You can really win? Wha?

Task 094. Win a prize on Winster

I’ve been playing on Winster since March and accumulating points.What it is is a site where you can play games (for free, or there are different levels of membership)and accumulate points for actual prizes. I was a member for awhile, but then I didn’t have as much time to play as I did, so I canceled my membership. I was actually going for a bigger prize, but without the membership, your point levels don’t accumulate as quickly (you get 4x the points when you’re a member vs just a regular user), so I decided to cash them out for a smaller one. So, for 3,000,000 points, I have won a $15 gift certificate to Amazon.com!

Now I get to decide what to buy!

It’s a two-fer!

Task 015. No nail biting for a week.

I’ve done it! I’ve not bitten my fingernails in (over) a week! This was the one thing I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do – I’ve been biting my fingernails as long as I can remember. I’m so very proud of myself!! I even sent a picture to my mother (lol!!). I’m so very happy to be crossing off Task 015. Now let’s see how long I can keep it up!

Task 096. Delete my MySpace profile.

Today, I’ve also deleted my MySpace profile. Hooray!! I hardly ever checked it anyhow, and every time I did I was overloaded with spam and whorish pictures. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as my grandmother used to say. There goes Task 096!

Now to update my master list!

Under the Dome

034. Read 200 books

Book 006 was Stephen King’s Under The Dome. It was very, very long. I had gotten my hands on the audio book so I could listen at work. The whole thing was 34 hours long! I’d forgotten my mantra when reading his books – don’t get attached to any character!! The fictional city of Chester’s Mill, ME had a population of over 2000 people on “dome day”. By the time the ordeal was over, they were down to 16. Yes, you read right. SIXTEEN PEOPLE survived.

He does seem to have some stereotypical character “formats” that run through a bunch of books. I did notice some similarities between characters in this book and It. I could see a lot of Henry Bowers in Rennie, and a lot of “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough in Barbie.

I have to say, though, it really irritated me that all of the “bad” characters were Christians and Republicans, and stereotypical ones at that. Rennie was depicted as practically worshiping a poster of Sarah Palin on his wall. I did find this post that explains it much better than I ever could. This review on Amazon is very well written, as well.

The resolution was disappointing. Clearly, an alien device was at work in creating the Dome, however, it was never clearly explained just WHAT it was. A child’s toy. A universe within a universe.  Almost like a mirror within a mirror.  Children playing with a doll house. All it takes for them to stop is “Please?” Seriously?  Also, there’s no satisfaction in “defeating” the bad guy.  Also, the man who was reading the audio book gave them all Southern accents instead of New England ones. Go figure.

Be forewarned.. there are GRAPHIC depictions of gang rape and murder, as well as rampant drug use (Because, of course, all of us Christian Republicans use drugs, rape, beat, and kill people!).

Quick update

I’ve got a lot of things in progress, but a lot of my goals are ongoing anyway.

I’ve been working on 015. No nail biting for a week. So far, it’s been three days. I’ve been tempted, but I try to consciously remove my hands from my mouth in time. My hands look prettier already!

I’ve also started my first scarf for 044. Participate in the Red Scarf Project. I’ve got about six rows done. Not much, but it’s a start! I try to do a few rows when I’m having a hard time falling asleep. It helps calm me, I think, so falling asleep is easier.

I hope to be updating more in the future!

Day 35

092. Get external hard drive.

Scott and I had been discussing getting an external hard drive for about six months, now. He agreed it would be a good investment for us, and then I went about researching what we’d want. We decided (well, I decided) that a 1TB would be best, that way we wouldn’t need to get a new one once that was full. Our hard drive on the laptop is 320GB and that’s almost full, so we’d need at least double that, and I figured I’d wait until I could get a good deal on a 1TB.

There were some on newegg.com that were fairly inexpensive (about $120) that would suit our needs fine. I’d been holding off to the new year. Then, when we were in Syracuse visiting family for Thanksgiving, I went to Target with my mom because they had the iPod Nano that Alex wanted on sale and in stock. They also had the first 3 seasons of Supernatural on sale and in stock, but that’s another story! On a whim, I took my mom over to the peripherals section of electronics. They had a ton of the smaller HDDs but only 1 (ONE!!) 1TB, on sale for $109.99. I snatched that puppy up quick.

We ended up with a HP Simple Save. It works really well. It comes with backup software pre-loaded. I deleted it all to have more space, though, so I can’t tell you how it works. All I need to do is drag and drop what I want to the drive. I’ve moved all of our audio/ebooks onto it and made a shortcut so that we can still access them from the desktop like we used to. So far, all is well and I plan to move our music library over and figure out how to get the Zune software to recognize it all. I’ve also read you can install the Zune software directly to the HDD and run it from there, so I might look into that instead.

Update: Day 14

I’ve completed task 095, which was to get up to level 30 in Fish World on Facebook. That’s when you can buy the really cool fish to make your life easier. The shark eats your adult fish, saving you the 15% fee for using the “Sell All” button, and the algea eater cleans your tank for you.

Yesterday I watched 2 movies to add to task 035. 21 was just “okay”, nothing spectacular. The male lead was kind of weak. In all, I give it 3 out of 5. I also watched Interview With the Vampire. Oddly enough, I got bored after Claudia died. Bleh.

Finally finished!

I finally finished task 099, which was to finish making my list. It only took me three weeks (lol!). I decided to be a part of this project in mid-October, aiming to start November 1st, and one week later I’ve finalized my 101 goals. I actually had 102 and had to eliminate one. The one I eliminated counted too heavily on the actions of someone else and I don’t know that person well enough to say they’d commit to helping me complete it.

So.. here we go!

Geek Code

I have compiled my Geek Code

GH/S/ED d– s:++ a C++ |U P L- |E W++ N* |o K- w+ O– M– V– PS– PE+++ Y+ PGP+++ t+ 5 X R tv b+++
DI+++ D G e+ h– r+++ x+++

Day 1.

Well, it was Day 1.

017. I’ve got a few underway, most notably the one about Invisalign. I’m not sure if this is a goal we’ll be able to accomplish,simply because our insurance doesn’t cover adult orthodontia at all, and we’ve got some debt to work down. I have, however, taken the first step in getting my troublesome tooth removed. The oral surgeon and the dentist agree that with the baby tooth gone, the tooth behind it may move more into place simply by the pressure of my tongue. Either way, there’d be no charge for a consult with an orthodontist and then we’d have a better picture of what we’d be looking at down the road.

040. I’m also knocking down the freerice.com goal of 50k fairly quickly. I may need to increase that goal. I’ve also gotten my friend Jenn to play around on it and she got up to 2k in about 10 minutes.

025. My first PostCrossing went to a 10 year old boy in France. His profile seemed really cute, he likes animals and scenery.

035. Scott and I watched Slumdog Millionaire this evening, and surprisingly we both liked it.

Whoa!

I’m scheduled to start in about 36 hours and I still don’t have my list finished. I’ve already got a few goals in motion, and I’m looking forward to getting a few more rolling after I officially start. I need to get my finished list into a document or my checklist app so I’ll have it with me wherever I go.

I’ve also decided that the books read for the Classics goal WILL count towards my yearly 50book/50movie goal.