The Ninth Strange Day

So, yeah. Wednesday night my Nana passed away. She had just turned 90. It was unexpected and that’s enough of that. I don’t really want to talk about it, so whatever you say in comments, if I see anything like “I’m sorry about…” I’m going to delete it.

Stargate: Atlantis is on my TV again. I guess it’s the universe saying “Sorry things suck. Have a bucket of Rodney McKay”. And you know what? I can’t possibly explain what it is I like about cranky, weirdly socialised, incredibly smart doctors. I blame (in no particular order) my parents, Star Wars, and Doctor Who.

Okay, maybe that was a particular order.

Interestingly enough, that’s also the proper order for blame credit my sci-fi addiction and my overwhelming urge to write.

Serendipity! A Pay-Per-Post opportunity came up for a site called Coupon Chief. This is a site that collects and lists the online codes that can be used for gifts and discounts when you order online.

The number of stores they list is impressive and I’m sorry I didn’t know about it sooner, because a lot of them are places I like to order from. Top of the list? Amazon. They also have Petsmart. And I probably can’t link to all the places they have.

Now I’m a little bit twitchy because dude, why didn’t I know about this before? I like when they toss in free stuff. I love when the cost of shipping is deferred. I always wonder if I’m missing out because I see the “Do you have a coupon? Enter the code here” things when I order and I’m sitting there like “someone’s holding out on me, I just know it”.

Now I don’t have to worry because I can just go look and see if there’s anything.

The down side is that I might be tempted to shop because hey, free stuff!

First of all… A Strange Shop has some new-n-geeky things, and two promotions. If you buy the organic shirts and enter SAVETHEEARTH at checkout a donation will be made to The Nature Conservancy. OR if you’re so inclined, you can enter ILOVEMOM and save $5.00 on any order over 20 dollars (if you’re ordering in Canada, the code is ILOVEMOMCAD).

The Mom coupon expires on the 13th of May; the conservation one is good until 31 May.

You don’t have to use those coupons just for my shop, though. They’re good for anything you find on Spreadshirt.

Two: New pictures on Flickr. I’ve really got to go out and start taking more.

Three: Readership’s gone up since I signed up for Pay Per Post, and that makes me pretty happy. Hello, new people!

Four: Remember the fire I wrote about? The woman who lived in the house had a lot of pets. Now there are displaced cats that are all pretty friendly and understand how to be pets. They need homes (even if the woman recovers, she cannot go back to her former house. She may not move back to this neighbourhood at all, and even so, she had way too many cats and they deserve better care). Email me if you want more information. Remember, I’m in Baltimore City, Maryland, so you should be at least semi-local. Because I don’t think mailing a cat is a good idea. One of the neighbours rounded up the most sociable ones and is taking them to a guaranteed no-kill shelter.

Five: Life’s been a little bit of The Suck lately. ‘Nuff said on that.

Six: I’ve been playing The Sims 2 again. Anyone know anywhere that has Stargate: Atlantis sim-skins? Or Torchwood? Oh shut up. I think we all know I’m a nerd.

I think what I need to do is just adopt a zen-like attitude to commuting. “It’ll happen when it happens”. Bus is late? Not much I can do about it. I don’t have another option. Bus is crowded? Not much I can do about it. Bus is noisy? Not much I can do about it. People smell bad? Not much I can do about it.

It looks good on “paper” (meaning the monitor). Actually being able to do it is another thing entirely.

We’re going to BaltiCon again this year. It’s at the Hunt Valley Marriott, which is good. The hotel is completely booked already, which is bad. I’ve been hitting all the major hotel-scouring sites looking for someone — anyone — that could get us into the Marriott.

No deal.

I did stumble across a site for hotels that I hadn’t found before. Hotel Reservations. I’m so weird; I love sites like this. I like finding out how long a flight to somewhere would take. I like finding out how much it would cost to fly somewhere and stay there for a while. Like, I now know it’d cost me $89.55 a night to stay in a hotel near Cardiff Bay (and I now know that the lowest-priced room on Orbitz was $155 per night for the same place).

Site-wise, hotelreservations isn’t any better or worse. Functionality’s pretty much the same as any website, but hey. Better rates, right? It does all the usual things, too. Flights, hotels, car-rentals, vacation packages…. a flight there and back, and six nights in London is only $2,370 for two!

So it pays to shop around, even for imaginary trips.

Not that I wouldn’t go to Cardiff or London if the opportunity came up. But we’ve got no plans for it right now. We’re getting the wiring in our house fixed up. More on that later (Steeb is handling the business end of it). So if anyone wants to donate to my vacation fund, the house electrical fund, the buy-me-a-car fund, or the general “Geeze, Data. Quit whining” fund, just let me know.

Oh! Right! Balticon. We’re staying in a different hotel that’s not too far from the Marriott. Not as convenient, but at least we have a place to sleep and shower (and connect to the internet).

Hrr. I love linky buttons.

“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”

— Moliere

Welcome to the one where Data sells out.

I think “proud” member might be overstating things. But it’s writing (sort of), right? I always did well in advertising class. You get to choose what you post about, so I’m not going to shill for anything I don’t actually like. I’ll just shill for the things I do. Which I’ve probably always done, but this time I’ll get paid for it.

Someone stop me if I start going off the deep end and raving about how beautiful some company’s jewelry is, or if I ever type phrases like “darling shoes” without being ironic.