twenty years of macintosh!!
yes, folks. on january 24th, apple introduced the macintosh. lately, i've been marvelling at how apple is always behind everything cutting-edge. very few people know how instrumental apple is. most people are already familiar with the obvious achievements like the G5, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, and many other innovative apple computers and products. but did you know that apple partially owns FireWire? and i'm sure everyone's familiar with Pixar, but how many know that steve jobs, co-founder/CEO apple, was co-founder of Pixer also? yeah. and if you look at the end of the credits for the Lord of the Rings movies, which had the best CG that i have ever seen, there's an apple and a blurb that says "Rendered with Pixar's RenderMan." if you see something totally new and innovative and amazing, there's a big possibility that apple is somewhere behind it. and now their greatest innovation is 20 years old. everyone, no matter what his os, should at least respect the mac. heck, if it hadn't been for the macintosh, we'd still be using commodores. :c)

around the world in 80 seconds
i don't have kazaa; i don't trust kazaa. i don't trust cheezy mp3 memberships either. i just want my mp3s free and without strings. or porn. eesh. and while i think the iTunes music store is one of the greatest inventions of our time, i'm a cheapskate. :c) so in these days of kazaa and iTunes, i have to travel from one end of the internet to the other to find a song. and that's if it's popular. i've been all over the world. i've been to dingy russian sites that remind me of MIR. i've been to creepy japanese sites that are covered in hoochy anime cartoons. i've even been to a ukranian site. i can translate some of the text on the spanish sites. then i give up and use the systran translator in sherlock. :c) well, i still haven't found the song yet, so i'll get back to work.

good news bad news
the good news: my pen drive works splendidly! it's been dropped on concrete and washed in the washing machine, and it still mounts flawlessly on my desktop. what a marvillous piece of technology! i've garnered a whole new respect for my gritty little flash drive.

the bad news: my sister went to the hair cuttin' place to get dark red streaks. more like intense stripes, i guess. but not highlights. and that's exactly what she got. highlights, except it's mostly red. apparently there was a communication breakdown even though they had a picture of exactly what she wanted. it's not bad, actually. very cool, but not what she wanted. and it's not easy to pay $80 for something you didn't want. that's why i'm too afraid to want something, especially if people with cotton in their ears will end up distorting it.

speaking of cotton, i'm using cotton between my toes so my skin won't fester or "macerate," as the article said. we never went to the doc-in-a-box, so i decided to ask jeeves instead. the bruising and bluish-grey color of my toe and surrounding foot supposedly means it's broken, and if it doesn't get better in the next day or two, then it probably is broken. so meanwhile, i'm just splinting it with its neighbor. i've been getting around better, though. and since amber strained her ankle, she can't run away from me at school. heh heh.

aaarrrrghh!! (not yeeaargh!!!)
webmd must be the worst site i've ever been to. the first time i tried to use it, it was confusing and clunky and i don't think i ever found what i was looking for. now, i'm trying to view a page about broken toe symptoms because i STILL haven't gone to the med clinic, and i'm very curious. it has finally loaded, after several minutes of being stuck in a javascript quagmire. and everytime i would click away, it would load more of the page, so i would click back. and it would start all over and never load. geez!! people hate waiting. especially people with cable modems and maimed digits.

who am i?mrs. g?
guess who's 256 mb flash drive got washed with the darks this afternoon? after 3 close calls, it finally happened. now it's undergoing a complex dehydration process over the air vent.

of course, my flash drive's poor fate pales in comparison to the condition of my little toe on my left foot. i've stubbed it many times in the same way, in the same place, yet it has never hurt so bad for so long and turned the entire top left of my foot such an eerie shade of cyanosis blue. tomorrow, the med clinic to see a University of Pakistan alumnus. for now, ibuprofen and the constant ache in my teeth from the orthodontist appointment yesterday are keeping the pain tolerable.

oh, and my dad thinks the random luching and shuddering of my car that has been happening recently might be the engine cutting out. he hasn't done anything about it. but each time i see that little engine-shaped carbuncle glowing on the dash and feel my car shaking like a mad cow, i'll be reminded that i've no clue what to do if the engine does cut out. oh, time for more ibuprofen now.

yeeeaaarrhh!!
i really don't care who wins the iowa caucus or the new hampshire caucus or the bathtub caucus even. i am interested in who came in third in iowa, though. if howard dean hadn't fallen from his high horse, he wouldn't have lost his mind and given us this precious sound bite. gosh, i'm going to have so much fun with this.

the better to stab you with, my dear
i don't deal with stress very well. it gets manifested mostly through mysterious physical problems, like random sickness, unless i blow up on somebody. that helps sometimes. but usually when i'm under stress, i tear off my finger nails unconsciously. there is, however, a nail that i try to avoid ripping. my right thumb nail is like a utility knife. i can cut tape, scrape things, stab my sister, etc. i have managed to keep my left thumb nail and enough nail on my index fingers to make them useful. but it's my right thumb nail, aka "utility nail," that is starting to become more pointed. like a talon. i don't mean to file it that way. it just happens. so it's starting to cut things i don't really want it cutting. like cheese. haha. yeah.

we should have named him stitch
biscuit loves to chew. luckily he doesn't chew on important things like wires and shoes. but things like cardboard boxes and chew toys and trash are his favorites. but he doesn't just chew. oh no. he systematically destroys things. the dog toys made of el cheapo rubber no longer squeak and now pepper his poop with florescent green and hot pink. it's frightening how he works over a cardboard box. he doesn't just shred it; he gnaws patiently to weaken the supports before ripping it apart, pushing with his paw for leverage. and when he chews on something he can't destroy, like a tough rubber chew, he whines and cries. he must have a chemical imbalance. maybe some doggie paxil would help.

dried lizards and justified anger
my sister got a bamboo curtain for christmas which she hung over her window. this afternoon, she noticed something bumpy on one of the bamboo sticks. closer inspection revealed the bumpiness to be a tiny dried lizard clutching the bamboo. its eyes had decomposed, i assume, because his sockets were empty. and it wouldn't have bothered me or my sister so much if the lizard didn't look so...different. its strangly shaped head made it look like a little dragon. like a tiny, dried, demon lizard. eesh.

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oh, and biscuit came back from the vet today. and he was mad at us. and rightfully so. the vet said that neither he nor daisy would notice anything different. and while she had no clue the she was fixed, biscuit could tell something was missing, and he knew we were responsible. so he's been peeing on the carpet to spite us. i can see the spite by the way he'll squat right in front of us and wag his tail when he scream and gnash our teeth. it's dreadfully annoying, but i don't fault him for it. i just hope he doesn't hold a grudge.

biscuit vs. the vacuum cleaner
daisy went to the vet today to be fixed, but biscuit didn't really know she had left. he's been looking for her in the house. well, as soon as he caught a glimpse of his evil nemisis The Vacuum Cleaner, he knew what had happened. The vacuum had eaten daisy. now he's clawing and scraping at the linoleum floor in front of the closet where the vacuum is. my dad even showed him the vacuum and demonstrated that it was harmless, but he still wouldn't let up. he whines and screams and barks, trying to talk to daisy, i suppose. when my dad changed the overdue bag was probably the most traumatic. he pulled a daisy-sized bag out of the belly of the vacuum. now he's lying prone on the floor, staring at the closet. maybe a little snip-snip will take care of his neurosis.