Remember to install:

Stellarium – Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

AlwaySync – This helps keep my external hard drive in sync with my laptop

Picassa – Photo Organizer

Mozilla Firefox – My browser of choice

Google Toolbar – Such a great search tool that I don’t mind they are spying on me

SpySweeper – What keeps the spyware at bay. Hopefully

CCleaner – Crap Cleaner

Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer – So I can view the PowerPoint presentations people send me

OpenOffice – Because MSOffice makes me cry.

EyeFi – I don’t even know if my eyefi card still works but if it does– gotta load this baby.

Microsoft Money – I recently bought a copy although I’ve done nothing with it.

Rhapsody – I usually just go online anymore so it might not even make sense to download the actual software.

Norton 360 – Bastards automatically renewed my subscription so I might as well load it up and use it. I hate Norton! It’s supposed to guard against viruses but I swear it sucks all my system resources like a leach. I think it’s a virus.

AcrossLite – So I can do the NYT Crossword puzzles.

TomTom – The only way I find my way around… anywhere

GIMP – Because PhotoShop is too expensive

Netflix Movie Viewer – So one day I can sit and watch a movie on my computer, although that hasn’t happened yet.

Snipping Tool – Tom loaded this Snipping Tool icon onto my taskbar, I have no clue how he did it but I do love it and I suppose if I can’t figure it out, I can always invite him and Joan over for dinner and have him install it again.

DVDShrink – I used to use this program but it doesn’t seem to function correctly in Vista– so probably not worth the bother of loading.

Sunday, October 12, 2008 was a record setting day for Donnaville.com! It’s the most visits ever! 348 people dropped on by! People weren’t stopping in to hear the vocal stylings of Cindy and Bert— no, Mr. Charles “Dustbury” Hill directed them here. They were in search of the startlingly six footer-ish lady he met back on one of his famous world tours! Here I am!!! It’s true I did meet Mr. Charles “Dustbury” Hill. I shall always fondly remember that night. He was a true gentleman. But getting back to web page traffic, the only traffic I get comes from Charles. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

What’s wrong with this picture?!? Charles gets me– why not anyone else!?! Helloooooo?

I’m just teasing, I just get a kick seeing one referrer and wanted to share it.

Erin is having a Halloween Costume Party and she invited [name omitted] and me!!!!! I am really excited! Her last Halloween Party I went to was back in the late 90’s and I remember it was SO MUCH FUN! My favorite memory of that party (my last memory too since I think I shortly blacked out) was when Erin put some funky music on the stereo and we did the Soul Train Dance Line! It was great! In fact, Erin doesn’t know this but I actually secretly recorded it for posterity. Here it is:

via videosift.com
Yeah, I know. For a bunch of white people we sure had the groove. I attribute it to the vast amounts of Manhattans and Yuenglings we drank that night.

And here’s some actual photos of that night courtesy of Erin’s extremely old Geoshities page! I am the girl dressed in red. I was supposed to be a devil. Yes, there is a man holding up my leg in the one photo. It’s upsetting to me, it really is. I lost those great shoes! 🙂 Looking at these pictures I can’t help but reminisce. The girl in the very first photo was a stripper Erin befriended (No not the angel! That’s Lisa! The other girl is the one I am referring to). We met her at Carla’s Poetry Slam in New Hope. She had a slave. She kept him chained on a leash. The few times I tried to talk to her she kept changing the subject to Sheisse Films. I really think she was molested as a child. There is simply no other explanation for that woman’s extremely odd behavior. To this day I will always remember her walking into the Halloween party at Erin’s parents’ house and Cathy saying, “I love your Dominatrix costume!” and Mistress Mercy snapping back, “I AM NOT WEARING A COSTUME!”

Oh Erin! I do hope you invite some odd guests this time too! I simply can’t wait!

One more thing– anyone have any ideas for costumes? Leave it in the comments. I honestly have no clue. But here’s the thing, I don’t want to do any of those weird slutty/sexy lady’s costumes. Suggest away! (ex. Emma and Steed, Dog and Beth, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Cowboy” Bob Orton, etc)

Today is a day off for me. No, I do not work for the government! For some weird reason my employer gives us federal holidays off. I love it. Except my customers can’t figure out why I am not available and they freak out a little bit. At any rate I spent the morning cleaning and re-arranging the donnavilla. It’s a remarkable improvement. The dust is gone. There’s still more to do but I can’t help but rest a little and look out at my furniture that no longer looks velvet and smile.

Last week I went to the Electric Factory and saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I am happy to report I was not the oldest lady in the room. There was one chick older than me. Although I was the only person not high on marijuana. The opening band was Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds. They were great. When Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds finally took to the stage I mistook the one drummer for Nick Cave. He was wearing a navy blazer and khaki trousers. I couldn’t help but feel almost disappointed. But then he went behind one of the drum sets and out came this skinny, old, porn star looking leprechaun and I breathed a sign of relief… now this is Nick Cave!

Here’s a clip from the concert I found on Youtube:

I was standing right next to the guy who was hooting so loudly. On my other side was a woman with blond hair who appeared to be giving a lap dance to an invisible man. It was odd. Heck, everyone there was odd. It was a lot of fun.

I watched a bit of Glenn Beck. I had to turn him off. He was telling his audience to stock up on food. His guests were saying that super inflation from this bail out is going to simply wipe us out. Sure our FDIC-insured bank accounts are safe but the value will be gone. One of his guests said, “You will spend $100,000.00 on a tank of gas!”

Can I tell you I feel sick? I can’t figure out if this is just another over-hyped Y2K: Planes will drop from the skies! or if everything Glenn Beck and his guests were saying is true. I mean, am I going to suddenly find myself enveloped in a black and white world, hocking newspapers on the street corner while wearing knickers and a jaunty little newsboy cap and eating my meals at the local soup kitchen? Am I going to have to eat my shoe and entertain myself by placing potatoes on the tips of forks and doing a little dance? Or is it just going to be okay?

I read where just the other day a Financial Planner killed his wife, mother-in-law and three sons before turning the gun on himself. The reason? Financial woes. One of Glenn Beck’s guests said that during the Great Depression unemployment was at 25%! Or course that also means that 75% had jobs. That’s still the majority. Regardless of how unique I think I am, I have always fallen into the majority. Should I go out and stock up on Campbell’s Soup? How about bars of gold and silver? Or should I just sit back and wait and see? Of course by doing that I may find my nest egg going to fill up a single tank of gas.

I keep thinking of Doris Day. Que sera, sera.

Okay, this is really odd. I thought these guys were just a silly German Schlager duo but then I find them covering Black Sabbath?

Yesterday evening I found myself closer to Market East than my usual train station. I checked the train schedules and saw I had a good half hour to kill so I decided to walk around the attached mall and maybe get something to eat at the food court. As I was entering the mall area, there was a table set up with a sign: FREE STRESS TESTS! Yep, Scientologists. I could tell from all the L. Ron Hubbard books. Two Scientologists came right up to me and implored, “Please come and take a FREE stress test!
“No thank you.”
They ignored me, grabbed me by either arm and tried to forcibly lead me to their E meter!
“No, I do NOT want a stress test” I shook myself free and walked away… QUICKLY! Please Tom Cruise, make a new movie quick! Your church needs you! And your bank account.

I went to the food court and ordered a sandwich and a diet lemonade. The woman serving me went over to a small white plastic Sterilite drawer set– the kind that is sold at Target or Walmart for organizing— she pulled open the drawer and with a ladle — STARTED SCOOPING OUT THE LEMONADE!!! I cannot figure why they kept their lemonade in a drawer. Insane.

I sat down at a booth to eat my dinner. Looking out over the nearly empty room filled with dirty tables, I noticed a public health service poster: PAP SMEAR: Once a Year Over 21! Who’s bright idea was it to put gynecological posters in the food court? I was scared to look around for fear that I might find a poster for Prostate Self-exams: >>insert dirty punchline<<. Enough about yesterday! I spent the evening on a battleship! It's true. I toured a battleship and had to walk up and down steep stairs that honestly looked more like ladders, in high heels and a wrap dress. Had I known I would find myself on an obstacle course, I would NOT have opted for my Wonder Woman printed underwear. No, I didn't just decide to tour a battleship after work. It was an event I figured would be good for networking purposes and it happened to be held on this ship. It was fun. I enjoyed myself. Right now all I want to do is sleep. And think about food. That's what happens when all you eat for dinner is a Lean Pocket. My cabinets are empty. I gotta go to the grocery store tomorrow.

Slumming around Youtube, searching for Waylon Flowers… I don’t know why, I found this:

I love the Riunite on ice commercial with the mime couple. Was that Shields and Yarnell or Mummenschanz? I don’t know. And the Rock Hudson and Madame clip!!??! Classic! I also love seeing John Ritter fighting a bear, Donna Prescow, Incredible Hulk, Sonny Bono, and superstar TOM JONES!

This is what my colleagues did to me:

Over the last few days I’ve been feeling a sense of dissonance surrounding me. I think it’s that I have closed everything in my pipeline and my August has been horrific and my September doesn’t look much better. I need to get back into prospecting mode but I am struggling. Does this make sense to the non-sales professionals out there? Sales is such a wacky job. You fly high and then crash, over and over again. You are only as good as your current month. And when you are riding high at the end of the month and everything is great, the next month comes and the clock resets back to 0. And when you are crumpled into a tiny ball, with an empty pipeline and no prospects, you are frightened that you’ll never get back up. And if all that isn’t horrible enough, your pay comes from what you bring in so if you aren’t selling, you aren’t earning. Of course there are some really nice parts about sales. You are in charge of what you make and so when you do well, you earn more. It’s nice to know you are directly responsible for the revenue of your company. Sales people are typically left alone and manage themselves. I guess it all balances out.

I was flying high in June and July. Now I gotta climb back up.

‘