I don't want to go up!

This is my first real complaint about my new phone:



The button layout is just wonky. Who thought it was a good idea to put the letter M all by itself?

The only real solution, obviously, is a layout in which you use WASD to look around and the directional pad to move.

Tournament blues

Good run, Tigers. You still had a great season, and I'm proud.

Unlike the majority of people I know, I'll still watch the tourney even though "my" team has been eliminated. Actually, my teams have been eliminated; I had the championship game between Memphis and Duke -- the two teams who were trounced last night. It was not a good night, bracket-wise.

Off-the-cuff album cover

[Pulled this from L's site. Apparently, it's been floating around Facebook. Pretty fun if you've got, you know, three minutes to pop open Photoshop and pretend to be doing something productive. -ks]

1 - Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. The third picture (no matter what it is) will be your album cover.
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.



[As an aside, a modified version of this "assignment" was my final project for a class my sophomore year of college. My album cover had zombies and synchronized swimmers. Really.]

Call the moving trucks (again)

I moved to Charleston 7 1/2 months ago. Sometimes I still feel like a stranger in a strange land. I only recently learned which road people call the "Crosstown Express" (that's not on any map!), and I can still only get about four places without my GPS. One of those is the grocery store across the street.

We chose a nice apartment when we moved, one in a quiet, suburban neighborhood 10 minutes from The Cit. But we paid a high price for it. I guess I might as well say it here because, well, it's no secret. Between our rent and the cats' rent, we pay about $1,200 a month. The mortgage on the Memphis house was (much) less than that.

Our current complex in MTP is now advertising an $875 rate (yay, economy!!), so Paul stopped by to try to renegotiate the lease. Nothin' doin'. The best they'd offer was $75 off our current rent. ...

... So we're moving. Our lease is up in early May, which gives me about a month to clean out (again), pack up (again), and try to settle in someplace new (again). We toured a much newer complex five minutes away and signed a lease on a unit today. It's 1,040 square feet -- the exact sqft of our current apartment -- for $200 less a month, no pet rent, two months rent free, and what amounts to a 13-month lease on a 12-month schedule. (In other words, 13 months for 10 months' rent). Other bonuses: door-to-door valet trash pickup five days a week; huge, screened-in porch; on-site private theater; on-site gym; and a bigger master bedroom with walk-in closet.

Biggest bonus of all: location. Our unit is on the back side of the last building in the complex, which puts it on the Wando River -- with a sunset view (really!) and the Ravenel Bridge (a.k.a. the Kekeke ^_^ Bridge) in the background. And there's a pond on one side with a little walking trail.

And yet the thing that seems to excite Paul the most are the alligators and lizards. O_o (Boys!)

I still don't know where I want to end up long-term -- I'm not terribly happy in Charleston but don't feel like I can just give up, pack up my bags and move back to Memphis -- but as long as I'm here, this is a really nice place to be. :-)

Day 1 Bracket Update

After Day 1, I'm in fourth place in my pool (13 of 16 picks). Paul's in second place (15 of 16). Both of our brackets were in some serious danger right out of the gate. Memphis was playing way below their level, and the one-point UCLA win over VCU was heart-stopping. We both have Memphis slated to win the championship, so that would be a huge blow. I have UCLA losing in the Sweet 16; Paul has them losing in the Final Four.

We're both doing better than President Obama, with 11 of 16 after Day 1. Obama and I have the same Final Four picks, but differ on who's going to the championships. ... And of course, I'm right.

Okay, bedtime. Gotta get up early and do this whole tournament coverage again tomorrow.

March Madness: The "Winning Bracket" edition

For the record, here's my 2009 NCAA bracket. I'm so going to win the pool this year.

The quick 'n' dirty rundown: Louisville takes the Midwest, Memphis takes the West, Duke takes the East, and North Carolina takes the South. A Memphis/Louisville game would be huge, as would a Duke/UNC game. And, of course, my Tigers are going to take the championship.

Paul has the Final Four as Louisville, Memphis, UCLA and Oklahoma, with Memphis beating Oklahoma for the title.

Oh, to be in Detroit.



(Click through for bigger, readable, PDF version.)

No, I haven't seen (insert movie name here).

Confession: I've never seen the Star Wars movies ... any of them. No, that's not entirely true; I have seen one of the ones with Jar-Jar Binks, which I'm told doesn't count. If you don't know me, you probably think I live under a rock. (Debatable.)

So, my friend Matt has helped me start a database of movies I should see. There's a triple purpose: One, it's a short list of things to stick on my Netflix queue; two, it gives me a chance to get down and dirty with SQL (I've missed having a database with which to tinker); and three, it's an opportunity to learn PHP.

Do me a favor and add a couple of movies to the list if you get a sec. I'll make a note if I've seen it, but there's a 90 percent chance I haven't. And yes, feel free to come back here after you've seen the list and marvel at how badly I'd fail at Scene It.

Here's a link: http://www.katesink.com/movies. The form is at the top of the page.

March Madness: The "It's Almost On" edition

It's Selection Sunday! Yay! I planned my entire day around it (meaning I reneged on original plans to do the RB2 Endless Setlist on Expert).

Real Life has been kind of crazy lately, which means I haven't been keeping up with the basketball season much (hey, that's what SportsCenter is for, no?), but I'm confident my bracket is still going to beat the pants off everyone else in my pick 'em tourney.

It's a smidge bittersweet because most of the people in my pick 'em are my former newspaper coworkers. I wish I could be there to watch the games with them. Last March was so fun and so, so unproductive. As far as last year's pick 'em went, I did pretty well (read: I beat my boss, my hubby, and quite a few of my friends who are hardcore b-ball fans). And this year's kitty is a little bigger -- around $300, from what I hear.

My favorite winning pick 'em strategy was told to me by a coworker last year. His wife, as I recall, won their tourney by choosing teams based solely on the coolness of their mascot. (Say what you will, but Long Live the Stanford Tree!)

I'll post my bracket once it's finished -- and definitely before Thursday.

Okay, time to pop open a beer and get this thang on.

On the value of an extended warranty

Had a flat tire when I went out to the Vue last night. It's karma for playing my music too loud during Kate's First Warm Day Ritual.

Fortunately, I have an extended warranty with roadside/hazard help, so I called them to tow it to Saturn this morning. Had the tire fixed and an oil change, then the service techs took it on a test drive around the parking lot to check the integrity of the tire.

When they came back, they asked if I'd noticed a roaring noise when I drove. (No, I hadn't. Then again, how am I supposed to know how my car is supposed to sound with no reference point?) Long story short, my wheel bearings are fubar. It's going to take a few hours to fix -- though I was promised it will be ready today -- so Paul brought me home to goof off until it's ready to be picked up.

Fortunately, it's all covered under that 100,000-mile, bumper-to-bumper warranty. Phew.

Check out my new hair!

Maybe this isn't the best picture because you can't see the darker red on the back half of my head. It's one of the things I said I'd do after I moved out of Memphis and didn't have to see people I know on a daily basis.

I know I'm too old for this, but I'm doing all the things I should've done in college. You know ... like have fun until I figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. (Grow up? Wha-?)

Oh, and yes, I'm holding Trekkie Monster. (He had been sitting on my head before I took this pic.)

Windows down, music up

Today was a beautiful day: sunny and 79, which made it the perfect time for Kate's First Warm Day Ritual. On the first warm day of the year, I roll down the windows and crank up some Rob Zombie at a level that makes my car vibrate and annoys other drivers.

Cut me some slack. I only do this on one afternoon once a year.

Why Rob Zombie? I dunno. It's just always been that way. I associate "Dragula" with my first spring drive just as much as I associate "Black Hole Sun" with the first day of summer. (I didn't say it was rational.) This time two years ago, I was on the way home from work, stuck in traffic on I-40. This time last year, I was driving to the university to have dinner with Paul.

When I got home from my drive tonight, I walked to the pier and looked out on Shem Creek. I snapped some photos and marveled at how much can change in a year and how we hold on to those things that carry us from here to there. I have no idea what's going to happen between now and the first warm day of 2010, but I know what I'll be doing that day. You can count on it.

Meds that cause "instant old age"? Sign me up!

I had my quarterly head check yesterday -- my second run-in with my new psych.

The three months since my last check have been weird ones, but all's well that ends well. I'm in "happy fun fun la la land." (Thanks for that perfect description, Chris. Sorry you feel left in the dirt.) I've gone from not sleeping and not eating to ... awesome. I have the best friends in the world. "You guuuys!"

Even though making new friends and spending time with old friends is out of character for me, I don't feel manic and don't have any classic mania symptoms. In fact, it's a great feeling. I'm not hiding under the covers all day anymore. But my inability to vocalize that on the spot left the psych thinking maybe I was toeing the mania line, so we compromised that I could stay on my regular meds and add a medium dose of Depakote.

Went to the pharmacy to drop off the scripts and decided to get the lowdown on Depakote while I waited. So I got comfortable and hit up my favorite neuro-meds site, Crazy Meds. I read the entire page for pros and cons, then alighted on this graf:

Depakote's Typical Side Effects: The usual for anticonvulsants plus a special set for valproates: instant old age. You'll get fat, bald, tired, confused, uninterested in sex, unable to hold your liquor and everything will give you heartburn and/or the runs.

Are you serious?

I messaged Matt and he wrote back, "And you didn't even think you were manic to begin with. Side effects are worse than mania." There's a reason he's already nicknamed Depakote "Dookiepoop." He's right. There's no way I can justify taking something that I might not even need when the side effects overshadow the success of the drug itself.

Someday, I'm not going to need any of these anymore, and I don't think that day is too far away. Till then, why fix what's not broken?

Happy-thought request

Hey, just want to tell my friends who might not keep up with Smacky to send happy thoughts and prayers to his family. His wife and mother have had some serious health issues this week, and he's been juggling to take care of the two of them. (I won't rehash the details; they're on his blog.) Stress-inducing, fo sho. So if you've got a second right now, say a little prayer for his family.

And now back to your regular scheduled programming.

16 Albums

[Via Facebook, thanks to Smacky.]

16 Albums

Think of 16 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Music that royally affected you, kicked you in the wazoo, figuratively socked you in the gut.

[These are largely albums I discovered in high school or college. I was a blank slate then, and these spoke to me in ways I’ll never forget. Though a few still make it onto a playlist once in a while, most are just fond memories.]

1. "Little Earthquakes," Tori Amos – College, thanks to Evan. (He might not realize how much of an impact he had.) There’s not a bad song on the album; every one speaks to me at different times and for different reasons. Anyone who knows me probably thinks “Crucify” is my theme song, but I actually really connected to “Winter.” Still do.
2. "Whatever and Ever Amen," Ben Folds Five – Senior year of high school. Ryan sitting at an oak-colored piano and saying, “Come here. I can play ‘Brick.’ The riff goes like this. …” Ben Folds doesn’t just play a piano; he dominates it and submits to it. I wanted to do that, too.
3. "Fashion Nugget," Cake – Senior year of high school. Andy’s car, driving to the print shop with a stack of page proofs, “Race Car Ya-Yas” on the stereo – and loud. I hadn’t heard anything like it before. Went out and bought it that night.
4. "Reload," Metallica – Paul’s black truck, freshman year in college. Singing, half in freedom and half in rebellion. I’m thankful he was a bad influence.
5. "Ani DiFranco," Ani DiFranco – Senior year of college. My roommate brought it from New Mexico and played it in a little stereo on her desk. (Another friend who probably doesn’t realize her influence.) I loved everything about my roommate. I started playing piano again because of her.
6. "Factory Showroom," They Might Be Giants – Right place, right time – around my junior year in college. Even now, every time I hear “New York City,” my mind goes to the only good part of the Summer of Hell.
7. "Jagged Little Pill," Alanis Morissette – I bought this in my junior year of high school and hid it from my parents in my bedroom because the songs have bad words. “Mary Jane” still means the world to me.
8. "Marc Cohn," Marc Cohn – No, not because of “Walking in Memphis," though I do know it. My songs were "Silver Thunderbird" and “Strangers in a Car.”
9. "Rage Against the Machine," Rage Against the Machine – Summer before my freshman year of college. Didn’t agree with everything but liked most of it anyway. Probably my favorite lines came from “Know Your Enemy”: "Yes, I know my enemies: They're the teachers who taught me to fight me … (etc.)."
10. "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," R.E.M. – Two words: “Be Mine.”
11. "The Downward Spiral," Nine Inch Nails – Bought this in college but didn’t really get into NIN until much later. Might have been my first real exposure to concept music … and industrial music, for that matter.
12. "Under the Table and Dreaming," Dave Matthews Band – Sleepover at Betsy’s house, my sophomore or junior year of high school. I’m sitting on the extra bed, listening to “Satellite,” and I don’t feel alone.
13. "Tails," Lisa Loeb – The line “I’ve been sleeping on half of my bed lately, thinking of what you said to me,” really resonated. It was beautiful and poetic … and who hasn’t been there at some point in their life? Bonus: “Sandalwood” is a sweet song, as well.
14. "The Presidents of the United States of America," The Presidents of the United States of America – Here’s another one I picked up from Andy, which is kind of funny because we didn’t hang out that often. A lot of the songs walked a fine line between enjoyable and weird. I dug that.
15. "Plans," Death Cab for Cutie – This one came out in 2005, much later than the other ones on my list, but I found it – specifically “What Sarah Said” – in an ICU waiting room. It was like it was written for me. It stayed in my car CD player for weeks.
16. "River of Dreams," Billy Joel – Another album on which every song is fantastic. And “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” is one of my favorite lullabies. Beautiful.

Sixteen takes a while, but if you're not inclined to go to all that trouble, I'd love to hear at least the what and why of your top album.