Randomness

[Escriba]

Anyway, the subtopic was the end of dictatorship in Western Europe and he started talking about Basque separatists, mentioning the ETA. ("Which stands for something, I don't know the translation, but it basically means We Want Out of Spain.")

ETA = Euskadi Ta Askatasuna = Basque Homeland And Freedom. But I like your translation best, it's more direct

And is the Basque language that hard?

For the Spanish speakers (and other Romance language speakers) it's quite difficult because it's very different, but I don't know how difficult it is for others.

Anyway, today I've give my permission to a couple to marry. Well, not exactly In our country (as I suppose in any other western country) is it necessary for couples to open a file to guarantee they don't suffer any incapacity to marry (like being family or being still married to other people). Well, in this case I'm the one who has opened and redacted it. It's been a little strange, but cool

[Alelou]

This is exciting. So are you an official judge now?

[Escriba]

Nope Yet. I'm Judge of Peace and, as one, the responsible of the Registry (a real Judge) can delegate to me. Obviously, s/he makes it official and I do the dirty work

[Alelou]

Ah, well, it's still a step in the right direction -- I hope! Just so long as you don't get so busy with law that you can't write fanfic...

[Aquarius]

Ah, well, it's still a step in the right direction -- I hope! Just so long as you don't get so busy with law that you can't write fanfic...

I'll second that!

[Aquarius]

Don't know how my double-post happened; computer I'm borrowing must've hiccupped. Don't see a delete button here. Sorry.

[Alelou]

literally...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

20 All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture, at least according to Entertainment Weekly.

Kirk is at number 12 and Han Solo is number 7.

Personally, I wouldn't have put Sydney Bristow, Nancy Drew or Harry Potter in the top-20. And Jack Bauer and Dirty Harry would've been higher up.

Then there are a couple I'm not to familiar with.

[Aquarius]

I love that Buffy made the list!

And I think Nancy Drew is okay on the list. She's been a pop culture icon for little girls since the 1930s. She was the original "girl power." In fact, it was a Nancy Drew book I won at a church thing when I was 10 that launched me into a lifetime as an avid reader.

[JadziaKathryn]

I liked Nancy Drew which I read because my mom had enjoyed them. Random anecdote: I made some of those little clay things you put in the oven and bake when I was, oh, 12 or so. Mom asked what temperature she was supposed to bake them at, and I told her the time and temp. Only I was so into the Nancy Drew book that I gave her the wrong numbers and we didn't realize until we smelled smoke... let's just say those clay things were irredeemable.

But I think Nancy Drew is a fair one to put on that list for the reasons Aquarius said. And she was cool because she just did things - she wasn't about making big statements or anything, but then she had it all - a car, a boyfriend, crime-solving skills... what girl didn't read Nancy Drew and want to be her???

[Alelou]

I got to Nancy Drew too late in life. After four or five of them, I realized you could just skim through to the second to the last chapter, get the most exciting mortal danger part, and be done with it.

So I was probably more influenced by Trixie Belden... though after all these years what I mostly remember is her Mom telling her she was growing up and it was time she got a girdle.(!)

Honestly, Jo March and the other Louisa May Alcott heroines had a huge influence on me ... also The Five Little Peppers... and the original Bobbsey Twins stories (the ones where the girls still wore long dresses and muffs and said, "I shan't!"). Also fairy tales and ghost stories. Then Star Trek came along and after that it was all science fiction and fantasy for awhile.

I vividly remember walking the length of the Sunshine Mall in Clearwater with a huge grin plastered on my face because I'd found a copy of The Making of Star Trek and it was so big and fat that it promised luscious, luscious hours of reading. It was like I had a CRUSH on Star Trek.

[Aquarius]

I read Trixie Belden books, too.

Once I started reading so voraciously, it wasn't long after that I discovered Trek novels...it blew me away that there were new adventures in paperback from my favorite show! After that you couldn't keep me out of the bookstore! Any time we went to the mall, that's the first place I wanted to go.

When I was still into just Nancy Drew, I learned pretty quick that while I got told no at the store whenever I asked for a toy or record album or whatever, a request for a book was always a yes, no matter if I was with my mom, my grandma, my aunt, etc.

[JadziaKathryn]

When I was still into just Nancy Drew, I learned pretty quick that while I got told no at the store whenever I asked for a toy or record album or whatever, a request for a book was always a yes, no matter if I was with my mom, my grandma, my aunt, etc.

Crafty!

I just read this article about power saving and was surprised by how much power we eat up just leaving things on overnight. (According to my quick calculation, est. 25 cents a night for leaving a laptop on x 365 days a year = $91.25.) And the wasted energy/pollution. Now I'm going to feel obligated to shut down my computer at night.

*sighs nostalgically, recalling the days when I could feel good about myself just for recycling*

[Alelou]

I do shut down my computer at night, but I haven't yet figured out how to go around shutting down TVs and so forth ... I'm a little worried that this will mean dealing with the dread 'set up' every time I plug them back in. And I cannot seem to get my husband or my son to even consider the possibility of shutting down their machines.

Of course, if the blue screen of death on my son's computer this morning doesn't resolve itself, it may be permanently shut down. I think all this because I tried uninstall McAfee to install the free CA virus protection that comes with the cable service. Although he got a miserable and annoying malware "Virus-Protection Number-1" on his system yesterday that was not stopped by McAfee -- CA immediately quarantined it -- so who knows. Meanwhile, I can't get rid of the fricking mcupdate.exe which keeps trying to update even though the rest of the program is gone. And trying to use McAfee's software removal tool from their web site is apparently what started my adventures with blue screens of death.

To summarize: Not a fan of McAfee.

[Alelou]

P.S. My son's computer, after protesting that it had a disk error and giving me various screens of death and demanding system disks and so on which I couldn't find, finally booted up for my husband. That just figures.

moving on...

Freaked out when I dropped in at fanfiction.net just now to notice an Obama image advertising for Scott Murphy in tomorrow's 20th congressional district race (that's our local district). Google must really know how to target ads to people's precise location. My son reports says they're everywhere -- he's seen them on YouTube and another, very obscure fan site which I can't tell you because Bether's kid is in the same school as my kid. Though perhaps Google could tell any advertiser who asks? (?!?)