i called her at her office. she said she’d look in the bank to see if my birth certificate is there. she also said that she will help me fill out all of the required paperwork.

part me wants to say, “yes! woohoo!!!” but then there’s another part of me that knows how my mom is. nothing’s ever “free” with her. she’s like the Godfather, seriously: “Someday ? and that day may never come ? I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this ? gift ?” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/quotes)

so i guess i’ll accept it and see what happens.

See more progress on: apply for disability

today they sent me an e-mail about something having to do with my CNAME–huh? i called Network Solutions, with whom my domain name is registered and they said that everything’s fine. and yet TypePad wants to go over this with me. why? i have no idea how these things work, and if Network Solutions says it’s working, then shouldn’t it be?

i’m so tempted to switch to a company that will both contain my domain name as well as a blogging platform for me use, mainly WordPress. they have so many more templates available than for TypePad, and are much beautiful besides. another thing i like about WordPress is the ability to have password protected entries (as opposed to an entire blog), and the ability for commenters to be notified when someone (other than me) has replied to their comment thus creating a dialogue that actually makes it a blogging community! imagine that. very much like what i liked about LiveJournal, which ironically TypePad owns!

what to do? what to do? dishing out the yearly fee might make things tight, but on the other hand, we won’t have to worry about making any more monthly payments. any thoughts, people? this could be the new poll!

already. one of the pieces of paper the SSA wants you to supply is an original birth certificate or at least an official copy from the office. if i were born in Cook County, this would not be a problem.

unfortunately, i was born in Quezon City, Philippines, and according to my dad, it isn’t so easy to obtain government documents from there. wonderful. further, he insists that my mom has a copy in a safety deposit box and that i should call her for it. for some reason, i don’t believe she has this because she may have given it to me in the past and–duh–i lost it. second, i haven’t spoken to her in nearly two years, and i’m just not ready to.

on the other hand, i’m tired of brooding and brooding about the things that need to be done. it’s time to take some action if this ball is ever going to get rolling.

well, i just tried her on her cell phone and got no answer. my sister said that she gets poor reception in her unit and she doesn’t have a land line set up yet. we agreed that i should just call her at work tomorrow, so that’s what i’ll do.

See more progress on: apply for disability

i’m Barb, and i’m an AFOL–that’s adult fan of LEGO, for those of you who don’t know. a few years ago, i rediscovered LEGOs when i was in a hypomanic state. i couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t read, couldn’t get anything done, basically. i don’t know where the idea came from, but i asked Brian to bring home a LEGO set for me. i was able to put it together because the instructions didn’t have words, just pictures, and it left me with a sense of accomplishment–i was finally able to start and finish a task.

i fell in love. we started buying sets for me to put together, and eventually, i came to collect Harry Potter and Star Wars (of course) LEGO sets. i’m not creative enough to build my own creations (known as MOCs), except that one time i built a Whomping Willow Tree, with Mr. Weasley’s Ford Anglia caught in it and everything. and even that was based on a picture on the back of a box for the Aragog the giant spider set.

the Harry Potter sets are modular, so you can connect several of them together. my Hogwarts castle was 4 stories tall and although the room where Fluffy the Hellhound resided might not have been on the correct floor, the room below it that contained the Devil’s Snare did lead to the Chamber of the Keys, and so on.

the problem with having a LEGO Hogwarts is the giant Natividad-Nodurft cats that i’m sure Hagrid would have loved to teach in one of his Care of Magical Creatures classes. these oversized felines stomped through the Hogwarts grounds like Godzilla through Tokyo, destroying the Whomping Willow Tree, Dumbledore’s office, even the castle itself! all that’s left of Hogwarts around here is the Chamber of Secrets, hidden well below the castle, that is, on the second book shelf instead of the very top of it.

my one other attempt at a MOC was recreating the Battle of Naboo. i’ve amassed a fairly large Gungan army and an even larger battle droid army. the problem with having a LEGO Star Wars universe is the CAT-CAT walkers that destroy everything in their paths, much like the AT-ATs the Imperials would later develop, decades after this battle. Hee Seop in particular, loved to reach for the shelf on which the fight was commencing only to knock battle droids off and bat them around. the Gungans, i didn’t mind.

i have several Star Wars and HP sets that are still in unopened boxes. those i’ve already built will be dismantled and stored in Ziploc bags. until we live someplace where we can have a cat-free zone, or at least get shelves with glass-front doors, the wars between good and evil will have to continue to take place in my imagination.

of the overwhelming total of 11 people who voted in my last poll, 7 of you want me to bring back the Daily Star Wars Trivia Tournaments.  instead of putting it in a link in a sticky post, i’ve added the link in the Navigation menu in the sidebar.  note that when you click on the link to play, you will get a pop-up.
there’s nothing i can do about it, and i don’t want to upgrade my
FunTrivia.com account.  consider yourselves warned!

i will also add a link to the Hall of Fame (dead link, have to recreate in WP, 12/12/05) so you can see the past year’s winners.  future winners will be added, and i’ll post an entry at the end of each month to announce the new winner.  there’s no winner for November because i took down the link.