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Humpday Hilarities

Today’s funnies start off with this one I’ve seen on both I Has a Hotdog and Facebook:

And next is this one from Tumblr:

And last but not least, this awesome bit is courtesy of one of my Aion legionmates:

A pair o’ Harleys

It’s funny that because my main character in Aion is named Harleykin, many people assume I’m a biker. Actually, she’s named after one of my favorite Batman characters, Harley Quinn. I like Harleys, but don’t own one. (might be nice … someday) That said, I do LOVE their gear. Especially their boots.

What can I say? I’m a woman and I love shoes — namely BOOTS!

I had a pair many years ago and wore them until the soles literally fell off. Sadly, it ‘s hard to find a good long-lasting pair of boots. Next to some old Doc Martens (a staple in every self-disrespecting goth girl’s wardrobe don’tchaknow!), they were my absolute favorites. Well I decided that it was time to invest in another pair of good boots. My early birthday gifts to myself are the fitness trainer sessions that I mentioned last week and these beauties:

These are a pair of Harley-Davidson “Robyn” riding boots for women. I normally prefer a more ‘military’ style, but once I saw these I was smitten!

Because none of the local retailers here carried this style, I had to order online. I’ll tell you what — when my package came in, I tore into that box like a 6 year old on Christmas Day! There’s nothing like the smell of new leather. It’s easily one of my favorites!

I’ve been wearing these lovelies everywhere trying to get them broken in. So far, so good!

Once some of this weight starts dropping off, I can invest in some ‘skinnier’ (e.g. not ‘hide the fat baggy’) jeans and sport them around properly.

I’m excited.

The State of the Blog

Time sure flies when you’re busy! I hadn’t meant to go this long before posting again. Whoops!

Things are going better. Christmas was great over all. I scored some great gifts from my hubby, spent time with friends and family, and was just grateful for … everything, really. Things aren’t fantabulous, but they are a lot better now than they have been over the last couple of years. Work is still uber-busy, which is a good thing. I have so many friends out of work, I know I’m very lucky to have a job right now. It’s not my dream job, but I like the place and I like my coworkers. Most importantly, it pays the bills and the benefits cover my family’s needs … I really can’t ask for much more than that, now can I?

I’m still spending a lot of my spare time gaming. Aion just had another significant update and the next “big” one is probably 6 months out. It’s fun, and I’ve met a lot of cool people. I have a few “real life” friends who play and I get to keep in touch with them that way. Plus Jess and I both play on the same server and it’s fun to just do that as a mother-and-daughter fun time.

Heck, I even created a whole separate blog just for my gaming stuff: Daevic Flux. (I didn’t want to dump all my game stuff on here because I know not all of y’all wanna see that )

So I guess I can’t complain about much going on lately. (Well, I could, but it wouldn’t do much good! LOL) I know I’ve been quiet … things are just busy, and busy is good, I think. Jess is growing up into a beautiful young lady right before my very eyes — and getting more like her father every day (oh boy, the attitude and that mouth, LOL!!!!). We have good days and bad days, but luckily things are mostly good.

Warmer weather would be nice to have though — NO MORE SNOW!!!!

So … y’all stay in and stay warm. Feel free to keep sending me funnies — they really do make my day.

Humpday Hilarities (late edition, oops!)

Wow, it’s November already … where has the year gone? John and Miranda’s wedding is tomorrow, Jess made All-County choir, and work has been in overdrive since the beginning of time, LOL! Sorry this is so late, I’ve grounded myself as punishment and promise to do better next week!

These are courtesy of some of my Aion gaming friends:

Humpday Hilarities

This morning we have a few goodies courtesy of my pal Cookie:

The doctor, after an examination, sighed and said, “I’ve got some bad news. You have cancer, and you’d best put your affairs in order.” The woman was shocked, but managed to compose herself and walk into the waiting room where her daughter had been waiting.

“Well, daughter, we women celebrate when things are good, and we celebrate when things don’t go so well. In this case, things aren’t well. I have cancer. So, let’s head to the club and have a martini.”

After 3 or 4 martinis, the two were feeling a little less somber. There were some laughs and more martinis. They were eventually approached by some of the woman’s old friends, who were curious as to what the two were celebrating. The woman told her friends they were drinking to her impending end. “I’ve been diagnosed with AIDS.” The friends were aghast, gave the woman their condolences and beat a hasty retreat.

After the friends left, the woman’s daughter leaned over and whispered, “Momma, I thought you said you were dying of cancer, and you just told your friends you were dying of AIDS! Why did you do that?”

“Because I don’t want any of those bitches sleeping with your father after I’m gone.”

And THAT, my friends, is what is called “Putting Your Affairs In Order.”

Thought for the Day

Women are like phones:
They like to be held, talked to, and touched often.
But push the wrong button and your ass is disconnected.

And this one is courtesy of one of my guildies:

Aionfox updated to version 1.2

I’ve uploaded the latest version of Aionfox to the Mozilla Firefox Addons site. Like the previous versions, it has not been approved by the Mozilla editors yet, but it can be downloaded by checking the “Let me install this experimental add-on.” box and installing directly from there.

This version is the “working” version for Firefox 3.6. Unfortunately, in updating for Firefox 3.6, localization was broken and has been removed. No other changes have been made YET — but I plan on uploading another update within the next week or so with updated content and will try to fix localization ASAP. So, for now, all of the NCsoft links point to the NA server. (I hope to have this corrected soon!)

This version of Aionfox was tested in Windows XP, Vista, and 7. If anyone has any questions or problems, please PLEASE let me know.

I’m on a treadmill

Ever feel like you’re doing lots of running, but going nowhere? Yeah that’s been me lately!

I know things have been a little too quiet on here over the past few months. Rest assured, overall things are better … not outstanding, but better than they were. Things between me and Jim are a lot better. We’re not “fixed” by any means, but we’re talking a lot more, fighting less, and things have moved forward in a positive light. In fact, we’re actually working on the house again and hope to have it back on the market pretty soon.

We’ve order new furniture — I’m REALLY excited about that! We’re getting a new couch and a “lift top” coffee table. It’s basically a normal-looking table where the top lifts up, to like a dining or normal utility table. My mother-in-law has one and I have always LOVED hers. I had no idea that these things are available pretty much anywhere, you just needed to ask for it by that name. So I’m stoked!

Geekery

With our tax return money, Jim’s upgraded his PC with a smokin’ hawt processor and two new graphics cards. Me, I got a new laptop — an Asus G72Gx-X1. It’s an Intel quad-core with 6Gb of RAM on Windows 7 64-bit. It has a nice 17″ screen and 640Gb of storage space (more than enough to store my old data and anything new I need). I still need to replace my old backup drive that ate itself (lucky me, my husband recovered everything!), but am so far really pleased with my setup. It’s very shiny and HAWT!

hehehe, I can’t wait to show it off at the next LAN party!

I’ve been really happy with Asus’ laptops over the years. My old one is going to Jessie, so of course she’s excited. This also helps as a motivational tool with her grades. So far, she has done REALLY well this year and has stayed on the Honor Roll. We talked to her before letting her know that my old laptop would be hers, and expressed quite plainly that if her grades fell, this would be one of the first privileges taken away. It’s tons faster/newer than her old tower PC (my old green monster, sniff!) and would handle Aion so much better, so she’s really stoked about that!

Jess and I spend a lot of time in Aion nowadays. Jim reached level 50 on his main and “took a break” — meaning he got bored with it and will probably come back when the 1.9-2.0 patches come out. Me, I’m still loving every minute of it. Jess too — she’s already maxed out on alts, LOL! I joined a really great guild named Rogue. They are pretty active and laid back and even have both Asmodian and Elyos members, so it’s pretty cool to chat on their forums and vent with players from both factions.

Work stuff

Things at work have gotten busier. Hehe, I didn’t think that was possible. I’ve gained new responsibilities, which is a good thing, but I’m tons busier now than I was so that means pretty much no free time at work. Oh well, the pay is nice and I really like my work environment. My co-workers are good people and am learning tons, so that all makes it worth it in the grand scheme of things.

There are times that I miss UAB … but hearing from friends about how things are now, I’m glad (overall) that I’m no longer in that mess.

Jim’s still looking. The IT market here is still a huge sucking black hole, but I’m seeing more jobs in the paper now than there were 6-9 months ago, so I’m taking that as a good sign. Of course Jim’s over-qualified for 99% of them and so I think that’s why he doesn’t get any call-backs.

I think sometimes he resents me because I’m working and he’s not. Had I known then what I know now, I would have insisted HE interview for my job and me stay at home. Oh well, him being at home has been a real blessing. Jessie loves spending more time with him — and it means that on days where we have her, she doesn’t have to deal with her mother at all.

She and her mother aren’t getting along any better. I think she “endures” her mother as best she can (and can relate), so we try not to be too hard on her when she and her mom have spats. Her mother isn’t the easiest woman to get along with and considering her mother’s mental state and past history, Jessie does a damned fine job if you ask me. I see a lot of my father in her mother, and pray like Hell that she grows up to be better than me, than how I turned out.

I think she will be. Jessie’s very strong-willed and she amazes me every day with how smart and perceptive she is. She’s getting tall too. I can’t believe she’ll be 13 soon. Seems like only yesterday she was 4 years old and running around my house casting Harry Potter spells.

She was SO CUTE!

She’s already wearing makeup and having her monthly visitor. She’s more into boys and video games than cartoons and karate now. And like I mentioned before, she’s doing very well in school. She has new friends that she texts almost every day. She’s blossoming into a wholly new little person and I feel blessed to be able to just be part of her life and to see it happening.

I tell her all the time that she and Jim were the best thing to ever happen to me. I don’t think she believes me, hehe.

More family stuff

Things between me and my father have digressed pretty much back to not-speaking. My mother and I are getting along better, as long as we avoid certain topics … like my husband, and him not working. If I bring Jim up in conversation, she changes the subject.

Ah, just like old times …

I don’t think I really talked about Thanksgiving and Christmas on here. Things were bad enough because of the problems Jim and I are having … and I think they were made worse with our visits to my family. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas my father ignored us. I mean sitting down in another room, pretending to be oblivious to anyone or anything around him, not speaking to any of us when we spoke to him, ignoring us. Both holidays, we went over there and that’s what he did — he went into the TV room, sat in “his” chair and said nothing to any of us. What pissed me off was that when my brother and his family came over, he would get up, be lively and interact with them, and as soon as they left, he went back to his chair in that room.

I was humiliated, and furious. And quite honestly am thinking of not seeing my parents any more during the holidays. I know that doing this will hurt my mother, and will probably damage our relationship further; but I cannot and will not continue to be ignored, looked down upon, or have my family be treated like we’re a bunch of second-rate citizens. Honestly, just thinking about it right now is raising my blood pressure and making me very angry.

Maybe I still have unresolved issues. Maybe my father is just an asshole. Either way, I’ve decided not to put my husband and daughter, whom I love more than life itself, through that any more.

So, how are you doing?

A few of you I’ve heard from off the blog. I really miss interacting with everyone and would love to hear how y’all are doing. Please feel free to comment below, or just holler at me via email!

Aionfox issues with Firefox 3.6

This post is long overdue, I know. :p

Shortly after updating and resubmitting my Aionfox addon to the AMO sandbox, I realized that changes in the way Firefox 3.6 handles addons prevented it from functioning properly. (or at all). I’m in the process of researching this but free time has been scarce lately — things at work are uber-busy right now. Rest assured, I’m aware of the issue and plan to fix it.

For the time being, Aionfox version 1.0 works just fine in Firefox 3.5. If you had it installed previously before upgrading to Firefox 3.6 you can enable it via the Nightly Tester Tools. As it stands, version 1.1 does not work in Firefox 3.6. Considering it’s going to have to be pretty much re-written from scratch I’m most likely going to pull it from the development queue and take another look at the localization while I’m re-coding.

Note: I’ll be needing beta testers and will announce via Twitter and Facebook when the next version is ready for testing!

Want to try out Aion before buying?

NCsoft has announced a new a “Refer-a-Friend” program which allows current players to invite friends to try out an Aion demo account.

YAY!

So here’s what you need to know:

Aion demo accounts are good for 3 days, 5 hours, or level 7 — whichever is reached first. After that point, the Aion demo account expires. All of your character information and progress is retained so that if you decide to buy the game, you can continue from there. You can buy Aion from the NCsoft Store or any participating retailers.

Interested?

Contact me with your email address!

Call me ‘Proud Momma’

Wow, tomorrow’s Halloween already. How time has flown! We’ve been uber-busy over the past few months. Jim is doing ok, still looking for work. I’m doing ok at my new job. Things are finally starting to settle down and I think I’m getting the hang of things. I’ve been there nearly 6 months, though I still feel very much like a n00b some days, LOL!

We’re still working on the house here and there as time permits. We’ve started renovating both of the bathrooms and have started painting each room one at a time. Once Jim finds work, we can start the financing stuff again. The builder’s company that currently owns the home we want has been great about extending our contract as long as we need it, so that has definitely been one less thing to worry about!

We’ve all been spending our spare time playing Aion (as I’m sure everyone has gathered by now, LOL!). It’s been a great experience for Jessie so far. It amazes me how quickly she has picked up the MMO lingo and how she interacts with other people online — both in our guild and in pickup groups. Aion has also been excellent motivation when it comes to good behavior at home and diligence in her school work. She’s allowed to play Aion as long as she keeps up her studies and her grades, and so far it’s working great!

She’s doing REALLY well this year in middle school. She loves her teachers, her classes, and having more kids come in from area feeder schools has put a good mix of kids in her classes (rather than the same 20+ for the last 6 years). For the most part, she’s getting along much better with her schoolmates from what we can tell. We know there have been small “picking” events, but nothing near like the bullying she experienced in the elementary school. (although it helps that the two biggest bullies are no longer in the JeffCo school system — one is at an alternative school and the other now being homeschooled and “getting treatment for issues”)

Jessie is a completely different child now, it’s absolutely amazing.

I had been meaning to post about this for a while, but what prompted me was a story posted in The Birmingham News today about Trey Figures, a 12 year old boy in Anniston who committed suicide earlier this week. Reading Trey’s story broke my heart, not only because he is the same age as my child, but also because he was being bullied in a school that was completely unaware of the problem, and wasn’t doing enough to correct it.

I know I posted a little about Jessie’s bullying in the past on here. I can’t tell you how many phone calls Jim and I made to the school office, how many parent/teacher conferences we had, or how many meetings we had with the vice-principal and/or principal. (We even spoke with the parents of one of the kids who bullied her the most and even that proved fruitless.) The fact of the matter was: the school ALWAYS promised to do more, but what little that was done was never enough.

Honestly, Jessie never really started doing better until she was out of that school for good. Like most kids, she’s never the most excited in the mornings about actually going to school and doing classwork and accompanying homework, but she doesn’t beg me NOT to take her anymore. She doesn’t beg to stay out of school or stay home. She comes home in a good mood, instead of crying or sitting sullen in constant hostility to everyone around her. There’s less attitude and general bad behavior at home. You can tell just by being around her that she is a happier child.

Oh, and her grades have finally come back up! Did I tell y’all she made the A-B Honor Roll? She was just a few points shy of having straight A’s!!!!

This child hasn’t done this well since the very beginning of her school years!! The feedback we get from her teachers has been very encouraging and tells us that she is not only doing better at home, but in also at school and in class. She no longer acts up. She’s genuinely interested in her favorite subjects again and now applies herself more. One teacher put on her report card that she’s a “very respectful student.” Another tells us she “puts forth a lot of effort in class.”

Who wouldn’t be proud of that?

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a proud momma, and I’m sure Trey’s momma is no different. This morning I read Trey’s story and thought to myself, “That could very easily be any child — even mine.”

While I am very thankful and know I am truly blessed to see this wonderful transformation in my child, it breaks my heart to see a mother who won’t get the chance to see it in her own. As a personal favor to me, please keep Trey’s loved ones in your prayers.

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