Psych icons, and I owe taintedangel80 a Logan/Veronica .gif and icon. But everyone else, pick 3-5 of your interests or send me pictures and I'll make some headers and icons or even wallpapers if you want. My skills aren't the greatest, and I don't have a particular style but I can pretty much fake other ideas pretty well. I mean, I did my own headers and default icon on the new layout I've got up, if you're questioning my skill level. So... humor me?

...This is totally not the post I came here to make! Maybe I'll post again later tonight after Chuck, but before I talk about Big Love and Chuck.

Lia

P.S. I almost completely forgot! New buddies! There's a large round-up of contact info, a few polls and an introduction post over here. I completely overhauled the introduction post earlier today, in case any of my older friends have missed those oh so important details going on in my life, lol

ETA: BRB, DYING OF LULZ. OMG, YAHOO! ARE YOU COMPLETELY MADE OF FAIL?

I'm the last one to be worried about the layoffs at LJ (as sad as they are), but after that downtime just now I'm just a tad pissed off. Granted, even the best of web sites are down from time to time. And maybe it's because everything I do is related to LJ (if I'm not checking my flist or replying to comments, I'm downloading something or reading something that's hosted here), but every time it goes down I get a bit agitated and nervous as to when it'll be back up again.

I don't even know where else to go. I tried going over to InsaneJournal a minute ago and the servers were overloaded there too. I guess everyone's still in an uproar over yesterday, but it was annoying. All the copy-journal sites like Deadjournal, InsaneJournal, Blurty, Crazylife, Inksome, Vox etc. aren't even as high-end as LJ. I'm used to the little hover tags to add people, and my inbox and the tags and moods system. Even little things like last.fm intergration... I want that. I want at least a better style to customize than generator (I like the sidebar, okay!).

I would just trash it all and move back to software like TypePad or WordPress or even Tumblr-- but what about the emo posts that I like to lock up? And I can't just publish fiction on a Tumblr blog. It just doesn't feel right. I also like the nesting comments that the journaling sites have. I'm not going to lie-- I'd even miss the icons on sites like those. It's just.... WHY. WHY SUP/SixApart/LJ. WHY.

Consistency. I want it.

I feel like the best thing to do is make a whole bunch of sites integrated. I'll finally reboot my web site and throw my fiction on there, I'll have some sort of journaling site for locked posts (which will probably become few and far between when LJ dies *eventually* and we all get scattered) and integrate my blog software on another page on the site.

As of right now I have an InsaneJournal and Vox (which I set up while waiting for IJ and LJ to come back). GreatestJournal, too, but apparently it's in a coma. My question is: which blogging site/service/software should I use? Tumblr, Blogger, TypePad, or WordPress? My big concerns are the nesting comments and the types of style choices available. etherpunk, I know you use WordPress but does anyone else use another one and what do you think about it? Because I think it's time I start seriously thinking about putting alternates into place.

I feel like I asked this once before. My Dory!memory. Let me show you it.

Lia

I just cleaned out my flist of a bunch of communities that I wasn't interested in anymore, were dead or was pulling out my hair at what they'd become. I also re-joined two Firefly communities because I missed them.

Dishing about your own drama and crushes in your journal is fine. If I don't share your fascination, I ignore it when I comment on the entry, if I do at all. But when you take over communities, there's a problem. I can't have my IQ drained by morons who lose their brains whenever they see someone remotely attractive and spam communities with their glee. And community wars and elitism are not cool in my book. The only locked comms I'm in are sharing comms. I'm not about to comment and demand change when it's simpler for me to just leave and seek what I thought the community was about elsewhere.

In other news, I have become a social network fiend. :/ I deleted MySpace because I never used it, but in the past week I've joined Plurk (which I can't see any use for, when I have Twitter), Playfire, Friendfeed (which is useful as heck... if anyone I knew was on it), re-discovered Del.icio.us (still have to rre-organize that), and found two cinephile social networks (Flixster and Filmcrave-- I'll be joining Flixster as soon as I post this entry). And now my friend invited me to BrightKite, which sounds like Twinkle's location detector for the non-iPod/iPhone crowd. I find it slightly creepy to be broadcasting my EXACT location at any time to the world but I'm all up for finding people near me. So I shall let you know how that goes. Of course there's also a lot of bookworm social networks like LibraryThing, and if I was anywhere near the bookworm I used to be I would join one. I wonder if there's a comic geek network. Oh, damn.

The thing about these networks though-- you need to know people on them to make them fun. That's why Twitter is more addicting to me now, as opposed to when I initially joined. Playfire... when I get a PS3 I know that's going to be an awesome site. Not sure about the rest of them. We shall see.

Lia

So the snow.... I have no idea what happened to it. It started to rain on Sunday night at maybe 11pm and continued until who knows when. But by the time I woke up on Monday, the streets were completely dry. Biggest snow storm ever, omg! *rolls eyes*

I spent all day yesterday watching/downloading new podcasts. So much so that I maxed out my laptop's HD. Whoops. It's back down to 40GB full now, but I am so full of glee! My dad reminded me that the MacWorld Expo was happening this month, and I could've waited a week or so and bought a cheaper iPod, even a Touch. He said, "But you know it's in January!" And I said, "Yes, but I forgot it was no longer December!" But that's okay because what I wanted was something thinner and smaller than my old 3G iPod, and that's what my new one is. So I'm fine (and completely happy) with my purchase. *hugs Schwarzty* And then my dad said I should've bought it online and engraved it. But I know I would've picked something like, "You rock, rock. The rock just sits and is," and have to explain it to everyone forever more (:38 into this clip)-- but then again, not, because it'd be covered by the iPod case. Which just makes engraving it even more of a waste.

Speaking of Huckabees, does anyone know supporters of Mike Huckabee? And if so, do they have "I ♥ Huckabee" signs? Ahaha.

The last few weeks I've been watching/reading more news. Never have I been more insulted, disgraced and ashamed of my country. Good God, America, what is up? But even so, I've started watching Oprah regularly again and randomly got inspired to write again. So, there's that... I guess.

And it may be my room that's all bandom-y because I have been in a U2 mood this whole weekend, and then I turn on my computer today and "Crushcrushcrush" got stuck in my head. O_o

Finally, ( Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles )

Lia

P.S. It was mentioned today that perhaps I should try out eHarmony.com. Honestly, I wish this was the dating game my life has turned into. Except there's no Woz. :P

Don't mind the blank space above my layout or the new default icon. I got tired of the Ravenclaw/Luna thing, but I haven't had time to mess around with layouts and no inspiration/obsession has struck me to re-do it. The default icon is a painting by Thomas Eakins called "The Swimhole." I've been in a shoebox_project mood since Saturday and I love swimming holes and such (even though I can't swim) so I cropped that one for a makeshift icon.

Before I get into my little rant, I wanted to rant about something smaller, and this goes to show how I can get to thinking from the smallest thing. I was watching Accepted earlier and The 40-Year-Old Virgin yesterday with my dad. And Jonah Hill pops up and I noticed how he was a bit heftier than he was in Superbad or Knocked Up. So I said, "Wow, I didn't realize he'd lost weight in between those movies. And considering [Justin Long's] hair, this was made before Live Free or Die Hard." And my dad said that he thinks that Jonah Hill's going to continue to lose weight as he gets to be a bigger star. And I starting thinking that honestly, I'd prefer he stay that weight. As long as he's fit and his health is in good condition, who the hell cares? Yeah, Hollywood isn't the real world and Hill most likely will lose weight even though there's the double standard about weight in Hollywood that needs to die anyway. But I'm one for people looking real. Like that Cheetah Girl (Bryans, is it?) on DWTS last night. The girl can move and she also looks like she ate something. I pine for a time when we see realistic shapes in mainstream media.

And btw, all these people on the net saying they adore these new geeks on shows need to stfu. You only love them because they're in your screen and not near you. If you saw a real geek you'd not be inclined to jump 'em. You'd do what everyone else does and laugh your head off and/or poke fun at them and call them losers with no life. This isn't against anyone in particular, but just something I've been wanting to say.

( And now for a long and winding thought process on writers and their creations. )

I just needed to get that out. I probably will head straight to bed after Cane, so I'll talk about that tomorrow along with my thoughts on Dirty Sexy Money and my official schedule for fall tv.

Lia

( Quizzes )

Lia