New folder from selection (Snow Leopard, OSX)

Applescript (save as an app, and stick on your toolbar for ease of use with Finder items):

tell application "Finder"
make new folder at window 1 with properties {name:text returned of (display dialog "Choose a name" default answer "untitled folder")}
move selection to the result
end tell

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The past few years, I've put together a list of things I'm thankful for.

I remember having this one Thanksgiving with my mom where we had two Cornish Hens, one for each of us, and the potatoes, etc. We took pictures because it was a real treat eating like that. Recently, her and I have gotten into a bit of a spat. I've gleaned that she doesn't understand me nor does she really want to for all her psychobabble over the years. We're currently on non-speaking terms, her because she thinks I'm being hateful and me because I'm not willing to be a doormat for her amusement. That all being said, I'm oddly not as upset as I'd typically expect. Once I got a bunch of crap out of my system, I felt strangely relieved, even though she still doesn't get it. Not exactly happy about the situation but I'm happy not to be worried about what I have to overlook next. I wish I'd stood up to her a bit sooner, although admittedly, it was nice the past few years, enjoying a bit of peace in between storms.

So, this year... I'm thankful for:
- The understanding husband, who has his own opinions and knows how to express them without ramming them down my throat, and who listens to mine even if he disagrees with them.
- The tolerant cat, who watched me pick some sort of gray specks out of his toes earlier before finally cuffing me a good one to remind me of whose toes I'm touching.
- The other cat, who is currently curled up nearby with a very happy look on her face and one foot over her head.
- The time I got to spend with my former pets, who have crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
- The job I go to each day, where I have one boss who generally leaves me alone to do what I know I need to do to keep things running.
- The colleagues I work with who are fun yet good at what they do and serious about doing it.
- The family and friends I have that actually don't mind who I am and wouldn't change me for the world (nor I, them).
- All our worldly possessions, like a house, running vehicles, and gadgetry, which make life so much easier and fun to live with.
- The many places we've had the privilege of visiting this past year.
- Awesome food we've had.

In short, I find life quite bearable... and stuff.

~me

Scrivener, again, I think

I like Scrivener more and more every time I use it.  It's like OneNote on steroids, only a bit harder to use, and I suppose not really the same... it's not a notebook like OneNote, it's more of a binder full of slips of paper and jotted-down notes.  It's meant primarily for words and not media.

But those words are kept, searched, indexed, something, so that they are easily found and referenced.  There are more options to this software than I'd ever know what to do with after two years' worth of use, and I'm excited about it.  LOL!!

~w

movie - Source Code

OMG... Dale's right when he says this is sort of like the Matrix!! We just finished watching Source Code. It's AWESOME. We're gonna have to watch it again. The levels of possibilities... Wow, what a movie. I'd not seen a good theory twister for a while.

:D

~me

cruelty

I've come to the conclusion that my mom only conceived me so she'd have someone to serve her and torment when she got bored.

And don't give me this, "But she's your mom, she really loves you" crap.  That's BULLSHIT no matter how often I try to imagine her changing or caring.  Not all mothers are loving creatures, and I know it very well, despite the few scraps of love I remember witnessing as a kid.  Real mothers don't repeatedly try to get you to watch movies that scare the shit out of you just so they can laugh, and they don't continue to try to get you to watch scary movies when they can't even laugh because they're so far away.  That's not even entertainment anymore, it's just cruel.

It's worse that she's gone and lied to me twice in the same day... first, the recommendation which suggests the movie might be non-scary, then after I voice suspicion and say I'll check on it first, that she's learned her lesson after watching something scary herself and having to run away from the TV.  I checked out the movie.  It's a thriller.

I think I'll just disown her.  It'd be easier.  Yet we haven't even really talked in months because she preaches the Bible, saying it's for my "own good."  Yeah, just like her glassy-eyed father.  God, please, PLEASE don't let me turn into her as I get older... I'm already seeing signs, and it's not right.  At least I didn't have kids to suffer under my hand.

~unloved, hurt-yet-again daughter

Cat regimen

Sinclair, our cat, was being a little snickerdoodle a bit ago.  I was making tuna sandwiches for my lunch and called to him as is the custom.  I dumped the juice and some large chunks on a plate for him and let him have at it while I finished making my sandwiches.  Then, true to being a cat, he appeared at my elbow about 1.5 seconds after I took my first bite.  Paw, paw.  Eyebrow raised, I got up (WITH my plate; experience is a good teacher) and checked his plate, which still has morsels on it.  "Sinclair, come over here," I intoned.  He looked at me from the other room, blinking.  "Sinkie!  You have tuna, right HERE.  Get your little fuzzy butt over here and enjoy it!  You're not getting mine!!"  I sat back down, gently pushing him out of my way with one foot.  He squinted his eyes as he turned away, obviously disappointed that he'd chosen me as his human.  I took another bite, another, then another, and yet another.  I'm afraid to look, but keep eating instead.  Then I feel the paw again.  Hopeful look at first, followed by that "I'm trying to look hopeful but I'm really expecting, you know" look.  I squinted at him and pointed towards the kitchen.  "Yours is in there," I explained, holding back the urge to clock him one.  He glanced at the kitchen, and immediately peered back into my eyes.  "Dude, I want yours, dumbass," the look said, only more innocently.  (Damn that innocent look.)  I got up (again with plate in hand) and double-checked his plate, since he hadn't asked for at least three or four bites... maybe he'd listened and quickly ate the rest of his treat, and was now back for more.  Nope.  I called him again.  "Sinkie!!  You get over here.  Look at this.  TUNA!"  I pointed at the dish, bending over at the waist.  My back protested slightly, but I was not to be dissuaded this time.  He complied somewhat, approaching about half-way, looking at me like he's totally confused.  (Yeah, right.)  "Sinkles!  This is like, the ultimate treat of kitties everywhere.  Get your BUTT over here and FINISH this.  You are NOT getting any of mine until you do.  Besides, mine has mayonnaise in it.  You don't even /like/ mayonnaise, so you might as well eat your share over here!"  He sat on his haunches and licked his chops.  "But momma, yours needs some fur in it."  I stood there a moment, exasperated.  "Fine, don't eat it.  Forget about getting ANY of mine, then.  I don't even care if you DO eat this, you're not getting any of mine now!"

So I sat back down, and he approached quietly.  "No," I told him, and ignored his eyes, my indication to him that I was done horsing around.  I felt his presence for a bit longer, and when I finally turned to see if he was still there, he'd disappeared.

That cat drives me crazy... but yanno what?  He drives me crazy in a very good way.  Earlier, I went upstairs to listen to the stereo and do some magazine reading, which I often put off in favour of goofing off on the computer (a habit I'm slowly trying to kick for at least a couple hours a day).  EVERY TIME I go up there, Sinclair sticks to me like glue, meowing little faint meows of questioning.  "Momma, why are you up here?" he asks, looking around, meowing plaintively.  (He's definitely getting more vocal as he ages... I'm glad it's still cute or he'd be living in the shed.)  "Oh, hi Sinkie, just doing some reading," I explain as I settle into the chair in front of the speakers.  "Mree-ee-ew?" he asks again, rubbing up against me.  I pet him briefly and immerse myself in Mac Life.  "You're my fuzzy," I tell him, slightly distracted.  "Mreew," he answers lightly, and I can see his eyes watching me from over one page.  Ut oh.  Here it comes.  "BUMP!" he says with his big, heavy head, nearly knocking me half-off the chair.  I'm suddenly glad he's NOT the dog I kept likening him to when he was a kitten.  I grab the magazine hard lest it fall off my lap and pet him again with my other hand.  "Yes, momma loves you," I tell him, staring him in the eyes.  He blinks at me.  "Mree-ee-ew?" he asks.  "Gah.  Okay, come here."  I pick him up, which he usually pretends to hate, and flip him onto his back, settling him on my lap.  It's the only real way he "fits" in his adult size.  He looks away as if offended, but I caught a glance just in time to see that the look in his eyes is not annoyed, it's happy and contented.  I kiss his forehead, his ears, his paws.  I tell him I must love him if I'm willing to kiss his stinky little paws.  He looks up at me like, "Uh huh."  He starts purring and looks away again.  I continue my kissing, even as one paw is stuffed up my nose in a weak attempt to stop me.  "Moommoommoomph," I say, digging my nose into his fur, which I'll pay for later in the form of wispies I will only manage to get rid of just prior to the next moomphing session.  Finally, he starts melting out of my arms, so I flip him again so he's sitting on me, hard.  (Man is he heavy.)  I support the front of him with my left arm while I stroke him with my free hand.  He's still purring, but now he wants my left hand to pet him, too.  He pulls one furry arm out of the hold I have him in and rubs up against my left arm.  "Peeeeeeeet me," he thinks to me, rubbing hard and digging his clavical into my humerus in the process.  I reroute my left arm to include his other side again, lest he break something of mine or fall on the floor trying.  "No, no, Sinkie," I tell him softly, "don't fall on the floor just yet."  I keep rubbing and petting and he's purring and purring and repeats the clavical to humerus trick a few more times until finally I feel him stiffen, indicating that he's had enough.  I let him down.  He looks mildly annoyed, but looks up at me.  Then his eyes change again and he rubs up against the side of my chair so I can pet him some more.  After several more long minutes of this, he flops down on the floor and purrs.  The moment he looks away, I sneak in some more reading.

RUB.  Yeah, he's not having any of that, not yet.  So we go through more rubbing of the chair, petting, purring, staring, a contest to see who can do this game the longest.

Now, I have the day off, and I'm making the most of it.  As far as I'm concerned, I don't NEED to read MacLife.  Sinclair just turned five years old.  That five years passed by REALLY quickly and most of that time I was either at work or sleeping.  I look into his eyes, grateful that he's ONLY five, and pet him even more, with earnest love and patience.  I'd much rather remember petting him twenty years from now than I would like to remember reading Mac Life.  As if he realizes that the game is over, he disappears around the corner.  I find him laying just outside the door like a watch-cat, give him a few more pets, unsought, and then settle back in my chair for a real read.

Humans don't own cats.  Humans are willing and doting servants to cats.  And cats, for some strange reason, like their human servants.  Just don't touch their toes.

~w

Windows 98se

Last night and this morning just go to show me how frustration gets me absolutely nowhere. Not that I'll never experience it again, mind you, BUT... here's my newest list of things I've done with VMs.

Goals:
- Install software for my Handspring Visor Edge and successfully synchronize it.
- Install and use Ejay Techno 2 successfully.

Subgoals that arose out of the above:
- Install audio drivers for Windows 98se
- Install Windows XP into a VM

Things that have happened since I spent part of last night and the first half hour of wakefulness this morning on the above goals:
- I now have an XP VM, which I sort of wanted anyway.
- Soran (my Edge) has successfully synchronized to Talon (macbook pro) for the first time last night. It's living in Windows XP!!
- Ejay Techno 2 is working successfully in Windows 98se.
- I researched and found audio drivers for Windows 98se.
- While looking to fix the audio issue in 98, I also found drivers for mass usb devices (SCORE!!).
- Ditto the above, I also found some information on the last real "unknown" device, a PCI System Peripheral. Haven't tried that yet, because I don't care at the moment what it is, but eventually I'll figure that out, too.

Below are my really really happy screenshots. :D :D :D

Now if I could just figure out where to get the proper drivers for my foot, I'd be all set. I wish the human body were this easy...