I have a new addition to my household. :) She's adorable, fuzzy and named Carmen. I apologize for links instead of embedded pictures, but I have to get ready for work, and time that would have been spent resizing the pictures for LJ friendly viewing was spent fixing upload paths in my gallery install because Dreamhost moved my server and I hadn't uploaded anything since then. Now it is after work, and I can create thumbnails to do this properly. Here are pictures:

I am in lust.

I remember the first version of Das Keyboard that was $80. Mechanical switches and no markings to eventually wear off, a computer geek's wet dream. I wanted that version of Das Keyboard, even though I knew $80 was more than one really should be paying for a keyboard. Now the price is $129, and they offer a pansy version with markings on it for those who can't type or share their computer with people who can't. If I give in and spend more money than I can really justify on a keyboard, you can bet your ass that I will be getting the nice version without the markings. ^_^ At least they don't charge more for the version without the markings.

My last keyboard, a purple thing that gave me like six or seven years of service before it died from a bad wash job on my part, had easily half the keys worn enough that they no longer had any sort of marking on them, and another third worn to the point it was hard to read. After only a year or two of use, and only a small number of the letter keys worn to the hard to read point, I was intimidating people against using my computer simply because they couldn't read the keyboard and didn't know how to type correctly. Ha.

The keyboard I'm using now, an old IBM thing I'm technically borrowing from my mom's boyfriend...but he's not likely to need/want back since it's for an old Windows machine that was long ago retired and replaces by Apple machines, is starting to show the signs of a year or two of my use. There are keys that are all but completely worn of their marking, and more that are worn just enough to concern some people. The thing that is awesome about this keyboard, and probably the thing that will sell me on Das Keyboard whenever I do finally kill the IBM off, is that it has the mechanical switches in it. The extra depth of the key depressions is nice, the extra click behind each key stroke is a delight, even if it is coming at me through the sounds of Babyland, David Bowie, Heart, Led Zeppeling and whatever the frell else I'm listening to currently. The only thing I dislike about the IBM keyboard is that it's that horrible horrible beige that all computers were in the 90s. Das Keyboard is a nice sexy black.

I did enter a contest on Think Geek to celebrate their being around for 10 years, and if I do win one of the prize levels that include shopping sprees of various dollar amounts, I will have to get myself Das Keyboard. So sexy.

My perception of reality doesn't usually intersect with everyone else's very well. I have a hard time knowing where my paranoia ends, and my justified worries start. I also have a hard time realizing when I'm missing important details I really really should be paying attention. I read things into situations that aren't there, I dismiss things as paranoia when I really shouldn't and I completely miss things I should have been paying better attention.

I also have a tendency to spend too much time worrying about things, and not enough time actually doing them. I worry about how hard it will be to find another job, so I never do any job hunting. I worry about how hard it'll be to learn to drive, and it took me multiple years to get my license where it usually takes most people in my generation only six months, and that's partially because they're obligated to take classes and have a waiting period.

I randomly become aware of these things for the oddest reason. I'm usually completely oblivious to these details, even though I can spout 'em back at people regularly enough that it's become standard for me to tell people I trust "just be painfully blunt with me, sometimes that's the only way I get a clue". However, when I become aware of these things I worry about stuff like how the people I care about see me. I find it hard to understand how anyone can be patient with me despite my failures at human interactions. I also constantly joke that it takes so much out of me working customer service, taking care of my customers, that I don't have any energy or effort left when it comes to dealing with the people who actually do matter.

Right now, I'm mad at myself because I haven't been able to go out and visit drwho4 at his house on my days off within the last few weeks. Between the way my work schedule has been jerked around, all the crap I had to do to my apartment on account of the jackasses with the unit above me being neglectful and destructive of their apartment and it leaking into mine, and my having the attention span of a gnat and being unable to buckle down and do a solid uninterrupted bout of work on anything, I just haven't been able to make it out there. I had been hoping he was going to come out tonight, I could have used the company, but the convention he volunteers for is coming up in about a month and a half, and the deadline for the scheduling crap he has to do is at the end of this month. So he elected to stay home and work on that stuff tonight, instead of coming out here a night early.

In tangently related news, I bought a copy of Watchmen yesterday, as I wanted to read it after enjoying the movie. I really liked Rorschach in the movie, but you get a little deeper into him when you read the graphic novel. Where most people just seem to take him as a curiosity, as bad ass and awesome to watch, or watch with morbid curiosity, I find myself identifying with him. Sure, I haven't been through the extremes he went though, I don't see myself as randomly stalking the streets and kicking ass in order to reach the greater good, but there is a part of me that wishes I could. There is a part of me that understands his logic, that agrees with his choices. All of them.

So, I found my dragon ring. I guess it'd been in a pants pocket, as I found it in the bottom of the washing machine when I was transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer. Horray for finding my missing ring. The ring I bought to replace it, it's still missing in action, but since I liked the dragon ring more, I'm glad that's the one I found.

Also, I found my bottle cap pocket watch, I just need to go get the battery replaced, if possible, so that I can start using it again. Hopefully the watch repair department in the Sears will have the triangle head screw driver needed to open it. If not, I've found a couple places online I can order the right tool from, and it's not that hard to replace the battery once I get the right tools to open the thing up.

In not as shiny news, I've been having to clean up my storage room when I would have much rather been out at drwho4's house the last couple nights, as the jackasses upstairs managed to flood their sink again... and this time when I went in to inspect the water damage and make sure none of my stuff had gotten wet, there was black mold found in the wall. Shiny. So likely the landlord's going to have to make a mess of my gorram apartment to fix it, and I'm forced to gut my storage room on short notice when I had other things I wanted to do to decompress.

In only mildly related news,,, Anyone want an old Sirius satellite radio receiver? I don't know if they'll reactivate old deactivated equipment, but I have no intention of using it again, but as far as I know it still works. It had a car docking station, a home docking station and a boombox to go with it.

I also have a Palm m130 that I may play with again... but if I don't, that'll likely need a new home too. I can't promise I'll actually be giving this one away, but if someone can give it a good home, should I decide I don't want to mess with it, please let me know.

Something wrong w/ LAN & my computer can't get online. Unsure when it'll be working again. Suspect hardware issue, but I don't have access to troubleshoot.

It feels so gorram empty here now. I just finished packing away most everything I own into the one room I have that isn't getting its carpet replaced. Now I just get to hurry up and wait for my landlord to get the carpet people out here. Jackass has not bothered to let us know what the plan is, even though we told him that he needed to do this on one of my days off this week, so I can help with the moving of stuff since he's going to bitch about it if he needs to pay to have people move stuff. Of course, we told him my days off this week were Tuesday and Friday, and now that Tuesday is gone, that leaves friday. I'm fully expecting jackass to just send the carpet people without actually calling us to tell us first.

I should probably move my soda, juice and dehydrated lunch substitute, but I'm not sure where I should move it to that'll still be easy to get at when I leave for work. They're fairly contained, and will be fairly easy to move when the time comes.

I am half expecting to get woken up tomorrow morning, before I've gotten my 8 hours, because the carpeters showed up without the landlord telling us first. The mother's boyfriend talks big about sending them away if they show up without warning, but frankly I'd rather suffer the lack of sleep and get it done so I can get things back to normal sooner rather than later. Also, he's been talking big about dealing with the jackass land lord for a while now, but ultimately the manners his mama taught him win out, and he just plays nice.