The Grand Master (both of them!) at his best. Spider Robinson did a fantastic job fleshing out RAH's outline – Variable Star has the spirit and flavor of the best of Heinlein's work.

I was a little worried at the first couple of chapters; they were good sci-fi, but the contemporary references were a bit jarring. But soon enough I was totally immersed in a true Heinlein universe. The book was quite deftly inserted into Heinlein's Future History timeline, with a chilling reference to current events bringing about the election of Nehemiah Scudder.

If you're a hardcore Heinlein fan, it's a wonderfully rich story that will remind you of the Master throughout. If you just love real sci-fi, it fulfills that desire just as well.

In a little over four months, I'm going to be 40. The big Four-Oh. Age is just a number, but I've been noticing… changes that I'm not too thrilled with. One, of course, is the grey hair. Hoo boy I've got more grey than I need. Granted, it did start turning grey in my early 20's – but now it's probably at least 30-40% grey. I've been playing with color for so long, I'm not exactly sure, but the hair at my temples and roots is looking awfully grey. ;)

The other change I'm not so thrilled about… … are the changes in my cycle. I've always been rock steady at 27-29 days; now I vary from 25-35 days. Before, I'd get some cramping every once in a while; now it's every time and a bit worse. Up until recently, my flow was relatively light; last month… well, I'd never soaked through a tampon quite that badly before. (Hey, don't blame me – you clicked the link!)

Also new is the two days of grumpy whinyness where anything that goes wrong is the End Of The World. o_O I'd rarely had PMS before, now (that I've figured out why I'm so teary) it tells me exactly when I'm going to start. It's disconcerting, because I'm not a person that cries easily. Tonight though, took me to Outback, so I'm considerably less disgruntled than I was earlier. Steak and a chunk of chocolate cake will do that for ya. :)

Anyway, I really can't complain – my uterus, though I have no use for it whatsoever, doesn't hate me nearly as much as some *cough**cough – for which I am forever grateful.

It's just… weird, this whole aging idea. I remember a day in third grade – there was some lesson or something that mentioned the year 2000, and I remember figuring out that I would be 33 that year. At 9 years old I couldn't conceive of being 20 let alone, 33. Now, I'm having the same problem wrapping my head around the fact that I'm going to be in my 40's. When I started with LiveJournal, my journal name was 30something. I'm surprised, yet pleased, that I'm still “journalling”, as it's something I've never really been able to do consistently. One could argue I'm not all that consistent here, either. :)

And… now I'm just rambling, which means it's time for bed. Oh – one thing (completely unrelated to aging) that amused me today: Our waiter at Outback (on his last day there and hilariously funny) told us that apparently there were a bunch of Outback executives and such from around the world in Austin this week. One from Australia. o_O Yes, apparently they've opened an Outback in Australia. I can't begin to fathom the amount of wrongness in that concept. I was highly amused.

I’ve ordered stuff from play-asia (imported!) with no problem. Hell, I’ve had no problem buying stuff on ebay. But these guys?? Forget it.

Timeline:

June 30: Pre-ordered Talking Sumomo figure from Toys N’ Joys. It was supposed to be available August 30th.

July 21: Charge for Toys N’ Joys showed up on credit card statement.

August 22: Emailed Toys N’ Joys to find out shipping date

August 23: Toys N’ Joys says “I will check on this and email you.”

August 30: No response from Toys N’ Joys; sent a more emphatic email.

August 31: Toys N’ Joys says “Sold out, sorry!”; sent email back to cancel order and demand refund.

September 2: Toys N’ Joys says “Your order has been canceled per your instructions”

September 5: After weekend & Labor Day, checked credit card – no refund.

September 14: Checked credit card again – STILL no refund. Called credit card company to dispute charge.

I’m annoyed.

Hey look! Entertainment Earth has it. We’ve never had a problem with them, either.

Nothing to see here, really. Nothing interesting anyway. Well, it’s interesting to me of course. Sorta.

Look! A kitten!

Just seeing if this will post to LiveJournal.  I'm not sure it'll post to WordPress, so chances are I won't use it.  But, as Gir always says… “What's that do?!?  What's that do?!?”

I'm trying a new crockpot recipe today – Chicken Chow Mein. It's out of one of our newer crockpot cook books; last week I tried the beef stroganoff recipe and it was loads better than the recipe I used to use. So, I figured it'd be worth it to try different recipes, especially since I only tend to make 2 or 3 things with the crockpot.

So. Things I need to get done today…

        drop husband off at work
        mail package to in-laws
        get a few things at the grocery store for dinner
        get crockpot started
        get Pandora's food from vet
        empty dishwasher
        load/run dishwasher
        finish cleaning up kitchen
        laundry. maybe put it away this time?
        move video games to new cabinet
        dust out entertainment center
        contemplate how to reorg the entertainment center w/ the consoles and such
        vacuum. again.
        cuss at stupid dog dragging stupid mud in from stupid yard
        feed dog
        feed cats
        pick husband up at work

I love writing things down that I've already done so I can mark them off.

Anyway, I've got to get to the vet. Poor Pandora only has one can of food left. She's liable to hurt me if I don't have food for her. ;)

Using Blazer on the T|X to make an LJ post.

Writing in Graffiti, wheee!

Things are always more complicated than they should be.

Shiny has been acquired. I went with the Palm TX, because I really couldn't justify the need for the LifeDrive. Really, this TX is fabulous, and all I really need or want.

It is now also syncing w/ iCal, AddressBook, and SOHO Notes. Due to my own stupidity, it took me a lot longer than it should have. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to convince it to install a couple legacy apps that I (heart) dearly, plus <insert ominous music here> SmartList To Go.

We'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow, I will also try to convince my network that the TX is indeed allowed to use the wireless network, and also see if I can enable Bluetooth synching, because the business end of the USB cable looks scary (flimsy) as hell. It does have a cute little button on it though.

But, that's all the tech hassles I can take for one day.

Thanks to 's reader we know that Firefox extension AdBlock is causing the Firefox kablooie livejournal pages.

The CSS LJ serves up for ALL users is getting caught by adblock. Most likely because of “ad_base.css” in the code.

Anyhoo, if you're using adblock (and WHY aren't you?!?) just whitelist this:

http://stat.livejournal.com/??lj_base.css,xc/basic.css,xc/menu-normal.css,xc/normal-fonts.css,ad_base.css,xc/extended.css?v=1154390211

Problem solved… until they jack w/ the css again.

EDIT!!!! Actually, just whitelist http://stat.livejournal.com/ – that will work much better.

Read this link. It's all I would want to say about 9/11 if, you know, I wrote good and all.

I'll be skipping the movies and as much of the hype as possible.