da tomāto

Having dinner at half past five earlier wasn't a good idea. I did know then that this is going to happen eight hours later (it's past 1am now) -- I am hungry. Changing to a simple, silver and black desktop background is revitalizing. Had a flower on before and I grew sick of it and its bright colors. Silver is the theme of this machine for now. Thought of putting in the time and date on the desktop too but quickly decided against it. Did that a while back until I saw how it used up a good percentage of ram. Besides, what's the point of having them when I've windows up that cover most of the screen all the time anyway? Exactly.

Haven't been tasting food right. Something's wrong, I think. It has been going on for two days now. Don't remember doing anything different before then. But I did nurse a one-day cold that was probably 'cause of dust that day (tidied up the desk here the day before yesterday). I do taste food (and drink) but flavors would peter out quickly - no "savoring" has been achieved, so to speak. Curious.

It was delivered this morning. Lovely. 'Twas only a nine-day wait from hmv (uk). I love this album. So happy.

I've come to the conclusion that at some point, a pldt dsl subscriber will have to change their dns settings (tcp/ip) for their connection to work. Two times now, I've had to set preferred and alternate dns addresses to load websites properly. The first time was last year on our old computer. And again, this year, on this machine -- just last night, to be specific. I'm not an expert - far from it - but I do well in some areas when it comes to troubleshooting. As long as I don't delete anything or mess with settings that I've no idea about, it should be fine. And since this is a windows machine, restarting the pc is the norm when troubleshooting too. Well, I went through a common-sense checklist of why the pages wouldn't load right. Symptoms: Some pages would load only after repeated "refreshes", some wouldn't load images, and "page load error" on most of them. Usual suspects: 1 - Malware . Scanned machine (on-demand) and everything looked

I couldn't be more satisfied with my current state of WAHJs, by far. Have been for some months now. I feel very productive. I am learning a lot and it is very satisfying. This year has been (and still is) a good time for me, working from home. Owning up: Freelance writing and transcription have fallen by the wayside. But I've not abandoned them. They are my idling wah "gigs" and nothing more, at this time. I've known for a while now that I cannot write on demand and I already explained why here . Transcription assignments from my affiliate have been so few and very far in between AND I like it that way. Sidetracking: It feels nice to write about something good - it's not easy but it feels OK. Words did not come pouring out and I kept editing myself. Without a shadow of a doubt, diatribes are easier - they may be boring to read but they are easier to write.

Looked over my posts about transcribing and saw that I was all over the place when I talked about setting my preferences for express scribe hotkeys (function keys). Thought that I'd break them down clearly now 'cause the current settings work best for me, so far. My current Express Scribe (free from NCH Software ) is v 4.23. To customize the function keys, go to settings-->pedal and hot keys. My most-used (or more appropriately, only-used) keys are: F4 Stop F5 Copy Time (Made adding timestamps a non-issue - just press F5 and then, Ctrl-V [paste on MS Word] without leaving the document window. Easy, breezy.) F6 Step Back 5s (five seconds, my most-used hotkey) F9 Play Functions of express scribe hotkeys F4 and F9 are, I think, default. I changed what F5 and F6 do, and I mentioned why here and here . There are no set functions for F7 and F8 (or maybe I intentionally removed them) so pressing either will just stop the playback. All these are on the top-center of the keyboar

This is going to be about food. I may have had bad dinuguan (pinoy dish that's cooked with blood) earlier. My gut feels funny. Well, it wasn't spoiled or else I wouldn't have eaten it and no one else's gut is rumbling in this house. It may have been not-so-good for me - and only me. Who thought calamares and vinegar went well together? They do, apparently. Had a taste of sweet, soft, wonderful, fried calamares with a vinegar and chopped chili pepper dip. It was so good! Had it the day before yesterday and that one mouthful made my mouth water. Talking about it - my mouth is watering right now. It was yummy.

... the dust. One of my writing affiliates announced that their payment program will be suspended until things on their side pick up (obviously, they meant the economy). I don't know, hopefully they'll recover and this will truly be temporary. But right now, I'm feeling that it's the end (theirs, that is). Edit, 16th June: Just learned that they won't be paying writers who didn't reach the minimum payout this period. I'm sad 'cause that includes me. At the moment, I think that I'll let them have my work (that's pending payment) for free - glass half full and all that. I'll check back on them from time to time. They should carry over outstanding balances for when they start their payment program again -- or should I say, IF it's reimplemented.

My work diary is down to six leaves. It is time to get a new one. This is going to be "one of those posts" which an average person would think of as silly and inconsequential. So, look away (if you're average -- normal, in other words). Asking someone to buy me something that isn't very specific unlike medicine or a pen ('cause I always say what brand I want) is setting myself up for disappointment. More often than not, it happens when I feel strongly about a thing or something completely different 'cause I don't have control over it. I can picture it now: I'm writing down what I want and asking them to scour the stores for something exactly like it. I'm handing them more bills than necessary for "just in case it will cost more than we think". Then 30 minutes later, they'll come back with nothing.

There's something about laying groundwork that's calming. In my case, the prep is typing codes for one of my new wahjs so that the next steps would be easier and quicker. I don't move my head at all and just stare at what I'm copying from. Isn't touch-typing the best? New Java update came in, 6-14, I think it is. It's one of the things that I've auto-update-enabled on this machine. About time too 'cause I wanted to get rid of the old version that used too much space. FYI, it is OK to remove old Java versions and it's actually recommended.

Have two new house shorts and they're boy shorts too. For reasons that I don't care to know about they have mesh and garter on the inside. With the thigh garters, they were a bother to put on 'cause it made them tight - don't know how boys think that that's comfy. And the mesh made my bum sweat -- sorry, but it did. Sure enough, I took a pair of scissors not long after, snipped away the mesh and garter and now they're perfectly comfortable. Goes to show that we ladies can wear boy shorts too - sans the mesh.

After I nitpicked at the music video for "talk you down" by the script a couple of weeks ago here and asked, "Why can't they just play?" or something to that effect, they released the video for their last single "before the worst" (just saw it last night) and they did just that - the band just played. I'm not implying that it had something to do with it, obviously, but some (or many) people may have reacted the same way and the band listened. Well, I'd like to think so. Albeit the inclusion of (what I think has become) the signature "danny walking around" bit, it was close to something that I wanted to see. It would've been better if it were them playing live but it was close. And I am happy with this one cos I really like "before the worst" (they did give it away for free last year - one of the best marketing decisions ever cos it is a really good song and hearing it made me a fan) and I am relieved that they didn'

... and will see if it works. But it's not technically a pill cos it's a capsule. And it is a herbal supplement with valerian root and melatonin - well, that should explain itself. Thirty minutes in and counting, still wide awake. Hmm. Maybe it takes a while to kick in. Wait... I may be feeling something. Tiredness? Could be normal and not at all supplement-induced. In any case, I'm hoping for a good night's rest tonight like last Sunday. On a different note, I've something worth mentioning news-wise. Universities in Manila have pushed back the start of classes cos of the A-H1N1 virus (I don't even know how to write that down). My alma mater reported four cases of it as of yesterday.

This should've been "write when ready" but that's too... lesson-y. And this isn't a tutorial - not at all. I know that my web-writing wahj fell by the wayside cos I can only write when I'm ready. Blogged before about being useless at it when uninspired so I guess a better way of putting it in words is with - I will write when I'm ready. Otherwise, writing is a tedious and forced bore. Take today for instance, wrote two stellar pieces on music and computers. They're two totally different topics but words came out effortlessly and well. Pretty proud of them too. I'd share them but I just sold them so... they're not mine anymore. But they are published under one of my pseudonyms (yes, I've more than one) so they are not totally lost to me. That's a tricky thing about writing web content. The line between knowing what's mine and what's not has been blurred on the Internet. Still, I credit a writing wahj for providing me with the mon

Closing the books for the third first quarter is starting to become a chore. When I'm on it, it appears that I've more to do than what I thought when I started. So close and yet so far. Maybe if I get better tools, it wouldn't be too tasking. And I'm thinking along the lines of a refill for my pilot g-tec. I know, it's neither fancy nor interesting but if it would help make this go on better and quicker... hey, to each their own. I think that of all the months, March is particularly tricky. I don't know why, to be honest. It could be that it's when most prepayments start - like for insurance and such. Yes, I should get a refill for my g-tech g-tec... a C3, no, C4. Yes, C4.

Noticed that I've been turning my eyes to see the forex board/matrix more often - I did put it on one of my sites, on one corner, making it inconspicuous. I open that site everyday because it has a huge calendar but that's beside the point... Been particularly looking at the GBP/USD. Slowly but surely, the pound sterling is getting stronger. I swear that everyday it seems that the cost of buying a dollar goes down a penny. I even saw it go down two pence, once. I may have strong feelings about it... just do.

Sometimes I forget about time zones when I'm on mturk. Been working on hits and noticing that the dashboard updates on the same date as yesterday. It's still today - same as when I left last night. Hazy blue. Did not sleep well. I don't need to say why - been saying why too much already. Weather's not helping, it's dark and rainy. Any other time, I would've been liking this. But not today.

Brunch was pork stewed in tomato sauce ( afritada ). Slept in until 3pm yesterday, Sunday. It was dark. It was cold. It rained the whole day. It made up for, me, not sleeping so well the past weeks month or so. Yesterday morning, I was not bothered at all - no one came in, no one messed about. I was let alone and that was what I needed.