You walk into a store that sells everything, literally everything. You can buy a new hard drive for your PC, fresh fruit, a new mattress along with a new bed. You can even buy things like courage, pride, and a new soul if your current one has become a little stale, dusty or something like that. It's really a store with everything and everything for it's price.

At the front door you stop to read the map which shows where to find everything. You can even take a copy of the map with you, it even shows the shuttle routes though they only come buy once an hour. Your very first purchase, no matter what you choose to buy, is free. What do you choose as your first purchase. Think about the options first, you only get that one free purchase. Do you really want a new car or an original painting worth a fortune over something that could be priceless to you, personally?

A really annoying wizard has just turned you into a worm. As you're tunneling down through the garden you find an odd looking seed. Of course, it is the size of a boulder to you now and, really, most seeds look odd. Still, there is something unusually odd about this seed. You can't move it, far too big for you as a worm. But you squirm around it give it a couple of pokes. It gets a tiny crack and a root pushes out. Right in front of you it starts to grow, leaves shoot out and grow up towards the sunlight. Curious to see the plant above the soil you dig and squirm your way up. It's already sprouting a few flower buds. Someone must have really dumped on the Quick Gro. In a few minutes it has flowers, red and shiny petals, like a softer version of a lily. In another hour the flowers have gone through their whole life cycle and are now seed pods, ripening at the end of their stalks. One drops off right near you. It splits open and a new batch of seeds splatters all over the garden.

You decide to mosey along, see if you can't find that wizard and get changed back into yourself again. But you are stuck. Totally dried out and immobile, like a worm caught out in the open on the pavement after the rain. It's painful too. You didn't feel it as long as you were staying still looking at the flower, your attention absorbed.

You need to find water, right away. Or maybe you can remember that spell to make it rain.... How does that one go again?

Old games never die they just need old operating systems. It's frustrating to have all these games which I really enjoy (especially when Zack, my nephew, is visiting, as he is for a couple of weeks) but not be able to get most of them working on the new computer running Vista. Carmageddon, my favourite, runs but without the sound. It is still fun but kind of bland to play it silently. Most of the others will not even load up at all.

New games are expensive. Not all the games I like have new versions. Like Carmageddon they stopped development on them and even though there is talk about a new Carmageddon I've yet to see anything new in the store.

Why can't they make an operating system (a Windows in my case) that works with the old games? Why do they intentionally eliminate old software and force us to buy new software? I wish they would cut that out!

I'm working on my scanner. It doesn't like it if I put the paper on it in a certain way. It takes real offense if I put any paper too close to the hinge in back. Having made the mistake of doing so a few times, most recently as very early this morning, I have tried to remember not to keep committing this grievous error. I don't have that great of a memory, sadly.

So I am working on getting my scanner to be happy and functional once more.

Meanwhile I am reading blogs, dropping on Entrecard blogs and commenting on all the blogs as I think of something remarkably useful and wise. So, not all that many comments as you can guess.

My nephew Zack is staying with us awhile. He is beginning training to be a lifeguard. They say 12 is a great age to start taking the courses as there are several and he could easily be done by the time he is 16 if he takes one or two courses each summer. Zack is a great swimmer and he is the one who got his Grandmother (not me, remember... the Aunt, not the age of a Grandmother yet) to over come her fear of the water.

Anyway, just a few minutes left before he goes to his class for the day. He is actually going in early today to put in volunteer time teaching the little kids to swim.

Looks like the scanner has come to it's senses again... err... I mean it will honour me by working now.

Blog Talkers: Goals

Where were you at midnight, when it became 2008? What sort of goals did you set for yourself for 2008? Have you met those goals? Are you working on those goals? Have your goals changed? If so, how? What are your goals for the remainder of 2008? Are you looking forward to 2009? Or are you just taking one day at a time?

I'm not a great goal setter. I tend to take everything as it comes along. I especially don't want to set big, high goals and then disappoint myself again and again. That just makes you feel discouraged from trying.