Wow, I'm on Blogshares whatever that is. I found it in my sitemeter report.

I've been spending the last two days playing with my company laptop. The Company finally gave me an IBM Thinkpad R31. What a pain in the butt the machine has been. I only got it because a salesman quit, so they had an extra one around. At least it's new. My coworkers got older ones.

I think I would preferred an older one, because mine didn't come with a docking station or port replication. Now we're trying to figure out how to connect a keyboard and a mouse, and it's a pain. The USB to PS2 connectors don't work, so now the solution is to buy a USB keyboard and mouse. Stupid IBM! They don't have a keyboard and mouse port on the back of the laptop. IBM is known for manufacturing their machines so you can only use IBM products. I hope this isn't the case, but I wouldn't surprised.

Then I spent the whole morning trying to figure out how to connect to the company VPN. That was another picnic. After two hours, I think we finally fixed it but I won't know till I take it home this weekend and test it out. I should have tested it here again, but I didn't. I've just about had enough of my laptop.

I asked my boss if I should just stick with a desktop, and he said to no. He had a hard time with the company IT department when he got his laptop, and he said just to stick it out and make the IT people fix it. I just have no patience for this kind of stuff, and I used to have to work at an IT Helpdesk. It's just so frustrating for me. I don't understand why things can't just work, or why the IT people don't test the machines they hand out.

The last two days at work have been so horrid for me that I haven't been able to work. I'm sure my bosses love that. I emailed our VP about all the laptop problems I was having, thinking maybe he would say something to the IT department. I doubt it though. He's probably thinking "didn't I tell her she could only have a desktop?" He works from a laptop, so maybe he knew the process would be this painful.

I woke up this morning, turned on the TV to get the traffic and weather report and watched in amazement as the Iraqis were trying to bring a statue of Hussein down. Very surreal!

I agree with the prez. I think it's too early to declare a victory yet, but it was nice to see the Iraqi people happy with us being there for once. On CNN, even Al Jazeera was being apologetic. Funny, how the appearance of a victory changes one's attitudes suddenly.

What's frightening is the stories of the Iraqi regime put children in jail because they wouldn't join the youth party. What about those scary torture chambers and torture tools. Some man on the radio said there were earlier videos of the Iraqi resistance shooting people especially women in the back for running up to the Coalition soldiers. He was so angry.

I wonder if there will still be anti-war demonstrations now. I don't think the war will be over until most of our troops come home, and they find the missing ones.

Someone should document all the media spin about the war. Didn't some journalist say early on that the coalition forces were in a "quagmire"? It's a reflection of our society that the journalist wanted an instant war with instant results. War used to take years not weeks, so how can can you call state of the war on just a few days of battles. Don't journalists take history courses where they talk about all the wars that have gone through the years?

It was fun for me being a "pro-war" person to be on the cruise. I thought for sure the cruise would be full of anti-war people because it was mostly full of California people. Suprisingly, most people were "pro-war".

As soon as I told people I was from San Francisco, I think they expected me to go on sam anti-war rant. When I told them my views, people seemed to open and up and relax and we could talk about how worried we were for our soldiers, how biased and anti-american the media was, and how bad Hussein is.

We did run into a few anti-war people from the Bay Area, but they had the same opinion of the anti-war protests that I did. The anti-war protests were mostly being run by anti-american socialists groups, they were violent, and they were focused on a city that's mostly anti-war. These people refused to attend the anti-war protests and they were very anti-war.

One woman was a former Vietnam war protestor who found out through her father, who used to work for the government, that the FBI kept files on all the Vietnam war protestors. Her father found out she was protesting the Vietnam war because the FBI told him about it, and showed him her file. Her father had no idea what she was doing. The woman laughed when she said this and told us her father was a "big time republican".

She told me that the FBI were probably doing the same with the anti-war protestors. This piece of information was scary. When I was taking russian language courses in college, my professors used to joke that just by taking the class we the students were now under FBI scrutiny and we had "files". I'm sure with the Patriot Act, all this kind of stuff is now in hyperdrive mode.

Like I said, it's been a very surreal day. I've got lots more to write about, but I'm tired now. I feel like a witness to history and it's a very strange feeling. It's like a 9/11 feeling only weirder. Events in the world seem to be happening at a dizzying rate.

And SARS is scaring the heck out of me, only because it looks like China is covering up how many death and illnesses they have. Once the war is over, it will SARS, SARS, SARS all day and all night long. If you think the war news was worse, wait till the media gets a hold of SARS. We'll have pictures and videos of sick people, quarantined people and people walking around with masks on their faces, not to mention interviews with grieving relatives, tired doctors and other healthcare people, plus probably a SARS death counter. I'm hoping SARS doesn't turn into a media circus, but I have my doubts.

A week out of my routine daily blogging has made me not want to blog for some reason.

On Monday, I started apartment hunting. I want to move out of my apartment by May 1. I have to start working from home by May 5, and I need a bigger place.

Day 1 of apartment hunting was so depressing. I went to look at a place two blocks from where I live, and it was so small and dirty. The price was great and it came with parking, but it had no view and I think it was even smaller than my place.

Afterwards, I came home, freaked out and then cried myself to sleep. I woke up aorund midnight and read some of my inspirational books. One book said to not get stopped by what looks like negative events. There are no negative events. Every event has a message.

For me the message of that depressing small apartment with parking was I need to spend more money to get a nicer place with parking, and I need to find a place that makes me happy.

Today, I looked at an apartment that was the amount I thought I would have to spend but didn't want to spend. It wasn't in a neighborhood I was interested in, but the ad said the apartment was huge and it came with parking.

The apartment wasn't the greatest, but it did have two things going for it. The bedroom and living room have ocean views and I get my own storage closet. I put a bid in right away, but there were many people looking at the place so I'll have to wait and see if I get accepted.

I think I have another place to look at tomorrow in a neighborhood I wanted to live in, so hopefully I can do that tomorrow. The guy showing the ocean view place said he was going to be out of town tomorrow, so it's not like he's going to make a decision right away.

The place I'm looking at tomorrow is a neighborhood I want to live in and I'm familiar with. The ocean view place is not in a bad neighborhood, but I'm not that familiar with it. I looked around a bit, and it's got a nice little shopping district with coffee places, restaurants and stores.

Of course, now I'm freaking out and looking at my place and thinking about packing all this stuff up and moving it. I've been in my place for about 8 years, so I've accumulated a ton of stuff. I've been trying to throw stuff out, but I still have more to do. No wonder people hate to move. It's a nightmare to pack up all of your stuff.

At least if I get the ocean view place, I'll have a storage closet to store stuff but I don't want to move anything that I'm going to throw out later. Moving is so traumatic. I want to make three passes through my stuff. I've already made one pass through my stuff, and need to make two more passes.

The only good thing about moving is I get to simplify my possessions. I'm a pack rat and it's hard to throw stuff out. The last time I moved, I threw a ton of stuff out and I still felt I had too many things. I don't want that same feeling when I move this time.

Got back from my cruise yesterday. I was so tired. I napped all day and night. I had gotten so used to the motions of the ship, that it's taking awhile for me to find my land legs.

I gained about 5-6 pounds from my vacation, but that's to be expected since I didn't monitor my food. When I go back to eating the way I normally eat, the weight will come off.

I drank way too much on my vacation. I'm so not used to drinking like that anymore. I hated the way drinking made me feel. I felt so tired all the time and sluggish. Drinking alcohol so saps my energy. I don't mind maybe a half a glass of wine at dinner and a cocktail or two, and a night of drinking at parties, but not every day. Being tired from drinking was eye-opening. Maybe I'm turning into an old lady before my time.

It always amazes me how much people drink. More amazing because I used to drink like that. But now that level of alcohol consumption doesn't interest me. I always feel like I'm self-medicating, and it bothers me to think about what I'm self-medicating myself from. I think I use food as self-medication too, and shopping as well.

Why do shopping, food and alcohol make people feel good, when in reality they aren't good for you. Alcohol is a depressant, shopping empties your wallet of cash, and food makes you gain weight and causes health problems down the road.

I'm still tired, and I think a little depressed from the alcohol, so more napping today and watching the war go by on CNN.

Things I've been doing on my cruise.

Getting all the drink specials at all the various bars on the ship. I am on a pleasant buzz from 3 pm on.
Eating 5 full meals a day. Food is plentiful and somehow sailing makes you very hungry. Today I had two breakfast meals. I'm not sure why other than the fact than I can.
I played Name that Movie Tune today in a team of three other passengers, and we took first place. What's scary is we all knew the words to some of the songs. They should have named it themes from movies before 1980. Our prize was keychains with the name of the cruise line. Yippee.
Reading "Phantoms" by Dean Koontz. Great vacation reading.
Sitting on the deck chair and reading for half and hour, then falling asleep for an hour, then reading again, and falling asleep. Repeat cycle all day.
Thinking about playing "Bingo" on board, but I keep stopping myself.
Watching people line dance after dinner. Some people really know how to do this stuff.
On formal night, sitting with my friend and doing a better than Joan and Melissa Rivers running commentary on the way people are dressed, and what mistakes they're making. We're thinking of starting our own cable access channel show and calling it "Badly Dressed People on a Cruise".
Deciding that after a certain age, a woman should never wear a sleeveless dress unless you're willing to spend 10-12 arms working on your arms and have less than 15% body fat.
Deciding that no matter how great your legs are, there comes a certain time where you should stop wearing skirt at mid thigh level.