Thursday, April 8, 2010

STOP! Pony Time!

No, not even I am above using 80s catch phrases to get attention from time to time. I grew up in the 80s therefore I do strongly believe that I am entitled. Then again that would mean that I am also entitled to wear 80s clothes and 80s style hair-dos...just, no. I already lived through that ONCE and I'm lucky to have survived the first time! Of course there is this thing called fashion that would make anything from the 80s obsolete per say......

But there are just some things from the 80s that in my humble opinion never go out of style or become obsolete. Besides the music of course. And one of those things happens to be My Little Pony. Yes, the toy that has made it's way back into the hearts and homes of little girls everywhere. But I'm not talking just any My Little Pony either, I'm talking the G1s (1982-1992) and the G3s (2000-2009), mainly the G1s as they are the ones I grew up with.

I went through the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010 collecting and actively looking for MLP (My Little Pony) but sometime in February I got distracted. Seriously distracted.

I got swept up in Zoo World a popular game on Facebook and shortly after beating the game I started helping other players with getting animals and items. Found out how to send out feed animals that are greatly sought after in droves that made me quite the popular little Zoo Worlder (of course I'm not the only one who does this for this game--THANK GOD!).

And then there is the fact that I created a fan page for Doc PC Enterprises (my computer business) which has an up-to-date tab about Scam and Rogue applications on Facebook that people should avoid and why these pages/applications should be avoided as well as an ever growing list of helpful tips and things to do to keep your computer safe and running great.

And these two things took me away from my pony searching.

However I still looked for the ponies whenever I happened to be in a thrift store or other such establishment; just haven't done any looking at my favorites places (eBay NOT being one of them although I still look from time to time). This is good for my wallet, not so good for my collection. Although we will be moving soon so adding to the collection might need to be put off so that I don't have to move too much stuff. But because I have realized this fact (and because I have gotten my tax return already) I have declared today a Pony day for me.

No Facebook games, no scam/rogue pages, no sending feed animals out or anything at all on Facebook--besides getting the links for the pages above that is.

I need to spend some time looking at ponies even if I don't buy any and doing other things for awhile. This could turn into a whole weekend type of deal, I haven't decided yet.

So now for some different updates.

S and I have blocked E completely from our lives and have been told by D that she is too oblivious to notice that S isn't responding to a thing. We first tried just ignoring things from her and that went well so now we have completely blocked her. We now get nothing and we couldn't be happier. HOWEVER we plan to move down to Corpus Christi TX if we like the area (neither of us has been there) and if not there then Lubbock. The only way I agreed to move there is if S and I get a restraining order against E. S happily agreed as he really doesn't want her near him.

Please know that the reason we do not like E is not because she has a mental illness. S suffers from bi-polar disorder and I'm still learning ways to deal with his episodes because they can be seriously bad and emotionally draining. We do not like her because she is praying on our family and disrupting an otherwise peaceful life. We both understand that this isn't entirely her fault but she has made us both so uncomfortable and seems to just ignore the facts and instead chooses her fantasies no matter what. Instead of feeding the disease we're ignoring her, which is actually the best thing people in our position can do for her.

S has lost over 100lbs since his surgery and is so much healthier. His diabetes is gone and he expects to get a clean bill of health on that issue from his diabetes doctor tomorrow. The doc who did the surgery is quite pleased with S's progress and all his vitamin/mineral levels are normal. He still needs to be reminded to eat and he has tummy upsets from time to time but everyone is getting the "hang" of things.

Like I mentioned our tax returns have come in and I relented in letting S purchase a pricey high end laptop for himself after spending $320 each on a new laptop for me and our son; one that I like VERY much thank you even if it doesn't have tons of bells and whistles! I grabbed an extra laptop (good price, why not?) to sell on eBay or through my business once the supply has thinned a bit. I also bought S a couple of watches (one he doesn't yet know about), me a nice sapphire and diamond necklace and Wii Resort for the family. Which is something I want to play more of sometime this weekend.

Speaking of gaming systems.......read carefully and be confused!

Tuesday April 6 2010 as I was sitting in our completely paid for 2005 Chrysler Sebring convertible reading a book as I waited for S to be done with the doctor, my cell phone took a flying leap to the floorboard and bounced it's expensive self underneath my seat. When I reached down to retrieve it hoping it didn't shatter its costly yet under warranty self I felt something else beside my phone. At first I thought it was our son's Nintendo DS, it had the right feel, but upon pulling it out from under the seat I froze. It wasn't the DS at all, his DS is white, what I was holding was a light baby blue.

What I had in my hand was a DSi, the latest Nintendo hand-held gaming device..the ones going for close to $200 new. We have not bought a DSi for our son nor would we have gotten it in a light blue if we had. Son is not prone to or ever have stolen anything in his life. So my next course of action was to open it and power it on in hopes of shedding some clues as to who it belonged to. Of course I was thinking of any of the number of friends the son has even though none of them have been in the car since we got it expertly cleaned inside and out at Octopus Car Wash the last week of March.

There was no name, just random letters and numbers, there were some pictures of a little girl (4 or 5 years old perhaps) that I did not recognize. No adults, no other clues. When S and I got back to the car after I met him upstairs at the doctor's office I asked him about it and he was as clueless as I was. We figured we'd ask the son about it when he got home, although we're pretty sure that if anyone lost a DSi in our car they would have called us about it by now.

Before the son got home I noticed that the dates on the picture were from back in 2008 which I knew wasn't right because the DSi is still new and wasn't out then so I checked the system date: 4/12/2008. Someone set it wrong or didn't bother to set it at all...then I noticed that the date of the last picture taken was 4/10/2008; that turns out to be Easter Sunday and we went NO WHERE on Easter Sunday nor did anyone come over to our place and the car is parked in an attached garage. The following Monday we went to the grocery store twice. Tuesday just the doctor's office and that's where I made my discovery. Needless to say we were seriously stumped.

When our son got home we told him about my discovery. It was obvious he had no idea where the DSi could have come from and none of his friends has "such a girly DSi" if one at all.

We talked to a friend who is a police officer about the DSi and she informed us that since it was found in our car (property) we do not have to return it because the owner obviously did not have permission to be in our car. Although I did ask her to keep and ear out for any lost DSi that may surface within the month of April.

So with that in mind I went ahead and erased the data stored on the DSi (after making a back-up copy) and ordered a charger, car charger, protective kit as well as a R4 with an 8 gb memory card so that I could play any number of games on it. It was apparently too girly for our son to want, although like my PSP he'll probably play it on long road trips when he gets bored with the games on his DS.

We are completely baffled as to how the device ended up under the passenger seat of the car. A car that went no where on Sunday, the store twice on Tuesday both times being locked up tight and only to the doctor's office on Tuesday. Someone would have had to broken into the car or the garage- both of which we would have noticed immediately- in order for it to end up there. A check with son's friend's parents proves that none of them are missing a DSi, specially not a baby blue one nor do they have any idea who the little girl is. No one has heard about a missing DSi either.

For now though I have a new DSi that I hope to be enjoying soon. Battery was fully charged when I found it (proof one that it hadn't been there for very long) but if I play around with it too much the battery is going to die and I have yet any way to charge it. DS charger does not work with DSi...games do work between the two systems however and now the son and I can play games with or against each other while traveling. Although I tend to get car sick at times if I'm not looking around me a lot when the car is in motion.

Also, I sort of like the baby blue color! XP!!!