Growing up I loved the one advent calendar we ever had. No candy, but just my weird excitement of opening the boxes. I think it's related to my love of lists and Bingo. I just like marking crap off.

I kept that thing forever, reusing it every year.

There's surprisingly few interesting advent calendars online. Maybe I should think about making one for next year. No idea what I'd put in it, though.

Of course there's Neopets for those who play (the past few years I've just been collecting my bank interest and zapping my poor pets).

There's also a neat brush one here, for those who are into Photoshop brushes.

And through Google, I came across Hoopla's. Not sure what the purpose of that one is, exactly, but there's a nice poem up there for today's, so I'll be checking that one, too.

I was feeling a lot of Christmas spirit when it was chilly out, but then it's been warm again lately, and it's faded. I'm hoping it being December will get me back in the mood.

It's been on my mind, a lot.

Shawn and I generate 13 tons of CO2 a year just in home energy use and travel - that's about 312 trees we need to plant. Minus the fact that trees eventually die and give off CO2 in the process.

Obviously we don't have anywhere to plant 312 trees, so, we need to make some other changes if we want to become carbon neutral.

We could, at some point, buy a hybrid. But who knows how long they will last and if the CO2 produced in production will give them an equal (or even greater) ecological footprint than their non-hybrid counterparts. I actually heard someone say that hybrids were a joke because they were electric and electricity was generated with fuel. I can't believe this myth is still alive and thriving - didn't the auto manufacturers make it very clear that hybrids don't plug in anywhere? For reference, the electricity part of the hybrid uses kinetic energy from the braking system. Look it up, people.

So there's biodiesel. Which seems the best option. Provided we can keep the companies from ripping up forests to plant the crops for it. Which is already happening in foreign countries.

We're already doing the things we can to conserve in an apartment. Kinda.

We're using fluorescent bulbs, but we're bad about leaving lights on - it's a habit I've been working on my whole adult life, and still fail a lot of the time. I hate a dark living space, and really, would have all the lights on all the time (other than the bedroom, which is the only one that wouldn't shine into the livingroom) if it weren't such a waste. When we buy our own space, one of the things on my to-do list will be occupancy sensor lights.

We recycle. I'm trying to get to the point where I recycle or reuse almost everything. I'm conscious about the amount of hot water I use. I keep the air conditioning on 80 when Shawn's not here to try to make up for it being on 76 or lower when he is.

We need to get the cable box and TiVo plugged into the computer power strip so we can flip the TV, PS2, and DVD player off at the switch and stop the phantom loads. We need to replace Shawn's desktop with either a computer that can be shut off without it not wanting to come back on, or with a laptop.

Living in an apartment we can't change the appliances or windows, weather strip, insulate, install ceiling fans, etc. We can't even change our shower head. I need to do better an minimizing my impact of being at home so much, which I think is what really boosts it (68% of those 14 tons is from the home).

I've been pondering green tags. It seems like such a lazy, short-term solution, though. I get the concept, and I think it might work for people like us, who will one day be able to implement actual carbon reducing solutions for our own production. But what about people who just buy tags and then don't worry about changing anything?

I just want to do more. I've been trying to lessen my footprint for a while, and I feel like I've hit a stagnant place where I'm not sure what to do next. I wrote our mayor about becoming one of Sierra Club's "Cool Cities", but I don't think just writing a letter is going to do much.

I want to do more. We'll see where that goes.

My box from Igigi came today. Even though the 2 dresses are Christmas presents, I tried them on, just in case.

Everything is really good quality, and just really well made. They're so heavy when you pick them up, but light once you have them on.

The dresses both came with shrugs, which I didn't realize, because, well, I didn't read the descriptions all the way through. It was a really nice surprise. This dress was perfect. Neither of my good bras work with it, even with the shrug, so I'll have to sort that somehow, either by buying a matching color bra (doesn't seem likely, given the color) or finding one that does work.

The second dress (that I'm not seeing on their site anymore), I didn't have the bra problem so much as a strap-length problem. This isn't uncommon for me, as short as I am. I can either pin it or sew it (it's straps, so sewing by hand shouldn't be much work), and the thread is white, so it's really not a big deal.

The tank top, the only complaint is the lace wants to pop upward.

If these last like I think they will (provided I take care of them), I'll probably be buying most of my tops there from now on (I don't anticipate needing any other dresses, though there is one more they have that I really love that I might get if it ever pops up for an irresistible price) whenever I see something pretty on the sale rack. The tank is cut perfect, and I love it.

If anyone wants a $10 off coupon, send me an email with your first name, last name, and email and I'll pass along one of the four coupons I have.

Yesterday at the NaNo party, I had coffee again. So early this morning I was still up and bored, and came across an ad for IMVU. I went ahead and downloaded it.

The avatar creation is pretty neat, even with the having to pay for (or earn) access to different outfits and whatnot. The user created content seems to be well done for the most part.

The actual usage of the thing I'm not so sure of. While I love that my avi's wings actually flutter, the fact that the characters pop out of their seats to perform actions on each other is weird. Plus I'm not going to sit there and stare at my screen waiting for the other person to laugh or whatever.

Also, even though I had it set to visible to friends only, I kept getting random message requests, and showed online on the site.

I'm uninstalling it since I don't really have a use for it, but it's a cute idea. I wish Yahoo's avatar options were as varied (their adding a Plus Size section was cool, but it'd be nice to have some less ugly clothes in it - I mean, really). Then again, I'm mostly using Meebo these days when I have any messenger on at all, so maybe I shouldn't complain since I'm not using my avatar anyway.

We went to the Largo Holiday Stroll tonight. It was, well, it was okay. If you have kids it's probably really entertaining for them (though don't go at night if they want to ride the train - their insurance doesn't cover night trips, so they only let visitors on during the day). There were carolers, and I think a nativity play of some sort, and a girl on stilts. I enjoyed the walk, and the lights.

I enjoyed less the multitude of pregnant women, most of them with toddlers in tow, and the crowds in general. Not to mention the heat really took away from the mood of the thing.

After we went to Tijuana Flats & Hershey's Ice Cream, both of which were new to us. Tijuana Flats was really good (best flautas ever). And the chocolate Hershey's really tasted like Hershey's chocolate.

And then we just drove around for a while. There are these gorgeous townhouses, several for sale, that we really loved, but they're huge (almost 3,000 sq. ft) and $400k+. That's a bit out of our price range, to say the least.

Where mulch used to come from the excess of trees used for paper, now due to popularity, cypress trees are being cut down wholesale just for mulch, and at a rate that's outstripping what the land can keep up with. Cypress swamps are actually one of Louisiana's protections against hurricanes, and these swamps are being devastated... for mulch of all things. I mean, really, shouldn't all the homeowners be composting at this point?

If you must mulch, use pine bark, pine straw or melaleuca chips. Or get free mulch made of recycled lawn waste picked up by the county*. I mean, really, what's better than free and recycled?

* Don't forget to recycle your Christmas trees! (pdf)

A few days ago at Soulcysters someone from PCOS Today Magazine asked what was missing from the community. I suggested a PCOS news and commentary blog with a link list to blogging cysters (whether that was the main topic of their blog or not). When Kat Carney said it sounded like a good idea, and no one else bit, I decided to run with it, giving my empty domain a purpose.

If anyone would like me to link them, has a suggestion for a reference link, or wants to be a contributor, shout me via Meebo or email.

After writing my post about Dell's goof, and their support's lack of, well, support, I received an email from Marie, a Dell Customer Advocate (mailto), that she'd caught my post and wanted to help.

Things were cleared up by support prior to her emailing, but still, interesting that they go the extra step to catch blog complaints and try to help.

Knology is changing their line up. They do this every so often, or so my TiVo tells me. This time, we received mail about it.

Good news! We will be making some changes to your channel line up in the next few weeks...

They're adding The Hallmark Movie Channel, the Outdoor Channel, and a couple sports HD things. So don't care. But they're getting rid of Sundance.

... So, they're replacing Sundance with The Hallmark Movie Channel...

And this is good news?

WTF are they thinking?

I get some of the neatest webtoy news from Sarah. One of her del.icio.us links for the week was for Protopage. Protopage is a Web 2.0 home page, ala Google or Yahoo's customizable home pages. I've never gotten much into those, but found Protopage captivating.

On the top right of the page is a search box. The search box shows whether you're logged in or not and can include as many or as few search engines as you like - and their list is very, very long. Mine here as Google, Google News, Dictionary.com, Torrentspy, and Medscape, just to list a few. You can also add your own (I plan on switching out Dictionary.com for Onelook.com).

Once logged in you can create seemingly unlimited categories and tabs, both public and private.

In the image below, my "home" tab, I'm using three email widgets, one checking my POP account, and two checking my two Gmail accounts. There are three RSS feed widgets, the Lion Brand newsletter, daily quotes, and Shawn's journal.

The remaining four boxes are Protopage widgets - a clock, a calendar (the circles are dates with information attached - like the 21st is our anniversary, the 13th my surgery), Protopuppy, and the weather.

I really like the way RSS feeds work. You can choose how many entries to show, whether there should be just titles, or titles and excerpts, and you can add several feeds to a single widget (like I have several feeds from TBO, and friends who have multiple blogs). When you click a title a screen pops up (second image below) giving you the rest of the feed, along with the other feeds within that tab, with links to the post.

You can also have thumbnail feeds, where Protopage strips all of the feed except the thumbnails. Clicking the thumbnail brings up the feed screen the way clicking a title does in text feeds. Or you can set it to show a single (the last) photo from the feed.

Did I mention they also have podcast and videocast widgets? I'm not using these myself, but video and audio RSS feeds also have a good home here.

But my absolute favorite feature is the To-Do list widget.

Oooooooooooooooo.

Additionally there's a Google Maps widget I'm not using (yet), both plain text and HTML/rich text sticky notes, and a photo upload widget that I'll probably use to keep track of knitting projects. In fact, I'm thinking of adding a public category for all my yarn-related bits.

I really love this site. It's my kind of organization.

I need to add it to the sidebar, but for now: my Public Protopage.

Fluorescent light bulbs save energy, and therefore, money. In my personal experience, they last a lot longer than regular bulbs. Where before we were seemingly constantly replacing, we've been using fluorescents now for years, and we're still using the same bulbs we bought originally. We've had to replace all of one, and that one I broke*.

Right now Lowe's has a rebate offer, until December 21st, according to the rebate receipt, for what ends up being free bulbs. We paid $7.98 for the pack of four, and the rebate only involves filling out your contact details on the rebate receipt and mailing it off.

The bulbs you'd be looking for are Bright Effects 13W (equivalent to a 60 watt standard bulb) mini twist bulbs. There's four in a pack and the item number 146558 if you need it.

*Speaking of broke, anyone been to the Wal-Mart in Oldsmar? Their water machine at the front of the store is not "Out of Order" according to the sign slapped on it. It's "Broke."

This morning I bought a $61 shirt for $10.50. The shirt was 50% off, then I received a $20 off coupon for filling out a survey. Take a look.

I have to wonder how many of us in the last survey asked for jeans - I know I did, but apparently it was popular.

Yes, it's Igigi, no I'm not affiliated.

I really don't have a lot of requirements in a music player, or I thought I didn't, but it seems like I'm picky. I've been through.. I don't know how many, never satisfied.

I was a fan of Winamp for years, but eventually got tired of videos opening up in it and it totally wrecking my window placement. I spent a while hanging on, not wanting to change, changing defaults one by one for video file formats, but it either didn't stick or a new format would come and mess me up again. I didn't want a video player. I'm completely satisfied with Zoom Player, Media Player, and WinDVD - between the three I can play more or less anything I want.

So I switched to Windows Media. If my music player was going to play movies I might as well use one where the screen doesn't change size all the time. And I stuck with it for a while, maybe a few months, but the size of it was just too much, both in terms of screen space and processing drain.

I tried Yahoo's whatever music player - I thought it'd be cool to be able to show people in Yahoo Messenger what I'm playing, but it was so incredibly slow I don't think it lasted an hour on my comptuer. Since then, I've been using iTunes. Which I just don't like - I couldn't easily find (if it exists) a way to easily update my library or a way to search for a certain song. The only feature I really liked was the way songs blended between them.

With both iTunes and Windows Media, I had the grumble that their toolbars just took up too much room in the task bar.

Basically what I was looking for in a music player was - well, a music player. I wanted something that would play my music, that I could minimize to the system tray, and just let it go. Preferably something compatible with the Last.fm plugin so I wouldn't have to mess with an unsupported plugin.

When you first open up foobar 2000, it's nothing exciting. But the customization is incredible.

It minimizes to tray. The playlist system uses tabs, which really impressed me. I'm a big fan of tabs. It was a breeze to change the keystrokes to what I wanted them to be. It works with Last.fm. Changing the layout a colors was a little complex, but really once you scan the help page, it doesn't take very long for some very nice features. I can search for songs, scanning my media library for new tracks is simple and quick despite having a rather large music folder.

At the moment my only complaint is I've somehow overridden where the color of the playing track changes. Hopefully I'll be able to sort that out without too much work.

Because the last thing listening to music should be is work. And with foobar2000, so far, it's not.

Finally.

You'd think going to see something called a snowfall in Florida would be cool. Or at least, we thought it would be. Not so if it's Channelside snowfalls, which happen every day during the holidays for 10 minutes at 6, 7, 8, & 9 PM.

What is this snowfall? Two small gift box shaped blowers expel soap. Enough to leave some spots of it on the ground, or maybe litter your hair a bit.

Maybe cool for the under-8 crowd. There were plenty of excited kids playing in the "snow". But otherwise, I'd skip it unless you happen to be there anyway.

When Leslie Harpold stopped updating her advent calendar on the 7th, I wondered, and even worried a bit, but in the end, figured something'd come up and she'd update soon. Today when I made my visit to check, I was redirected to the awful news that she suddenly passed.

It is with great sadness that our family announces the sudden passing of Leslie Harpold in December of 2006. We know that Leslie was a beloved presence in the internet community, and we ask that you keep her in your thoughts and prayers. If you wish to make a donation in her memory, Leslie was a supporter of the ASPCA in New York City.

I never spoke to Leslie, but I'm saddened tonight, for the loss of her creative spirit. Seeing her home page quote for harpold.com brought tears to my eyes. My thoughts are with her family tonight.

This is the third death to touch me this week. My heart hurts for those grieving.

For once we had a perfect anniversary. No mishaps, no jinxes, no tickets, no maintenance men, no fighting. We saw Happy Feet again, this time IMAX-style. I had so much fun. This is the first movie we've gone together to a theater to see more than once. I'd really been wanting to see it again, but IMAX, especially, was special in really showing the details that just weren't there at Fun-Lan.

Afterward we went to Charley's since I keep reading it's the best steakhouse in Tampa, and I really wanted to take Shawn somewhere nice for dinner. I often have a hard time finding something to eat at steakhouses, and this was no different than most. I went ahead and ordered the grilled chicken breast, and ate some, but most of it was brought home for Shawn. He said his steak was really good. He ordered me a piece of peanut butter pie for desert - and I was in heaven with that.

Then we went to Barnes & Noble on Dale Mabry and read for a bit. We also spotted a knitting shop, but didn't go in out of Shawn's fear of my buying something (though I think I was much closer to buying December's Newtype than anything at a knitting shop).

Everything else is private, really. My marriage is my source of strength. It's whole, happy, healthy, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Christmas came and went. We drove across the state for dinner at Sue's on Monday, then drove back on Tuesday. It was really nice. Usually our Christmases are spent alone, which is fine by us, antisocial as we are, but it was neat hanging out with family for a change. I hope everyone liked their pressies.

(Everyone said they did, but, really, they could've just been being polite.)

I need to get to work on learning to knit socks for next year. I don't want to get stuck making everything in December again.

On the way there and back we listened to Artemis Fowl, which I thought was okay, but Shawn seemed to like.

All in all it was good. Once we got past the Tampa storms the drive was nice, the table was gorgeous, dinner was yummy (yay leftovers!), and the company was comforting and enjoyable.

I hope everyone had a beautiful day, and everyone has a peaceful (or exciting, if you prefer), New Year.

When I first heard about Twitter on UltraNormal, I kinda went... "Eh?" I'm not sure my reaction has changed much, but I'm trying it out anyway.

What is Twitter? I'm not sure. It's blog-ish, if one wanted to blog everything they did during the day. It's social site-ish in that you can see what your friends are doing if they join. It does appear, thus far, to be slightly addictive.

I'm not really sure if I'll keep up with it, or if I'll ever understand the point. I'm having a hard enough time remembering to plug things in to All Consuming. But for now, if you want to know where I am or what I'm doing, it's easy enough to find out.