Happy Valentine's Day to all (for the 14th)!! I submitted my Great Expectations post for the Valentine's Day blog carnival. For some reason it hasn't made it into the carnival, but obviously you can read it here. I am not one to hold a grudge (*sniff* *sniff*) so here it is - the Bestest Blog Valentine's Day Carnival hosted by Cathy:



I really enjoy Blog Carnivals. In this Valentine's Day Carnival There are a lot of funny and touching stories - I don't know about anyone else but I can spend all day reading these posts. So, spread love to the world and read all about luuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrvvvvvvvvvvvvvve.

xxoxoxoxo

This relates back to my earlier post "Gadget Gift Ideas!" After careful deliberation, weighing
up all the options and going to numerous online and real stores, I decided on....(drumroll):





Isn't it cute? The Creative MuVo TX FM 1GB Mp3 Player. (RRP$128.00)

The thing I like best about it is this - you don't have to possess a degree in advanced
electronics to use it. In fact, I pretty much worked it out in 2 minutes flat!!
All you have to remember is press the wheelie thing IN to select something, and
FLICK the wheelie thing to the right or left to scroll through stuff.
Transferring songs and podcasts to the player is easier than I thought it would be.
On your computer, make a couple of folders, (name them "Nirvana" or "The Clash" etc.
- and don't pirate the songs!! Buy the CD.) then put the songs in the folder and you are
ready for the MP3 Player.

Turn the player OFF.

Pull the player apart (see diagram above) so you have a USB plug showing. Plug the
USB into your computer's USB port, if it's Windows XP, it will automatically install the
drivers - otherwise you can use the installer CD that comes with the player), then open
the player (it will show up as a removable disk).

Copy the folders + songs to the player.

In XP right click the "Safely remove hardware" button at the bottom right of your taskbar.
(see diagram below)


For those of you who know CSS, think people are stupid when they put a space instead of a slash
or a <>....

I apologise. These instructions must seem slightly cave-man-like. Uh.

(hehehe...I'm pretty happy with this one!!)

However, there are some of us (even some nerds!!) that find using some machines could be
so much easier if someone just spelled it out. I mean, think of the time it would save!!!
Yes, you can work stuff out, but if you can get the answers straight away it makes things
that much simpler. Well, that's what I think, anyway.

But I digress. The point is, I like taking this little player on my walks, I made a folder called
"Walking", filled it with a lot of up-tempo songs (so I won't slack off on the pace!!) and
I just choose "Shuffle folder" and I'm away.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Tech Tags: drawings gadgets creative MuVo MP3 plater 1gb instructions

Sometimes you can find bargains in the most unexpected of places. Determined to find a new pair of tracksuit pants
that didn't look excruciatingly daggy, I scoured Ebay for ages, searched Rebel Sport and all the usual suspects.

I wasn't having much luck unless I really wanted tracksuit pants similar
to the ones pictured:




Sexy, no?
Okay, tracky dacks are not the high point of fashion.
But I'm not wearing them for a fashion statement - I am wearing them to go running. If I start to go out on the town
wearing clothes like this, you have permission to shoot me!

But, back to my search. By chance, I happened to be in Mount Waverley walking towards the station
when something caught my eye. On a rack outside a small local shop I saw the holy grail of tracksuit pants:
(insert Hallelujah chorus here)



Slender lines, delicate piping, flared boot leg style. I grabbed the tag - it read "$10.00"

I didn't even try them on (they only had S, M and L and if you don't know where you fit in here then you need
some scales and a measuring tape!!). I paid the money and walked towards the station on a shopping Cloud 9.

It just goes to show that synchronicity can apply to shopping as well as other matters!!

I always find this a difficult one - what do you get your partner / love of your life / penguin
for Valentine's day?

It is a day of ridiculously high expectations fraught with danger and innuendo.

I mean for example, if you get the person a nice bunch of flowers, there are all these
bizarre rules.

Don't get them yellow roses because that means "I like you, but not in THAT way"

And forget pink camellias because that is deemed to mean "I am longing for a man"
and you don't want to appear desperate.

Striped carnations mean "rejection" and "sorry I can't be with you"
(where do you even get striped carnations anyway?)

Thankfully, red roses mean "I Love You"

But what happens when the roses start to wither? People get awfully superstitious
about such things and a nice gift can turn into a weird bouquet like those flowers
in "Supernatural" in the bit where the zombie is making the ground unholy.

There I go on the unholy ground rave again. I am trying to write about Valentine's Day.
That's what you get for being born a Scorpio.

So forget flowers. Then you have the gift section. Teddy bears. I don't know.
What does a grown woman / man do with a teddy bear? And if you get one every
year it turns into "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" and people get freaked out.
That was the problem with that play, the guy should never have bought her dolls
in the first place. Dolls are in Stephen King novels, in Chucky movies, but I'm steering
clear of them for Valentine's Day. Did I mention dolls really creep me out?

I can't imagine why.



No dolls.

Seriously.

Okay, what have we got left? Oh yeah, all those weird tacky presents like the
elephant underpants and shiny silk boxers with little hearts on them.
You know what?
You might want to give these a miss. They could backfire on you and make you look
like a weird pervert. I mean those edible undergarments are just hideous. If you want
your partner to think you are weird, cheap, pervy and tacky, then go right ahead.

Hmmm. I'm running out of options. There are those "Romantic Adventures for Two"
things on those corporate entertainment (isn't that an oxymoron?) websites. So if you
really wanted to, you could risk both your life and the life of your loved one in a tandem
jump coordinated by a man who takes far too many steroids. It's totally up to you.

So then there are the romantic getaways in Balinese-style huts that look incredible until
you realise you can't smoke in the huts OR on the grounds, you can't light tealight candles
or any other sort of candle so the atmosphere is severely lacking, you are surrounded by
other stressed-out couples trying desperately to relax while dealing with nicotine
withdrawal and rampant boredom. There are only so many times you can sigh and say
"isn't this nice" before you want to kill somebody.

So what can you do? Lock yourself away in a room with all the windows boarded up until
the daylight rises over February 15th? Perhaps. Or you could get a nice card, write a
message that actually means something, buy some choccies, get a nice bottle of wine and
go out to dinner.

xxxoxox

I don't know what it is. Perhaps the stars were out of alignment. Perhaps Mercury was in retrograde. Perhaps something was in the water.

The fact is, the Ebay Jinx has not been put to rest. See "The Dreaded Ebay Jinx!" post.

It makes me think of Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - Dream Warriors where Amanda Krueger
(Sister Mary Helena) says:

"The unquiet spirit must be laid to rest. It is an abomination to God and to man."

I must defeat the Ebay demon before it is too late.

There is only one way to start.

I'll be going to Ebay now and you know what I'll be shopping for...

So as I venture off to parts unknown I will leave you with these words:

"You are about to attend a funeral...one that's long overdue"
(Nightmare on Elm St 3 - Dream Warriors.)
(Again.)