cindy's world

…just click on the video below. Apply liberally as needed. Guess who? 😉

I just discovered these kids. I instantly “fanned” them. They give Boyz II Men a run for their money! Probably the BEST local R&B group I’ve seen in a long, long time.

I had a zany weekend with many of my favorite people. It was also quite an eye-opening experience and a good look at people around me. Before I get into that (since I have photos and it’d take work to post and I’m sleepy), I just want to post a brief li’l ditty…

I’m helping a friend out in a quick marriage ceremony. Nothing formal, just something that has to be done before the lunar calendar year (Feb. 14 this year) is over, and I happen to be in the unique position to have access to all the loose ends. So I tied a few in the last few days in the interests of love and friendship. I had offered my veil as her “something borrowed,” which she can use for the technical ceremony later this week, and if she would like, she can use it for her “something borrowed” at her formal wedding later on in the year. In digging out my wrinkled veil to be steamed earlier, I happened upon my wedding dress. Curiosity got the better of me and I pulled it on. At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to zip it up, because I had worked out so hard before the wedding and I haven’t exercised much at all recently. It was more snug than it was the day of the wedding, but it zipped up and looked fine. That’s a relief to know that if I need to wear a princess-cut ivory dress, I have one ready in the closet!

I just blacklisted someone’s IP address for the first time on here. Some psycho left a bizarre and barely coherent comment in one of my pages here. I can’t tell who she’s cussing at (me or the myriad commenters on that string), but I don’t tolerate hostility like that, even tho she’s either so uneducated or so drunk that she can barely put a sentence together. I categorized her message as spam AND blocked her IP address, so if one filter doesn’t catch her, another will.

Felt good.

Earlier tonight, Mr. W managed to get sheet music on the computer, which displays on a monitor he placed on the digital piano. It’s a pain to have to stop playing to scroll down with the mouse in order to turn the page or get to the next line, but the advantage is that I don’t have to prop 50 sheet music books on the piano, either. Just ONE collection he downloaded (one of many) was 1043 popular songs. I’m in love with Jim Brickman’s compositions now, by the way. But considering the fact that it is now almost 2am and I’m only now getting to bed (and I still have 40 songs to go through in this “album!”), I’m thinking this may not be all a good thing. Scott spent 80 minutes working the knots and tightness out of my back earlier today, and thanks to 1003 songs by The Beatles, Brian McKnight, Boyz II Men, Elton John, George Michael, Jewel, Mariah Carey (just to name a FEW), my back hurts again. =P I’m quittin’ and going to bed.

I’d like to welcome my jujitsu friend Gerardo to the blogosphere! Turns out, he’s a really good writer. Since he’s now a blogger, I’ve made Gerardo the first jujitsu buddy to be informed that I have a blog (aside from personal friend Vanessa, but she had to be my roommate first before I even let her in on it). You may remember Gerardo from my past blog posts such as this one.

Right now Gerardo’s looking for Cindy’s World. I told him I have a blog, he expressed interest in reading it, I got his permission to put his link up on my blogroll, but I didn’t give him this blog address or any clues as to what it’s called. I’m curious just how easily I can be found on the internet, anyway. He should be happily surprised when he finally finds the blog and reads this post…or when he gives up and I finally give him the address, whichever comes first.

My mom’s been trying to unload my childhood baby grand piano on me since I moved out, years ago, but there was never room for it. Now that I’m on house #2, there still isn’t room for it because Mr. W and I merged our separate furniture together in a not-particularly spacious residence. We’re talking about getting rid of most the downstairs furniture (2 leather couches, 1 fabric couch, 3 coffee tables/credenzas, possibly a bookshelf or two, wooden dining table and 4 dining chairs) and starting over with coordinated sets, simplifying our spaces. Ideally, we’d be able to Craigslist off our stuff and put that money toward new furniture. This will clear room not for the baby grand, but for an electronic piano. Mr. W went shopping with his ex-neighbor buddy a couple of months ago and they were impressed by some very technology-forward keyboards that felt and sounded like real pianos, but with advanced options that Mr. W really liked, such as being able to plug into his computer so he could do sound recordings and edits with computer programs. (Yes, it’d be another one of his toys.) We then went to Thanksgiving in Vegas and saw that his Gamer Bro, who’s always at the front line of new technology and techie toys, has purchased an advanced Kawai keyboard that not only emulates the piano feel and sound impressively, but also does hundreds of other voices and sound effect combinations, connects to his computer to play downloadable midi files, will play and “teach” sheet music downloadable from a particular site on the internet through video and keyboard demo, and the sheet music will display on the screen and highlight as the notes are played so the player can follow along. It also records multiple scores so that a song can by played with one voice, then layered over with other instruments and voices and compositions, for an end result that sounds orchestral. Mr. W was salivating at the possibilities. When we returned from Vegas, he went to multiple music stores and hunted for the ideal electronic piano. He nows thinks he’s found it in a Yamaha electronic piano thousands of dollars OVER that which his brother spent (which price tag Mr. W had shaken his head at when he saw his brother’s new toy), and the sucker displays its own screen set into the piano, AND all the tons of voices are so convincingly real that on a guitar mode, for example, you can hear the metallic squeal of the strings between notes when a guitarist would run his fingers quickly over the frets on a key change. And it does karaoke. And of course, it plugs into the computer. I should note here that Mr. W wants this electronic piano really, really BADLY…and that he doesn’t play the piano. But he’s got it set in his head that the presence of a keyboard is the only thing standing between him and beautiful music on-demand, maybe even newly composed music, brought into existence by me. That’s a lot of pressure for a rusty pianist like myself. Thankfully, though, after playing with Gamer Bro’s piano for a bit, and then going to visit my parents this weekend and playing on the old baby grand, piano playing came back to me. I was able to sight-read faster and hit the notes more accurately. Mr. W said, when we were leaving, “I’m DEFINITELY getting you a piano.”

Odd little tidbit: while at the piano shop where Mr. W first played with the Yamahas, I looked at the baby grands and were surprised how much smaller they were than the one I remembered at my parents’ house. I asked the salesguy, “Did baby grands get smaller in the last, oh, 2 decades?” He said not really, but then sizes have always varied between brands and styles anyway. I hadn’t known that, I’d always thought there were regulation sizes for “baby grand,” “standard grand,” and “concert grand.” He said they have given parameters, but can vary up to quite a few inches. Hmm. This weekend at my parents’ house, I stared at the profile of the baby grand. Mr. W asked my parents something about it, and my dad said, “No! This isn’t a baby grand, this is a regular grand!” REALLY?! No wonder it wouldn’t fit in either of my two houses! I’m really surprised my parents bought their 6-year-old just learning to play the piano a standard grand! I guess I was more spoiled than I knew.

It was so cold this morning that I put on pantyhose for the first time in 8 years. I took a new pair out of the package tucked into the way back of my socks drawer, put it on, and discovered that I am no longer the same size I was 8 years ago. When I bend my knees, elephant-trunk wrinkles appear on the backs of my knees as all this nylon goodness gathers there. Oh well, at least it helps keep me warm — it’s been much colder (meaning, for my readers in the east, temperatures in the 50s Fahrenheit) lately, and rain is now predicted to commence on Sunday and conclude on Thursday. This makes me nervous, since my bachelorette house (as differentiated from my marital house where I currently reside) had leaked in the rainstorm in October, and then again last month. According to my tenants, the leaks in the stairwell were so bad that rain filled bowls and dribbled down the chandelier and shorted the entire thing out. I now need to repair the stained damaged interior ceiling there and replace the chandelier. I went thru leakage hell last February when I was living there and due to association drama and idiocy and further rains the new roof couldn’t be done for months thereafter, so although I’m grateful for the 5-year warranty on the new roof (and the roofers did go out under warranty and reportedly did some work on the roof for free), I’m unhappy they didn’t seal what they’d needed to seal in the first place such that new leaks occurred. Yesterday, I called the roofing company that did the work and asked if their warranty extended to interior damage due to a workmanship defect on the outside. They told me the warranty didn’t, but that they’d send someone out to look at the interior damage to see what they could do for me. They’re gonna make arrangements with my tenants. *crossing fingers* The roofers don’t need to do the repairs themselves, but if they could just throw some money my way to help me fix the ceiling and get a new chandelier, I’d be happy.

Have I still not blogged about my 2-week road trip with my in-laws? Holy cow, I’ve gotta buckle down when I’m at home and start loading up some photos.
Speaking of road trip and behind, one peculiarity I’ve noticed as we drove from the eastern states back to the western states, is that disposable toilet seat covers are not available in the public restrooms of many other states. What’s up with that?! I’ve been scared about the highly resistent bacteria strains MRSA thanks to two of my friends in the medical profession, nurse Jordan and pharmacist Vicky, and in both conversations MRSA came up in the context of pee dribblings on public toilet seats. You men don’t know how lucky you are that you can stand a foot away and just aim and shoot.

Yesterday morning (Veteran’s Day holiday), I saw on email that Michelle had posted a link to me on the social networking site we’re both members of. Along with this link is a message:

Lets quit our jobs and do this wow
http://twitter.com/luca_barese/status/5614193356

I trusted Michelle and was interested, so I clicked the link. It led to a Twitter page that had another link, which I then clicked on. What followed is a “weight loss blog” purportedly written by a married mother who gained weight and found no way to lose it until she discovered two particular products that worked miraculously for her when used together. Separate links are posted for each of the two products, both of which are pills. This was not written like a weight loss blog, more like a 1-post advertisement. A loooong advertisement.

I was hoping that Michelle wasn’t falling for this crap, so I messaged her back. I wrote that it is very evident to me that the “blog” is fake. The whole thing is an advertising page written by the products’ advertisers. The writing itself is too organized commercially speaking for a layperson to have composed it, and they threw in some dumbing-down to make it seem more like some average girl wrote it (“I don’t know all the medical words and stuff, I just know it worked,” etc). If she’s educated enough to compose an ad like that with bullets and strategic point outlines, she wouldn’t have made the “dumbing down” remarks and some word choices that she made. Even the comments on the post seem fake, like more advertising with others’ fake “testimonials,” which I deduced from the type of spelling errors juxtaposed with the lack of common spelling/syntax problems (telling me the former spelling errors were “planted” in an attempt to, again, seem like an average person’s real testimonial) and overly commercialized enthusiasm. These “comments” also served as the convenient conveyance of FAQs, such as how long delivery takes, whether men can use the products, whether older people can use the products, etc. And what’s more ridiculous, the before/after photo at the end of this diet site, supposedly of this girl giving the testimonial, is one that I recognized from a late-nite infomerical that advertises an under-clothing bodysuit which slims down fat rolls immediately to fit you better in smaller clothing sizes. Both photos are taken deliberately in the same location with the same clothes and the same hairdo to show that this was immediately before and after using the bodysuit. It is not meant to be a photo of a girl before taking diet pills and 2 months later showing weight loss.

It just seemed to me like the site was written to appeal to an audience of not-too-smart, too-lazy-to-exercise-and-diet-properly, low-income gullible women trying to regain their youth while not taking responsibility for losing control of their weight to begin with, looking for an easy magic pill shortcut while being unwilling to research and invest time in actual health-inducing activities/changes. And I wrote exactly that in response to her posting.

Mr. W’s eyes bulged when I told him all this over breakfast. “That’s harsh,” he said. “What if she really believes in this stuff? What if SHE’S advertising for this stuff?” So then I checked and felt a little bad when I realized she’d posted the same link on a bunch of other people’s networking pages, altho with different comments, like “Does this look like a job you can do?”; “A great Sunday business read.” I didn’t understand how this to her meant a business project, so maybe she WAS interested in selling the pills. Hmm.

This morning, I heard back from Michelle, but her answer was nothing of what I’d expected. “OMG, I really didn’t post that! I haven’t been on [the site] for days! I really don’t know what happened!” She soon discovered that the link, along with a similar message, had been posted on the sites of ALL her networked friends, including her own site. I told her to change her password immediately, which she did, but maybe it’s not an active person hacking her account as much as a stupid cookie or psycho embedded program, which kills even more credibility for that “diet blog.” Michelle had to send an email to all her friends to apologize for the link posting and to say it really wasn’t from her even tho it was sent from her networking account, and then she went to ALL of our pages and manually deleted all these messages and links. Whew! What a lot of work! How ANNOYING. And, illegal?

You could say that the fact that I’ve now posted the same link on my public access blog here is free advertising for the site and hence gives these jerks exactly what they want, but I’m hoping that people would look to research a little before falling for that crap, and then find and read this post. It worked for the post I wrote about the psychic scams I got in the mail.