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Bratfink
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Name: Bratfink
Gender: Female
Interests: I crochet, stalk people and things with my camera, read, and enjoy vodka and a box of good, fine wine [but not together!]
Expertise: NEAT STUFF ==> www.jordanessentials.com/rephome.php
Occupation: Currently occupied with what's
Industry: WRITE ME! Bratfink (at) crawle
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/2/2006
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| My new hangout: http://planetbratfink.blogspot.com/
See you there!
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| Hello Everybuddy!
I have stopped by to tell everyone that OVI, who has hosted most of the pictures on this blog, is closing their doors and after May none of the links I have used for photos will work anymore.
It's a shame, really, because I took a lot of really funny pictures. A lot of them were of The Boy's hair twirling--and if you missed those your life will forever be incomplete.
I hope you are all doing well because I am! I almost died at the beginning of February and spent 8 days in the hospital but I survived to tell the tale. Or not tell it, as I choose. Reply to this post and I'll tell you all about it. Guaranteed to make you fall asleep faster than Ambien!
The cats are fine and Boobs says "Meow!" Kitty Orca is not as paranoid as he used to be and he has been known to come out of the cat room and talk to our visitors.
I KNOW! 
Woffie is still a pain in the ass and has The Boy trained. 
I'm out of here.
Be well and be happy. 
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| ~I Asked For Slippers~
You know how people are always saying stuff like "She's so hard to buy for! I don't know what to get her!" That shit cracks me up because when asked I can usually come up with something I really REALLY would like.
You know what else cracks me up?
I NEVER GET WHAT I ASK FOR.
I wanted slippers. I actually NEED slippers. My preferred slippers are the cheap-ass terrycloth mules that most places carry. I don't care about color. I just want a couple pair, please. Three would be nice. Size large. Because I'm old and it's all about comfort now.
A few years back I needed a battery recharger and some rechargeable batteries. I never got those, either. [Until some years later, anyway.]
The Boy's heart is always in the right place, I must say. He genuinely tries to get stuff that he feels is going to be used and appreciated. And usually what the person actually WANTS.
In this, he failed miserably this year.
But for all the right reasons.
Here's my 'big' Christmas present from The Boy this year of our Lord, 2010:
[insert Kith picture here] I SPECIFICALLY told him NOT to get me a Kindle. When he said, "Oh, I'm thinking of getting you one...." I cut him off and said "NO! A THOUSAND TIMES, NO!"
But you can see how well he listens.
As in, NOT AT ALL.
[insert heavy sigh here]
So, Kith arrives, and The Boy is so excited he can't wait for me to open it, so I do. And he tries to placate me by telling me he bought the 'cheaper version', as if this makes things All Better.
It doesn't.
But what's done, is done.
I finished up what I was doing online and I took Kith and his parts to my room to get his battery charged up. I got him turned on [magic fingers!] and I began reading the Owner's Manual, which shows up when Kith is fired up. I easily figured out how to access it and began reading.
Before too long I increased the font and I discovered I could read it without my glasses even though it's not the biggest font I could have chosen. The 'buttons' to turn the pages are accessible on both sides, although I prefer the left side. I figured out how to lay down a bookmark pretty quickly so I could take a nap and pick up my reading later.
I'm actually quite impressed with it, even though I have yet to actually read a book on it. The two books I would like to own right now are books I want in hardcover. One is by Stephen King and the other is the one by Mark Twain.
So, I'll be having to look for a book to download and read on it to see how that goes. I may actually like that for when I read in bed. Right now I have to read while on my stomach--with Kith I can lay on my back.
Now The Boy got me the 'cheaper model' and as far as I can ascertain right now [and hell, I could be wrong] the difference is that if he got me the more expensive model, I could be downloading books AT THIS SECOND. But I can't because I don't have what they call the '3G' model, which means I could access the Kindle Store via the same technology that cell phones use instead of trying to find Wi-fi. There ARE Wi-fi networks around here, but they are all locked, which leads me to believe they are the networks of my neighbors.
The McDonald's downtown here in Cave City has Wi-fi; The Boy is probably going to run down there and use their Wi-fi to register and download something on Kith in the next couple days. There is no hurry right now.
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We interrupt this post, to begin again somewhere else....
That's the post as I started it, without the planned pictures I was going to add just before I sent the post down the Innertubes.
I had the post stashed on my Xanga, but marked 'Private', which means to view it you have to sign in under my name with my password. But if I click on MY link to this blog, it takes me to the page and I can see all the posts, of course, even the private ones.
The Boy, while I was sleeping, came and clicked on MY link to MY blog, and he read the above post, WHICH WAS NO WHERE NEAR FINISHED. It was not meant to yet be viewed by anyone's prying eyes but my own.
You see, I was fine tuning it--because I wanted to make sure I took you through the entire process of me slowly falling in love with the Kindle. I liked holding it--I envisioned slipping it into my purse to take with me when I went out--I was going to admit that The Boy did a great thing for me.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
But I got out of bed to find instead a Raving Boy, because all HE got out of reading the post above the line was that I wanted slippers. While I was sleeping he went to Cheapmart and got two pairs of slippers [which he threw at me, thankyouverymuch!]
I could barely open my eyes and I was subjected to verbal abuse the likes of which I haven't heard since... well, since the last time.
So, instead of a post telling you about this great success of a Christmas present, I am here to tell you that you are reading what will be the last post on Bratland.
Oh, it wasn't just The Boy and his antics. Although that's part of it. I just feel that this is a good opportunity to shut this down here. I considered that after The Mother died, if you remember.
I guess a lot also has to do with coming here [almost] day and posting and getting so very little feedback although my footprints tell me a lot of people seem to be tromping through. I have no idea if they are even the same people tromping through.
Please don't blame The Boy. He's having a rough time this Christmas being the Sole Surviving Member of his immediate family. He's missing the long underwear he always got from his mother this time of year, among other things. He's feeling very much alone. It's going to take him a while longer before he stops missing her. She was, after all, for good or whatever, his mother.
If you ever left me a comment, thank you. You kept me going.
But I realized I really have no point left to this blog. And I no longer want to devote so much time to it. And so I'm going to say good-bye.
Thanks for hanging with me this long.
Keep an eye out. Maybe [and it's a BIG maybe] I'll start another blog somewhere else.
On to bigger and better things!
May all your searches be fruitful!
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| ~I Really Wasn't Complaining~
Wednesday was kind of a funny day. I was in bed when I heard the doorbell ring, and I figured that the UPS man had come by. I didn't get up because I knew whatever it was the UPS guy brought would still be here when I got up. I was right.
When I did finally arise The Boy made me a breakfast bowl and although the smell was turning my stomach, I ate it. The Boy is starting to get a bit concerned about me. I asked him what Santa Claus the UPS guy had brought and it was Season 6 of House for me. I had him put it up next to Season 5, and as he was doing so he was reading the box. "HOLY MOLY! There's 21 episodes in this season!" Now he's all excited. I've seen a lot of them but haven't seen them all, so I will enjoy it, too.
Anyway, he went back to his Lair and I was out here for a while, and he came back to see how I was doing. I mentioned that I thought UPS would have brought more stuff and as I say that The Boy looks out the window and see THREE boxes outside. "Why didn't they ring the doorbell?" he said as he rushed outside.
"Maybe they just knocked on the door, yanno. Not everyone rings doorbells. And if you were in your Lair you wouldn't have heard the knock."
There were two small boxes and one much bigger box. The Boy looked at it and said, "This must be the box from Fiona. It's addressed to you."
He came and put it on the floor by my desk. I realized there was no way I could open this box on my desk so I pointed at it and said, "Take this over there and YOU open it."
Well. You woulda thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He started tearing into that box [and also got the cats' attention.] After removing some styrofoam peanuts [Smiggy seems to really like those so we have to make sure they get into the trash] The Boy looked at the box and said, "I can't tell what it is yet. A printer?"
"Why would Fiona get me a printer? Try again. Take it out."
He did. He looked at the picture on the box and still couldn't figure out what it was. I looked at it and said "OH MY GOD, it's an awesome new toaster!"
Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Haier-TST240SS-Stainless-Steel-Long-Slot-4-Slice/dp/B000MVR7MQ
The Boy took it out of the box and that's when HE got all excited. He said "I've never seen a toaster like this before. Look at those long slots. You could cook a SAUSAGE in there!" He poked at it then said, "We can both have hot toast AT THE SAME TIME!"
Trust me when I say I DID tell The Boy that cooking/heating sausage in the toaster was VERBOTEN. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Anyway, Fiona read the post where I stated that my frozen waffles still had a frozen edge after being toasted. I had not mentioned this to The Boy because, as I said earlier, I'm trying to give up complaining [which is as hard as giving up smoking, let me tell you what!]
So The Boy says, "Why did she send you a toaster?"
"Well, I mentioned in my blog that my frozen waffles still have a frozen edge after being toasted. I think one of the filaments is defective."
To my surprise The Boy said, "I noticed that."
I think he's been eating waffles.
Now in the grand scheme of Things That Can Go Wrong, having a frozen [or even just a still cold] edge to a toaster waffle isn't going to KILL you. If it even discombobulates your day in ANY way, well, seek therapy. It was mainly an observation on my part and in no way did the cold edge of a waffle ruin any of my days.
It was just odd to me because it's a new toaster.
The Boy said, "Well, it was a cheap toaster. I guess you get what you pay for."
This is one of the reasons having Fiona as a friend is so much fun. She's like a fricken elephant; she doesn't forget anything. She remembered when I said way back when that I had never owned a four-slice toaster in my life, and she knew I had a defective toaster. She also knows I enjoy my waffles and she also knows I enjoy my eggs, soft-boiled or fried. Gotta have toast with those for sure!
She also knew that I liked the rack on the one toaster The Mother found for us at the Old Cave that had a heating rack. [Did I tell you The Boy dropped butter in that toaster?]
She forgets NOTHING.
The Boy loves the fact that this new toaster has a CANCEL button. "I couldn't get the lever to come up on the old toaster no matter what I did!"
I told him, "I know. You had to unplug the toaster to get it to cancel. Quite inconvenient, that."
Anyway, I had the greatest plan to show you pictures of the toast this new machine makes, but The Boy has informed me that in order for that to happen he's got to move some stuff around and he's not doing it right now because HE HAS PLANS, DAMMIT! [He wanted to take a bath.]
But really, he's right. The coffeepot may have to be moved.
Another bonus is that the box the toaster came in is CAT-SIZED. The Boy tore off the flaps, threw it on the floor and in about a minute Hootie had found and claimed it as his own.
So, since I don't have a picture of toast, I'm going to share a picture The Boy took. He let Woffie out to potty and came back in and said, "The moon is yellow! Give me Albus!"
 The Yellow Moon
I thought that was sort of a neat picture.
Anyway, thank you very much, Fiona, for my nifty new toaster. When it finally gets used I will report on the results.
Brat takes questions from the audience....
*points at a man in the third row* "You, in the red shirt. Don't play an extra on Star Trek."
*points at a woman jumping up and down* "You, the bathrooms are that way." *points to the right*
*points at a woman meekly raising her hand in the front row* "You. What's your question?"
"What is going to happen to Murray now that Albus has entered your life?"
"Ah, GREAT question. None of your business."
[the audience gasps]
"JUST KIDDING! HAHAHAHA! Gotcha. Actually, I have a friend who has had a Murray for many more years than I ever did. She got a new digital camera recently though and doesn't like it very much. I wrote to her and asked her if she would like Murray as a back up, and she said that she would. So, Murray will be going to a new home where he will be loved and used, along with some extra 'film', which for Murray means floppies."
(\__/)
(='.'=) <== my friend who is adopting Murray
(")_(")
"Any more questions?"
*points at a woman towards the back* "You, in the purple."
"Thank you. Do you have an exciting post planned for Christmas day?"
"As a matter of fact, I do!"
"Will you post it early, early in the morning?"
"Well, it all depends when I'm finished with it, so I can't promise anything. But I DO promise there WILL be a post. I won't be taking the day off like some of the slacker bloggers on the Innertubes. I have my standards, low as they are."
"Any more questions? No? Well, then have a good day and go finish wrapping those gifts!"
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| ~The Learning Curve~
I am an old people. I like things simple. This is why I loved Murray. Murray had few movable parts. [Kind of like me.] Murray was easy to operate. [Unlike me.]
But I needed a camera, and I decided it was time to upgrade. Thusly, Albus has come into my life. And that is what I am here to tell you about....
MY DAY IN HELL.
Getting a new camera means learning a new way of doing things. I knew this. Before I ordered one I asked Naked Sara a zillion questions about the ease of downloading pictures. She ASSURED me that it was "EASY AS PIE, BRAT."
I didn't think about the fact that Naked Sara is the pie maker, NOT ME.
Forgetting things is what always gets me into trouble.
So, the camera gets ordered and for shits and giggles, I ordered a camera bag, too. I had visions of putting my video camera in the camera bag since I don't believe I ever got a camera bag for Wilson.
But I digress.
Days go by and the UPS guy brings me a package. I open it knowing full well it's the camera bag, which shipped first. Imagine my surprise to see the thing measured [I kid you not!] about 3.5 inches by 4.5 inches. I was like Holy shit! Is this the size of the camera I bought? I did not go back to the website to see the camera specs. At that point I already knew I WAS FUCKED.
Tuesday arrives. My camera arrives. I'm hopeful because the box isn't a small box. I cut the tape, I open the box, and pull out this minuscule THING.
In my head I said, Rut roh....
You know, I'm someone who HATES sending stuff back to anywhere. I'd rather find someone to give it to if I can't make it work for myself. But once again, I had Naked Sara's assurance that this was an EASY camera to operate. I charged forward and took stuff out of the box.
One of the first things I did was shove that sucker in the camera bag to see if it fit in there.
It did. Like a freaken GLOVE.
Oh crap.
Well, I lay the camera aside and go through the paperwork looking for the owner's manual. I know I have to put a battery in the sucker. Only where the hell was the fricken battery?
It was still in the box which was presently in the trash. I dug it out and made sure everything was taken from the box. They have these hidey holes in boxes these days to protect even parts that can't be broken by anything less than something explosive.
Just figuring out which way the damned battery went in was a nightmare. I finally had to look at the contact points at the bottom of the battery compartment and match them up to the battery. This is where having a bit of brains and common sense comes in handy.
I got the battery installed, consulted a paper that said GETTING STARTED included with the camera, and turned it on.
We had power!
At this point I should tell you that I looked for something you might call an Owner's Manual, but I didn't find one. What I DID find was those words on a CD-ROM included. Oh joy. I set everything aside again and read the one piece of paper that DID have some sort of instructions on it. [GETTING STARTED.]
Then I snapped a couple pictures and decided to download them to my computer.
This is where shit gets funny, only I was not laughing. Not then. Hardly now even.
Naked Sara said I could take the pictures right from the camera to my computer via the USB cable that comes with the camera. I could not figure out how to do that. It was probably in the Owner's Manual, but I had to put the CD in to access that. I did so.
Then I went to My Computer, clicked on E drive, and it gave me an error message.
Are you laughing as hard as I was?
Supposedly this CD had software that would automatically download the pictures to my computer, only the CD didn't seem to be working properly. I looked at the CD and saw it was manufactured in China and I thought perhaps it was defective, because you know that would be JUST MY LUCK.
Back I went to the only sheet with any kind of instructions on it. That's when I saw that it 'seemed' to say to hook up my camera and turn it on VIA A SPECIAL BUTTON ON THE CAMERA, and then the CD would work. I did that, and suddenly, there was a Wizard on my computer monitor. That Wizard, of course, was Albus.
So, I tell Albus to download the two pictures I had taken but not to delete them from the camera. Just in case. And I'm so glad I did that, because those pictures were downloaded to some UFO because I sure as hell have yet to find them on my computer.
OK. Trying again. I start up the Wizard and try something new. I tried to upload to Xanga. No go. I try to upload to OVI. No go. I'm ripping my hair out at this point because all I want are my damn pictures!
A brain storm. I'll try dragging and dropping a picture into an IM with Bratsis.
That didn't work either.
At this point I am screaming and yelling and swearing up a storm and The Boy comes out of his Lair to investigate.
It's not often he gets to see me in such a state and I'm sure he enjoys it when he can.
He asks me what the problem is and I tell him, and then he says to me, "Maybe your pictures are too big."
OMFG. I hadn't thought of that.
So I hover my mouse over one of the photos and it shows me that the photo is some ungodly huge size and I'm like "Great. Now I have to figure out how to resize these muthas."
The Boy tells me I should get the free software he used to use all the time--something I won't name here, but suffice to say I looked at it and thought I may as well be using Photoshop. There HAD to be an easier answer, and I was going to Google and find it.
People, the Google gods were with me, because I ran across the most marvelous thing. It's called a Power Toy for Windows. To resize a photo all I have to do is locate the picture on my hard drive, right click, choose RESIZE and then a GUI pops up and gives me size options. How much fricken easier can you get? I MEAN REALLY.
It doesn't delete your original picture; it adds another one with the size added like this to the name (smaller).
I used it on the photo I posted of the Foodsaver, so you can see it worked.
Here's where I found the download: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx [Look on the right hand side of the page--says Image Resizer.] This one is for Windows XP, by the way.
I told Bratsis about it, and she ran to find something she could use. Her overly-large photos keep her from posting more pics on her blog and her beastly husband takes forever to resize stuff for her. Since she is running Windows 7 and 64 bit [overachiever!] she used this: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/image-resizer-powertoy-clone-for-windows-7vista/
Since accessing the CD is a pain in the ass I got on the Google once again to find a downloadable version of the Owner's Manual. I found one, created a folder on Hawk, named it ALBUS, of course, and put the manual in there. That's also where I'm going to download my pictures to.
Which brings me to the easiest way I have discovered to do that.
I plug my camera into Hawk, access it via My Computer, then double click on the picture I want to save. It brings the picture up in a picture viewer, and I save it at that point. I have to remember that I want to save it in jpeg format, though, or it will save as a bmp. I can't upload my pics as bmps to the places where I upload.
The Boy took a picture later in the evening, I'll be sharing that here shortly, and at that point he came out and told me Albus was full. I then opened up my Owner's Manual to try and find out how to take smaller pictures. I couldn't locate the instructions before getting a headache reading, so I played around with Albus and figured it out on my own.
But I DID find some interesting information that I'd like to share with you in case you don't know about it. I didn't, and neither did Bratsis.
Memory cards for cameras have write-protect switches.
Check out the first picture in this link to see for yourself. It's a better picture than I can take right now so you can see: http://tech2.in.com/india/news/general/kingston-launches-32-gb-sdhc-card-in-india/49701/0
That bit of information could save you if you take a lot of pictures.
So, that's pretty much my sad tale. But I made it though and although Albus is smaller than I imagined, I think we'll get along just fine.
The Boy took a picture too, as I mentioned earlier. He showed it to me and said, "This is what they do to me ALL THE TIME. There is no room on my bed for ME!"
 Left to right: Boobs, Woffie, Hootie
I just laughed and laughed.
Because I'm mean that way.
I like the dog bones on the bed. I bet the dog has hidden a couple UNDER the blankets, too. He hides them on the couch all the time under whatever may be on the couch.
In the next couple days I'm going to be telling you about a couple of other new additions to my life. Trust me when I say there may be some things you are going to find VERY interesting.
Or even amusing.
Meet you there.
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