Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Presents’

Diary #753

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , on December 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Next autumn, I need to ask my neighbor to go around my property line with his bulldozer; it has become so overgrown that Chekhov and I had a devil of a time dragging this tree back to the house from where we found it.  My legs are covered in scratches from thorns that went right through my jeans (even though I intentionally wore the thick ones), and I was so exhausted I just didn’t feel like decorating it until the next day.  But here it is, and what you see under it are toys from the first shopping trip of this year’s toy drive!  I’ve only had one new donation so far this year, plus some good stuff from one of my gentlemen who prefers to buy the toys himself, but last year I got a donation just a couple of days after the drive closed and local pickup had finished, so I simply kept a record of the money and got a good start on this year’s purchases.  Some of my readers were concerned I might not be able to do the drive this year because of Grace’s illness, but fortunately the local Tractor Supply store became an official drop point last year, which means I needn’t drive all the way to Olympia to make my donation; in fact, the store is in the same shopping center as the two stores where I get most of my toys, so it’s easy-peasy!  I’m not about to let needy kids suffer when I can help, just because I’m busier this year than usual, and if you’d like to help me to help them, please send your donation via PayPal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net, and please put “Toys for Tots” in the subject line so I’ll know it’s not a regular blog donation.  I can also accept donations via Zelle if you prefer not to use PayPal; just contact me for the bank information.  Thank you!

Read Full Post »

Yuletide 2024

Posted in Holidays, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , on November 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Every year on this day, the traditional beginning of the Yuletide season in the US, I remind my readers that the real spirit of the season involves giving to others rather than literally fighting to get more for yourself.  Children and whores are St. Nick’s two favorite groups of people; you can help the latter by donating to a sex worker charity such as SWOP Behind Bars, or you can help both by booking a session with a sex worker you know has kids.  And if you don’t know any, you can help by participating in my annual toy drive!  Regular readers know how it works: from today until Tuesday, December 17th, I’m collecting donations with which to buy toys, which I then donate to Toys for Tots.  Send your donation via PayPal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net, and please put “Toys for Tots” in the subject line so I’ll know it’s not a regular blog donation; I can also accept donations via Zelle if you prefer not to use PayPal.  If you’re not hurting economically yourself, please consider donating (either to my drive or to one near you); rising inflation has taken a bite out of many people’s income, so there will be less money for more-expensive toys this year.  And while we adults can understand that, it can be heartbreaking for very young children to think Santa Claus has forgotten them or bypassed them because they were naughty.  Please help if you can!

Read Full Post »

Diary #749

Posted in Diary, tagged , on November 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Last Thursday was of course my birthday, and we celebrated as we usually do: watching horror movies, in this case a Boris Karloff triple feature, thanks in part to one of my presents.  I also received several Doctor Who DVD sets from another of my generous gentlemen, and both of those gents also gifted me with sums of money which went a long way toward making up my shortfall (as did Dr. Quest).  Another of my gents gave me a Blackmore’s Night CD I’ve wanted for a while, and Chekhov and Yellowbird gave me a pack of “Alice in Wonderland” themed playing cards and a MAD Magazine compilation; it was in the envelope with the Vincent Price design, which was printed by Yellowbird with her fancy art printer because she does clever things like that.  They also gave me the haunted house, which was actually a pop-up card!  And Chekhov made the cake.  All in all, it was a quiet evening at home embellished with the company of friends and gifts from admirers, and at this stage of my life that’s exactly how I like my birthdays.

Read Full Post »

Diary #735

Posted in Diary, Favorites, tagged , , on July 30, 2024| 1 Comment »

I’ve loved The Muppet Show since it first premiered in 1976, so when it became available on DVD in the Oughts, I bought each season as it came out.  Then when season 4 was announced I put it on my Amazon wishlist and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And surprise surprise, it never came out, probably because Disney now owns the show, and they have a long history of simply stopping series in the middle if they don’t feel like they made enough money on the previous seasons.  It’s absolutely true that shows which predate the home video revolution of the mid-’80s are often delayed due to having to re-negotiate the music rights, but that delay is rarely more than a few years.  And once “streaming” became a thing, I knew I could kiss any chance of an official release of the 4th and 5th seasons goodbye.  I’ve periodically tried to find bootleg sets online because I’ve had excellent luck with bootlegs of other hard-to-find shows, but nope; it seemed I was destined to never see them again.  Then one of my generous gentlemen (who happens to be an IT guy) sent me the video in Sunday’s Links column, and in the process of thanking him I told him of my love for the show, and asked that if he ever saw the bootlegs available he would grab them for me.  He responded by asking me to take a picture of the back of my DVD player, and a couple of weeks later what should arrive in my mailbox but the last two seasons on DVD!  He had located them online, stored them in MP4 format, and saved them to DVDs for me!  The picture was to be sure my machine could play the MP4s, and it can!  So now I’m rather childishly excited about watching them, and as soon as Grace and I finish the dinnertime series we’re currently watching we’re going to start the Muppets from season 1.  And I wanted to let my gent know how very happy I am about that.

Read Full Post »

Diary #734

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on July 23, 2024| 1 Comment »

It always makes me smile when I walk down to the mailbox and find an Amazon box addressed to me when I know I haven’t ordered anything, because that means somebody has been thinking of me!  Last week I received three such packages as 14th-anniversary gifts:  A Study in Emerald from Geekdownrange, Devoted to Death from Steve Kempson, and a Blackmore’s Night album from Antonio Lorusso; at least, I think that’s who sent what, because I kept the slips but they don’t say the name of the item with the name of the sender!  And surprise surprise, Amazon was no help in sorting it out.  So if I got y’all wrong, please let me know!  But it doesn’t really matter, because I appreciate all my presents and never put anything on my wishlist that I don’t actually want!

Read Full Post »

Diary #731

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on July 2, 2024| 4 Comments »

My trusty old Chromebook, which a reader got for me almost exactly six years ago, has been showing its age for a while now.  The letters had worn off the keys so badly I kept making typos (because I’m a one-finger typist), the processor apparently couldn’t keep up with some websites, and since Google stopped updating it a couple of years ago, some snobby websites refused to let me in (meaning I needed to access them with my phone, which I really hate).  Then about two weeks ago, the “1” key stopped registering, making it very difficult to type either the numeral or the exclamation point; the next day the “Q” went, so I saw the writing on the wall and used an Amazon gift card given me by a generous gentleman to buy a new one.  I like Chromebooks for several reasons: they’re small; they do everything I need them to do for a pretty low price (this one cost me less than $130), without my having to pay for a lot of bells & whistles I don’t need; they arrive free of bloatware; and all I need to do is sign in and all my bookmarks pop right up (I keep all of my data on a thumb drive, easily switched from old computer to new).  Of course, all new computers have a frustration factor because computer companies are run by sadists, but with Chromebooks it’s usually over in a few hours (as opposed to days or weeks on the Windows machines I used to use).  Alas, this one has been annoying me for a week now with two specific issues: the more aggravating one is that when I right-click with the mouse (the same one I was using without issues before), sometimes the menu comes up normally and I can do what I like.  But at other times, it seems to want to “guess” what I want from that menu and implement it automatically, seemingly at random; it may suddenly delete whatever I highlighted, open up an emoji menu, or search the highlighted text on Google (the latter two being functions I have never and would never attempt to access via right-click).  I have no idea what this is about, but as this is a ’24 model I’m guessing it’s some artificial stupidity feature, but I have no idea how to turn it off so I need to use the keyboard for copy-paste or cut-paste, which slows me down.  The other problem is apparently Google-wide, judging by what I found online: there appears to be no way to turn off the auto”correct” function, resulting in the computer frequently replacing words I want with words I don’t want (I like it to call attention to typos or misspellings, but I don’t want it getting notions that it should “correct” me without permission).  So if anyone knows how to fix either of these problems; please let me know in the comments.  

Read Full Post »

Diary #709

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on January 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

When I was a teenager, it was entirely possible to know enough about an old movie to want to see it, yet never have the opportunity to do so.  This was of course because prior to the advent of home video, the only way to see a movie not currently playing in theaters was to catch it on television.  And since I’ve always had kind of oddball tastes in cinema, that meant scanning TV Guide as soon as it came in (plus the newspaper TV magazine in the Sunday paper) to see if anything worthwhile was scheduled for that week.  I sometimes waited for years to see some films I’d heard about or seen once; it was probably ten years between the first and second times I saw Jesus Christ Superstar.  And when I still lived with my folks, if a flick I wanted to see was playing in the wee small hours on a school night, I had to give it a pass because my mother was very strict about that.  Even after the advent of VHS, movies were at first stupidly expensive (often $60 or more in ’80s dollars) until 1988, when Wal-mart ordered umpteen gajillion copies of E.T. and priced them at under ten bucks, which totally changed Hollywood’s greedy attitude about pricing.  Then some movies never got a video release, which made them still difficult to get ahold of (a condition which still persists today).  But there are some movies which, despite my wanting to see them for decades and their being readily available on DVD, I’ve somehow never managed to see.  Recently, I put several of them on my Amazon wishlist, and a new reader bought both Animal Farm (1954), which I’ve known about since the early ’90s, and Alice in Wonderland (1933), which I’ve known about since the late ’70s (he also got me a hearthrug, but that’s not as much fun for me to write about or you to read about).  I’m excited about finally getting to see both of them, and extra-excited about sharing them with Grace, so please believe me when I tell you that I really do want everything on my wishlist, even if it’s inexpensive or seems silly to you!

Read Full Post »

Diary #704

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on December 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »

What a wonderful Christmas we had at Sunset!  Christmas of ’21 was the best I could remember until that time, but this one surpassed it in almost every way.  Though we didn’t have a white Christmas (it rained all day), we were snug and comfortable in the atrium, the first time we’ve used it for a family gathering like that; I woke up about an hour early (not unusual for me when I know there’s a busy day ahead) and started a fire so the area near the tree would be warm by late morning.  Everyone liked their presents, and though I had to go back to the kitchen a little after noon to get dinner started, most of my guests sat around the atrium stove, talking, listening to Christmas music, stoking the fire and basically making merry.  Even the dinner prepration went so smoothly that everything was ready right on time, and judging by the relative paucity of leftovers everyone really enjoyed the food!  Chekhov said it was the best Christmas he’d had in over a decade, and everyone else expressed similar sentiments; I was especially happy that my vision for the annex has come true, and I hope and pray to see many more good times there.

Read Full Post »

Diary #703

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on December 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

When I got home from a very long, exhausting day of shopping and errands (in a constant downpour) yesterday, I found several packages waiting for me; one was from my friend in Australia, and when I opened it I found this along with a card saying, “When you find greatness, you try and bottle it. This is the closest that I could find.”  It gave me a much-needed laugh after a difficult, trying day.  It’s not like I’m about to run out of Vegemite; the last container he gave me will probably last the rest of my life.  But thoughtful gag gifts are, first and foremost, thoughtful.  And those are the best kinds of gifts.

Read Full Post »

Yuletide 2023

Posted in Holidays, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , on November 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Every year on this day, the traditional beginning of the Yuletide season in the US, I remind my readers that the real spirit of the season involves giving to others rather than literally fighting to get more for yourself.  Children and whores are St. Nick’s two favorite groups of people; you can help the latter by donating to a sex worker charity such as SWOP Behind Bars, or you can help both by booking a session with a sex worker you know has kids.  If you don’t know any, you can help by participating in my annual toy drive!  Regular readers know how it works: from today until Tuesday, December 12th, I’m collecting donations with which to buy toys, which I then donate to Toys for Tots.  Send your donation via PayPal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net, and please put “Toys for Tots” in the subject line so I’ll know it’s not a regular blog donation; I can also accept donations via Zelle if you prefer not to use PayPal.  If you’re not hurting economically yourself, please consider donating (either to my drive or to one near you); rising inflation is taking a bite out of many people’s income, so there will be less money for toys this year.  And while we adults can understand that, it can be heartbreaking for very young children to think Santa Claus has forgotten them or bypassed them because they were naughty.  Please help if you can!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »