tales of an ordinary girl

I read this article from L's blog earlier today and it was enough to make me feel ill. When I got home Matt told me about this similar news report.

Basically a woman was pulled over by police and arrested for traffic violations and outstanding warrants. She repeatedly told them she was 3 months pregnant and bleeding and they ignored her and threw her into jail. I couldn't find it in an article, but Matt told me that in jail they gave her three changes of pants due to her bleeding but never allowed her medical assistance. She miscarried the baby the next day.

I know it's difficult to be a police officer, but anyone with common sense shouldn't make mistakes like these.

How pissed off would you be if a convicted sex offender registered your email address?

My feelings on music/movie piracy have always been mixed. I agree that mass file sharing violates copyright laws. And yet, I've downloaded my share. Usually I buy the music if I like it or delete it if I don't. For me it's a good trial run. I've bought too many CDs over the years that ended up crap, even with the short preview in iTunes.

But mostly I feel that the entertainment industry has stepped over the line. But after reading these articles I hope there's some room for DRM reform and compromise.

I can log in to blogger from work now without getting a 'blocked for sexual content' message. It must have just been blogger in general for a while. But I'll keep my posting to a minimum anyway.

It's been a pretty uneventful week. There were new episodes of American Idol to watch, although 2 hours is much too long. They need to keep it to an hour. And the State of the Union Address to avoid. I suddenly needed to do laundry and dishes and Matt suddenly became interested in QVC. I did read the transcript the next day though. Eh. And then, of course, Battlestar Galactica is back.

Matt and I had an amusing little back and forth about that. He was saying we were going to watch The Apprentice and of course I was saying BSG. They weren't on at the same time though so we watched them both live. I swear though, Trump is the most boring reality figure out there. And it irks me to see his mouth move. Ivanka is ok, I guess, but her lips look like they're about to detatch and float away. I know, I know, I'm mean.

BSG was good and opened up all kinds of possibilities, but I'll refrain from commenting about it to spare encephalaphone since he hasn't seen this season yet. And he deserves to see it unspoiled because, of course, he's the one that got me hooked on BSG in the first place.

Matt got the Wii hooked up and has been playing lots of Wii Sports. Wednesday night he got the wireless network working and it ended up working for my PSP as well. Now I should be able to switch over and use the internet from it while we're out if we're in a wireless zone. I really don't see much use for it though except maybe to check movie times if we want to see a movie and didn't plan on it (though I think It'd be easier to check via phone text messaging to google).

And then last night he set up a new remote that will control all of our entertainment gadgets. He has it set up so that if "Watch PVR" or "Play PS2" is selected it'll turn everything on and to the correct setting to do exactly that. It's pretty cool.

I've been tired lately. Hopefully this weekend is quiet and relaxing.

Logging on to my blog from work has been blocked. What's worse is that the little blogger login screen at the top of every blogger blog has also been blocked... all under the category "Sex". Ugh. I'm hoping it's a temporary thing, but I don't want to keep getting flagged, so I'm going to not look at blogger from work for a few weeks before I check again to see if it's still blocked.

In the meantime I'm trying to get my google reader up and going with RSS feeds from all the blogs I read. Hopefully I can keep up my fix that way. I don't know if I'll be able to post comments though

This is what life is all about.

I recently had a chance to get my hands on a Street Pilot c330 on loan and I have to say I love it. It's incredibly easy to use.

Once I set a location to "Home", I was able to use the "Go Home" feature that conveniently gets me back out of where I've gone. It also has voice commands that allow me to leave it on the seat and forget about navigating until I hear the friendly reminder that a turn or exit is 0.2 miles ahead.

The navigation is intelligent enough to recalculate when I stop for gas or a store on my way home. Though is it just my imagination that the voice sounds a tad annoyed as it directs me to make a u-turn? It must be me.

It also has a large listing of restaurants and shops nearby that I can select and request diections to. It did not have Jose Peppers though when I tried to show the features off to friends. Oh well, one restaurant out of hundreds missing. Is that anything to complain about?

It automatically tracks my position on the map, even when I'm not using it for directions, and seems to be very accurate. I've also found that the "Detour" option will reroute me when a street is closed or traffic is moving slowly.

I've used it on my everyday routes and it's actually pointed out a turns that are better than the routes I normally take, allowing me to avoid school zones. I'm not sure yet if that was intentional or just coincidental.

One of the best features is the estimated time of arrival, that updates as you drive (if needed). I can turn it on, select my work address, and start driving, knowing just how late I'll be. It's also a handy reminder that today it only took me 12 minutes to get to work despite a slight slow-down at 119th. I must be getting better at this driving crazily in heavy traffic thing.

I've never really thought of owning a GPS before and now I can't imagine living without it. Too bad it's not useful enough in my everyday life to justify the price, but maybe as a luxury someday.

Goodbye, Street Pilot c330. I'll miss you.

I made a great find yesterday in a softer world. Well, actually I have to give Websnark credit for an article about it. But the best find of all was Overqualified. "#6 JOB SKILL: I show initiative" is my favorite so far.

Er.. I mean, please leave a comment. If you'd like. Thank you.

Can you hear my sarcasm? At least someone has noted the layoffs.

1. Tell me 1 piece of information about yourself that I really should never know:
I like to have secrets.

2. Tell me 2 colors that you would never ever ever wear:
buttercup yellow and pumpkin orange

3. Tell me 3 things that you love to eat:
Homeade macaroni & cheese, chocolate, and steak

4. Tell me 4 things that you would never ever serve to a guest at your dinner table:
Roadkill, veal, undercooked chicken, and dirt
There are a lot of foods I don't like, but I don't mind cooking them for other people, within reason.

5. Tell me 5 things that you keep forgetting to buy from the supermarket:
Dishwashing detergent, garbage bags, paper towels, floss, and light bulbs

6. Tell me 6 things about the Autumn that you love:
cooler weather, standing outside and watching the stars, stepping on fallen leaves, feeling the sense of change, more paid holidays from work around the corner, and taking pictures of the trees at peak color

7. Tell me 7 things that you value about your family:
laughter, familiarity, compassion, affection, craziness, distance, and respect

8. Tell me 8 things that you like to watch on TV:
Dexter, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Heroes, Big Brother, Survivor, American Idol, and Good Eats

9. Tell me 9 things that you loved about school:
history, friendships, writing, watching the sunset while drinking wine (in college), learning, debating, not having a serious job, structure, and freedom

10. Tell me 10 of the little things that you love about life:
listening to music, watching sunsets, looking at clouds, friendships, conversations, playing computer games, watching movies, taking naps, reading, and writing

Stolen from PBS.

I just finished reading Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. In the end it was a pretty good story, but it was a bit of a slog for a while. Even as much as I enjoy the history of ancient religions, it had me yawning a few times. And the programmer bits didn't seem realistic (not Swordfish unrealistic, but still unrealistic). The characters were also a bit one-dimensional (though I really liked Hiro).

But overall, I think the author pulled it off and the story came together in the end. I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone though. If you liked Neuromancer you will either like it or find it a copycat. It's updated and has some interesting ideas, but Stephenson doesn't do it as well as Gibson.

My next couple of books are books I received for Christmas. Though this one I received last Christmas. I'm a bit behind. And I still have 4-5 borrowed books to finish too. Time flies too fast in the evenings.

I had a great new year's eve and new year's day. I thank Second Life for the entertainment and good friends in general for letting a dork like me hang out with them. A big "screw you" to the weather on Sunday for being so crappy, but I guess it did give a nice atmosphere for staying in. Monday was beautiful, so I can't be too upset.

I've been thinking about resolutions, but I don't know if I'll do any this year. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It feels a bit odd and embarrassing to post a bunch of resolutions that I may or may not accomplish. I have to think about it some more.

Work is going pretty well today and I've given myself a project. Hopefully playing around with Visio today won't be too frustrating. I've lost access to chat because it's blocked here at work. So for those of you I used to chat with pretty regularly, I'm sorry. I'll try to drop a line to let you know if you don't read here (um, yeah, that made no sense).