"Comet hits rural Canada." Quite possibly the strangest spam-mail title I've ever had. That's a bit mean, that is.

My hair is in that awkward mid-length stage, and will be for some time to come while the damn stuff grows back. I do need to get it cut again, but when I got it done in Halifax, since I have some natural wave and at this length, it's pretty much guaranteed that some of it's going to curl so that it flips out, she cut it so that it would all flip out and look like it's supposed to be that way. Which was awesome when it was first cut, but as it's gotten a bit longer it wasn't working so well. Yesterday, I discovered totally by accident that the way to make it look properly messed up the length it currently is, is... comb it straight and don't touch it until it's dry. Ahahaha. Here I've been messing it up like I had to when I first got it cut this way and not getting it to work quite right, and all I had to do was leave it the fuck alone. I'm all over that! :D

Cradlesong doesn't drop until the 29th/30th (depending on your location) but as of today, you can go check it out on VH1's "The Leak" or on Rhapsody - the entire album is streamable, free. So if you're at all curious, go have a listen! I would be more squeeful about this but my Internet connection has been being a majorly fickle bitch and not staying connected for more than a few minutes at a time, so it actually hurts less to wait than it would to get to listen to like a minute and get booted. Oh, the irony, considering the Digital Britain report was released today and one of its major recommendations is that broadband Internet is now an essential service like gas, water, electricity, and so on. The Internet is a utility! LOL. Their plan is to roll it out UK-wide by the end of 2012. While I think it's a concept whose time has come, that really doesn't help me any right now. *eyeroll*

The spam I've been getting lately amuses me. First there's the rash of stuff about swine flu, as opposed to the standard pharmacy/viagra/etc. stuff. Then today, I got something about Disney princess gowns for the bride-to-be. Oooookay.

Most of y'all are probably familiar with the Punk Goes... series of compilation albums; I'm pretty sure I've posted AFI's cover of My Michelle before, and there are MxPx covers bloody everywhere, lol. A more recent one is Punk Goes Pop, which I didn't pay any attention to, but it has a version of Santana and Rob's Smooth on it. Someone's put it up on YouTube and, well, it's interesting. It's surprisingly straightforward, musically. They might have chosen a band with a stronger singer - he sounds quite like a whiny loser for most of it, and not in the cool self-deprecating way that Bowling for Soup can sound. But interesting, nonetheless.

There was going to be more, but I'm tired and crampy and headachy and thus whatever it was is gone. I am also feeling this song a little too deeply lately.

Subject: for [email address]

First line: Once you're a man again, nothing is impossible for you
-----

Ohhhhhhhh, so thaaaaaat's the problem. *giggles* *goes back to getting ready for work*

TGIF! That hasn't meant anything yet this month, lol. But man, waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep for like an hour and a half sucks. *eyeroll* I would so love to just go back to bed right now.

I finished my long-distance Christmas shopping today, bleurgh, and remembered in the process why I had kept putting it off: it hurts. Focusing on people that I am not going to be able to *see* at Christmas makes me miss them hardcore and thus I spent most of my shopping extravaganza time in some level of tearing up. I did not, however, actually cry. I'm saving that for tomorrow night, when I wrap all this shit and package it up without the amazingly unhelpful assistance from a small furry animal who likes shiny curling ribbon. And then on Saturday, I will haul ass up to the post office first thing in the morning (God help me!) and it will be done. My godfamily is just getting various British sweets and the like and a note that I'll need somewhere to stay for a week or so in February so who wants to volunteer? *g*

Which, yeah: Toronto-area people, I'm going to be *in* your area in February. I haven't finalised anything yet, but my tentative plans are to go to Halifax first for 1.5-2 weeks, then Ontario for 1-1.5 weeks, which should be over the long weekend that only schools and governments get - which is also Valentine's, so if anyone wants to say fuck tradition and, y'know, hang with me on V-day instead, that would be cool. :D I will most likely be staying at my godparents' and that is... wait for it... in Acton. I'M WORTH THE DRIVE, GUYS! *dies laughing* I may have access to a car, actually, and if I don't, I'm probably going to rent one, because I will go batshit if I have to depend on my family for drives (and take one of them with me everywhere, ack). Besides, I am DEFINITELY going to be heading downtown T.O. (oh God I hope I remember how to drive in there!). There are a few places I want to hit - the correct Paradise Hut had better still be there, man, on the east side of Yonge between College and Wellesley, or I shall be pissed - but most of those I can and likely will do myself on a weekday when y'all are working. I would, however, *love* to go to the Kool Haus, if anyone's up for that. It didn't exist when I last lived there! How strange. Anyway, I'll babble about all that more later but I'm putting y'all on notice right now. My only concrete date is that I have to be back in Southampton by March 1st, because March 2nd is the first Metallica concert, hee.

Weird little occurrence: I have three email accounts that I use regularly, and when I signed on tonight and the notifs popped up, all three had five emails waiting. O_o I am just glad that there were *five* and not six, lol.

Oh and something else that probably only the TV-watching Canucks will get, but when I got home all teary and tired and carrying bags and shit, I came up the stairs and sniffed the air, and said, "It smells like burnt toast." And promptly cracked up. Heritage ads FTW!

Is there a way to have two gmail accounts, and/or two gmail notifiers, open simultaneously? Likewise, is there a way to have two AIM accounts open simultaneously? *Besides* Trillian; I tried that and found it insanely confusing. :/ Is there another option for Windows users?

Dear Gmail,

Why must you choose this morning to crap out on me, when I am attempting to use your service to actually DO something? Yahoo has hissy fits all over the place, which is one reason why I rely on you when I want to keep track of something important. EXCEPT YOU'RE NOT WORKING!!!

No love,
Tas

I know a lot of people on my flist use Gmail (googlemail) as one of their email accounts, and through a writers' list that I get, I found out about this freeware plugin-type program that does this very cool thing: it creates a shell drive, a G drive, in your computer. Once created, everything you drag and drop into the G drive is automatically emailed to your Gmail account, with a specific filename added to the beginning of the subject line/filename so that you can set up a filter in your account to auto-archive the emails and label them however you want, thereby bypassing your Inbox. I'm using it myself and it works beautifully. The program creator does release new versions of the program as Gmail changes their interface, so make sure you bookmark the site and check back if something stops working. :-)

The main reasons this is so awesome are: a) Gmail has a huge amount of storage, and b) you can email yourself important stuff, like, oh, manuscripts. That's the application that the writers' list had emphasized, because it came up right after one of the members had had major damage to her home and had lost her manuscript along with her computer. As revid is always reminding us to back our stuff up, this is yet another way to do so, and on a web interface that you'll be able to access from anywhere, too.

Also on that note, I have 2 Gmail accounts myself and over 100 invitations between them, so if anyone wants an invitation to create one, lemme know either by commenting or emailing me.

Yeah, still offlined at home, which is driving me up the fucking wall let me tell you. Perhaps a 12-step program might be helpful? :P

The crack!fic is progressing nicely however; it's going to be in 3 parts. *dies* Writing it's making me pretty squirmy - think that's a good sign? *laughs*

Note to the Elders: if I can't get on over the weekend, I'll bring my CFN post on a disk and do it from here blind on Monday. Not my ideal choice and you're stuck with w/e I give ya then, but it'll go up and I can always edit it later!

Btw, if someone knows the direct URL for gmail and could post it in a comment, that would be lovely. I've realized that I have no two clues how to get to it from just Google as I always use a bookmark. *facepalm*