Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Or “why I bought the Mac Pro tower instead of the iMac.” (Or “Carla is procrastinating her QA testing.”)

My computer might hate me if…

… I have 2 spreadsheet applications open at once.
… I have 2 full-featured word processors open and 2 light-weight word processors open simulatneously.
… I have 2 browsers open with several active web clients not to mention 25+ windows open.
… I have 2 additional file transfer applications open (FTP and Flickr) plus an IM app connected to at least 3 services.
… iPhoto and iTunes are both running. As well as Quicken.

… or all of the above.

And yet it doesn’t hate me at all. It loves me. And I love it. Yay computer!

I only have one dedicated mail client open. That counts for something right?

I do tend to forget to close things and use a lot of windows and apps at once. Though the only apps I’m really not using this morning are iPhoto, Quicken and the Flickr app.

apple, computers, multitasking

Oh look, a shadow of a seagull on the sand. I’m not a big fan of seagulls, honestly, but they’re entertaining when you’re hanging out near the ocean and happen to have left-over bagels.

Another weekend gone. Stuff was accomplished and amusement was had. Many people appeared in the living room after Noisemakers Saturday night and, after a short adjustment period (and a Pumpkinhead beer), I had a highly entertaining evening. Thank you to everyone who stopped in and drank beer! We’re still trying to reclaim the fridge from beer bought (rather over-enthusiastically) for the New Year’s Eve party and finally a dent has been made!

I didn’t quite accomplish everything I wanted to this weekend but it was a good weekend. This week should b a little less crazy work-wise so hopefully I can not be completely wiped out at the end of the day and I can reclaim my evenings from utter exhaustion.

entertainment, photography, random, seagulls, weekend

Apparently I have been forgiven for the trip to the vet today. I have a large, gray cat in my lap trying to help me with my re-write for class tomorrow. He’s warm, cute and purring, so I guess I win. It’s amazing the positions he finds comfortable too… curled up with his head ont he desk and the rest of him in my lap. I’m like 3 miles away from my keyboard right now. Miss Evil is still grouching on the bed but her vet visit was more taxing and she has earned the right to grouch.

Procrastination is a good thing.

I will be doing Nanowrimo this year despite a long laundry list of reasons to skip it this year. I don’t expect to finish or hit 50,000 words this year, but it’ll be good to use the momentum of Nanowrimo to get something started. My novel can help me procrastinate doing my resume and my resume can help me procrastinate writing my novel. And when both need to be procrastinated, there’s always my next essay revision for class. I may have stumbled upon the perfect procrastinatory productivity loop.

Right, back to my essay.

cats, evil, photographs, procrastination, tennyson

One of my favorite things to procrastinate is packing – packing for a trip, packing for a move, packing for a day at the out or whatever. If it’s just me, I will procrastinate until the cows come home and insist I put things in a suitcase. (I’m a bit better when someone else is relying on me or if I don’t want to make everyone wait on me while I figure out what else I need to pack.) I used to pack for business trips to Vancouver at 5 a.m. before hopping to the airport for my 7:30 a.m. flight.

The trick is to procrastinate properly.

One of the best ways I’ve found to procrastinate packing is to do laundry. (Procrastinating laundry is a whole other topic…) I could have started packing this weekend for the trip I’m leaving on tomorrow. That would have been quite clever. Instead, the past 2 days I’ve been doing laundry pretty much non-stop. Well, as non-stop as my job will let me – it’s really quite inefficient for me to try to do laundry during the workweek despite working from home. Everything (except one towel and stuff worn during the laundry marathon) is clean now and even has made it up to the bedroom.

So, I have achieved the joy of procrastinating by doing something productive as well as tricked myself into preparing for my trip at the same time. Now that everything is clean, I can just pick out the exact clothes I want to take with me on the trip. It will be completely easy!

Of course, I’m not leaving for another 18 hours, so I have plenty more time to procrastinate! (Example: this post.)

travel, packing, procrastination, laundry, random