Recent comments, fish, etc

I have been remiss in responding to comments (shame on me). Jenelle: I'm sorry things are sucking so much, dude. Try to hang in there. Major life changes and decisions are never easy, but they do make you grow and if you can avoid the trap of bitterness, they turn you into a better person. Em: welcome back to the land of the living--er, blogging. :) Philip: I did enjoy Half-Blood Prince, a lot. I'd like to write all about it, but I don't want to spoil anyone's surprise at the ending. I have the time to devote to reading, so I finished the book already, but not everyone has. Suffice it to say I was surprised, and felt a few things could have been tweaked a bit more to make it better, but who am I to criticize anything J.K. Rowling does when she kicks so much more ass than I do? And, skating when it's even a little bit damp out just doesn't work; I might as well be trying to ice skate with rollerblades on, my wheels are so slick. Oh well. Greg: glad you visited; I'll be back to yours. Heather: I found out I could bake cicada wings by just trying it; those sculptures are easier to make if you bake the wings in than if you add them on after, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. That keratin stuff, if that's what the wings are made of, is pretty tough. BG: thanks for your comments; I like your site, even if it is hard for me to read. :) Chip: I've totally been walking around with my eyes closed just to see if I could pull off blind. Usually that ends quickly when I run into something. I suppose it's all about adaptation.

E, your post yesterday about your brother was very well-written, and it made me start thinking about my own brother and how much I miss him. His new wife has effectively severed all his ties to our family (cough*manipulative demoness*cough). I'm putting together some videos and slide shows for my parents of goofy stuff my brothers and I have done, and it's sad to look at us all having so much fun and to know that he's totally distant from us now. I wish he'd come back; I wish his wife would come to her senses. I wish he'd stop being, well, insert crude term here that means "letting his wife control him utterly."

So, the fish crisis. I was sitting at the compu last night blogging when I heard a bunch of thrashing and splashing in the fish tank, and when I investigated, of course the big-ass cichlids were trying to kill the big-ass oscar, and splashing large quantities of tank-water on my living room carpet in the process, so we had to rig up some sort of solution since we didn't have another tank/filter to put the oscar in. We wound up suspending a big mixing bowl with a snack-bag clip to the top of the tank and putting the oscar in there. That allowed filtered water to circulate but kept the oscar out of reach of the others. What am I saying "we" for, I mean "I" came up with this solution. M was half-asleep and unable to figure out what to do and surly at all my suggestions. We'll see if the fish survives the day; we both had to go to work today, so the finding of a more permanent solution has been put off until later.

My new camera STILL has not arrived. The tracking link says it's in Lexington. Rrrrrr. So close...

I took a walk at lunch because I was so restlessly bored with proofing new products/special offers. The gates to the Bengals practice field were open, which they never are, so I went out on it and took some shots of downtown. They've got a great view from down there. But I bet they're too busy sweating and grunting and knocking each other over to appreciate it. I didn't realize that the rusty train tracks went over part of their field, but I didn't take pictures of them because I want to find a better angle, and I want to do it with my new camera. If it ever gets here. And if those gates are ever open again.

All right, back to the grind. Nine more days 'till M's birthday...can't wait. I have the greatest gift lined up. I hope.