Domestic Geek

The local radio station 99.5 The Mountain is giving away Police tickets. They're at the Pepsi Center June 9 & 10 (next weekend) and I really, really, really, really, really want to go. Did I mention that I really want to go? LOL Anyway, I need the help of everyone reading my blog. Send good ticket winning vibes my way. All I had to do was fit out on their web form the three Police songs I heard and the times I heard them today. I'm not sure how many sets of tickets are being given away, though. The grand prize is two tickets in the station's Mountain Suite. I'd be all over that! So, help a girl out and help me win those tickets! Now I just need someone to go with me. Dave? Nina? Laura? Any police fans close by that can go at short notice?

Gah, I hope Marcus gets home soon. I don't know if someone has infiltrated my email account or if someone else's computer with my email addy in it has become a spam zombie, but I've been getting undeliverable email notices for the last couple of hours...lots of them.

Edit: Well, it looks like I ended up getting some sort of trojan or something on the old PC today. It was the zombie. We're not sure if we got it stopped and the machine cleaned good enough, so Marcus just had me pull the network cable on it. Grrr. Stupid spammers. Stupid windows. Stupid me.

I had a really weird moment of Zen last Thursday, I think it was. My old place of employment called Marcus because the designers are being allowed to work from home 3 days a week instead of having to make the drive to Larkspur every day and needed their computers set up to access the network from home. At first I was so incredibly angry when I heard about that, because I asked for that exact work situation before I was let go. Since one of my main problems was the amount of gas I was wasting driving there, I wanted the ability to work from home and I was flat out told no.

Then I took a deep breathe and felt totally at peace — a real moment of zen. I realized if I had gotten what I had wanted, I wouldn't be where I am now. I wouldn't be working at an established company only 17 miles from home, working with Marcus, working with a really nice set of people for the most part, getting some recognition for the good work I do, getting paid hourly so I actually get overtime pay for those extra hours I work and getting company-paid benefits. Instead I'd still be working at a floundering start-up where the personalities clash, people are mean and rude to each other, driving 100 miles a day round trip, no benefits whatsoever, having to deal with stupid clients and franchisees and generally feeling too much stress.

It was a sucky road getting here, but I am truly grateful for the position I have now. I'm grateful for the experiences I've had at all the different places I've worked because they have given me such a broad knowledge base of the various types of design skills needed and so far all have come into play in one way or another where I currently work. Even my technology skills have been useful.

I'm so glad I was so quickly able to look for the good and let go of those angry, ugly feelings I was having. It's a real breakthrough for me.

While I was over at Apple's site this morning, I saw the front page had a big announcement that in June you will be able to view YouTube content through your AppleTV. That's pretty cool.

We listen to the station 99.5 The Mountain a lot at work. It's great because I keep hearing songs that I need to add to my iTunes library.

The other day I heard a song I love by Paul McCartney and Wings called "1985." I knew they had just released the Paul McCartney catalog on iTunes, so I checked as soon as I got home and all I could find was that tune by Bowling for Soup (which I already have, btw). I did several Google searches and that's the way every kept spelling the song title — in numbers. Yesterday I decided to search wikipedia and decided to start going through the discography. Since the song ended with "Band on the Run, " I decided to start there and lo and behold: it's spelled out "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five!" I went to download the song and it was being offered as iTunes Plus, the DRM-free (without Digital Rights Management) version, so I paid the $1.29 of of my balance and it is all mine. I made Marcus stop watching his show on the AppleTV so I could hear it through the stereo.

I applaud EMI records for being the first to agree to get rid of this DRM crap. It's so easy to get around it, anyway. I will gladly pay a little extra for a song I can play anytime on any device.